Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Hapycamper 06-21-07, 05:18 PM	In the spirit of my wizard character who wants to be all about crafting lots of "stuff" (ie. many item creation feats) he's also been working on his crafting skills. Is it just me or are the armorcrafting and weaponcrafting skills nearly worthless? Sure, he can make normal armor and weapons, but trying to make anything even slightly out of the ordinary is crazy. At a skill bonus of around +15 (9 ranks), I can craft about 25x20=500sp per week (50gp/week). A masterwork weapon, for example, would take me around 6 weeks to create a 300gp piece of equipment. In that same time, using my craft wondrous item feat, I could craft 42,000gp worth of wondrous items. I realize I'm comparing a feat to a skill here, but remember that at 9 ranks, I'm starting to not even care about MW quality weapons anymore (and worry more about magical ones...) The difference in crafting abilities between the create arms&armor feat and the crafting skills is several orders of magnitude... (1000gp/day of effort vs 5gp/day) Don't even get me started on trying to make something out of a "special" armor material... try to make a piece of Mithral armor for 4000gp? I'll be spending a year and a half on it (time as a human that is probably better spent on my magical crafting persuits...) I don't mind spending points on armor and weaponcrafting to add to my character's background and development, but is there something I'm missing that would actually make the skill useful as well? ------------- I am aware of the choice to add multiples of +10 to the DC of a crafting check to improve crafting rates, but that really only speeds up the process by a factor of two or three at best
tarkin 06-21-07, 05:24 PM	Using Magic item feat. I pay 1,000 gp, 8 xp and make something worth 2,000 gp. Then I go and sell it for... 1,000 gp. Net loss: 8 XP. Using Craft skill: I pay 1000 gp, no xp, but a lot of time. Then I go and sell it for .... 3,000 gp. Net Profit: 2,000 gp. ----------------- Craft skills are money makers, not simply money savers. The Magic Item feats are money savers, not money makers. -------------- More importantly, the craft skills, can solve problems for you. You simply won't be able to use magic item creation ability in the adventure to solve a problem - if you had the spell to make the item then you can solve it by simply casting the spell. But you can craft non-magical items that solve problems you can not solve any other way. -------------- As a player, the trick to making Crafting skills worth your effort is the 5th level spell FABRICATE (or similar such spells like shape stone). With it, your craft skills are a huge money making, problem solving ability. You can build a bridge/stair/boat etc. to solve lots of in game problems. Then there is the "This area all the people wear dark cloaks and we don't have one". Boom, take some ink and convert existing clothing to the right color.
LoreleiIsildae 06-21-07, 05:55 PM	I would imagine too, that item creation feats take existing items and apply magic to them, where as a craft skill means having to make an item from scratch. I'm not positive about the item creation skills though.
Mentar 06-21-07, 06:04 PM	Remember that all magical weapons and such must first be masterwork items. Yes, crafting is usually better left to NPCs who spend the weeks or even months needed to make things while you are out adventuring. However, being able to craft the items on your own may be the only way to get some things. Honestly, what elf weaponsmith would really care about a dwarven waraxe enough to learn how to craft one? (edit: If your DM likes historical accuracy a suit of full plate will take nearly 6 months to craft and several fittings for adjustments. Depending on how many assistants of journeyman quality the armor smith has working with him/her, it may take less time, but an apprentice would not yet have the skills to make portions of the armor.) Craft skills, and to a lesser extent profession, exist because WoTC realizes that spell research (and other things) takes time. If your party is taking time off for the wizard to research new spells, what is the fighter doing? How about the rogue, cleric, etc? When crafting items of various substances ask your DM about adjusting the time put it more in line with crafting a masterwork item rather then the material. A longsword costs 15gp to buy, thus you could make several in a week. A masterwork longsword costs 315 to buy, you could make one in a week. If the DM allows, an adamantine longsword may cost 3015 to buy, but since the metal makes it masterwork (even an adamantine stick is considered masterwork) have the time it takes to craft it work off the masterwork scale rather then the full cost. This would show that even though you made it in the same way you would make a non-masterwork longsword, the material is harder to work with, but rather then taking months it would take a week.
Hapycamper 06-21-07, 06:04 PM	OK, so I pay 1000gp, and then spend 40 weeks making a 3000gp item (a piece of armor or whatever...) A nice profit of 2000gp for 40 weeks of work. Yes, that is very well balanced (perhaps too good) for an NPC, but a character is probably much better suited to just go off and do some adventuring. It often takes far, far less than 40 weeks to complete a quest/task/claim a bounty that can often result in more than 2000gp... Your point for using Fabricate is well made, I look forward to taking up my smithing hobby when I hit 9th level. As for your other suggestions, they work best for the crafting feats that create very inexpensive items. Armor/weapons/jewelry are all quite expensive and thus would take prohibitively long to craft most of the time... (it would almost always be easier to just go buy/steal/"borrow" what you wanted to make...) Using Magic item feat. I pay 1,000 gp, 8 xp and make something worth 2,000 gp. Then I go and sell it for... 1,000 gp. Net loss: 8 XP. Using Craft skill: I pay 1000 gp, no xp, but a lot of time. Then I go and sell it for .... 3,000 gp. Net Profit: 2,000 gp. ----------------- Craft skills are money makers, not simply money savers. The Magic Item feats are money savers, not money makers. -------------- More importantly, the craft skills, can solve problems for you. You simply won't be able to use magic item creation ability in the adventure to solve a problem - if you had the spell to make the item then you can solve it by simply casting the spell. But you can craft non-magical items that solve problems you can not solve any other way. -------------- As a player, the trick to making Crafting skills worth your effort is the 5th level spell FABRICATE (or similar such spells like shape stone). With it, your craft skills are a huge money making, problem solving ability. You can build a bridge/stair/boat etc. to solve lots of in game problems. Then there is the "This area all the people wear dark cloaks and we don't have one". Boom, take some ink and convert existing clothing to the right color.
Hapycamper 06-21-07, 06:13 PM	Remember that all magical weapons and such must first be masterwork items. Yes, crafting is usually better left to NPCs who spend the weeks or even months needed to make things while you are out adventuring. However, being able to craft the items on your own may be the only way to get some things. Honestly, what elf weaponsmith would really care about a dwarven waraxe enough to learn how to craft one? True, and one of the initial reasons I went for the skill as I felt it would still be useful (just not very often...) Craft skills, and to a lesser extent profession, exist because WoTC realizes that spell research (and other things) takes time. If your party is taking time off for the wizard to research new spells, what is the fighter doing? How about the rogue, cleric, etc? True, but the problem here is that it is a Wizard that likes smithing, so now the problem is compounded. I need time to scribe new spells into my books and I need time to forge armor/weapons too... (and that isn't even doing spell research yet....) When crafting items of various substances ask your DM about adjusting the time put it more in line with crafting a masterwork item rather then the material. A longsword costs 15gp to buy, thus you could make several in a week. A masterwork longsword costs 315 to buy, you could make one in a week. 315gp MW Longsword in a week? A skill check of +30 would still take 2 weeks to make 315gp worth of "stuff". A more realistic skill check of +20 would take around a month. If the DM allows, an adamantine longsword may cost 3015 to buy, but since the metal makes it masterwork (even an adamantine stick is considered masterwork) have the time it takes to craft it work off the masterwork scale rather then the full cost. This would show that even though you made it in the same way you would make a non-masterwork longsword, the material is harder to work with, but rather then taking months it would take a week. (You mean rather than taking a year, it would take a month.... You're still off by nearly a factor of 4 on the time it takes to craft weapons and armor....) See, that's a decent idea and one that I had thought of... but my point is addressing the rules themeselves, not any house rules. Do many others play with such a house rule?
Mentar 06-21-07, 06:58 PM	Sorry, forgot to adjust SP --> GP So a month or more for crafting. Fairly simple single piece items such as weapons would require one person working on them. Items such as full plate could have several journeymen working on different parts at the same time. It would still take 6 months or more, but division of labor helps in those cases. Most craft skills seem to exist more for flavor and character development then for actual use in games. As for making the skills useful.... Ever need to spend a week in town while low on cash? Hire on at the smithy. Crafting skills are generally about as useful as profession skills, they may give bonuses to checks for other things, and probably rarely at that, but they are mainly for flavor with PCs, while NPCs will use them on a daily basis. I almost always take profession (herbalist) with my nature oriented characters, especially healer types, but very rarely do I get a chance to actually use it.
Hapycamper 06-21-07, 11:56 PM	Most craft skills seem to exist more for flavor and character development then for actual use in games. As for making the skills useful.... Ever need to spend a week in town while low on cash? Hire on at the smithy. Crafting skills are generally about as useful as profession skills, they may give bonuses to checks for other things, and probably rarely at that, but they are mainly for flavor with PCs, while NPCs will use them on a daily basis. I almost always take profession (herbalist) with my nature oriented characters, especially healer types, but very rarely do I get a chance to actually use it. Yeah, I had initially thought it would be fun to use it, and am not sorry I spent the 15-odd points on armor and weapon crafting. However, I'm now thinking 7 or 8 ranks in the skill is enough and I'll quit trying to keep them maxxed out as it really isn't going to do too much more than keep the "flavor" of my character going.... (ie. I know he's a better smith than most of the NPCs he'll meet...)
Nizo 06-24-07, 04:35 AM	But if your dm is cool he will just let the time pass meaning you just made 2,000g in about 1 minute, (Just make up some bull about why you and your party need to sit around for awhile) then just craft away. A whole party crafting items that can sell for 2,000g will add up fast.
Elana 06-24-07, 08:33 AM	The time the characters spent between adventures should increase anyway. By level 15 there should be a year between adventures (Otherwise your dm needs to think hard how to justify that the low level commoners can exist in such a dangerous world) So time is hardly an issue. Unless you need all the spare time you can get to govern your barony or something like that.
ServanWolf 06-25-07, 12:41 PM	oke its true that it takes much much time to create a masterwork item..but if you have it you have ins hort time a magical weapon :D. If you really want a guy who can craft an item and make it magical use the class i just created (see below) The Blacksmith (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=872825) their is also an other possibility to lessne the time needed for the craft, you may use aid another. Hire let say 4 huys and let them use aid another and you get +8 on you check. Thier are also some feats i written under the class made for this situation, use them :). i hope it will be usefull