Crafting, Resources, and D&D

[I'm A Banana]

There's two basic "modes" to consider with this.

The first is the "master craftsman making an awesome thing" mode. In this respect, rare crafting ingredients like special wood or rare ore or unique fires to forge it in or whatever are essentially treasures. You just make the magic item rather than finding it.

The second is the "craftsperson making normal items" mode. This mode hasn't been respected very much throughout D&D, but it's something the game probably could have. Hypothetically, it could interface with some good exploration rules (you need good cooking and good leather-crafting when you're eating rations and tromping through swamps ruining your boots!), and things like hunting for rations or finding water or the like could also come under this umbrella as "things that reduce the cost of goods you need to go on your adventure."

If you're not tracking those goods (and wearing them away), there's little to be gained from having someone who can craft them, since they're immortal and invincible effectively anyway.

 

[Zustiur]

It would certainly be more interesting to have to deal with the resources gathered from a dungeon than having it simply be "you find X thousand GPs."

Yes, that's another thing that bothers me. Why do goblins etc have gold? Shouldn't they have more 'goods' and less 'coin'?

[/quote]Your post mentions realistic-ish training times for such professions. Yet high-level D&D almost always has characters that are ridiculously superhuman. A human can be 19 years old and a 20th-level wizard, able to wish anything into existence... but him being a master blacksmith is somehow absurd?[/quote]
Ah, but you see, I want to slow down level advancement accordingly. A 20th level [adventuring] wizard should be between 25 and 30. Their peak, prior to [medieval] old age issues setting in.

Item crafting is a powerful tool, particularly for consumable magic, such as Scrolls, Potions, Wands and Staffs. The demand is high and constant.

I believe GnomeWorks is referring primarily to mundane items such as a sword, not to magic items such as a sword +1.

If you're not tracking those goods (and wearing them away), there's little to be gained from having someone who can craft them, since they're immortal and invincible effectively anyway.

Excellent point. If 'boots' are a resource, and not having boots is detrimental, then being a leathersmith is useful.
Stood in a puddle of acid? X hp damage and your boots are destroyed. You suffer penalty Y until you get new boots.
What's that? You fell into the vat of acid? Well, aside from the HP damage, all of your mundane items have been destroyed. You'll be the laughing stock of the village unless you convince someone to lend you their pants.

I seem to be having this conversation across multiple threads right now, but I'd love to play a game like that. It might not be a top selling fun for everyone game that DND needs to be, but it'd be a hoot to try. I'm thinking of the kind of game where the fighter wears leather armour because he can walk a longer distance in a day. Or where he uses padded armour for overland travel, and only wears heavy armour when there's clear danger (in the dungeon). The same kind of game where the party spends resources (money) on mules and henchmen to carry the supplies they need, and to guard the mules respectively. The same kind of game where each character carries significant quantities of fresh water, even when not venturing into a known desert.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Old-school D&D, to my understanding, has a significant "resource management" aspect to it - resting was more difficult, wandering monsters more common, and "resources" more rare.

In this context, I generally understand resources to mean spells, as that's typically what it means in a d20 context, the system I'm primarily familiar with.

I'm not talking about spells, though.

Item creation has generally been relegated to backgrounds or fluff skills, often with no real use past the first couple levels, if they're even useful then. So what if your 15th-level fighter is a blacksmith - unless he can make magical weapons and armor with that skill, it's worse than useless, as those skill points could have been spent in something useful like tumble or whatever.

I find this unfortunate.

I mean, what's one of the advantages of adventuring? Loads of money. Adventurers don't need day jobs, because adventuring is, effectively, a job. You find lots of money and loot, and you trade in that money for loot you want. Crafting requires spending money to buy "raw materials," and then the end product is something you probably won't use anyway because it sucks, and the return on investment is terrible comparable to adventuring.

But what if crafting were the means of money generation for an adventuring party? Or just resource management in general?

To the first question, no. Adventuring is a money source. Crafting, which is time-consuming, becomes a hobby. Fred the Dwarf Fighter can craft armor well, but he only makes a mastercraft suit once per year, just to keep the edge on his skill. He won't even make it for WizMax his elf wizard "buddy" as crafting armor takes too long. WizMax could just buy it from a lesser craftsman who can put out armor of quality that is "good enough".

Of course, if your game has frequent breaks (eg adventures might be time-sensitive, but you only adventure every few months or years in-universe) then crafting has a place. But not really, since there's very little you can get out of mundane crafting other than feeling good. I don't think beating a DC 20 gives you anything good. (Eg if you can hit a Craft DC of 40, what does that give you? Nothing. Or at least nothing that's balanced.)

For the second, you need an entire subgame based around domain management, and that's actually harder than it looks. Not only is the economy not sensible (it's geared toward adventurers), but if the PCs start raking in the dough they want to spend that money on magic items and not on "business", making them OP and wrecking the scenario.

FATE and Mutants & Mastermind solved some of these issues, by making gear part of the character. (A FATE character has to spend an aspect/stunt on a piece of gear that makes them better. A sword costs nothing but money, but your grandfather's sword that you're so familiar with you get +1 to hit costs a stunt. A magic sword that also costs +1 to hit costs a stunt. I don't believe stunts stack, either.) Having said that, these are not realistic games. Why does Captain America have to give up his cool bodysuit in order to get a better shield? Game rules. It's got nothing to do with realism.

I think both systems let you "save points" so you can whip up an invention when needed, but again, you're paying character power for that, not money.

Sure, this kind of moves away from the Conan-esque "kill things and take their stuff" sort of style. But honestly I find the idea of monsters sitting on huge piles of cash kind of weird anyway - I mean, once in awhile it could make sense, but all the time?

Gaming culture has evolved. Monsters actually use treasure, and dungeons now (usually) make sense. Goblins have gold because they've successfully raided the nearby community or merchant caravans. (If they haven't been doing that, then the PCs are simply going on a boring slaughtering expedition.) Many D&D adventures feature humanoids with class levels (or, in 4e, the equivalent).

Doing away with cash-oriented adventuring also would help with the weird economics you run into in d20 (which was the fuel for my thinking about this sort of thing to begin with), and eliminates the crazy price inflation that happened with high-end items.

I ran into issues in non-D&D games where heroes didn't adventure for cash. It turns out they didn't want to adventure at all. Often they became money-grubbing, and would ignore any plot hook that didn't have an immediate cash reward.

Would anybody else like to see crafting be a more integral part of the game?

No. Leave it to the NPCs.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Adventuring is a money source.

It doesn't have to be.

Crafting, which is time-consuming, becomes a hobby.

Why does it have to take so long? Yes, realistically, crafting armor takes awhile. But also realistically, single guys don't take on entire armies and win. Fantasy games are fantastical, and can have fantastical elements. I wouldn't mind a craftsman that can make armor fairly quickly - it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief all that much, unless you start getting into really absurd time scales (making full plate in a five minute break, for instance).

But not really, since there's very little you can get out of mundane crafting other than feeling good.

It doesn't have to be that way. What if item crafting were the only way to get what are now magical enhancements? Say essence of fire elemental needs to be crafted directly into a weapon to make give it the flaming quality. That would make crafting significantly more useful to an adventuring party, since they "need" that sort of gear.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It doesn't have to be.

It is if it's D&D, post 3.x :/

Why does it have to take so long? Yes, realistically, crafting armor takes awhile.

Because non-magical abilities must be much more realistic than magical abilities.

But also realistically, single guys don't take on entire armies and win.

I don't think it works that way in D&D either, and when it does, it's usually due to a silly rule. (Turning invisible gives you such a Stealth bonus in Pathfinder, no one can spot you without magic. Good thing it doesn't last long!)

Fantasy games are fantastical, and can have fantastical elements. I wouldn't mind a craftsman that can make armor fairly quickly - it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief all that much, unless you start getting into really absurd time scales (making full plate in a five minute break, for instance).

Exalted actually has rules for things like that. In D&D, you can actually do that kind of thing with spells/rituals like Fabricate. I think Martial Power 2 lets you do that with a Martial Practice, at the cost of a healing surge, but as always, martial abilities must be much more realistic than magical ones.

It doesn't have to be that way. What if item crafting were the only way to get what are now magical enhancements? Say essence of fire elemental needs to be crafted directly into a weapon to make give it the flaming quality. That would make crafting significantly more useful to an adventuring party, since they "need" that sort of gear.

I'd like to see +X items vanish, so you wouldn't "need" that gear. I doubt it will ever happen though. If +X items remain, then it's breaking the game not making them available (and having to hunt down these exotic sources makes reduces their availability, harming game balance). If +X items go, then any numerical bonus item starts to break the game (that's why I mentioned FATE and Mutants & Masterminds as examples; there items are actually a measure of character power and so don't break the game, at least no more than any combination of non-item abilities could).

 

[jefgorbach]

In my experience, the various crafting skills help offset/earn the extra cash low-to-medium PCs always seem to need, either repairing/replacing (and improving) existing gear, assisting local frontier villages, and etc.


Another point to consider is most PCs routinely venture FAR beyond civilization’s edges and thus MUST be self-sufficient – making Crafting skills ESSENTIAL until they gain access to reliable Gate/Teleportation to negate the lengthy travel times between their current location and their needed supplies.

Sure the Archer might be able to quick-fire a handful of arrows each round … but what happens if/when his bow fails a good month+ walk to the nearest village?? (esp if he doesn’t have an everfull quiver and portable hole of extra arrows/bows).

Shipwrecked? Establishing your own frontier outpost? Better pray SOMEBODY has a few ranks in most of the basic crafts because its going to take a LOT of mending spells.

 

[Zustiur]

Why does it have to take so long? Yes, realistically, crafting armor takes awhile. But also realistically, single guys don't take on entire armies and win.

Because a lot of us, myself included, are simulationists at heart. People like me want the realistic stuff to remain realistic, while the fantasy stuff is placed on top as an additional layer. We don't want the fantastic stuff to alter or replace the realistic stuff.

I haven't been able to find an reliable sources on armour making on the net, but I hold the belief that you'd be looking at months to make plate armour. I've seen several sources state chainmail as being a 4 month build. Simple plate would be faster, something like full plate I believe would take 6 months to a year, depending on the level of intricacy and detail.

It all comes down to what you as a player consider an 'absurd time scale'. For me, regarding armour, that's anything shorter than about 3 months, depending on the product and amount of people involved.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Because a lot of us, myself included, are simulationists at heart. People like me want the realistic stuff to remain realistic, while the fantasy stuff is placed on top as an additional layer. We don't want the fantastic stuff to alter or replace the realistic stuff.

Simulationism does not require holding realism close to the chest. It requires internal consistency and the breaks from reality being accounted for mechanically and in the setting.

If you accept D&D at face value, no matter the edition, you have already tossed a whole lot of real-world connections out the window. Trying to ensure that your crafting rules are crazy-realistic while you have a guy molding reality to his whim every six seconds is just silly, to me.

If I can accept a guy who can kill a dragon with a single stroke of the sword, I can accept a guy who can make plate armor in a day.

 

[Ferghis]

The first is the "master craftsman making an awesome thing" mode. In this respect, rare crafting ingredients like special wood or rare ore or unique fires to forge it in or whatever are essentially treasures. You just make the magic item rather than finding it.

I hope characters don't get into magic-item crafting in the next edition. It only makes sense if you can't build the character you want without a certain magic item, and I hope we move away from builds that require a certain item. I am not opposed to them in 4e, but there is an awkwarness in a game system where magic items are supposed to be mysterious (and rare or unique) and a player asks the DM if s/he can go for a build that is based on a particular item, in other words asking for the item (whether crafted or found). "You find that shield Bob wanted in the hoard" is rather anticlimactic, even if it becomes "You find the things you need to make that shield Bob wanted in the hoard."

The second is the "craftsperson making normal items" mode. This mode hasn't been respected very much throughout D&D, but it's something the game probably could have. Hypothetically, it could interface with some good exploration rules (you need good cooking and good leather-crafting when you're eating rations and tromping through swamps ruining your boots!), and things like hunting for rations or finding water or the like could also come under this umbrella as "things that reduce the cost of goods you need to go on your adventure."

I think the second mode would be better implemented by a GURPS style rule: if you have the resources to use your professional skill, you can earn a certain income per month related to your skill. Otherwise it seems that it would get too fiddly to quantify how much iron ore you have available, and how much it costs and how much time it takes to make each dagger. I know minecraft and skyrim allow this kind of game, and as much as I enjoyed the former, this particular part of the game left me bored. I had to spam daggers to become good with the skill and make myself a good set of armor. It's not just that it was unrealistic. It's that it was boring, at least for me.

 

[Ryujin]

Simulationism does not require holding realism close to the chest. It requires internal consistency and the breaks from reality being accounted for mechanically and in the setting.

If you accept D&D at face value, no matter the edition, you have already tossed a whole lot of real-world connections out the window. Trying to ensure that your crafting rules are crazy-realistic while you have a guy molding reality to his whim every six seconds is just silly, to me.

If I can accept a guy who can kill a dragon with a single stroke of the sword, I can accept a guy who can make plate armor in a day.

But could you accept a guy who can create a true masterwork with a wave of his hand?

To make crafting a necessary part of the world you need only choose to make it so. Magic might be able to create items of ordinary utility, but it cannot create a masterwork. Also, in order to enchant an item to create a Magic Item, it must first be a masterwork of its type. Earlier versions of D&D specified things like the item must be 'flawless', prior to being enchanted.

In this way a powerful user of magic could create all of the mundane items he chooses to, but couldn't create a true Magic Item without the aid of a master craftsman. Your Wizard wants to create a magic sword? He'll need a master swordsmith to work with him. This also has the ancillary benefit of helping to control magic in the campaign.