Crafting
I sent the following to Ken, and he responded that it made his head hurt, and that as long as it doesn’t screw with the campaign, he’d let me be the crafting guru, and handle such things as seemed appropriate.
Anyways, here is what I sent him:
“Ok, so the issue is crafting of MW, GMW, Legendary, and Custom items.
To start, the Craft DC for normal items as given in the PHB are:
| Armor or Shield | 10 + AC Bonus |
| Simple Weapon | 12 |
| Martial Weapon | 15 |
| Exotic Weapon | 18 |
For MW items, a general DC of 20 is given.
Ok, in the Living Arcanis crafting rules, the only thing that changes is that the DCs for special items are:
| Masterwork | +5 |
| Greater Masterwork | +10 |
| Legendary | +20 |
And nothing is given regarding Custom (ie. Fitted) stuff.
Ok, the basic method for doing crafting is:
1) Determine the base cost and extra cost. 2) Pay 1/3 of the total cost, and get to work 3) Make the normal item by rolling a craft check, and if the result is high enough, multiplying it by the DC to determine how many silver pieces of work are done in a week. In general making a normal item will take less than a week. 4) Then you do the same thing with the MW, GMW, or Legendary part of the item, and when that is accomplished, the item is done.
Ok, so the nature of the DC makes you craft a bit faster for difficult stuff, but the rampup is severe in costs.
Let me try an example on the same item, call it a dagger.
The Crafter is 7th level, with 10 ranks in Weaponsmithing (+10), 5 Ranks in Knowledge (Science: Metallurgy) (+2), Skill Focus (Weaponsmithing) (+3), a 14 INT (+2), a MW crafting tool (+2), and is a Dwarf (+4). Ok, so he has +23 on his crafting check.
For the example, we will just “take 10” on his crafting checks.
Ok, so his check is a 33, and with a dagger being a simple weapon, it has a 12 DC, so 33*12 = 396. So 39.6 gp of progress in the first week. As a Dwarf, he works twice as fast, so 79.2 gp. Since a dagger only costs 2gp, we have done more than 3 times the work, so less than a week is spent. In fact, the non-MW part can be done in 1 day most likely. We could have added 10 to the DC to do the job faster if we wanted.
Ok, now for the 300 gp MW part. Using the Arcanis rules, the DC is 17. There’s no reason not to use the +10 to the DC to make the item quicker. So 27 * 33 = 891, and being a Dwarf, he works twice as fast, so ~180 gp of work done per week. Call it 2 weeks to make a MW part
Ok, if the item was to be GMW, for 600 gp, the numbers are almost double the MW ones. The DC would be 12 + 10 + 10 = 32, so we do 32 * 33 = 1056, and as a dwarf, he is doing roughly 200gp per week. Call it 3 weeks to make a GMW dagger.
It is interesting to note, that making a MW martial, or exotic, weapon can go faster than a simple weapon, since the DC (and thus the multiplier) is higher.
Ok, now for making a Legendary (+2) dagger. The legendary component cost 16000 gp, or 160000 sp. The DC would be 12 + 20 = 32. Weekly checks would have 32 * 33 = 1056 sp accomplished. Doubling that for a dwarf would make 2012 sp per week. So 79.5 weeks? This is where the system breaks down. The Living Arcanis Rules clearly allow players to make legendary items, but there’s no way they consider it taking 1.5 years to make one.
Ok, problems: the example in the Living Arcanis book only has the MW component requiring enough work to cover the 100gp actually paid, and not the 300gp of value of the item.
If that rule is intended to carry across the board, then the MW dagger component would take 2/3 of a week, GMW would be 1 week, and then 26.5 weeks for the Legendary (+2) item. That at least seems far more reasonable. Basically a half year to make a Legendary (+2) items. If we accept that interpretation, then a Legendary (+3) item would take ~60 weeks. Legendary (+4) would take 106 weeks. Legendary (+5) would take 165 weeks.
Those figures all seem pretty reasonable to me.
Now, for a “Custom” item, the Arcanis rules, just arbitrarily say it takes an additional 30 days to accomplish. No DC is given related to Custom gear. Let’s assume it is just timely, but no more difficult. It is listed as +2500 for a weapon. Presumably we can still do the +10 DC to work faster. Ok, the MW Custom Dagger would accomplish the same ~180gp of work per week. It would take 4.6 weeks to do the additional 833 gp of work. That seems excessive. Similarly, only an additional 3 weeks is needed to customize a GMW item, and the same for Legendary. It is odd that more difficult items are “easier” to customize.
Ok, so my proposal is this:
That crafting be done normally, but with Arcanis DCs, and the amount you are working towards is the 1/3 numbers that I mention above, that make GMW be 1 week, etc. And further that customizing a weapon take an arbitrary 1 month, and customizing armor take 2 months.
In case you are wondering, I used a 7th level dwarf, as that is the earliest most characters would get the +2 synergy for metallurgy, and that along with the extra levels, are necessary to allow the character to “take 10” on the crafting check. Obviously, as the character gets higher level, or has a higher intelligence, the crafting speeds up. A character lower in level may not at all be able to make Legendary items, or to add the 10 difficulty on martial or exotic weapons to speed things up.
Oh, and finally, related to a magical crafting gauntlets, or some such thing. My baseline argument uses the 3 armor abilities of “slick”,” “shadow,” and “silent moves.” For 3,750gp, they give +5, for 15,000gp they give +10, and for 33,750gp they give +15. I propose exactly those amounts for a magic crafting gauntlets with the requirements being caster level 4, 10, 15 (like the above abilities) and craft wondrous item. It goes without saying that at 4th level, I would make a +5 pair of these. I would NOT recommend that one pair of gauntlets be good for all crafting checks. I would require a separate pair of gauntlets for each crafting skill.
If you prefer to use other items as the base comparison. Rings of Jumping for +5 is 2500gp and CL 2 required, +10 is 10,000gp and CL 7 is required. Rings of Swimming are identical. Boots of striding and springing give +10 to speed, and +5 to jumps for 5500gp and CL 3. Boots of Elvenkind give +5 to move silently for 2500 and CL 5. Cloak of Elvenkind is the same except CL 3 is required.
So, my proposal for “crafting gauntlets” is:
| +5 | CL 4 | 3,750 gp |
| +10 | CL 10 | 15,000 gp |
| +15 | CL 15 | 33,750 gp |
And you need to have as many ranks in the skill yourself as you are putting into the item. The rule is (150 gp * skill bonus squared), and basically as high a bonus as your caster level and skill. I don’t know why CL 4 is required for +5, but whatever, I didn’t write the DMG.”