Crafting issues

[GuestEleven]

So maybe you guys can help me. We're having a small amount of friction in my group and it largely revolves around Magic Item creation.

We have made a lot of money on our characters and have a lot of hand built followers. Some players made craftsmen, myself included. Another player went balls out and off-screen decked himself out with some magic items.

The big discussion is whether or not being able to craft faster means you can break the cap of 1,000gp work progress a day on magical items. He can essentially from what I understand do 8 hours worth of work in 1 hour, which he believes means he can do 8,000g worth of work a day due to the 1,000gp progress being set with the assumption of 8 hours a day average work speed and no accounting for special abilities.

Is there any RAW for this or is it going to come down to a DM call? I understand the thought of only being able to do 1 hour's worth of work a day on magic items doesn't make any real world sense, yet cranking out 8,000gp worth of progress a day could get out of hand. Thanks for any help.

[tstewt1921]

So maybe you guys can help me. We're having a small amount of friction in my group and it largely revolves around Magic Item creation.

We have made a lot of money on our characters and have a lot of hand built followers. Some players made craftsmen, myself included. Another player went balls out and off-screen decked himself out with some magic items.

The big discussion is whether or not being able to craft faster means you can break the cap of 1,000gp work progress a day on magical items. He can essentially from what I understand do 8 hours worth of work in 1 hour, which he believes means he can do 8,000g worth of work a day due to the 1,000gp progress being set with the assumption of 8 hours a day average work speed and no accounting for special abilities.

Is there any RAW for this or is it going to come down to a DM call? I understand the thought of only being able to do 1 hour's worth of work a day on magic items doesn't make any real world sense, yet cranking out 8,000gp worth of progress a day could get out of hand. Thanks for any help.

It depends on the style of crafting your doing, if the PC himself is a crafter and using the craft point system, craft points allow for instant availability if I read correctly (I'm probably wrong but that's how we played it) there are also feast such as Legendary, Exceptional Artisan etc, that cut down on resources and time.

[GuestEleven]

It depends on the style of crafting your doing, if the PC himself is a crafter and using the craft point system, craft points allow for instant availability if I read correctly (I'm probably wrong but that's how we played it) there are also feast such as Legendary, Exceptional Artisan etc, that cut down on resources and time.

I have actually never heard of the Craft Point system, so no we aren't using it. I will have to look into that though. Since I didn't state it in the post I'll mention now that we're playing a 3.5/Pathfinder blend.

[Segev]

The cap is on number of hours you can work in a day, not on how much gp worth of magic item you can make. If you've got a means of accelerating your work, you still can spend 8 hours of work. So if you can do 8 hours of work in 1 hour, you can do 8000 gp worth of item creation in one day, yes.

[GuestEleven]

The cap is on number of hours you can work in a day, not on how much gp worth of magic item you can make. If you've got a means of accelerating your work, you still can spend 8 hours of work. So if you can do 8 hours of work in 1 hour, you can do 8000 gp worth of item creation in one day, yes.

It says this for creating Magic Weapons. "Crafting a magic weapon requires one day for each 1,000 gp value of the base price." A similar entry is stated for Rings, Armor, Wondrous Items, and nearly any other magical crafting.

[DeTess]

It says this for creating Magic Weapons. "Crafting a magic weapon requires one day for each 1,000 gp value of the base price." A similar entry is stated for Rings, Armor, Wondrous Items, and nearly any other magical crafting.

Yeah, I think this cap remains,as it's determined by other factors than crafting skill and speed (note that making a magic item generally doesn't involve rolls of a craft skill). What exactly the time-limiting factor here is is vague. It might be the time it takes for the item to soak up all the magic or whatever.

[GuestEleven]

Yeah, I think this cap remains,as it's determined by other factors than crafting skill and speed (note that making a magic item generally doesn't involve rolls of a craft skill). What exactly the time-limiting factor here is is vague. It might be the time it takes for the item to soak up all the magic or whatever.

Agreed. But if an ability says for instance 'the character can craft arms and armor made with metal in half the time normally required' would that be referring to the 1 day per 1,000gp? In my mind it has to be referring to that.

[Segev]

Agreed. But if an ability says for instance 'the character can craft arms and armor made with metal in half the time normally required' would that be referring to the 1 day per 1,000gp? In my mind it has to be referring to that.

It is. That's the only meaningful time consideration for most people, and therefore would be the default in context.

[tyckspoon]

Agreed. But if an ability says for instance 'the character can craft arms and armor made with metal in half the time normally required' would that be referring to the 1 day per 1,000gp? In my mind it has to be referring to that.

That particular line is ambiguous; I'd want to see the full text of the ability. Magical crafting and mundane item crafting use almost completely different rules, and a well-written ability should make it pretty obvious which one it's talking about.

[GuestEleven]

That particular line is ambiguous; I'd want to see the full text of the ability. Magical crafting and mundane item crafting use almost completely different rules, and a well-written ability should make it pretty obvious which one it's talking about.

This is from a PF Cleric Archetype called Forgemaster Cleric: "At 5th level, a forgemaster can craft mundane metal items quickly, using half their gp value to determine progress, and can craft magical metal items in half the normal amount of time."

[tyckspoon]

This is from a PF Cleric Archetype called Forgemaster Cleric: "At 5th level, a forgemaster can craft mundane metal items quickly, using half their gp value to determine progress, and can craft magical metal items in half the normal amount of time."

Ok, so, this one is pretty nice, because the note about how the ability works with mundane items at least provides some guide for intent on how it'll work with magic ones. With this ability, your crafting time isn't worth more - that is, you're not making 2000 GP worth of progress on a magic item instead of 1000. Instead you are just making the normal amount of progress toward a lower bar: When everybody else needs 20 days to enchant 20,000 GP worth of stuff, you only need 10 because you only need to enchant 10,000 GP worth to complete it.

Compare to a hypothetical ability that said 'your Craft check results count double toward crafting progress.' That would not affect magical crafting at all, because magical crafting doesn't use Craft checks. Or, in your opening post's case, you can do 8 hours of craft work in 1 hour: Does the ability that grants this say it relieves or alters the 1000 GP-takes-one-day rule on magic items? If not, the only advantage the character is getting is free time - he can do his 1000 GP in one hour, and then has 7 hours he would otherwise not have free to do whatever.