HGd10PHB - Chapter 8 - Crafting

Crafting
Like many of the Social Skills, Crafting is actually a number of separate skills and abilities. A player may have several Craft  skills, each with its own experience and skill bonuses.

Crafting skills are a skill group by themselves because they produce something tangible. There is a product of the labor that is separate from the producer and can be exchanged with others. Everything else falls under the Social Skills such as a profession or a service.

Let's be honest, it's a rare thing to be in a campaign with a GM and players who use Crafting Skills in tabletop to earn a living. For many, It's far more efficient to go out and slay some monsters and collect the loot. What many use Crafting for is similar to what it's used for in MMORPGs or even the computer-based RPGs like one of my all-time favorites, Neverwinter Nights. That is, we use the skill to make better equipment for personal use or for group use. While these instructions will include how to make a living as a non-adventurer for a while, the bulk of this chapter is to provide content to the adventurer's use of the skill. For a more in-depth look at economics within the game, see the Economics Encyclopedia, which provides a more detailed look at crafting and economics as a major game component.

To Learn: Whenever a Craft Skill is not known or has never been used, the base Crafting Skill check is made to see if the character can learn the skill. If they succeed against the Base DS, then they can start earning skill XP in that skill. This process may be bypassed by spending 1 BC in the Specific Skill.

Below is the table for specific Crafting Skills.

Crafting to Earn a Living
Players can use one or more Crafting Skills to make a living, even to the point of creating an economic empire if they wish. As a lone crafter, they can earn roughly the same amount of arguril in a week of solid work as their check. This means that the character knows the basics of the crafting profession: how to use the tools and how to maintain the workspace, how to do a number of designs, how to solve problems, and even experiment some with the crafting to increase in skill. As they get better, they will gain enough skill to start teaching others and take on apprentices, journeymen, and even more skilled employees.

The following table indicates what each level of a certain Crafting Skill enables them to do economically.

Skill Check - Crafting
When rolling a crafting check to make or repair a product rather than earning a weekly wage, it is a little more complicated. The crafter makes a roll based on the type of crafting to be done versus the Difficulty Score (DS) of the item to be created. The quality of that item is then determined by the result of that roll compared to the DS as shown in the following table.

To determine the DS of the item, add the Base DS of the item from the Crafting Skills table to the DS of the specific item to be crafted. That is the DS of the item.

Quality Table
* See Skill Check - Artificer below.

The hours needed to create the item are equal to the DS of the item. Some items will take longer as noted in their descriptions. For higher quality, determine the time using the above chart. In some cases, spells can be used to craft items or to aid in crafting items. Spells may also allow crafters to work with materials they otherwise could not craft with.

All crafts require the appropriate crafting tools and basic crafting environment to give the best chance of success. If improvised tools are used, the check is made with a –10 penalty. If not in the proper environment (e.g. forge for smithing), the check is made with a -15 penalty. These penalties are cumulative with each other.

On the other hand, tools of higher quality add bonuses based on the above table.

The steps to crafting an item are as follows.


 * 1) Choose the item and the material it is to be crafted from.
 * 2) Convert the material cost to arguril and add the DS of the item to find the total cost of the item.
 * 3) Find the DS from the table in the appropriate Equipment section and add the DS for materials used.
 * 4) Make an appropriate Craft check representing the amount of time needed to create a Normal quality item. If the check succeeds by no more than 30, then the base amount of time as passed and the item is crafted.  If the check succeeds by more than 30, additional hours are spent based on the quality on the chart then the item is created.

You can craft items more quickly than normal. For every hour faster add 10 to the DS. Note that this will likely affect the quality of the item. Conversely, for every four hours additional spent above the base DS of the item, the crafter may add 10 to their Crafting Check. This must be declared before the check is made and once rolled, cannot be added after the fact.

Skill Check - Repairing Items
A character can repair an item by making the same Crafting check they would make to produce the item from raw materials. The time and cost to repair such an item is 1/5th the value of the materials and 1/10 the amount of time.

Skill Check - Alchemy
Alchemists are not necessarily spellcasters, though some of their creations require the help of a mystic. They also provide a significant number of components for spellcasting so there is the availability of barter.

The item crafting is done the same as any other crafting check, but the DS is given in or discovered with the recipe. For those items that require a magical component or spell, it will be listed in the item recipe. Alchemical items, including potions, work the same as spells in terms of crafting. That is, they use the same steps of selecting a Spectrum, a Purpose, and Aspects. One minor difference is that a good number of these are simulated effects and can be subdivided based on volume or quantity. The major difference is the recipe and ingredients which can be far more complicated than a simple Material Component of a spell. Known recipes are listed within the item description.

Number and rarity of ingredients, steps, and tools can lower the DS of the potion. Once the DS of the alchemical item is determined, the appropriate Alchemy Check is made. Alchemical Checks are divided up by Spell Purpose so there are nine. Compare the check against the DS and use the Quality Table to obtain results of the craft. Potions do not hold enchantments on top of their primary purpose and are not Imprintable.

Skill Check - Artificer
Artificers are another specialist skill that allows the crafter to create some pretty amazing things. Artificer, unlike Alchemist, is not a catch-all skill. Aritificer is broken down into several categories, each a specific group or class of artifice. Artifacts are related to spellcasting and may involve casting spells, but more often than not, they do not demand that. It depends on the recipe.

* Artificer crafting time is equal to a number of weeks equal to the DS of the item, not hours as for all other objects.

Navigation

 * Hero's Guild Players Handbook Home
 * Chapter 1 - Creature Kinds
 * Chapter 2 - Base Characteristics
 * Chapter 3 - Skills
 * Chapter 4 - Traits and Foibles
 * Chapter 5 - Physical Combat Skills
 * Chapter 6 - Mystical Skills
 * Chapter 7 - Equipment
 * Chapter 8 - Crafting
 * Chapter 9 - Knowledge Social and Movement Skills
 * Chapter 10 - Optional Classes
 * Chapter 11 - Rules of Engagement