How long does it take to make things?

[The Spectrum Rider]

I'm trying to understand the Craft rules, and get a feel for how long it takes to make things.

Just for example, the masterwork component of a weapon costs 300 gp - that's 3000 sp - and has a DC of 20. Suppose you have a +10 modifier on your Craft skill. For convneince, assume you get the average, 20, as your check result each week.

20 x 20 = 400, and 3000/400 = 7.5, so that means you would be done with the masterwork component in about 7-8 weeks. Is that how it works?

Also, what if the difference between two items was mainly in the material cost? By the rules it seems it would take a LOT longer to make a platinum ring than a silver one (all other things being equal), just becuase platinum is more expensive than silver - not becuase it's harder to work.

Is this correct? And does it make sense? Are there any rule books out there that use more detailed rules for Craft skills, so that (just to use my example) making a silver ring isn't so much quicker than making a platinum one?

Thanks for any advice.

The Spectrum Rider

 

[AGGEMAM]

I'm trying to understand the Craft rules, and get a feel for how long it takes to make things.

Just for example, the masterwork component of a weapon costs 300 gp - that's 3000 sp - and has a DC of 20. Suppose you have a +10 modifier on your Craft skill. For convneince, assume you get the average, 20, as your check result each week.

20 x 20 = 400, and 3000/400 = 7.5, so that means you would be done with the masterwork component in about 7-8 weeks. Is that how it works?

Yup. That looks correct.

Also, what if the difference between two items was mainly in the material cost? By the rules it seems it would take a LOT longer to make a platinum ring than a silver one (all other things being equal), just becuase platinum is more expensive than silver - not becuase it's harder to work.

Is this correct? And does it make sense? Are there any rule books out there that use more detailed rules for Craft skills, so that (just to use my example) making a silver ring isn't so much quicker than making a platinum one?

Yup. That is also correct. However, the craft rules is just a good guideline to make it easy to calculate crafting times. And secondly, as I understand it platinium is a lot less readily avaible than silver. Also platinium has a higher melting point than silver and is to my knowlegde harder to work with. That would set the DC higher for making a platinium ring and therefore reducing the time required.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Yes, your math is fine. Expensive items will take months to craft. Or, with the Fabricate spell, you could be done in a few rounds. Gotta love magic.
The only real rule headache here is the gp/sp differentiation, and the fact that it's measured by the week. Not an insurmountable problem, of course.
But, the bigger flaw is that it removes crafting as a viable option for players. If a suit of plate armor will take up to a year to make, it's not something the players will get around to doing during a campaign.

Now, a rant: the Craft time equation is just screwy. I'm not saying that its numbers aren't somewhat reasonable, but many of the correlations don't really work. For example, take DC. I take two items of equal cost, but differing DC. All other factors being equal, I can make the more complex item faster. Does this make sense? DC should be on the other side of the equation; instead of (skill check * DC) sp progress per week, it should be more like (skill check / (DC-10, min 1)) gp per day. Trust me. The math works better this way.

Then, there's the question of exactly what cost you use, especially when you're using exotic materials. Or masterwork. It just seems sort of ridiculous that you make a single item by building a hypothetical "masterwork component" separately.

But maybe that's just me.