Creating a Condensed List of Craft Skills

[ApologyFestival]

There are a lot of very good reasons to dislike the Craft skill, but what gets me--more than anything--is that the Craft skill is horribly open-ended. There's no defined list of what is an acceptable craft choice, and the suggestions in D&D's published material ranges from really broad to absurdly specific.

With the defined list of Knowledge skills, it is possible for a character to know everything. With the defined list of Perform skills, it's possible for one character to master every type of performance. Obviously, that's not a wise investment of skill points, but it is possible. With the addition of Complete Warrior's Perform (weapon drill), there are ten subcategories of the Perform skill. There are ten subcategories of Knowledge. Eleven, if we wish to include Knowledge (psionics), and fourteen if we really push it and consider Martial Lore, Psicraft, and Spellcraft to be Knowledge skills in disguise.

Can we devise a sensible list of Craft subcategories that encompasses the full array of human creation, just as the defined list of Knowledge skills allows a character to know everything?

...And no, Craft (anything) does not count. Full points for elegance, though.

I'll start us off. There are a few craft subcategories that are often referenced and actually have rules in their favour. Starting with them seems reasonable: Alchemy, armorsmithing, bowmaking, poisonmaking, trapmaking, weaponsmithing. We're already at a lot of subcategories. Building off that, we could either make further categories based off techniques, or materials. I'll go with common materials: Leatherworking, metalworking, stoneworking, woodworking. At this point it might be reasonable to nix armorsmithing and the like, as being covered by a reasonable investment in leather- and metalworking. Now we've already got a big list, and it's down to broad strokes to fill in the blanks, hopefully covering the remainder of creation: Ceramic arts, textile arts, and visual arts. Getting cheeky there, with visual arts encompassing a lot of works. Then musical composition and written composition for the poets and playwrights.

My first attempt at a defined craft list ends up as such:
Alchemy
Armorsmithing
Bowmaking
Ceramic Arts
Leatherworking
Metalworking
Musical Composition
Poisonmaking
Stoneworking
Textile Arts
Trapmaking
Visual Arts
Weaponsmithing
Woodworking
Written Composition

15 Craft (blurgh) skills in all. Still really hefty compared to Knowledge and Perform. And I'm sure you can all point out things that aren't covered by those categories, feel like some are too broad, and still some are too narrow. Like Bowmaking--really? You're included only because you're in the PHB. Let's think about getting the Craft skill as well-structured as its better-designed brethren.

[Karl Aegis]

Alas, my only choice for getting bread is to find it in the wilderness. How I miss thee, craft (food).

[ApologyFestival]

Alas, my only choice for getting bread is to find it in the wilderness. How I miss thee, craft (food).
****.

Let's call it "Culinary arts", to appease any chefs offended by their exclusion, and pretend that never happened.

[ComaVision]

I want to slap whomever decided that poisons weren't included in alchemy.

Same for bows and weapon smithing.

[ShurikVch]

How about the 3rd-party stuff?
Ravenloft, Warcraft the RPG, Call of Cthulhu d20, Star Wars D20...

[Saintheart]

How about the 3rd-party stuff?
Ravenloft, Warcraft the RPG, Call of Cthulhu d20, Star Wars D20...

I think that's covered under Craft (Franchise RPG).

[Bullet06320]

OMG don't forget underwater basket weaving

in real world terms, metalworking can be very different skills, you got your basic blacksmith for iron working and tool making, then some specialize even further, armorsmithing, bladesmiths, silversmiths, gold smiths

then woodworking too, you have woodcarvers, cabinet makers, wheelwrights, coopers, similar skillsets, but more some are more focused in certain areas

brewing is another skill, then there is the vintner (winemaker), both make alcohols but with different methods

I had a character with ivory carving as skill, I had another with perform(drunken singing), lol

stone work and gemcarving, while working with similar materials, require different skill sets

then there are odd skills like farrier, that combines the skills of blacksmith and needs animal handling too, buts that getting into Profesion which is parallel to craft skills, professions require skills of certain types, not necessarilay in game terms but in real world terms at least

craft can really be for anything your making, that's why its open ended, for PCs its mostly for flavor unless you do a lot of crafting that requires the skills
for npcs and followers sometimes, it can be an important skill to get the PCs the stuff they need

[ShurikVch]

Craft skills which were mentioned in Arms and Equipment Guide, Chapter 4: Hirelings and Creatures:Blacksmithing
Bookbinding
Brassmaking
Brewing
Candlemaking
Coppersmithing
Dyemaking
Gemcutting
Goldsmithing
Hatmaking
Hornworking
Jewelmaking
Locksmithing
Mapmaking
Milling
Painting
Parchmentmaking
Pewtermaking
Potterymaking
Sculpting
Shipmaking
Shoemaking
Silversmithing
Skinning
Soapmaking
Tanning
Weaving
Winemaking
Wheelmaking

D20 Modern have Craft skills:
Chemical
Electronic
Mechanical
Pharmaceutical
Structural
Writing

[mabriss lethe]

I want to slap whomever decided that poisons weren't included in alchemy.

Same for bows and weapon smithing.

IIRC, there's a rule somewhere that allows poisons to be bundled into alchemy with a bump in the DC. (I'm happy they aren't though, because my big beef with alchemy is that it is the only craft skill that requires spellcasting, which means that the group that has the least use for the skill is the only one with access to it. I also like making poison using non-mage characters)

[ericgrau]

Well I've got 10.

Blacksmithing: all metal
Woodworking: carpentry, bows, etc.
Alchemy: chemistry, poisons, etc.
Weaving: textiles, baskets, etc.
Ceramic Arts
Visual Arts: Painting, sketching, etc.
Mineral working: blocks, bricks, tunneling, gemcutting (a stretch but oh well)
Mechanisms: Traps, catapults, etc. Note that woodworking, stoneworking and/or blacksmithing may also be required. Or outsourcing these tasks.
Culinary: Cooking, chef artistry, even gutting and gilling
Animal: Leatherworking, ivory, horns, etc.

Composition omitted becauese it's blurry. Once you allow it you might include crafting a million kinds of plans. Probably better to fold musical composition under playing music and written composition under other written skills. Maybe not everyone who plays music well can compose well and vis versa, but they do overlap and that's too much detail for D&D.

I'm not sure getting into great detail is all that useful for craft since it's almost never useful to PCs. Takes too long and the items are too cheap. Faster and easier to kill a monster, take its gold and buy the item. Craft is mainly good for NPCs.

Categorized the below

Craft skills which were mentioned in Arms and Equipment Guide, Chapter 4: Hirelings and Creatures:Blacksmithing
Bookbinding: alchemy (glue)
Brassmaking: blacksmithing
Brewing: culinary arts
Candlemaking: ?
Coppersmithing: blacksmithing
Dyemaking: alchemy
Gemcutting: mineral working
Goldsmithing: blacksmithing
Hatmaking: weaving
Hornworking: Animal
Jewelmaking: mineral working
Locksmithing: mechanisms
Mapmaking: This is a composition, so part of knowledge(geography) or some other not a craft
Milling: culinary arts
Painting: visual arts
Parchmentmaking: animal (made from animal skins)
Pewtermaking: blacksmithing
Potterymaking: ceramic arts
Sculpting: ceramic arts
Shipmaking: woodworking with a little mechanisms
Shoemaking: animal and/or weaving
Silversmithing: blacksmithing
Skinning: animal
Soapmaking: alchemy
Tanning: animal
Weaving: weaving
Winemaking: culinary arts
Wheelmaking: woodworking

Sure NPCS may specialize and be able to do one part of a category and not the rest. But (a) it doesn't take as much to learn one subcategory and (b) again this already getting into too much detail. We don't need to point out that someone is especially good at steel and not much else any more than we need to point out that he specializes only in punching daggers and can barely remember how to properly wrap an axe handle.

[Ashtagon]

My house list is:

C/metal (includes copper, bronze, tin, and precious metals)
C/wood (includes plastics and fibre glass)
C/stone (includes pottery, ceramics, and masonry)
C/leather (includes cloth, silk, weaving, and stitch-work)

I add the following in suitably advanced-technology campaigns:

C/explosives (dynamite, grenades, muskets, and modern rifles)
C/clockwork (includes wheels, levers, hinges, and pulleys)
C/mechanic (includes steam engines through to internal combustion and turbines)
C/electronic (includes anything up to and including computers)
C/atomics (nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons, force screens)
C/weird science (time travel, warp drives, transdimensional collapsitrons)

Alchemy is separate to this (I classify it as part of K/chemistry), and includes poisons. I assume any PC can cook basic food (ie. they have the equivalent knowledge for their time period of knowing how to make toast, use a microwave, and add boiling water to something). Masterchef-type stuff is an art rather than a craft.

[jiriku]

Golemcrafting often includes craft skill prerequisites. A quick check turns up pottery, sculpting, metalworking, glass-making, leatherworking, and stonemasonry. I'm sure there are more.

[ShurikVch]

Article "Class Acts – Body Modifications" (Dragon #359) have Craft (Body Modifications)

[General Sajaru]

I know I've seen Craft(Painting) mentioned specifically, along with Craft(Sewing) and Craft(Poisonmaking). There's no real consistency, book to book, to what is and isn't a Craft subcategory.

[SinsI]

What's the difference between Alchemy and Poisonmaking?

[Saintheart]

What's the difference between Alchemy and Poisonmaking?

Essentially, the difference between making gold in a crucible and making cyanide in a crucible :)

[BladeofObliviom]

Craft is fairly arbitrary, unfortunately. Heck, Petals (MM3) by default have ranks in Craft (Flower-Arranging).

A merciful GM usually just lets you use craft skills for whatever makes sense though, thankfully. I know I do when I'm GMing.

[ShurikVch]

A merciful GM usually just lets you use craft skills for whatever makes sense though, thankfully. I know I do when I'm GMing.Star Wars D20
Rothana Heavy Engineering Acclamator-class assault ship -
Craft (capital ships) DCs: 30 to final check, 29000000 to make