Question regarding Dragonlance's Master Craftsman class features (D&D 3.0/3.5)

[Delden Roev]

This is a thought-experiment / exploration of rules systems in 3rd edition D&D material.

The 3.0/3.5 Dragonlance - War of the Lance book introduced a new base class known as the Master Craftsman, which had a class feature that improved upon the masterwork item crafting rules, allowing the character to create non-magical masterwork items exceeding the normal standards detailed in the PHB and DMG. Normally, masterwork weapons had a +1 enhancement to hit, armors decreased armor check penalties by 1, and tools gained a +2 to specific skill checks. Crafting a masterwork weapon requires craft checks for the weapon (as normal), as well as separate craft checks for the masterwork component of the weapon (DC 20), and adds 300 gold to the cost of the item.

At its highest tier, the Master Craftsman knack that improved upon masterwork weapon crafting became known as Item of Legend. "With this knack, the master craftsman reaches the pinnacle of his ability to create superior items. The master craftsman can create masterwork items that are five times more effective as standard masterwork items - weapons confer a +5 bonus to attack rolls, armor check penalty is lessened by 5, and skill bonus items confer a +10 bonus. These items of legend must be created with the Craft skill specified by the master's item of distinction knack, take 5 times as long to create, and the additional cost to create them is quintupled."



My first question is this: By RAW, how (if at all) does the Master Craftsman's knack abilities interact with the following other systems that modify masterwork weapons? Are the specific improvements listed in the description of the master's abilities the extent of what it can do, or does the general statement that the items of legend "are five times more effective as standard masterwork items" apply to additional masterwork benefits gained from other sources? Any guidance from RAW would be greatly appreciated.

1) Special Materials that confer enhancement bonuses to attack and damage rolls? Although adamantine got nerfed from 3.0 to 3.5 when its +1/+2 enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls (depending on damage dice of weapon) got removed, this ability remains on other 3.5 materials such as starmetal and dragonmetal. If a Master Craftsman creates a masterwork katana out of starmetal as an item of legend, does it have a +5 to hit and a +2 to damage, or does the item of legend ability synergize and provide a mundane +10 to hit and +10 to damage (5 times the masterwork bonus)? My initial suspicion is that these enhancement bonuses are inherent to the material used, not a function of the masterwork component of the item, and therefore are unaffected by the Master Craftsman's abilities. That said, the only materials I'm aware of that carry damage enhancements must be masterwork to be forged anyway, so I'm not certain what actually provides the bonuses to hit and damage (leaning towards the material).

2) Weapon Templates (introduced in DMG2, page 273)? Adding a template to an item at creation was very similar to making the item masterwork, in that it was a separate component that had its own craft check and associated cost. That said, the template component was specifically separate from both the material component AND the masterwork component. So the same masterwork starmetal katana above would normally have a hardness of 20, but with the Hellforged template this hardness would increase to 21. Would an item of legend Hellforged starmetal katana gain 5 hardness instead of 1 along with the +5 to hit? As this template component is totally separate from the masterwork component, I again suspect that the Master Craftsman's abilities do not interact here.

3) Dwarvencraft items (Races of Stone, page 159)? This one gets interesting, as it is specifically an improvement on masterwork items, same as the Master Craftsman's abilities. Dwarvencraft items gain 2 hardness, 10 hit points, and a +2 bonus to all saving throws (all of which stack with any magical enhancements gained later on). Since dwarvencraft items are a tier of masterwork like masterwork items (+1 to hit, +300gp), items of distinction (+1 to hit, +150gp), items of renown (+2 to hit, +600gp), items of fame (+3 to hit, +900gp), items of glory (+4 to hit, +1200gp), and items of legend (+5 to hit, +1500gp), are they mutually exclusive (occupying the same "slot" for the item) or stackable? If stackable, does a dwarvencraft item of legend gain the standard +5 to hit, +2 hardness, +10hp, and +2 all saves... or does it have +5 to hit, +10 hardness, +50hp, and +10 to all saves? I think they stack, but I don't know if they should be additive or multiplicative. There are no direct rules written on this, so I need some deep rules-lawyering to clarify.

4) Special Item Qualities from the Artisan Craftsman feat (Dragon Magazine #358, page 39)? Another interesting one that expands on the masterwork component of an item with a number of minor features based on a character's choices and ranks in the relevant craft skill (if they have the Artisan Craftsman feat). Since these features amend the benefits of the masterwork component of an item (don't occupy the same "slot" as masterwork like Dwarvencraft might), I can see it being argued that their benefits are MULTIPLIED by the Master Craftsman's knacks, not just added to the masterwork component as normal. What say you on this, internet?

5) Special material modifications such as Oerthblood and Pure Ore (Dragon Magazine #351 pg45, and #347 pg47)? These are modifiers to the material component used to craft the item in question, not to the masterwork component. My knee-jerk reaction is that they are unaffected by the Master Craftsman's abilities.



Second question: Were any additional knacks, feats, or prestige classes published for the Master Craftsman class outside of the War of the Lance book (any "official" 3.0/3.5 material is acceptable, including Dragonlance books, Dragon Magazine, and Dungeon Magazine). It's a very interesting class that I wish had gotten some more options with their knacks.



Third/Final question: Outside of special materials, templates, and the Artisan Craftsman special item qualities, were any additional feats, abilities, or systems introduced that offer a mundane enhancement to weapon damage? I am specifically looking for an addition to the masterwork system that might synergize with the Master Craftsman abilities, or a very similar mechanic to masterwork that parallels the to-hit enhancement bonus with damage enhancement bonuses. The Heavy Weapon modifier from Magic of Faerun sort-of increases weapon size/damage, but doesn't provide the enhancement bonus I'm looking for. I am aware of the breakaway weapons and mercury-filled weapons from Dragon Magazine Annual #5, but they're not really enhancement bonuses to damage so much as flat modifiers to the weapon's statistics. Specifically looking to avoid magical/psionic enhancements for the purposes of this exercise, and only interested in mundane improvements.

[Saintheart]

I'll come back to this later when I've got a minute, but as a preface I should point out that the book you're drawing from, War of the Lance, is what is commonly spat on, looked down upon, and not invited to the cool kids' parties referred to as third party in D&D.

Third party is usually agreed as "material that WOTC didn't write and didn't playtest even if it was touted as being compatible with the third edition system. As such, much higher chance of being broken having unforeseen interactions with the rest of third edition." I say that tongue-in-cheek because there's loads of stuff even in WOTC's own books that has a high chance of having unforeseen interactions with the rest of third edition, and even stuff like Dragon or Dungeon magazine cops a lot of unfair abuse despite generally not being that much better or worse than what appears in a WOTC book.

Either way - War of the Lance wasn't written by WOTC, but by the publisher of the Dragonlance setting (Alderac Entertainment Group if I remember right, I'm away from the books right now). Only the Dragonlance Campaign Setting had WOTC's authorship in it. So you're not likely to find stuff in Dragon or Dungeon or any books outside Dragonlance officially upgrading Master Craftsman. It'll be more a case of unforeseen/unintended interactions, and since it's a third party text, expect a lot of (deserved? undeserved?) resistance from DMs who run "WOTC stuff only" tables.

But as said, I will come back and have another look at it soon.

[Delden Roev]

Ah, my apologies for my confusion on the matter of publishers.

To clarify (for the purposes of this exercise): My questions are applicable for a table allowing all "official" 3.0/3.5 materials, 3.0/3.5 compatible Dragonlance materials, 3.0/3.5 Dragon Magazine materials, and 3.0/3.5 Dungeon Magazine materials. Pathfinder 1E materials could be entertained as well, but prefer to stay in "D&D" if possible.

[pabelfly]

Let's pretend for a moment that your DM would let you use third-party material like this for the sake of discussion.

The bonuses to crafting output means you'd be great to have as a party ally, but you're going to struggle to contribute in combat yourself, even if you get to pump everyone's stats with higher-quality items. If I recall correctly, you don't have spells, you don't abilities that help you in combat like free movement, extra attacks, resistances or immunities, or bonus stats. You're just getting more and more boosts to crafting. You're actually going to be behind classes like Barbarian, Ranger or Fighter.

There's also the issue that if you get to permanently pump the stats of your allies, your DM might also find it appropriate to boost the stats of your enemies or throw harder enemies at you to keep combat at their intended difficulty level.

It's a nice flavourful class though. Might be useful if you could use it in a gestalt and can use it to pump the stats of a class or build concept that would otherwise struggle with stats.

[redking]

I'll go ahead and quote my post from a previous thread because it is very relevant to this.

The best special materials for weapons and armor are dragonmetal from the Dragonlance campaign setting, and the Oerthblood alloy from Greyhawk (Dragon Magazine #: 351 (Greyhawk Adventures – Irongate: City of Stairs). By mixing these special materials together (possible, because Oerthblood specifically does this), you get the following advantages.

Dragonmetal has the same characteristics are mithril, and also have a natural bonus on attack and damage rolls.



Oerthblood: Items made from Oerthblooded metals are more easily enhanced than other substances, requiring 25% less time and XP. Oerthblood alloyed items have twice the hardness of the base metal the Oerthblood is alloyed with (oerthblooded iron, mithral, dragonmetal and steel have a Hardness of 20). Oerthblooded metal items have hit points equal to 1.5 times the hit points for a normal item of the base metal's type.

Oerthblood items get bonuses. Only primarily metallic objects gain these bonuses.
Weapons: Weapons made primarily from Oerthblood grant a +1 luck bonus on attack and damage rolls. A target that takes damage from an oerthblooded weapon takes a -1 penalty on all saves made against magical effects for 1 round. Penalties from multiple hits stack.
Armor: Light Armor: DR 1/–, +1 luck bonus on saves vs. magic effects. Medium Armor: DR 2/–, +2 luck bonus on saves vs. magic effects. Heavy Armor: DR 3/–, +3 luck bonus on saves vs. magical effects.



The Dragonmetal and Oerthblood having different bonuses, the bonuses should stack. You can create non-magical weapons with a +2 or +3 bonus on attack and damage rolls.

Any thoughts?

So if you have a Master with the Master Craftsman knack, and access to both dragonmetal (Dragonlance) and Oerthblood (Greyhawk), you should be able to produce weapons that are non magical yet have a bonus to attack rolls of +5 and a bonus to damage of +2 or +3.

Sweet deal if you can get it. What's better no XP is required, which means if you can get your hands on simulacrum and a high enough level Master (perhaps your own character), you can set up a factory for mass production.

[Saintheart]

Right, then--

As a preface, Masterwork weapons explicitly grant enhancement bonuses to attack rolls. Leaving aside that enhancement bonuses explicitly don't stack with the enhancement bonus provided by a magic weapon (per the SRD), generally speaking enhancement bonuses don't stack with themselves, in keeping with the general rules.

What does the "Item of Renown/Fame/Glory" feature on the Master do?

With this knack, the master craftsman improves upon his existing talent at creating superior masterwork items. The master craftsman can create masterwork items that are twice as effective as standard masterwork items – weapons confer a +2 bonus to attack rolls, armor check penalty is lessened by 2, and skill bonus items confer a +4 bonus. These items of renown must be created with the Craft skill specified by the master’s item of distinction knack, take twice as long to create, and cost the same amount as standard masterwork items.

One reading we want to make from this is that a Master Craftsman somehow shifts the bonuses from enhancement bonuses to untyped, because those would then stack. By RAW? Hell, as some of the threads in this forum state, you can justify just about anything by RAW and narrow, distorted readings of a clause. I think most sane DMs would read that as meaning "rather than your masterworks conferring a +1 enhancement bonus, they now confer a +2 enhancement bonus. So your +2 magic weapon might give you a benefit on damage, but it gives you no additional benefit on attack accuracy, because enhancement bonuses don't stack."

So, with that preface in mind, some uncultured observations:

(1) Special Materials - I think your instinct is right in that the masterwork quality is inherent to the material and can't be affected by the ability. Any weapon forged from mithral or adamantine (for example) is a masterwork item, it's not a matter of crafting as such. Also, there's a RAW reading that an Item of Renown can't cost any more than a standard masterwork item. By definition, mithral and adamantine weapons cost more than the standard masterwork versions of the item. (As in, the RAW reading that "These items of renown must..." is the beginning of a list of criteria, as opposed to the reading that "These items of renown..." are referring to a list of characteristics and procedures.)

(2) Weapon Templates - Again, I think your instinct is right that templates stand as separate and aren't affected by the Craftsman ability. I'm fortified in that view (leaving aside that templates are a separate component of the weapon) by p.274 of DMG 2: "Changes to the item’s statistics resulting from the template stack with any changes stemming from the use of a special material or special ability. For example, adamantine items have greater hardness than ordinary weapons, as do hellforged items. So, to determine the hardness of a hellforged adamantine item, add the hardness modifier for the hellforged template to the hardness of the adamantine item." They stack, but the template doesn't get any better due to the Craftsman's ability, which is meant to only affect the weapon's masterwork aspect.

(3) Dwarvencraft - isn't enhanced by Master Craftsman, i.e. they're mutually exclusive. Per RoS "...dwarf smiths have created another category of quality that goes beyond masterwork. Appropriately, such items are generally referred to as dwarvencraft items. Yes, it's always of masterwork quality and are crafted using the rules for masterwork items, but they're not masterwork items, they're dwarvencraft and so not affected by Master Craftsman in my view. This is especially since you can't make a masterwork item and then upgrade it to dwarvencraft later, and that it refers to the "dwarvencraft component" of an item.

(4) Special Item Qualities from the Artisan Craftsman feat - Nah, sorry, I think it isn't enhanced by Master Craftsman. All the feat does is allow you to add item qualities to a masterwork weapon. Those things become qualities of the weapon, they are not the effectiveness of the masterwork weapon itself which is multiplied by Master Craftsman. Yes, they can stack because it's all masterwork weapons, but I don't think the qualities themselves multiply.

(5) Special material modifications such as Oerthblood and Pure Ore - Similar conclusion to yours and to (1) above; these are inherent modifications to the material of the weapon, they aren't qualities instilled by masterwork as such.

On the other questions - I'll have a look, but I can't remember any off the top of my head.

[redking]

(1) Special Materials - I think your instinct is right in that the masterwork quality is inherent to the material and can't be affected by the ability. Any weapon forged from mithral or adamantine (for example) is a masterwork item, it's not a matter of crafting as such. Also, there's a RAW reading that an Item of Renown can't cost any more than a standard masterwork item. By definition, mithral and adamantine weapons cost more than the standard masterwork versions of the item. (As in, the RAW reading that "These items of renown must..." is the beginning of a list of criteria, as opposed to the reading that "These items of renown..." are referring to a list of characteristics and procedures.)

I agree that the bonus is an enhancement bonus by strong implication. Since it doesn't say the bonus is untyped, I don't think it can be assumed. As for the cost, I don't think a normal reading suggests that the items of renown must cost the same amount as a masterwork item, just that they do cost the same. The intention behind this verbiage is clear - crafting costs are usually connected to time, and the writers are making it clear that although time costs are doubled, monetary costs are not. Therefore, it seems to be that the bonuses conferred by the Master knacks can be combined with special materials, although one must be careful not to count enhancement bonuses twice.

[Saintheart]

Some random thoughts, though, around the subject of whether you can stretch RAW to mean any item that requires masterwork craftsmanship is necessarily a masterwork item that benefits from the class.



Siege Golems (Cityscape) by RAW: "A siege golem’s body must be crafted from enormous amounts of high-quality hardwoods, with iron joints and leather fi ttings, costing a total of 3,000 gp. The catapult requires masterwork craftsmanship."

Does a Siege Golem made by a Master Craftsman have double BAB, STR, attack scores, etc? Certainly you can make masterwork siege weapons.

Blood Golem of Hextor (Field Folio) can be explicitly built with "more powerful armors or weapons".

Helmed Horror is made from a masterwork set of plate armor, although it'd subsume the +3 in enhancement bonus it gets during its animation.

Dread Guard (MM 2) is made from masterwork armor and weapons.

Magmacore Golem (MM 5) has a masterwork armor as part of its creation.

Illithid Weapon Grafts can be masterwork weapons, and become natural attacks thereby.

Leash and Muzzle (A&EG) are available in masterwork versions that provide a +1 circumstance bonuses to Handle Animal checks. I think this one would be affected by the Master Craftsman's work, i.e. provide a +5 circumstance bonus to Handle Animal - not bad in some situations.

Masterwork Controls (A&EG) could get you up to a +10 to Handle Animal!

Masterwork Saddle (Complete Adventurer) - +5 to Ride Checks instead of +1!

Longspoon Thieves' Tools (Complete Adventurer) - +10 to Disable Device, etc!

(In fact, Masterwork Tools for any profession could conceivably be pushed to conferring +10 to checks. Very handy if you need a bonus.)

Masterwork musical instruments could be very, very useful for bards depending on how they're interpreted, up to +10 on Perform checks, anyone? Elven Harp (RoTW) has some potential nice bonuses: all masterwork items, but under a Master Craftsman they might amplify their bonuses up to +15.

Dungeonscape: Masterwork Drills could last 500 rounds!

FRCS: Masterwork Bandoleers might hold multiples of 12 items rather than 12! Same for Masterwork Potion Belts!

Flight Arrows (RoTW) are masterwork - perhaps they have longer range increments?


Defenders of the Faith: Blue Armor of the Crystal Mist Mountains, Red Dragon Armor are explicitly masterwork scale mail crafted to look blue or red. They may count for the ability? Bolt of Battering, also termed as a masterwork bolt with some nice magical qualities.

Trumpeter's Gift (A&EG) might grant a +25 to perform bonuses crafted by a craftsman. Whip of Obeyance might grant +50 (five zero) to Handle Animal checks.


There's likely others, go searching for the word "Masterwork".

[redking]

Item of Legend: With this knack, the master craftsman reaches the pinnacle of his ability to create superior items. The master craftsman can create masterwork items that are five times as effective as standard masterwork items - weapons confer a +5 bonus to attack rolls, armor check penalty is lessened by 5, and skill bonus items confer a +10 bonus. These items of legend must be created with the Craft skill specified by the master's item of distinction knack, take five times as long to create, and the additional cost to create them is quintupled (+1500 steel for weapons of legend, +750 steel for armor of legend, etc).

In terms of skill bonus items, they should all be able to go up to +10. A masterwork item of +10 circumstance bonus to UMD seems a bit metagamey, but if anyone could create mundane item that gives a skill bonus to UMD it would be a Master.

[Delden Roev]

I really appreciate all the replies so far. This is turning into a very interesting discussion, and I'm loving the different points and considerations being made.

I agree with the interpretations on enhancement bonuses for the Master Craftsman's weapons all around. These bonuses overlap, but they don't stack, and that's well established throughout all of 3rd edition. So an item of legend (or any weapon with a material-based enhancement to hit/damage) further enhanced with magical bonuses would simply take the best of either world. Nothing the Master Craftsman learns to do alters that. Using the previous example of a starmetal katana of legend (innate +5 hit, +2 damage), further magical enhancement as either a +1 or +2 weapon wouldn't provide any direct benefit at all (well, making it a +1 or better magic weapon opens the floor to other enhancements, though I suppose an argument could be made that if the item had both an enhancement to hit AND damage, even if it was mundane, that could theoretically clear the way for adding magical abilities to the weapon by RAW... though this method certainly isn't RAI and would likely provoke flying DMG's...). If an enhancement bonus of +3 or higher were added, it would simply overlap with existing to-hit enhancement from the item of legend ability, but would supersede the natural enhancement from the material.

Pabelfly: You're absolutely correct that the Master Craftsman, by itself, isn't all that great of a base class. It's a good support role, but not great as a standalone skillset for a PC. It gives some interesting flavor and becomes viable as a gestalt component in certain builds, but I would argue it shines the brightest as an option for a cohort. As to overpowering a party with obscure shiny toys and tempting the DM to respond in kind, the bonuses it does provide aren't out of line with other options available, and the fact that magical enhancements overlap/overrule its one trick for improving weapons (by RAI) kind of makes it moot for providing much (if any) of an edge to parties in the long haul. Yeah, you could choose to only pay for a single +1 magical enhancement (hit and damage) and still benefit from up to a +5 mundane enhancement to hit, but even that's not that great of an advantage. Frankly, at comparable levels, the party Wizard can do a lot more to enhance an item than the Master can, and they get awesome at-will death-star beams of disintegration on top of that. This is part of the reason I wanted to see if, by RAW, there were any other features or improvements out there that unintentionally interact with what the Master Craftsman can do in an effort to redeem it a bit.

Redking: We're very much on the same wavelength regarding the dragonmetal/oerthblood alloy. It's the long-awaited canonized adamantine/mithril alloy! All the hardness/durability of adamantine, with the same light weight as mithril (AND you get that snazzy +1 or +2 enhancement bonus to damage as well that got removed from adamantine during the 3.5 update, though you're lacking the ability to overcome DR/adamantine or ignore up to 20 hardness (oh well, I suppose you can't win 'em all...)). On top of that, oerthblood alloys also provide a +1 luck bonus to hit and damage (luck, not enhancement) so that stacks with the enhancement bonuses from the special material and/or masterwork components. Plus, oerthblood is one of only 3 instances I know of in "canon" material for 3.0/3.5 that allows alloying with an existing material (the other two being Pure Ore and the Adamantine/Copper alloy). It's shiny. Technically, I think your theoretical dragonmetal/oerthblood weapon could even be boosted further to a mundane +6 to hit and +5 to damage. You get a +2 enhancement bonus to both by making it out of dragonmetal if the damage die is high enough (same as my starmetal katana above), and can boost that to-hit enhancement bonus to +5 by making it an item of legend. The oerthblood component gets you your +1 luck bonus to both hit and damage, which stacks with existing enhancement and inherent bonuses. If you also add the mercury-filled weapon modification from Dragon Magazine Annual #5, you get an additional +2 to damage as an untyped bonus. Overall, not bad for no magic. Now, to make that dragonmetal/oerthblood alloy, you need extremely rare and valuable material components from two totally different planets... but hey, oerthblood alloy was introduced in the same Dragon Magazine issue as a tavern with links to every known reality in the multiverse of D&D, so never let simple things like universal barriers be an impediment to your character's literal creativity. And being non-magical, these bonuses persist in areas of dead/anti-magic... even extra-planar locales such as Sigil...

Saintheart: Thanks for the prompt responses and well thought out considerations on other potential applications of these class features! I hadn't considered implications for items that simply required a masterwork component to be constructed, and was focused on things that exclusively built upon the masterwork system itself due to the wording of the Master Craftsman's knacks. Practically speaking, improved masterwork tools (and other items such as instruments) are probably the most useful thing that the Master Craftsman brings to table due to the fact that anything the Master can do the Wizard can do better in the world of weaponsmithing. I'm inclined to agree with Redking though, in that most of the things you have listed (much like the item templates and special material bonuses I listed in the original post) are simply flat bonuses inherent to the specific items themselves, not expansions upon the masterwork component of the items. As established, the Master Craftsman boosts the effects of the masterwork component of an item, not any/all inherent bonuses on said item (it seems we are all in agreement on that). Both by RAW and RAI, I believe it can boost masterwork tools up to a maximum +10 skill bonus, but no further (even if a specific obscure masterwork tool such as the Elven Harp had a +3 skill bonus instead of the usual +2, by RAW I think the Master could only boost its bonus up to a +10 at most due to the fact that when in conflict, specific rules override general rules in D&D, and the language around the "item of ______" knacks specifically states it can only improve the enhancement bonuses on masterwork tools to +10). Of course, it's no small feat of irony that the "specific rules beat general rules" clause is itself a general statement that could by its own logic be overruled by a specific circumstance... so take that interpretation with a grain of salt. And a perfectly reasonable case could be made for masterwork tools with a normal +3 bonus (such as your Elven Harp) being able to be improved up to a +15 by a Master as RAI in place of RAW (a textbook case of "spirit of the law" vs "letter of the law") due to the general wording of how the Master's knacks work. That said, I would agree with you that masterwork tools that only confer a +1 enhancement bonus under normal circumstances (such as the leash/muzzle you mentioned) could be improved up to a +5 enhancement under the wording of the Master Craftsman. Given the wording on the Master's knacks, I'm thinking along the same lines as yourself that only mundane enhancement bonuses that are specific to the masterwork component of an item (tool, weapon, armor, etc.) have any synergy with the Master's abilities. In other words, things such as drill bit uses, range increments of weapons (unless specifically enhanced by masterwork quality), bandoleer capacity, etc. are unaffected by the "tier" of masterwork quality applied. I'm still on the fence about the synergy with the Dwarvencraft and Artisan Craftsman abilities, though; because these features specifically build off the masterwork component of a weapon (they add to the masterwork component craft DC and cost, not to the material component/cost, when crafting the item)... I could still be convinced of either ruling on this one for the time being.

EDIT: Actually, upon further review of Dungeonscape, I'm inclined to agree that since the masterwork component of masterwork drill bits improves upon their number of uses, I think the Master Craftsman's abilities would in fact interact with this and extend their uses even further (up to a maximum of 500). Cool find.

[redking]

Oerthblood + Dragonmetal alloy weapons and armour are great magic-phobic inquisitor types.

As long as the character or NPC has a sample of Dragonmetal or Oerthblood, there are options like true creation and it's superior psionic equivalent that can create these special materials.

I wouldn't allow the bonuses to go further than 10 for a masterworks item, no matter what outlier base items exist out there.

In relation to crafting magical items, place a +1 enhancement bonus so you can add weapon special abilities. Any further enhancement bonus on an Oerthblood + Dragonmetal alloy is waste of money and XP. Add flaming burst or whatever.

Depending on how your rule the hit only enhancement bonus of the Master, you might be able to get a defending weapon in the cheap.

Defending
A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer some or all of the sword’s enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus that stacks with all others. As a free action, the wielder chooses how to allocate the weapon’s enhancement bonus at the start of his turn before using the weapon, and the effect to AC lasts until his next turn.

That's all I can think of for the moment.

[Max Caysey]

Let's pretend for a moment that your DM would let you use third-party material like this for the sake of discussion.

The bonuses to crafting output means you'd be great to have as a party ally, but you're going to struggle to contribute in combat yourself, even if you get to pump everyone's stats with higher-quality items. If I recall correctly, you don't have spells, you don't abilities that help you in combat like free movement, extra attacks, resistances or immunities, or bonus stats. You're just getting more and more boosts to crafting. You're actually going to be behind classes like Barbarian, Ranger or Fighter.

There's also the issue that if you get to permanently pump the stats of your allies, your DM might also find it appropriate to boost the stats of your enemies or throw harder enemies at you to keep combat at their intended difficulty level.

It's a nice flavourful class though. Might be useful if you could use it in a gestalt and can use it to pump the stats of a class or build concept that would otherwise struggle with stats.

Get a ton of followers, make them earth dwarf, and cleric of crafting! You will get some nice sellable stuff here!