Craft questions

[Demons_eye]

Is there anyway for you to cut down the craft time besides the artisan feats or adding the 10 to the DC.

Any spell out there that Add to skill checks?

And lastly if I am repairing items do I still need the full week to fix them?

Thanks in advance but I might add more later.

[Irreverent Fool]

As far as reducing the time, increasing your check result and adding 10 to the DC are the only official ways I know of. I believe you can choose to add 10 to the DC multiple times and it is completely reasonable to hire NPC 'experts' who have enough of a bonus in the craft to never fail an 'aid another' check, granting you a +2 for each one you hire up to a reasonable amount ('reasonable amount' is a number at the discretion of the DM).

In another thread, someone mentioned the 'Master' class from Dragonlance: War of the Lance, which numbers among its 'knacks' the ability to cut the cost of making a masterwork item in half which also reduces the time it takes to make such an item.

Repairing items costs one-fifth of the item's base price. If you want to take less than a week to work on it, you can make progress by the day instead of by the week just like you can for an item. When you do, progress is measured in copper pieces instead of silver pieces. You'll have to judge which is better based on your character's abilities and the item in question.

obnoxious
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[Animefunkmaster]

I believe Homunculi are there for when you don't want to hire hirelings. Think Santa's workshop.

Otherwise general things that can reduce your crafting time. Planar travel. Although it sounds silly, moving to a plane where time is faster than the material plane will surely cut crafting time down.

[Cicciograna]

Crafting time is an issue I solved changing completely the way Craft works. I made up a complete new Craft system that you could like: when your character wants to craft something, the DM sets the DC and the PC makes the roll: he subtracts the DC from his result and saves this number in a sort of completion pool; each roll represents the work made in the standard 8 hours; he must take additional rolls on additional days until the value of the pool equals or exceeds the Craft DC.
For example...

Roland Greentide is a 3rd level Expert, trained in Craft (Armorsmithing), who has been asked by a local lord to craft a masterwork suit of banded mail. Roland is very competent in his work: his Int score is 13, he has maximum ranks in Craft (Armorsmithing), Skill Focus for the relevant ability and masterwork tools, which means he has a total score in Craft (Arm.) of:

1 (Int) + 6 (Ranks) + 3 (SF) + 2 (Tools) = +12

He begins to work at the suit of armor, beginning with the masterwork component: the DC is 20, meaning that he needs at least a roll of 9 to make progress.
On day 1 he makes his roll and gets a 15, which means he got a check result of 27: subtracting the DC from the roll gives a result of 7, so in his completion pool value is 7.
On day 2 he rolls a 10, for a check result of 22: this means that the completion pool value is 9.
On day 3 he gets a 5, for a result of 17, not enough to make progress.
On day 4, he gets a natural 20, for a result of 32: this means that he adds 12 points to the completion pool, for a total of 21. His completion pool exceeds the DC for the masterwork component, so, in 4 days, he finished it! He can now move on to the suit itself.

With this method, the crafter could have safely done the masterwork component taking 10 for 10 days (22[Check]-20[DC]=2[Pool increment/day], 20[DC]/2=10[Days]); the banded mail armor has a Craft DC of 16 so, taking 10 every day, Roland would craft it in less than 3 days of work (22[Check]-16[DC]=6[Pool/day], 16[DC]/6 ~< 3[Days]): this means that the masterwork suit of banded mail is ready in about 13 days, which is fully acceptable in the D&D time scale (at the obvious expenses of realism - but this is another story).

Of course, this caluclation assumes that Roland has paused all of his pending tasks to work at the armor, as he spends his every day 8 hours of work on said armor: this is not entirely consistent, as a smith would have other urgencies, other simpler armor to craft or repair, everyday tools to craft for townsfolk or sort. This means that, for example, he can work to the suit of armor only 4 hours, which means that he must halve every day the number of point that he puts in his completion pool (meaning that, taking 10, he would end the masterwork part in 20 days).

You could adjust the DC as you see fit: for example, working with uncommon material, such as when making a gold armor, adds 1 to the DC, while really strange material, such as Astral Shadow Iron, adds a +2 or +3 to the DC.

With this system, simple objects tend to be completed more quickly. For example, a 1st level apprentice crafter with a Craft bonus of +8 making a wooden spoon (DC 5), taking 10 would have a pool of 18, the difference would be of 13, which means he would craft the object in about 3 hours (18[Check]-5[DC]=13[Pool/day], 5[DC]/13 ~ 0.4[Days]: as a day of work is 8 hours, he spends 0.4x8[Hours] ~ 3[Hours]): this is not so weird...
Said apprentice crafter would make a crossbow (DC 15) in about five working days (18[Check]-15[DC]=3[Pool/day], and 15[DC]/3=5[Days]), assuming a complete focus on the crossbow from the builder. A masterwork mighty (+4) composite longbow would be really difficult to be built by this apprentice, while a more skilled artisan would build it in few days without problems.

The problem with this system is that high-level charatcers could complete objects in absurdly short times: to solve this issue, you, as a DM, could state that every object requires a minimum time to complete, depending of the peculiar object.
I think this system is simple to manage and quick, with regards to D&D time scale. Tell me what you think about it.

[Demons_eye]

Another question about Magical items. Say I have Craft Wondrous Item and I have the feats Magical Artisan & Extraordinary Artisan. Does this mean all items I make with Craft Wondrous items is reduced to 56% of the base price?