Crafting special materials

[BooNL]

When crafting mundane items, you pay 1/3 of the item cost before checking to see if it works, etc. etc.

How do you price special materials such as mithral and adamantine. Are they 1/3 of the listed cost as well, or do you pay full price on them?

[root9125]

It's weird, IIRC. You still have to buy / obtain the special material, then deduct its market cost from the price of the item, then pay the fraction of that price.

I could be wrong.

[dsmiles]

No, you're not wrong. That's how it works.

[BooNL]

wait...what?

So, let's take mithral for example. The price per item is already listed, it is assumed the cost of aquisition is accounted for in this price, yes?

If that's the case, I should simply be able to take 1/3 of that cost, or am I wrong here?

[Kyeudo]

Yep. Right on the money.

[BooNL]

cool .

Do you guys know any good and usefull special materials, besides the core ones?

I'm building a gnomish mad scientist/alchemist (Fighter//Artificer) and I'd like to get as many options as possible.

[bosssmiley]

wait...what?

So, let's take mithral for example. The price per item is already listed, it is assumed the cost of aquisition is accounted for in this price, yes?

If that's the case, I should simply be able to take 1/3 of that cost, or am I wrong here?

1. Buy as raw materials (1/3 list price)
2. Sell as trade goods (correction: 1/2 list price)
3. Profit

D&D economics was created by English Lit. majors and makes no sense.

[streakster]

Riverrine. Immune to pretty much everything.

Pandemonic Silver - In high winds, screams, panicking those nearby.

[Douglas]

2. Sell as trade goods (1/2 list price)

Trade goods get full list price.

[tyckspoon]

1. Buy as raw materials (1/3 list price)
2. Sell as trade goods (1/2 list price)
3. Profit

D&D economics was created by English Lit. majors and makes no sense.

It's particularly bad when you're dealing with items that have inherent value instead of being value-added by the process of crafting- going strictly by the rules you can acquire a gold bar or a refined mithral slug and turn it into 3 equally valuable gold bars/chunks of mithral. And then sell them all for full value as trade goods.

[Thefurmonger]

this brings up a question for me, How the hell does a PC make a item from one of the matterials?

take Ada, for a weapon it adds 4k to the price right?
Dc to craft is 20 (i think as it has to be MW)

lets say at 6th LVL you have a average check of 20ish.

20x20= 400 silver per week

cost of the item in silver is around 40,000

So it takes 2 YEARS?!!?!?!?!? (100 Weeks)

Is this right?

[dsmiles]

cool .

Do you guys know any good and usefull special materials, besides the core ones?

I'm building a gnomish mad scientist/alchemist (Fighter//Artificer) and I'd like to get as many options as possible.

Check the Book of Vile Darkness and the Book of Exalted Deeds for some.

[Ashiel]

this brings up a question for me, How the hell does a PC make a item from one of the matterials?

take Ada, for a weapon it adds 4k to the price right?
Dc to craft is 20 (i think as it has to be MW)

lets say at 6th LVL you have a average check of 20ish.

20x20= 400 silver per week

cost of the item in silver is around 40,000

So it takes 2 YEARS?!!?!?!?!? (100 Weeks)

Is this right?

Well you can willingly increase the craft DC to speed up the process. Also, there are various ways to boost your skill check. Masterwork tools (50gp) for a +2 bonus to the check, and then have your party assist using aid-another to help with the work during the process (+2 per party member). Additionally you can hire hirelings for a small amount to all take 10 under your supervision granting an additional +2 per hireling.

So assuming you're 5th level and wanna craft a mithril chain shirt (+1000gp onto the market price), and you upped the DC to 30, you could take 10 and make that with a +20 bonus. Assuming no intelligence bonus, you're looking at a +8 from ranks, +2 from tools, then +10 from 5 helpers, for a DC 30 result taking 10. That'll get it done in about 2 months, which is still a bit harsh.

Of course, the more +s you can add, the faster you get it done. Just keep grabbing more and more mooks to help you if time is of the essence. There's a ton of ways to set up sweat shops to help with these things, but I'm trying to stick with lower level options. A level 5 cleric can supply you with 20 1HD undead skeletons who can take provide up to a +40 modifier to your check (since you have pile of undead automatons working your bellows, hammering stuff flat, carrying junk for you, bringing you more coal, whatever).

If you have a "factory" of 20 undead (assuming half fail, half succeed on aid another) workers assisting, in addition to the previous example, that makes a check result of 50 x 50, bringing it down to about 4 weeks...

It's tough, but do-able. Though if you want to improve the craft skills for your own games, I would recommend allowing your check result x DC in gold pieces instead of silver pieces. It makes things go a lot faster, and it's really not going to break the game or anything.