Level of competency via Skill Ranks

[LostSoul]

I think these are way to low. Gaining levels should happen for everyone not just adventures. I think an apprentice would be 4 ranks, Journey man 10 rank, and master around 18 ranks. But I think of crasftsmen as highly compitant and not barely able to do their job.

What's the point of having such high skill ranks?

With +4, you can make a lot of stuff all the time.

With +5, you can make nearly everything all the time.

+10 is good enough to make the masterwork quality, as well as any item (except composite str bows and some alchemical items) all the time.

You shouldn't need to be 15th level in order to be considered a master (or 7th level to be a journeyman).

 

[Tonguez]

I've tended to go with

5+ - Apprentice
10+ - Expert (Journeyman)
15+ - Master

 

[GuardianLurker]

Heh, this is actually one of the reasons I raised the Masterwork DC in my game to 30.

Given that, I break the competency ranks down as follows:

Grandmaster : Regularly exceeds Craft DC of 35.
Master (Acknowledged): can take 10 and produce masterwork items. Typically, this will be with 15+ ranks and a few boni. Expert level 15+, generally.
Master (New): can "take 15" and produce masterwork items. Typically, this will be with 10+ ranks and a few boni. Expert level 11-14, roughly.
Journeyman/Working Professional: can take 10 and produce normal items. Typically this happens with 5+ ranks and a few boni. Expert levels 5-10, roughly.
Apprentice: Needs help producing the normal items reliably. Anything below Journeyman. Expert levels 1-4, roughly.

In answer to PnG -
A/J/M relationships varied quite a bit, depending on when and where you look. I'll answer assuming something similar to a medieval european setting, but similar patterns hold true at the highest level elsewhere.

In general, apprentices were (at best) indentured servants to their teacher (who may not necessarily have been a master). Often, they were little better than slaves. Even more often, they were generally regarded as "fosterlings" and their teacher served "in loco parentis", many times they *were* the teacher's children.

Journeyman is actually the first "working professional" level - a "journeyman" had completed the training and was released from his master to seek employment. Often, they'd wander, helping out the local "masters" until they found a place they liked to settle.

A master, was literally anyone who made a "master work", something to demonstrate their best work. It was the other local masters who judged it. So it was quite possible to find highly isolated craftsmen who were also highly skilled, even if they were technically journeymen. In fact, many journeymen, never made a "master work", content to make their living. Later on, "master" became more of a social status/rank than a measure of competency (especially in the urban centers), and then nepotism, favoritism, and bribery play more of a role than pure competence.

 

[Henry]

I would include Ranks + skill focus in the calc; focus is specialized training, but the +2/+2 feats are just aptitude, as are ability scores. As someone once described it, someone with 100 ranks in climb can describe every step in a mountain climb in excruciating detail; someone with a +100 STR bonus probably just stabs holes in the rock with his fingers.

 

[Zappo]

Apprentice: from +1 to +4. He can't take 10 on anything useful - meaning that routine jobs are still a challenge for him.

Journeyman: from +5 to +9. He can do routine stuff, but he is challenged by tough jobs.

Master: from +10 to +14. He can reliably make anything, given enough time. Wizards rely on these guys to make enchantable items.

World famous: from +15 to +24. Capable of making anything a master could in a fraction of the time. Capable of tackling unusual and exceptionally hard jobs. Can make an adamantium armor in a reasonable time. Wizards go to these guys to make unique or very powerful items.

Legendary: +25 and above. Can make anything, faster than most people would deem reasonable or even possible. He can make the shoes for Death's horse, or beat Lolth at weaving. Uses the morning breeze to sharpen his blades. Built Mechanus from scratch. Gods come to this guy to make artefacts to enchant.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'd say that a +8 (4-6 ranks) modifier should be enough to get you from Apprentice to Journeyman, and +10 (7-8 ranks) should get you to Master Craftsman. That's for a Guild kind of situation. Being able to take ten and get a 20 seems to me a good mark of a high level of skill. There would typically be a high variation even among "Master Craftsmen", as a +10 isn't really all that great in D&D terms. It's not tough to get to a +20 by mid-levels.

 

[EdL]

To add a bit to what GuardianLurker said, it depended on when and where, and what guild, you are talking about. Originally there were only apprentices and masters. The journeyman (or valet) position didn't come into existance until later in the guilds. Generally, an apprentice was taken in (and even paid a very small amount) to the master's family and treated as such. (Bearing in mind that their were no child labor laws, so treatment could vary considerably.) But with some guilds, notably goldsmiths, money changers, and the like, the would-be apprentice's parents had to pay for the master to take them in and train them. (Which was only fair, as they stood to make a ton of money in the long run.)

The longer a guild was in existance, the more politics and money played a part. Later guilds had a sliding scale for how long it took to become a journeyman. X number of years, or X years minus Y amount of money was how it usually worked.

 

[Umbran]

what skill ranks differentiate an apprentice, a journeyman, and a master craftsman? What # of skill ranks should a master weaponsmith have?

I'll go out on a limb to say that such ranking is a social system. It is not directly reflected in the mechanic. What skills they'd each have depend upon the social system that grants the ranks.

But, if we want to link to the mechanics, I think of it this way - as I understand it, originally a "masterwork" was the work a journeyman completed to gain/prove his rank as a master. In game, to create a Masterwork item requires a 20 on the skill check.

So, when the character can automatically produce a Masterwork, he or she is a Master. A character with a total skill modifier of +10 can Take 10 and automatically produce the masterwork with no chance of failure. This is a master craftsman.

Another way to view it:

As I understand it, traditionally the distinction between Apprentice and Journeyman isn't one of skill at all. Apprenticeship was a contractual thing - you're an apprentice so long as you're under contract with your Master. When you fulfill your contract, you're a Journeyman. In theory, by this time you've learned enough to do useful, moneymaking work. When you're good enough to hold your own and have your own shop, then you're a Master, in a position to have apprentices of your own.

Linking things together - We might guess that, in a D&D world, perhaps when a character has that +10 skill modifier he's good enough to support his own shop...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Iffy. Depends upon how you view XP in your world and the level distribution.

If your world is fairly high-level-heavy or epic in influence (like FR) then a "master blacksmith" will be 20th level and have 24 ranks in the skill, with Skill Focus and one of those +2/+2 feats. He will have traveled the world and teamed with dwarves and slain aurumvorax and rust monsters in their hundreds. He's not just a master smith, he's capable of standing with great heroes and using the weapons he designs. He's blessed by the gods with uncanny skill, and has invented new metals from scratch. Simple steel holds no challenge -- he forges faith itself into his masterful works of art. He's one of the greatest in the world, and all the heroes come to him for their gear.

If your world is less epic (like Eberron), then a "master blacksmith" might be 7th level, with 11 ranks in the skill, Skill Focus, maybe some synergy. There's no metal on earth he can't turn into a servicable tool with a little bit of elbow grease, but he's also not about to galavant accross the cosmos or forge spoons for the gods. He's a master blacksmith, but he's just a blacksmith.

If your world is more gritty, then a "master blacksmith" may be 1st level or perhaps 3rd or 5th at most. They'd have from 4 to 8 ranks, perhaps Skill Focus, but little else. They'd be defined by their ability to smith things, which not everyone in the world can do. Indeed, they'd probably one of the few people to put ANY ranks into smithing, They know how to work metal into items, and by the standards of the world, that's effin' magic, yo.

I'd assume a "typical D&D world" fits kind of close to the high end of that spectrum in the cities, and the low end out in the rural territories. So what a master blacksmith is really depends upon how much square milage is habitable, and how much is filled with small settlements vs. large urban areas.....

 

[Crothian]

What's the point of having such high skill ranks?

With +4, you can make a lot of stuff all the time.

With +5, you can make nearly everything all the time.

+10 is good enough to make the masterwork quality, as well as any item (except composite str bows and some alchemical items) all the time.

You shouldn't need to be 15th level in order to be considered a master (or 7th level to be a journeyman).

Why not? What's wrong with a master being able to do it faster then the others. And DCs can be higher then 20, and a Master can deal with them. I think too many people are stuck in low level mode, the game goes higher then level 5 why not let the NPCs do the same?