[Greg Swifthands]

I also want to say, if the D20/Skill things bother you that much, Just go back to 2e style.

Craft(any) = D% roll 100% meaning you finished it succesfully, 1% meaning oops, need to start over. And then Varying degress beyond that. So there is still a 1% chance that the crafter is gonna fail, which is more realistic.

As for my other thoughts... I always imagined the Craft SKILL was meaning, without Proffessional training (Apprentice ship) and without making a living on it, this is how well you can work. I always imagined a Professional Crafter, would have been practicing for so long, that they have Professional Grade knowledge, vs non-professional/Hobbyist knowledge.

Most people just use the crafting skills in play for repairing Damaged items.

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Holy necroposting, sorry! I should read the last post date more carefully

[Oneiros]

ES - I'm with you on just about every point. I need to take a look at your calculator, but if it addresses these issues even remotely, it's probably a step up from the current system.

However, I have to agree with Dragonhand that someone with only 1 rank in Craft doesn't neccessarily have the talent and experience to create a masterwork item, no matter how long he takes. Although, if he does takes that long, he may gain the knowledge (craft ranks) as a result of his other failures

IMC, I'm using the craft points system from UA, but instead of having feats required for masterwork items, I have minimum skill levels (MW items need a total craft skill of 10.)

Other Guys - blacxthornE is exactly right on why you can't take 20. Taking 20 means trying something over and over again until you get it right, not just taking extra time for a single try. Since there is a loss of materials if you fail, you can't do this.

Also, a natural '1' on a skill check is not an automatic failure. This is why you can take 10 by the RAW.

Sean K Reynolds has an article on his site about which skills you can take 20 on (for 3.0, but still pretty relevant). Here's the section on Craft:

Quote

Earn a living: Yes, although you have to wait until the end of the 20-week take 20 period to see any results.
Make an item/repair an item: No, because there is a penalty for failure (if you fail by 5 or more you ruin what you're trying to create and have to start over). Technically if your Craft check was so high that you could never fail by 5 or more ( i.e., even a 1 doesn't mean you fail by 5 or more) you could take 20 on the check, but you wouldn't want to because it would take 20 times as long and cost 20 times as much; it would be more efficient to take 10 -- and since you don't fail even on a 1, the only reason to take 10 instead of rolling is to (a) save you the energy needed to actually lift and roll a die, and (b ) if you want to achieve a higher minimum progress (since the amount of progress is based on your roll, you could go for the 10 instead of risking less progress by rolling 1-9).

The Olympic Archer example is actually covered by the rules, since you can always miss on a natural 1 for an attack roll.

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Edit: Likewise "Doh!" on the thread necromancy...

[helix]

well they are some craft feats that makes crafting less expensive in time, money, and XP. they are in eberron cambaign setting book.

you can also use some of the stuff in complete arcane for some crafters like craft points.

sorry to butt in this topic but i just felt compelled.(grammer nazi. come and get it! its lunch time!)

[Dthclaw]

Heil!

The feats in question there, helix, pertain only to magic item creation. Though it wouldn't be a long stretch to apply them to making non-magical items.

Craft points are in Unearthed Arcana, not Complete Arcane.

[helix]

ops too many mistake in one reply. but still they would be helpful for any crafter...well ones with scrolls and magic.....but one bright side the unearth arcana is still a good vote due to the fact you dont have too spend much XP and goods, right?

grammer(or is it spelling?) nazi its feeding time again!

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I believe your last post was suppose to look like this:

Quote

Oops, too many mistakes in one reply (verb missing), but still they would be helpful for any crafter--well ones with scrolls and magic. (run-on sentence amended) One bright side is that ("the" omitted) Unearthed Arcana is still a good vote due to the fact that you don't have to spend much XP and goods, right?

Grammar, or is it spelling, nazi, it's feeding time again!

And in your very special case, I'll be both nazis for you.

More on topic, I think that casters should have more encouragement to make use of crafting feats. Either through diminishing the emphasis placed on increasing one's level, or by occasionally allowing a spellcaster to craft basic items at no XP cost, a DM could allow a caster to behave like a more traditional wizard. The DM would, however, need to keep a very close watch on the effects of such alterations to the game lest any players begin to take advantage of what could potentially become very unbalancing. Personally, I am almost always in favor of giving the power to arbitrarily change things and monitor the changes to the DM. If your DM can't handle such power, then you just need a new DM. That's my opinion, at least.

[Axel]

Despite the balance issue, I never really understood the XP penalty to crafting. Logically shouldn't the attempt alone be a learning experience, success or no? And so a success should teach the character more about item creation, they should become better, not move backwards.

[RedSlayer]

Well, I can understand the XP penalty.

By crafting the item and only spending half the money, you are going beyond and above the wealth-by-level standards, and its just attempting to keep the casters in line.


If you break the power=wealth/magic, then you can give out all the XP you want for crafting.

[Dthclaw]

The XP cost is there to keep things balanced as Red says. The problem is that it is such a sensitive loss to players that they almost never consider it an acceptable trade-off (and, outside of a single branch of justification/reasoning, illogical for most campaigns), and it isn't limited to just item creation.

If you want to eliminate the XP cost for magic item creation, you have to make up the difference somehow. Since the only other truly limited currency in the game is... well... currency, you have to either make crafting a magic item as expensive as buying one or you have to require some component of creation that cannot somehow be created via spells or similar effects (in which case you're begging for a fairly rare existence of magic items... which many mainstream players aren't going to care much for).

I know some people here have the attitude of 'rawr, magic begone' but many gamers play D&D in large part because of the potential niftiness of magic items. If you want a system that isn't massively houseruled, you have to keep the skills and items pretty close to as-written if you want to keep players around. Which means making magic item creation appealing without (1) breaking the game or (2) Frankensteining the game.

[RedSlayer]

I have to disagree with you about the acceptable trade off, Dthclaw.

If you follow the rules, XP really doesnt become much of an issue, especially at higher-levels (where crafting is also the most prevelent.)

The self-regulating nature of XP offsets the pain of giving it away. Crafting an item will be made up with half an encounters worth of XP. Even the most xp-expensive things you could make wouldnt put you more that 1 or two full encounters behind in XP. Even if your a level behind, you get more XP to make up the difference.

Personal anecdotes aside, crafting is very worthwile from a mechanics standpoint.

[Dthclaw]

Yes, from a mechanics standpoint it works fine - I'm not arguing that its mechanically flawed. But in four years of DMing I've not had a single player out of litterally dozens do anything that cost them so much as 1 XP. Even in groups at high and epic level, where powerful items were essentially in the realm of 'you craft it or you don't get it,' they won't touch it. They won't touch a single spell that has any form of XP cost unless they can coerce an NPC to do it for them. Yes, mechanically they can make it up quickly, but in the psychology of (most) players having to make it up at all is an unacceptable tradeoff for essentially getting an item at half gold price.

I'm certain I'm not the only DM that has encountered this; from my talks with other DMs in the area, they, too, have had entire sets of players touch who wouldn't touch crafting in D&D with a 10 foot pole. The ones that do craft are considered the oddities because it is so rare, even in an area with a ridiculous proportion of gamers. Once is a fluke; twice is a coincidence; three times is a pattern.

[Cuilean]

I have had the same (pardon the reuse of the word here) experience as Dthclaw.

Players claw and scrape for every last experience point they can get their hands on, and aren't willing to spend any of them to create items because that might delay the arrival of the next level.

How do I offset this? Well, Dth mentioned it, too. Not that it's come up in any game yet, as the above point illustrates, but I allow certain rare items to be used as components to create a magic item. Using these items is not strictly required, but it will offset some or all of the XP penalty for the item's creation. These are items that cannot be directly magically created; they have to be found, and they have to be related to the item to be created.

For example, a rod of flame extinguishing could have a "water elemental heart" as an appropriate component. I'd say that successfully retrieving one would be worth the XP that would be lost in the item creation anyhow (and maybe more, as there's the whole adventure to *get* one...)

There's also the sticky point of having to use precious feats to earn the right to create magical items. In my travels, I've found very few who take these feats, since they've got more important things to select. (Guilty, BTW, on at least one wizard in recent history.) This one's something I haven't managed to circumvent in a way that doesn't drastically shift the balance of power.

[helix]

yeah the DnD books are meant to be loose references: not bibles. alot of times me and other Dms around here will say that that some misses state that it took longer to make the object. also with logic and metals; we just say for purposes of making the item more detail had to be done not to mention the fact that we usually wait till we are in town which gameplay and DnD time are so far-based considering we take AT LEAST a month in town getting ready for the next adventure(not a real month people; just 30 minutes at most.)

you shouldn't get so work up about the players handbook rules so much and just enjoy it.

so as stated the exp lost thing: we ingored it and just say we had others helping to offset the cost in time and exp. enjoy!

This post has been edited by helix: 30 July 2009 - 08:44 PM