So Uhm... Anyone Make/Find A New, Viable Crafting System?

[Arracor]

Relevant since I'm planning on running a game starting in 3 weeks, and I know for sure one of my players, at least, is interested in crafting. The current crafting rules, now that crafting lacks a skill, are kind of terrible. 5gp per day? Really? What if you're crafting something simple, yet highly valuable? A golden ring, for example? Point is, that system is fundamentally flawed for representing the act of crafting items. I need an alternative system but I don't even have the slightest hint of where to begin with making up a new one and, honestly, if I devote time to that I won't be ready in time to actually run the game.

Help?

[Ghost Dragon]

Relevant since I'm planning on running a game starting in 3 weeks, and I know for sure one of my players, at least, is interested in crafting. The current crafting rules, now that crafting lacks a skill, are kind of terrible. 5gp per day? Really? What if you're crafting something simple, yet highly valuable? A golden ring, for example? Point is, that system is fundamentally flawed for representing the act of crafting items. I need an alternative system but I don't even have the slightest hint of where to begin with making up a new one and, honestly, if I devote time to that I won't be ready in time to actually run the game.

Help?

How about just using the same rules but changing the amount crafted per day by two or three increments (to 10g or even 15g per day)? Makes it simple and speeds up the process, and if you wanted to balance that out with RAW so there is some sort of penalty for faster crafting, increase the raw material cost to 3/4? Or just leave it the same.

You could also put in some "free" skilled hireling help to also increase the speed of crafting. You could even weave it into that characters background that he/she has a retainer type feature from the Noble variant "Knight" background except they just have an apprentice who rocks around with him/her, stays out of combat and stays at the town crafting for that character (just to help speed up crafting not do it all for them completely of course, that takes the fun out of it :smallwink:) while he goes and adventures.

Hope that helps.

[Inchoroi]

Here's what I did. Worked well for my games so far.

Mundane Crafting:
You proceed at 5 x your proficiency bonus gp per day, if you are proficient in the tool required to begin crafting.

All other crafting:

New Feats:
Master Artisan
Through training and dedication, you have mastered the use of a type of artisan's tools. You pick one set of artisan's tools that you are proficient with. When using those tools to craft an item, you double the amount of progress you make each day, after all other modifiers. If you wish, you may purchase this feat multiple times, each purchase applying to a different artisan tool.

Cooperative Crafting
Prerequisites: Master Artisan
You are adept at communicating and detailing your instructions to your assistants. When using artisan tools to craft an item, any creatures assisting you doubles the amount of progress that they make on the item being created by the group.

Houserules:
Potions: All potions have their costs cut in half. All other prerequisites must be met in order to brew potions.

Scrolls & Ammunition: These items have their price is reduced by one-fourth. This does not include the arrow of slaying; only generic ammunition. You must still meet all prerequisites to create the item.


EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention. I allow the characters to spend a few hours each day working towards the crafting, counting it as "planning", especially for magic items, so they can continue crafting during adventures themselves; I'd say (no one has taken advantage of this yet) that allowing them to get halfway done would be appropriate for planning.

5e needs some crafting spells, I think. I wonder if it'd be fun to port over Exalted's Wild Shape Technique to 5e...that amuses me, but also terrifies me. Perhaps, instead, a Mordekainen's Workshop spell, at some point after the Mansion spell, who's name escapes me...allows you to speed up mundane and magical item crafting?

Also! Show him the Artificer sub-class for Wizard. I think its actually pretty cool, even if I use DiBastet's Artificer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?367999-5e-Homebrew-The-Artificer-(of-Alancia)) myself.

[qazzquimby]

Probably not what you're looking for, but I find crafting recipes very fun, though that would have to be in addition to gold and time costs.

[Arracor]

The problem with simply speeding up the current process, which was my original inclination, is that that system is illogical. There are lots of things that can be worth larger amounts of gold, while being no more complex to craft than something a fraction of its cost.... and yet under the base rules, it would take days, weeks, even months longer.

There's also no Craft skill, nor a Profession skill to replace it with. I don't want to add a new skill and then be forced to modify all the classes to compensate, and none of the current skills fit the role, really. Without that, using the old (3.5) system would result in much lower rolls, and thus far poorer results. I intend to add a feat for crafting, but that should not be a replacement for fixing the system, merely a character choice to augment it...

[Inchoroi]

The problem with simply speeding up the current process, which was my original inclination, is that that system is illogical. There are lots of things that can be worth larger amounts of gold, while being no more complex to craft than something a fraction of its cost.... and yet under the base rules, it would take days, weeks, even months longer.

There's also no Craft skill, nor a Profession skill to replace it with. I don't want to add a new skill and then be forced to modify all the classes to compensate, and none of the current skills fit the role, really. Without that, using the old (3.5) system would result in much lower rolls, and thus far poorer results. I intend to add a feat for crafting, but that should not be a replacement for fixing the system, merely a character choice to augment it...

The crafting system for 5e is an abstraction of the highest level. It says, simply, that this is how long it should take you, as a character, to make something. Are some of those values weird? Sure. That's why I made some houserules for it. I chose to do it via proficiency bonuses and feats, because those are things that can grow with a character, showing that they are growing in their skill, which should always speed up your crafting. 5e's whole premise is, when you boil it down, simplicity of use. It doesn't want 3.5's complexity in any point of the game, because, just like 4e, that is, ultimately, not good for the game (or, really, for any game beyond a certain point).

For reference, I did a little research on crafting while thinking up houserules for it. I chose to try to find an estimate on how long it should take to make a suit of plate armor. The best value I found was approximately 1,100 man hours, IIRC. That's 137 days of 8 hour shifts. A smith in a town has a proficiency bonus of +2, assuming he's proficient in his tools (a safe assumption to make), can then make a suit of plate armor in 150 days working on his own, which is about as close as necessary for my purposes. That is before you include apprentices; even just one apprentice also proficient in the tool necessary would make it 75 days of 8 hour shifts to make that same plate armor. This allows you to, really, dial in the kind of help a character can get in a town, and, thus, available hirelings.

Note: I considered, briefly, having the proficiency bonus multiply both mundane and magic item crafting, but thought it might be a bit much, especially at higher levels when crafting lower level items; adding this in would probably be appropriate for a game set in Eberron or similar settings, however, where low level magic items are churned out like they're going out of style.

What 5e's crafting system doesn't do is go through a process for crafting, because, unfortunately, crafting is not something that is really "adventurous". That's why WotC decided to just make it easy, simple, and to the point. As a DM, you can make it very interesting for a player who wants to focus on crafting; special raw materials found in a dungeon, molds for making rings or weapons, magic item formulae, etc, can all be rewards to make things fun for them. Crafting each item doesn't need a separate subsystem--I've played games (Exalted, I'm looking at you) that does that, and, unfortunately, here's what happens. Any player who chooses to make a character that does crafting quickly becomes a crafting mule, to the point where they spend months upon months making everything for the rest of the party, because they're the only ones with all the skills to make everything that the party needs. The rest of the party sits their with their thumbs up their bums while that player spends minutes, and occasionally longer, rolling craft rolls. Then, when he's finished, unfortunately he's so specialized he actually doesn't have as much capability to keep up with the rest of the party during the adventuring.

Adding in a skill check when crafting might be okay; however, I'd think that it would, ultimately, just expand the time necessary to craft things, making it even longer to craft items. Otherwise, its too restrictive. Say, for example, you required an Intelligence check to craft something; you can add your proficiency bonus to the roll as well if you're proficient with the tool (that's why proficiency bonuses work). What would be the consequence when you fail, though? The most obvious is that you'd lose what progress you made that day--having a single roll at the end would be even more precarious; what happens if you fail at that point? Do you lose everything you've worked on? This would prevent anyone from ever playing a crafting character--even me, who really likes crafting characters.

This is my two cents, anyway.

[Argothair]

At a very abstract level, the interesting parts of crafting are: (a) do you have enough skill to understand how to craft an item, (b) do you have enough man-hours to finish crafting the item before your next adventure, and (c) do you have access to the tools and materials you need to craft the item?

(a) is just a skill roll -- usually DEX or INT based, with an occasional STR roll for something like blacksmithing that requires you to really whale away with a hammer. Characters get to add their proficiency bonus if they're proficient in the relevant set of tools, which is already modeled in the 5e RAW for backgrounds, downtime, feats, multiclassing, etc.



DC 10
Simple Items, Commodities
Rope, Leather Armor, Quarterstaff, Torch, Wheelbarrow


DC 15
Complex Items, Tools
Caltrops, Ring Mail, Longsword, Lantern, Carriage


DC 20
Masterwork Equipment
Handcuffs, Plate Mail, Flail, Tinderbox, Longboat


DC 25
Magical Equipment
Potion of Haste, Shield of Spell Resistance, Enchanted Boomeranging Spear, Wand of Fire Bolt, Flying Carpet



If you fail a crafting skill roll, you don't know how to make a particular item until you meet a friendly expert in the relevant field and ask for help or visit a library with the relevant books and study up. You can't take 10 or take 20 on a crafting skill roll.

(b) is basically at the DM's discretion: as a rule of thumb, you can make one item that's roughly the size, weight, and complexity of a wooden flute, a leather saddle, a wicker picnic basket, or an iron padlock by using one full day of work by one person. If the item is larger, heavier, or more complex, you need more time. If the item is smaller, lighter, or simpler, you need less time. If you absolutely need your item in X hours or you're doomed, you can add +5 to the DC of the skill check above to cut the crafting time in half. You can do this multiple times, e.g., crafting a bag of caltrops would usually take 8 hours and have a DC of 10, but if you gotta have it in 1 hour instead, it would have a DC of 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 25. If you fail a crafting roll only because you were rushing (e.g. you roll a 13 on the 1-hour caltrop plan), you still know how to make caltrops, but you wasted the hour you spent on crafting, as well as any raw materials you invested.

(c) is usually a function of what kind of setting you're in. If you're in a large city or a market town, you can probably find whatever mundane raw materials you need. If you're in a small town or the wilderness, you might only be able to get access to very basic materials like food, wood, leather, hemp, and stone. Usually, you either can get the materials you need to craft your item, or you can't. If it's a close call, make your crafting roll with disadvantage. If one but not both of the dice give you a success, you don't know how to improvise the item with the available materials, but you do not how to create the item once you're back in town. If you succeed on only one die and then find an appropriate expert like a friendly ranger, he might be able to teach you how to improvise the item with the available materials, allowing you to re-try your crafting roll even without going home.



Setting has adequate materials for your crafting project
Make your crafting roll as normal


It would be a stretch to find the materials you need in your current setting
Make your crafting roll with disadvantage


The materials you need are not available in your current setting
You can't make a crafting roll until you return to a more favorable location like a large city




I wouldn't even make a player keep track of the gold piece costs for mundane equipment that's for 'personal use.' If you're trying to equip a small army, the materials involved might have a gold piece cost between 1/4 and 3/4 of the finished product, depending on how much 'value-added' is involved in the crafting. E.g., the value of a diamond ring depends mostly on how big the diamond is, whereas the value of a wheelbarrow depends mostly on how sturdy and steady it is.

For uncommon or rarer magical items, you probably have to go on a sidequest; the size of the sidequest depends on the rarity of the item:



Common
No sidequest; the DC of 25 is enough punishment


Uncommon
You have to do some Investigation or Persuasion to find the one wizard or druid in town who has the materials, but once you find her, she's willing to sell or share the materials without any fuss.


Rare
The raw materials you need are somewhere in your general region, but they are guarded by a tribe of hostile creatures -- they might be fey, constructs, undead, paranoid, etc. -- and you can't get the materials unless you either sneak into their camp, overpower them, capture their leader, or otherwise best them in some type of contest.


Very Rare
Nobody knows where to find the raw materials you need -- to hunt for them, you will need to find an appropriate sage or library that can get you started with your research, piece together several clues, travel to far-off lands, and survive amazing perils.


Legendary
The raw materials you need are not available on your current plane -- you can only receive them by epic-level journeys across the multi-verse, or as a favor from a god or similarly powerful being.

[Arracor]

I like it. Perhaps a mixing of aspects, then. Say it takes a roll of a certain DC to initiate crafting of an item, at your default rate (Say... 5 x Int+Proficiency GP/day?) and once he roll is made, it's assumed that during daily downtime the character is working on that project until it's finished, without further rolls. To speed it along, a new roll can be made at a higher DC to increase the rate, and that speed can also/additionally be increased by devoting more time to the crafting. Once succeeded once, crafting a mundane item at the default rate never requires another roll, though faster crafting still requires one, and a sufficiently complex item might require a roll even to craft at normal speed. All, of course, subject to availability of materials.