In a lot of recent threads, and throughout the forums, I've seen a lot of people talking about crafting items. This is mostly in regards to how barebones D&D's current crafting system is. However, I'd like to understand why players want to craft. Spending time and gold on making mundane items isn't interesting, so why do you want to craft? Is it to create custom items, or acquire rare magic ones?
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My artificer wanted to create mostly uncommon magic items like bags of holding, +1 weapons, and the like.
Fighters: I would be interested in +1 weapons that are non-magical. I've heard this called "Mastercraft" weapons and would allow you to have a few different weapons to use.
Snares/Traps for Rangers.
Bombs, Stun Pouches, Tanglefoot bags.
Mutigens for Alchemists.
Totems/Amulets for Druids/Barbarians. Place the totem and get a small aura for effects. Amulets made from creatures you have killed that might bestow a portion of their essence but is limted in uses.
Blessing Scrolls for clerics that allow them to instill benefits based on their god/domain choice.
The cynic in me says it is because players want special gear without having to pay for it.
GM: Poison is 4 gold a vial. Player: I'm a herbalist, I go and collect the venom myself.
GM: Full plate armour is 1,800 gold. Player: I'm a smith, I go and forge it myself.
GM: A bag of holding is 4,000 gold. Player: I make one myself.
On the end of each of the player comments is an implied "…for free."
Less cynically, crafting is attractive in tabletop games because time is, generally, actually free. In a computer game, you might not get into crafting because it is time-consuming. In a tabletop game, saying "My character takes three months to craft plate armour." takes only a few seconds.
Crafting mundane items is only uninteresting because 5e goes out of its way to make it uninteresting. As Bruno mentioned, an item does not have to be magical to be interesting.
Some players want to be able to craft because they find the prices of certain things to be ridiculous and feel like they can make a much smaller amount of raw material into the item in question themselves for much less cost ("you want to charge me WHAT for a vial of basic poison? Exsqueeze. No. Give me half a day in the woods and your choice of alchemist's supplies or an herbalism kit and I'll make 'basic poison' myself for free-ninety-nine. To Gehenna with your hundred GP nonsense").
Some players want crafting in the game to help give them some control over how their character is equipped, rather than relying on DM largesse or random loot tables to net them the sort of gear they find interesting.
Some players love making new things and homebrew a lot of stuff. They'd adore the chance to actually use some of their cool items they made themselves, rather than forlornly hoping someone else might care someday.
There's a lot of reasons someone might want more robust crafting rules. Not all of them, or even many of them, have to do with the player wanting to hog game time. In fact, most of the time a player simply wants to be able to turn materials into items with a minimum of in-game fuss. I know that in my case? I just want my artificer to be able to invent shit. She's not mass-producing it, she's not trying to Revolutionize The World - she's trying to make the things she needs to stop other shit from tryin'a kill her and her friends all'a gorram time.
Interesting responses from all. I can see how crafting mundane items could be more useful. But I still think you are paying a good amount of money (half off, but still a good chunk) and often a lot of time.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
From a role playing / in world perspective, short of creating their own city or state or faith, crafting is probably one of the easiest ways for players to feel they are contributing to the story in a world shaping capacity.
It also may give characters more of a reason to adventure beyond "it's the right thing to do" or "what else are we going to do." Whether questing across the planes to find the exotic materials for magic weapon, or charting out a trade route so you can source you're own silks for this line of capes which will become the signature garment in your city, there's further incentive to join the party.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Many DMs also intentionally do not make "magic shops" avaliable or with only limited, blander items. Or, purposefully limit gold or other specie to prevent a player accumulating 10,000 gp the waltzing into town to buy the super weapon. Or, pursuant to a sidequest, making finding certain items, plants, magic pixie dust, etc. as part of the adventure itself, with the crafting a secondary thing to do off-table between sessions. Crafting an item could be quite literally the only way the player can have X item.
Similarly, some players pick specialties/proficiencies that lend themselves to being able to make items (magic or mundane) for self or group. It's fun for them, especially if given creative license to go off script making unofficial items.
It can be said that if you want X ya gotta earn X, so crafting is the way seen to make that happen.
The crafting rules are super boring, but they aren't intended for your standard homebrew game where your DM writes a campaign. They're intended for Advebturer's League where you get "down time" that you can spend on whatever you want, and by the next session it's just how your character exists.
There isn't an article saying this, but Wizards expects homebrew DM's to allow the players to sidequest for their dreams, when AL is too tight to allow this, so they needed a system to make that work.
From my view this could easily be explained by looking at that character's motivations.
For example; Vall a Knowledge domain Cleric has been maintaining equipment she largely inherited from her grandfather having recently replacing the dagger that was used in a bargain with a Bullywug tribe she feels concerned over her remaining inherited gear.
Whilst repairing her damaged chain shirt she bought a suit of hide armour to use in the meantime, but her exploration of herbalism into crafting healing potions has left her wondering what else she could do.
Sadly the field of Arcana is not one she's conversant in, but given her knowledge of herbalism she has started expanding her field of experience with learning how to cook.
This is simply the start of her pursuit of knowledge as she hopes to find a suitably sized pearl that would allow her to access the identification side of her divination abilities. This might eventually help her discover the means to honor her grandfather's memory properly, perhaps one day enchanting his short sword into a Moon-touched weapon as the first stage into enchanting it properly.
However that not only requires actual proficiency in Arcana but also knowledge of smithing to support her research and then there's enchanting her chain shirt...
There are so many areas needing proper research and she is barely beginning to understand the scale of what she hopes to achieve.
Maybe one day her research will help her re-establish contact with the family she left behind when she was banished to this world, perhaps just perhaps it will help her find a way home...
Her colleagues are in a similar state, but where they are following the path of wizardry or learning to complete the Pact their path has led them to, Vall is a Follower of Kestra and as a Cleric of the Vestigal Goddess of Moonlight she needs to find her own path through the night.
She was raised within an abandoned Temple in the Feywild, it is both her Refuge and her Prison and quite possibly her ultimate destiny.
Ever since I started posting here I've been trying to find out what makes a Cleric especially a Knowledge domain one and I think I've found my character's reason, her destiny. I could have just had her seek out spellbooks, grimoires or build a library, but how about building an understanding of not just crafting magical items but how about the mundane items these items were originally, before they were enchanted?
simply flare and character attachment imo - as with pretty much every part of a character. D&D allows you to adopt a persona and people like to build out that idea. I don't just want to be a wizard, i want to be a wizard with a staff he made himself. It can also be mechanical - "i have downtime so I'm going to make mundane items and add a few gold to my character", simple.
I have used the crafting rules in XGTE in my game. I made up specific recipes the Druid needed to make Potions of Healing, which entailed picking specific items at precise times of the year. I also liked the nice touch of "tears of a small child or a grandmother". I also created recipes with special stuff (like Cockatrice feathers) for the Ink and Quills for the Wizards when they needed ink to copy spells and make scrolls. Ultimately, it is far too time consuming and focusing on one player that takes away from the overall campaign time for all. And in most cases, if a player is trying to craft "something special", it is to gain an unfair advantage in the game.
As a segue, I am playing a Halfling Rogue in one game, that has Chef's Utensils as the Artisan's tools choice from the Guild Merchant variant background. My Halfling does not carry them around, unfortunately, even though it would benefit the entire group, because they are too heavy and cumbersome for an 8 Str Halfling, particularly a Rogue. Ultimately, given that Crafting takes Downtime, and creating Downtime in a campaign is not always easy, nor appropriate, since the char must have a solid base of operations for an extended period of time. Virtually every campaign I have played in, or ran, even with the chars having some fairly stable base location, are not going to have time to sit around and craft something.
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In a lot of recent threads, and throughout the forums, I've seen a lot of people talking about crafting items. This is mostly in regards to how barebones D&D's current crafting system is. However, I'd like to understand why players want to craft. Spending time and gold on making mundane items isn't interesting, so why do you want to craft? Is it to create custom items, or acquire rare magic ones?
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Custom items for me personally.
My artificer wanted to create mostly uncommon magic items like bags of holding, +1 weapons, and the like.
Fighters: I would be interested in +1 weapons that are non-magical. I've heard this called "Mastercraft" weapons and would allow you to have a few different weapons to use.
Snares/Traps for Rangers.
Bombs, Stun Pouches, Tanglefoot bags.
Mutigens for Alchemists.
Totems/Amulets for Druids/Barbarians. Place the totem and get a small aura for effects. Amulets made from creatures you have killed that might bestow a portion of their essence but is limted in uses.
Blessing Scrolls for clerics that allow them to instill benefits based on their god/domain choice.
Things like that for me at least.
Yeah, that's what I feel is interesting about crafting for me as well.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
The cynic in me says it is because players want special gear without having to pay for it.
GM: Poison is 4 gold a vial.
Player: I'm a herbalist, I go and collect the venom myself.
GM: Full plate armour is 1,800 gold.
Player: I'm a smith, I go and forge it myself.
GM: A bag of holding is 4,000 gold.
Player: I make one myself.
On the end of each of the player comments is an implied "…for free."
Less cynically, crafting is attractive in tabletop games because time is, generally, actually free. In a computer game, you might not get into crafting because it is time-consuming. In a tabletop game, saying "My character takes three months to craft plate armour." takes only a few seconds.
Crafting mundane items is only uninteresting because 5e goes out of its way to make it uninteresting. As Bruno mentioned, an item does not have to be magical to be interesting.
Some players want to be able to craft because they find the prices of certain things to be ridiculous and feel like they can make a much smaller amount of raw material into the item in question themselves for much less cost ("you want to charge me WHAT for a vial of basic poison? Exsqueeze. No. Give me half a day in the woods and your choice of alchemist's supplies or an herbalism kit and I'll make 'basic poison' myself for free-ninety-nine. To Gehenna with your hundred GP nonsense").
Some players want crafting in the game to help give them some control over how their character is equipped, rather than relying on DM largesse or random loot tables to net them the sort of gear they find interesting.
Some players love making new things and homebrew a lot of stuff. They'd adore the chance to actually use some of their cool items they made themselves, rather than forlornly hoping someone else might care someday.
There's a lot of reasons someone might want more robust crafting rules. Not all of them, or even many of them, have to do with the player wanting to hog game time. In fact, most of the time a player simply wants to be able to turn materials into items with a minimum of in-game fuss. I know that in my case? I just want my artificer to be able to invent shit. She's not mass-producing it, she's not trying to Revolutionize The World - she's trying to make the things she needs to stop other shit from tryin'a kill her and her friends all'a gorram time.
Please do not contact or message me.
Interesting responses from all. I can see how crafting mundane items could be more useful. But I still think you are paying a good amount of money (half off, but still a good chunk) and often a lot of time.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
From a role playing / in world perspective, short of creating their own city or state or faith, crafting is probably one of the easiest ways for players to feel they are contributing to the story in a world shaping capacity.
It also may give characters more of a reason to adventure beyond "it's the right thing to do" or "what else are we going to do." Whether questing across the planes to find the exotic materials for magic weapon, or charting out a trade route so you can source you're own silks for this line of capes which will become the signature garment in your city, there's further incentive to join the party.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Many DMs also intentionally do not make "magic shops" avaliable or with only limited, blander items. Or, purposefully limit gold or other specie to prevent a player accumulating 10,000 gp the waltzing into town to buy the super weapon. Or, pursuant to a sidequest, making finding certain items, plants, magic pixie dust, etc. as part of the adventure itself, with the crafting a secondary thing to do off-table between sessions. Crafting an item could be quite literally the only way the player can have X item.
Similarly, some players pick specialties/proficiencies that lend themselves to being able to make items (magic or mundane) for self or group. It's fun for them, especially if given creative license to go off script making unofficial items.
It can be said that if you want X ya gotta earn X, so crafting is the way seen to make that happen.
Boldly go
The crafting rules are super boring, but they aren't intended for your standard homebrew game where your DM writes a campaign. They're intended for Advebturer's League where you get "down time" that you can spend on whatever you want, and by the next session it's just how your character exists.
There isn't an article saying this, but Wizards expects homebrew DM's to allow the players to sidequest for their dreams, when AL is too tight to allow this, so they needed a system to make that work.
From my view this could easily be explained by looking at that character's motivations.
For example; Vall a Knowledge domain Cleric has been maintaining equipment she largely inherited from her grandfather having recently replacing the dagger that was used in a bargain with a Bullywug tribe she feels concerned over her remaining inherited gear.
Whilst repairing her damaged chain shirt she bought a suit of hide armour to use in the meantime, but her exploration of herbalism into crafting healing potions has left her wondering what else she could do.
Sadly the field of Arcana is not one she's conversant in, but given her knowledge of herbalism she has started expanding her field of experience with learning how to cook.
This is simply the start of her pursuit of knowledge as she hopes to find a suitably sized pearl that would allow her to access the identification side of her divination abilities. This might eventually help her discover the means to honor her grandfather's memory properly, perhaps one day enchanting his short sword into a Moon-touched weapon as the first stage into enchanting it properly.
However that not only requires actual proficiency in Arcana but also knowledge of smithing to support her research and then there's enchanting her chain shirt...
There are so many areas needing proper research and she is barely beginning to understand the scale of what she hopes to achieve.
Maybe one day her research will help her re-establish contact with the family she left behind when she was banished to this world, perhaps just perhaps it will help her find a way home...
Her colleagues are in a similar state, but where they are following the path of wizardry or learning to complete the Pact their path has led them to, Vall is a Follower of Kestra and as a Cleric of the Vestigal Goddess of Moonlight she needs to find her own path through the night.
She was raised within an abandoned Temple in the Feywild, it is both her Refuge and her Prison and quite possibly her ultimate destiny.
Ever since I started posting here I've been trying to find out what makes a Cleric especially a Knowledge domain one and I think I've found my character's reason, her destiny. I could have just had her seek out spellbooks, grimoires or build a library, but how about building an understanding of not just crafting magical items but how about the mundane items these items were originally, before they were enchanted?
simply flare and character attachment imo - as with pretty much every part of a character. D&D allows you to adopt a persona and people like to build out that idea. I don't just want to be a wizard, i want to be a wizard with a staff he made himself. It can also be mechanical - "i have downtime so I'm going to make mundane items and add a few gold to my character", simple.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
I have used the crafting rules in XGTE in my game. I made up specific recipes the Druid needed to make Potions of Healing, which entailed picking specific items at precise times of the year. I also liked the nice touch of "tears of a small child or a grandmother". I also created recipes with special stuff (like Cockatrice feathers) for the Ink and Quills for the Wizards when they needed ink to copy spells and make scrolls. Ultimately, it is far too time consuming and focusing on one player that takes away from the overall campaign time for all. And in most cases, if a player is trying to craft "something special", it is to gain an unfair advantage in the game.
As a segue, I am playing a Halfling Rogue in one game, that has Chef's Utensils as the Artisan's tools choice from the Guild Merchant variant background. My Halfling does not carry them around, unfortunately, even though it would benefit the entire group, because they are too heavy and cumbersome for an 8 Str Halfling, particularly a Rogue. Ultimately, given that Crafting takes Downtime, and creating Downtime in a campaign is not always easy, nor appropriate, since the char must have a solid base of operations for an extended period of time. Virtually every campaign I have played in, or ran, even with the chars having some fairly stable base location, are not going to have time to sit around and craft something.