Masterwork Crafting

[rook111]

For the First time my players are using the Craft skill themselves instead of just using what they find in adventures. While using the Craft skill to make weapons and armor is good and all, I am a bit confused with the reasoning behind the Masterwork crafting rule. Namely I don't understand why it was made as a seperate item in created in conjunction with the actual item craft roll instead of a price and DC modifier to the initial crafting roll.

Using the AU weapon templates as a guide it seems that making Masterwork a addon Template would be a more effiecnt and to my mind more realistic way to go.

What are some of your thoughts if any on this subject.

 

[Aaron2]

For the First time my players are using the Craft skill themselves instead of just using what they find in adventures. While using the Craft skill to make weapons and armor is good and all, I am a bit confused with the reasoning behind the Masterwork crafting rule. Namely I don't understand why it was made as a seperate item in created in conjunction with the actual item craft roll instead of a price and DC modifier to the initial crafting roll.

I'm kinda one the fence about this one. On one hand, it would seem to be much easier to make a masterwork dagger than a masterwork greatsword. On the other hand, what your really doing is paying 300 gp for +1 to hit. Since there are many things, like Sneak Attack, that just require a hit, having a +1 should be worth about the same regardless of what weapon it's on. That's the logic behind the 3e rulings. Its the same way for magical weapons. In earlier editions, magical daggers were much cheaper than magical longswords, now they are about the same (the difference is less than 1% in cost).


Aaron

 

[Wraithdrit]

Who can really say what the reasoning is? But the way the system works now it is just a component of the item and not actually a seperate item. They craft the weapon first with a lower DC and then move on to making it mastercrafted. Perhaps it shows the time to make the weapon is nothing compared to the extra time used to make it a mastercrafted weapon? I dunno.

Personally I think the crafting rules are a bit harsh. If you want to create a mastercrafted long sword you have to make a DC 15 craft check (lets say you have a +10 craft total). No problem. If you make a roll of a 10 on the die you get a 20 total. That times the difficulty means you crafted 300 sp worth of sword in ONE WEEK! Since a longsword only costs 15 gp it took half a week. Now you gotta mastercraft it. So you have a whoppin' 3000 sp worth of work to do. At your average roll of ten this is going to take 10 weeks! I don't care if this is 'realistic' it is just downright downtime intensive.

Anyways.

 

[Alchemist]

Personally I think the crafting rules are a bit harsh. If you want to create a mastercrafted long sword you have to make a DC 15 craft check (lets say you have a +10 craft total). No problem. If you make a roll of a 10 on the die you get a 20 total. That times the difficulty means you crafted 300 sp worth of sword in ONE WEEK! Since a longsword only costs 15 gp it took half a week. Now you gotta mastercraft it. So you have a whoppin' 3000 sp worth of work to do. At your average roll of ten this is going to take 10 weeks! I don't care if this is 'realistic' it is just downright downtime intensive.

Anyways.

They are perhaps a bit harsh if you're a part-time swordsmith, but if you're doing this for a living you're going to have a check that exceeds +10. Heck, a 1st level expert with a 15 int, skill focus and 4 ranks has a +9 modifier. So it'll take the apprentice a few (~8) weeks to crank out that masterwork longsword assuming he makes every check, which is probably not likely on a DC 20 check. Probably more along the lines of 12 weeks or so, and the cost of botched materials will have to be factored in.

His 7th level master (with a +16 check, due to max ranks and int boost) will be cranking out one every 6 weeks or so as well as being quite unlikely to botch any materials.

Anyways, I don't think 6 weeks for a skilled expert in the field to crank out a piece of art is unreasonable, especially when he can sell it for ~212gp profit, which is pretty fantastic for somebody that makes 4sp/day wage (by the AeG). That feeds and clothes his family for nearly a year and a half.

The math makes it obvious that adventurers don't make good craftsmen. They don't practice at it on a daily basis, and they don't have weeks to devote to a major project. It's just not cost effective to labour at the forge when you could be whacking dragons, which is fine by me. I would rather my characters hire somebody to make it for them, take the leadership feat, or, if the item is going to be personally significant, suck up the 12 weeks of downtime.

 

[Wraithdrit]

Agreed, PCs make lousy crafters. Add to the above that a good smith will have a masterwork toolkit or forge giving him a +2 and an apprentice or two helping him giving him probably another +4. So the 7th level master is now going with a +22 check.

Assuming all rolls are average and made, he is producing 640 sp a week. Still takes him 5 weeks. Still pretty hefty in my opinion, but doable. Personally I have NO IDEA how long it takes to truly smith a fine sword.

 

[Spatzimaus]

There are really a few separate problems here, IMO.

1> Masterwork weapons have a flat DC 20, no matter what type of weapon they are, while a non-masterwork weapon's DC varies with the type. Same goes for armor. This is just awkward; a masterwork version of an exotic weapon should be much harder to make than a masterwork version of a simple weapon, but right now they're not.

2> Skill checks take far too long for the high-end items like plate armor. It's just fine for small, cheap stuff, though.

3> The proportionality is wrong. A Craft check gives you (skill check * DC) sp per week, which means that if two items have the same cost, the more difficult one is finished FASTER. The only way around this is to ensure cost always scales faster than DC.
It should be more like (skill check / DC) * 10 gp per day. We changed it to something like this IMC, I don't have my notes in front of me though.


PCs make great crafters, if they're Psions with Fabricate (or Sorcerers/Wizards using the inferior arcane version). Crafting time becomes irrelevant; a masterwork item is just a spell away. My last Psion (a Shaper with a custom PrC) had over 40 ranks of Craft skills spread across 6 of them, plus an Artiste psicrystal. It was fun to just arbitrarily turn things into statues making rude gestures, or scantily-clad statues of the female Ranger, or collectible figurines of the party... and, of course, the Astral Construct powers specifically allow a Craft(sculpting) check if you want an unusual appearance.

 

[thorimar]

PC's as Crafters

I kind of agree with Spatzimaus on this one. PC's can make great crafters depending on the game you play in. If your party hops from one dungeon to the next with little care for or interest in downtime, then playing a crafter is a huge waste of feats, skill points, and prestige classes. One of the best features of 3.0/3.5 is the ability to make the magic items you want. Our group has always done random magic item treasure from the DMG tables. How often to you actually roll up the +2 shocking burst dwarven ugrosh? One in 1000?? So you have to have it made. If I pay someone to make it for me it costs full market value, or really close to it. If someone in the party makes it for me it cost half of that, allowing you to stretch your gold much farther. Currently I play a dwarven cleric of Korak (Green Ronin Book of the Righteous) who just entered the artificer PrC from the book. I was just able to equip my group with armor upgrades (mithril shirts and adamantine plate) and basic magic weapons (+1 or better) at a greatly reduced cost. We still farm out the items I cannot make, but there will be less need of that as I advance. Also, we have adopted a variant rule for using unusual materials for crafting. Having a crafter in the group is a good thing as long as you take downtime to maximize their usefulness.

The masterwork component as a separate piece of the work seems odd but workable. To me the masterwork component represents the extra time and care needed to make sure the work is done correctly and precisely, thus yielding the +1 attack bonus or reduction of check penalty. Is a flat value the best way to go? Probably not. I would use 100 gp for simple, 200 gp for martial, and 300 gp for exotic. And 100/200/300 for light/med/heavy armors too. Nice, neat, complete. Remember however, that just because armor is lighter, doesn't mean it is easier to make. Same with weapons.

I forgot to mention the way I built my crafter. Dwarven Cleric of Korak, by which I gained access to the Forge Domain (GR/BotR). The first granted ability is a +4 bonus to craft checks involving the forging and crafting of items. Later, as my 5th level domain spell I get Fabricate. Look out when that happens. I'm 7th lvl with max skill ranks (+10), dwarven (+2 crafting metal), MW tools (+2), Forge Domain (+4), and Int bonus (+2). At 7th level I have a +20 modifier, plus I can hire an appretice or two in town at a fair price to boost that up some. A spell like hammer chant (Hammer and Helm, Green Ronin) boost my speed at crafting and there are a few feats that boost mundane and magical crafting speed. It is all about desire. I always play clerics, usually dwarven clerics, almost always focused on combat. My Chr was poor so I went crafting instead. It is not as rewarding as it could be in combat, but when I watched my rogues keen rapier do its critical, critical, critical routine last sunday I got all warm and fuzzy inside. Item creation is about house rules and making a system that works for everyone. Work it out as a group and you will see how rewarding it can be.

Thorimar

 

[dinsdale]

3> The proportionality is wrong. A Craft check gives you (skill check * DC) sp per week, which means that if two items have the same cost, the more difficult one is finished FASTER. The only way around this is to ensure cost always scales faster than DC.
It should be more like (skill check / DC) * 10 gp per day. We changed it to something like this IMC, I don't have my notes in front of me though.

Ah, but don't forget that (at least in 3.5) you can voluntarily add up to 10 to the DC to rush the job. This usually allows you to finish the easier one in the same amount of time at the same DC (assuming equal costs).

 

[Spatzimaus]

I'm 7th lvl with max skill ranks (+10), dwarven (+2 crafting metal), MW tools (+2), Forge Domain (+4), and Int bonus (+2). At 7th level I have a +20 modifier, plus I can hire an appretice or two in town at a fair price to boost that up some.

Yeah, it's amazing how quickly the points add up, especially when you don't count short-duration magic. The problem is when you want to use Fabricate; tools and assistants don't really make any sense, so we don't allow it. But even so, it's still possible to get really high skill checks.
Mine's 15th level with ~12 ranks in my highest craft skills, plus 6 for high INT, plus 2 for my psicrystal, plus 2 from a ring I have, plus 3 for being a Crystalsinger 4, plus I can add up to 6 from a class ability for the custom PrC... so, when I cast Fabricate I can make some incredibly detailed items in a matter of rounds.

And it's not just a non-adventuring, making items for players thing. Read the Fabricate spell.

You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet. You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship. Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell.
Material Component: The original material, which costs the same amount as the raw materials required to craft the item to be created.

They don't really say what counts as "raw material". Can I use the enemy's steel door as raw material for a statue of myself? How about the (nonmagical) sword the bad guy is carrying?
(We house-ruled that any attended item can't be targetted, since like a magic item it'd get a saving throw.)
It's not really unbalanced, as a 5th-level spell that acts like Disintegrate but only on nonliving targets; turning that door into a statue is just as good as destroying it, except for the humor value. Besides, it's limited by the casting time (1 round per 10 cubic feet).

 

[melkoriii]

I remember reading some place (ELH?) that you can up the DC of the item to your roll if your roll beat the normal DC.

So a Weapon with a DC of 15 and you rolled a 25 you could up the DC to 25 and get 625cp instead of 375cp.

That made it so that the better your skill and roll the faster you made the item.