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Thread: Why do mundane crafters exist?
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2018-04-11, 10:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Why do mundane crafters exist?
I'm coming at this from a Pathfinder perspective, but the question applies to d20 in general. When someone can just cast fabricate and masterwork transformation, why are there still village blacksmiths? How do you justify that mess?
Relevant comic for reference.
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2018-04-11, 10:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
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2018-04-11, 10:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-11, 10:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
They don't. Any proper setting is a post-scarcity utopia powered by millenia of accumulated magic items which make mundane crafters irrelevant. Either that or spellcasters are too rare/unreliable/busy to spend their lives crafting mundane stuff, and therefore most things are still made my old dwarves who're bitter about their "greatest work" occasionally being equaled and mass-produced by a High Elf archwizard with Fabricate and very high Int.
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2018-04-11, 11:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Especially from a Pathfinder perspective, mundane crafting still has its uses. You'll never get an evil magic armor as cool as the one enchanted with Profession (midwife).
Spoiler: BABY ARMOR!!!
Imagine something like this, except it's a full plate and one hundred times creepier.Extended signature here. Contains: 2 avatars, 3 quotes, a doggo and his friends.
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2018-04-11, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-11, 03:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Most craft skills (Blacksmithing in particular) confer a little-known bonus on people who use them regularly: they have a small but non-zero chance of being the adoptive or biological parent of their country's next ruler, the Chosen One of prophecy, or a hero in general. There's another roll after the hero is born to determine if they have a Tragic Backstory. If the parent survives that, they're almost guaranteed to have a pretty luxurious retirement.
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2018-04-11, 03:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Emphasis added.
I mean, if you have the xp and the int score... why not?Last edited by Gullintanni; 2018-04-11 at 03:09 PM.
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2018-04-11, 03:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2018-04-11, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
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2018-04-11, 03:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-11, 03:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2018-04-11, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
To expand on this: The time and attention of a caster capable of using Fabricate is expensive. Sure, it gets you your item now, but you have to compensate that caster for his spell and you still have to cover the cost of the material he's going to Fabricate for you. Plus find the one who bothered to invest in Craft skills so he can make your fancy item, or also pay him for the spells he will have to know and cast in order to give himeslf the needed Craft check. So it's a tradeoff between money and time, and most people in the world will have significantly more time than they do money. Add to that the fact that most regular items just don't take long enough to make to justify paying the premium for an instant Fabricate and there should still be a justifiable niche for mundane craftspersons.
(Having some items that require magically-enhanced crafting to make could justify their otherwise absurd costs, however - things like Full Plate or spyglasses may be primarily produced by craftwizards, because nobody sensible wants to spend the best part of a year making Full Plate by the normal rules, and perhaps it needs magic to make a good enough lense for a spyglass because mundane technology hasn't figured out how to create and grind glass that clear and even yet.)
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2018-04-11, 04:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Pretty much what everyone else has said. Magic - though common to players - is generally supposed to be considered rare. Players commonly have magic because - you guessed it - they are uncommon people. NPC classes demonstrate this fairly well when you consider the fact that the only casting one is the Adept, and they get minor creation as a 4th level spell (at level 12!).
Also I want to note that the author of that comic doesn't know what an anniversary is.
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2018-04-11, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Studies are finding that we are teaching math in the wrong order, and that's what is making it so difficult to learn:
5-year-olds can learn calculus
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2018-04-11, 04:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
I am not seaweed. That's a B.
Praise I've received A quick outline on building a homebrew campaign
Avatar by Tiffanie Lirle
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2018-04-11, 04:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
While the author of the article clearly did not understand what they were writing about, I've reviewed some of the natural math, and it does, in fact, involve concepts of calculus. While the children may not be aware of that fact (and clearly the author of the article would not understand it), a mathematician would. And that's all I'm going to say on that topic.
Mundane crafters are fun!
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2018-04-11, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-11, 07:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Population figures, and it's not less expensive if you go with the listed costs for things to hire crafting and casting.
Fabricate is "Level sorcerer/wizard 5; Domain artifice 5; Elemental School void 5, wood 5". Masterwork Transformation is bard 2, cleric 2, druid 2, sorcerer/wizard 2, witch 2.
So Sorcerers, Wizards, some Clerics, and certain classes that can draw from those lists can have both spells (not necessarily will). Fabricate dominates on the restrictions, so I'm looking for a Sorcerer-10+, Wizard-9+, or Cleric-9+.
Take a Town Generator (Based on the D&D DMG tables, but they're similar enough). I'm picking... "Small Town" and leaving the rest as "any". That resulted in This.
Cleric... capped at 5th. Wizard... capped at 4th. Sorcerer also capped at 4th. This "Small Town" is incapable of that trick.
What about This Large Town? Rolled a Magical Theocracy, so should be pretty magical, right? 2,922 people. Cleric... stopped at 6th. Wizard stopped at 4th. Sorcerer at 7th.
What about This small city? Cleric-7, Wizard-9!, Sorcerer-9. There is *one* person in this town who can finally cast Fabricate... once a day, twice if a specialist in Transmutation... maybe a 3rd time, as it's feasible for a Pathfinder Wizard-9 to have a 20 Int with the elite array (15 base, +2 racial, +2 level up, and a +2 or better headband). The population? 5,416.
... and he may not have taken ranks in Craft. That's fine... Crafter's Fortune plus his Int could get him to the DC 19 for Full Plate, and he can cast Masterwork Transformation on that to not need to get a 20 on the check.
However... he's not going to underbid the armorsmith!
A basic Dwarf Expert-1 with Skill Focus(Craft (Armorsmithing)), a masterwork tool, and a rank in Craft(Armorsmithing) only has a +11 modifier (+2 racial, +2 masterwork tool, +3 Skill Focus, +1 rank, +3 class), and will take ... 1500 * 10 / (21*19) + 150 * 10 / (21 * 20) = 41 weeks to make a suit of full plate. But that's one trained hireling at 3 sp/day. Maybe 5, as he's very specialized. 41 weeks is 287 days is 1,435 silvers. Or 143.5 gp. His materials costs 550 gp. So that's 693.5 gp to pay him to do it (although you may also need to provide room and board to get those rates) (a non-dwarf would want a similarly-built helper to get the same modifier).
The Wizard? A 5th level spell slot at caster level 9 markets at 9*10*5 gp = 450 gp, and he'll also need 500 gp in materials for the suit itself, plus 150 gp materials (and 2* 9 * 10 gp = 180 gp for the spell slot) for masterwork transformation, plus 1 * 9 * 10 = 90 gp for Crafter's Fortune. The Wizard is thus charging 450+500+150+180+90=1,370 gp for that same suit of masterwork full plate.
When I use listed rates for the necessary spells and components vs. listed rates for the labor for the dwarf... the Wizard-9 isn't underbidding the Dwarf. AND the wizard is much harder to find. Your basic Thorpe is liable to have at least one Expert running around.Last edited by Jack_Simth; 2018-04-11 at 07:58 PM.
Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
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2018-04-11, 08:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-12, 01:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Wizards are rare, experts are plentiful. Actually for any large scale problem you'll find that you can cast a spell and do 0.1% of it, or you can hire 100 commoners or experts for adventurer pocket change and do the whole thing. A tactic PCs should probably employ a lot more often.
Last edited by ericgrau; 2018-04-12 at 01:21 AM.
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2018-04-12, 01:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-04-12, 07:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Thanks. Some addendums:
The dwarf expert-1's labor charge is based on time. The Wizard-9's labor charge is mostly fixed. This means that for cheaper goods, it favors the Expert; for more expensive goods, it eventually favors the wizard (DC 20 goods valued at 8,640 gp is the break-even for that skill check DC).
Take a Masterwork Artisan's Tools (50 gp). The dwarf makes 420 sp/week progress on the masterwork component (which is basically all of it - 48 gp); he needs a week and a day to finish off the Masterwork component, and call it another day for the regular component. 9 days of his 5 sp/day is just 4.5 gp for his labor (plus materials). The Wizard is charging 720 gp for his labor component (and his materials are higher - Masterwork Transformation uses the full price difference, not the crafting difference). It's a no-brainer to go with the Expert-1 if you've got the time (and if you don't, it's cheaper to buy it off the shelf for full market price from a merchant that stocks them).
That also means that there is a break even point. At 5 sp/day, +11 / taking 10 vs. DC 20, the Expert's labor is 3.5 gp (35 silver for 7 day's work - one week) for every 42 gp worth of progress (21*20 = 420 sp). The Wizard is charging a flat 720 gp labor. Thus, the Wizard's labor is less than the expert's if the expert would need 205.714285714... weeks or more (720 gp / 3.5 gp per week = 205.714285714... weeks, but close enough for this). 205.714285714... * 42 gp = 8,640 gp. So if you're buying things made out of the higher-end special materials (Medium or heavier Adamantium Armor, Heavy Dreamstone armor, any Geranite armor, Heavy armor Glasssteel, Horacalcum armor, Heavy Mithral armor, et cetera), it makes sense to hire the Wizard. A lot of the golem bodies likewise. For the super-majority of mundane goods, however: Get an expert.Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
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2018-04-12, 09:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
The answer is ludonarrative dissonance, nothing more nothing less. For myself, I prefer to come up with reasons why the status quo might logically exist, than to try and poke holes in the setting (see quote in my sig). The two most plausible reasons for me are:
1) We have incomplete information (e.g. magic is, in-universe, harder to learn than the game rules make it look.) This is borne out by the fact that spellcasters remain a clear minority (EDIT: See Jack_Smith's statistics above for support) despite magic's many obvious advantages. Thus, mundane crafters exist because relatively few people are able to become wizards, resulting in insufficient wizards to meet the world's demand.)
2) There is some larger force or faction enforcing the quasi-medieval status quo despite magic's presence (i.e."a god did it.") Whether it's the blacksmith god who just wants there to still be blacksmiths, or the goddess of entropy ensuring that there are just as many magical ways to ruin crafted goods (e.g. rust monsters and acid rain) as there are ways to magically make more, or the god/goddess of magic enforcing limits on what can be crafted that way, etc.
It could even be both - magic could be hard AND revolutionizing industry magically may be stymied.
I will say there's nothing wrong with poking holes and coming up with a new setting that theorizes what a world where magic replaces industry would look like. You can get some interesting results from it (e.g. Tippyverse). My issue is that those settings almost invariably end up interesting primarily as places to just talk about, rather than actually go on adventures and roleplay in. In Tippy's setting for instance, there's no scarcity and no wars. A utopian ideal, absolutely, but think how many archetypical fantasy stories those 5 words alone just eliminated.Last edited by Psyren; 2018-04-12 at 09:06 AM.
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2018-04-12, 09:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
I alwas considered the cost of having a spell cast to be ludicrous; 450 gp for a single casting of a 5th level spell that costs the wizard absolutely nothing. It was made to discourage adventurers to buy spells, but I figure in a realistic economy most spellcasters would sell spells at a fraction of that price, as it is great pay for minimal effort.
Anyway, a wizard is also unlikely to be specialized in crafting as much as the best crafter. So the best crafter can still do some stuff that the wizard is incapable of replicating. That's another niche for crafter utility.
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2018-04-12, 09:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Compare to Speaking Fees for Former Presidents or Neurosurgeon Salaries. What does an office visit cost a doctor? "The average price of a new uninsured patient appointment was quoted as $160". If Earth is a dead-magic E6 world, and a standard doctor is equivalent to a 3rd level Cleric in terms of pay scale, that fifteen to twenty minute appointment is equivalent of hiring a 1st level spell from such a character (as a 3rd level NPC cleric will usually only be able to cast three-ish spells per day of 2nd level, but the doctor will see several patients in that timeframe... so much closer to the Cleric spending 1st level slots).
Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
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2018-04-12, 10:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
because only player characters level up every other week.
For most people, becoming a wizard, or a great craftsman is a lifetime commitment.
Fabricating really good stuff requires both.
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2018-04-12, 10:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
Oooh, also: It's not just the Expert NPC class that gets Craft. The Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, and Warrior also have it in-class. A Random Thorpe with a population of 46 had 2 warrior 1's, 41 commoner-1's, and 2 expert 1's (plus a level 2 bard). Any (or all) of those could potentially have a rank in Craft, get the Class Skill bonus, get Skill Focus and a masterwork artisan's tools appropriate to their trade.
Of course, by the time I finish this post, it will already be obsolete. C'est la vie.
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2018-04-12, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
You may not like tippy's setting, but there is still scarcity and there are still wars. They are largely relegated to the wildlands between large cities, but they still exist, as does the ability to rp and play the game. He doesn't just sit around talking about his setting with his group, he plays the game like the rest of us do.
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2018-04-12, 11:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why do mundane crafters exist?
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