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View Full Version : Lets develop some ideas for crafting!



Deepbluediver
2013-04-12, 08:38 AM
Ok, so I haven't done one of these in a while, but I'd like to poll the audience and see if we can come up with some good, if basic, ideas for tweaking/fixing D&D's crafting system (which is functional, but doesn't stand up well to rigorous abuse). This is intended to work mostly with D&D 3.5/PF, but of course if anyone wants they can port any ideas they like into any other setting.

If you want to suggest crafting systems from other games, or provide links to other crafting homebrew, feel free, but it would be very helpful if you also gave a short summary in thread of how it's different and what problems it solves best. (or what issues it still has)


To get the party started, I'll offer two things that I've been thinking about:

Reducing the Number of Craft (whatever) Skills
The ability to craft just about anything you want is one of the major open-ended advantages of tabletop gaming, but do we really need a seperate Craft (item) skill for every single thing on our list? It really only serves as a way to eat up Skill points, IMO. Maybe it's more "realistic" in some sense, but you know what? I hate realism, at least when it gets in the way of fun or game mechancis. Realism can go [punch a donkey].

I think we could make the crafting system less complicated and more intuitive if we divided everything into a few major categories. ATM, I'm thinking of 4: Magic, Alchemy, Weapons & Armor, and Mundane (the last is a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit in the first three).
From an adventurer's (player's) standpoint, I think that provides most of the seperation in the areas that matter most to them.


Seperating Crafting from Other Advancment
Its been pointed out before that the skill system and level-advancement in general has some weird quirks- go out and slay zombies, come back much more articulate and better at swimming, etc etc.
Linking certain crafting to your Wizard or Fighter level might seem like a good way to keep things in check with regards to power, but balancing both advancements simultaneously can be an exercise in frustration, since 99% of crafting's benefit needs to be dealt with outside of combat.

Do you think it would be possible to seperate the crafting ability from combat ability entirely, and make it advance along some other track? For example, you could have levels in a "Crafter" class that didn't provide HD, save bonuses, or any of that stuff, and just made you better at crafting. You would advance your Crafter level by time or maybe money invested, or at most with only a portion of the exp. you earn from adventuring.



So let me know what you think, and what your best ideas are.

SamBurke
2013-04-12, 09:53 AM
Honestly, in working through the creation of a crafting-based class, I just said, "flip this" and didn't include any Crafting Checks.

:smallbiggrin:

Deepbluediver
2013-04-12, 10:56 AM
Honestly, in working through the creation of a crafting-based class, I just said, "flip this" and didn't include any Crafting Checks.

Getting rid of or modifying crafting checks is certainly something to consider, but there are plenty of other things to worry about as well:
How long should crafting take
How much should it cost
How do you determine what kinds of items you can make (i.e. how skillful you are)
How do you get better at it
etc etc etc


Those are also questions I want to try and answer.

Hanuman
2013-04-16, 02:13 PM
Thought to add:
You are an adventurer, not a basketweaver, but you can have Craft [Basketweaving] or Profession [Basketweaver] if you really want to, in which case you are a basketweaver adventurer.

If you're going to separate acts then separate them by profession, you could be a jeweler, or a blacksmith, or a baker, or a cook, i'd just go by profession system tbh.

Vadskye
2013-04-16, 02:51 PM
Crafting is problematic, though I have much more of a problem with magical crafting than nonmagical crafting. I just don't know how to fix it.

Hanuman
2013-04-16, 04:28 PM
Crafting is actually fine, you just need some chewy rules that state that a relative skill or profession can grant relative bonuses, such as druids gaining natural alchemy, or warriors gaining minor blacksmithing such as repairs to weapons such as sharpening, replacing grips, re-fitting, ect.

DracoDei
2013-04-17, 01:27 PM
Crafting is problematic, though I have much more of a problem with magical crafting than nonmagical crafting. I just don't know how to fix it.

When you say "Magical Crafting" I presume you mean crafting feats such as "Craft Wonderous Item", "Brew Potion", etc. rather than Major Creation which uses craft skills?

I think that the idea of separate crafting classes has potential, but I would say that, for balance reasons, your adventuring classes should control the caps, while the crafting classes should provide the skill points.

Incidentally, Appraise might be able to be invested in from BOTH sides of the equation.

Vadskye
2013-04-17, 04:42 PM
When you say "Magical Crafting" I presume you mean crafting feats such as "Craft Wonderous Item", "Brew Potion", etc. rather than Major Creation which uses craft skills?
Indeed. Well, there are balance issues with major creation and similar, but that wasn't what I was thinking of.

Kane0
2013-04-17, 07:57 PM
Hmmm. Here is what our group does:

Nonmagical stuff is a craft or profession check, and you can get help via aid another and whatnot. We are fairly permissive of the crafts, but the general rule is the more specific the craft/profession the better you will be and the more general the craft/profession is the more things you can try to do. Thus a PC with Craft: Alchemy or Profession: Blacksmith can try all kinds of things but the PC with Craft: Alchemical Grenadelikes or Profession: Armorer is more limited but can make better things within their category.

Magical stuff is broken into broad categories (like Potions/Scrolls, Weapons/Armor, Wand/Rod/Staff, etc). There is one feat, craft magic item, upon taking you select a category of item you become able to make/recharge/break down.

In order to make something you need to use crafting essences as npart of the process, which are more or less enchanted crafting materials used in the items creation. There are two types: Lesser (Used for caster levels and charges) and greater (used for permanent effects). You may still need to spend gp (though a lot less as you usually spend GP getting essences if you don't ave any) and XP (again, far less because its a little rude to make you spend XP to equip your party with neat stuff), and/or gather rare ingredients (The DM may require this for plot or balance purposes).
When you have the materials, spent the time and done all the other things you need to do you make a Craft: Enchanting or Profession: Enchanter check to seal the deal and finish off your magic item, ready for use.

You can also use this feat to break down magic items into essences (though not at a 1:1 ratio) to be used in crafting, which can offset the cost of upgrading your gear.

This way anyone can become a crafter, but needs to use a few feats and skill points to do so.

Deepbluediver
2013-04-18, 09:50 AM
I've been meaning to reply to this thread for a while, and I keep getting distracted. Sometimes I feel like I need a Timestop spell for my life. :smallcool:




Thought to add:
You are an adventurer, not a basketweaver, but you can have Craft [Basketweaving] or Profession [Basketweaver] if you really want to, in which case you are a basketweaver adventurer.

If you're going to separate acts then separate them by profession, you could be a jeweler, or a blacksmith, or a baker, or a cook, i'd just go by profession system tbh.

I certainly agree that we could also seperate out the profession checks from most classes. For most PC's, their profession (if you can call it that) is "adventurer".
The only described mechanical use it has is "making money" which most players do more effectively anyway, although I have occasionally seen it applied elsewhere- example: a Profession (Sailor) check to navigate a boat.

The other thing is that I think Profession should be a special Skill check that is based on different abilities, depending on what profession it is. For example, it's hard to see who Wisdom is contributing to the production of Profession (Ditch-digging).

So if we had something like this:
{table=head]Profession|Ability|Labor|Wage
Farmer|
CON|untrained|Copper
Miner|
STR|untrained|Copper
Tailor|
DEX|trained|Silver
Carpenter|
STR|trained|Silver
Scribe|
INT|trained|Silver
Dancer|
CHA|trained|Silver
Jeweler|
DEX|highly-trained|Gold
Architect|
INT|highly-trained|Gold
Nobel's Steward|
INT|management|Gold
Ship's Captain|
WIS|management|Gold[/table]

Then the skill works like normal, in that each week you can make a check based on the linked ability and any other bonuses, and earn that many of whatever level of currency your profession makes.

I'm happy enough to pretty much remove Profession (anything) as a class skill for any PC, since it's mostly irrelevant, IMO.


Crafting is actually fine, you just need some chewy rules that state that a relative skill or profession can grant relative bonuses, such as druids gaining natural alchemy, or warriors gaining minor blacksmithing such as repairs to weapons such as sharpening, replacing grips, re-fitting, ect.

I admitted in my first post that crafting works, albiet poorly, and only if you don't try to hard to break it. If/When players try to lean on it too hard though, say with a class like the Artificer, then it doesn't balance nearly as well.

Still, if we removed Crafting from the PC skill list, I could see replacing it with maybe something like Repair or Recharge (for magic items) that PC's DO have access to. So they can't make up their own gear without investing in the Crafting system, but they can keep their own stuff up and running or fix-up whatever the DM gives them.


When you say "Magical Crafting" I presume you mean crafting feats such as "Craft Wonderous Item", "Brew Potion", etc. rather than Major Creation which uses craft skills?

I think that the idea of separate crafting classes has potential, but I would say that, for balance reasons, your adventuring classes should control the caps, while the crafting classes should provide the skill points.

Hmmm...yes, I can see that, although I don't know if I want to rule out the ability for NPCs to make awesome weapons and armor entirely. Knowing how to slay a dragon with a sword and knowing how to forge one are two entirely different skill sets, and they don't necessarily need to rely on one another.

What if we did something like this: the "experience" that you need to earn to level up a crafting class comes mostly from time spent practicing that, with a tight limit on that amount of experience that adventuring can contribute. And your Crafter level can never exceed the level of classes that grant you HD.

For example, in most games, the rest of the party won't want to sit around for 6 months while Krunk the Barbarian learns how to be a blacksmith (even if the plot of the DM would allow it).

For games that start out at a higher level, if you want to build previous crafting experience into your backstory, then you need to sacrifice PC levels, because that was time spent that you wheren't adventuring as much as your compatriots. Taken all together, a potential rule might be: for each 1/2 levels worth of exp. you sacrifice at character creation, you earn 1 level in a crafting class.
So if that party is starting at level 8, Krunk can be level 6, but with 4 levels in Mundane Crafter (Blacksmith). or something like that


Incidentally, Appraise might be able to be invested in from BOTH sides of the equation.

Appraise needs some TLC, mainly to expand it's uses. Not to get too much off topic, but I'd probably rename it something like Analyze and let it have more functions, everything from identifying and understanding magic items to judging the relative power level of another creature. Stuff like that.


Nonmagical stuff is a craft or profession check, and you can get help via aid another and whatnot. We are fairly permissive of the crafts, but the general rule is the more specific the craft/profession the better you will be and the more general the craft/profession is the more things you can try to do. Thus a PC with Craft: Alchemy or Profession: Blacksmith can try all kinds of things but the PC with Craft: Alchemical Grenadelikes or Profession: Armorer is more limited but can make better things within their category.


Magical stuff is broken into broad categories (like Potions/Scrolls, Weapons/Armor, Wand/Rod/Staff, etc). There is one feat, craft magic item, upon taking you select a category of item you become able to make/recharge/break down.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but under the RAW potions are really just magic-spells in a bottle, which makes them something like scrolls, right?
I think I would prefer it if they where entirely chemical in nature, in the sense that they aren't really magic at all, they just mimic magical effects. That's why I had seperated out Alchemy from other crafting Magic.

For specific magic items or things that don't really fit well into any one group (like a magic sword), what about requiring input from two different categories?
If nothing else, it would be one more cap to keep PC's from going nuts with Crafting their own magic items.

So if we kept the part about how anyone with the broad category (Mundane, Weapons & Armor, Magic, etc) what about having something like recipes (or blueprints or formulas or whatever) for crafting specific items? For example, as a weaponsmith you might know how to make Longswords, but if some one asked you to make a Two-bladed sword, even just a Rapier, you might take a penalty. Obviously if you earned more crafting levels you'd learn how to make more things, and/or we can have a research function like a Wizard does with spells.


*spoilered for length*In order to make something you need to use crafting essences as npart of the process, which are more or less enchanted crafting materials used in the items creation. There are two types: Lesser (Used for caster levels and charges) and greater (used for permanent effects). You may still need to spend gp (though a lot less as you usually spend GP getting essences if you don't ave any) and XP (again, far less because its a little rude to make you spend XP to equip your party with neat stuff), and/or gather rare ingredients (The DM may require this for plot or balance purposes).
When you have the materials, spent the time and done all the other things you need to do you make a Craft: Enchanting or Profession: Enchanter check to seal the deal and finish off your magic item, ready for use.

You can also use this feat to break down magic items into essences (though not at a 1:1 ratio) to be used in crafting, which can offset the cost of upgrading your gear.

This way anyone can become a crafter, but needs to use a few feats and skill points to do so.

This definitely sounds like a good idea. How do you determine how many essences need to go into a particular item?

And also, I definitely would like to remove all the XP requirements from specific items; that's one of the things I don't like about the existing system. I'm hoping we can figure out enough alternatives to cap it other ways.

Kane0
2013-04-18, 06:19 PM
This definitely sounds like a good idea. How do you determine how many essences need to go into a particular item?

And also, I definitely would like to remove all the XP requirements from specific items; that's one of the things I don't like about the existing system. I'm hoping we can figure out enough alternatives to cap it other ways.

Usually our group uses these numbers:
-Two lesser essences per caster level
-Two lesser essences per charge (same goes for recharging items)
-One Greater Essence per use/day
-Greater Essences equal to bonus squared (1 for +1 sword, 4 for Cloak of Resistance +2, etc)
- Requires two hours work per Greater Essence used and One hour per 2 lesser essences used.

Also you can convert essences at a ratio of 1 greater into 4 lesser or 5 lesser into 1 greater

So the entire process goes:
1. Acquire mundane item (buy or create via craft: mundane)
2. Acquire GP equal to one quarter item's base price
3. Acquire Essences required (buy, extract, loot, create)
3a. Acquire necessary Spells and/or special Ingredients
4. Acquire suitable location and time
5. Expend resources and make the Craft: Enchanting check.

That way the caps are:
-You need the base item
-You need the feats/skills
-You need the essences/GP
-You need the space/time

Hope this helps.

Debihuman
2013-04-18, 06:37 PM
The cost to craft in the SRD is 1/3rd not 1/4. I see no reason to cheapen it.

eftexar
2013-04-18, 06:48 PM
I think one of the biggest problems with crafting is that it assumes downtown. When it takes weeks to make something a wizard can make with a spell, as a standard action, we have a problem.

Mundanes should be able to craft mundane enhancement bonuses into weapons and armor. We already have magic weapon, so why do the spell casters get all of the fun? And finally, I don't understand why alchemy requires magic. Alchemy was considered a science, more so than magic anyway, and it opens up the possibility of an alchemist character.

I do like Deepbluediver's idea for learning how to make things as rank increases, but I think 'learning' (or limiting craft to downtime) is a bad idea. That's why the wizard is so tremendously broken.

Why not use both crafting and profession for crafting? I'm thinking something like this:

Craft (Weaponsmith) would affect the cost and how long it takes to make any particular weapon like it does now, but cost and time should be divorced of one another.

Meanwhile Profession (Metalsmith) would affect the quality of weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, fencemaking, etc. For every 4 ranks you have you can increase the enhancement bonus by +1. Maybe have mundane versions of enchantments to trade these out for both weapons and other objects.
I would say it could even be used for simple objects and weapons with a DC of 10 or lower without the appropriate crafting rank.

Then half of the time spent crafting should towards rest (assuming the time isn't already decreased). That way players actually have time to craft on any particular day.

Kane0
2013-04-18, 07:16 PM
The cost to craft in the SRD is 1/3rd not 1/4. I see no reason to cheapen it.

If you are responding to my post, it is because we usually also have to buy a few essences and/or other ingredients as well, which depending on how unlucky we are may end up costing more in total both time and GP wise.