Special Materials cost compared to making the item

[Kealios]

Normally, making magic items saves you money, compared to buying them outright. How does this apply to special materials, such as adamantine? The chart on p. 283 DMG says +15,000 for a suit of heavy adamantine armor. Does this get reduced at all if you make the item yourself? It doesnt say.

Thanks,
Kealios

 

[Jack Simth]

It's under Craft:

To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.

1. Find the item’s price. Put the price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the DC from the table below.
3. Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.

That Full Plate Adamantine armor would have a craft DC of 18, plus a DC 20 craft roll for the masterwork portion. It would take nearly forever to make, though, without Fabricate or some such.

Someone with just enough ranks to take 10 and make a DC 20 check every time, doing so, would take.... (15,000+1,500)*10/(20*18)=458 and 1/3rd weeks, or a bit over eight years.

 

[Caliban]

Technically you would pay 1/3 the cost of the raw materials, but it would take a very long time. That's the RAW, but I think there's a bit more to it than that.

I don't think the crafting rules in the PHB take into account the special materials listed in the DMG. They are only for items made out of normal materials.

I rule that the cost of a special material doesn't increase the time of making the item, you just calculate the time based on a normal masterwork version of the item. I think that's the way it's intended to work.

As to whether the cost of the special materials is supposed to be reduced, I'm not sure. So all we are left is what's listed in the craft skill - 1/3 cost of raw materials. If it ever comes up in my home game, I would probably make it cost more.

 

[nittanytbone]

Once you factor in the expense of one or two helpers as well as room and board at a nice inn for 8 years then the cost for crafting it yourself will be almost as high as just buying it from an NPC retailer. As in most enterprises, once you take into account overhead, the profit margin is pretty slim.

 

[solates]

I seriously doubt anyone who has just enough ranks to take 10 is going to actually be working with adamantine. That would be like me giving a billet of damascus to a high-school kid who can work a hammer.

A lvl 15 expert with 18 ranks base, say 22 total for skill focus weapon or armorsmithing is going to on average have skill checks of 32.

Based on that the time it takes will be shortened considerably.

And your result per week is your Check X the DC of the item your making. So at 32x20 would be 640(64 gold). However you can voluntarily increase the DC to shorten the time it takes. So saying you increase the dc to 25. 32x25 = 800. And this expert can make that check with a roll of 3 or higher. Also a lvl 20 expert with 24(28) ranks would most likely raise the dc to 30. And that would mean 38(avg roll) x 30 or 1140 per week(114gp) which would cut the time down alot. And the creation price for any item is 50% of the actual market value, so that means its actual cost is 7500, and at 114 gp per week, the item will be made in 65 weeks. Which is a far cry from 8 years.

For an item that is so freaking tough, and has innate properties that do not go away in an anti-magic field, thats not so bad really. Heavy as heck though.

Solates

 

[nittanytbone]

And the creation price for any item is 50% of the actual market value, so that means its actual cost is 7500, and at 114 gp per week, the item will be made in 65 weeks.

Actually, the price should be 1/3. Magic items cost 50% market price to craft; non-magical items just cost 1/3 using the craft skill.

To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.

1. Find the item’s price. Put the price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the DC from the table below.
3. Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials.
4. Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week’s work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress you’ve made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces

Good commentary on all the other details!

 

[solates]

oops good catch.

Bad solates bad, no donut for me

At 1/3rd then thats even better(5,000) at say 100 per week is only 50 weeks less than a year, this is assuming averages, and some buffs could shorten this time by say another 20 weeks(int buff would give an average boost of +2 or an actual headband of intellect +6 would give +3 to the check, if you were a dwarf it would gain another +2 for 5 total)

at a base skill of 18 + 5(int) + 2(dwarf) + 2(skill focus armorsmithing) = 27 + masterwork armorsmithing set(2) for 29 baseline check.

Increase the dc to 30, your average check would be 37 so 37x30 for 1110 or 111 gp per week. This would be 45 weeks then.

I would note that a lvl 20 expert or pc could do this marginally faster but by much.
I also point out that items that give increases to skill checks are really cheap. A headband of intellect +6(36,000) and another misc magic item that gave a + 20 to armorsmithing checks(2000 gp) would make this somewhat different.

In that case it would be baseline 36(lvl 20 with 23 ranks in armorsmithing) + 20 for 56 total.
That means if you raised the dc to 50 x your average roll of 66 = 3300 or 330 gp per week making this task take a grand total of...15 weeks or 3 months 2 weeks on a normal calender.

And the cost for the items(38,000 gp total) would be recompensed within the first 4 sets of armor(or 1 year). Which in terms of cashflow and overhead works fine for the npcs or pcs.

Also...lets just check something that costs 1000(full plate armor) the above person could finish a set of full plate in 1 week. If he had a buyer he could make an easy 500gp a week just armorsmithing. OR 28,000gp a year. A set of masterwork full plate would take him the same approx time(1 week) and he would clear about 600gp a week.

Solates

 

[Caliban]

By the rules, you can only increase the DC by +10 in order to craft it faster. It's the "special" note in the Craft skill.

 

[Li Shenron]

Maybe it could explained that the +15000 for the special material can be intended as +5000 for the actual material and +10000 for the extra work (tools, assistants...) required to craft it?

It never came up in our games (crafting has been pretty rare and mostly done by low-levels PC), but it does, probably the easiest way is to just count 1/3 of the total price including the material. But I suspect that an official FAQ would say that the +15000 should instead remain constant, otherwise you'd have a huge discount.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

By the rules, you can only increase the DC by +10 in order to craft it faster. It's the "special" note in the Craft skill.

Complete Adventurer makes the note that you may increase it by as many increments of 10 as you'd like. This is the 3.5 update from a rule that originally appeared ... somewhere ... in 3.0.