[3.PF]Crafting Times

[Mr. Zolrane]

So, I realized something recently: either my DM last spring was unaware, or was actively houseruling the time it takes to craft something (usually just armor or weapons in our case). He let us make three things per crafting skill we knew, per session. How much game time went by in a session varied, but it was rarely more than a few days. By RAW, it takes a bloody week to make full plate. Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts? Who has that kind of downtime? Or am I just stupid and reading this all wrong? What rules do you guys use?

[DaedalusMkV]

By RAW, it takes a bloody week to make full plate. Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts? Who has that kind of downtime? Or am I just stupid and reading this all wrong? What rules do you guys use?

What, do you have a Craft skill modifier of 120? Assuming a Craft modifier of +15, which is itself a pretty high number, it takes somewhere in the realm of six months to make a set of full plate. Yes, the craft times by the RAW crafting rules are ludicrous (That +5 Masterwork Greatsword? It likely took the (6th level with a Skill Focus and 5 assistants) smith 25 days to make it, and some luckless 10-12th level Caster chanted spells over it for most of a month.), especially for Heavy armour. Full Plate was a difficult to make, expensive commodity, it's true, but it did not take a superhumanly skilled armourer with 5 assistants more than 20 weeks to make a set, any more than it took your basic village blacksmith two weeks to make a 10-foot length of chain. When I DM I change all of the Craft skills to daily checks rather than weekly checks, which makes everything make a lot more sense.

My favorite skill for this is gemcutting. Why yes, it certainly does take six weeks to cut a decently valuable diamond!

[jmelesky]

Who has that kind of downtime?

People for whom making magic items is a livelihood instead of a hobby?

[Mr. Zolrane]

What, do you have a Craft skill modifier of 120? Assuming a Craft modifier of +15, which is itself a pretty high number, it takes somewhere in the realm of six months to make a set of full plate. Yes, the craft times by the RAW crafting rules are ludicrous (That +5 Masterwork Greatsword? It likely took the (6th level with a Skill Focus and 5 assistants) smith 25 days to make it, and some luckless 10-12th level Caster chanted spells over it for most of a month.), especially for Heavy armour. Full Plate was a difficult to make, expensive commodity, it's true, but it did not take a superhumanly skilled armourer with 5 assistants more than 20 weeks to make a set, any more than it took your basic village blacksmith two weeks to make a 10-foot length of chain. When I DM I change all of the Craft skills to daily checks rather than weekly checks, which makes everything make a lot more sense.

My favorite skill for this is gemcutting. Why yes, it certainly does take six weeks to cut a decently valuable diamond!

I'm aware of the historical difficulty of making such things. In Real Life anyway. In Real Life, dwarfism is a disorder and gnomes are garden ornaments. But yeah, a daily check sounds a lot more reasonable.


People for whom making magic items is a livelihood instead of a hobby?

I can see that. Still, it makes it difficult for a PC to use it as a practical means of income, when you've run out of sentient creatures to kill and rob for the moment.

[Luckmann]

I can see that. Still, it makes it difficult for a PC to use it as a practical means of income, when you've run out of sentient creatures to kill and rob for the moment.Well that's just it. It's not meant to be your primary source of income. Having the opportunity and time to make a suit of fullplate, at least in my mind, is something that could have a regular smith set for months, in terms of income.

Did you know that adjusting for income and living conditions, a basic longsword was worth about the same as a new car, during the viking age? That's why most people only had axes. To afford chain- or splint-mail was an extravagance. Full plate was virtually unheard of, for good reason.

There's a reason only later nobles became knights. They were the only ones that could afford the gear.

The making of a fullplate or any smithing, really, should be a premeditated action. A week's planned downtime isn't that much, all things considered, especially if you consider that you've likely just spent weeks or months in the wilderness or "on the road" (bar teleportation, your options are basically "walking" or "horseback"). A weeks downtime at random, though, yeah, that's odd.

But again, a fullplate really shouldn't be the thing you go "Hey, we've got some downtime at this inn at the roadside. Let's make fullplate!" over. Smithing is not knitting. :smalltongue:


What, do you have a Craft skill modifier of 120? Assuming a Craft modifier of +15, which is itself a pretty high number, it takes somewhere in the realm of six months to make a set of full plate. Yes, the craft times by the RAW crafting rules are ludicrous (That +5 Masterwork Greatsword? It likely took the (6th level with a Skill Focus and 5 assistants) smith 25 days to make it, and some luckless 10-12th level Caster chanted spells over it for most of a month.), especially for Heavy armour. Full Plate was a difficult to make, expensive commodity, it's true, but it did not take a superhumanly skilled armourer with 5 assistants more than 20 weeks to make a set, any more than it took your basic village blacksmith two weeks to make a 10-foot length of chain. When I DM I change all of the Craft skills to daily checks rather than weekly checks, which makes everything make a lot more sense.

My favorite skill for this is gemcutting. Why yes, it certainly does take six weeks to cut a decently valuable diamond!This, however, is utterly ridiculous. :smallbiggrin: