Downtime

[Grayson01]

Okay I like the addition of the downtime mechanic. The training option to learn a new language or tool use is pretty cool and a muh better improvement then having to spend skill points in 3.5, 250 days is a little steap but makes sense. How ever does anyone else think that having to spend almost a year, 10 months give or take, to craft one set of Plate Armor is ridiculous?

[Lord Vukodlak]

Okay I like the addition of the downtime mechanic. The training option to learn a new language or tool use is pretty cool and a muh better improvement then having to spend skill points in 3.5, 250 days is a little steep but makes sense. How ever does anyone else think that having to spend almost a year, 10 months give or take, to craft one set of Plate Armor is ridiculous?

Aside from adding ten or twenty to the craft DC to speed up crafting time you should keep in mind that in RL a suit of full platemail wasn't made by a single smith but by several, and even then it took months. Doing things the mundane way takes time. You want speed cast fabricate or get a truly epic skill check.

[Grayson01]

keep in mind that in RL a suit of full platemail wasn't made by a single smith but by several, and even then it took months.

Yeah buddy that's not true, " The commonly encountered myth that "it took years to make a single mail shirt" accordingly is nonsense (which is not to deny, however, that mail making was an extremely labor-intensive occupation)."

*The Metropolitan museum of Art

[Greenish]

Yeah buddy that's not true, " The commonly encountered myth that "it took years to make a single mail shirt" accordingly is nonsense (which is not to deny, however, that mail making was an extremely labor-intensive occupation)."

*The Metropolitan museum of ArtThey're not talking about plate, though, but (chain) mail.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Yeah buddy that's not true, " The commonly encountered myth that "it took years to make a single mail shirt" accordingly is nonsense (which is not to deny, however, that mail making was an extremely labor-intensive occupation)."

*The Metropolitan museum of Art

As Greenish said we're talking about plate mail not chain mail, additionally we are talking about MONTHS not years. So while your quote is nice its not really that relevant furthermore you completely ignore the rest of the article which points out that armor was made by whole teams of smiths, not one guy which is what the crafting rules assume.
If you divide the cost between six armor smiths, they could make it in eight weeks or less depending on the skill of the individual armor smiths. This assumes five guys making DC 18 checks and one guy who can make DC 25 for the masterwork quality. The lesser smiths take home 180gp each and the one who made the masterwork check takes home 200gp For non-adventurers that's a pretty good living.

[Coidzor]

Okay I like the addition of the downtime mechanic. The training option to learn a new language or tool use is pretty cool and a muh better improvement then having to spend skill points in 3.5, 250 days is a little steap but makes sense. How ever does anyone else think that having to spend almost a year, 10 months give or take, to craft one set of Plate Armor is ridiculous?

Yes, but I was mostly looking at it in terms of the vanilla crafting system taking too damn long and how to revamp that to make it better, other than just start at crafting in gp or having its value scale based on ranks invested or completely throwing out the crafting system and putting a new one in its place.

You may find some of the suggestions interesting, even though they've nothing to do with the Downtime system. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?366929-How-long-*should*-crafting-take)

[ramrod]

Although the quote below does not take into account living in a magical realm where certain shortcuts would no doubt speed up the process (although it could be argued though that modern smiths would have access to far superior equipment and fixings anyway) it gives an idea of time required.

The quote is discussing full field plate which may or may not be relevant. Suffice to say field plate is significantly more intensive than a breastplate/helmet/gauntlets etc as field plate has to mechanically mesh together and be a much more accurate fit than a breastplate to be able to move.

"From what I have seen of high level modern armorers who specialize in medieval armor, it takes approximately 1100 man hours to create a quality suit of armor. This is an extremely large amount of time and equates to one skilled worker spending 50 hours per week for about five months. This means a workshop of four could conceivably push out a finished suit of custom armor in little over a month assuming their techniques and time constraints were similar to today's master craftsmen."