D&D (2024) D&D Beyond Article on Crafting

[Minigiant]

I don't think that's right. There seem to be people who want to craft things their characters could easily buy in a shop for pocket change. I can't say why that is because it's not something I can empathise with, and I haven't seen my players expressing that desire, but it certainly seems to be an opinion.

I have seen my players express a desire to turn monster body parts into magic items.

Sure but that's not the majority.

The majority of players who craft in games due it for availability, discounts, or quantity.


Crafting for customization or personal attachment seem to be the far minority and usually cannot be handled well with formal rules due to the personal nature and imbalance if mechanical.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure but that's not the majority.

We don’t really know what the majority wants, only what we have experienced.

The majority of players who craft in games due it for availability, discounts, or quantity

I’ve not really seen this, since I’m not in the habit of making PHB equipment unavailable.

 

[Necropolitan]

'Realistically' it took a long time to make armor. But D&D is about fun.

If I'm playing D&D I don't want to have to wait month for my character to create a nonmagical suit of armor.

Crafting seems like the kind of thing where PCs could get decreased crafting times for certain things like Backgrounds, Classes (It'd make sense for a Cleric of a God of crafting to be able to craft faster), etc.

Heck, make it an adventure. If a magic item will let PCs massively cut down on the time it takes to craft items you can bet they'll be willing to quest for it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah this, 100%. Crafting is, in my preferences, a story element rather than a part of the routine 'win the next fight' gameplay loop.

I mean, The Crystal Shard, which was the first ever D&D novel i read and was what sucked me into the whole hobby in the first place, has an important scene where Bruenor crafts a magic hammer (and not just any hammer, a Dwarven Thrower, which was a one-step-down-from-artifact level big deal in AD&D!) It's not a powergaming choice for him, it's a story element, a way a gruff and uncommunicative dwarf of few words demonstrates his love for a boy he's come to look on as a son. He makes the hammer with precious materials that he's hoarded for many years for just a project like this, and the text specifically says that he's undertaking a masterwork and will likely never create anything like this again. But he also does it in (if i remember right) a single sustained and draining effort, not 3-10 years of full-time work as the 5e rules would have it take.

Yes! I loved Bruenor's scene and I think of it often. The feeling of how much soul and craft he put into that weapon was astoundingly epic in its presentation.

I have a habit of building characters around crafting skills, and it's been a bugbear for me how badly they work. I have a gunmage character in my Iron Kingdoms game who is min-maxed to hell for tailoring. Her ancestry is via disgraced nobility, and she's very ambitious to make her place back into the aristocracy, and clothing design and fashion has been her doorway into that. Or there was my illusionist PC for an abortive Dragonlance game, who was an itinerant painter specialising in portraits of the wealthy and powerful, but who I'd planned was going to get unhealthily obsessed with truly capturing the definitive image of some NPC who'd had a major impact on history, maybe Soth or someone. Or there was my Midgard PC, a dwarven drunken master monk who was a fervent worshipper of the Midgard goddess of beer, and who adventured to discover lost ale recipes or brewing artefacts from overthrown dwarven strongholds. Of COURSE she'd be brewing her own beer.

Love these, especially the tailor. That's an awesome concept.

In-game crafting shouldn't (in my opinion) be about churning out hundreds of low-value things. It should be in service of the plot or of characterisation. It should be about how to draft the big important things that are important to the story.

100%

 

[Chaosmancer]

Tony Stark is a superhero, and making gadgets is his superpower. In D&D superpowers are represented by class abilities (artificer in this case) because they are basically magic and other people (non-artificers) cannot hope to duplicate them.

Okay, we can move the goal posts from "Stark has an industrial lab to make his suits" to "Stark's stuff is best represented by class abilities".

Can you show me where in the Artificer, we'll go specifically with the Armorer who has magical armor, that they can make a suit of plate mail faster than anyone else? In fact, can you show me where the Artificer in general is better or faster at crafting any item OTHER than a single infusion option? Maybe an increased crafting speed anywhere?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Can you actually explain why you want it, why it shouldn't be realistic, and why it belongs in D&D rather than Minecraft the tabletop RPG?

Because frankly, I just can't see the appeal.

Did you skip the entire middle of that post where I explained one of my favorite and most beloved characters, and how crafting was central to his identity as a character?

I had another character, he was a jeweler. He was a Storm Sorcerer who started as a petty thief as a child, broke into a jewelers shop to steal a gemstone. Turned out, it was a magical, elemental gem which fused with his body and nearly killed him with the power of storms. He was found, raised to be better, and to worship Waukeen. His goal as a character was to hone his craft and make a necklace worthy of the Goddess.

Why do I want to have characters who make wondrous things? Why do Barbarian players want to slam people through stone walls? Why do cleric players want to call down the wrath of the gods upon the wicked? Why do Wizard players want to unravel the secrets of the multiverse? Because those stories speak to us.

There is an element of ownership, of pride, in being able to state "this is the thing I made, which has shaped this story". In having the skill to create, not just destroy.

Why shouldn't it be realistic? Because DnD doesn't have time or space for that, for one, and for a second, because stories of epic fantasy don't often conform to realism. Also, as much as people rattle the bars about realism, in actuality... it isn't that realisitic. Oh sure, plate armor and chain mail take a long time. But per these rules it will also take you a full 8 hour day to make a knife. Have you watched Forged in Fire? They do it in an hour. They make swords which the rules say should take 2-3 days in an few hours. Brew a keg a beer in DnD? a single day. Actual brewing is a much, much longer process.

So, it isn't realistic ALREADY, therefore why should we accept this form of faux realism that seems intentionally designed to make the process impossible. We want these in the story for story reasons, not to be a reality simulator. And if it ends up taking a smith character two years to equip their party, then everyone is just going to either ignore the rules or they are going to skip over what could be a deeply impactful story because they simply cannot have the space for that sort of endeavor.

And as for why it belongs in DnD? Because DnD is the premier fantasy role-playing game. Why SHOULDN'T we have magical smiths? We literally touch upon these concepts. The dwarves of Norse myth are smiths and crafters, yet my dwarf Forge Domain Cleric is going to have to use magic, not skill, to make anything in any reaonsanable time frame? I can't make an elven-forged blade like they used in Lord of the Rings? I can't emulate DnD stories like the story of Bruenor Battlehammer forging Wulfgar's weapon? Why is it that only Minecraft, an IP barely a decade old, is allowed to emulate something as vital to myth and human culture as making things?

 

[Chaosmancer]

So just modify the spell so that it can make whatever you want. Or let mending make any non-magical item smaller than 1 cubic foot. The core assumption for D&D is that the core equipment list in the PHB is generally available at the prices listed. That's why it's in the PHB. So there is no reason for adventurers to craft anything (and buying gear is a gold sink). I assume that’s why the Crafter feat includes a purchase discount - so that it’s not completely worthless in the likely situation that the character never has a reason to craft anything.

There is no reason for the Fighter to be knighted and court a noble lady.

There is no reason for the Cleric to seek a stolen holy relic and return it to their church.

There is no reason for the Barbarian to search for their lost brother.

There is no reason for the Wizard to attempt to make their own spells.

Why do we need a reason to have stories?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is no reason for the Fighter to be knighted and court a noble lady.

There is no reason for the Cleric to seek a stolen holy relic and return it to their church.

There is no reason for the Barbarian to search for their lost brother.

There is no reason for the Wizard to attempt to make their own spells.

Why do we need a reason to have stories?

Stories need to make some kind of sense. Grunt the barbarian arrives back in town with a huge pile of looted gold, but rather than resupplying at the store then hitting the tavern he rushes home to dip some candles.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did you skip the entire middle of that post where I explained one of my favorite and most beloved characters, and how crafting was central to his identity as a character

No, I read the bit where you said it was post-apocalyptic, and therefore was not a standard D&D campaign.

 

[Stalker0]

Stories need to make some kind of sense. Grunt the barbarian arrives back in town with a huge pile of looted gold, but rather than resupplying at the store then hitting the tavern he rushes home to dip some candles.

I mean those candles won't dip themselves!