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This is going to be long and wordy, and I apologize upfront, but I'm going to bitch and moan about crafting for a while. There exists an email chain I've had with two of my players that's about 40 emails long. The initial problem is that one of the guys LOVES to craft. He's big into the alchemy and gets off on doing the whole gadgeteer/fancy toy thing. He's having a difficult time reconciling that it takes him days to a week to craft something, a single Alchemist's Fire for example, that gets consumed in a fight with very little effect. I'm running a low magic game, so these and a handful of minor magical items are the closest thing to magic they have. There's no spellcasters in the party, so they're not blasting fireballs wildly or anything, so there's actually incentive for him to want to craft stuff.

I'm very receptive to working with my players. I'm trying to change the system. The problem is my expectations for what I can get out of the system. These are the requirements I have, in my head:

- Must allow for some notable sense of failure.
- Must allow for smaller blocks of time than 8 hours.
- Must scale well from level 1 to at least level 15 (otherwise, how are NPCs making things???)

So I started off with the following:

Craft System v1.0 wrote:
Craft operates per the Pathfinder rules with the following exceptions:

- Rush Job: You can manually increase DC for the item you are crafting by as much as the number of ranks you have put into the relevant craft skill. (This does NOT include the +3 for it being a class skill) This increases the amount of work you get done. The failure DCs also scale with this as well. For example, increasing acid DC from 15 to 20 also increases the "oops" DC to 15, and the "no progress" DC to 16-19. Be warned.

- You can "aid" yourself with a relevant profession or knowledge skill as per DM discresion.

- Crafting by the day is still Progress = (Result x DC)/7. Once your Cumulative Progress reaches sp cost of the item, you've made it.

- If you want to craft by the hour, Progress = (Result x DC)/56. This doesn't seem like much progress, but it's actually proportional to the above. Obviously, DM discretion on what can and cannot be worked on for only an hour at a time. Forging a sword or doing something else time sensitive might require a minimum of 2-4 hours, depending.

The use case I developed for this was simple and does not cover all cases.

Acid is 100 sp. The DC to create is 15. Bela has 5 ranks in Craft Alchemy and manually adjusts his DC to 20. He gets a 25. He reaches "Progress" of 71.43 (It's abstract, so I'll allow fractions and rounding to the nearest hundreth). He needs to spend some time on it the next day to finish it up, but it's not going to be much.

One problem is that Bela isn't that good in Alchemy yet, and the only real way I've created to improve the speed is by boosting the DC (not necessarily a bad thing). The other problem is that cost and time to construct are still directly linked, which doesn't make a lot of sense. In this system, Nicholas can generate a longsword in two days, whereas it takes Bela almost a month (of constant effort) to produce 5 uses of ether.

Two days for a single person to produce a sword is profoundly wrong, while a month to produce ether might be more accurate from a realism point of view, per my best guess based on how long it takes to brew beer, but it shouldn't require constant effort, unlike the sword.

I then came up with a system that directly links production rate to your amount of skill, but the problem is that it just further illustrates the disconnect between craft time and cost:

Craft System v1.1 wrote:
You can add up to twice your ranks in the relevant craft skill to the DC of the check to make an item. This allows you to increase the speed at which you craft, which is found by the following formula: (R+r)x10gp/Day where R=Ranks in the relevant craft skill and r=the optional number your added to the craft DC, which is no greater than Rx2.

The problem with this is that now even a mediocre smith can cough out an almost two longswords a day, and even expensive items feel trivially quick to produce, and, I mean, I can fudge the constants, but it still doesn't scale. I think what I need in order to make this work is a parabolic formula, but I'm not even sure how to go about modelling that at this point. I'm about to just go back to the "White Wolf" method of just arbitrarily deciding how long it takes based upon how I'm feeling that day and how the players' dice are rolling, but I don't feel good about that.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to make this better? How do you all handle craft?


And for the disinterested, tl;dr I am a game mechanic.

daedalus wrote:I am a game mechanic.

My game has been sputtering a bit and there is a knocking noise on the highway, what is the problem?

Ahtman wrote:

daedalus wrote:I am a game mechanic.

My game has been sputtering a bit and there is a knocking noise on the highway, what is the problem?

Sounds like you have a character out of alignment.

daedalus wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

daedalus wrote:I am a game mechanic.

My game has been sputtering a bit and there is a knocking noise on the highway, what is the problem?

Sounds like you have a character out of alignment.

More on subject I'm not sure how to fix crafting so it is engaging but not game breaking. Working on a system right now but it isn't PF/3.5 compatible, and is only in the early stages.

Crafting is always going to be an issue in these games unless it's so damn difficult it deters players. If players can get something easily, they will tend to "spam".

I'd say, the system you have is okay, but that you need to GM fiat objects by putting in a base time for each one. So, for example, you can use your formula for swords, but the base time to forge one is always 8 hours + what you rolled? Another way to limit it is by making the materials to make the stuff more scarce instead of abstracting it to silver or gold pieces. So the player wanting alchemists fire must go out and buy the components, and there's not always lots of components available (this is only needed if the players are really abusing the system.)

The problem with my solution of course is that it's a lot of work on your part. But I think it is the only way to represent something this complex in a fair and reasonable way.

Yeah, I've thought about specific amounts of time and particular resources needed to make things generating artificial scarcity. It's just a lot of work on me in what is already a really roleplay heavy game. If this were a hack-and-slash, I'd have no problem, but it gets all a bit much to keep track of. I already try to provide some of a limiting factor in what materials they can find, but Bela has a tendency to stockpile, especially since he forages for stuff on caravan trips quite often. I suppose I should pad out city profiles with that information

I came up with two other ideas, one is the standard system, but select alchemical items (expensive ones or otherwise frustrating ones to make) produce a yield instead of a dose. So, you get 1d4+1 (or whatever) uses of that 1500 gp poison, rather than just one, for the month you spend on it.

The other one was a pretty slick parabolic growth function that actually nets you slower production for days one and two than you would normally have, thus smoothing out the period of time between a longsword and that 1500 gp poison a little, but on the other hand, when you start needing excel or a graphing calculator to determine your progress in crafting an item, there's something wrong.

First thought:

It is perfectaly acceptable to sit down with your friend and say, "Your character concept is not aligned with the game that is being run. Can we work out a way to make it work better?"

This is not being rude.

Second thought:

Is the player using the alchemical stuff because it's fun or because it's powerful? I know the 'miscellaneous items' like tanglefoot bags, alchemists fire, etc. were borderline broken for low-level 3.0 play. A halfling with a bunch of alchemists fire could be nasty.

If they're using it because it's fun, then making them cheaper/easier makes sense. Consider the 'value' of an Alchemist's fire vs. other ranged attacks, for example. I don't remember the details, but it's basically a light-damage fire attack with a burst, usable by anyone that can throw something, that is consumed.

Compare that to an arrow (significantly cheaper, but no area effect, no fire, etc.). Maybe use this as a model: give the players the opportunity to have the alchemist design a rube-goldberg-style device that produces small pellets of alchemists fire that can be used in a sling. The pellets have less effect (single target, 1d6+1 fire damage or similar) but 1 alchemists fire can be 'reformulated' into dozens or hundreds of pellets with a machine that requires maybe a check every day to keep wound and running.

If they're doing it because the players feel it's an edge they need, you may need to look at other issues. Without adjustments, some versions of D&D get ugly without 'proper' magic item levels: the rules assume that players of X level will have at least a +Y to attacks, and will balance according.

If the player wants it because it's more fun.

Balance wrote:First thought:

It is perfectaly acceptable to sit down with your friend and say, "Your character concept is not aligned with the game that is being run. Can we work out a way to make it work better?"

This is not being rude.

I don't really look at his character as being abusive or even misaligned to the game. I love the character concept (all of them did really good this time around). They spent the first 4-5 sessions of the game getting excited (in real life) because their characters were able to eat. That's kind of magical, especially because they're not hating me for it.

Maybe I could remind him that, at least for the immediate while, the game is effectively operating on his timetable, not anyone elses. Maybe I could remind him they could just take a week and work on stuff rather than rushing everywhere they go...

Second thought:

Is the player using the alchemical stuff because it's fun or because it's powerful? I know the 'miscellaneous items' like tanglefoot bags, alchemists fire, etc. were borderline broken for low-level 3.0 play. A halfling with a bunch of alchemists fire could be nasty.

If they're using it because it's fun, then making them cheaper/easier makes sense. Consider the 'value' of an Alchemist's fire vs. other ranged attacks, for example. I don't remember the details, but it's basically a light-damage fire attack with a burst, usable by anyone that can throw something, that is consumed.

To a certain extent, they need it. They're level 5 right now, I think. I'd have to double check. Each of them has a single magic item to their name. They're in Ravenloft, which means half the horrors they deal with on a day to day basis aren't playing by the rules. A flask of acid or an alchemist's fire is often the only safe way to deal with the things they run into, because the deck's stacked against them by design. The problem is that I've intentionally done this to drive up the horror aspect. They actually do research in libraries and records to try to determine how to kill something when they have enough knowledge about it to know how to describe it. That's really freaking cool.

The problem is that I'm scared we'll lose that if these are no longer precious and special items that they're constantly struggling to produce more of, but I understand their concern in wanting more. This guy in particular is our notorious powergamer, though he loves this game and has been on exceptional behaviour, but I'm concerned if I give him too much, he'll slip into his typical ways.

Compare that to an arrow (significantly cheaper, but no area effect, no fire, etc.). Maybe use this as a model: give the players the opportunity to have the alchemist design a rube-goldberg-style device that produces small pellets of alchemists fire that can be used in a sling. The pellets have less effect (single target, 1d6+1 fire damage or similar) but 1 alchemists fire can be 'reformulated' into dozens or hundreds of pellets with a machine that requires maybe a check every day to keep wound and running.

This is a pretty cool idea. They've had several run-ins with terrible machines. It might be fun to give them one that they can use, horrible consequences all the while.

If they're doing it because the players feel it's an edge they need, you may need to look at other issues. Without adjustments, some versions of D&D get ugly without 'proper' magic item levels: the rules assume that players of X level will have at least a +Y to attacks, and will balance according.

Like I said, I've gimped them pretty hard, but I reduce the CR of what they deal with to account for it. It's roleplay intensive also, so there's generally only an encounter every 2 or even 3 sessions, unless they go looking for trouble.

If the player wants it because it's more fun.

This is an excellent thing to remember at all times. Obvious though it should be, I'm glad you said it.

Ah, I'm familiar with this issue.

My Ravenloft group had a couple of players with a similar bent. They hoarded an entire barrel of holy water at one point, and one guy wanted his friend who was a smith to silver every single one of his weapons and his helmet, in case he wanted to headbutt something.

On the whole, I think if you keep a handle on it, it's alright to let them produce stuff and use it, because you can always challenge them and you shouldn't be afraid of letting them win. Sounds like you've got it all down fairly pat anyway, to me. I'd love to be playing in your game, sounds awesome!

Ah, OK... Ravenloft could be a bit more difficult, but I think it could also open up some opportunities for a GM to be 'fun-evil.' Faustian bargains are very interesting...

Notice: My last time with Ravenloft was 2nd edition.

Maybe (to build on my idea) have the players find an "Alchemist's Wagon" as a treasure or reward for an adventure. it contains a bunch of random parts. Encourage them to chip i with what they'd like them to do. The above machine is one, and it could also count as a basic alchemist's lab and provide some benefits (I know 3rd edition had some rules for these...)

It's a PC tool: They get stuff by using it.

It's a Plot Device: If they want it to do something, they may find they need a specific part (a flask of specific dimensions. There's a rumor a master craftsman in a nearby town could make one...)

It's a Dependent: The PCs should grow attached to the wagon (and the horses) so it can very rarely be used as a target to hurt them. Very rarely, or it becomes a liability. On the flipside, I'd say maybe handwave the animals pulling it and food for them in the same vein of preventing it becoming a liability.

With this, the PCs also go from being 'roving adventurers' to 'wandering alchemists/snake-oil-salesmen/carnies/merchants' who also adventure, which might work for you.

I think I'm going to do something similar to that. My budding little alchemist is always a little too knowledge hungry, and made similar bargains in the past. They already have a wagon they've put a lot of time and effort into. I'm going to offer him the chance to learn how to build such a machine himself, as some unspeakable cost, and see what he does. The game has this (unintentional) overtone of "technology = evil", so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.