[math] trying to model mundane crafting

[ciopo]

Greetings, I wish I did this many years ago when I was in school and this stuff was fresh in my mind.

edit: I'm an idiot overcomplicating things, but I now have post coffee clarity!

new TLDR:On the assumption your take 10 exactly makes the DC, mundane craft average gold/hour is (DC^2)/2400,

eternal smith is a *10 to that,
social grace+double time is a *2 to that,
in vogue is a *2 on that,
skill unlock is a *4 on that at 5th level, because you can hit a DC that's twice as high
and a further *5 at 15th

so at 5th level if you're an aphorite vigilante with social grace+double time+in vogue and skill unlock, your average gold gain per hour of work is (DC^2)/60 ( take 10 result of 30, crafting composite longbow(+22) at DC 59 ) = average 58gp per hour of crafting
and that becomes (DC^2)/12 at 15th level

More details : assumption one week of craft is 40 hours of work over 5 days, 8 hours per day

to start crafting, COST is PRICE/3
when we reach the TARGET, we SELL for PRICE/2
GAIN is SELL-COST = PRICE/6
TARGET is PRICE*10
PROGRESS is CHECK*DC, if CHECK>DC, we should increase the DC to match if possible, since that increases this result, so I'm going to simplify this to DC^2

AVERAGE over 40 hours is therefore PROGRESS/TARGET*GAIN = (DC^2/(PRICE*10))*PRICE/6 = DC^2/60 per 40hours workweek, or DC^2/2400 per hour, average
Aphorite eternal smith makes the PROGRESS result be GP instead of SP, so that's simply a *10 conversion rate, 10*DC^2/2400= DC^2/240
Social grace+double time increases DC by 4 and halves the time it takes to make 8 hours of progress to 4 hours, or in other words twice the progress per day, 2*DC^2/240=DC^2/120
in vogue changes SELL to PRICE/2*4/3 = PRICE*2/3, new GAIN is PRICE/3, or twice as much as before, DC^2/60
skill unlock at 5th doubles the skill result, we try to increase the DC to match, so it's more average gold per hour, but no changes on the formula

theoretical at 5th level : take 10 + 5 ranks + 2 int +3 class skill +2 tools + 2 racial +2 trait +4 social grace= take 10 result is 30
napkin math says if I craft composite longbows (+22 strength rating), the DC is 15+44= 59, so theoretical income is 59^2/60 = 58gp/hour, let's see if it holds up

composite longbow costs 100gp plus 100gp per strength rating, so total of 2300gp

it costs us 766.6666 gp to buy the material
we sell it for 1533.33333 gp, net gain 766.666

we finish making such a composite longbow when we reach a TARGET of 23000sp progress
our weekly progress is 60 (take 10 result, multiplied by 2 by the skill unlock)*59(DC) *10 (eternal smith) *2(double time) = 70800
70800/23000 = 3.07826 blabla, we finish 3 bows in one week of work
so, one skill check, 40 hours of work and 5 days later, we gained 766.666*3 gold, /40 hours = 57.45 gp/hour

Unless I made mistakes




TLDR: is whatever has the highest DC the best mundane item to craft for making money purposes?



I recently came across the aphorite race, which has an interesting alternate racial trait that makes the craft rules count the progress as gp instead of sp, so basically a *10 multiplier on the "gains"

Like always when nonmagical crafting crosses my mind, I have fun with it for a couple hours and then get lost in the math, I'm not so young anymore is the excuse I'll be using!

Anyway, I did some napkin math about crafting nonmasterwork plate armor, and the "gold/day" came out to about 50gp/day at 5th level and about 1500gp/day at 15th level, assuming vigilante with relevant social talents and the skill unlock.


That's not really what I'm asking help about, plugging in numbers is fairly straightforward, what I've failed to do every other time I've gone down the rabbit hole of mundane crafting, is writing down as a simple formula the relationship between price and DC, to decide which item is best to craft, and I remain perplexed, so this time I'm biting the bullet and asking for help :)

Thought process: only things that change PRICE and DC are really relevant into determining the relationship between those two variables, everything else can be put as one single MODIFIER, increasign the modifier increases the gold/day, but shouldn't change the relationship between PRICE and DC

For completeness, my assumption on modifiers at level 5 are: (take10 on craft check result)*10(eternal smith)*2(social grace+double time)*2(skill unlock)= 40MOD progress/check ( so that/7 average gold/day), becomes 40MOD gold/day at 15th level, and MOD statically increases as skill ranks increase and other modifiers get added to the check result ( such as skill familiarity to make take 10 be a take 13 and so on )

so...
REVENUE= half value- material cost= PRICE/2-PRICE/3= PRICE/6 , becomes PRICE/3 with in vogue
TARGET=PRICE*10
PROGRESS=40MOD*DC

(PROGRESS/TARGET)*REVENUE = gold/check

I "feel" I'm making some error there, because that has PRICE both on the numerator and denominator, and so would cancel out becoming
40MOD*DC/30= gold/day, or otherwise (4/3)MOD*DC=gold/day , meaning that regardless of the PRICE of the item, whatever is most difficult to make is the better thing to craft, which is patently false because if we have two item with different PRICE but same DC, whatever has the higher PRICE would result in higher REVENUE, but sadly I can't find out where I've made an error :( ... or am I correct that PRICE don't matter, because higher PRICE means it takes more TIME?

So... composite longbows with the highest possible strength rating you can reliably take 10 while hurrying for the +10DC is the best?
MOD*DC*4/3 at 15th+ level due to skill unlock, 5-14th it'd be 1/7 of that ( assuming 1 week=7 day), so MOD*DC*4/21


if it wasn't an aphorite, it'd be (4/30)MOD*DC
if it also wasn't a vigilante, it'd be (1/30)MOD*DC (no double time+social grace, no in vogue)
if it also didn't have skill unlock, it'd be (1/60)MOD*DC

if I dind't make mistakes along the way :)

[meschlum]

Looks like it is indeed the highest DC, as price differences mean more crafting time.

If you have two items (A and B) with the same DC, but A costs twice as much as B, it will take twice as much time to craft A - so you get the same amount of money over time from either option (except you produce and sell two Bs in the time it takes you to produce and sell one A).

If you have two items (C and D) with the same price, but C has a higher DC than D, you progress faster towards creating C than you do towards creating D, so you get more money over time by crafting C.


Combine these!

If you have two items (E and F) with different prices and DCs, we assume that E has a higher DC, and you have two options:

- E costs more than F
- E costs less than F

Either way, consider a virtual item G which costs as much as F and has the same (higher) DC as E. You make a higher profit over time crafting G than crafting F (same price, higher DC). And you make as much profit over time crafting E as crating G (same DC, different price). So crafting E (higher DC) is always a better option.


Practically speaking, your ideal item has a very high DC and a very low price - so you can make as many as possible in a short while. If you need two months to create the most profitable option, and get interrupted a week in, you've just lost a lot of invested money! If you need an hour per item, an interruption after a week just means you made less money.

[Maat Mons]

You can voluntarily bump up the DC in increments of +10. This lets you complete the item faster, and thus make more money.


You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. This allows you to create the item more quickly (since you’ll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each weekly or daily check.

Actually, wait. Does that only let you bump the DC once? In 3.5, you could bump it by +10 as many times as you wanted.

Well, in 3.5 all you had to do was pick an item where the 1's place digit of the Craft DC was what you wanted. I guess that might no longer apply in Pathfinder.



I'm pretty sure the fastest profit from mundane crafting comes from using the Master Alchemist (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-alchemist/) feat. Unless alchemical items aren't mundane enough for you?

Also, dwarves can get double progress from the Industrious Urbanite alternate racial trait, and double again from the Forgemaster Cleric archetype.

[AvatarVecna]

Anything that improves your bonus is gonna improve your productivity, obviously, but there's plenty of threads out there about skill optimization so there's no need to rehash them here. I've found a few other options that are probably worth mentioning:

1) Artificer 18 gains the ability to craft any mundane alchemical item in a single round. As long as they have the raw materials on hand and can hit the DC, they can make anything in a set amount of time. The higher a DC you can hit, the more ridiculous this becomes. This also allows you to ignore basically anything else that's giving you a speed increase other than raw bonus, and you only need that for hitting the DC. This won't work for anything not alchemical, though. As an example, Alchemist's Fire has a market price of 20 gp; to make that in 1 round with nothing but pure Craft bonus, you'd need approximately Craft +2500. It's possible you could beat this if you combined everything else in the game (and "everything else" would work for stuff that isn't alchemical items), but this is very straightforward and doesn't need a dozen other mechanics to combo your way to god-crafting.

2) In the Mythic System, all mythic heroes have access to a Tier 1 Universal Path Ability called "Mythic Craft". This doubles your mundane craft progress rate. Additionally, you can make an item masterwork for just the upfront cost increase; making a masterwork version doesn't increase the progress required to make it.

3) In the Mythic system, the Archmage has a Tier 1 Path Ability called "Crafting Mastery", which doubles the progress rate when making items for which you have the crafting feats. RAW wouldn't apply this to mundane item crafting in general (although I see no balance issue with allowing it), but there is a highly-specific situation in which it would. If you have Unchained Craft and 20 ranks in the same skill, you can use that Craft skill to make wondrous/arms/armor magic items thematically appropriate to that sub-skill "using the normal Craft rules". The capitalization on "Craft" indicates you're using the mundane item crafting rules to determine how this works, which means all the crafting stuff mentioned at the start of the post applies to it. If you have Unchained Craft 20, and you've also picked up Craft Wondrous Item, you should be able to take this mythic ability to double your craft progress rate. Non-archmages can acquire this either by being a Trickster and taking the mythic ability "Path Dabbling", or by taking the Mythic Feat "Dual Path".

4) Tools Of Amazing Manufacture, in the hands of some one at least vaguely competent, allow you to ignore all your progress-rate mechanics in favor of a flat 2000 gp of progress per day. Assuming somebody who has nothing improving their progress rate except craft bonus, this is equivalent to having a bonus of approximately +365. With enough things stacked, like what OP is doing, you should be able to outperform this.

There's also some stuff I'm aware of within Spheres Of Might that can make mundane crafting go faster, but that's 3rd party material.


I "feel" I'm making some error there, because that has PRICE both on the numerator and denominator, and so would cancel out becoming 40MOD*DC/30= gold/day, or otherwise (4/3)MOD*DC=gold/day , meaning that regardless of the PRICE of the item, whatever is most difficult to make is the better thing to craft, which is patently false because if we have two item with different PRICE but same DC, whatever has the higher PRICE would result in higher REVENUE, but sadly I can't find out where I've made an error :( ... or am I correct that PRICE don't matter, because higher PRICE means it takes more TIME?

The price of the item is irrelevant. The market price determines the upfront cost, the sell price, and when you stop crafting. It has absolutely nothing to do with your crafting speed, so your profit rate doesn't care about the market price. If your Craft bonus indicates you make make 700 sp worth of progress per week...well, maybe you were working on an item worth 10 gp and it's finished in one day, but maybe you were working on an item worth 3650 gp and it's finished in one year. But your crafting speed remains the same regardless of how expensive the item you're working on is.

Is it maybe a bit unintuitive? Yeah but that's the best word to describe the mundane crafting system.

[ciopo]

Interesting, thank you AV.

I feel if we bring mythic things in the discussion, the "+20 circumstance bonus to a skill check" mythic path ability whose name I forgot is more efficient than the doubling of mythic crafting, since that +20 is then squared. (X+20)^2 * speed certainly outperforms X^2 * speed * 2,

[Jay R]

Speaking as somebody with a Ph.D. in Operations Research (mathematical optimization techniques), I need to point out one addition step that must be taken.

Yes, you have optimized the value of the objective function, which in this case is money made per unit time. But you also always need to check the boundary conditions.

In this example, that means the available customers. The way to make the most money is not merely to create items with the highest CR, but to create items with the highest CR [I]that you can sell. You cannot make money crafting a masterwork farm implement when you are in a metropolis. Similarly, you cannot sell an item worth 100,000 gp in a poor village, or an Evil item when in a blessed sanctuary of a Good goddess.

Even if you are where the items can be sold, there is a limit. You may be able to sell a Mirror of Mental Prowess to the highest level wizard in the area, but you can’t sell him two.

Another boundary condition to check is available raw materials. Even if you have decided that the best rate of return is for a suit of mithril armor, that is not possible unless you have a source of mithril.

Checking the boundary conditions is necessary to determine the final answer.

You've done good work. But the final step in any applied math problem is to check to see if your solution actually applies to the real (fictional, in this case) world.

[AvatarVecna]

Interesting, thank you AV.

I feel if we bring mythic things in the discussion, the "+20 circumstance bonus to a skill check" mythic path ability whose name I forgot is more efficient than the doubling of mythic crafting, since that +20 is then squared. (X+20)^2 * speed certainly outperforms X^2 * speed * 2,

You get at least 5 mythic abilities if you go all the way to Tier 10. No reason you couldn't have both. Additionally, though, you're not necessarily correct.

(X+20)^2 is greater than 2X^2 for lower values of X. We're making a god crafter, so we're more likely to cross the threshold where a doubling in progress is more valuable than an increase in bonus.

If you have +0:

(10+20)^2 = 30^2 = 900
2*(10^2) = 2*100 = 200

If you have +1000:

(1010+20)^2 = 1030^2 = 1060900
2*(1010)^2 = 2*1020100 = 2040200

The cutoff point where 2x^2 outstrips (x+20)^2 is when (x+20)/x = 2^0.5 (approximately 1.414). This happens when your check result would be 49 without either mythic thing. If you have +39, your progress rate is 2401 sp/week. If you take the doubling option, you're looking at 4802 sp/week. If you take the +20 option, you're looking at +59, so progress rate of 4761 sp/week.

Reaching +39 is reasonably difficult without a skill-boosting item, but utterly trivial if you have one. With enough money, a lvl 1 character could hit +39 (1 rank, 3 class, 5 int, 30 item).

EDIT: And of course, all of this is beside the point. You get one mythic ability per two tiers, possibly more if you spend mythic feats to get extras. There's no reason you can't have both of them.


Speaking as somebody with a Ph.D. in Operations Research (mathematical optimization techniques), I need to point out one addition step that must be taken.

Yes, you have optimized the value of the objective function, which in this case is money made per unit time. But you also always need to check the boundary conditions.

In this example, that means the available customers. The way to make the most money is not merely to create items with the highest CR, but to create items with the highest CR [I]that you can sell. You cannot make money crafting a masterwork farm implement when you are in a metropolis. Similarly, you cannot sell an item worth 100,000 gp in a poor village, or an Evil item when in a blessed sanctuary of a Good goddess.

Even if you are where the items can be sold, there is a limit. You may be able to sell a Mirror of Mental Prowess to the highest level wizard in the area, but you can’t sell him two.

Another boundary condition to check is available raw materials. Even if you have decided that the best rate of return is for a suit of mithril armor, that is not possible unless you have a source of mithril.

Checking the boundary conditions is necessary to determine the final answer.

You've done good work. But the final step in any applied math problem is to check to see if your solution actually applies to the real (fictional, in this case) world.

Agreed. 3.5/Pathfinder have rules for simulating economies, but they frequently don't make sense for anything that doesn't have a pretty ludicrous demand curve. The artificer who can make 4800 alchemical items per day could theoretically make a profit provided he could find someone willing to buy them. In a metropolis, he could probably bulk-sell it to the government or a crafting/merchant guild, but even for a metropolis that's a lot of product to be moving per day.

Admittedly, PF has this issue moreso than 3.5 and this is because of Accelerated Crafting. In 3.5, you could increase the DC as many times as desired by 10 until you got high enough to get a good bonus. In PF, it looks like you can only do it once. Hypothetically, if you have a +1000 in Craft/Cooking, that could be you making a DC 1000 food item that could bring a tear to the eye of gods, but it could also be you making a perfectly normal everyday burger very very very fast. The demand for divine steaks is pretty low, since only gods can survive tasting them, but the demand for food should be pretty substantial in a metropolis. Even with +1000 and working 8 hours a day, you would "only" be making 204020 high-quality tavern meals per day. That's...probably enough to feed the whole metropolis (including the children) and then some, but if it's a particular large metropolis, it might not even be feeding the whole settlement.

If you can hit DC 1000, you either need something with an absurdly high DC...or something with a low DC and you craft it fast; in PF, you can only craft easy stuff so much faster, so you have to find stuff that's harder to make (adamantine condoms, mithril truck engines, ironwood sailing ships, whatever) in order to maximize your profits. Which is a problem because the demand for adamantine condoms is a lot lower than for burgers.

[ciopo]

Minor further thought : the 5th rank skill unlock ability doubles the check result before it's compared to the DC, so that +20 is actually twice as much, skewing things a little bit, no reason not to have both after a bit

The item to make for arbitrary DC could be composite bows with arbitrary strength rating. It's amusing to think just who would buy such an unusuable bow, but that's the point of abstracting it away: if the value is below the settlement size limit, we're good to go! While we talk of special materials, I can't find a reference that adamantium/mithril/whatnot stuff are any harder to make than normal materials, could I get pointed somewhere for that? Composite longbows of whatever strength rating covers all odd-DC , if we have something to add oddly to the DC, we got most of the even DC covered, too

Vigilante fit in for "more optimization", since from this point of view of abstracted boundary, it has a social talent to make settlements count as being of bigger sizes, kalistremen acumen.

Also amusingly, the restrictions inly apply while on social identity, but no such word about vigilante identity, so they are lik, "whatever, man!"


On arbitrary X, I wonder if there's some feature somewhere to "take 6" on inspiration dices, that would be hilarious

[AvatarVecna]

Minor further thought : the 5th rank skill unlock ability doubles the check result before it's compared to the DC, so that +20 is actually twice as much, skewing things a little bit, no reason not to have both after a bit

Nope.

+39 means 49 by default, so 98 after the 5th lvl unlock, so 9604 sp/week with neither mythic thing. If we do the double-progress mythic thing, that becomes 19208 sp/week. If we do the +20 mythic thing, +59 means a check total of 69, which becomes a check total of 138 from skill unlock, so 19044 sp/week. +39 is still the cutoff point even after accounting for the "double the check result" thing.

Additionally, the "double craft progress" mythic thing is passive, but the "+20 to craft" mythic thing requires you to spend a point of mythic power. Craft checks allow you to make things in a fraction of a week if you would make more weekly progress than is necessary to craft the thing, so you could theoretically make dozens of items a day and not have enough mythic power to get the +20 on all those checks.


The item to make for arbitrary DC could be composite bows with arbitrary strength rating. It's amusing to think just who would buy such an unusuable bow, but that's the point of abstracting it away: if the value is below the settlement size limit, we're good to go! While we talk of special materials, I can't find a reference that adamantium/mithril/whatnot stuff are any harder to make than normal materials, could I get pointed somewhere for that? Composite longbows of whatever strength rating covers all odd-DC , if we have something to add oddly to the DC, we got most of the even DC covered, too

I have no mechanical reason to believe that special materials increase the DC. It's just something that makes sense to me.

I know there are economic rules for determining if you can sell things. The point we're making is that those rules stop making sense when you have an item that's got low demand. That's not to say it's not RAW, just that if you're advising people on how to combine a whole bunch of mundane crafting stuff, it's also helpful to be realistic with them about what a DM might be willing to actually let them get away with. That's not to say you couldn't get away with selling this stuff, mind you, just that you've gotta be more tricky about it. You could probably sell an un-stringable bow as an art piece to nobility (unusable weapons on the mantle is a time-honored tradition), and you could probably sell them to con artists as a carnival-style attraction ("can you string the bow of Odysseus?").

One way you could get very high DCs without making unusable bows all the time is making magic items. Unchained Craft 20 allows you to make wondrous items, weapons, or armor. When making magic items, there is a base DC (5+CL), and then +5 to the DC for every prerequisite you're missing. Find an existing magic item that requires an awful lot of prerequisites you don't have, and you can get a very substantial DC. Maybe custom-craft something if you can't find something with enough prereqs. This can't go infinite the way bows can, but can probably get you high enough for most anything you're doing if custom stuff is on the table, and it has the benefit of the things you're making actually being useful instead of just art pieces, and being actually worth shelling out six figures for. It helps that PF doesn't have an epic cap of 200000 gp on items that non-epic characters can craft.

[ciopo]

Yes, sorry, I should have been clearer, I know/agree that 2x^2 eventually performs better than (x+40)^2, I was only musing that it being +40 and not +20 slides it further a bit., or not, I'm on the phone and didn't write down stuff to check it

The "*10" multiplier of eternal smith/master alchemist is fairly substantial tho, and locks us in making alchemy/weapons/armors/bows (why bows is a category of its own and not encapsulated into weapons I do not know), otherwise another option for arbitrary DC would be crafting traps, IIRC you can increase the crafting DC to increase the spot/disable DC, and *that* is very marketable!

But if we can push for "arbitrary" X, I suppose we can swallow losing the *10 multiplier if that means we actually have a market? Tough pill.

I wonder if there is somethign that allows to craft traps not with craft(traps), but with one of the "measure progress in gp" categories

[AvatarVecna]

Yes, sorry, I should have been clearer, I know/agree that 2x^2 eventually performs better than (x+40)^2, I was only musing that it being +40 and not +20 slides it further a bit., or not, I'm on the phone and didn't write down stuff to check it

The mistake being made is that it's not being properly applied. You've applied the doubling only to the +20, but not the base check result of either side, which is what x represents. It's not

2x^2 = (x+40)^2

it's actually

2*(2x)^2 = (2x+40)^2

This is because the cutoff point where one becomes better is about the ratio between the check results. If one check result pre-multiplication is 40 and the other is 60, the ratio between them is 2:3. That doesn't change if you multiply the check results by 2, 3, or googol, it's still a 2:3 ratio. And as soon as the ratio crosses 1:[square root of 2], the doubling becomes better than the +20.


Maybe custom-craft something if you can't find something with enough prereqs. This can't go infinite the way bows can, but can probably get you high enough for most anything you're doing if custom stuff is on the table, and it has the benefit of the things you're making actually being useful instead of just art pieces, and being actually worth shelling out six figures for. It helps that PF doesn't have an epic cap of 200000 gp on items that non-epic characters can craft.

Reminder that this is only viable if you have Unchained Craft 20 and can thus use your craft skills to make magic items using normal craft rules. This either means a lvl 20 character, or a lvl 14+ Rogue (Phantom Thief).

Base Item: Mithral Full Plate
(Market Price: 10500 gp)
(DC irrelevant, enchantment DCs will outstrip it by miles)

Spellscribed Armor: 9 spells enscribed (lvl 9, CL 20)
(Market Price: +162000 gp)
(Base DC 25. DC +50. You lack Scribe Scroll and each of the nine spells needed)

Enchantment (MP +343200 gp, DC +80):
+100000 gp: Enchantment +10
5: Enhancement +5
1: Billowing (DC +10, two spells required)
1: Cocooning (DC +5, one spell required)
1: Impervious (DC +10, two spells required)
1: Mirrored (DC +5, one spell required)
1: Stanching (DC +5, one spell required)
+2700 gp: Glamoured (DC +5, one spell required)
+10000 gp: Delving (DC +5, one spell required)
+18000 gp: Martyring (DC +5, one spell required)
+30000 gp: Determination (DC +5, one spell required)
+33750 gp: Greater Shadow (DC +10, two spells required)
+33750 gp: Greater Slick (DC +5, one spell required)
+49000 gp: Etherealness (DC +5, one spell required)
+66000 gp: Greater Energy Resistance (DC +5, one spell required)

Without spellscribed, this is theoretically an armor you could randomly generate (you probably wouldn't, it's incredibly improbable, but it's possible). But even without giving up and delving into custom nonsense, we can still make a perfectly kosher armor that has a market price of 515700 gp and Craft DC 155. Assuming Accelerated Crafting and the check-doubling from Unchained Craft 5, that's enough for someone with +63. If you have a lower bonus than that, you can put less effort in. This is a pretty generic armor that has a lot of stuff useful to most anyone. Sunder protection, fall protection, bleed protection, energy protection, ray protection...that sort of stuff. Of course, with such a high market price, it's gonna take quite a long time to craft even with all the stuff we're combining, which gives more opportunity to interrupt us. If you have a lower bonus at lvl 20, and want to make cheaper stuff anyway so it's over with quicker...

Base Item: Full Plate
(Market Price: 1500 gp)
(DC irrelevant, enchantment DCs will outstrip it by miles)

Spellscribed Armor: 9 spells enscribed (lvl 1, CL )
(Market Price: +900 gp)
(DC +50. You lack Scribe Scroll and each of the nine spells needed)

Enchantment (MP +15450 gp, Base DC 15, DC +35):
+9000 gp: Enchantment +10
1: Enhancement +1
1: Billowing (DC +10, two spells required)
1: Impervious (DC +10, two spells required)
+2700 gp: Glamoured (Base DC 15, DC +5, one spell required)
+3750 gp: Shadow (DC +10, two spells required)

This item is "only" DC 100 to craft, and has a market price of 17850 gp. With accelerated/unchained crafting, you would need +35 to make this - eminently reasonable. You should be able to pound out one of these lickety-split with all the speed increases you're stacking, but you're still maximizing profit better than most anything. It's useful enough to be worth purchasing, and cheap enough that you could at least theoretically bulk-sell it to the government.

EDIT: Of course, if we go custom, we can get extremely silly.

RING OF PARLOUR TRICKS
Aura weak universal; CL 1st; Slot ring; Price 5400 gp; Weight -

This gaudy ring is designed to look like a cheap prop when actually it's incredibly expensive. For the low low price of "enough money to buy a nice house" and all possible respect you would've gained in the future from high society types, you may cast every cantrip on the wizard list once per day each.

Feats Forge Ring; Spells every wizard cantrip (30 of them); Cost 2700 gp

DC 161. Market price 5400 gp. It's cheaper than the cheap armor, and harder to make than the difficult armor. I suppose if you wanted a version of this that was actually worth purchasing, making the cantrips at-will would change the price to 27000 gp, which is a good bit of cash, but for at-will casting of every wizard cantrip...idk I think you could find buyers without too much issue.

EDIT 2: I checked for kobold stuff that might accelerate trap crafting, but no luck so far.

[Maat Mons]

Regarding using Unchained Craft 20 / the Master Craftsman feat / the Master Armorer advanced armor training option… Are we sure these options use 1/3 the market price for raw materials (as Craft) and not 1/2 the market price for raw materials (as magic item creation)? Because paying 1/2 market price in materials and selling the finished product at 1/2 market price does not result in a profit.

You could use one of the traits that gives a 5% reduction in material cost. But then I still have to ask, are we sure the options to create magic items with the Craft skill determine progress with the Craft rules, and not with the magic item creation rules? If we’re stuck at 1,000 gp of progress per day, the same as all other magic item creation, that 1/2 of 5% profit margin we get from traits is only 25 gp per day.



I’m thinking the best thing to produce with Craft is Bloodwine. It’s a poison people willingly ingest for fun. (So just like all alcohol.) Anyway, since it’s officially a poison, Master Alchemist lets you multiply your production speed by 10 and then by your Intelligence modifier.

If you live in a settlement of Serpentfolk, Urdefhan, or Vampires, you can probably expect to sell a lot of the stuff. I suppose you should probably be a Dhampir, for better relations with your Vampire clients.

[AvatarVecna]

Regarding using Unchained Craft 20 / the Master Craftsman feat / the Master Armorer advanced armor training option… Are we sure these options use 1/3 the market price for raw materials (as Craft) and not 1/2 the market price for raw materials (as magic item creation)? Because paying 1/2 market price in materials and selling the finished product at 1/2 market price does not result in a profit.


Choose one Craft or Profession skill in which you possess at least 5 ranks. You receive a +2 bonus on your chosen Craft or Profession skill. Ranks in your chosen skill count as your caster level for the purposes of qualifying for the Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item feats. You can create magic items using these feats, substituting your ranks in the chosen skill for your total caster level. You must use the chosen skill for the check to create the item. The DC to create the item still increases for any necessary spell requirements (see the magic item creation rules in Magic Items). You cannot use this feat to create any spell-trigger or spell-activation item.


5 Ranks: When determining your weekly progress, double the result of your Craft check before multiplying the result by the item’s DC.

10 Ranks: You do not ruin any of your raw materials unless you fail a check by 10 or more.

15 Ranks: When you determine your progress, the result of your check is how much work you complete each day in silver pieces.

20 Ranks: You can craft magic armor, magic weapons, magic rings, and wondrous items that fall under your category of Craft using the normal Craft rules.

Master Craftsman does three things:
1) It lets you use Craft or Profession in place of Caster Level to qualify for a couple item creation feats
2) It lets you make Craft or Profession checks in place of Spellcraft checks to craft magic items using those feats.
3) You can use that Craft or Profession to make the items regardless of how relevant it is to what you're making. Full Plate, Tower Shield, and Greatsword coming up, just let me make some Craft (Underwater Basketweaving) checks.

None of those things is "use the normal Craft rules to make magic items". Not even remotely. It's just changing what skill you roll. Master Armorer refers to Master Craftsman, and is thus mechanically in the same boat.

Unchained Craft is not in the same boat. It grants no item creation feats and doesn't enable you to obtain them later. It only lets you craft things appropriate to the Unchained skill thematically. And it lets you craft magic items "using the normal Craft rules."

I think the capitalization is important here. "Craft" being capitalized in the middle of the sentence means mechanically, they are referring to the skill. This isn't them saying "you can use this Craft skill to make magic items the normal way, just rolling Craft instead." Partly because we've seen how they word it when they say it that way, and partially because if that's what they meant, Craft wouldn't be capitalized here. Additionally, if that's not what they meant, it's not really a very good capstone. It's literally just Master Craftsman, except it gives you no bonus and prevents you from making things that aren't appropriate to the skill you're using. I guess it also lets you make rings? Assuming the craft skill selected is appropriate to making rings, of course.

TL;DR

1) RAW has Craft capitalized. That means this is about the rules used for the Craft skill. We're using those rules to make magic items. One of the normal Craft rules is that you pay 1/3 upfront.

2) RAI it's supposed to be using the normal Craft rules - not just because that's literally what they said it does, but also because the alternative is that the reward for hyper-specializing in a background skill for 20 levels is arguably (possibly even objectively, if you can't make rings) worse than a feat you could've taken 15 levels ago.

I also don't really think it's that big a deal? Like, it's a lvl 20 benefit. Maybe lvl 14 if you're a rogue who sold their sneak attack for extra unchained skills. You can make some extra cash...okay? So what? And crucially, the money this can make you doesn't care that they're magic items, it just cares about the DC - or rather, getting the DC as close to "just barely makeable while taking 10" as possible, in order to absolutely maximize profit.



I like the suggestion of blood wine. It has the second-highest save DC of all poisons (and save DC is also the Craft DC, which means it's one of the most hypothetically profitable poisons to make), but it's also pretty cheap so we could make it quickly with less time for something to interrupt the crafting process. It's a "poison" mechanically, which allows things like the aforementioned feat to apply to it (and many many other mechanics scattered throughout the game). It's an alchemical item so we can make it using the best Craft skill (alchemy) and we can apply Alchemist 18 once we get to that level. Despite being a poison it's going to be difficult to regulate. And while normally, making people pay 200 good tavern meals worth of money for a single drink of something would be a ludicrous scam, overcharging people for alcohol is a tradition older than money.

Practical example, rather than a "hyperfocused on crafting" dude.

Race: Something that gets Int +2
Class: Alchemist 1-20

Attributes (lvl 1, 20 pb): Base Int 15, rest are whatever
HD Bumps: Int +5

Skills: a bunch, but we just care about Craft/Alchemy being maxed out constantly.

Feats: Master Alchemist at lvl 5, rest don't matter to our side-business

Items:
Alchemist's Lab at lvl 5
Headband Of Int +2/+4/+6 at lvl 6/11/16

I'm gonna say the feat is taken because that's about when the PCs are getting some real power and the idea of becoming entrepreneurial appeals to the alchemist player. Profit/Dose is locked at "100/6", so I'll not have that in the table, but imagine it's there.



Lvl
Bonus
DC
Doses/Success
Successes/Week
Profit/Week


5
+16
25
4
6.50
433.33 gp


6
+18
25
5
7.00
583.33 gp


7
+19
25
5
7.25
604.16 gp


8
+20
25
5
7.50
625.00 gp


9
+21
25
5
7.75
645.83 gp


10
+22
25
5
8.00
666.66 gp


11
+24
25
6
8.50
850.00 gp


12
+26
35
7
12.60
1470.00 gp


13
+27
35
7
12.95
1510.83 gp


14
+28
35
7
13.30
1551.66 gp


15
+29
35
7
13.65
1592.50 gp


16
+31
35
8
14.35
1913.33 gp


17
+32
35
8
14.70
1960.00 gp


18
+33
25
8
33600.00
4480000.00 gp


19
+34
25
8
33600.00
4480000.00 gp


20
+36
25
9
33600.00
5040000.00 gp



This is assuming 8 hours a day crafting for 7 days a week. Especially by lvl 18, I doubt the player or DM will want to be spending all their downtime churning out bloodwine. 60 barrels a week is a lot for one person to be making, and when you consider that the primary ingredient in bloodwine is the blood of sentient creatures, there comes a point where you and your DM have to have a serious talk about where you're getting your materials exactly. Like, the blood gets spiced with other stuff - that's the actual description. This "wine" is so bloody it literally heals vampires.

Like sure maybe the Evil metropolis you're in is totally fine letting you completely drain death row inmates dry - like, supplying you is the execution method. Issue is, human body has about 1.5 gallons of blood in it, and you're making approximately 3500 gallons of bloodwine per week if you go all out. No metropolis is executing 2300 people per week, they'd run out of citizens. Even at lvl 17 before things went completely off the rails, that still needs about one dead human completely drained dry of blood per week to keep you in business.

[ciopo]

This is assuming 8 hours a day crafting for 7 days a week. Especially by lvl 18, I doubt the player or DM will want to be spending all their downtime churning out bloodwine. 60 barrels a week is a lot for one person to be making, and when you consider that the primary ingredient in bloodwine is the blood of sentient creatures, there comes a point where you and your DM have to have a serious talk about where you're getting your materials exactly. Like, the blood gets spiced with other stuff - that's the actual description. This "wine" is so bloody it literally heals vampires.
if they take skill unlock at some point, the "effort" becomes 8 hours/week rather than 8 hours/day at 15th level, and the output is doubled from 5th level onward

[AvatarVecna]

if they take skill unlock at some point, the "effort" becomes 8 hours/week rather than 8 hours/day at 15th level, and the output is doubled from 5th level onward

No it doesn't. Skill Unlock affects the default crafting speed by doubling your check at lvl 5, and then changing your progress rate from "sp/week" to "sp/day" at lvl 15. Artificer 18's "Instant Alchemy" is not a speed increase the way everything else is, it is a speed alteration. Everything else is like "you finish stuff twice as fast" or "you make that much progress in a day instead of a week now". Instant Alchemy is "if you can hit the DC, it takes you 1 round".

EDIT: My post is written under the assumption that the artificer puts the same amount of work per week into his side-business during down time. Which is to say, 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. Before 18th level, all the speed increase stuff is theoretically helpful. At 18th level and beyond, it's all irrelevant. Instant Alchemy doesn't concern itself with progress rate.

EDIT: I'm being a bit unfair so I will say that the skill unlock would apply pre-18th level, so it's maybe worth taking, but I'll also say that wasn't the point of the build. The point wasn't "let's see how much crafting we can cram into a build and ignore how good it is at other stuff". The point was "let's see if an alchemist who isn't focusing on this at all can casually break the economy". They have full ranks in Craft/Alchemy, Master Alchemist...and that's it. That's all they need forever. They get plenty of money during downtime with just that, and it's not significantly impacting their combat performance. You could get more if you wanted - invest feats in higher skill bonuses, get the skill unlock, maybe an FCB? Be a dwarf with that racial alternate trait? But none of that's really necessary, and it's all taking away from your combat capabilities. An alchemist doesn't need more than a single feat and a single skill to break the economy.

[AvatarVecna]

...it occurs to me that, if speed is set to "finished in 1 round" and we have enough bonus to meet any DC, what we should make is whatever the most expensive thing is. It'll finish in one round, after all. Could be alchemical, although since we make 9 doses of poison per round, it would have to be a lot more expensive than the most expensive poison, which...probably isn't happening. A quick glance over alchemical items finds two things that might fit the bill:

Blightburn Paste has a 5000 gp market price. It's basically a box, and when the box is open, the paste inside inhibits teleportation nearby and also irradiates everybody. I'm not sure why you would pay 5000 gp for a buff/debuff (prevents teleportation) plus another debuff (irradiates you), but I guess that's what supply and demand dictate? Dumping a bunch of these into any economy would probably drive the price down in a way that making a lot of wine wouldn't.

Plague Powder can be made of any disease, and the market price is equal to the square of the save DC. If the blightburn paste can't make money faster than poisons can, there is hypothetically some disease with a DC 70+ that would cost more than the paste, and possibly more than the poison. I doubt it though.

The most expensive poison is Widow's Kiss. 7000 gp, it deals 1d3 points of Con dmg per day, takes 3 consecutive successes to end, and spawns a Spider Swarm if it kills you. If you spend 8 hours a day, 7 days a week crafting this stuff as Alchemist 20 (per previous build), you'll make 302400 doses, and have hypothetically made a profit of 352,800,000 gp...provided you can find a way to sell 2 billion gold worth of deadly poison per week. Needless to say, a single dose per round of Widow's Kiss would be more profitable than Blightburn Paste, let alone 9/round. For Plague Powder to be our money maker, we would need a disease with a save DC of at least 250; I'm gonna go ahead and declare that doesn't exist without even checking.

[OracleofWuffing]

Like sure maybe the Evil metropolis you're in is totally fine letting you completely drain death row inmates dry - like, supplying you is the execution method. Issue is, human body has about 1.5 gallons of blood in it, and you're making approximately 3500 gallons of bloodwine per week if you go all out. No metropolis is executing 2300 people per week, they'd run out of citizens. Even at lvl 17 before things went completely off the rails, that still needs about one dead human completely drained dry of blood per week to keep you in business.
Do Trolls still regenerate in Pathfinder? Asking for a friend...

[icefractal]

Do Trolls still regenerate in Pathfinder? Asking for a friend...Yes, but ...
Blood loss is often modeled as Con damage (see Vampire, Stirge, etc), which Trolls don't heal any faster than normal. On the other hand, Bleed damage exists (and is just damage), and certainly implies that blood is leaving their body. So it'd be up to the GM, I guess.

But if 3.5 content is on the table, then a Troll binding Naberius is covered either way.

[AvatarVecna]

Missed two things during my profit calc:

1) Alchemists get a competence bonus to craft/alchemy equal to class level.
2) Alchemists make alchemical stuff twice as fast as normal starting at lvl 3.

Adjusting table to match.



Lvl
Bonus
DC
Doses/Success
Successes/Week
Profit (gp)/Week


3
+16
25
1
1.30
21.66


4
+19
25
1
1.45
24.16


5
+21
25
4
15.50
1033.33


6
+24
25
5
17.00
1416.66


7
+26
35
5
25.20
2100.00


8
+28
35
5
26.60
2216.66


9
+30
35
5
28.00
2333.33


10
+32
35
5
29.40
2450.00


11
+35
35
6
31.50
3150.00


12
+38
35
7
33.60
3920.00


13
+40
35
7
35.00
4083.33


14
+42
35
7
36.40
4246.66


15
+44
35
7
37.80
4410.00


16
+47
35
8
39.90
5320.00


17
+49
35
8
41.30
5506.66


18
+51
25
8
33600.00
4480000.00


19
+53
25
8
33600.00
4480000.00


20
+56
25
9
33600.00
5040000.00



EDIT:

Race: Dwarf (Industrious Urbanite)
Class: Alchemist 7

Base Int 18
HD 1
Age 3
Total 22

Trait: Adopted (Gnomes - Brastlewark Businessman)

Feats:
HD 1: Skill Focus (Craft/Alchemy)
HD 3: Prodigy (Craft/Alchemy and who cares)
HD 5: Master Alchemist
HD 7: Signature Skill (Craft/Alchemy)

Items: Alchemist's Lab

Craft/Alchemy +34
Ranks 7
Class Skill 3
Alchemist 7
Int 6
Trait 2
Feats 7
Tools 2


DC: 35
Check: 44
Dwarf: x2
Unlock: x2
Alchemist: x2
Master Alchemist: x10
Progress: 12320 gp/week

Profit/Dose: 16.66
Doses/Success: 6
Successes/Week: 123.2

Profit/Week: 12315.07 gp

Pretty penny, that is. About as fast as can be...well, at least for single-classed. Might be worth giving up a few points of alchemist class bonus to get some vigilante social talents. As long as you've still got at least Alchemist 3 for the progress doubling it should be worthwhile. Alternatively, maybe phantom thief unchained rogue, but only if there's a way to use rogue talents to take vigilante social talents.