If you're trained in Craft, you're skilled in the creation of a specific group of items, such as armor or weapons. Like Knowledge, Perform, and Profession, Craft is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Craft skills, each with its own ranks. The most common Craft skills are alchemy, armor, baskets, books, bows, calligraphy, carpentry, cloth, clothing, glass, jewelry, leather, locks, paintings, pottery, sculptures, ships, shoes, stonemasonry, traps, and weapons.
A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something. If nothing is created by the endeavor, it probably falls under the heading of a Profession skill.
Practice Trade: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the craft's daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.)
Create Item: The basic function of the Craft skill is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type.
When crafting items, you need tools and an appropriate workspace. If improvised tools are used, the check is made with a --2 penalty. On the other hand, masterwork artisan's tools provide a +2 circumstance bonus on the check. What constitutes an appropriate workspace is often situational. Repairing weapons or armor in the field requires only a relatively quiet and clear area, while crafting a suit of full plate requires a workshop and a forge. Typically, items of normal or greater complexity require a workshop of some sort, but under certain circumstances, the GM can rule that such items can be created in the field. Alchemical items and poisons are exceptions to these guidelines, as their compact nature makes them easier to craft in the field, especially with the help of an alchemist's lab.
Large, well-stocked workspaces can also aid in the crafting of items, particularly when you use trained and untrained labor. These masterwork workspaces grant trained and untrained laborers a +2 circumstance bonus on checks to aid another when they aid your Craft check. Furthermore, if a trained or untrained laborer succeeds at the check to aid another by 5 or more, that laborer grants you a +3 bonus on your check instead of the normal +2. It typically costs 5 gp per day to rent a masterwork workspace for crafting relatively small items (such as most adventuring gear, alchemical items, armor, poisons, and weapons) and 20 gp per day to rent a masterwork workspace for creating larger items (such as siege engines and vehicles).
The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check result, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item's finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.
To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.
- Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp). - Find the item's DC from the table below. - Pay 1/3 of the item's price for the raw material cost. - Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week's worth of work. You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each check. - If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. - If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you've completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) - If the result × the DC doesn't equal the price, then it represents the progress you've made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces. - If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.
You can make checks by the day instead of by the week. In this case your progress (check result × DC) should be divided by the number of days in a week.
| Item | Craft Skill | DC |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Alchemy | 15 |
| Alchemist's fire, smokestick, or tindertwig | Alchemy | 20 |
| Antitoxin, sunrod, tanglefoot bag, or thunderstone | Alchemy | 25 |
| Armor or shield | Armor | 10 + AC bonus |
| Longbow, shortbow, or arrow | Bows | 12 |
| Composite longbow or composite shortbow | Bows | 15 |
| Composite longbow or composite shortbow with high strength rating | Bows | 15 + (2 × rating) |
| Mechanical trap | Traps | Varies |
| Crossbow, or bolts | Weapons | 15 |
| Simple melee or thrown weapon | Weapons | 12 |
| Martial melee or thrown weapon | Weapons | 15 |
| Exotic melee or thrown weapon | Weapons | 18 |
| Very simple item (wooden spoon) | Varies | 5 |
| Typical item (iron pot) | Varies | 10 |
| High-quality item (bell) | Varies | 15 |
| Complex or superior item (lock) | Varies | 20 |
Use Special Raw Materials: Crafting items requires a certain ratio of raw materials to start. Typically, these raw materials are some sort of trade good that is required to make the item. But not all raw materials are the same---some raw materials are better suited for crafting. These are special raw materials.
Unlike normal raw materials, special raw materials have both a cost and a crafting cost. The cost of the special raw material is the amount for which it can be purchased and sold. Special raw materials are trade goods, and like all trade goods, they can be bought and sold for the same price. The crafting cost is the amount of gold they are considered to be worth for the purposes of crafting. For example, flawless steel’s cost is 8 gp per pound, but its crafting cost per pound is 4 gp. It can be bought and sold for 8 gp per pound, but when used as the raw material for crafting items, it is considered to be worth only 4 gp per pound.
While special raw materials can be bought and sold, they work best when handed out as treasure. As the GM, if one of the PCs in your group has invested in the Craft skill, consider giving out these special trade goods in place of coin treasure every so often.
Special raw materials' crafting costs are always half their actual cost.
Create Alchemical Item: To make an item using Craft (alchemy), you must have alchemical equipment. If you are working in a city, you can buy what you need as part of the raw materials cost to make the item, but alchemical equipment is difficult or impossible to come by in some places. Purchasing and maintaining an alchemist's lab grants a +2 circumstance bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks because you have the perfect tools for the job, but it does not affect the cost of any items made using the skill.
Create Masterwork Item: You can make a masterwork item: a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on its use through its exceptional craftsmanship. To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield, see Chapter 6 for the price of other masterwork tools) and a Craft DC of 20. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished. The cost you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials.
Repair Item: You can repair an item by making checks against the same DC that it took to make the item in the first place. The cost of repairing an item is one-fifth of the item's price.