[3.P] New Mundane Crafting System (PEACH)

[Keneth]

I've never really liked the rules for Craft skills in 3rd edition (or any other edition for that matter), so here's my take on the thing. I'm still working out the details and I'd love it if anyone can point out any large errors, fallacies, loopholes, etc.

(Note that I eventually plan on typing out a full description of the new Craft skill/system but for now there will only be a list of changes to the existing one.)

First off, the time required to craft an item no longer depends on its value. This was kinda retarded from the get go since making a steel cannonball should take about the same as making a cannonball made of gold, and synthesizing some decent poison shouldn't take months. The new system relies on the DC to craft the item.

How this is gonna work can be demonstrated in a more or less simple manner. For the basis we take a simple sword. Yes, I am aware that forging a sword can take anywhere from a few hours to several weeks. For the sake of the argument, let's say that crafting a sword takes one working day (8 hours). With a DC of 15 this means that all items with the same DC should take about as long to make and this will be the equivalent of one "craft point". (This is an arbitrary part of the whole item. I haven't decided what to call these yet. Suggestions?). This will create some discrepancies which can be remedied later, but for now this is the basis.

Any item with a DC lower than 15 will likewise have 1 craft point required to craft it but this will be justified later. For every point that the DC is higher than 15, the amount of required craft points is also increased by 1, meaning it takes a day longer to craft. This creates a huge discrepancy since one does not need 11 days to craft a tanglefoot bag, but this will also be addressed.

This is the gist of the system but on its own, it's still quite broken. For one, it needs to accommodate high skill checks. For every 5 points that the skill check exceeds the DC of the item, you complete one additional point required to finish the item that day. If there are no more points needed to complete the item, then the time you needed to create the last point (or should it be all points finished that day?) is divided by 2 (these divisors are stacked in the same manner as other multipliers in D&D, so if you exceed the last check by 10, you divide the time by 3, 15 by 4, 20 by 5, etc.) Secondly I haven't addressed what happens if you fail the check. Failing the check works like it did before; If you fail by 4 or less, you make no progress that day. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the materials and you have to pay half of the crafting price again before you can continue working.

So now we can make more simple items in a day. On an average check of 15, you can make 3 wooden spoons or 2 iron pots in day. Not completely realistic but it works... kinda. We can fiddle with this part more later.

Now let's check the other extreme. Increasing the DC also increases the time in days it would take to make the item. If we check armor, the highest DC to make a piece of full plate is 19, which would take 5 days. Ok, so this is not realistic, high quality metal armor could take months to forge in medieval times and lower-protection armor such as a chain shirt would no doubt take a lot more than a day. But this is irrelevant to D&D characters that can't afford such long times crafting mundane items. The protection it provides should reflect the amount of effort put into it. So this works, but it's nowhere near realistic, let's just leave it at that. Next are exotic weapons, with a DC of 18 these would take 4 days to craft but the complexity of its use is not necessarily reflected in the complexity of an exotic weapon's making. I don't see any reason why most of these items should take that much longer to make than your standard weapons, so I would lower their DC to about 16. Similarly I would reduce the DC of composite bows allowing for strength bonus to 16 (or perhaps 15+Str bonus but it still seems excessive). Then there's the many alchemical items like tanglefoot bags and tindertwigs. I can think of no reason why these would have such a high Craft DC, in fact all of the common alchemical items seem like ideal candidates for a DC 15 check. After all, once you know how to make one of these items, it should be relatively routine. But this also got me thinking. How do you know when you've successfully learned how to make an item?

And that brings me to the second use of the Craft skill - the actual learning. I know it's often considered subsumed in the fact that you learn a skill by investing skill points in it and that's fine, I think long downtimes for such things are pointless. I haven quite figured out how to do this part yet but here's the first draft. Before you start making any one item, you need to first make a Craft check with the DC equal to the item's inherent DC +5. If you succeed, you already know how to make this item and you can craft it normally. If you fail this check, then the first time you create an item, you add +5 to the DC (meaning it will also take longer, perhaps this should be lowered to +3 to reduce downtime). If you successfully craft the item for the first time, then you know how to do it from that point on and you can craft it normally.

Masterwork items have their DC raised by 5 and the MW component is no longer completed separately. I don't see anything wrong with this particular change.

What this system change brings: Low-cost mundane items will likely take somewhat longer to make, but high-cost items like some poisons or water clocks won't take forever to make. I foresee problems in cases where Craft checks are supposed to take a huge amount of time, like when building a castle or something. Such problems would likely need to be addressed individually.

Thoughts?

[Straybow]

A sword forged in a single day might be suited for a peasant to carry for the rare need of defense, as much to display the fact that he was armed as to actually use it. No man at arms would trust the cheap thing for battle.

Here is a fascinating link to some historical data (http://whitebard.tripod.com/prices.htm).

Mail, welded and riveted, took roughly 120 man-days for a shirt, 180 for a hauberk, more for a coif and chausses. And, we're talking about medieval 10-12 hour days. Many modern dabblers think making mail is easy. They buy wire, wrap and cut it, and leave the rings butted.

It was very labor intensive in medieval times. One had to start from bar stock, beat and draw the iron into wire, wrap and cut the wire, forge-weld half the rings, peen and punch the ends of the other rings to be riveted during assembly. All of the labor was low skill gruntwork, and the final product was little better than wrought iron because of uneven carbon content.

The same mass of iron could be forged into steel plates in a dozen or so days by a good armorer, to be polished and finished by apprentices in another 60+ man-days. Nowhere near as laborious as mail, and actually cheaper. Similarly for banded armor, it was cheaper than mail.

Europeans used mail because those with the skill to make steel preferred to make weapons. The technology to make plate wider than 4 inches (6 at the most) didn't exist before the mid-15th century.

Game designers don't like to have mail priced higher than banded and plate, but that is the reason why mail all but disappeared and whole armies were outfitted with breastplates in the 16th century.

Note that this is all about common, easily worked iron and steel. Forging exotic metals would be a different matter. Just to work the metal into wire to begin making mail could many times as much effort than for ironworking, and more skill, too. That skill would undoubtedly be better put to more efficient use, unless for game reasons mail was required.

Working exotic materials should be skill that is beyond the player-character. Somebody who spends his or her time out adventuring doesn't have have that skill level or the time to learn, period.

For a basic smithing skill it would take 5-7 years to reach journeyman. Somebody who has spent all their adolescent years training for a character class, even a fighter, hasn't been spending those years learning to be a competent smith. Master smith another 7 years. After master smith it would take years to become proficient in just one exotic material, and more years to master.

Even classes like artificer wouldn't actually do the work, they'd work with the exotic smith.

That's the reason why it costs pounds of gold (many years of unskilled labor) for masterwork crafting, and multiplied times as much for exotic materials.

[Straybow]

PS: The same site shows costs of a relatively small building, 3 floors, 17.5m x 10m, 1.5m thick stone faced walls: 80,000 man-days unskilled labor and 14,000 man-days skilled labor. At a mere 1 sp per man day, tripled for skilled, the labor cost would be 12,200 gp.

[Keneth]

Yes, I am quite well aware that metal armors and buildings realistically took forever to make, which I've pointed out as well. But this is D&D, you can't expect anyone to actually get 4 apprentices and spend 3 months making a suit of chainmail armor. Plus it should be considered that magic is to some degree a part of everyday life, especially in Pathfinder where cantrips are unlimited. It's safe to assume that some tasks could be shortened considerably. And like I said, I'm not looking for realism here, since firstly it's not fun, and secondly it's hard to simulate since D&D can't be placed in a specific time period. The most important question here is: Does it work? I've never once crafted a single mundane item in D&D because the rules don't accommodate the play style of a typical adventurer. With the new system I might be inclined to take up some craft skills besides basketweaving.

And yes, a sword blade forged in one day would not be a masterwork katana, but one day seemed like the best baseline for a standard martial weapon, though this could be easily adjusted by giving them a higher DC in games that strive for more realism.

Buildings, of course, would need completely separate rules. Though I'm not sure how much of it actually falls under Craft and how much of it is Profession.

Thanks for the input, I'll be checking out that site to see if I can't gain some wisdom out of it for further developments.

[DiBastet]

You could try to make it simpler, while still using the same system. Magic item crafting use gp price to determine time. And mundane crafting receives the shaft, because it's not magical.

In my games I don't like magical stuff being just too important, so, +x weapons and armor can only be made with mundane, skill based crafting (using skill rank as caster level for purpose of pre-reqs).

For simplicity's sake, you craft mundane items at the same time / gp ratio as magic items. There are feats for those who want to do it better.

[Deepbluediver]

I agree that the crafting system does need an overhaul. It has a ton of checks in place to prevent every adventure from starting out with the characters taking a month to craft themselves Absolutely-invicible-armor, the Sword-of-infinite-smiting, and about a hundred insta-death scrolls, all before heading off to fight goblins.

Frankly, I think you should just remove the idea of crafting from PC characters, except for minor repairs. If you really want to redo it, rework it to incorperate the profession set of skills as well, cause right now the line between Profession(blacksmithing) and Craft(armor) seems mighty blurry.
Personally, I think there should be an NPC styled "class" called professional (or something) that are the ones who actually make most weapons, armor, and everything except strictly magic items (scroll, etc).

[Keneth]

@DiBastet: That still suffers from the fact that item value of mundane items often has absolutely nothing to do with how long it should take to craft an item. This was the primary reason for the change (besides the general absurdity). Also, while I support magic crafting with actual mundane Craft skills, I don't want to force players to take these skills if they don't want to. In fact, I like the opposite approach, taken by Pathfinder, which allows for non-spellcasters to make magic items with purely mundane skills, while spellcasters can still use Spellcraft to replace all of the mundane craft skills when enchanting items. I do enjoy strict systems but crafting, mundane or otherwise, is already rare enough as it is in D&D. I want to encourage players to actually do some crafting without feeling like they have to sacrifice a huge part of their character builds when they could just buy the stuff.

@Deepbluediver: In one of my previous skill system overhauls, I completely removed all craft and profession skills (among others) except for Blacksmith which was used for crafting magic weapons and armor (later also removed in favor of a simpler magic crafting system). Anyone who wanted to specialize in a specific profession or craft had to take levels in Expert who received bonuses to the chosen occupation at each level (Commoners and Aristocrat also had some limited options). This system worked fine, but we've recently revered back to more traditional D&D gaming (mostly Pathfinder), which is why I'm trying to change the individual skills more seamlessly. It just makes it easier to incorporate new material into campaigns that last for months or even years.

[Deepbluediver]

@Deepbluediver: In one of my previous skill system overhauls, I completely removed all craft and profession skills (among others) except for Blacksmith which was used for crafting magic weapons and armor (later also removed in favor of a simpler magic crafting system). Anyone who wanted to specialize in a specific profession or craft had to take levels in Expert who received bonuses to the chosen occupation at each level (Commoners and Aristocrat also had some limited options). This system worked fine, but we've recently revered back to more traditional D&D gaming (mostly Pathfinder), which is why I'm trying to change the individual skills more seamlessly. It just makes it easier to incorporate new material into campaigns that last for months or even years.

See, now that revised system sounds almost exactly like the kind of thing that I would go for. Rather than having to spend valuable dragon-slaying exp on crafter-levels, I'd probably make an entirely seperate class that didn't advance your BAB, save, spellcasting or anything else, but gave you skill point or bonuses for crafting checks. Depending on what your story was like, if your PCs didn't want to spend "years" of time perfecting their craft, like a normal mundane NPC, they could pay gold to be taught at an accelerated rate (or something).
It's the kind of thing I'd love to get around to designing some day, I've just got to many other projects on my plate atm. If you still have a copy of your revised system drifting around though I'd be happy to give it a read.

[zlefin]

this seems like quite a complicated solution; i'm not sure that much complication is necessary;
If you get a basic list of what you want a modified craft system to fix; i think something simpler and more elegant could be done. It's easiest if you do it in bullet point form of the desired features.
And I agree with the point that working with different materials can substantially affect the amount of time involved.

[DiBastet]

@DiBastet: That still suffers from the fact that item value of mundane items often has absolutely nothing to do with how long it should take to craft an item. This was the primary reason for the change (besides the general absurdity). Also, while I support magic crafting with actual mundane Craft skills, I don't want to force players to take these skills if they don't want to. In fact, I like the opposite approach, taken by Pathfinder, which allows for non-spellcasters to make magic items with purely mundane skills, while spellcasters can still use Spellcraft to replace all of the mundane craft skills when enchanting items. I do enjoy strict systems but crafting, mundane or otherwise, is already rare enough as it is in D&D. I want to encourage players to actually do some crafting without feeling like they have to sacrifice a huge part of their character builds when they could just buy the stuff.

PF is exactly waht I use, except that by definition, instead of having to take a feat to be able to craft magical items with mundane craft skill, you can do it with 10 ranks in the craft (or with the item creation feats at any level, of course).

But good luck with your system.:smallwink:

[Keneth]

@zlefin: Really? It should be no more complicated than the original implementation. Maybe it just seems that way because it's a wall of text instead of a neatly formatted skill description with a table. I'll work on that and add special materials under modifiers in the table to reflect the higher difficulty (and time investment) of the task.

@Deepbluediver: Sadly most of it is not written down, but primarily because it was easy to remember. At each level of Expert, you could choose an occupation (these were the condensed Profession and Craft skills) and you received a +2 bonus (along with a +3 bonus the first time you chose the skill to reflect the training) to any checks regarding that occupation. The class was otherwise identical to the Expert NPC class except its skill points were reduced from 6+Int to 4+Int to reflect this change. Commoners and Aristocrats could also take certain occupations (such as farmer or barrister) but they received these bonuses only once every third and second level after the first respectively (no skill point reduction however).

[Straybow]

I want to encourage players to actually do some crafting without feeling like they have to sacrifice a huge part of their character builds when they could just buy the stuff. Why craft when they can buy it? Why craft if you're not going to model the mundane process, even with a poor model? I'm not following the logic.

[Chaos_Laicosin]

I, too, believe the crafting system needs to be revamped. One major issue is in the materials cost. "Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials." So a 4 lb longsword has a materials cost of 5 gp, a 2b rapier has a materials cost of 6.66 gp, and 4 daggers have a material cost of 1.33 gp... So is everything made of different and very specific materials? Can you not craft a rapier out of longsword metals, or vice versa? Will it explode if you do?

I believe there should be a fixed price for mundane materials. Such as 7 sp for 1 lb of iron, 6sp for 1 lb of bronze, 5 sp for 1 lb of copper, etc. Also, different materials would be easier to work. i.e. Copper could be cold forged (-2 DC), or the softer bronze could be easier to work (-1 DC). Of course, weaker materials would have a lower hardness rating and could be more easily sundered.

Also, I believe there should be a fixed cost for the amount of effort it takes to craft an item. Such as 3 sp/lb for a light, simple weapon; 6 sp/lb for a 1-handed simple weapon; 9 sp/lb for a 2-handed simple weapon; etc.

Further, there should be degrees of weapon working. Much like there is masterwork, there should also be amateurwork and novicework weapons. Say a novice weapon gives -1 attack, and an amateur weapon gives -2 attack and -1 damage. Thus, an amateur weapon might not be straight, balanced, or sharp; and an novice weapon might not be balanced or straight.

I would suggest that a novice have 75% the effort cost and -2 DC of that of a mundane weapon, and an amateur weapon have 50% the effort cost and -4 DC of that of a mundane weapon.

So, an unskilled craftsman (or a master craftsman) could easily produce an inferior product in a single day. For example, cold forging an amateur copper dagger would have a material cost of 5 sp, and an effort cost of 15 cp for daily crafting, and a DC of 8. Say you take the +10 DC for rapid crafting (total DC 18) and roll a 20 on your check. Doing the math... You could make 24 crappy copper daggers and sell each of them for 15 cp profit. So after a full days work you earn 3.6 gp. Miniscule compared to what you would earn adventuring, but outstanding for an amateur crafter.

*note: the monetary values I listed probably have to be adjusted. I am a little bit drunk right now...

[Keneth]

@Straybow: I'm working under the assumption that the players can't buy the items or are inclined not to due to low funds or poor availability. It is meant to be a functional (even if inaccurate) system. To make a comparison, 98% of characters are going to completely ignore the rules for Perform, there's just the occasional bard and the odd fluff-based character. But just because most characters won't use the skill, it doesn't mean that the rules shouldn't be well written and functional.

@Chaos_Laicosin: The prices never made sense if you treat them as "raw materials", which is why I just ignore that part completely. There's no way you'd need 100+ gp worth of leather to produce a masterwork whip. I'm guessing this was merely an attempt to make things simpler and more functional/balanced. Many of the currently listed item prices should still probably updated to make sense but this is currently not part of my project. I have already included the appropriate wording in the rules section I'm currently writing to reflect poor craftsmanship (resulting in a fragile weapon) but I haven't considered weapons that are intentionally crafted of a lower quality. It could be sensible to have at least one such category, thanks for the idea.

Also I am currently working on rules that support assembly of larger works (such as ships) and rewriting rules for Profession (to some degree) to support this development. This part of the system should theoretically also allow for more realistic crafting times of standard items (such as armors) if someone wants to use it in such a manner but I'm not quite satisfied with it yet.

I'll be updating this thread in the near future with a more readable version (but life's been keeping me busy lately).

[Benly]

Regarding realistic crafting times, it's probably best to bear in mind that after a few levels, D&D characters are not realistic about their skills. Breaking the long jump world record is a DC 30 check, which sounds high until you realize you can easily build a level 1 character who'll break that world record once every several tries without needing an 18. A character with 16 strength (most level 1 melee types) can lift and walk around slowly with more weight than the Olympic record for weightlifting.

D&D player characters are the best of the best starting at level 1, and by level 4 or so they're closer to mythic heroes than to ordinary folks. It's perfectly reasonable for their crafting rules to be closer to Ilmarinen or Weyland Smith than actual historical blacksmiths.

[Straybow]

@Benly Re: Str 16 can lift and walk around slowly with more weight than the Olympic record for weightlifting? SRD says can lift overhead 230 lb, world record snatch (lift in one movement) is 216 kilograms, over twice as much.

SRD makes no mention of how the weight is lifted, only that he or she can do it. That might mean once out of several tries, when fresh, and maybe not today. The Str 16 character can lift off ground (not necessarily more than a few inches) and stagger 460 lb (5' for a full-round action). I don't think that means all day long.

Push or drag "as much as" 1060 lb, or twice that in "favorable conditions." Like a smooth item on smooth ice, with the character wearing cleats, perhaps. Heck, I can push my 2000+ lb car for a little ways on level ground, and my strength is probly half as much (16–5 = 11) at best. In bad conditions "half as much, or less" = 2½ x maximum, only a little more than can be lifted off ground. A large man in armor could be at the dragging limit.

If a DM is being generous with those terms, that's on the DM, not on the system.

@Laicosin, and Keneth: don't think of material costs as being only the materials of the finished product. To make iron into steel you need to burn charcoal in a forge. One source (can't remember where) said it took up to 1500 lb of charcoal to turn 1 lb iron ore into finished steel by hand. I find that difficult to believe, as other sources indicate the smith's time is the majority of the cost of production. Perhaps that extreme is for the finest steels requiring far more work than the average production quality.

Now you are also running into another problem: the stupid D&D price list. It hasn't changed that much since the original version with its completely arbitrary costs.

I mean, think about it: pounds of gold for simple weapons that historically cost a few weeks' wages. Gah, don't get me started.

@Keneth: yes, but the perform skill doesn't give "chop sticks" a higher DC than a Chopin concerto...

[Benly]

@Benly Re: Str 16 can lift and walk around slowly with more weight than the Olympic record for weightlifting? SRD says can lift overhead 230 lb, world record snatch (lift in one movement) is 216 kilograms, over twice as much.

SRD makes no mention of how the weight is lifted, only that he or she can do it. That might mean once out of several tries, when fresh, and maybe not today. The Str 16 character can lift off ground (not necessarily more than a few inches) and stagger 460 lb (5' for a full-round action). I don't think that means all day long.


I suppose you couldn't do it all day long if, say, it caused fatigue. Which it doesn't. Or if it caused nonlethal damage for carrying it around that much. Which it doesn't. It doesn't say "you only lift it a few inches, and then you fall down after a few rounds", it says you can lift it off the ground and stagger around slowly with it. To me, that implies something like the chest height carry people get when moving heavy loads.

But it's true that to lift more over your head at level 1 than the strongest weightlifter in the world, you have to spend a feat on it. (Natural Heavyweight from Planar Handbook, which doubles carrying capacity values.) So mea culpa, I guess.

[Straybow]

You have a point. The rules never state that common sense should be applied. Mea culpa. :smalltongue:

[Benly]

You have a point. The rules never state that common sense should be applied. Mea culpa. :smalltongue:

Well? If the DM says that "lift it and stagger around" is only a few inches off the ground and then you pop a hernia after a few rounds, that's DM fiat as much as DM generosity would be. All the rules say is that you can lift it and then move very slowly. That kind of thing also reasonably describes a situation where you've lifted something very heavy to chest height or shoulders.

Yes, you shouldn't be able to walk around with it all day in either case, but a realistic human wouldn't be able to walk around all day in full plate armor either. Again, a level 1 character with 18 strength and one feat invested will outperform the world's top weightlifters, on top of whatever his class abilities are. D&D characters blow through real-world limitations and world records trivially even before magic enters into it.

[Straybow]

Yes, you shouldn't be able to walk around with it all day in either case, but a realistic human wouldn't be able to walk around all day in full plate armor either. Perhaps you've never done heavy labor to know what can be done all day long, without extreme strength. Or to know what it means to be the limit of what you can lift. I would use the real world to interpret the ability score definitions, while a "feat" is where the real world leaves off.

[Benly]

Perhaps you've never done heavy labor to know what can be done all day long, without extreme strength. Or to know what it means to be the limit of what you can lift. I would use the real world to interpret the ability score definitions, while a "feat" is where the real world leaves off.

Have you walked around all day in serious full plate armor?

It's nice that you think the ability scores are limited by the real world while the feats aren't, but it's a houserule interpretation. Bear in mind that even first-level commoners have a feat in D&D (human commoners have two!)

With no feats and no skill points - that is, never having practiced or attempted this before - a human of average endurance (Constitution 10) can hold his breath for two minutes while swimming before he even has to start making rolls in D&D. I invite you to attempt this for yourself and see how your Con measures up. Bear in mind that after this the odds are pretty good of holding on for another few rounds of six seconds each - that's two minutes without any chance of needing to breathe.

[Keneth]

Theoretically it's possible to walk around in full plate armor all day. The weight isn't that much of a problem here but other factors such as heat, awkward movement, etc. would likely result in exhaustion much more quickly than if you were simply carrying around 50 pounds all day. And then of course there actual fighting, which is extremely tiring on its own without any equipment, but anyone in armor would generally need to rest often in order to keep going. But anyway, this is getting somewhat derailed.

@Straybow: Yes, the prices are completely arbitrary. In fact, I've often considered just converting the prices of most of the items into silver pieces or even copper pieces (1:1 ratio), but I could never find the time to undertake a project like that since you'd have to straighten out all the discrepancies.


yes, but the perform skill doesn't give "chop sticks" a higher DC than a Chopin concerto...
I don't get this analogy, what exactly is it aimed at? The armor? I think that's the only place where I've disregarded the complexity of the task completely on account usable functionality.

[Straybow]

Perhaps we should end the threadjack unless Keneth returns...

FYI, I have hiked with a load greater than the 50 lb weight listed for full plate. All day, for three days, in the Smokey Mountains. The swim skill isn't an ability score definition, and if it is poorly written (what? no, can't be!) that would be a different discussion.

Back to the topic, we are discussing mundane crafting. By definition, that should bear some resemblance to mundane reality. YMMV.

[Benly]

Back to the topic, we are discussing mundane crafting. By definition, that should bear some resemblance to mundane reality. YMMV.

For level 1 characters, sure.

But by the level where a character using only skills and "mundane" feats that improve those skills (Skill Focus and Run) can regularly break real-world records for that skill, it seems reasonable that characters using only skills and "mundane" feats should be able to just as well outperform real-world mundane craftsmen. As it happens, that level is around 4-6.

edit: or level 2, depending on how regularly you want "regularly" to be and which skills you're looking at.

[Straybow]

Yes... that would be why I prefer homebrew... d20 is far too cheesy for my taste.

[Keneth]

I think it should bear as much resemblance to reality as possible as long as it's usable by the average character without interfering with normal gameplay. While I do support the notion that a much more accurate simulation would be appropriate in cases where the setting is based entirely on real world historical periods, standard D&D is far from an accurate simulation. Normal D&D settings encompass a large amount of time periods that are crammed together and the whole multiverse is saturated with magic to the point where your average commoner probably wipes his behind with Mage Hand.

Like I said, the goal is to make the system functional. Any correlation to reality is appreciated but not a priority at this point. :smallsmile:

[Straybow]

@Keneth: You must have posted while I was typing... again

yes, but the perform skill doesn't give "chop sticks" a higher DC than a Chopin concerto...

I don't get this analogy, what exactly is it aimed at? The armor? I think that's the only place where I've disregarded the complexity of the task completely on account usable functionality.

Well, yes. Making it easy to craft a wooden ladder, OK. That's a material that is cheap for practice, and the tools are things you might carry around anyway. Making it easy to pick up skill at working steel, not so much. Unless the party wants to go adventuring with a portable forge and anvil...

"I'm not running the bellows for him tonight. You do it."
"No, I gotta study my scrolls now and get to sleep, so I can get up early and memorize spells."
"Yeah, well I just spent half an hour helping him set that thing up, and I'm the one who'll have to load it in the wagon in the morning."
"What about the rogue?"
"He's gathering more firewood. The danged forge burns it up as fast as the halfling can bring it in."