D&D 5E Jeweler's Skill? Got a player increasing value of treasure..what?

[Shadowdweller00]

If a player wanted to do something like that, I'd say cool - and start introducing pieces he or she could use as raw materials in the party loot. I'd tend to rule something like "spend so many hours" on a piece, then roll a (jeweler's tool) check; with a higher DC for LESS downtime spent and MORE valuable or complex materials. I'd give a reasonably modest increase in value on a high check (maybe as much as 30% or so), but a failure by 5 or more might ruin some of the gems/precious metals used. And I'd try to keep the rolls quick and/or at the end or beginning of a session so as not to bog down play by too much.

 

[Dausuul]

I have a player with the proficiency in jewelers tools. He wants to alter each piece of jewelry the party has found and make it more valuable by adding gems or changing the original work. I cannot seem to find this rule anywhere. There is a blurb under ability checks using artisan tools but that is crafting and is about creating things and gives a value of 5gp per day of work. Is there anything else in the core rules I missed?

There certainly isn't anything in the rulebook about this.

If it were a player at my table, I'd allow this... but you have to make a DC 12 Int (Jewelers' Tools) check. If you succeed, you increase the value of the jewelry by 20%. If you fail, you damage the jewelry and reduce its value by half. Exceptionally well-crafted jewelry may have a higher DC to improve.

 

[Chaosmancer]

A DM of mine some time ago allowed me to take a similar route. We realized the crafting rules are crap and so he made up his own... which were easier to work with but had major implications for the game.

Essentially, I could take the Jewels and Gold we acquired, make a roll for crafting a piece of jewelry, and when I succeeded I took the total cost of the materials, doubled it to get the sales price and then used my massive charisma to upsell potential buyers for even more than that.

By the end of it, I could pretty much double or triple my share of the treasure in no time flat. If I had wanted to, I could have gone and created a loop where I made massive amounts of gold incredibly quickly. However, there was a safety valve on my gold. My character wanted many pounds of Platinum and 5,000 gp Diamonds to make a "necklace" that he was going to offer to his Goddess Waukeen. The value of that piece ended up being in the Millions of gold after I enchanted it around 20th level.


The system I use now for crafting is 5 gold per point in proficiency, which makes things a bit faster, and I still generally have a roll to make things work out. Actually, my biggest problem has been trying to come up with the variety of strange materials needed for alchemy and herbalism, since that is a big focus of my players and fantasy plant names are hard to come up with on the fly. Also, they don't end up being in treasure hoards very often, which means we don't end up focusing on them.


But, figure out how much additional treasure you are okay with them having, and then figure out how you want them to get there. Unless things changed massively between the UA and Xanathar's the rules aren't going to be any help to figuring this sort of thing out.


@ All the Downers and Haters

Tool Proficiencies should not be useless. The Dwarven racial ability to give them tool proficiencies should not be useles, nor should the Rock Gnome Tinker Tools be useless. The Guild Artisan Background granting you not only the tools but the history of using them to make money should not be useless. The listing of tools players can buy should not be ignored, and as craptacular as the crafting rules we have been given are, they still exist and lend themselves to this basic idea. Adventurers can be craftspeople, and they should be able to use that skill set in the game.

The "5 gold a day" rule is immensely stupid to me, because if a player wants to make a ring using gold and a 5,000 gp diamond per the rules it will take them (5,000/2= 2,500/5=) 500 days, nearly a year and a half to make a single ring with a place setting for a diamond. Really? There is no way that could possibly be correct. Sure, low value items work just fine, but when we get to the higher end stuff, things break.


And, you can say "The Characters are adventurers not merchants, they shouldn't care about this stuff" but that completely ignores the fact that A) Players often get caught up in things they shouldn't, politics and spycraft being a major one and B) Obviously some players do care. When crafting rules are offered, people try to use them. They look at who their character is and say things like "huh? I'm a jeweler who decided to go adventuring in vengeance for my master who was killed. I've just got five valuable gemstones, as a jeweler, shouldn't I try and use these to make jewelry?"

And, personally, if my DM said "No, you aren't a jeweler, you're an adventurer, and you should just toss those gems on the counter, demand gold, and then go spend that gold and beer and women like an adventurer does" Then I'd be a bit offended. What's the point of integrating my character into the world of the game if I'm just going to be told that all the efforts and plans I came up with are completely worthless and not allowed. I can see a discussion being had between the player and the GM about the problem of their wealth getting out of control and causing problems for the game, but IMO by sometime between 7th and 12th level, money should generally stop being your primary motivator. You've got so many options for making money hand over fist, especially for casters, that you should no longer be worried about a couple thousand gold here of there, that isn't what is driving the game anymore.

 

[SkidAce]

I still use this

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8ffg?Making-Craft-Work

modified for 5e.

It lays out crafting by difficulty instead of value.

 

[Mistwell]

Yes, per the rules, it's 5 gp per day of work crafting. If you find a 2500-gp crown and work on it for a week, you can increase its value to 2535 gp.

The rules were intended to give a quick-and-simple answer to the question to get it out of the way and not make it attractively profitable, because crafting is not normally the focus of the game. But if your player wants this to be his character's schtick, I recommend homebrewing some rules to allow him to increase value by a percentage rather than an absolute value, which is both more rewarding and more realistic in this context.

This sounds right. And if this is how he wants to spend his downtime credits, I see no issue with it. If he were to spend that downtime on some other profession for that week it seems like that's around what he would earn at that other profession as well if he were very good at it.

It's not gaming the system to earn a bit of money in the downtime. He could instead be training a new language or a new tool or joining a new organization or making new valuable contacts or all sorts of useful things with downtime. I think a lot of DMs just kinda forget the downtime rules. They can be fun and add an interesting dimension to the game. And they also tend to be where new opportunities to actually spend all that cash the party is finding come into play.

 

[ad_hoc]

This is a perfectly fine thing to do with their downtime.

If there is no time for downtime though, then there is no time for a job.

 

[schnee]

Don't get me wrong, we use Downtime rules, encourage all sorts of extra character activities outside adventures, for pure creative expression and to generate game hooks.

What I do make sure is that they're not trying to use 'reasonableness' and 'realism' to get a leg up on other characters or on the rules. If they want to spend a lot of downtime on things, then they can - but the idea is we say 'yes' to things that make the game more interesting, varied, and unique, and 'no' to things that aim for a pure mechanical power boost.

To me, the overwhelming philosophy of this version is 'bounded accuracy', bounded spellcasting power, bounded power levels. So, IMO I'm staying true to the game.

When someone wants to do stuff like that jeweler in the OP, we use the current crafting rules, like others have said above. The game is still a game, and the rules for money are more to serve the game than to be 'realistic'. I've seen more than my share of campaigns that went off the rails due to shenanigans like this, so I'm careful.

I'm not iron-fisted about it, I tell them the reasoning, and why I'll say 'yes' to the idea but be careful with the implementation, and so far they get it and agree. Then they go back to their treasure map and dive into another dungeon or investigate another mystery.

--

Like, we have a character that wants to craft things like alchemical exploding and fire arrows, as a precursor to a respec to Matt Mercer's Gunslinger class. She's totally free to do stuff like that, but we're making sure those things are balanced in comparison to Thunderstones and Alchemist's Fire.

So, the Thunder crossbow bolt has half range, and does 1d4 damage, and generates a bang that's audible to 80'. No blindness or stun. The fire arrow has two versions - one that has full range that just sets unattended flammable things alight, and another that is half range that does 1d4 fire damage, and doesn't have a persistent flame effect.
We're still working on cost, but 20gp per is the current thinking.

So, she's using her creativity, spending spare cash in a way that's fun, and staying balanced.

How am I wrong here?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

The "5 gold a day" rule is immensely stupid to me, because if a player wants to make a ring using gold and a 5,000 gp diamond per the rules it will take them (5,000/2= 2,500/5=) 500 days, nearly a year and a half to make a single ring with a place setting for a diamond. Really? There is no way that could possibly be correct. Sure, low value items work just fine, but when we get to the higher end stuff, things break.

Is the 5000gp diamond uncut?
Or has another crafter already spent a while crafting it? If its already cut then it shouldn't take over a year just to make a ring with a setting to take it.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Here's my 2 copper pieces.

Allow the player to sell jewelry and such with a 10% mark up assuming he's doing some work in his downtime. If he wants to try and increase the value any further, then that is when he does a skill check. Success and he can sell it for a 20% mark up, or 50% with critical success. Failure and he can only get like 75% of the value. Critical failure and he's lucky to get 10% the value.

This way he is rewarded for taking the skill, and he has the potential to use the skill for more while risking some loss.

But in 5e, money is not as important. Since magic items are not assumed to be gained and are not figured so much into player balance, there is no drive to purchase magic items (even if they did have market prices and creation equations as in previous editions). Players can use money and loot for more ambiguous things rather than hoarding it and saving it for that sweet sweet gear. Money gives the players more influence in the world, but not necessarily more power (in terms of physically/magically overcoming challenges or obstacles).

 

[MichaelSomething]

How about, "your skill in jewerlery tells you can double the value of this jem with a gallon of beholder blood!"

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