Penniless Crafting: Does it exist?

[a-d]

I was watching a television show last night which had an immortal stranded on a planet with no way to get off and it made me wonder if an Artificer would be able to eventually build a ship to get off with. But then I remembered that they have to pay gold to build anything.

So I wondered if regular crafters could eventually make a ship and it turns out they have to pay in silver for a third of whatever they're building.
If they're stuck on a planet or more realistically on an island, how are they going to get the money to pay for what they're building?

I'm now assuming that the monetary requirement is for buying the needed materials to craft the items... except that doesn't make much sense either does it.

I've a knife, and a stick, but no money. So I can't get no staff.
I've a stick and a rock with sharp edges but no money. So I can't get no staff.
I've a stick but no money so I can't get no staff.

The money requirement makes more sense in that case for Artificers but a number of those magical items have no material component beyond the masterwork item upon which the enchantment is laid, so couldn't they also build them even if they didn't have money?

Are there any standardized rules about penniless crafting?

 

[Umbran]

The monetary cost is an abstraction, and it assumes the crafter is working within the context of a civilization in which he could sell the products of his work for the listed price.

In other situations, you'd have to change that assumption - the crafter has to trade goods and services or use time that would be his context's equivalent of that monetary cost.

It doesn't matter if you pay it in gold, chickens, or time, but the idea is that you can't get something for nothing.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I don't know of standardized rules, but you might be able to convert the price in gp to a "price" in time. Craft rules have a "gp earned per week" based on a roll, so maybe that value could be applied to the gp cost going into whatever you're building. In effect, you're paying the price in extra time needed to craft rather than gold. Of course, if you lack tools, then the skill check is made with a (possibly substantial) penalty, so it might be wise to first basic craft tools, and then craft items using those tools.

I haven't run any numbers, though, so I've got no idea if this would actually work out or not.

 

[Hassassin]

You could require appropriate Profession (e.g. miner, lumberjack or herbalist) and/or Craft checks to gather the resources. Each week of gathering would give you materials worth half the check result instead of that much gold for working for someone. (Or silver/day.)

Even someone with a single rank would then be able to gather the materials for a 2gp spear in a day or two. (Quarterstaff is free, since it *is* a stick.)

 

[Greenfield]

The answer. obviously, is that it depends on your DM.

I had a DM who didn't want my crafting Wizard to "unfairly enrich himself" by looking for exotic materials for crafting while adventuring. By his logic, if said Wizard wanted to craft a Pearl of Power, and much of his wealth was already tied up in a suitable pearl, he'd have to sell the pearl to get the money needed. In his view, items were crafted by digging a hole in the ground, burying a bunch of gold, bleeding in some Exp, and then sitting around for the requisite number of days. (My character actually took to carrying a master-worked shovel for that purpose. )

Other, less paranoid DMs will allow crafting costs to be paid for in any "coin" at all, including trade or labor, so long as the materials are reasonably available.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Standardized rules?

Sort of.

You can look at "Craft Points" in the d20 online SRD; they're a variant set of rules from WotC's Unearthed Arcana. You can find them here:

Craft Points :: d20srd.org

The rules for crafting are here:
Craft :: d20srd.org

Crafting in 3.x in general seems to be a problem, allowing characters to significantly increase their capabilities in an end-run around a number of system assumptions. The gold and XP costs are an attempt by the system to keep characters under control, while still allowing them to make items. I don't know of a system that's overhauled the entire crafting system, I'm only familiar with the Artificer's Handbook which specifically tries to address magic item crafting.

The craft points approach provides a way of handling a resource cost, without it necesssarily requiring an "in-game" resource cost. Money can still function as part of the Crafting check in terms of how long or whatever.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there's a difference between crafting an item for continual use or use by other people, versus an item created in desperation.

As an example, a knotted bedsheet isn't a rope but it can get the job done.

Overall, I find personally that an excessive amount of attention is paid to the whole topic of crafting. Unless your game is explicitly _about_ being a crafter, I personally advocate sticking with a simple and established system and not worrying overly much about it.

And if your game _is_ about being a crafter... *shrug*... well, other than leveraging the Craft Points idea and maybe picking up the Artificer's Handbook, I don't know what to suggest. Like I said, I don't know of any system that's actually re-worked the 3.x crafting so it doesn't break.

And of course, part of the problem is that systems (spell creation, magic item creation, etc) which are created to provide more accurate and consistent result, wind up showing that the "base" items/spells/whatever provided in the game are outside performance expectations; for example, Magic Missle is a pretty darn good spell for 1st level.

So you then have to deal with having a system that works and is consistent, but when a player tries to duplicate an existing whatever, they suddenly find they've got an "inflated" cost. This discrepancy is a problem for some folks and not a problem for others.

As Umbran pointed out, you don't get something for nothing. The "real world" mostly works that way and D&D as a game works that way too; D&D explicitly requires players to manage resources (hit points, spells, gold, xp, items) as both a metagame and an "in-game" thing.

You can have resource-less crafting, but D&D as a game isn't natively set up to handle it and most D&D players don't have a mindset that will work with resource-less crafting and won't also shift the balance of the game's assumptions.

Edit: So basically what I'm saying is, don't confuse the rules of the game with being the rules of life even in the game world. The rules don't contain anything about using the bathroom for example, so does that mean nobody in D&D has ever had to use a toilet? Of course not. The rules attempt to provide a consistent interface for people to operate within the Invisible Barbie world of D&D and as such they make abstractions that, carried to their "logical conclusion" has very illogical results. Or at least results that don't match "reality" regardless of how logical you consider it.

 

[airwalkrr]

You could double the cost of XP for one. Another possibility is allowing Craft or Profession checks to gather materials, as others have mentioned. But basically you have to delve into the realm of house rules to deal with it.