[3.5] Mundane Item Crafting Times?

[Unusual Muse]

I've never really done much with the Craft skill, but now that I'm looking into it I feel like I'm missing something, and the crafting times seem ridiculously long.

Case in point: Mithral Full Plate:
Craft check DC = 18 (10+armor bonus)
Cost of Raw Materials: 3,500 gp (one-third of item value of 10,500 gp)
value in sp = 105,000

Now, let's assume you have a really high Craft skill that gives you an average check result of 40:

Average check result (40) times DC (18) = 720

Value in sp (105,000) divided by [check result x DC] (720) = weeks to create (145.8), or 2.8 years to make a suit of non-magical Mithral Full Plate.

Is any player character really going to sit out of their campaign for almost 3 years to make this? Or are my calculations off?

[ArcturusV]

Calculations are right. And this is because, well, there's the presumption that player crafting isn't supposed to be a common thing. Though depending on campaign structure there can always be interludes. I've run plenty of campaigns that had a "... and after your last adventure you have 5 years of relatively quiet times before..." During which things like that tend to happen. Along with access to PrCs which have requirements like "Be an initiate to some order..." or the like.

[qwertyu63]

I've never really done much with the Craft skill, but now that I'm looking into it I feel like I'm missing something, and the crafting times seem ridiculously long.

Case in point: Mithral Full Plate:
Craft check DC = 18 (10+armor bonus)
Cost of Raw Materials: 3,500 gp (one-third of item value of 10,500 gp)
value in sp = 105,000

Now, let's assume you have a really high Craft skill that gives you an average check result of 40:

Average check result (40) times DC (18) = 720

Value in sp (105,000) divided by [check result x DC] (720) = weeks to create (145.8), or 2.8 years to make a suit of non-magical Mithral Full Plate.

Is any player character really going to sit out of their campaign for almost 3 years to make this? Or are my calculations off?

Remember, you can add 10 to the DC, if you wish. So:
Check 40 times DC 28= 1120
Value in sp (105,000) divided by [check result x DC] (1120) = weeks to create (93.75), which brings it down to... 1.8 years...

But we can do better! With the epic skill rules (which you can use pre-epic, if you can reach the DC's), you can add that +10 as many times as you want. So:
Check 40 times DC 38= 1520
Value in sp (105,000) divided by [check result x DC] (1520) = weeks to create (69.08), which brings it down to... 1.3 years...

Yeah, crafting is still slow.

[Bakkan]

Also, a set of Mithril Full Plate costs more than most small communities have as a whole. That's close to being the most expensive mundane item you could create. In a low-magic setting, it's the sort of thing that small wars might be fought over, and in any setting, it would be an heirloom that would bring prestige and honor to whatever family owned it. I honestly don't think 3 years is an unreasonable amount of time for it to take to make.

[Gildedragon]

Crafting is very slow. Which is why spells like 'Fabricate' exist. That's a way to get around the slow slow crafting times.

[elonin]

If I have understood the crafting text a suite of regular platemail costing 1,500 gp would take 9.8 weeks which is about how long it would take in real life presuming the ability to consistently hit a dc of 40 and increase the dc by 20 to 38. Also, I'm not sure how laborers work but if they are basically adding the aid another bonus that would speed the production a bit.

[Chilingsworth]

If you happened to have a team of three master crafters (even better with attendant assistants to give aid other bonuses), you could work in three 8 hour shifts, dividing the time by three.

If you were a tireless race like a warforged, you might be able to do the three shifts yourself. But I'm not sure why a warforged PC would be crafting mithril fullplate.

[Zeb]

Don't forget to add the extra time for the masterwork component.

[ButtSoup]

I've come across this same issue. My DM at the time let me spend the gold for building material as per mitheral cost, but the craft price was treated as normal full plate. It was still time consuming, but reasonable.

[Pandiano]

The crafting times are ridiculously long. A chef can't create a banquet for one person in time until the food has gone bad.
If you plan to get into crafting ask your DM about the crafting point system from UA.

[Last Laugh]

The crafting times are ridiculously long. A chef can't create a banquet for one person in time until the food has gone bad.
If you plan to get into crafting ask your DM about the crafting point system from UA.

I think there is some good support of it in this thread, the problem might be that it takes less time to make a banquet than it does to make a suit of armor, and they shouldn't be held to the same standard.

But there are a great many craft skills and it would take a while to make individualized tables/skill mechanics. (However assigning a difficulty value to a list of example things to create, and then factoring that difficulty value into the DC could work. If you gave something like 1 example for 6 or so categories, for each difficulty value, and players/dms can determine the general time to construct.)

[Alienist]

Also, you got the DC wrong. It's not 18 to make mithral fullplate.

[Artillery]

No masterwork is considered a separate cost for crafting, not increasing the overall check. So 10350GP at DC 18 and 150GP at DC 20.

[Alienist]

No masterwork is considered a separate cost for crafting, not increasing the overall check. So 10350GP at DC 18 and 150GP at DC 20.

Close, but completely wrong.

[Artillery]

How so? I fail to see how the DC for it isn't 18.

The armorsmith craft check for a piece of armor is 10+AC. Full plate has +8 AC.
Mithral Full plate cost 10500GP. Being Mithral has no impact on the DC for crafting, just the time.
Full Plate armor is always masterwork. Masterwork armor cost 150GP and has a DC20 armor smith craft check.

[Zack Reever]

Full plate isn't automatically masterwork, however Mithral is automatically masterwork which means you would make that portion of the armor as if it's masterwork with the higher craft DC.

And cooking is covered in Profession(cook) not craft. Which is why you guys are taking too long preparing that meal...

[Alienist]

Full plate isn't automatically masterwork, however Mithral is automatically masterwork which means you would make that portion of the armor as if it's masterwork with the higher craft DC.

And cooking is covered in Profession(cook) not craft. Which is why you guys are taking too long preparing that meal...

Exactly. At least 90000sp of that crafting effort is done at a DC of 20.

Ironically, because the DC is higher, that means you actually finish it slightly faster.