My Artificer's Woes

[mehs]

Early on in this campaign, we got some silver ore. My Artificer, Stev, is trying to craft it to increase its value. my results are: 14, 13, 11, 10, in that order. I have a +8 to craft. Thankfully I can't ruin the materials because it is a metal, but HOW?! I get worse with each check...

[Afgncaap5]

Early on in this campaign, we got some silver ore. My Artificer, Stev, is trying to craft it to increase its value. my results are: 14, 13, 11, 10, in that order. I have a +8 to craft. Thankfully I can't ruin the materials because it is a metal, but HOW?! I get worse with each check...

Sadly, probability works that way sometimes. It's always possible the die is poorly weighted (though with numbers spreading out like that I wouldn't bet on it), but I'd say that you should just keep trying. Perhaps take ten, if it's an option?

As for the die, try this: put a solution of water and salt in a cup. Add enough salt so that the die can float freely. Tap die under the water a few times so it bobs up. If it always returns to the same number, it's probably weighted poorly. If it always goes to a different number, it's probably not the die, just a string of bad rolls.

[mehs]

digital, and it is working on other rolls.

[Thunder999]

You can usually take 10 on craft checks (in fact the only time I can think of you wouldn't is if you were using the fabricate spell in combat and needed to make a craft check, crafting just doesn't happen under the sort of pressure that prevents taking 10 otherwise), so that's an 18 on the check, if that's not enough then you could always find some ways to magical boost your int/skill checks, shouldn't be too hard for an artificer.
Since you can't ruin the materials if you have 20x as much time as you need then taking 20 could reasonably be argued to work, netting you a 28.

[Zaq]

I agree with the “take 10” chorus. There should be basically no randomness when crafting. If your mod isn’t high enough to succeed with a 10, either take 20 or get enough circumstantial modifiers (Aid Another is cheap and easy) until you can.

I understand that your woes are more that you seem to get worse with each roll and less that you haven’t succeeded, and I see that you haven’t rolled below 10 yet, meaning that you’ve technically done equal or better to how you’d do taking 10. Still, the larger point stands: Craft checks take long enough that you really shouldn’t leave them up to chance. Just calculate the result you want and optimize until you can guarantee it with a 10. No sense hoping for a 16+ on something that basically takes all day in-game.

[mehs]

The weird thing is that I do pretty good on anything that isn't these craft checks. I managed to get over 20 on 3 intimidate checks (we are at level 1, I have a +2 from my charisma and that is it), and I managed to one hit the intro session boss first turn.

The first session boss stuff is funny enough that I will recount the session. My reason for being in starting town which is a crossroads town was I was going to silver mine to buy ore, heard rumours that it got raided by bandits. Reason for party being a party was they were also in tavern and I managed spot check to see bounty poster and I said "hey, bandit, let's travel in a caravan, safety in numbers". On the way there we found a burned and broken cart with some stuff (40 lbs of silver and a slightly magical shortsword). I fixed the cart, hooked the oxen I sincerely and coincidentally had, up to the cart to pull it, then set off again.
We got attacked by 4 wanna be bandits shortly after. we killed 2, 1 was dying so I stabilized, the bowman got non lethally taken down. They were not the bandits who attacked the mine and were desperate since short on cash. I offered job at silver mine (if it truly was abandoned I could invoke finder's keeper's) and he accepted. we ran by his house (failing farm) picked up his stuff, got his 2 cattle, then went back to starting city where the other 3 lived. I went by the 2 dead peoples' houses, delivered bodies, gave explanation to tearful family, paid weregild (1 gp to each family) offered jobs at silver mine, then dropped the 2 people and 2 cattle off at guy-who-was-stabilized's house.

Due to this, I decided to switch alignment from LN to LG

We then got to the mine and searched the place. It was empty with signs people left in a hurry. We followed cart tracks out of the mine and while we were camping for a night, 3 people wandered by. I cast prep spells then we went and caught up to them. They were suspicious looking but didn't attack. I then did the pushy friendly person thing were I just forced my way into joining them to where they were walking while talking the entire 20 minutes so they didn't have a chance to protest. We got to a hunter's lodge and the first time I allowed them to talk (was talking about previous town we were at). Was in response to "yeah we got attack by some bandits on the way here, they were decent chaps in the end, wish I knew that before one of them attacked me and (switch to deadpan voice from friendly voice) I cut their head off"

"you... cut their head off?"

"(switch back to friendly) eh, bit of an exaggeration, what really happened was I took my sword here (took it out to show them) and stabbed it through his eye and straight out the other side."

kept on talking like that and eventually asked the "good chaps" if they knew were the bandit lord chap with the bounty who attacked the silver mine would be.

I got a 21 on intimidate for this (d19+2).

We returned to camp and next day followed the tracks to a different hunter's lodge. I got a nat 1 spot, nat 20 listen (I see nothing and hear all apparently) and heard people talk in the basement of the house. I jumped down the ladder trapdoor (half orc fight jumped just after me) and asked the "good chaps" "if they knew were that handsome chap on the wall there (point to bounty poster) is". They threatened us and told us to leave. I decided to leave and climb back up the ladder with the fighter. When I got the 40 lbs of silver, it was in a 2 ton box of rocks, so I emptied enough so the fighter and I could easily enough move it and put it on top of the trapdoor. I then lit the ground floor of the house on fire...

10 min later in game time (when the fire started to pick up), one of them noticed and decided to try to get out. They discovered the box and they started panicking.

I reemphasized, 3 nice chaps who wouldn't lie to me told me that I could find the bandit lord here, and if they wanted to get out then they would have to answer me. One of them eventually cracked and said he would tell me but he couldn't think of where, so yelled back that I would allow him to climb out and get some fresh air so he could remember better. Another tried to climb out so we shut the trapdoor in his face and replaced the box. When the guy who got out answered us, I told them they could now climb out without their weapons. I had earlier made sure we made a hole in the house by the trapdoor so they could easily enough climb out without the fire hurting them on way out. After they climbed out, I quite forcefully told them that they were "good chaps" and "wouldn't dream of ever doing something so hurtful as being bandits" and got another 21 (d19+2) on intimidate.

We were told that the bandit lord was in capital city but I forgot to ask exactly where. We went back to the wanna be bandit's house and I gave them a 42 gp silver statuette (finally succeeded a check)(that I made out of 14 gp of the 200gp worth of silver we got) to sell for food until we cleared off the bandits (they weren't bandits, they were "waylaid good folks just acting out of desperation") and they could assume their new jobs at the silver mine.

We then got to capital (5 day journey, made more statuettes, one made out of 3.733 lbs of silver and worth 560 sp) Sold the minor statuettes and then wandered around the bad part of the capital city carrying the almost 4 pound silver monstrosity. Eventually 5 people came up and one told me to give him the statuette. I told them "I would happily give them it if they could direct us to a certain chap, on delivery". A "it is me that you are searching for" happened and for the action to initiate combat I threw the statuette at him. I got a 21 for initiative (d19+2) and was able to go first. I had my prep spells cast since -wondering around the bad part of town carrying a statuette worth 56 gp- which were: weapon augmentation personal x3 (keen, human bane, charging) on a rapier.

This is the badass part. I went first, did a charge attack on the bandit lord, got a nat 20 crit (homebrew in this campaign, nat 20 auto crits).

The damage on the rapier was 1d6+3+(2 charging)+(2d6 charging ench)+(2+2d6 bane) currently. I got 54 total (26+28) and to make it official, he failed his fort save for massive damage. We were level 1. DM told me I could make a free intimidate check with a +2 bonus and got a 20 (d16+4) so the rest just fled.

What went down, I ran at this braggy swagert and made a single attack and then the guy fell backwards and they could see that the majority of his organs were in the wrong place. They ran. I made a stretcher for the dead bandit lord to carry him (for some effing reason THEN was when I nat 20'ed a craft check. The half-orc fighter wept tears of joy at the beautiful stretcher). The townsfolk started applauding and I told the crowd "I am looking for some strong young men to work in my new silver mine. If one of you good gentlemen wouldn't mind, could you tell those waylaid fellows that they could seek employment there. Some good hard labor should set them straight now that that ragamuffin who led them astray is dead". We then claimed the 200 gp bounty and I upgraded from 10 sp to 10 gp to give the party each (3 others) out of the party fund to spend on celebrations while we were in town.


In short: I am LG with several asterisks and we are level 2 now exactly 1000xp. (got 50 story xp, 200 from the boss fight, 4 wanna be were cr 1/2, the 8 others were cr 1). For some reason I am awesome at everything that isn't crafting silver (on the journey to the capital, i got 2 nat ones out of 5. Did get some successes at least)


Also the half-orc fighter calls me boss so I have upgraded to party leader role. I agree I more or less... player railroaded? the first session because the gm wasn't done with his intro dungeon and i was the one with a definite reason why I'm travelling and I saw the bounty poster.