So the players can make a sword with the crafting rules and sell the item for full value generating them selves some extra coin. However it raises a question. Is having proficiency in blacksmith tools enough to sell things that you could make at full value. Let's say the party has a blacksmith and a wizard with presdidation and mending cantrip. Could they take swords from fallen goes and sell them for full value after mending and cleaning them up. If not what is it that allows you to sell at full value.
Think of skills like smithing as a modern trade - 3 official levels of skills: apprentice, journeyman and master. Apprentice is learning so you maybe get 1/2 proficiency, journeyman is where your skills put you - you get proficiency. Masters are getting expertise. So a journeyman can sell at full price. The thing with an adventurer is that they can generally make more adventuring than crafting so why craft? The other side of the coin is that crafting is far safer so when you get tired of risking your life you settle down to crafting - less coin each month but far less chance of dieing.
So the players can make a sword with the crafting rules and sell the item for full value generating them selves some extra coin. However it raises a question. Is having proficiency in blacksmith tools enough to sell things that you could make at full value. Let's say the party has a blacksmith and a wizard with presdidation and mending cantrip. Could they take swords from fallen goes and sell them for full value after mending and cleaning them up. If not what is it that allows you to sell at full value.
Purely for bookkeeping purposes I’d veto the Bethesda game “grab everything that isn’t nailed down to sell later” approach; it’s a lot of extra stuff to keep track of, and the general idea is the DM will have already worked out the intended loot from an encounter or dungeon crawl, so imo trying to brute force extra loot like that can come across as bad form. Especially if I’d then need to deal with the extra step of figuring out time and requirements to get the gear fixed.
If they're looting the swords, how are they carrying them? How many swords can physically fit into their backpack? Are they using their rope to tie a bunch of weapons around their body until they get back to town? Will the metal bits clink together as they move? How many arrows can their quiver hold? How many quivers can the character hold?
Just because a player has a certain carry weight doesn't mean it's practical for them to collect everything in the world up to that limit. It's technically possible for someone with 12 STR to carry 9 large watermelons (apparently the average weight of a large watermelon is 20 pounds), but how those watermelons are stored and how the player intends to carry them should matter to the game.
As far as crafting goes, a PC might make a name for themself if they regularly roll high on the quality of items they produce. If they're making swords, there will likely be a maker's mark on it and the character could become recognizable. That has RP implications which could bring the character into contact with master artisans, royals, or even criminals. Maybe that character takes a disadvantage on checks to conceal their identity with certain people. There's also the reality that if a state, organization, or group is at war and you are supplying one side, the other might get "upset."
DMs can also offer players with a background from outside the campaign region the ability to make unique weapons that originate from their homeland and provide the character bonuses with that weapon because of their familiarity with it over what they can find locally. Longswords in D&D deal slashing damage and are modeled after European examples, but maybe the character grew up training with an Odachi (basically a big Katana) or something of their own design. As an alternative, maybe they could make a regular Katana in order to change the Shortsword damage type from piercing to slashing. The caveat is that these weapons (or items in general) require special tools or materials that might not be present in the region, and therefore more money and time to craft. This would help solve any issue of monetary return because the items would be rare for the region as it is.
Regarding the sale price of used swords: Used is still used, no matter how well repaired they are. No one's buying a used car or sword at full retail, and certainly a shopkeeper needs to turn a profit. Maybe you can try getting your players to set up a food cart, except for swords, and try hawking their goods that way?
Several comments from the peanut gallery: 1) while how they are carrying all that mass should matter it often doesn’t. Between sacks, bags of holding, pack saddles, etc. however, generally the sell price is, at best, half the price you pay to buy the weapon or armor etc. so it may not be worth it. This is much like the question of carrying out the copper coinage from a dragon’s hoard - thousands of coins, hundreds of pounds of weight for very few GPs. 2) Crafting - it really hast be said over and over that the crafting times in the books are not that far off from real life. Take a look at shows like Forged in Fire - they make a basic knife with handle in 3-4 hours initially but they are almost always fairly crude. The. They send the final 2 smiths back to their home forges for a week of intense effort (10-16 hour days not 8 hrs) and they come back with a ( normally) finished product. You can double the time, at least, for 8 hrs days as the txts call for. That is a lot of down time. To my mind no adventurer is normally going to have that sort of time during a campaign. After the campaign it may be what they settle down to doing but not in the middle of a campaign. With the new bastion system you have the added fact that starting at L9 you can craft magic items so why waste time on mundane stuff. 3) doing styles from elsewhere - not a problem, except - they are from elsewhere - are the locals going to have any interest in your new tangled different style weapons? Then Odachi, Katana, Wakazashi - the Odachi is not a long sword it’s a great sword, the Katana is not a short sword it’s a long sword ( think bas@rd sword equivalent ( 1 or 2 handed use) while the wakazashi is a scimitar ( slashing) not a short sword ( stabbing). Even the Ninjato is a scimitar but with a straight blade (slashing weapon primarily).
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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So the players can make a sword with the crafting rules and sell the item for full value generating them selves some extra coin. However it raises a question. Is having proficiency in blacksmith tools enough to sell things that you could make at full value. Let's say the party has a blacksmith and a wizard with presdidation and mending cantrip. Could they take swords from fallen goes and sell them for full value after mending and cleaning them up. If not what is it that allows you to sell at full value.
Think of skills like smithing as a modern trade - 3 official levels of skills: apprentice, journeyman and master. Apprentice is learning so you maybe get 1/2 proficiency, journeyman is where your skills put you - you get proficiency. Masters are getting expertise. So a journeyman can sell at full price. The thing with an adventurer is that they can generally make more adventuring than crafting so why craft? The other side of the coin is that crafting is far safer so when you get tired of risking your life you settle down to crafting - less coin each month but far less chance of dieing.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Purely for bookkeeping purposes I’d veto the Bethesda game “grab everything that isn’t nailed down to sell later” approach; it’s a lot of extra stuff to keep track of, and the general idea is the DM will have already worked out the intended loot from an encounter or dungeon crawl, so imo trying to brute force extra loot like that can come across as bad form. Especially if I’d then need to deal with the extra step of figuring out time and requirements to get the gear fixed.
If they're looting the swords, how are they carrying them? How many swords can physically fit into their backpack? Are they using their rope to tie a bunch of weapons around their body until they get back to town? Will the metal bits clink together as they move? How many arrows can their quiver hold? How many quivers can the character hold?
Just because a player has a certain carry weight doesn't mean it's practical for them to collect everything in the world up to that limit. It's technically possible for someone with 12 STR to carry 9 large watermelons (apparently the average weight of a large watermelon is 20 pounds), but how those watermelons are stored and how the player intends to carry them should matter to the game.
As far as crafting goes, a PC might make a name for themself if they regularly roll high on the quality of items they produce. If they're making swords, there will likely be a maker's mark on it and the character could become recognizable. That has RP implications which could bring the character into contact with master artisans, royals, or even criminals. Maybe that character takes a disadvantage on checks to conceal their identity with certain people. There's also the reality that if a state, organization, or group is at war and you are supplying one side, the other might get "upset."
DMs can also offer players with a background from outside the campaign region the ability to make unique weapons that originate from their homeland and provide the character bonuses with that weapon because of their familiarity with it over what they can find locally. Longswords in D&D deal slashing damage and are modeled after European examples, but maybe the character grew up training with an Odachi (basically a big Katana) or something of their own design. As an alternative, maybe they could make a regular Katana in order to change the Shortsword damage type from piercing to slashing. The caveat is that these weapons (or items in general) require special tools or materials that might not be present in the region, and therefore more money and time to craft. This would help solve any issue of monetary return because the items would be rare for the region as it is.
Regarding the sale price of used swords: Used is still used, no matter how well repaired they are. No one's buying a used car or sword at full retail, and certainly a shopkeeper needs to turn a profit. Maybe you can try getting your players to set up a food cart, except for swords, and try hawking their goods that way?
Several comments from the peanut gallery:
1) while how they are carrying all that mass should matter it often doesn’t. Between sacks, bags of holding, pack saddles, etc. however, generally the sell price is, at best, half the price you pay to buy the weapon or armor etc. so it may not be worth it. This is much like the question of carrying out the copper coinage from a dragon’s hoard - thousands of coins, hundreds of pounds of weight for very few GPs.
2) Crafting - it really hast be said over and over that the crafting times in the books are not that far off from real life. Take a look at shows like Forged in Fire - they make a basic knife with handle in 3-4 hours initially but they are almost always fairly crude. The. They send the final 2 smiths back to their home forges for a week of intense effort (10-16 hour days not 8 hrs) and they come back with a ( normally) finished product. You can double the time, at least, for 8 hrs days as the txts call for. That is a lot of down time. To my mind no adventurer is normally going to have that sort of time during a campaign. After the campaign it may be what they settle down to doing but not in the middle of a campaign. With the new bastion system you have the added fact that starting at L9 you can craft magic items so why waste time on mundane stuff.
3) doing styles from elsewhere - not a problem, except - they are from elsewhere - are the locals going to have any interest in your new tangled different style weapons? Then Odachi, Katana, Wakazashi - the Odachi is not a long sword it’s a great sword, the Katana is not a short sword it’s a long sword ( think bas@rd sword equivalent ( 1 or 2 handed use) while the wakazashi is a scimitar ( slashing) not a short sword ( stabbing). Even the Ninjato is a scimitar but with a straight blade (slashing weapon primarily).
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.