Hey guys. I've been working on a homebrew campaign for a while now, and while one player has had their character set in stone for who knows how long, and one player will be waiting a little longer yet, the third is currently in the process of making theirs.
Their plan is to be a dwarf, wizard at level one, then multiclass into when we reach level two.
I'm a little unclear why they want the wizard, and what they plan to do after level two, but I'm sure I'll find out eventually.

Anywho, they want to be a Dwarf Smith, potentially making several items a week worth over a hundred gold.
I don't have a problem with that, as it won't be easy, and they'll still have to sell it and such. (The one player is an artificer armourer, the two have a shop.)
Before I continue, I'll mention that there are a number of special rule changes he hopes to be made for this character, which ultimately give him like a 26 proficiency bonus, but only for smiths tools. Unsure if this is right away at first level, or he needs the rogue for it to work, and has to wait for second level. (or maybe even higher levels)
A trade off of this, is that the way he got this 26 reduces from bonuses to his skill bonuses and I believe ability scores as well, making him that much worse at anything other than smiths tools.

Now. In general, I don't have a problem with this character concept. It's unique, he loves the idea, the artificer loves the idea, (the other player doesn't know about any of this.) and he's spent time and effort coming up with this.
However. I'm worried about this character for several reasons, as follows:

 I'd like to kinda answer my own questions in the spoiler below.

Thanks for the assistance.
Oh, and one more thing. Does anyone have tips for traveling in D&D? Even if they aren't all combat, it pretty much is just, either random encounter, say some things, random encounter, say some things, rinse and repeat, OR, it's just say what happens and bam you're there.
This has always been a problem for me as a DM and I think really brings down the game level. If you have tips, or links for videos/articles and such to help with this, that would be a huge help.

Sadly, to me this seems like a meme / lols character that they will quickly get bored of when they realize that smith's tools isn't actually useful 99% of the time in a D&D campaign. Personally, I'd talk to them as well as the other players to find out what they actually expect their character to do to... you know.. complete quests and progress the campaign? Or even just what they expect the campaign to be about, you know? Because the vast majority of campaigns that I've played in, the player characters aren't just sitting around crafting stuff day after day. They are usually travelling on the road without access to a forge, fighting monsters, talking with nobles, investigating cults and the like. If they want to play a business-simulator where they just run a shop selling gear to other adventurers.. well that's a very different game that doesn't really work that well with D&D rules.

I agree with Agilemind, you need to ask them what their end goal is because this sounds like one of those cases where they're trying to build a meme character they've seen somewhere and rather than come out and say it they're asking for a series of small reasonable things that'll add up. The problem with characters like this is they're great for breaking a game once but then become boring once everyone has had a laugh. Why do they want to sacrifice so much of the actual game for something that'll basically consist of you as DM saying "you take a week off and make <roll d4> 3 pieces of armour"? Doesn't sound like much fun to me and I can't imagine many that would find it fun. Also worth remember that D&D is not an economy simulator (they even say that explicitly in the new DMG) so it's not really designed with the intention of making stuff just to sell, crafting rules are aimed at helping players improve at what the game is actually about

As for travel unless I'm playing a survival focused hexcrawl campaign I tend to just do a handwave travel montage of the players on route and then just move everyone to the destination with maybe some camp fire gossip and perception check night watches along the way. I find random encounters a bit boring as they rarely fulfil a story purpose and feel more like having a combat for the sake of having a combat

While I am certain this isn't just a meme, and the player does believe this would be useful and work, I have to agree with pretty much everything you both said.
Thanks for the assistance guys.

Re: Travel

I agree with Cunning Smile, random encounters are just a waste of everyone's time and aren't fulfilling.

However, rather than just skip over it and "bam" you're there, I prefer to fill my world with side-quests. 

Along major travel routes towns and villages would naturally spring up every day's worth of travel between major locations since travellers would naturally have to stop there anyway - like all the gas stop services we see today - So, I narrate their uneventful journey along the road up until they arrive at a small town/village with an inn, maybe a small shop, an a couple of NPCs. They have the option to interact with them if they want to - there is usually some sort of game being played in the inn, a unique item or two in the shop, maybe a rumour they could pick up, and often a small quest available (e.g. delivering a letter for someone, or dealing with a local thug) - or if they don't want to they can just eat and sleep and we continue the next day. These small settlements are pretty interchangable, so I just make a half dozen at the start of the campaign and pull them out if the players are feeling curious that particular session. 

For wilderness travel, I do a similar thing but the distance between things of interest is bigger, so I might narrate 3-4 days journey before the party come across something of potential interest they have the option to explore or ignore. These points of interest are stuff like: a temple with a few puzzles they could solve to gain a blessing and a cooky hermit keeper as a social encounter they have to deal with, or an abandoned mine with skeletons and foot prints around the entrance that might give them a warm dry place to sleep but also has a mystery of why the mine was abandoned that ties into the main conflict of the region. The key here is that each side-quest is a whole session (sometimes 2-3 sessions) in itself and generally has a narrative that fits into the broader story.

Here's one example: I had the party come across a lighthouse where they could sleep for the night while travelling, which was overrun by monsters, the next travel day took them to the port-town where the children of the family that lived in the lighthouse were orphans looking for a home and there were a bunch of navy soldiers preparing to go out and retaliate against the monster-leader for attacking the lighthouse that the players joined up with to destroy the monster's lair & underwater temple. They also came across refugees a couple sessions later which they sent to the lighthouse for shelter.

In another example: The party travelled across a swap to find someone, along the way they got attacked by strange crocodiles and came across a hut with a kindly old woman in it who let them rest in her house if they agreed to take some of her potions to the town they were headed to. Then in the town they find the person they're looking for but they refuse to help the party because their daughter is suffering from crocodile-lycanthropy and blames the hag who lives in the swap for it, and asks the party to steal the hag's grimoire so her can cure her.

So while they are kind-of "random encounters" they actually serve are foreshadowing and clues for larger quests, so the players learned to pay attention to them and to try to figure out what's going on in them since they are likely to be relevant later.

I would suggest to them that if they want their character to be extremely good with smiths tools, that they make a Rogue instead of a Wizard and that they put their Expertise (as a houserule) into Smiths tools rather than thieves tools.

Alternatively, if they want to retain the magical aspects, they could pick the Bard class, with College of Creation subclass. When they hit level 3, you can again offer to let them use Smiths Tools as their Expertise.

One concern is that they may become overshone by the Armourer Artificer if the campaign gets to high enough levels. At 6th level, the Artificer gets expertise in any tools they are proficient with, so will become as good as the Smith at smithing, as you might expect from an armourer! And at level 7, the armourer will have flash of genius, to add their intelligence modifier to the roll as well.

I recommend talking to them. They need to understand that smithing anything will require a forge, not just smiths tools (though some metals can be cold-forged, this usually makes cracks) and time. They can't just roll a total of 42 and expect to make a suit of armour in 6 seconds, or even in an hour - if they have all the equipment, they might do it in a day, and get exhausted doing so.

Find out why they want it, what they think it will do, and why they want to sacrifice their other stats for it.

Then remind them that an average commoner has +0 on skills, so even having +5 is really demonstrating some good skill with the smiths tools - they can be thematically very good at smithing without houserules or sacrifices!

Also, make sure they have a good reason in their backstory for being so good - "I'm a natural" is weak, whereas "I sold my cat as a child to a fey, who taught me how to smith" is way cooler. And if they say "I've always been this good", then look here - some backstory the player doesn't know about, concerning the nature of their birth, and the rituals involved! Have fun revealing that!

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I mentioned to them that we need to talk, and they should start thinking about one of their other character ideas, and they have come up with an idea that both of us like better, and so the smith dwarf is off the table, 100%.

Glad you managed to sort it in a way you’ve both ended up feeling positive. It’s amazing how many problems at the table can be solved with a conversation and yet it always seems to be everyone’s last course of action (I include myself in that)

Another thing to note is that while they can craft many things, mithral and adamantium don't grow on trees. You can't just go to your local supplier and pick up a load. Adventuring could present a way to source materials - maybe even monster parts.

Quote from Wysperra >>

Another thing to note is that while they can craft many things, mithral and adamantium don't grow on trees. You can't just go to your local supplier and pick up a load. Adventuring could present a way to source materials - maybe even monster parts.

I had to smile at this because in my last session, the party discovered a grove of Adamant Pines, which are the only wood capable of being forged, and function similarly to Adamantine!

Quote from Wysperra >>

Another thing to note is that while they can craft many things, mithral and adamantium don't grow on trees. You can't just go to your local supplier and pick up a load. Adventuring could present a way to source materials - maybe even monster parts.

 That's a good point. And thanks for the video.