How do you handle time spent crafting items?

[Dwarmaj]

Say a wizard creates an item that has a base price of 30,000gp and takes 30 days to complete. How do you handle the 30 days spent crafting?

1) Does the player play a different character while his other character is busy creating an item?

2) Do the other characters that adventure with the crafting character simply wait until he's done?

3) Do you somehow equate the time spent crafting to "real world" days and not allow that character to adventure for some real world time period?

In a weekly or bi-weekly game, creating an item with a length creation time should cause that character to be unavailable for a session or two IMHO.

I'd like thought from other on this, thanks

Dwarmaj

 

[Carnifex]

IMC, crafting is generally done during a period of 'downtime', where all teh PC@s will be doing their own thing, crafting stuff, attending to business/estates, making connections, training, stuff like that. It can all therefore be quickly resolved in a minimum of time (if that happens to be what I want to happen, as opposed to me saying - 'ah, to make that ring of mind control, you'll need the brain of an aboleth! Go get one!'

 

[Crothian]

Ya, we do it during downtime. If the wizard knows he needs a month, then he needs to convince the rest of the party to take that time off. Ussually it isn't a problem.

 

[Dwarmaj]

I guess I'm just worried about high level items that take the better part of a (game world) year to create. I could leave it to the player and let them decide weather to wait on the crafter or not. Hmm...

 

[Crothian]

Well, the campaign would have to one such that they could take a half year or a year off and be okay. Adventurers need not always adventure. Let them get some money, build a life for themselves. Get marrried, rear some kids.

 

[Gromm]

Big items are usually reserved for time between campaigns, or at least big adventures. On many occasion we've had situations where we said the party took 6 months or more off.
If you want to make that +10 sword in the middle of a campaign, you're basically offering to retire your character, so its better to wait.

 

[Crothian]

well, most people don't make +10 weapons from scratch. You slowly crat the weapon over time. Remeber you can improve current weapons and armor. THat will save you a lot of time and money.

 

[Gromm]

well, most people don't make +10 weapons from scratch. You slowly crat the weapon over time. Remeber you can improve current weapons and armor. THat will save you a lot of time and money.

Very true. I was just using it as an example, since he talked about big items that take the better part of a year.
Perhaps a better example would have been Ring of Elemental Command (which would take a monstrous 200 days to make).
Though techincally, you could even make that one ability at a time.

 

[JCLabelle]

It won't be a problem for most items, because they ( at least in my limited experience ) tend to be upgraded over time. It starts being extremely annoying if your Crafters start making stuff like Iron Flasks and Rings of Spell Turning. Then again, it always depends on the pace the DM wants to give to his campaign.

 

[Tonguez]

Solution 1 - Hire someone else to do the job and stick to adventuring

Solution 2 - Have the PCs build thereown stronghold and become lords of the surrounding countryside. They have to collect taxes, protect the locals from Orc raids and maintain the peace while the Wizard is crafting.
Once finished (a year later) they go off and defeat the Liche Lord Gargamel releasing the next county (occupied by little blue gnomes) from his evil grasp and adding those lands to their estate...

Solution 3 - The DM should introduce downtime - say a month between adventures

Me I use a Solution 2 variant. Working on the basis that PCs are leaders of their village. The Village is essentially another Character (a cohort) and the PCs have 'supporters' who stay behind and complete tasks on their behalf (like crafting items). PCs can either stay there too and add their level to village skill checks or go out and adventure (the village losing the benefit of their level).