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

[Snoring Rock]

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?

 

[Charles Rampant]

It's not a rule. If you want to go down this route, be warned that - like letting players use Persuasion to haggle with shopkeepers - it'll add a lot of dice rolling to what is normally ignored (the act of selling loot). I tend not to allow it for the simple purpose of keeping things simple, but you may want to give the player a bone to reflect the skill and their idea. I suggest saying 'no' to this, but also telling him privately that you'll add a cool magical artefact that only his character and their jeweling ability will be able to activate - a necklace with all the stones missing, scattered across the land. That's fun and something to look forward to, rather than an irritating way to try and increase loot found 'for free'.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

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.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Don't think you've missed anything - just make it up.

Firstly, ask yourself if you're aok with it? Are you ok with the character boosting the party's cash reserves.

If not, then you could outright veto the action. They can consolidate the value of several items and gems into a single item, but not gain an overall increase in funds.

However, you might let them tinker. There is a UA article about downtime activities and crafting is in there. https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UA_Downtime.pdf

For the value, I'd simply add the new gems to the total gold piece cost. Tot up the materials involved and work out the time to craft from there. This would allow them to consolidate their assets into a single item.

Then, to make more money from their crafted item, I'd use the same article, using the 'Selling Magical Item' rules. This does present the chance of failure but also the chance of making a significant return on their time/resources spent.

Of course, these efforts will take time and require a workshop. Trying to knock something up while on the road should be ..tricky.

From my limited expose, through an old friend that was a jeweler, I believe can't simply add gems to existing jewelry as each piece is typically designed and crafted around their selected gems. As a result, I reckon a character would most likely need to smelt down any precious metals and recast the piece, designing and setting the stones as required. A fine way of perhaps consolidating a party's wealth into fewer items - or perhaps a way of adorning/adding some bling to a favourite item/magical item. Maybe we have some actual jewelers on the forums that can correct/refine as required.

 

[schnee]

This sounds like someone who wants to exploit every possible edge.

Simple: the time to get good enough at that skill to increase their money by a significant margin will eat into their adventuring. Their work will look amateurish and crude next to a 100% dedicated pro, and they'll do far more damage to reduce the value on the ones they ruin than they will to increase the value on the ones they actually improve.

They're adventurers, not craftspeople. The skills in the book are for story or character depth, not mechanical loopholes to give more than the rules allow.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would let him try, but remindd him about critical failures.
Make it difficulty 10, 15 or 20 and tell him missing by 5 or more will ruin the piece of art.
Try to set the DC so that it is profitable on cheap jewelery bit less so on expensive.
What I would to honor the roleplaying attempt is adding partially destroyed expensive items once in a while so he can repair them to make it more valuable.

 

[Prakriti]

I try to discourage all forms of scrounging in my games.

- Persuasion checks for shopkeepers
- Scavenging weapons and armor from a battlefield
- Digging through the pockets of dead goblins

If my players get into these habits, I usually just offer to add extra gold to the treasure hoards as an alternative, thus saving everyone time.

"Goblins don't carry anything interesting. Their equipment is damaged and their pockets are empty. All their valuables are kept in a communal hoard in the goblin hideout. I promise you won't miss anything important by ignoring their bodies," etc.

 

[Rils]

I disagree with the view that this is powergaming of some sort. The player took that craft to represent the character's previous skills and life before becoming an adventurer. It's completely realistic to expect that having proficiency with jewelry allows him to increase the value of jewelry with some work. Arguing the opposite is like saying someone proficient in Survival doesn't know how to track, or someone proficient in Stealth doesn't know how to be sneaky, "because that's OP". The player had limited proficiency slots when building the character, he put them into this tool set, and should be allowed to use them for an advantage of some sort.

That said, like using those other skills, it shouldn't be an automatic win. First, the player needs downtime to work on it - it can't be something done on the trail. To improve the value of something, it needs time and the appropriate workshop and tools to do so. The 5gp a day assumes that the character has access to the right resources and spends 8 hours a day working on it - like a job. So if they are in town for a week, and the guy wants to spend 5 days of that working on a necklace to make an extra 25gp, *I* don't see a problem with that. The other PCs should also be doing something to make money or gain other advantages at the same time - working jobs, following leads, etc. Earning 5gp a day isn't going to break the bank. And it's 5 days he's not doing something else productive, so that's the trade off. After all, time is money...

If you want to make life interesting, add an element of risk. For each day he works on it, roll a d20 - on a 1, he breaks the thing beyond repair, and not only loses any value he put into it, but cuts it's original value in 1/2; it's now only good for scrap. To me, that's an interesting choice - I can take the chance to make some money at the cost of time, but I run the risk of butching it and losing it all. Go big or go home, as they say.

But whatever you do, DON'T say "no" to this. Find a way to make it work - players need to be given the opportunity to use the character choices they made, otherwise the whole thing is pointless.

 

[LordEntrails]

I'd go with what [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION] and [MENTION=5250]Rill[/MENTION]s suggest.

Yes you can do this, on average the character will increase the value by 5gp per day. You can put a table together for this and also create some sort of "quality" rating on items that indicate how much they can be improved. For instance, a necklace that is of 'Masterwork' quality is really hard to improve (DC25) and you can only increase the value by 10%. Whereas something that is of 'Crude'quality can be increased by 500% and is easy to improve (DC 10).

Make sure you include the chance of failure, and of exceptional success, but again, it should average out to 5gp per day.

It can be interesting, but remember, 5E is a simulation of heroic adventure, not a career or society simulator.

 

[Valetudo]

Man, so many downers on this thread. Is your player causing real problems in the game because of this? If so then just say no. But, if you can create hooks or some filler that doesnt get in the way, go for it. #Hedeaditsminenow