So...anything on Craft?

[Guild Goodknife]

Did someone find anything on crafting rules for mundane items? I couldn't find anything on first glance...

 

[Traken]

There aren't any.

At all.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well this was written by Mearls on the subject: http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=15979211&postcount=10

 

[Loki5654]

In the design of 4e, we tried to eliminate skills that promised a lot, but didn't necessarily deliver. The craft and profession skills fell into this category.

First, they require more rules than we wanted to devote to them. It's hard to make sensible rules for all the various types of crafting you can attempt. For example, what stat should a craft (blacksmithing) depend on? Dwarves are supposed to be great smiths, so should it be Wisdom or Con? On the other hand, logic dictates that Strength should likely play a role in it. Profession skills that cover things like sailing also make things hard. What does a check actually cover? If I'm on a ship caught in a storm, can I use Profession (sailor) or Acrobatics to stay on my feet?

Second, a skill like Profession is hard to use in the game from the the designer's point of view. In a home campaign, you know what the PCs took, but in writing modules it's impossible to use the skills without relying on blind luck that someone took Profession or Craft, and then happened to pick the right specialty.

Stuff like sailor and blacksmithing is now treated as a character background, something a player includes in his character's backstory. Page 11 of the DMG talks about how to work those into an adventure.

IMC, I use them as the basis for ability checks. So, a character trained as a blacksmith might notice how a lead war maul was made with an Intelligence check, and he can hammer a bent key back into working shape with a forge and a Strength check.

The design intent is to push backgrounds into the DM's hands, letting him make them as useful or as invisible as he wants. We prefered that approach rather than trying to come up with comprehensive mechanics to cover them. In the end, we judged that the added complexity wasn't worth it.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1037843

 

[Guild Goodknife]

Hmm i think crafting could really work well as some sort of longtime skill challenge so others can assist you with secondary skills. There would be a risk to that kind of help, as too many cooks (and failures) could spoil the broth ( or weapon/armor/materials)...

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Crafting didn't have to do with combat, so it was cut.

 

[Evenglare]

Crafting didn't have to do with combat, so it was cut.

There are lots of stuff that are non combat. In fact id like to think 4th lets the story flourish more. Not bogged down by rules.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Crafting didn't have to do with combat, so it was cut.

No, it didn't have to do with adventuring, thus the complication of coming up with, and fitting in rules that worked was not deemed worth it in a game about adventuring.

 

[Mort_Q]

No, it didn't have to do with adventuring, thus the complication of coming up with, and fitting in rules that worked was not deemed worth it in a game about adventuring.

This.

 

[Jer]

Hmm i think crafting could really work well as some sort of longtime skill challenge so others can assist you with secondary skills. There would be a risk to that kind of help, as too many cooks (and failures) could spoil the broth ( or weapon/armor/materials)...

I actually expect to see a craft system based around the Rituals mechanic at some point in the future. A blacksmith's training involves learning a set of mundane rituals that cost a small sum of money, a set of tools, time and effort and produce a good (the monetary cost would be 1/2 market value, the time would vary - probably based on market value also). If there must be a skill check involved, they could be centered around a raw Intelligence or Con bonus (whichever is greater), though really I'd probably make it a "no check needed" ritual (not completely "realistic", but streamlined and "good enough"). Other professions revolving around "secret knowledge" could work the same way (siege engineers, herbalists, alchemists, and apothecaries all come to mind immediately).

Whether the craft system comes from Wizards or from a 3rd party, I'm sure we'll see one (or more) - it's an obvious extension to the ritual rules. The only sticking point is the level restrictions on rituals, but that's easily fixed by making mundane rituals all "level 1" - or perhaps "level 0". (Of course that could be a personal bias - I'm not digging the level restrictions on rituals in general, and that could be carrying over here).

Stuff like sailor and blacksmithing is now treated as a character background, something a player includes in his character's backstory. Page 11 of the DMG talks about how to work those into an adventure.

I'm glad to see there's stuff like this in the DMG. What Mearls describes here is the way I always used to run things for D&D prior to 3e. And while I used to think that the Profession skill was a giant step forward, in practice the merging of the level-based class system with the point-based skill system has had many unforseen side-effects - and the Profession skill is one of them. In my current campaign one of my players took it because he was a farmer before the campaign started and being used to point-buy games he felt he should have it to better reflect his character. But it has been useful exactly zero times in play (the few times it could have been useful he's used Knowledge:Nature instead because he has a higher bonus in it), and it hasn't served him any better than if he'd just put it in as a background element.

There has to be a better way to model this stuff - and divorcing it from the level-based system is a good first step. Moving background elements back into "DM adjudication" is probably going to cheese off some folks (some people seem to play with some real hardcase DMs), but personally I like it.