Six New Crafting Professions to drop into your campaign a.k.a a reason to pick tool proficiency

[Inconnunom]

I was looking over the crafting and harvesting rules for poisons one day and it made me realize that there wasn't a whole lot of reason NOT to pick poisoner's kit or thieves tools. Sure there is flavor and that ONE time that someone talked up a bartender about brewing technique, but for the most part the tools are largely ribbons. So I decided to change that.

The goal of this change to give small individual or party buffs or enhancements that do not break the current AC bounding of the game. The cherry on top of a sundae if you will. Will you still eat that sundae if there is no cherry? Absolutely! But it sure is nice if you have a cherry. It just makes it more special and fun.

So then I spent way too much time making reasonable rules for crafting consumables. The jist of it is once a day you can make 1 thing and you can only make one thing at a time. As you level up you can make 1 more powerful thing, or a couple weaker things. To ensure that you can only craft one thing at a time there are crafting slots similar to spell slots that lock until the consumable is consumed.

I did the brunt of the work with the typing but I could use some extra feedback to make it the best document possible. When complete I will throw it in a nice Photoshop laden document with images abound.

Without further ado:
Full Professions Document
Alchemy Only
Brewing Only
Calligraphy Only
Herbalism Only
Poisons Only
Tinkering Only

Note: If enough feedback is to try to evaluate one at a time. I can remove 5 of the professions to focus feedback on a single profession at a time.

update 8/19/15:

​Added suggested changes. Links have been updated.

 

[Magistus71]

This is pretty good. For the crafter, I suggest that the opening of a slot should be allowed by giving it to another player or by selling it.

 

[MessiahMushroom]

This. Is. Amazing. I've been wanting to allow my players to have crafting utility but didn't want to resort to magical item creation.

I believe some of the effects to be a little overpowered (in particular, the Herbalism) but that being said, I haven't fully read the creation mechanics/ limitations yet. Looks awesome and I can't wait to implement your system into my game!

 

[reelo]

Awesome work! Greatly appreciated and I will be using this in my future campaign!

 

[Inconnunom]

This is pretty good. For the crafter, I suggest that the opening of a slot should be allowed by giving it to another player or by selling it.

I was hoping to prevent stock piling by keeping the slots locked. Also I was trying to use it as a money sink versus a money gain activity. That being said I'm open to all kinds of feedback and potential changes and will keep it in mind. Thanks for kind words!

This. Is. Amazing. I've been wanting to allow my players to have crafting utility but didn't want to resort to magical item creation.

I believe some of the effects to be a little overpowered (in particular, the Herbalism) but that being said, I haven't fully read the creation mechanics/ limitations yet. Looks awesome and I can't wait to implement your system into my game!

Thanks for the compliments! I hope that I limited it enough to help prevent it from breaking the AC bounding but if you try it out in a game let me know how it goes.

Awesome work! Greatly appreciated and I will be using this in my future campaign!

Thanks! Please let me know what your thoughts and if you encounter any issues/ errors/ or have any questions.

You're getting WoW in my DnD... I love it! This is a great addition to the game.

Hahaha. That was the first thing my brother said too! I hope you enjoy it. The tinkering definitely feels a bit like WoW engineering. Let me know what you think if you try it in a campaign.

 

[Magistus71]

I was hoping to prevent stock piling by keeping the slots locked. Also I was trying to use it as a money sink versus a money gain activity. That being said I'm open to all kinds of feedback and potential changes and will keep it in mind. Thanks for kind words!

The goal of D&D is to be able to retire your character from adventuring at some point. Stock piling would be something a character would want to do to be able to sell those items in a shop or such that the player owns. I don't see this hurting the players.

 

[Li Shenron]

This is great design work!

Too bad I don't like the premise of crafting slots. We've already discussed it a bit in the gaming group, with relation to the scribe scroll and brew potions temporary rules during the playtesting days, and our players all strongly disliked the idea.

The recipes themselves are great. But we would need a different system altogether, that doesn't have an in-built limit to items. The problem for my and my player is the inexplicable nature of these limits, not really associated with the narrative. I would rather have other sorts of "soft limits" such as longer crafting times and/or limits on using them on the same day, ingredients rarity, and perhaps even expiration dates.

 

[Inconnunom]

Sure no problem. Originally I never planned on having crafting slots. They were only introduced to prevent stock piling of items and also to avoid having to do all the necessary tracking that is required with rarity, expiration dates and et cetera. To eliminate that extra layer of management and complexity I put together the crafting slots. So basically you get one item at a time (or as you level up maybe 2 or 3) but until you use it or trash it, you can't make anything else. The artificer proposed in the UA article had similar mechanics except with spell slots instead.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sure no problem. Originally I never planned on having crafting slots. They were only introduced to prevent stock piling of items and also to avoid having to do all the necessary tracking that is required with rarity, expiration dates and et cetera. To eliminate that extra layer of management and complexity I put together the crafting slots. So basically you get one item at a time (or as you level up maybe 2 or 3) but until you use it or trash it, you can't make anything else. The artificer proposed in the UA article had similar mechanics except with spell slots instead.

Mechanically, those slots are going to work very well. They are in fact very similar to traditional spell slots: they are 'filled' until used, and you can re-fill an empty slot (or change a slot you didn't use) with a long rest. As a designer, you have full control on balance, because you always know at maximum how many items can be used in a day, and so how much these proficiencies are worth.

The problem is only narrative, but for many gaming groups it can be a deal-breaker.

Tossing aside rarity and expiration*, which indeed are probably unnecessary complications, I am wondering what else can be used to prevent stock-piling, with an easy narrative associated, that would allow to keep all the rest of your work (or as much as one would like). For items that are actually eaten or drunk, it could be just a hard limit per person, for instance 1/day.

*but actually... if you just say that all those items expire in 1 day, and the crafter has to re-make them each day, you pretty much have almost exactly the same system mechanically (because making them requires a long rest but doesn't cost anything) but with a more believable associated narrative

 

[Inconnunom]

If you run it with the expiring daily you may need to adjust the cost or the DC because those were based around the consumables staying "fresh"

As far as narrative this is how I explained it to some friends at the FLGS:
These professions are special. No I don't mean in a special because they are meaningful or rare or even unique. Any beginning brewer can throw together a beer or a tea. Any back-ally thug can put together a competent poison. When you make a product through these professions you are taking a piece of yourself and imbuing the essence into your creations. Some may call it ki or magic or any number of convenient name. The point is that it is present in every living being and is unique to each one. A master craftsman can reach deep within themselves and pull out a larger piece of this energy and they put it into their work. When an artisan tells you it takes blood, sweat, tears, and lots of experience to create the products they develop, they are speaking literally. Only after a product is consumed or destroyed does that essence return to it's crafter.