Real Craftsmen Don't Take Ranks In Craft

[ILM]

I use a houserule (which still doesn't get much use - that's how much mundane crafting sucks) to accelerate crafting:
Instead of multiplying your check result by the DC to obtain the silver piece progression (or gold piece progression for certain exceptions, like poisons) of your work over a week, use the following formula: double your check result and subtract the DC, then multiply by 100 sp (or gp, as the case may be). This deactivates the Quick Creation option in Complete Adventurer.


Also, builds: Necropolitan Cloistered Cleric 1 (Craft and Artifice domains)/ Factotum 3. Feats: Master of Poisons, Skill Focus, Poison Expert (CS), Lolth's Caress (DotU) - the last two are actually optional if you don't use flaws.
With a starting Int of 18 and 7 ranks in the skill, +1 from the Specialized trait, +2 from a masterwork item, +3 from Skill Focus and +4 from the Artifice domain, you're already at +21. As a Factotum, you can mimic one spell as an SLA, which will be Magecraft (+5). Finally, add on a wand of Divine Insight (or take two more Cleric levels) and you get another +8. You're a Factotum so burn another inspiration point on Cunning Knowledge (+3). There, +37. If you take 10, you can create any poison ever published by WotC in 3.5.

[LudicSavant]

Murderhobos aren't supposed to have job skills. That's why they are murderhobos.

As for the idea that a wizard is going to spend his time making armor... srsly? He doesn't have something better to do with his time? Not that he's selling his spells; sure, you can get that price for a spell, but that doesn't mean you can sell every spell-slot every day. Since those prices are out of most people's leagues (and even adventurers balk at paying them), there is no market for those services, other than the occasional buyer.

I agree that the economic system of D&D has some holes, but it's not actually that bad if you apply a little nuance.

If by nuance, you mean houserules and a gentleman's agreement, then sure. But a gentleman's agreement not to try to make as much money as you can by exploiting the heck out of people really undermines the game of Recettear ;)

[ace rooster]

If by nuance, you mean houserules and a gentleman's agreement, then sure. But a gentleman's agreement not to try to make as much money as you can by exploiting the heck out of people really undermines the game of Recettear ;)

The economic rules are a very sketchy skeleton of a system. The gentleman's agreement is required because the alternative is that the DM has to find or come up with economics rules that are much more fleshed out, and might not permit you to do what you want (or permit NPC experts to do it better, see my feats for experts homebrew). It is a bit like suddenly deciding that the party needs to visit that underwater kingdom that the DM mentioned once as fluff, because you heard there was profit to be had there. This forces the DM to build the underwater kingdom, rather than just having a sketch. If you get there and discover that there is no profit to be had and then headed back that is a huge waste of effort on the DM's part.

Another way of thinking about it is what I call 'rule focus'. The rules are designed with PCs in combat situations in mind, so when dealing with these situations the rules are clearest. Outside of this focal area situations are out of focus, and the rules are crude, simple, and lacking in nuance. Generally the further you are from the focal area the more distorted the rules become, becoming a crude general guide for DMs making rulings on specific situations. The gentleman's agreement is that the players avoid moving too far outside the rules focal area, in the same way that they agree to stay roughly in the setting focal area. Violating either of these requires the DM to refocus the game, which can be a huge amount of work.

[Deophaun]

I thought the purpose of Craft skills was to have something for unseen crafter to plug into.

[Deadline]

Real Craftsmen Don't Take Ranks In Craft

They cast Fabricate.

Craft(Int) is for:

1. Simulating mundane crafting.
2. Feat or Prestige Class prerequisites.
3. Warforged, so they can heal themselves mundanely.

It's probably worth noting that we did have a Junkyard Wars competition that centered around the Profession Skill. That skill has even fewer (very specialized) uses or areas for optimization.

[nedz]

I once played in a game where someone put 5 ranks into Profession(Diplomat) — you can see where this is going, right ?

[Flickerdart]

I once played in a game where someone put 5 ranks into Profession(Diplomat) — you can see where this is going, right ?

We had a thread some time ago where some guy tried to pass off "Profession (Lockpicker)" ranks as Open Lock ranks. Unfortunately, Profession has nothing to do with how good you are at your job, only how much money you make doing it.

[Vhaidara]

We had a thread some time ago where some guy tried to pass off "Profession (Lockpicker)" ranks as Open Lock ranks. Unfortunately, Profession has nothing to do with how good you are at your job, only how much money you make doing it.

I was momentarily in a campaign with someone who had ranks in Profession (Warmage)

[LudicSavant]

The sad part is that those examples probably aren't even any more useless than usual.

[Coidzor]

I once played in a game where someone put 5 ranks into Profession(Diplomat) — you can see where this is going, right ?

They wanted to try to finagle more synergy bonuses for Sense Motive and Diplomacy, along with maybe Bluff and Intimidate?

Or were they somehow trying to be a Diplomancer without any of the appropriate Diplomancer classes?

It makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose, to have Profession(X) skills give a synergy bonus to X-related skills(like Profession Sailor and Use Rope, say, or Craft: goldsmithing and appraising gold art objects and the like) though it would wildly unbalance Profession as certain professions would give more synergy bonuses than others.

If you were going to allow Profession/Craft to provide synergies, you'd probably need to limit synergy bonuses to come from only one of the potential Craft, Perform, or Profession skills to any other skill, though, to prevent someone from getting +4 synergy from 10 ranks in Craft: Locks and Professoin: Locksmith/Safe-Cracker/whatever, though the cost would be fairly prohibitive for anything that wasn't, say, UMD/UPD or Diplomancy using Diplomacy/Perform*. Maybe extend that to Knowledge skills as well.

*Or at least, those are the most disruptive skills that come to mind if someone can really pump them like that by setting other skillpoints on fire. I suppose being able to train bigger and badder beasties with Handle Animal might also be a concern, though Bubs can already manage Battle Titans as is.

If by nuance, you mean houserules and a gentleman's agreement, then sure. But a gentleman's agreement not to try to make as much money as you can by exploiting the heck out of people really undermines the game of Recettear ;)

Yeah, to play Recettear in d20 you'd probably have to create your own economics and business system, rather than being able to just adapt what currently exists out there to one's purposes. The end result of that would either be coming up with one's own d20 system in and of itself or creating a significant set of supplemental rules that one might be able to get some beer money for by marketing it to Pathfinder and 3.P players, maybe.

Which, I admit, having some really good business and organization rules would be nice.

[LudicSavant]

Yeah, to play Recettear in d20 you'd probably have to create your own economics and business system, rather than being able to just adapt what currently exists out there to one's purposes. The end result of that would either be coming up with one's own d20 system in and of itself or creating a significant set of supplemental rules that one might be able to get some beer money for by marketing it to Pathfinder and 3.P players, maybe.

Which, I admit, having some really good business and organization rules would be nice.

Hey man, if you ever find a good version of Logistics and Dragons, you let me know ;)

[nedz]

They wanted to try to finagle more synergy bonuses for Sense Motive and Diplomacy, along with maybe Bluff and Intimidate?

Or were they somehow trying to be a Diplomancer without any of the appropriate Diplomancer classes?

Circumstance is the word you are looking for.

[Milo v3]

Circumstance is the word you are looking for.

No, synergy sounds like what he meant. Where if you possess 5 or more ranks in an associated skill you get a bonus to the skill your making, though as far as I'm aware the list of synergies is rather minimal.

[Coidzor]

Circumstance is the word you are looking for.

No, synergy sounds like what he meant. Where if you possess 5 or more ranks in an associated skill you get a bonus to the skill your making, though as far as I'm aware the list of synergies is rather minimal.

Yeah, if it had been any number other than 5 I wouldn't have mentally jumped straight to skill synergies, I think.

I guess technically skill synergies give an untyped bonus rather than having their own bonus type though.

So was it for the skill synergy or were they trying to use Profession(Diplomat) to let them consolidate Sense Motive and Diplomacy or just have Diplomacy key off of their Wisdom score instead of Charisma?