I'm DMing a campaign in which one of the characters decided to take a Crafting skill (Weaponsmith). I never really liked the way Crafting worked in the first place, so I started looking around and came upon the
d20 SRD Variant crafting rules. Those rules were meant for an action-heavy campaign with little down time for the characters to craft. However, We don't have that problem in my campaign and I would like to retain the time it takes to craft an item. So, here is my Variation on the fore-mentioned variant. Comments, Suggestions, etc, are welcome.
NOTE: In my campaigns, both the players and I expressed disinterest for using XP as a currency (ie. used in Crafting magic items, spells, etc.). The way I see it, XP is a metric that denotes the knowledge gained over time, through experiences. Therefore, to use XP in spells or crafting would essentially mean the character loses experience or knowledge that he gained. Therefore, if a spell or action requires XP, it is usually converted into a material cost in gold.
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Crafting:To craft an item, a character can pay one-tenth the item's market price in craft points (minimum 15 points). Craft points are determined at the time the character wants to begin (or continue) crafting an item by rolling a craft skill check. He must also pay material costs equal to one-half the item's market price (this replaces the normal material cost for crafting an item). For a magic item, the character must possess the proper item creation feat and also must pay the normal experience point cost for imbuing the item in gold.
To start, the character must roll a craft skill check to see if he can understand the item that will be made (Use the original crafting DC table). He then has to pay the materials cost. The use of tools is still required in some cases (ie. an anvil). The time it takes to craft depends on the crafting skill check that was just rolled. Each hour the crafter spends crafting, he would subtract his crafting skill roll value from the craft point requirement of the item he is making. This is to show progress of the crafting of an item. When the craft point requirement reaches zero, the item is finished. If the crafter pauses the crafting for more than 6 hours, he will have to re-roll his crafting check to see how well he can continue to craft it. He does not have to roll another DC check to understand the item being made.
For example, Kern, the Mastercrafting Badass Barbarian, decides to make a Greatsword. A Greatsword has a market value of 50gp. Therefore he requires to purchase 25gp (one-half of market price) worth of material and also requires an expenditure of 15 craft points (1/10th of the market price, minimum of 15). Kern rolled 12 on a d20 and added a value of 9 from his craft skill, for a total of 21. Each hour he subtracts 21 crafting points form the item's remaining craft point requirement. Therefore to craft these arrows, it takes him less than an hour, provided that he has access to appropriate tools.
In order to craft anything other than mundane items, you require specific item creation feats. The feats required are still the same (ie. Forge Ring, Craft Magic Arms & Armour, etc) and still use the same prerequisites.
Another example, say Kern decides to take cleric levels and eventually takes the Craft Magic Arms & Armour feat. This opens the door for him to craft magically imbued items. So, he
decides to make +5 Chainmail. The market value of this is 25,000gp and requires 12,500gp in material cost. It also requires 1,000XP, which gets converted into +1,000gp to material cost, and 2,500 crafting points. Kern shells out the 12,500gp + 1,000gp for materials and begins to work. He rolls a 27 skill check. It takes him roughly 92.59 hours to complete this task, or if he worked on it every day for 14 hours, it would take her 6.6 days.
But, I believe that Kern will want to put more points into his craft skill (or get items that magically increase it) so that he can create items faster.
Offering help to other crafters is acceptable, however no more then three crafters can be working on a single item at a time. In addition to the primary crafter who must have the appropriate Craft feat, up to two other assistants can contribute craft points to the creation of the item. Assistants who have the appropriate Craft feat contribute craft points by rolling a craft skill check, otherwise they can only offer one-half their craft points per hour. For example, a Fighter would not be able to assist Kern very well because he is not a magic user. Therefore he can only offer half of his craft points per hour.
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Thoughts, suggestions, comments?? If you can poke holes in this design, that would be great.
