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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 386543" data-attributes="member: 96">See, that's where you're falling down - at least IMO.  The peasant doesn't "put" or "use" them anywhere.  He doesn't get to choose "Oh, I think I'll get trained in Craft (pottery)".  Instead, he takes whatever life experiences he gets, and then where his skill points go are figured based on that.So the peasant who has not had the opportunity to be trained in a craft or a profession does not get to put skill points in that craft or profession.This is the other problem.  The 'make half your check result in gp per week' is a convenient abstraction.  Really, the craftsman should follow the more complex rules, paying for the raw materials (strike one for the moniless peasant) and then spending an appropriate amount of time making the item.  Let's say Joe Unskilled wants to make an iron pot (5 sp).  First, he needs to spend a day and a half's wages for the raw materials (obviously, nobody's just going to give them to him.)  Then, he gets his improvised tools (-2 penalty).  He works for a week - he's got a 60% chance of not making any progress at all, and a 35% chance of actually ruining his raw materials. What's he going to live on until he gets lucky?OK, maybe he's...er...making torches.  That's got to be a 'very simple' item, right?  So his average check of 8 times the DC of 5 means he makes 40 sp worth of torches in a week - assuming he can afford the raw materials, of course.  (Which he can't - that's two week's wages for him!).  Now he's got 400 torches - good for him.  Who's going to buy them?  What's the demand for torches?  If all the unskilled laborers are making torches, there's a glut, the bottom drops out of the market because nobody can sell enough torches to live.Side note: he can't actually take 10 on his Craft rolls - at least, I don't think crafting an item you're not trained to craft is a "routine untrained skill check" given that jumping is OK, but disguise is not.As a counterexample, take Joe Skilled, a blacksmith with Craft (smithing) +4.  He's going to be able to make 140 sp worth of iron pots in a week - 28 pots or 4/day. 93 sp of that is profit, or 9.3 gp per week - actually better than the PHB rate!  Again, assuming that he sells them - I think we can assume that the difference between the PHB rate and the above figure is due to the fact that Joe probably doesn't have enough commissions to keep him busy 100% of the time.So, you're right that there's a problem - the problem is in the abstracted "you get half your check result in gp" rule, and blindly applying it in all situations.  It's OK as an abstraction for people actually working in the profession, but it shouldn't be used for unskilled checks.Jtaking 10 on his reality check</blockquote>

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