Difference between Craft skills [3.5]

[Bad Wolf]

Are there any advantages to choosing one Craft skill over the other? Or can I just pick Craft (dollmaking) and be done with it?

[Sith_Happens]

You can't make arrows with Craft (dollmaking). Or tanglefoot bags. Or traps. Or [insert literally anything else that's not a doll].

[Extra Anchovies]

Unless there are specific items you plan to make, there isn't really a difference.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Alchemy is definitely better than most choices, followed by weapon and armor smithing, followed by trapmaking, then they all kind of trail off to about the same.

[Bad Wolf]

Ah, okay then. I'm mostly doing it for fluff reasons, such as making dolls for children, and making dolls to murder people.

...He's Chaotic Neutral.

[Vortenger]

That...sounds more Neutral Crazy than chaotic. Cool idea, nonetheless.

[aleucard]

You could talk your DM into allowing you to sub in Dollmaking to let you make various flavors of Construct (though with a distinct Mary Shaw feel to them from normal). You're fairly restricted, but this is mostly fluff anyway so it don't matter. If you really need to make something that Dollmaking doesn't cover, there's check boosts for that.

[mabriss lethe]

Craft isn't Trained Only, so you can make untrained checks with any craft skill. If it's just for flavor, don't bother with investing skill points in it. Only invest in craft skills if you plan on getting some benefit out of them. Trapmaking and Poisons are rather good ones if you plan on devoting yourself to them. (as trapmaking can create some nasty toys with fairly high craft check DCs and Poisons can be manufactured far more quickly than other items for a nice profit.) Alchemy can be godly (if you have a caster level) at low levels but is quickly outpaced by magic. (However, it can also be used to brew poisons in place of craft poison, so there's that.)