Creating the Ultimate Crafter in Pathfinder: A Guide

[Andrian]

Hey everybody! I recently discovered a combination of class options that allow you to make a pretty awesome crafter in Pathfinder.
You can find the guide here. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jp83PSkhRcbu2VtEnMLx2Juhl-H1F2lG0UIQYi9Tjgo/edit?usp=sharing)

I wanted to get some feedback on this. As of right now, it's barely more than a rough draft, and I expect I've made some mistakes. I would be very grateful to anyone who could point those out for me.

I feel like there's a lot of stuff I've left out. I haven't discussed spells at all in depth, and there may be archetypes, feats, or traits that I've overlooked. After all, Pathfinder has a TON of content, and sifting through it all is a daunting task. If you know of something I've missed, please let me know!

I also expect there's going to be a lot of discussion over how viable crafting builds are, and how they stack up to other builds. I will probably not have much patience for that sort of discussion. I realize that a crafting-focused build is not going to be the most optimal, but I am sure there are people (and I am one of them) who enjoy the idea of playing a crafter, and this is a guide for how to do it effectively.

[Geddy2112]

I like it!

I would like to see the addition of all sources of bonuses to craft(and spellcraft) checks, and the max you could get. Crafter's fortune is +5 luck bonus, but then there is +2 circumstance from masterwork tools(or cooperative crafting), and lots of other potential bonuses. What is the max craft roll you could get at say, level 5, 10, 15, 20. Hence, if you had all the max buffs in place what is the real time it takes to craft things?

[Andrian]

I like it!

I would like to see the addition of all sources of bonuses to craft(and spellcraft) checks, and the max you could get. Crafter's fortune is +5 luck bonus, but then there is +2 circumstance from masterwork tools(or cooperative crafting), and lots of other potential bonuses. What is the max craft roll you could get at say, level 5, 10, 15, 20. Hence, if you had all the max buffs in place what is the real time it takes to craft things?

Those are good questions... Actually, that reminds me of one thing I'd wanted to mention, and that is that the first thing you should craft with this build - as soon as you can afford it, is a Traveler's Any-Tool. It counts as masterwork tools for all Craft skills (except Alchemy).

One problem I'd have with giving a max craft roll in a guide like this is that I don't know what Int bonus a character is going to have. I might be able to add up the bonuses, but I'd never know what stat bonus to apply. Even if I assumed Int 16 at Level 1 and putting all ASI's into Int, there'd still be other factors that I wouldn't be able to predict, such as exactly when you'll be able to afford a Headband of Vast Intelligence.

Hmmm... another thing I hadn't considered is that you don't actually have to have 19 Wis natively to be able to cast 9th-level spells. You're a crafter, so you can make yourself headbands to compensate for a low wisdom score. That would make the minimum starting wisdom score only 13 for those with low point-buy or poor stat rolls.

[eldskald]

That's awesome! I am also a lover of craftsmanship, and I hate those PF crafting rules. They make crafting so weird and non realistic! Your guide was very well written, and you covered a lot of things. There are a few things you missed though. The thing is, you don't need to be a caster craft magical items.

As of this FAQ (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qp0), you can have a spell-like ability to qualify for the magic item creation feats. That means you can be another non caster class, and that your dips won't turn down the caster levels you need to qualify for your crafting feats. There is also the Master Craftsman feat. Now, what do you get with that? Would that be worth to build the ultimate crafter? The alchemist.

Now this might seem a little bit obnoxious or at least controvertial because we will be two times slower than Forgemaster with metallic items, but you can also be a pretty fast crafter as an alchemist. Not as fast as your build, but it has its uses and maybe it's worth discussing it. So, what's in it for us? First of all, we get to be lass MAD. In fact, the alchemist is probably the class that scales the most from Intelligence. Secondly, we get a full progressing tumor familiar. Third, the alchemist already gets Brew Potion and can get an arguably better Craft Construct as a discovery (look for Promethean Disciple). They also have Crafter's Fortune in their formulae list. They also get a lot of features to craft mundane alchemical items faster, but we're not looking for that. It's still flavorful, though.

So, as an alchemist, we can crank up that Intelligence and be very effective on the battlefield as a bomber. And it's incredibly feat free, all we need to grab is the Fast Bombs discovery and one or two feats to throw more bombs, like Two Weapon Fighting and Rapid Shot. A very basic and effective build for the ultimate bomber (feat-wise) is Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Two Weapon Fighting and the other feats can be anything. Might end up being Extra Discoveries and Iron Will. With a familiar and infusions they can laugh at action economy. Give your familiar a poisoner's glove and let him buff you and your party like crazy. Throw in a vial of admixture and things go very sick. The thing is, bombs are incredibly strong. You can deal all types of energy damage, force damage, debuff everyone, create hard terrain and nova burst like hell. With a lv1 extract, you can deal double your Int mod on bombs, and you can skyrocket your Int score with cognatogen and fox's cunning. With an admixture vial and poisoner's glove with you familiar, you can get targeted bomb admixture+haste/fox's cunning in your familiar's turn. Then, on your turn, you full attack with 4 (5 with haste) bombs, against touch AC, for 8xInt+16d6 (10xInt+20d6 with haste) at level 8. Or we just cripple everyone with stinking clouds, grease, tanglefoot bags and the likes while still dealing Int+4d6 damage with splash with each bomb.

Since the other feats are free, they might as well be craft feats if we can qualify for them. The easier way is by being a race with an SLA. Guess what, Tieflings, Dhampirs and Aasimars are already one of the best options for alchemists with their Int boosting variants and all have SLAs. There are also traits that gives us SLAs with CLs equal to our hit dice, so there's no big deal in qualifying. Also, they're alchemists, and it's very controvertial that they can actually qualify for the crafting feats anyway. You might convince your DM to let you take the feats even without SLAs or Master Craftsman.

Since we are focusing on crafting, we can be less effective on the battlefield and only grab Two Weapon Fighting or Rapid Shot, our call. We will still be pretty good anyway. Also, alchemists are one of the most utility filled classes in the game. They can do nova damaging and battlefield control with bombs, melee fighting with mutagen and alter self, healing and buffing with infusions, skill monkey-ing with their class skills and high Int score... All decently with one build. You don't require much feats, and as far as discoveries, you can do with tumor familiar, infusion, precise bomb and force bomb to do all of that, and we can get some of those discoveries for free with the right archetype. We can also make money by crafting poisons or alchemical items. Then, there's also Promethean Disciple, which is another whole story...

So, we can trade the cleric divine spells and master smith for all of that. Also, we our CL is equal to our HD and we can qualify right away to the craft feats, even with a dip in Wizard to get Arcane Builder. While I am not entirely sure if it's worth the trade, it is still an option on how to build a crafter. What do you think?

[Coidzor]

The basic formula for the general fastest/best/most economical magic item crafter as I recall in Pathfinder is a Dwarf Wizard with the racial favored class bonus of faster crafting progress per day on magic items, one of the two 5% off crafting cost traits and the Duskwalker Agent (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/regional-traits/trait-regional-duskwalker-agent/) trait, provided they stay near or are high enough level to get access to their home city, due to being able to automatically get a 10% discount on buying the raw materials to craft and a 10% bonus on selling anything.

Due to the way the traits interact, it'd cost them 855 gp to buy the 950 gp worth of materials needed to make a magic item with a market price of 2000 gp that they would then be able to sell for 1100 gp or a profit of 245 gp.


Some spells that may be of interest to discuss or reference
Visualization of the Mind (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/v/visualization-of-the-mind/) is a useful spell for both Mundane and Magical crafting, as it's a nice +5 untyped bonus to Intelligence (or Wisdom or Charisma). Aside from really, really, really important checks, though, its usefulness is limited due to the material component cost until one reaches higher levels, though it is worth noting that Blood Money would cancel out the cost. Of course, if Blood Money is on the table, then the fastest way to acquire wealth for a good while is making daggers and then using Masterwork Transformation to make them MW and then sell them for a net profit of 150.34 gp per dagger.

Genius Avaricious (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/genius-avaricious/) can give up to a +5 bonus to a number of skills including Craft and Profession for 1 month. It's fairly expensive though, so I'm not sure if it can be made to actually turn out to make the caster more money than it cost them.

Tears to Wine (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/tears-to-wine/) is an Enhancement Bonus to Int and Wis skills, so it stacks with an Enhancement Bonus to Int or Wis themselves. At higher CLs it becomes quite the significant boost at +10. It'll need multiple castings/Extend Metamagic to cover an entire 8 hours of crafting, though. It's going to vary based upon GMs, but one interpretation of the spell's text is that the mead or wine are permanent and it's the buff conferred by drinking them that goes away at the end of the duration, in which case the alcohol could be used to gain raw material for distilling that also has a gp value that can be easily found.

Similarly, Extended/High CL Rags to Riches (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Rags%20to%20Riches) is a way to gain a moderate Insight bonus to crafting skill checks.

Fabricate Bullets (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fabricate-bullets/) literally makes firearm bullets more cheaply than mundane crafting (2 gp vs. 10 gp), and even slightly cheaper than someone with the Gunsmithing Feat (2 gp vs. 3 gp), though someone with Gunsmithing can make 1000 bullets per day at a cost of 100 gp while the spell only makes 30 bullets at a time. Possibly might be cheaper depending upon the actual cost of a pound of lead, which has several ways of reverse-engineering scattered throughout the rules but no explicit cost.

Then, of course, there's Fabricate (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fabricate), which bears at least a tiny mention, between the fact that it's the OG way to nigh-instantly craft something and the fact that with things like False Focus and Blood Money it not only increases wealth but can create it, effectively out of thin air. There's some really crazy things one could potentially do with it, too, like mass refinement of minerals or getting a bunch of a substance out of other substances that ordinarily aren't economical to extract using mundane means. Or can't be extracted mundanely at certain tech levels, like Aluminum.

Arcane Reinforcement (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Arcane%20Reinforcement) is another spell of interest for casters who are crafting mundanely, It's a nice bonus at 5th level and only gets better from there.

Unseen Engineers (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/u/unseen-engineers/) is only for making Mechanical Traps, which generally aren't that worth it, but it allows them to be made nigh-instantly and gives an untyped +5 bonus to the check. So if one needs a trap, there's no reason not to use this spell. The Improve Trap (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/improve-trap/) spell, if one is able to find a market for selling traps or making them on commission, would be a way to increase the CR of the trap by 1 and potentially increase the amount one was paid without increasing one's expenses.

Stone Shape and Wood Shape probably bear a brief mention and noting that how much use one can actually get out of them depends upon GM adjudication beyond altering terrain.

Full Pouch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/full-pouch/) and Arrow Eruption (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Arrow%20Eruption) may or may not be relevant as they allow for item duplication.

Wall of Stone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/w/wall-of-stone/), Ice Spears (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/ice-spears/), Ice Slick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/ice-slick/), Silver Darts (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/silver-darts/), Stone Discus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/stone-discus/), Obsidian Flow (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/o/obsidian-flow/)(esp. in combination with Stone Shape), and Expeditious Construction (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/expeditious-construction) can be used to create things that could potentially be used as raw materials for certain things. Stone Discus is notable as a potential source of material to make Stone Weapons that can bypass DR/Magic and forms of material-based DR. Expeditious Construction can create either earth/dirt of potential use for pottery or what have you OR stones that fit together without the use of mortar, which can then be used for a number of other purposes or just joined together to form a masonry wall.

Plant Growth can be used on certain plants to produce more raw material from them for free for certain purposes. Harvest Season (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Harvest%20Season) effectively ages a plant one year without harming it, which can be exploited.

Restore Corpse (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/restore-corpse/) may produce body parts of potential use, especially in conjunction with Purify Food and Drink, Mending, Make Whole, etc. Sculpt Corpse may result in an increase in the amount of leather/meat/bone from a creature's corpse or potentially be combined with Restore Corpse to an end of continually generating.

The Enhance Water (www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/enhance-water/) spell can create average quality alcohol of various types permanently, and thus can be used to acquire the raw material to distill.

The spell Beanstalk (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Beanstalk) could, I suppose, be used either to make free compost or as free raw material for Craft:Compost.

Unlike Wall of Iron, Transfiguring Touch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/transfiguring-touch/) allows one to make trade good quality iron, or so it would seem. Normally the material component cost prevents one from creating wealth, but with either Blood Money or False Focus, one can create wealth or even raw material for a few different craft skills.


Calcific Touch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/calcific-touch/) is amusing as a no-save way to make a creature into a nice statue.


The Keep Watch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/k/keep-watch/) spell sometimes comes up as a potential way to squeeze in time for mundane or magical crafting that would otherwise be spent asleep.


Tattoo Potion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/tattoo-potion/) is a way to turn a potion into a form of magic tattoo. Transfer Tattoo is possibly also worth noting.


Other Thoughts and notes

The False Focus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/false-focus/) feat is of interest for a number of the spells I mentioned with material component costs, allowing for completely free bullets and alchemical item duplication.


The Master Alchemist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-alchemist/) Feat seems to have been left out. This basically increases the speed at which one can make poisons, drugs, and alchemical items by 10 as well as allowing one to actually make poisons in batches. One could corner the market on bachelor snuff and/or night tea in a settlement. Also it gives an untyped +2 to Craft Alchemy, which is always nice.

The Skill Focus feat should probably be mentioned, since it becomes a +6 to a craft check over the course of a career.


+X Competence bonus items would bear mentioning, like the Cauldron of Brewing. Traditionally held not to go past either a +5 or +10 bonus when done as custom items, IIRC.

Amazing Tools of Manufacture (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/tools-amazing-tools-of-manufacture/) offer double the Circumstance Bonus of Masterwork Artisan's Tools. They also allow one to make 1000 gp of progress in a day, at the cost of upping the cost in raw materials to half the value of the object, eliminating the ability to turn a profit without haggling shenanigans or using Goods capital to defray costs. Or shenanigans like using it to make 1000 gp worth of trade good metal out of 500 gp worth of ore or something using Craft Blacksmithing...


Another nice thing about Craft Construct is that one can make Homunculi or Soulbound Mannequins or eventually even Soulbound Shells, and they're all intelligent creatures that can have ranks in craft themselves. The Soulbound Shells even having some magic item crafting feats and the Soulbound Mannequins having the capability to have Master Craftsman, Craft Magic Arms and Armor/Craft Wondrous Item, and Cooperative Crafting, such that one could actually make assistants to speed up the rate at which one crafts magic items or even set them up as a magic item making factory while out adventuring. Or one could make Trompe L'oeil versions of one's self or another crafter.


Simulacra are also of potential interest, especially when it comes to getting assistants with Cooperative Crafting for magic item crafting, loyal managers for Downtime, or other tricks, like using Souleater.

Speaking of Souleater (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/souleater/), that class can potentially make magic items for free by dealing damage to summons with the right number of levels in Souleater and/or Simulacrum fun. Or by setting up a farm using creatures of the appropriate HD.


The Downtime (www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime/)subsystem and the use of Goods or Magic Capital to reduce the gold cost of making either mundane or magical items respectively and the use of Labor to add +2 to a Craft check per point of Labor spent should probably have at least a short mention. Prosperous Room (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Prosperous%20Room) and Business Booms (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Business%20Booms) are useful tools towards that end.


Alternate Crafting Rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/alternate-crafting-rules) should probably be addressed, though I wouldn't make it one of the initial priorities.


Some points of interest from Background Skills.


Since Craft: Blacksmithing increases the DC to make Armor and Shield Spikes by +5, Craft: Clothing increases the DC to make Padded armor by +5, Craft: Leather increases the DC to make Leather armors by +5, and Craft: Carpentry increases the DC to make Wooden Armor and Shields by +5, those could be exploited to make those types of items faster due to the increased DC.

Craft: Jewelry's use to make a fake jewel is interesting, because either A. the whole issue that the value of the object is 3x that of what it costs to make it is in play, so that you can literally make fake gems that are more valuable than real ones(well, except for as spell components) or B. cheesing the check lets one create unspottable fakes and increase one's wealth more than the usual trebling of one's investment and without the issue of having to sell for half due to the way gemstones are bought and sold like currency or trade goods for the most part.

Blacksmithing and Leather are somewhat interesting in that they explicitly allow for harvesting and converting raw materials into valuable material, but given that they don't provide any real mechanics for doing so, one is still stuck with paying 1/3 the cost of the finished product to get it, although that does mean that one could, say, make a Craft check and spend 166.66 gp in order to make the 500 gp of materials needed to make a suit of 1500 gp plate armor. At the cost of some amount of extra time. Still, that's the difference between 250 gp of profit on a sale of a suit of plate armor and 583.34 gp of profit. Craft Painting's ability to make the paint and such to use to make a valuable painting allows for similar savings.

The use of Craft Armor or Painting to endlessly decorate a suit of armor to make it more valuable is interesting. You can basically increase the value of a suit of armor by 89 sp per day or 625 sp per week using the standard crafting rules and only increasing the DC by 10 (at a check result of 25 when taking 10), increasing the amount made on a sale by 31.25 gp per week at the cost of 20.83 gp.

Craft: Glass makes it a DC 10 check to locate natural glass, seemingly for free, which could be potentially used in some way I believe.


I like it!

I would like to see the addition of all sources of bonuses to craft(and spellcraft) checks, and the max you could get. Crafter's fortune is +5 luck bonus, but then there is +2 circumstance from masterwork tools(or cooperative crafting), and lots of other potential bonuses. What is the max craft roll you could get at say, level 5, 10, 15, 20. Hence, if you had all the max buffs in place what is the real time it takes to craft things?

Level 20, as I recall, when taking 10 yields the following potential:

You get 10 + 5 (Crafter's Fortune) + 5 (Visualization of the Mind) + 5 (Genius Avaricious) + 10 (+10 Competence Bonus Item) + 23 (20 ranks in class skill) + 20 (20 ranks in Spellcraft via Arcane Reinforcement) + 4 (Amazing Tools of Manufacture) + 2 to 20 (1 to 20 assistants using Aid Another) + 10 (several Extended Tears to Wine castings)

So 94 to 112 with a 10. So 104 to 122 on a nat 20 or manufactured 20.

That's before ability score bonus, mind. IIRC a creature that starts with an 18 and +2 from race maxes out at 36 after 5 from levels, 5 from Wish/Manuals, and a +6 item for a +13 bonus.

So that's 107 to 125 for Taking 10 and 117 to 135 for getting a 20.

That's generic and without specific feats like Master Alchemist or Skill Focus, mind. So Master Alchemist + Skill Focus would add +8 for Craft Alchemy. 12,650 to 13,225 sp per week or 180.71 to 188.92 gp per day using standard crafting for something Alchemical if you can boost the DC up to max and its base DC is a multiple of 5.

With Alternate Crafting, that's 11.5 gp per day for a DC 5 item, 20 gp per day for a DC 10 item, 42 gp per day for a DC 15 item, 80 gp per day for a DC 20 item, 152 gp per day for a DC 25 item, 288 gp per day for a DC 30 item, 544 gp per day for a DC 35 item.

[Azoth]

I have a build posted somewhere on here that while not a lightning fast crafter, does at level 14-15 end up generating unlimited free magic items. He crafts in 1/4 the time due to Valet familiars and a double speed time trait demiplane.

It is an abuse of Soul Eater, Simulacrum, Create Demiplane, feat retraining, and summoning abuse, but man is it a hoot.

[Andrian]

That's awesome! I am also a lover of craftsmanship, and I hate those PF crafting rules. They make crafting so weird and non realistic! Your guide was very well written, and you covered a lot of things. There are a few things you missed though. The thing is, you don't need to be a caster craft magical items.

As of this FAQ (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9qp0), you can have a spell-like ability to qualify for the magic item creation feats. That means you can be another non caster class, and that your dips won't turn down the caster levels you need to qualify for your crafting feats. There is also the Master Craftsman feat. Now, what do you get with that? Would that be worth to build the ultimate crafter? The alchemist.

Now this might seem a little bit obnoxious or at least controvertial because we will be two times slower than Forgemaster with metallic items, but you can also be a pretty fast crafter as an alchemist. Not as fast as your build, but it has its uses and maybe it's worth discussing it. So, what's in it for us? First of all, we get to be lass MAD. In fact, the alchemist is probably the class that scales the most from Intelligence. Secondly, we get a full progressing tumor familiar. Third, the alchemist already gets Brew Potion and can get an arguably better Craft Construct as a discovery (look for Promethean Disciple). They also have Crafter's Fortune in their formulae list. They also get a lot of features to craft mundane alchemical items faster, but we're not looking for that. It's still flavorful, though.

So, as an alchemist, we can crank up that Intelligence and be very effective on the battlefield as a bomber. And it's incredibly feat free, all we need to grab is the Fast Bombs discovery and one or two feats to throw more bombs, like Two Weapon Fighting and Rapid Shot. A very basic and effective build for the ultimate bomber (feat-wise) is Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Two Weapon Fighting and the other feats can be anything. Might end up being Extra Discoveries and Iron Will. With a familiar and infusions they can laugh at action economy. Give your familiar a poisoner's glove and let him buff you and your party like crazy. Throw in a vial of admixture and things go very sick. The thing is, bombs are incredibly strong. You can deal all types of energy damage, force damage, debuff everyone, create hard terrain and nova burst like hell. With a lv1 extract, you can deal double your Int mod on bombs, and you can skyrocket your Int score with cognatogen and fox's cunning. With an admixture vial and poisoner's glove with you familiar, you can get targeted bomb admixture+haste/fox's cunning in your familiar's turn. Then, on your turn, you full attack with 4 (5 with haste) bombs, against touch AC, for 8xInt+16d6 (10xInt+20d6 with haste) at level 8. Or we just cripple everyone with stinking clouds, grease, tanglefoot bags and the likes while still dealing Int+4d6 damage with splash with each bomb.

Since the other feats are free, they might as well be craft feats if we can qualify for them. The easier way is by being a race with an SLA. Guess what, Tieflings, Dhampirs and Aasimars are already one of the best options for alchemists with their Int boosting variants and all have SLAs. There are also traits that gives us SLAs with CLs equal to our hit dice, so there's no big deal in qualifying. Also, they're alchemists, and it's very controvertial that they can actually qualify for the crafting feats anyway. You might convince your DM to let you take the feats even without SLAs or Master Craftsman.

Since we are focusing on crafting, we can be less effective on the battlefield and only grab Two Weapon Fighting or Rapid Shot, our call. We will still be pretty good anyway. Also, alchemists are one of the most utility filled classes in the game. They can do nova damaging and battlefield control with bombs, melee fighting with mutagen and alter self, healing and buffing with infusions, skill monkey-ing with their class skills and high Int score... All decently with one build. You don't require much feats, and as far as discoveries, you can do with tumor familiar, infusion, precise bomb and force bomb to do all of that, and we can get some of those discoveries for free with the right archetype. We can also make money by crafting poisons or alchemical items. Then, there's also Promethean Disciple, which is another whole story...

So, we can trade the cleric divine spells and master smith for all of that. Also, we our CL is equal to our HD and we can qualify right away to the craft feats, even with a dip in Wizard to get Arcane Builder. While I am not entirely sure if it's worth the trade, it is still an option on how to build a crafter. What do you think?

Whew, that's a lot to take in! Thank you for the detailed response! I'll admit that I did consider at least some of your points, and I sort of addressed them in the guide, but those responses may be buried.

The big reason why I say you should have access to high-level spells is because not having them is a guaranteed +10 to the DC (+5 for not being able to cast spells of the correct level, and +5 for not being able to cast the spell). Considering the fact that higher-level magic items tend to already have higher DC's, that +10 is really gonna hurt us. If you can find an easy source of +10 to Spellcraft, then by all means go for it!

As to Master Craftsman, I really ought to address that in the guide. There are some things going for it - namely that you can use your Craft skill instead of Spellcraft, and it's a lot easier to get bonuses to Craft than Spellcraft. However, the negatives to Master Craftsman far outweigh the positives. For one, you're dealing with that perpetual +10 to all DC's due to not being able to cast any spells. For another, you're limited to only a single Magic Item Creation Feat. Finally, you're burning an extra feat to get Master Craftsman, and you can't take it until Level 5. That means, barring bonus feats from your class, a Master Craftsman can't make any magic items until Level 7.

As for the alchemist build, it's definitely viable, and would be a solid choice. I don't think I'd consider it eligible to be the ultimate crafter, but it would probably be a more viable build for someone who wants to do crafting while still being good at adventuring. The biggest problem I foresee you dealing with as an alchemist is those high DC's. I'd have to do some research, but alchemist formulae might count as spells for the purpose of magic item creation, in which case the build becomes much more viable.

Also, I wouldn't knock the alchemist's ability to craft mundane alchemical items quickly! Those are basically low-level spells that anyone can use. There's a lot of utility in stuff like Tanglefoot Bags! Most annoying part about Alchemy, of course, is the special (more expensive) tools you've gotta have. If you're on the move, you're stuck with a portable lab for +1, which makes me sad.


The basic formula for the general fastest/best/most economical magic item crafter as I recall in Pathfinder is a Dwarf Wizard with the racial favored class bonus of faster crafting progress per day on magic items, one of the two 5% off crafting cost traits and the Duskwalker Agent (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/regional-traits/trait-regional-duskwalker-agent/) trait, provided they stay near or are high enough level to get access to their home city, due to being able to automatically get a 10% discount on buying the raw materials to craft and a 10% bonus on selling anything.

Due to the way the traits interact, it'd cost them 855 gp to buy the 950 gp worth of materials needed to make a magic item with a market price of 2000 gp that they would then be able to sell for 1100 gp or a profit of 245 gp.


Some spells that may be of interest to discuss or reference
Visualization of the Mind (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/v/visualization-of-the-mind/) is a useful spell for both Mundane and Magical crafting, as it's a nice +5 untyped bonus to Intelligence (or Wisdom or Charisma). Aside from really, really, really important checks, though, its usefulness is limited due to the material component cost until one reaches higher levels, though it is worth noting that Blood Money would cancel out the cost. Of course, if Blood Money is on the table, then the fastest way to acquire wealth for a good while is making daggers and then using Masterwork Transformation to make them MW and then sell them for a net profit of 150.34 gp per dagger.

Genius Avaricious (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/genius-avaricious/) can give up to a +5 bonus to a number of skills including Craft and Profession for 1 month. It's fairly expensive though, so I'm not sure if it can be made to actually turn out to make the caster more money than it cost them.

Tears to Wine (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/tears-to-wine/) is an Enhancement Bonus to Int and Wis skills, so it stacks with an Enhancement Bonus to Int or Wis themselves. At higher CLs it becomes quite the significant boost at +10. It'll need multiple castings/Extend Metamagic to cover an entire 8 hours of crafting, though. It's going to vary based upon GMs, but one interpretation of the spell's text is that the mead or wine are permanent and it's the buff conferred by drinking them that goes away at the end of the duration, in which case the alcohol could be used to gain raw material for distilling that also has a gp value that can be easily found.

Similarly, Extended/High CL Rags to Riches (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Rags%20to%20Riches) is a way to gain a moderate Insight bonus to crafting skill checks.

Fabricate Bullets (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fabricate-bullets/) literally makes firearm bullets more cheaply than mundane crafting (2 gp vs. 10 gp), and even slightly cheaper than someone with the Gunsmithing Feat (2 gp vs. 3 gp), though someone with Gunsmithing can make 1000 bullets per day at a cost of 100 gp while the spell only makes 30 bullets at a time. Possibly might be cheaper depending upon the actual cost of a pound of lead, which has several ways of reverse-engineering scattered throughout the rules but no explicit cost.

Then, of course, there's Fabricate (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fabricate), which bears at least a tiny mention, between the fact that it's the OG way to nigh-instantly craft something and the fact that with things like False Focus and Blood Money it not only increases wealth but can create it, effectively out of thin air. There's some really crazy things one could potentially do with it, too, like mass refinement of minerals or getting a bunch of a substance out of other substances that ordinarily aren't economical to extract using mundane means. Or can't be extracted mundanely at certain tech levels, like Aluminum.

Arcane Reinforcement (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Arcane%20Reinforcement) is another spell of interest for casters who are crafting mundanely, It's a nice bonus at 5th level and only gets better from there.

Unseen Engineers (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/u/unseen-engineers/) is only for making Mechanical Traps, which generally aren't that worth it, but it allows them to be made nigh-instantly and gives an untyped +5 bonus to the check. So if one needs a trap, there's no reason not to use this spell. The Improve Trap (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/improve-trap/) spell, if one is able to find a market for selling traps or making them on commission, would be a way to increase the CR of the trap by 1 and potentially increase the amount one was paid without increasing one's expenses.

Stone Shape and Wood Shape probably bear a brief mention and noting that how much use one can actually get out of them depends upon GM adjudication beyond altering terrain.

Full Pouch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/full-pouch/) and Arrow Eruption (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Arrow%20Eruption) may or may not be relevant as they allow for item duplication.

Wall of Stone (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/w/wall-of-stone/), Ice Spears (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/ice-spears/), Ice Slick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/ice-slick/), Silver Darts (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/silver-darts/), Stone Discus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/stone-discus/), Obsidian Flow (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/o/obsidian-flow/)(esp. in combination with Stone Shape), and Expeditious Construction (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/expeditious-construction) can be used to create things that could potentially be used as raw materials for certain things. Stone Discus is notable as a potential source of material to make Stone Weapons that can bypass DR/Magic and forms of material-based DR. Expeditious Construction can create either earth/dirt of potential use for pottery or what have you OR stones that fit together without the use of mortar, which can then be used for a number of other purposes or just joined together to form a masonry wall.

Plant Growth can be used on certain plants to produce more raw material from them for free for certain purposes. Harvest Season (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Harvest%20Season) effectively ages a plant one year without harming it, which can be exploited.

Restore Corpse (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/restore-corpse/) may produce body parts of potential use, especially in conjunction with Purify Food and Drink, Mending, Make Whole, etc. Sculpt Corpse may result in an increase in the amount of leather/meat/bone from a creature's corpse or potentially be combined with Restore Corpse to an end of continually generating.

The Enhance Water (www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/e/enhance-water/) spell can create average quality alcohol of various types permanently, and thus can be used to acquire the raw material to distill.

The spell Beanstalk (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Beanstalk) could, I suppose, be used either to make free compost or as free raw material for Craft:Compost.

Unlike Wall of Iron, Transfiguring Touch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/transfiguring-touch/) allows one to make trade good quality iron, or so it would seem. Normally the material component cost prevents one from creating wealth, but with either Blood Money or False Focus, one can create wealth or even raw material for a few different craft skills.


Calcific Touch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/calcific-touch/) is amusing as a no-save way to make a creature into a nice statue.


The Keep Watch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/k/keep-watch/) spell sometimes comes up as a potential way to squeeze in time for mundane or magical crafting that would otherwise be spent asleep.


Tattoo Potion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/tattoo-potion/) is a way to turn a potion into a form of magic tattoo. Transfer Tattoo is possibly also worth noting.


Other Thoughts and notes

The False Focus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/false-focus/) feat is of interest for a number of the spells I mentioned with material component costs, allowing for completely free bullets and alchemical item duplication.


The Master Alchemist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-alchemist/) Feat seems to have been left out. This basically increases the speed at which one can make poisons, drugs, and alchemical items by 10 as well as allowing one to actually make poisons in batches. One could corner the market on bachelor snuff and/or night tea in a settlement. Also it gives an untyped +2 to Craft Alchemy, which is always nice.

The Skill Focus feat should probably be mentioned, since it becomes a +6 to a craft check over the course of a career.


+X Competence bonus items would bear mentioning, like the Cauldron of Brewing. Traditionally held not to go past either a +5 or +10 bonus when done as custom items, IIRC.

Amazing Tools of Manufacture (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/tools-amazing-tools-of-manufacture/) offer double the Circumstance Bonus of Masterwork Artisan's Tools. They also allow one to make 1000 gp of progress in a day, at the cost of upping the cost in raw materials to half the value of the object, eliminating the ability to turn a profit without haggling shenanigans or using Goods capital to defray costs. Or shenanigans like using it to make 1000 gp worth of trade good metal out of 500 gp worth of ore or something using Craft Blacksmithing...


Another nice thing about Craft Construct is that one can make Homunculi or Soulbound Mannequins or eventually even Soulbound Shells, and they're all intelligent creatures that can have ranks in craft themselves. The Soulbound Shells even having some magic item crafting feats and the Soulbound Mannequins having the capability to have Master Craftsman, Craft Magic Arms and Armor/Craft Wondrous Item, and Cooperative Crafting, such that one could actually make assistants to speed up the rate at which one crafts magic items or even set them up as a magic item making factory while out adventuring. Or one could make Trompe L'oeil versions of one's self or another crafter.


Simulacra are also of potential interest, especially when it comes to getting assistants with Cooperative Crafting for magic item crafting, loyal managers for Downtime, or other tricks, like using Souleater.

Speaking of Souleater (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/s-z/souleater/), that class can potentially make magic items for free by dealing damage to summons with the right number of levels in Souleater and/or Simulacrum fun. Or by setting up a farm using creatures of the appropriate HD.


The Downtime (www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime/)subsystem and the use of Goods or Magic Capital to reduce the gold cost of making either mundane or magical items respectively and the use of Labor to add +2 to a Craft check per point of Labor spent should probably have at least a short mention. Prosperous Room (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Prosperous%20Room) and Business Booms (http://www.archivesofnethys.com/SpellDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Business%20Booms) are useful tools towards that end.


Alternate Crafting Rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/alternate-crafting-rules) should probably be addressed, though I wouldn't make it one of the initial priorities.


Some points of interest from Background Skills.


Since Craft: Blacksmithing increases the DC to make Armor and Shield Spikes by +5, Craft: Clothing increases the DC to make Padded armor by +5, Craft: Leather increases the DC to make Leather armors by +5, and Craft: Carpentry increases the DC to make Wooden Armor and Shields by +5, those could be exploited to make those types of items faster due to the increased DC.

Craft: Jewelry's use to make a fake jewel is interesting, because either A. the whole issue that the value of the object is 3x that of what it costs to make it is in play, so that you can literally make fake gems that are more valuable than real ones(well, except for as spell components) or B. cheesing the check lets one create unspottable fakes and increase one's wealth more than the usual trebling of one's investment and without the issue of having to sell for half due to the way gemstones are bought and sold like currency or trade goods for the most part.

Blacksmithing and Leather are somewhat interesting in that they explicitly allow for harvesting and converting raw materials into valuable material, but given that they don't provide any real mechanics for doing so, one is still stuck with paying 1/3 the cost of the finished product to get it, although that does mean that one could, say, make a Craft check and spend 166.66 gp in order to make the 500 gp of materials needed to make a suit of 1500 gp plate armor. At the cost of some amount of extra time. Still, that's the difference between 250 gp of profit on a sale of a suit of plate armor and 583.34 gp of profit. Craft Painting's ability to make the paint and such to use to make a valuable painting allows for similar savings.

The use of Craft Armor or Painting to endlessly decorate a suit of armor to make it more valuable is interesting. You can basically increase the value of a suit of armor by 89 sp per day or 625 sp per week using the standard crafting rules and only increasing the DC by 10 (at a check result of 25 when taking 10), increasing the amount made on a sale by 31.25 gp per week at the cost of 20.83 gp.

Craft: Glass makes it a DC 10 check to locate natural glass, seemingly for free, which could be potentially used in some way I believe.



Level 20, as I recall, when taking 10 yields the following potential:

You get 10 + 5 (Crafter's Fortune) + 5 (Visualization of the Mind) + 5 (Genius Avaricious) + 10 (+10 Competence Bonus Item) + 23 (20 ranks in class skill) + 20 (20 ranks in Spellcraft via Arcane Reinforcement) + 4 (Amazing Tools of Manufacture) + 2 to 20 (1 to 20 assistants using Aid Another) + 10 (several Extended Tears to Wine castings)

So 94 to 112 with a 10. So 104 to 122 on a nat 20 or manufactured 20.

That's before ability score bonus, mind. IIRC a creature that starts with an 18 and +2 from race maxes out at 36 after 5 from levels, 5 from Wish/Manuals, and a +6 item for a +13 bonus.

So that's 107 to 125 for Taking 10 and 117 to 135 for getting a 20.

That's generic and without specific feats like Master Alchemist or Skill Focus, mind. So Master Alchemist + Skill Focus would add +8 for Craft Alchemy. 12,650 to 13,225 sp per week or 180.71 to 188.92 gp per day using standard crafting for something Alchemical if you can boost the DC up to max and its base DC is a multiple of 5.

With Alternate Crafting, that's 11.5 gp per day for a DC 5 item, 20 gp per day for a DC 10 item, 42 gp per day for a DC 15 item, 80 gp per day for a DC 20 item, 152 gp per day for a DC 25 item, 288 gp per day for a DC 30 item, 544 gp per day for a DC 35 item.

Okay, so... this is an amazing response. Very detailed and well thought out. It'll take me awhile to pick through all this stuff, but I expect at least some of it will make it into the guide. That Duskwalker Agent trait is great, assuming you're in the right setting or your DM is willing to adapt it. It does tie you to one place, though, which is something serious to consider.

I can't believe I hadn't seen the Dwarf FCB before! That... probably means I have to totally rewrite my guide. A level 5 Dwarf Wizard would be just as fast at magic item crafting in one category as a Forgemaster 5/Wizard 1, and the build only gets faster from there. Gestalting Wizard and Soul Forger Magus would be pure synergy at that point. The text seems a little unclear as to whether you have to always apply the bonus to the same crafting feat, or if at each level you can choose any crafting feat. At the very least, that means I'll have to add another build to the guide and change my rating of Wizard. This is going to be a big overhaul...

I can't go into detail on all your points, as that would require a lot of time and space. I will point out, however, that Blood Money does not work with spells that have a casting time longer than 1 round, so no Permanency, unfortunately. There's also a question of whether Blood Money works with Fabricate. I remember reading through some discussions of that, and someone pointed out that Fabricate lists the material to be transformed as both a component and the target of the spell, and as such, you technically couldn't use Blood Money to create the material component for the spell, as the target for the spell wouldn't exist yet. You'd basically have to use Fabricate targeting your own blood instead of the amount of metal that you want, but then the blood wouldn't transform into anything because the spell requires blood as the material component instead of metal. It's kinda weird, and definitely in "ask your DM" territory, but still, I'd say Fabricate is broken enough without adding Blood Money to it.



I have a build posted somewhere on here that while not a lightning fast crafter, does at level 14-15 end up generating unlimited free magic items. He crafts in 1/4 the time due to Valet familiars and a double speed time trait demiplane.

It is an abuse of Soul Eater, Simulacrum, Create Demiplane, feat retraining, and summoning abuse, but man is it a hoot.

Okay, so, I'm not familiar with any of the components of this build (to be honest, I almost never play casters because the sheer volume of spells is daunting), but 1/4 crafting time is lightning fast in my book, at least for anything short of a gestalt build. I wonder if it can be combined with other means of attaining high crafting speeds. If so, it might be something for crafters to aim for at higher levels.

[eldskald]

The big reason why I say you should have access to high-level spells is because not having them is a guaranteed +10 to the DC (+5 for not being able to cast spells of the correct level, and +5 for not being able to cast the spell). Considering the fact that higher-level magic items tend to already have higher DC's, that +10 is really gonna hurt us. If you can find an easy source of +10 to Spellcraft, then by all means go for it!

As to Master Craftsman, I really ought to address that in the guide. There are some things going for it - namely that you can use your Craft skill instead of Spellcraft, and it's a lot easier to get bonuses to Craft than Spellcraft. However, the negatives to Master Craftsman far outweigh the positives. For one, you're dealing with that perpetual +10 to all DC's due to not being able to cast any spells. For another, you're limited to only a single Magic Item Creation Feat. Finally, you're burning an extra feat to get Master Craftsman, and you can't take it until Level 5. That means, barring bonus feats from your class, a Master Craftsman can't make any magic items until Level 7.


Actually, being able to cast high level spells is not a requirement to craft items (at least most of them). Not even the item's CL is a requirement, as we can read here (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9n8m). And about the spell requirements, my bad, I totally forgot to mention it, but I had a plan for that. As it's written on the book, instead of knowing the spell itself, we can have access to another spellcaster or magic item (such as scrolls of the required spell). It can also be argued that extracts counts as knowing the spell, since we can prepare the extract and then we suddenly have access to a magical item with that required spell. There is also debate around alchemists and craft feats, and it seems like not even the devs are sure if alchemists are eligible or not to take those craft feats. I've read somewhere that the iconic alchemist has a wand of alchemical allocation with him, which is an item that's not even supposed to exist. Also, read the requirements to craft that admixture vial...
About the Master Craftsman feat, yeah, I agree this is not the most optimal option because of the SLAs. I just felt like mentioning it since you didn't mentioned it in your document. It is still an option if somehow SLAs are really out of question, though.

And yeah, that build is definetily not an ultimate crafter, it's more like a field crafter who can craft items pretty quickly while adventuring, even more so alchemical items. There is also another thing I forgot to mention: Ring of Sustenance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/rings/ring-of-sustenance/). That's mandatory for field crafters. I'm loving the other responses so far. That dwarf wizard FCB is absurd. I really look forward for what this post is becoming!

[Andrian]

Actually, being able to cast high level spells is not a requirement to craft items (at least most of them). Not even the item's CL is a requirement, as we can read here (http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9n8m). And about the spell requirements, my bad, I totally forgot to mention it, but I had a plan for that. As it's written on the book, instead of knowing the spell itself, we can have access to another spellcaster or magic item (such as scrolls of the required spell). It can also be argued that extracts counts as knowing the spell, since we can prepare the extract and then we suddenly have access to a magical item with that required spell. There is also debate around alchemists and craft feats, and it seems like not even the devs are sure if alchemists are eligible or not to take those craft feats. I've read somewhere that the iconic alchemist has a wand of alchemical allocation with him, which is an item that's not even supposed to exist. Also, read the requirements to craft that admixture vial...
About the Master Craftsman feat, yeah, I agree this is not the most optimal option because of the SLAs. I just felt like mentioning it since you didn't mentioned it in your document. It is still an option if somehow SLAs are really out of question, though.

And yeah, that build is definetily not an ultimate crafter, it's more like a field crafter who can craft items pretty quickly while adventuring, even more so alchemical items. There is also another thing I forgot to mention: Ring of Sustenance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/rings/ring-of-sustenance/). That's mandatory for field crafters. I'm loving the other responses so far. That dwarf wizard FCB is absurd. I really look forward for what this post is becoming!

Oh, seems I've made a terrible mistake regarding spells. I was well aware of that FAQ you linked me to, but the last line, which reads, "He can even try to make a 3rd-level pearl, though the minimum caster level is 5, and he adds +5 to the DC because he doesn't meet the 'able to cast 3rd-level spells' requirement," threw me off because that's a specific requirement for Pearls of Power. I'll need to adjust my guide again. Ugh...

Speaking of adjusting the guide, I am in the process of doing that right now, so it's likely to be a little rough. I'm adding a number of builds to account for the dwarf FCB. Once I'm done with this revision, I'm going to make myself a second document for making changes. That way, people won't come in and see me editing the guide. Shame I didn't think of that BEFORE I started making changes... :/

Anyway, I'm super happy that there's some interest in this, and the generally positive reception this is getting!

[Azoth]

Okay, so, I'm not familiar with any of the components of this build (to be honest, I almost never play casters because the sheer volume of spells is daunting), but 1/4 crafting time is lightning fast in my book, at least for anything short of a gestalt build. I wonder if it can be combined with other means of attaining high crafting speeds. If so, it might be something for crafters to aim for at higher levels.

Basically, once you are level 14 you can cast Simulacrum. You make 2 Simulacrum of yourself that are level 7. They will be Wizard (or other full caster of choice)5/Soul Eater2.

Their feats are Spell Focus Conjuration, Augment Summoning, Superior Summons. Make any available feats left over crafting feats of your choice.

They will spend 8hrs a day working in tandem to cast Summon Monster III to get 1d4+2 horses. They will then use the Soul Eater touch attacks to give the horses negative levels until they die. Each touch will give them a soul point.

The soul points can be used in place of material components when crafting. They can also be used 5 at a time with the spell Create Soul Gem to make a basic soul (worth 100gp).

You can also spend 2X spell level soul points to regain a spell slot. Coincidentally the average 2.5(horses)+2=4.5x2(HD)=9 soul points per casting. So you can do this as long as the caster feels like it and can stay awake. Same with Create Soul Gem.

In an 8hr period they can stockpile 33K gp worth of Soul Gems to be used/sold later. This is on top of their crafting which is done for free.

Doing this in a demiplane with the fast time trait means 2 days pass for every 1 day on the material plane. So already 1/2 time.

As you pointed out earlier increasing the DC pushes this progress to 1/4.

You can also take breaks from adventuring to retrain any feat slots from level 7 or lower to new crafting feats and repeat the process. The new Simulacra wil have your current feat load out.

[Andrian]

Basically, once you are level 14 you can cast Simulacrum. You make 2 Simulacrum of yourself that are level 7. They will be Wizard (or other full caster of choice)5/Soul Eater2.

Their feats are Spell Focus Conjuration, Augment Summoning, Superior Summons. Make any available feats left over crafting feats of your choice.

They will spend 8hrs a day working in tandem to cast Summon Monster III to get 1d4+2 horses. They will then use the Soul Eater touch attacks to give the horses negative levels until they die. Each touch will give them a soul point.

The soul points can be used in place of material components when crafting. They can also be used 5 at a time with the spell Create Soul Gem to make a basic soul (worth 100gp).

You can also spend 2X spell level soul points to regain a spell slot. Coincidentally the average 2.5(horses)+2=4.5x2(HD)=9 soul points per casting. So you can do this as long as the caster feels like it and can stay awake. Same with Create Soul Gem.

In an 8hr period they can stockpile 33K gp worth of Soul Gems to be used/sold later. This is on top of their crafting which is done for free.

Doing this in a demiplane with the fast time trait means 2 days pass for every 1 day on the material plane. So already 1/2 time.

As you pointed out earlier increasing the DC pushes this progress to 1/4.

You can also take breaks from adventuring to retrain any feat slots from level 7 or lower to new crafting feats and repeat the process. The new Simulacra wil have your current feat load out.

Okay, so the real draw for me here is this Demiplane... Looking it up, it looks like the spell we're after is Create Greater Demiplane, a 9th-level spell with a 500 GP material component cost, and Create Lesser Demiplane, a 7th-level spell with a 500 GP material cost... Such a plane would last for a number of days equal to your level and time would pass twice as fast in there. So for 1000 GP and 8 hours, you can double all crafting speeds from as soon as you can cast 9th-level spells. Very handy! I should add it to the guide!

[Azoth]

Okay, so the real draw for me here is this Demiplane... Looking it up, it looks like the spell we're after is Create Greater Demiplane, a 9th-level spell with a 500 GP material component cost, and Create Lesser Demiplane, a 7th-level spell with a 500 GP material cost... Such a plane would last for a number of days equal to your level and time would pass twice as fast in there. So for 1000 GP and 8 hours, you can double all crafting speeds from as soon as you can cast 9th-level spells. Very handy! I should add it to the guide!


Or you could buy a scroll of Crate Demiplane Greater for 4325GP, and then Permanency it for another 22500gp. So for 26825gp you have your workspace set up.

2 Simulacra will cost 7000gp.

So 33,825gp investment. 28hrs of your time in game spent casting.

You make that back in a little over 1 day in Soul Gems alone not counting the crafting your simulacra are doing.

Granted it costs about 1/5 your WBL at level 14 to get started. So not an investment to take lightly.

[Coidzor]

An amusing thing I realized while discussing things you can do with a Decanter of Endless Water.

I believe one can Fabricate the salt/fresh water out of a bunch of seawater in order to generate salt. At 9th level a Wizard with 20-25 Int can cast Fabricate twice a day. Each time they cast Fabricate they can affect either 9 cubic feet or 90 cubic feet of material, or 72 or 720 gallons. It's about 3.5 gallons to the pound of salt at normal seawater concentrations.

So a 9th level Wizard can make ~41 or ~411 pounds of salt out of seawater per day, given access to the ocean and a way to get the water out of there to cast on well or a Decanter of Endless Water on seawater setting. That's 205 or 2055 gp of salt, which works as a trade good in terms of value.

One could also increase the concentration of salt in the water by boiling and then fabricate out the tiny amount of water in some super-concentrated brine. One or two Permanent Walls of Fire and some inventive glassware would probably work for that purpose.



The 3.5 gallons to the pound of salt also gives us a rough quantity of salt water to use for raw material for mundane crafting of salt from seawater. One could potentially assign a value of 1.66 gp per 3.5 gallons of saltwater, or 47 sp per gallon of saltwater even.

It's not flashy, but it is a way to craft something that is a trade good, and so immune to having to be sold for half price.

I suppose Cheese, Flour, Maple Syrup, and Sugar food/spice trade goods; Canvas, Cotton, Leather(thick), Leather(thin), Linen, Silk, and Wool Textiles and Furs trade goods; and all of the Glass, Metal, and Wood trade goods are also examples of things that one could produce using Craft and then get around the 1/2 price sale clause.

Although for all of them, the complexity DCs would have to be adjudicated by individual GM.

Still, it is somewhat amusing to think of Taking 10 on a Craft Check and making 100 sp worth or 500 pounds of Cheese in a week by hitting a DC of 5 with a result of 20 or going up to 300 sp or 1500 pounds of Cheese in a week by bumping the DC up to 15.

Of the existing Craft skills, I'd say that Craft: Alchemy is probably most suited to using distillation and boiling to get purified salt out of seawater. So I'm highly amused by the idea of a high level character sitting down and making oodles of salt during their downtime. 133 check result * 2(Signature Skill) * 25(high quality salt DC 15 base, boost DC by 10 for conservative view) = 6650 sp of salt or 133 pounds per day.

[Andrian]

I don't know if this is possible, but a much easier and cheaper way to produce a virtually infinite amount of salt would be to create an infinite source of heat and build a construct to fill pots with sea water and switch them over once the water had all been boiled away. A Clockwork Servant might be a decent choice for that. That way you could leave them behind to work while you go off adventuring... or use your immense talents to produce something more interesting than salt.

[Florian]

Looking at the cost of spellcasting services, offering those yourself during downtime is more rewarding, less time-consuming but you don´t get the feeling you just had a bright idea that breaks the rules.

As for crafting: Your assessment of Master Craftsman is wrong. Sure, you can go either into Armor or Weapons, depending on craft skill, but you can follow up with the full Craft Wondrous Items without any restrictions. And this is where the heavy hitters mostly are. Now every character with either access to Advances Armor Training or Advanced Weapon Training can substitute full BAB for the necessary skill and craft skills are substantially easier to push than Spellcraft, starting with traits, Skill Unlocks, magic items and buying a very simple home using the Downtime rules (which you should).

[ellindsey]

I have been considering a crafting build based on a Tattooed Sorcerer with the Impossible Bloodline. This will give you an improved version of Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd level for free, and a familiar that you can put the Valet template on. You also get the ability to affect constructs as if they were living creatures with your spells, which can be handy if you want to go into construct-crafting. The downside, of course, is that you're MAD (Cha + Int) and limited to sorcerer spellcasting. Then again, you could always take one level of Sorcerer, then the rest in Wizard, and just wear a Robe of Arcane Heritage to get the 3rd level crafting feat.

[Andrian]

As for crafting: Your assessment of Master Craftsman is wrong. Sure, you can go either into Armor or Weapons, depending on craft skill, but you can follow up with the full Craft Wondrous Items without any restrictions. And this is where the heavy hitters mostly are. Now every character with either access to Advances Armor Training or Advanced Weapon Training can substitute full BAB for the necessary skill and craft skills are substantially easier to push than Spellcraft, starting with traits, Skill Unlocks, magic items and buying a very simple home using the Downtime rules (which you should).

I realized this exact point about Master Craftsman yesterday and did include it in the guide. As for substituting BAB for the skills, I still can't see that as being superior to taking a class with full casting progression and just having the skill. After re-reading it, it basically lets you substitute a Craft or Profession skill for Spellcraft with Wondrous Items and Arms and Armor. I think this might be a discrepancy between RAW and RAI, but personally, I consider RAI to be houserules unless put in writing as an FAQ or Errata. It's perfectly valid for a DM to rule that my original interpretation of the feat is how it works, but it's just as valid for a DM to rule otherwise.

Speaking of things I've included in the guide, I have made a number of changes and updates, so I suggest looking it over again! I've corrected some mistakes and added a bunch of builds to account for the viability of Wizard as a crafter. This has added quite a bit of flexibility into the builds, which I like. While there definitely is one option that is superior to all others, at least for a gestalt build, I like giving people options, rather than locking them into one specific play style. I'm now slowly working on adding in other stuff.

I think my next project will be adding a section for items to make or obtain, such as a Blessed Book for Wizards/Magi, Amazing Tools of Manufacture, Traveler's Any-Tool, Headband of Int, etc. Eventually, I'd like to make a guide for what constructs to craft, but that's a daunting task, practically a guide in itself.

[Baroncognito]

I'd suggest mentioning the feat Companion Figurine (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/companion-figurine/). It gets you familiar for one feat, one skill point, and one magical item. Yeah, you'll have to get DM approval to use the Valet archetype with it, but I don't think that's a proposal that would be dismissed out of hand.

I like it because it fits the flavour well, building your own assistant.

The Serpentine Owl is good for 16 hours a day, which is all your waking, or a look-out while you're sleeping, a crafting aid for 8 hours, and a paperweight the rest of the day.

The Silver Raven is good for 48 hours a week, which is 6 8 hour crafting days, and on the seventh day, it rests.

[Florian]

@Andrian:

Not what I meant. Check AMH/WMH. Some advanced armor/weapon training options throw the crafting feats at you for free, let you act like you had Master Craftsmen and substitute BAB for the skill, which you already noted can be pushed higher then spellcraft.
So your basic Fighter, or more concrete, Dwarf Fighter VMC Wizard with Valet familiar, Spark of Life and so on, is the superior crafter because there´s next to zero investment to get there, not diluting the base class you use it on.

As for crafting constructs, that´s a different matter und you should check out the Nex PrC.

[eldskald]

@Andrian:

Not what I meant. Check AMH/WMH. Some advanced armor/weapon training options throw the crafting feats at you for free, let you act like you had Master Craftsmen and substitute BAB for the skill, which you already noted can be pushed higher then spellcraft.
So your basic Fighter, or more concrete, Dwarf Fighter VMC Wizard with Valet familiar, Spark of Life and so on, is the superior crafter because there´s next to zero investment to get there, not diluting the base class you use it on.

As for crafting constructs, that´s a different matter und you should check out the Nex PrC.

Not really, the whole point of being a full Wizard is to pick Dwarf Wizard FCB and Arcane Builder. Without those, the other crafters are slower, and speed is what really matters here. Also, when you use a non caster to craft, you have to deal with a lot of -5 penalties for not filling in all pre-requisites, so you set your self back again.



I think my next project will be adding a section for items to make or obtain, such as a Blessed Book for Wizards/Magi, Amazing Tools of Manufacture, Traveler's Any-Tool, Headband of Int, etc. Eventually, I'd like to make a guide for what constructs to craft, but that's a daunting task, practically a guide in itself.

I was going to talk about that. Notice how most given bonus are circumstance bonus, which means they do stack with each other. So far, I've found all those things: Armilary Amulet, Masterwork Tools, Arcane Family Workbook, Altars to Nethys and the Valet Familiar. Those are lots of bonuses. You can always use the amulet just to craft and have another one to do the adventuring. If in desperation, there is always Skill Focus (Spellcraft).

[Molosse]

Not really, the whole point of being a full Wizard is to pick Dwarf Wizard FCB and Arcane Builder. Without those, the other crafters are slower, and speed is what really matters here. Also, when you use a non caster to craft, you have to deal with a lot of -5 penalties for not filling in all pre-requisites, so you set your self back again.

Actually had a question about that, aren't they +5 to DC penalties? So doesn't that, with the weird way crafting works, make the process quicker? Not as quick as 1/2ing or 1/4ing the time for sure, but in small increments.

Also, if you're planning to concentrate on one or two crafting skills and NOT going Wizard I'd argue Human trumps Dwarf for a racial choice, combining Focused Study (3 feats for the price of 1) and Heart of the Fields (racial 1/2 level bonus on one Craft/Profession skill).

[Coidzor]

Actually had a question about that, aren't they +5 to DC penalties? So doesn't that, with the weird way crafting works, make the process quicker? Not as quick as 1/2ing or 1/4ing the time for sure, but in small increments.

Also, if you're planning to concentrate on one or two crafting skills and NOT going Wizard I'd argue Human trumps Dwarf for a racial choice, combining Focused Study (3 feats for the price of 1) and Heart of the Fields (racial 1/2 level bonus on one Craft/Profession skill).

The roll for magic items doesn't determine how much gp of progress you make unless you're crafting magic items using a Skill Unlock from Unchained, most likely by being an Unchained Rogue or taking the Signature Skill feat.

Even then, I only think that progress is determined by craft check result * DC, it could just be standard 1000 gp of progress per diem, 2K if you up the DC by 5.

[eldskald]

The roll for magic items doesn't determine how much gp of progress you make unless you're crafting magic items using a Skill Unlock from Unchained, most likely by being an Unchained Rogue or taking the Signature Skill feat.

Even then, I only think that progress is determined by craft check result * DC, it could just be standard 1000 gp of progress per diem, 2K if you up the DC by 5.

We need to be lv 20 to use this bonus from craft unlock, meaning it's a something we will never see in game. Also, to use this unlock, you must have ranks in craft, even if you use your BAB when you're crafting. Even then, it only works for wondrous items, magic arms and armor and rings that fall under the category of craft in which you have 20 ranks in. Also, this unlock is not out of the wizard's reach, meaning he can use his FCB and Arcane Builder to use this skill unlock, meaning he would still be faster than a lv 20 fighter with skill unlock. Also, the fighter can only craft magic armor with Master Armorer.

A wizard can generate, with 5 FCB on one category and Arcane Builder, 10k gold per day. Can do it from lv 5 and beyond.

[Coidzor]

The level at which the Skill Unlock activates is irrelevant to the fact that it's the only time one would use the normal Craft rules of rolling to determine progress to make a magic item and that one does not roll when using Master Craftsman to craft magic items without being a spellcaster.

That said, I don't believe that the Dwarf FCB would have any effect on using the skill unlock since the FCB interacts with the magic item crafting rules and the Craft Skill Unlock allows one to make a magic item with the normal crafting rules.

The main thing that does is that, in theory, one could turn a larger profit by crafting for 1/3 cost and selling for 1/2, especially if one is able to use Magic Capital to make it so that one is actually crafting for 1/6 cost and selling for 1/2. It'd be far slower, though, so, especially with Magic Capital, you'd very likely get more return of investment over time by crafting more at 1/4 cost and selling for 1/2.

23+10+7(Int 13+5+6)+6(skill focus)+5(crafter's fortune, easy to buy or have a source of even without being a caster)+4(Amazing Tools) = 55. 55 * 55 * 2 = 6050 silver pieces of progress per day. So 605 gp of progress in a day. Versus 1000 gp or 2000 gp of progress per day using the baseline of magic item crafting.

You'd need a check result of 72 and a DC bumped up to 70 before you'd be able to make 1000+ gp of progress in a day using mundane crafting rules. You'd need a check result and DC that are both 100 before you'd be able to equal or exceed 2000 gp of progress in a day.

[Andrian]

I'd suggest mentioning the feat Companion Figurine (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/companion-figurine/). It gets you familiar for one feat, one skill point, and one magical item. Yeah, you'll have to get DM approval to use the Valet archetype with it, but I don't think that's a proposal that would be dismissed out of hand.

I like it because it fits the flavour well, building your own assistant.

The Serpentine Owl is good for 16 hours a day, which is all your waking, or a look-out while you're sleeping, a crafting aid for 8 hours, and a paperweight the rest of the day.

The Silver Raven is good for 48 hours a week, which is 6 8 hour crafting days, and on the seventh day, it rests.

This is a good find! I'll definitely make a mention of it in the guide!

Regarding using a class eligible for Advanced Armor Training VMC'ed with Wizard, I really don't think it'd be worth it. You'd give up half of the feats that would be eligible for crafting feats, and only be able to use Arcane Builder to craft magic armor. The others have listed all the other drawbacks I can think of. I don't think it's worth mentioning in the guide, except possibly to steer people away from it.

[eldskald]

The level at which the Skill Unlock activates is irrelevant to the fact that it's the only time one would use the normal Craft rules of rolling to determine progress to make a magic item and that one does not roll when using Master Craftsman to craft magic items without being a spellcaster.

That said, I don't believe that the Dwarf FCB would have any effect on using the skill unlock since the FCB interacts with the magic item crafting rules and the Craft Skill Unlock allows one to make a magic item with the normal crafting rules.

The main thing that does is that, in theory, one could turn a larger profit by crafting for 1/3 cost and selling for 1/2, especially if one is able to use Magic Capital to make it so that one is actually crafting for 1/6 cost and selling for 1/2. It'd be far slower, though, so, especially with Magic Capital, you'd very likely get more return of investment over time by crafting more at 1/4 cost and selling for 1/2.

23+10+7(Int 13+5+6)+6(skill focus)+5(crafter's fortune, easy to buy or have a source of even without being a caster)+4(Amazing Tools) = 55. 55 * 55 * 2 = 6050 silver pieces of progress per day. So 605 gp of progress in a day. Versus 1000 gp or 2000 gp of progress per day using the baseline of magic item crafting.

You'd need a check result of 72 and a DC bumped up to 70 before you'd be able to make 1000+ gp of progress in a day using mundane crafting rules. You'd need a check result and DC that are both 100 before you'd be able to equal or exceed 2000 gp of progress in a day.

The Soul Forger Magus can bump it up, both by multiplying this number by 2 and by adding his class levels to the check. That would be 55+20=75, which means 75²*2*2=(75*2)²=150²=22500, that's 2.25k gold per day. Would require some debate if it's 10x or 2x faster, since it makes mundane items 10x faster and magical arms and armor only 2x faster, so if you use skill unlock to craft magical arms and armor it would still not be a mundane item. If it was 10x, that would be a groundbreaking 11.25k gold per day.
Even then, wizard can bump 2k gold per day to 4k gold with 5 FCB bonuses. And even then, it's a lv 20 feature only, so why even consider it?

[Coidzor]

And even then, it's a lv 20 feature only, so why even consider it?

...Why on do you think that's what something I meant or endorse?

I brought the bloody thing up as an example of the only exception to the general rule and you're trying to argue with me.

What do you think I said and why do you care to keep trying to start an argument where there is none?

:confused:

[eldskald]

...Why on do you think that's what something I meant or endorse?

I brought the bloody thing up as an example of the only exception to the general rule and you're trying to argue with me.

What do you think I said and why do you care to keep trying to start an argument where there is none?

:confused:

Wow sorry, I was not trying to argue. I thought that was something you meant because you brought it up, so I wanted to debate and check everything. I even gave more findings to make the skill unlock better with Magus, so I was really trying to consider this build, and that's why I cared. I didn't mean to argue, aren't we meant to discuss and debate all findings? I just wanted to understand more, maybe there was something I wasn't seeing? Again, sorry if I sounded mean.

[Andrian]

So, one thing I should point out, and haven't yet, is that for mundane crafting, Soul Forger Magus//Forgemaster Cleric with Skill Unlocks is king. You double daily progress with your familiar, double it again at level 5, get x10 at Magus 7, and at... I think it's level 15, you measure progress per day. That means that by level 15, you'll be EASILY making progress per day to rival or even exceed what you can do with magic items, depending on your skill level.

Let's take someone with 22 Int (so a +6 modifier) and 15 ranks in Craft(Armor). Full Plate has a DC of 19, and is made of metal. +6 base, +3 Class Skill, +15 ranks, +2 Craftsman, +2 Masterwork Tools, +2 Cooperative Crafting, +14 for levels in Soul Forger (assuming the Wizard dip) +10 for Taking Ten gives us a total skill roll of 54. We can add 10 to the DC to go faster, giving us 54x29=1,566 SP. x2 Cooperative Crafting, x2 from Forgemaster Master Smith, x10 from Soul Forger Master Smith gives us a whopping 6,264 GP progress per day, meaning we can crank out 4 suits of full plate every day. And that's all without using Crafter's Fortune!

[eldskald]

I should point out that if this character has 5 levels in Forgemaster, then he has only 9 levels in Soul Forger, which means a total of 49 craft check. But since Forgemaster has Crafter's Fortune, that goes back to 54. Also, as written, you can keep addinng +10 to Craft DC as many times as you want. You also forgot craft unlock's first power (we've all been not counting it!), and that doubles our progress. That means its 54x49x2x2x2x10=211680 silver pieces a day, which are 21168 gold. That does indeed works more than the wizard, and as already noted by Coidzor, we can sell it for profit. That means 3528 gold per day if we can sell all our produce. Maybe some warring kingdom or the local adventuring/mercenary guild can buy those.

Anyway, I should also point out that the alchemist is even faster than that with the Master Alchemist feat and skill unlocks. When crafting poison, he goes insane! So, at lv 15 with access to the same tools and Crafter's Fortune, he gets a total of 60 in his check. That means he can go 60x60=3600, then 3600x2x2x2x10 from familiar, swift alchemy, craft unlock and master alchemist to a total 28800 gold per day. If he uses a Cauldron of Brewing, this goes to 33800 gold per day at maximum DC. If he crafts poisons, he actually multiplies this by his intelligence modifier. Well, at this level, his cognatogen lasts for 15 hours, which means the check can go even higher and the he can potentialy multiply it by something around 9 or 10. We can settle at something around 300k gold per day, which can profit for 50k gold, if we can sell it all. That's some stinky cheese!

Let's do the math for a lv 10 alchemist. The check goes to 50. With a Cauldron of Brewing, that's 55. This goes to 55²x8=24.8k gold per week, which is a bit more than 3.4k a day. Multiply it by his intelligence (maybe +6 at lv 10) goes to 20.4k gold a day, which profits back to 3.4k gold. That's almost as much profit as the 15 magus/cleric/wizard!

At level 18, they get instant alchemy, which turns all those calculations to nothing, since they can make any alchemical item in a full round action. Hahaha, that's insane, but still it's lv 18. It only fits the alchemist's quest to turn other materials into gold, I guess...

[Azoth]

If you don't mind being evil, crafting can be pretty cheap. You can buy a wand of Summon Cacodaemon for 4500GP. Cacodaemons have the ability to make Soul Gems from the recently dead 1/day. The soul of even a level 1 Commoner is worth 100gp as an expensive material component for spellcasting or crafting.

So 50 charges in a wand X 100gp per commoner= 5000gp. Cost of a new wand 4500gp. This means 500gp in profits.

Sure you may have to Fireball a few villages, but hey cheap items.

[Andrian]

I should point out that if this character has 5 levels in Forgemaster, then he has only 9 levels in Soul Forger, which means a total of 49 craft check. But since Forgemaster has Crafter's Fortune, that goes back to 54. Also, as written, you can keep addinng +10 to Craft DC as many times as you want. You also forgot craft unlock's first power (we've all been not counting it!), and that doubles our progress. That means its 54x49x2x2x2x10=211680 silver pieces a day, which are 21168 gold. That does indeed works more than the wizard, and as already noted by Coidzor, we can sell it for profit. That means 3528 gold per day if we can sell all our produce. Maybe some warring kingdom or the local adventuring/mercenary guild can buy those.

Anyway, I should also point out that the alchemist is even faster than that with the Master Alchemist feat and skill unlocks. When crafting poison, he goes insane! So, at lv 15 with access to the same tools and Crafter's Fortune, he gets a total of 60 in his check. That means he can go 60x60=3600, then 3600x2x2x2x10 from familiar, swift alchemy, craft unlock and master alchemist to a total 28800 gold per day. If he uses a Cauldron of Brewing, this goes to 33800 gold per day at maximum DC. If he crafts poisons, he actually multiplies this by his intelligence modifier. Well, at this level, his cognatogen lasts for 15 hours, which means the check can go even higher and the he can potentialy multiply it by something around 9 or 10. We can settle at something around 300k gold per day, which can profit for 50k gold, if we can sell it all. That's some stinky cheese!

Let's do the math for a lv 10 alchemist. The check goes to 50. With a Cauldron of Brewing, that's 55. This goes to 55²x8=24.8k gold per week, which is a bit more than 3.4k a day. Multiply it by his intelligence (maybe +6 at lv 10) goes to 20.4k gold a day, which profits back to 3.4k gold. That's almost as much profit as the 15 magus/cleric/wizard!

At level 18, they get instant alchemy, which turns all those calculations to nothing, since they can make any alchemical item in a full round action. Hahaha, that's insane, but still it's lv 18. It only fits the alchemist's quest to turn other materials into gold, I guess...

Oh, I was assuming a gestalt build in my analysis (specifically the Armorer), as evidenced by the double slashes. As for a standard build, I'd never recommend multiclassing Forgemaster and Soul Forger because of how utterly rubbish you'd be in combat.

Your analysis on the alchemist is definitely interesting. I'm curious as to whether the Alchemist or the Investigator would be better at Craft(Alchemy). I know I've kinda bashed Brew Potion in my guide, but I've been wondering if there's a way to optimize for potion brewing. My initial thought is that Alchemist, Investigator, or Witch might potentially have some hidden gems in there, but I haven't had time to look yet.

[Coventry]

An option to take into account in Pathfinder is Feat Retraining (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/retraining/). For the cost of 5 days at 100gp/level, a character can swap one feat for another, so Forge Ring this week, Craft Rod next, and when you go adventuring, swap it out for something more useful in battle.

Also, the Unsworn Shaman archetype has access to Brew Potion and Craft Wondrous Item through reassigning their hexes (daily option), as well as access the every spell on both the Shaman and Wizard class lists via the Arcane Enlightenment hex.

[eldskald]

An option to take into account in Pathfinder is Feat Retraining (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/retraining/). For the cost of 5 days at 100gp/level, a character can swap one feat for another, so Forge Ring this week, Craft Rod next, and when you go adventuring, swap it out for something more useful in battle.

Also, the Unsworn Shaman archetype has access to Brew Potion and Craft Wondrous Item through reassigning their hexes (daily option), as well as access the every spell on both the Shaman and Wizard class lists via the Arcane Enlightenment hex.

Unsworn shaman is another good find! So, they already have access to a familiar and with the lore spirit hexes, they can get to use Wis instead of Int to Spellcraft and get wizard spells to their list for the day. They need Int to prepare the spells, but they don't need to prepare the spells to cast them, so that could be ignored. They also add cleric spells with FCB from most core races. So they can get the Fetish/Cauldron hex and those other hexes when they're not adventuring to craft, and when they're out adventuring they can get other things useful for adventuring. The bad part is that they're not so good at field crafting this way. There is also debate if they qualify for the Extra Hex feat and if they could, if it would be a normal permanent hex or a minor spirit hex. If they can't qualify, they would need at least lv 8 to get those 3 hexes. They would also need to get the other crafting feats if they want, but that's not the end of the world. Not lightning fast like the ultimate crafters, but worth considering as an adventuring crafter.


Oh, I was assuming a gestalt build in my analysis (specifically the Armorer), as evidenced by the double slashes. As for a standard build, I'd never recommend multiclassing Forgemaster and Soul Forger because of how utterly rubbish you'd be in combat.

Your analysis on the alchemist is definitely interesting. I'm curious as to whether the Alchemist or the Investigator would be better at Craft(Alchemy). I know I've kinda bashed Brew Potion in my guide, but I've been wondering if there's a way to optimize for potion brewing. My initial thought is that Alchemist, Investigator, or Witch might potentially have some hidden gems in there, but I haven't had time to look yet.

The investigator gets swift alchemy at lv 4, and they can spend inspiration to craft. The investigator talents that could help are Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration. With both, the expected value bonus would be 5.8125. While alchemists can add cognatogen bonuses, they can't surpass that, so a focused investigator is slightly better. As for Brew Potion, look for Druid with Druidic Herbalism. It's another option for Nature Bond. Instead of domain or animal companion, they get free potions everyday. It's pretty abusable, you can make around 75xWisxCL gold per day after lv 5. Before that, they can make less, but still a lot. Though RAI seems to indicate that you are not supposed to sell them, you still can. Even without selling it's still pretty strong.

As for the absurd amount of gold the alchemist/investigator can make, that's really why I hate the crafting rules. They're made to make crafting inviable, but also made so that if you make a focused character, you break the game. On top of that, they give us feats like Master Alchemist. I've read in other places that they like to ban this feat because of the crazy money it can make. That's completely understandable. I would prefer to house-rule different crafting rules. You should make a section about mundane crafting with skill unlocks, they're a great way to make money. Also, add the Companion Figurine option instead of MVR.

[Andrian]

After reading through Companion Figurine, it seems really unclear as to whether it actually grants you a familiar or not. More importantly, it seems unclear as to whether Companion Figurine grants you an Animal Companion, because if so, the choices are pretty good. Lions, elephants, and horses are pretty damn good animal companions, and the figurine versions probably all have magical abilities and cannot die. Even with the limited use time for each figurine, that seems a bit OP for a single feat, especially if the companion's level is based off your character level (though that's never specifically stated).

[Baroncognito]

After reading through Companion Figurine, it seems really unclear as to whether it actually grants you a familiar or not. More importantly, it seems unclear as to whether Companion Figurine grants you an Animal Companion, because if so, the choices are pretty good. Lions, elephants, and horses are pretty damn good animal companions, and the figurine versions probably all have magical abilities and cannot die. Even with the limited use time for each figurine, that seems a bit OP for a single feat, especially if the companion's level is based off your character level (though that's never specifically stated).

You're right, it doesn't seem to ever say that. Hmm.

Okay, after further investigation, I have discovered how Hero Lab decided to treat this feat:

If you have this feat and access to either an animal companion or a familiar, this feat allows you to then choose your companion figurine to serve as said animal companion or familiar.

[RecklessPrudenc]

Was reading your guide, thinking about getting Leadership and a craftmonkey, and something jumped out at me: With a Dwarven Wizard, you could easily take the Propitiation trait (sorry, can't link - not enough posts yet), and get a floating +2 to any Craft skill, changing on a daily basis.

Also, not sure if this one is worth it, but have a look at Esoteric Linguistics. Since CHA is a dump stat for the crafter, and Linguistics is an Int-based Class Skill for the Wizard, Esoteric Linguistics would allow the Wizard to have a much better chance of deciphering scrolls - say, Divine ones that your friendly Cleric makes for you? That would mean you wouldn't have to take the +5 for the Spell Requirement/s.

And I found what I think is a mistake - you seem to imply that you can get an Improved Familiar with the Valet archetype, but Improved Familiars don't have the ability to speak with others of their kind, and that's something that the Valet archetype has to give up. So unfortunately, the crafter is stuck with their normal familiar, unless they want to give up Valet.

[eldskald]

Was reading your guide, thinking about getting Leadership and a craftmonkey, and something jumped out at me: With a Dwarven Wizard, you could easily take the Propitiation trait (sorry, can't link - not enough posts yet), and get a floating +2 to any Craft skill, changing on a daily basis.

Also, not sure if this one is worth it, but have a look at Esoteric Linguistics. Since CHA is a dump stat for the crafter, and Linguistics is an Int-based Class Skill for the Wizard, Esoteric Linguistics would allow the Wizard to have a much better chance of deciphering scrolls - say, Divine ones that your friendly Cleric makes for you? That would mean you wouldn't have to take the +5 for the Spell Requirement/s.

And I found what I think is a mistake - you seem to imply that you can get an Improved Familiar with the Valet archetype, but Improved Familiars don't have the ability to speak with others of their kind, and that's something that the Valet archetype has to give up. So unfortunately, the crafter is stuck with their normal familiar, unless they want to give up Valet.

About the familiar, that's really sad. I'm not sure there's a rule about it, but maybe you can also lose the ability that the Valet replaced speak with others of their kind with?

About Leadership, there is another more flavorful (and expensiver and time consuming) solution: build your own craftmonkeys with Craft Construct. You can always give them a wondrous item that gives them +10 to spellcraft so they never fail the Aid Another check to help you. How many robots (or cohorts if you take Leadership) can help you at the same time is up to your DM. Maybe cohorts are better, since they can have the craft feats themselves and craft while you're out. Wait, how about being a normal adventurer with high charisma and taking Leadership to have your highest cohort be one of those ultimate crafter builds? That's not nearly as cool as crafting the items yourself, but hey, it's another option!

[RecklessPrudenc]

Wait, how about being a normal adventurer with high charisma and taking Leadership to have your highest cohort be one of those ultimate crafter builds? That's not nearly as cool as crafting the items yourself, but hey, it's another option!
Yep, that's the plan! Our party's little craftmonkey. And he can get some battlefield control spells as well, since we don't actually have an Arcane caster.

[unseenmage]

...

About Leadership, there is another more flavorful (and expensiver and time consuming) solution: build your own craftmonkeys with Craft Construct. You can always give them a wondrous item that gives them +10 to spellcraft so they never fail the Aid Another check to help you. How many robots (or cohorts if you take Leadership) can help you at the same time is up to your DM. Maybe cohorts are better, since they can have the craft feats themselves and craft while you're out. Wait, how about being a normal adventurer with high charisma and taking Leadership to have your highest cohort be one of those ultimate crafter builds? That's not nearly as cool as crafting the items yourself, but hey, it's another option!

The Reclamation Mechanism (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20457305&postcount=22) is the best crafting Construct I ever cobbled together. FYI, it utilizes the 3rd party Amalgam template from Advanced Bestiary and incorporates tech from Numeria.

Just using the rules for building any Construct based on its CR one can make the Latten Mechanism sans the template and the tech.

[Andrian]

You're right, it doesn't seem to ever say that. Hmm.

Okay, after further investigation, I have discovered how Hero Lab decided to treat this feat:

If you have this feat and access to either an animal companion or a familiar, this feat allows you to then choose your companion figurine to serve as said animal companion or familiar.

I've seen that interpretation online, and it does seem to be a popular one. I think I'm going to assume that's the correct ruling for now and keep Companion Figurine out of the guide. A cool feat, but definitely not something that will help us much.


Was reading your guide, thinking about getting Leadership and a craftmonkey, and something jumped out at me: With a Dwarven Wizard, you could easily take the Propitiation trait (sorry, can't link - not enough posts yet), and get a floating +2 to any Craft skill, changing on a daily basis.

Also, not sure if this one is worth it, but have a look at Esoteric Linguistics. Since CHA is a dump stat for the crafter, and Linguistics is an Int-based Class Skill for the Wizard, Esoteric Linguistics would allow the Wizard to have a much better chance of deciphering scrolls - say, Divine ones that your friendly Cleric makes for you? That would mean you wouldn't have to take the +5 for the Spell Requirement/s.

And I found what I think is a mistake - you seem to imply that you can get an Improved Familiar with the Valet archetype, but Improved Familiars don't have the ability to speak with others of their kind, and that's something that the Valet archetype has to give up. So unfortunately, the crafter is stuck with their normal familiar, unless they want to give up Valet.

Propitiation is a good find for any of these crafters! I'll add it to the guide! ...later, because I'm tired and it's late.

As for scrolls, I'm not sure how hard deciphering scrolls is. Isn't that based off a Spellcraft roll anyway? That's one of our best skills.

And yes, you found a mistake. Thanks for letting me know about it! It definitely changes my ratings for a number of feats! This affects not only Improved Familiar, but also Familiar Bond! I've updated the guide to reflect that.


About the familiar, that's really sad. I'm not sure there's a rule about it, but maybe you can also lose the ability that the Valet replaced speak with others of their kind with?

About Leadership, there is another more flavorful (and expensiver and time consuming) solution: build your own craftmonkeys with Craft Construct. You can always give them a wondrous item that gives them +10 to spellcraft so they never fail the Aid Another check to help you. How many robots (or cohorts if you take Leadership) can help you at the same time is up to your DM. Maybe cohorts are better, since they can have the craft feats themselves and craft while you're out. Wait, how about being a normal adventurer with high charisma and taking Leadership to have your highest cohort be one of those ultimate crafter builds? That's not nearly as cool as crafting the items yourself, but hey, it's another option!

One thing I'm a little concerned about with the Leadership route is that I think there's a rule about not giving your cohorts nothing but crafting feats. I've never really looked into the Leadership feat much, myself, since 90% of GMs ban it right out of the gate due to the amount of bookkeeping and the effects it can have on action economy. Still, if you can get an ultimate crafter build with Leadership, I highly recommend it! You can be James Bond and hire a Q to outfit yourself and your friends!

Another use for these types of builds is NPC's. If the GM wants to build a character that's a true master of the craft, this guide will help. It'll also serve as a benchmark for measuring the skills of crafters relative to one another. If you wanted to really go through some complex problem solving, you could try and imagine what a world in which an ultimate crafter build existed would look like, especially if it became well-known how to achieve it. There's a high-level economics problem for ya... @_@

[Korahir]

Excellent guide, thanks. Any recommendation for a level 6 build? I'd like to build an NPC around crafting constructs in a P6 environment.
What constructs would you recommend? If I am not mistaken, these are available: Animated Objects, the Iron Cobra, Homunculi, the Scarecrow, Soulbound Doll, Soulbound Mannequin, Soulbound Shell.
For worldbuilding reasons the NPC has to be a gnome. I'd like to focus on craft (carpentry) and produce wood related constructs if possible.

[Andrian]

Excellent guide, thanks. Any recommendation for a level 6 build? I'd like to build an NPC around crafting constructs in a P6 environment.
What constructs would you recommend? If I am not mistaken, these are available: Animated Objects, the Iron Cobra, Homunculi, the Scarecrow, Soulbound Doll, Soulbound Mannequin, Soulbound Shell.
For worldbuilding reasons the NPC has to be a gnome. I'd like to focus on craft (carpentry) and produce wood related constructs if possible.

Hmmm, that's a tough one. Flavorful as a gnome would be, they fall far short of the mark when it comes to ultimate crafters, since they don't have access to either the Forgemaster archetype or the dwarf's racial FCB for the Wizard.

The best general crafting build I could offer you would probably be a Wizard 1/Soul Forger Magus 5. Though you don't yet have access to the Soul Forger's super-speed weapons and armor crafting, you do get a bonus to crafting those items equal to your Magus level. Pick up a Valet familiar from your Wizard dip, of course, and you've also got access to Arcane Builder. Since your character will be level 6, I highly recommend using Amazing Tools of Manufacture, which will provide a serious boost to your mundane crafting, though they are limited in that they're locked into a single skill. If you can afford two, I suggest getting both Weapons and Armor, so that the +4 will stack with your Magus bonus, but really, if you can get those for every Craft skill, do it.

As you can see, the build I've suggested is going to be better at mundane crafting, at least relative to the builds I've outlined in the guide, and will be focused on weapons and armor. Unfortunately, there just aren't any bonuses available to gnomes, apart from the Valet familiar and Arcane Builder, that would improve your ability to craft constructs as far as I know. If you really want to focus on constructs, going full Wizard is probably your best bet. You don't need bonuses to Arms and Armor, and you'll have access to more spells for meeting prerequisites.

In either case, you wanna take Craft Construct as soon as possible (5th level for the Wizard build, 6th level for the Wizard/Magus), and Arcane Builder for Craft Construct. There's no rule that says you can't take Arcane Builder for a crafting feat you don't have, and no level restriction, so you can take that from level 1 if you want, leaving plenty of room in the build. If you want this crafter to be able to make Arms and Armor, both the Wizard and Magus get a bonus feat at level 5 that you could use to pick that up.

[RecklessPrudenc]

Hm. A thought occurs. If making an Arcane Crafter, probably the most useful Metamagic Feat to take would be Extend Spell. Double the time for Boots of Speed, or anything that grants Fly, or any other timed effect, for the cost of +1 Spell Level? Yes please! And you get the +2 for metamagic from the Arcane Crafter.

[Andrian]

Hm. A thought occurs. If making an Arcane Crafter, probably the most useful Metamagic Feat to take would be Extend Spell. Double the time for Boots of Speed, or anything that grants Fly, or any other timed effect, for the cost of +1 Spell Level? Yes please! And you get the +2 for metamagic from the Arcane Crafter.

That's an interesting thought. I don't fully understand how metamagic works with those things, but if if your interpretation works, it would certainly be quite nice to double all those effects.

[Andrian]

Hey everyone!

I know I'm double-posting and resurrecting a dead thread, but I'd like to announce that I've made some important revisions to the guide! In addition to some minor editing things, such as fixing the wording of some sections to reflect previous changes, I've also expanded the guide to include some other cool things!

Latest Additions:

-New Race: Aasimar! I recently discovered they can take Racial Heritage, so there's a fun little option for you!
-Eldritch Heritage: A much better replacement for Familiar Bond!
-Bonuses! I've added a section on bonuses you can get to craft/spellcraft! I'm sure it's incomplete, but at least I've found some of them. Special notice goes out to the Father's Forgehammer, which also gives a crafting speed bonus on magic arms and armor!

[Gnaeus]

The Reclamation Mechanism (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20457305&postcount=22) is the best crafting Construct I ever cobbled together. FYI, it utilizes the 3rd party Amalgam template from Advanced Bestiary and incorporates tech from Numeria.

Just using the rules for building any Construct based on its CR one can make the Latten Mechanism sans the template and the tech.

If we discussing 3pp, I have to give a shoutout to the Dreamscarred Press Vizier.
He can swap properties on magic weapons and armor, so the +1 flaming light mace you found + the fighters adamantine glaive becomes a +1 flaming adamantine glaive and a mw vendor item.
He can transfer charges on wands. Don't need 50 charges of reduce person? Shift 35 to the party CLW wand where they will see use.
They can craft spell trigger and completion gear without prereqs.
They get sizable spellcraft bonuses on an int class.
At 17 they reduce crafting costs by 25%

[SerjantDornan]

Hello there, anyone alive?
I suppose, Andrian's definition of Master Craftsman is not correct. It can be just me, but I want to finally figure it out - can we craft a magic items by related Craft check instead of Spellcraft without any feats? P. 548 of Core rulebook states that "the spellcaster must make a single skill check (usually Spellcraft, but sometimes another skill) to finish the item". As for me, "usually... but sometimes" is very vague statement, there is no references to Master Craftsman or smth.
On the other hand, ending of any magic item creation description show us, that each item can be crafted by Spellcraft and other Craft checks. I suppose, it is a proof that we actually can make magic items with Craft checks, but I want to be sure. If anyone will found a developers response about this, I would be pleased, if you share it. Any opinion on this theme is welcomed too.
And is there any Construct crafting guide, such as Andrian was wanted to make? I would be pleased by it too.