Post by Kahz on Sept 21, 2015 17:35:57 GMT 10
Greetings!
So as some folk know, I've been delving heavily into the crafting rules and mechanics of several editions of D&D to attempt to find a more efficient crafting system, one more closely aligned to realistic times of production compared to 5e and its incredibly bloating time frames.
I've hunted through the realistic creation processes of numerous different items based on history (and current) for things like smithing, alchemy, etc, and have massed quite a decent understanding that for 5e, the bloat is something designed solely to increase the times required to make something to 100% purely encourage adventuring as the source of practically everything a player could find/want, aside from shopping expeditions. This is wholly disappointing to those that desire to play craftsmen in any sort, and as we seem to quite often have choices amongst our characters to pick up artisan features (such as Guild Artisan background, or those with artisan tools naturally from race/class), I'm of the feeling that there should indeed be a way to allow the crafting to occur by a players incentive, in a way that it can ACTUALLY be completed without extraordinary amounts of downtime.
Accordingly, a breakdown of 5e crafting is required for understanding:
To craft something, you must have proficiency in a certain set of Artisan's Tools. This is great, though the list can be vague and a little limited, though this is easily worked around by decisions related to which tools are the most appropriate to the task at hand. Fletching, for example, has a vague aspect. Considering this requires wood carved and shaped and balanced appropriately for arrows, this would most likely fall to Woodcarver's tools. However, something of the sort of creating an ornately carved wooden door would fall under either Carpenter's tools, or Woodcarver's tools, or perhaps both?
This is where it gets tricky, as it could be argued that to make the door you must use the Carpenters, and then to carve the ornate detail would take Woodcarver's tools, this would then require you to have proficiency in BOTH sets of tools to even attempt such. Troublesome, considering it's a slow process to even get proficiencies now (compared to old editions and having individual ranks of craft skills).
Obviously, starting with a background/race that grants a proficiency is the most efficient way. Next, you have the Skilled feat, allowing you to select up to 3 skills/tools and gain proficiency in them. Lastly, downtime training allows one to gain proficiency in a new tool or skill at the cost of 250 days downtime, plus 1 gp per day spent, plus your own living costs.
This means, living a decent lifestyle of Modest would cost you 500 gp total for a new skill. This isn't particularly expensive, but the 250 days downtime is something unlikely to occur in most campaigns, as the flow of time consistently moves forward by way of adventure.
However, these are merely issues that can be addressed through time and effort, and maybe tweaking of a training time. Obviously, the training time is to limit players from simply gaining proficiency in every single skill and tool in the game, however it does limit getting actual craft skills without expending a feat slot. Since classes and races traditionally do not give a large variety to the tools you can acquire (dwarves can select 1 of 3 different tools, gnome can get tinker tools, fighter BM can grab 1 artisans, Herbalism pops up a lot, and rogue can get some from assassin), the only viable solution to getting tools of a craft outside of this is to select Guild Artisan or skilled.
Overall, a small issue, but definitely one worth looking into deeper for a solution. If it's necessary to have multiple craft skills to complete single objects (amour studded with gems requiring Smith's tools and Jeweler's tools for example), it is really a necessity to have a viable ability to either gain these extra proficiencies without detracting from the overall gaming experience, or have the decision that you only require the -most- appropriate tool necessary for the job, in the case of leather studded with gems, then Leatherworker's tools.
The next part is more in depth, and far more complicated. Crafting times.
The crafting times available currently is 5 gp per day (no living expenses) to achieve this during downtime.
You can craft 1 item worth 5 gp or less in a day, or work on more expensive items at 5 gp per day in increments. This bloats crafting times to absurdity, and really makes crafting a worthless enterprise.
A book takes 5 days to craft.
A potion of healing takes 10 days.
You can make 5 hemp ropes in a day, or take 2 days to craft a single silk rope.
A magnifying glass takes 20 days, but a spyglass takes 200 days.
A blowgun (a single tube of something) takes 2 full days to make, as much as a flail or battleaxe.
The issue presented is that crafting is based off item worth, which -can- be subjective.
For example, a plain copper ring vs a plain gold ring. Both -should- require similar time frames as the process is practically identical, however because it's based off of overall value, the gold ring will take many multitudes of time longer than the copper, simply because it is valued more.
This also applies to Art objects, which often have no particular set value. If I was a potter, and was commissioned to craft an ornate vase for a noble, it would entirely depend on the final price of the vase. How would this be set? Is it the price the noble agrees to pay? If the work is particularly good, and being noble, I could possibly set a price of 500 gp for a single vase (think of art items in today's world). This would mean I now spend 100 days creating a single vase. This is deeply problematic.
This is also a problem in regards to the quality of an item. If you make a lower quality item intentionally, is it cheaper? Or a higher quality one more expensive? It would be assumed that the item costs in the PHB are for average quality, not too good nor too bad. Serviceable, useful, and not particularly fancy at all.
Let's show another interesting one, the materials (similar to the ring issue).
You've been approached by a noble, wanting a set of gold full plate for decorative purposes. Completely gold, extravagance to the extreme (curse you noble!).
A set of full plate weighs 65 lbs. According to the trade goods section of the PHB, 1 lb of gold costs 50 gp.
That's a total cost of 3250 gp, with 650 days worth of time to craft, as an average.
What if the noble wants platinum armor (the king perhaps)?
32,500 gp, and 6500 days to craft. Let that sink in, 6500 DAYS, or 18 years for a single person. 2166-ish days for three people, or 6-ish years for the three people working as a team.
Hopefully the noble doesn't want some expensive gems added into the armor to glitter and catch the light, because he'd better leave the armor to his children. He won't need it, should be dead by the time it's finished!
This is the problem with associating craft times to a value of an item, the full plate should effectively take a similar amount of time regardless of the materials (maybe slight variations), but due to the cost the time increases exponentially.
Of all the solutions supplied by the worldwide community, from homebrew crafting rules, reverting to old editions, or massive mathematical calculations to attempt to find something actual based, very few are actually viable. They're too complex, too inaccurate, or make it far too easy to exploit. A crafting tool check to increase the time or gp value crafted per day could be good, but then the initial problem still remains. Plus, what happens on a failure, at any point on any check in the crafting process?
This is also difficult, as many of the crafting requires zero skill checks except in special circumstances, which again make crafting even more painful. Making a fancy bow for a prominent elven ranger who did you a favor and now needs one too, and perhaps you want to add fancy scroll work to the bow frame, carvings to depict his deeds. Using a craft Woodcarver's check, what happens when you fail? Do you destroy the materials and start over?
The vagary is painful. Especially with materials of great cost and time, just spent 500 gp and 100 days making that really fancy bow, to fail a skill check and destroy it? Well, start again!
The mechanic makes no sense, at all. Do the NPC craftsmen suffer from this? How does anything get made AT ALL if so!
Now, having discussed problems, and economical nonsense enough, time to to try and find a solution.
A number of the solutions that are -possibly- viable to allow character crafting without years of downtime, some more viable than others:
[/li][li]Add in homebrew content to alleviate pains - This is something that you'll notice I've already done, using the Master Craftsman feat and the 9th lvl rogue Old Hand ability. Stopgaps, but not proper fixes. The system needs a fix in general, and a house rule is desperately needed here, I feel.
[/li][/ul]
So as some folk know, I've been delving heavily into the crafting rules and mechanics of several editions of D&D to attempt to find a more efficient crafting system, one more closely aligned to realistic times of production compared to 5e and its incredibly bloating time frames.
I've hunted through the realistic creation processes of numerous different items based on history (and current) for things like smithing, alchemy, etc, and have massed quite a decent understanding that for 5e, the bloat is something designed solely to increase the times required to make something to 100% purely encourage adventuring as the source of practically everything a player could find/want, aside from shopping expeditions. This is wholly disappointing to those that desire to play craftsmen in any sort, and as we seem to quite often have choices amongst our characters to pick up artisan features (such as Guild Artisan background, or those with artisan tools naturally from race/class), I'm of the feeling that there should indeed be a way to allow the crafting to occur by a players incentive, in a way that it can ACTUALLY be completed without extraordinary amounts of downtime.
Accordingly, a breakdown of 5e crafting is required for understanding:
To craft something, you must have proficiency in a certain set of Artisan's Tools. This is great, though the list can be vague and a little limited, though this is easily worked around by decisions related to which tools are the most appropriate to the task at hand. Fletching, for example, has a vague aspect. Considering this requires wood carved and shaped and balanced appropriately for arrows, this would most likely fall to Woodcarver's tools. However, something of the sort of creating an ornately carved wooden door would fall under either Carpenter's tools, or Woodcarver's tools, or perhaps both?
This is where it gets tricky, as it could be argued that to make the door you must use the Carpenters, and then to carve the ornate detail would take Woodcarver's tools, this would then require you to have proficiency in BOTH sets of tools to even attempt such. Troublesome, considering it's a slow process to even get proficiencies now (compared to old editions and having individual ranks of craft skills).
Obviously, starting with a background/race that grants a proficiency is the most efficient way. Next, you have the Skilled feat, allowing you to select up to 3 skills/tools and gain proficiency in them. Lastly, downtime training allows one to gain proficiency in a new tool or skill at the cost of 250 days downtime, plus 1 gp per day spent, plus your own living costs.
This means, living a decent lifestyle of Modest would cost you 500 gp total for a new skill. This isn't particularly expensive, but the 250 days downtime is something unlikely to occur in most campaigns, as the flow of time consistently moves forward by way of adventure.
However, these are merely issues that can be addressed through time and effort, and maybe tweaking of a training time. Obviously, the training time is to limit players from simply gaining proficiency in every single skill and tool in the game, however it does limit getting actual craft skills without expending a feat slot. Since classes and races traditionally do not give a large variety to the tools you can acquire (dwarves can select 1 of 3 different tools, gnome can get tinker tools, fighter BM can grab 1 artisans, Herbalism pops up a lot, and rogue can get some from assassin), the only viable solution to getting tools of a craft outside of this is to select Guild Artisan or skilled.
Overall, a small issue, but definitely one worth looking into deeper for a solution. If it's necessary to have multiple craft skills to complete single objects (amour studded with gems requiring Smith's tools and Jeweler's tools for example), it is really a necessity to have a viable ability to either gain these extra proficiencies without detracting from the overall gaming experience, or have the decision that you only require the -most- appropriate tool necessary for the job, in the case of leather studded with gems, then Leatherworker's tools.
The next part is more in depth, and far more complicated. Crafting times.
The crafting times available currently is 5 gp per day (no living expenses) to achieve this during downtime.
You can craft 1 item worth 5 gp or less in a day, or work on more expensive items at 5 gp per day in increments. This bloats crafting times to absurdity, and really makes crafting a worthless enterprise.
A book takes 5 days to craft.
A potion of healing takes 10 days.
You can make 5 hemp ropes in a day, or take 2 days to craft a single silk rope.
A magnifying glass takes 20 days, but a spyglass takes 200 days.
A blowgun (a single tube of something) takes 2 full days to make, as much as a flail or battleaxe.
The issue presented is that crafting is based off item worth, which -can- be subjective.
For example, a plain copper ring vs a plain gold ring. Both -should- require similar time frames as the process is practically identical, however because it's based off of overall value, the gold ring will take many multitudes of time longer than the copper, simply because it is valued more.
This also applies to Art objects, which often have no particular set value. If I was a potter, and was commissioned to craft an ornate vase for a noble, it would entirely depend on the final price of the vase. How would this be set? Is it the price the noble agrees to pay? If the work is particularly good, and being noble, I could possibly set a price of 500 gp for a single vase (think of art items in today's world). This would mean I now spend 100 days creating a single vase. This is deeply problematic.
This is also a problem in regards to the quality of an item. If you make a lower quality item intentionally, is it cheaper? Or a higher quality one more expensive? It would be assumed that the item costs in the PHB are for average quality, not too good nor too bad. Serviceable, useful, and not particularly fancy at all.
Let's show another interesting one, the materials (similar to the ring issue).
You've been approached by a noble, wanting a set of gold full plate for decorative purposes. Completely gold, extravagance to the extreme (curse you noble!).
A set of full plate weighs 65 lbs. According to the trade goods section of the PHB, 1 lb of gold costs 50 gp.
That's a total cost of 3250 gp, with 650 days worth of time to craft, as an average.
What if the noble wants platinum armor (the king perhaps)?
32,500 gp, and 6500 days to craft. Let that sink in, 6500 DAYS, or 18 years for a single person. 2166-ish days for three people, or 6-ish years for the three people working as a team.
Hopefully the noble doesn't want some expensive gems added into the armor to glitter and catch the light, because he'd better leave the armor to his children. He won't need it, should be dead by the time it's finished!
This is the problem with associating craft times to a value of an item, the full plate should effectively take a similar amount of time regardless of the materials (maybe slight variations), but due to the cost the time increases exponentially.
Of all the solutions supplied by the worldwide community, from homebrew crafting rules, reverting to old editions, or massive mathematical calculations to attempt to find something actual based, very few are actually viable. They're too complex, too inaccurate, or make it far too easy to exploit. A crafting tool check to increase the time or gp value crafted per day could be good, but then the initial problem still remains. Plus, what happens on a failure, at any point on any check in the crafting process?
This is also difficult, as many of the crafting requires zero skill checks except in special circumstances, which again make crafting even more painful. Making a fancy bow for a prominent elven ranger who did you a favor and now needs one too, and perhaps you want to add fancy scroll work to the bow frame, carvings to depict his deeds. Using a craft Woodcarver's check, what happens when you fail? Do you destroy the materials and start over?
The vagary is painful. Especially with materials of great cost and time, just spent 500 gp and 100 days making that really fancy bow, to fail a skill check and destroy it? Well, start again!
The mechanic makes no sense, at all. Do the NPC craftsmen suffer from this? How does anything get made AT ALL if so!
Now, having discussed problems, and economical nonsense enough, time to to try and find a solution.
A number of the solutions that are -possibly- viable to allow character crafting without years of downtime, some more viable than others:
- DM decision - A broad range cop-out. Grant the time and cost to the decision of the DM. This can be either good or bad, depending on the DM, and opens up room for inconsistency. "You said this guy could craft it in 3 weeks, but you're telling me 5 weeks? What, why?" and things such as that. Obviously some power always remains with the DM, but to keep the entirety in the DM's hands would still require a base-line mechanic to work off of, and the existing one simply does not function.
- Increase to crafting times - This seems to be the easiest, but to me I feel this is less effective to the overall role play. It also allows for cheaper items to build at tremendous speed, which could be awkward. Were there to be a flat increase, it could be in one of several different ways, as follows:
- Double the crafting from 5 gp (non-magical) / 25 gp (magical) to 10 gp and 50 gp, respectively.
- Add a zero to the end of all crafting, 50 gp / 250 gp instead of 5 gp / 25 gp.
- Add in crafting checks to a variable degree. This simulates a measure of skill, but not much due to the bounded accuracy of 5e. Make a craft check using the tools, adding prof and ability mod as normal, then rolling the d20. The total you roll is added to the base craft of 5 gp / 25 gp per day.
For magical, it's only a slight increase, but mundane is hugely increased. This has the possibility of just bogging down the game with dozens of craft checks and mathing it out until you reach the cost, something to be avoided. - Set a flat craft time for broad range items, and they're crafted in that time regardless of their cost. Light armor = 1 week. Medium armor = 2 weeks, heavy armor = 3 weeks. That sort of thing. Costs still paid and what not.
The issue here next, is what's a limit for those things that could be done simultaneously, or so cheap that a large construction time is absurd. Take a candle, for example, costs 1 cp. How many can you make in a day? Does it take several days? Even at the current 5 gp per day, that's 500 candles per day.
What about alchemicals and potions, could you brew multiple potions at once, or only one potion at a time? What's a good amount of time to make a Potion of Healing compared to a Greater Potion of Healing?
[/li][li]Add in homebrew content to alleviate pains - This is something that you'll notice I've already done, using the Master Craftsman feat and the 9th lvl rogue Old Hand ability. Stopgaps, but not proper fixes. The system needs a fix in general, and a house rule is desperately needed here, I feel.
[/li][/ul]
I'm not entirely sure as to what options -could- work the most, as undoubtedly there will remain problems due to the nature of the 5e rules.
Overall, I feel a dramatic cut to the time required to craft something needs to change, and the option to craft multiple items at once must be added in. Want to craft 10 potions at once? Why not, if you can set that up?
But, mechanically, how?
Overall, I feel a dramatic cut to the time required to craft something needs to change, and the option to craft multiple items at once must be added in. Want to craft 10 potions at once? Why not, if you can set that up?
But, mechanically, how?
