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

[Chaosmancer]

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.

I have no idea (per the rules) because the treasure in the DMs book just says Gems worth 5,000 gp and lists Diamonds.

It stands to reason that being in a hoard means that it would be a cut and polished gem, but it could be just uncut and worth that much, making it worth even more when properly taken care of.

And I completely agree with you that it shouldn't take that long, and I could completely say that the actual item being crafted is a metal band worth a gold at most (a gold coin probably has more metal in it than this ring since I'm assuming a small diamond) and so they are done in a day and add the jewel.

But a stricter reading says I am making a diamond ring, and therefore I need to craft based entirely upon the full price of the object. And, frankly, let us say it is a 5,000 gold uncut diamond and the player wants to spend their time cutting it and bringing out it's true value. Should that take over a year? How many actual gemcutters do you think spent over a year working on a single stone? That makes no sense, months sounds reasonably for something truly spectacular, but spending much more than that means they have no inventory and therefore no one can make jewelry and there shouldn't be these immensley valuable items in the hands of these wealthy nobles and dragons. Heck, we shouldn't even have all the diamonds that we buy for ressurection if they take nearly two months of work each. A high level cleric is going to probably buy an entire years worth of work in preparing 5 Raise Dead spells for his party members.

It just is a snarled mess in a lot of ways.

 

[schnee]

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.

Maybe it's stupid to you because your example is flawed.

You're not really crafting a 5,000gp ring.
You're only crafting a ~100gp ring, then sticking a 5k gp diamond on it.

The crafting rules would apply if you are literally creating the 5k gold piece value from scratch, out of thin air, but since you're not - you are bringing the diamond to the table, you merely need to make the ring.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Maybe it's stupid to you because your example is flawed.

You're not really crafting a 5,000gp ring.
You're only crafting a ~100gp ring, then sticking a 5k gp diamond on it.

The crafting rules would apply if you are literally creating the 5k gold piece value from scratch, out of thin air, but since you're not - you are bringing the diamond to the table, you merely need to make the ring.

That is one interpretation of the rules, and one that does make it easier to work with.

But then, one is never "making" anything that involves actual gemstones, and you have to figure out the cost of the materials to make the necklace or ring to then figure out how much crafting time is needed.

And, remember, 50 gold = 1 lbs

So, in your example, if the gold ring I am making is just a simple band with a setting place for the gem, what makes it worth the same as 2 lbs of gold? The ring probably weighs a few ounces at most, so is the character such a good artist that they are quadrupling the value of the material they are working with?

And crafting is based off the price of the materials being used, to make plate armor you need 750 gold worth of materials, but what does that mean? It's mostly steel plates, cotton padding and leather straps correct? If we assume steel is worth the same as Silver (which it probably isn't) and we use 10 gold of that material in leather (which is enough leather for a full suit of leather armor) and 5 for the padding (padded armor) leaving 735 gold worth of steel which at the price of silver (5 gold a pound) is 147 pounds of steel which makes sense what with plate armor weighing... 65 lbs...

Guess the other 82 pounds of material is us wasting material in mistakes? Or maybe we spent 410 gold on coal for the fire?


The deeper you dig into things, the weirder it gets. And don't even get me started on brewing, there I have the exact opposite problem, since you can brew gallons and gallons of alcohol in a single day, even fine vintage wines in a week or less.



Now, I know we'll never get a perfect system, DnD isn't a simulator for all these jobs and I can accept that... but I can't accept that this system is actually "good enough" when it is so fundamentally broken in so many ways. And every person I've had come to me while the base system was the one we were using has been disappointed and disgusted by it, it doesn't serve the players or the DM, it just exists to take up space and discourage players from actually using it.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

And I completely agree with you that it shouldn't take that long, and I could completely say that the actual item being crafted is a metal band worth a gold at most (a gold coin probably has more metal in it than this ring since I'm assuming a small diamond) and so they are done in a day and add the jewel.

A 5000gp diamond is on the high end, so is probably a large diamond of the type that might be the centrepiece for a crown or throne I'd guess. But yes, making a plain setting rather than an artistic piece should take as long as the setting is worth and then you can add the setting price to the gem price to get the total value.

But a stricter reading says I am making a diamond ring, and therefore I need to craft based entirely upon the full price of the object. And, frankly, let us say it is a 5,000 gold uncut diamond and the player wants to spend their time cutting it and bringing out it's true value. Should that take over a year? How many actual gemcutters do you think spent over a year working on a single stone? That makes no sense, months sounds reasonably for something truly spectacular, but spending much more than that means they have no inventory and therefore no one can make jewelry and there shouldn't be these immensley valuable items in the hands of these wealthy nobles and dragons. Heck, we shouldn't even have all the diamonds that we buy for ressurection if they take nearly two months of work each. A high level cleric is going to probably buy an entire years worth of work in preparing 5 Raise Dead spells for his party members.

Cutting the larger gemstones can and has taken years for RL gems. - probably longer with medieval level technology. Its more likely several months for a master gemcutter and a couple of apprentices though: a 'year in man-hours' similar to the way plate armour would be made.

Expensive gems like that are probably made by gemcutters under the patronage of a master rather than just a shopfront. Perhaps a wealthy merchant wishing to speculate on value or a noble wanting a work of art to display. Or a kobold working the gem for its dragon master perhaps.

So, in your example, if the gold ring I am making is just a simple band with a setting place for the gem, what makes it worth the same as 2 lbs of gold? The ring probably weighs a few ounces at most, so is the character such a good artist that they are quadrupling the value of the material they are working with?

And crafting is based off the price of the materials being used, to make plate armor you need 750 gold worth of materials, but what does that mean? It's mostly steel plates, cotton padding and leather straps correct? If we assume steel is worth the same as Silver (which it probably isn't) and we use 10 gold of that material in leather (which is enough leather for a full suit of leather armor) and 5 for the padding (padded armor) leaving 735 gold worth of steel which at the price of silver (5 gold a pound) is 147 pounds of steel which makes sense what with plate armor weighing... 65 lbs...

Guess the other 82 pounds of material is us wasting material in mistakes? Or maybe we spent 410 gold on coal for the fire?

"Materials" includes all the expenses of production. Coal, candles, replacement tools, hire of more specialised work or goods, blanks and prototype pieces, paper and ink for the planning stage, wastage of pieces that didn't make the grade, paying for the forge etc.

Its everything that goes into the running costs. Not just the metal that makes up the final product.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Cutting the larger gemstones can and has taken years for RL gems. - probably longer with medieval level technology. Its more likely several months for a master gemcutter and a couple of apprentices though: a 'year in man-hours' similar to the way plate armour would be made.

Expensive gems like that are probably made by gemcutters under the patronage of a master rather than just a shopfront. Perhaps a wealthy merchant wishing to speculate on value or a noble wanting a work of art to display. Or a kobold working the gem for its dragon master perhaps.

I've never thought of these as the larger gems, those tend to be more named gems to my mind, like "The Eye of the North" or something like that. My interpretation of the DMG tables have always been these are the masses of gems, diamonds and the others just being incredibly valuable.

Still, good point in that these might be taking longer than I give credit for, since they wouldn't be sold in shops necessarily.

It does raise the question of where we as adventurers get some of the things we need though, like those 1,000 gp gem encrusted gold bowls for Heroes Feast's. We, as players, need them to be purchaseable in bulk to actually make the choice of the spell the most useful, but for worldbuilding purposes finding one of these in a major city would be relatively difficult.

"Materials" includes all the expenses of production. Coal, candles, replacement tools, hire of more specialised work or goods, blanks and prototype pieces, paper and ink for the planning stage, wastage of pieces that didn't make the grade, paying for the forge etc.

Its everything that goes into the running costs. Not just the metal that makes up the final product.

This is a good thought, but (because I'm mostly ranting about RAW) no where I've seen in the PHB is any of this being suggested.

Also, it raises some questions, like why do you need to make a prototype every time you make the same item? You wouldn't which would indicate prices would decrease the more you forge something and get better at it. (Not reflected in the rules) Or why your tools are so consistently breaking and needing replaced?

By the way, payment for the forge is not included in this, because you can't even begin to work if you don't have a forge to work with, and crafting prices (per RAW) do not change if you own a forge and work at your own forge.



And, I'll fully admit, despite my griping, my solutions to date haven't fixed all these problems with the system. It's waaay too much work to tackle directly and I'm just patching things up as best as I can so that my players have fun, but it is really aggravating to see this system that my players want to interact with being so broken and worthless.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Crafting and selling takes significant time away from adventuring. If the PCs don't have any more pressing issues to attend to, or any higher priority objectives that they are personally pursuing, then it's one of many legitimate ways to play the game, a different KIND of adventure as it were.

It's not like you automatically find a buyer for things that you craft either. It's something that takes time and effort, unlike a video game where you can make and sell stuff almost instantly.

If you're at the point of griping about PCs making a lot of money, then there may be something missing from the campaign itself, for yourself or the players. A sense of urgency or direction perhaps. Or maybe a lack of communication between DM and players about what kind of DnD they want to play. Whatever it is, civil discussion is always a good way to get things out in the open and get everyone on the same page.

 

[LordEntrails]

I suspect you could go get a PhD in Economics and spend ten years trying to understand all the factors that go into figuring out realistic crafting rules for a middle ages economy and you will still feel you got it wrong.

Just figure out what is good enough for you and your players to do a little bit of downtime between your fun and exciting adventures. And remember, the more elaborate system you have for one players downtime activities, other players are going to expect similar capabilities in their downtime activities.

And, know that if a downtime activity significantly impacts the power, wealth,or influence of one character, then you are going to impact the play balance of your game.

 

[Ancalagon]

1 acre of wheat yields = ~50 bushels

50 bushel per acre seems... high In fact those are modern values aren't they? Quick research indicates that medieval yields were more like 7 acres per acre. Plus a portion of the land won't be planted (fallow, let the soil rest), some is not good for wheat (pasture, marshes, forest etc)... So yeah, you can make a nice amount of coin doing this, but not the amounts you seem to be imagining.

So! 7/50 = 0.14. Let's say that 50% of the land is arable, and 50% is fallow, so 25% of the land is actually usable. You get about 490 gp per casting. Still not a bad way to make a living but...

 

[Ganymede81]

That'd be tough for me.

I don't even assign values to gems or pieces of jewelry, and it is pretty tough to look up the specific value of a gem when its listed value is in an adventure from several weeks ago.

I normally just treat gems or valuable art objects as things you can trade for most anything you want, but the shopkeep isn't guaranteed to take them. Hmm... maybe I'd allow this person to use their jeweler's tools (intelligence) bonus instead of their Persuasion (charisma) bonus when selling them.

Edit: Actually, that isn't a bad idea. You could assign rarity tears to various gems and then have a Persuasion check result chart that lets you determine how much they'd be worth in a transaction. Once a character makes this check, they can write the value next to the gem themself and they can keep track of it from there.

 

[Ancalagon]

Well the UA has some pretty clear rules about crafting - it's about 50 GP per week right? So, for example you start with 250 GP's worth of gems, gold and silver, work five week, voila you've made a jewel worth 500 GP