I have a particular player (Dwarven Forge Cleric with the Guild Artisan Background) who really wants to craft weapons and armor for the party. Every time the party is in a city he wants goes around looking for ore and leather in a shop so he is obviously gathering materials for something. Is there a mechanic for what the players can make?
My thought was something like having him roll a skill check (d20 + Smiths tools(Proficiency mod) ) and basing the cost of materials and time around that. So if we take a suit of plate armor for example ... the default value is $1,500 Gold. the 1,500 gold would then equate to like a DC 10 skill check ... if the player rolls above it ... the cost goes down ... the player rolls bellow it the cost goes up. So with a natural 1 rolled i would say plate armor is going to cost the player 3000 Gold ... and with a natural 20 it would only cost them 750 gold ... or something like that ....
The real question is how to account for time ... i think i saw somewhere maybe an old DMG that its like 25 gold / day of crafting .... so that would take between 120 and 30 days to complete? does this seam reasonable?
how would using different metals effect the cost ? like if they wanted to make a +1 plate armor from a better metal ?
The short version is that if they have proficiency with the right tools and materials are readily available, they make progress at a rate of 5 gp per day for every day that they work a full 8 hours. The item is complete when they've spent half the item's market value. They may need access to certain facilities depending on what they're trying to do (e.g. a forge.) There's no skill checks involved in this system; the rules assume that someone proficient with a tool is skilled enough to practice that trade for a living.
Magic items are a special case. To quote the DMG, "magic items are the DM’s purview, so you decide how they fall into the party’s possession." There's separate rules for crafting magic items in DMG chapter 6. These rules require the crafter to be a spellcaster of a certain level and acquire a formula for the item; progress is made at a rate of 25 gp per day.
Xanathar's Guide to Everything has (in my opinion) better rules in chapter 2. Those rules involve acquiring rare materials guarded by monsters of a certain CR. XGtE's downtime rules also introduce the potential for complications during the crafting process (e.g. "A powerful noble offers a hefty price for your work and is not interested in hearing no for an answer.") There's also separate rules for spell scrolls and healing potions which makes crafting those items more accessible than using the DMG rules.
…they make progress at a rate of 5 gp per day for every day that they work a full 8 hours. The item is complete when they've spent half the item's market value.
Not quite. Crafting the item takes (market price / 5) days and costs the crafter (market price / 2) GP.
Consider a suit of plate armour. At a market price of 1,500 GP, it will take a smith 300 days to craft and cost that smith 750 GP. Or 3 smiths can work on it together, reducing the time to 100 days (but the cost is still 750 GP). You've also got to pay living expenses for that time. And convince the rest of your party that they should take 10 months downtime.
A long time, right? What else could the crafter have done in that 10 months? Raided 300 dungeons and looted their treasure? Yep. This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Workshops & Wagons.
OK, that last bit was silly, but my point is serious. If you want some plate armour then you do some adventuring to either find the plate armour or find enough gold to buy one. Which also gains you XP.
In summary - crafting doesn't mix with adventuring, both ingame and out of game. D&D doesn't really "do" crafting. Gently encourage the player to focus on the adventuring.
If you are looking for easy homebrew rules, try this:
- assign a fitting ability score to the craft (e.g. Strength for Smithing, Dex for Woodworks like longbows...)
- treat the crafting attempt as an ABILITY (tools) check and allow the player to add their proficiency for these checks
- only allow crafting of generic +1 / +2 / +3 items if you don't want to worry about magic item balance. Give them a hard-cap on the best thing they can create depending on their proficiency bonus (e.g. proficiency bonus / 2, round up)
- crafting requires PHB cost / 2 GP worth of material for the basic item. Double the cost for each tier (i.e. +1 costs the full PHB cost, +2 costs double, +3 costs 4 times as much)
- the check is made against a DC of 15 for normal items, increasing by 5 for every tier (so at most 30 for +3 which is close to the legendary difficulty that those items warrant)
- they have to succeed on one check for normal items. Double the checks for each tier, up to 8 checks for +3 items.
- each check takes half a workday ingame time (4 hours) and can be split along two long rests (assuming 6 hours of sleep) or one long rest for elves (only 4 hours sleep due to trance)
- if they fail the check by more than 10 points, the material goes to waste and they have to start anew
- if they fail by less than 10 points, their time was wasted that day, but they can continue on their project when they find more time to do so
This should allow the crafters to actually do their work while adventuring (option to interleave the crafting with long rests) while still maintaining game balance.
The hard-cap ensures they can't craft things outside their levels, the limitation on mundane items makes sure there is still reason to go adventuring and the time required to get better items together with the material cost should ensure they don't craft too many items.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with the material costs... if they are in town they can just buy the material and carry it with them (Bag of Holding is every crafter's friend :D)
For the better items you can even create adventures around rare ingredients... a fire elemental's core might be suited to create an armor of resistance and a dragon's bones might make for excellent weapons against dragons.
The system is a very rough translation of the crafting rules used in another RPG I really love, but it should be reasonably well balanced for D&D as well.
I think it's actually quite sad that D&D doesn't have usable crafting rules on its own. If you go by DMG or Xanathars you will probably never craft a single thing since buying or "finding" gear is far more efficient.
Imho crafting can be an adventure as well, and it might open up a whole lot of new tactics, options and story elements for your players. :D
A long time, right? What else could the crafter have done in that 10 months? Raided 300 dungeons and looted their treasure? Yep. This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Workshops & Wagons.
OK, that last bit was silly, but my point is serious. If you want some plate armour then you do some adventuring to either find the plate armour or find enough gold to buy one. Which also gains you XP.
In summary - crafting doesn't mix with adventuring, both ingame and out of game. D&D doesn't really "do" crafting. Gently encourage the player to focus on the adventuring.
While yes you do have somewhat of a point, D&D should be about adventure and aspects that are not as minimal as crafting, to some players (Myself included since i find the challenge of crafting magical accessories for spells like "Sending") We/they like to try and add different aspects to the world and/or game. Where one wants to just pillage and plunder a dungeon they had conquered, some might want to start a shop or rest and craft different items that may be helpful in the future, or even just for fun and funny banter between the party members. (I for one had "cursed" glasses for the party that i said was going to have 2 charges for enhance abilities {whichever ones they chose since its up to the caster} however would cast minor illusion that put popup adds into their vision for 2 hours. It was really funny to see the GM/DM crack up in laughter every time they rolled for a popup add to appear in their vision)
The point im trying to make is, the game is meant for those who want to do what they want (within reasonable limits) to do just that, and to have fun doing it no matter what it may be. Also the GM/DM's I've had do and dont like crafting, They like the creativity but hate the time consuming nature of most of it. so mostly if they have it to where we need to prepare for something weeks/month in advance I mess around and craft my items, mainly to not upset others with long periods of waiting to get them done, and also to make it much simpler on those who run the game we love so much.
I like most of this, but not +# mundane items, as by default those are magic items in d&d, unless there's some clause to it, like 'requires attunement'.
Crafting time should also be based on macro-component of the item, a suit of plate or scalemail will probably take a week or two, but a suit of studded leather or a sword only a couple days.
I really like the idea of breaking it into 4-hour sessions with a roll for each, and that works with component based timing, as you can say each individual section of a suit of plate is one session, going by historical examples, a single section would then take 4-8 crafting sessions.
4 hour sessions allows time for up to 2 full sessions a day, 3 with a point of fatigue every other day or 4 full sessions with a point of fatigue per day, so a full suit of plate would take 24-48 sessions at optimum (6-24 days), adding a session for each failed crafting roll (or 2 for a botch and you could then subtract session duration or add some bonus for a crit if you wanted).
Given the d&d world is all craftsman-level production, not a massproduced one, labour would probably be more than half the cost of most items, before thinking about facility rental and equipment costs, so material costs are probably closer to ¼<⅓ retail value.
Sorry, most of this is really just stream of consciousness rambling inspired by your post.
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I have a particular player (Dwarven Forge Cleric with the Guild Artisan Background) who really wants to craft weapons and armor for the party. ...
If the player is a Forge Cleric, he can use is Channel Divinity's "Artisan's Blessing" to create things within 1 hour of the ritual (no workspace, forge etc required as RAW), meaning that he can create a 75gp Chain Mail every day, if he has diverse scrap metal. You could allow this feature to work in parts (as most armour consists of several parts), creating a 400gp Breatsplate in four days (breastplate, backplate, left pauldron, right pauldron), or the ritual to affect looks, like blueing an armour piece, give it fluting etc.
Don't make the crafting process too complicated with rules in time and creation. I'd rather give the player some "solo time", where he can roleplay out the process, perhaps with assistance of the other players (artisan tool skill checks, group skill checks, etc)
Crafting mundane items isn't a big deal and you should let them do it especially if they are a forge cleric. The main thing is that you need to make crafting things take longer based on the amount of profit, you don't want them to make more money as a crafter than as an adventurer. Based on dmg/ xanathars the range they recommend is 5 gold a work day or 50 gold a work week (7 gold a day). That's around 200-300 days for a suit of plate mail as a rough estimate. Multiple players can contribute bringing down that time but that's the time for 1 player. For context if a crafter gets payed the equivalent of that daily they will make enough money for a wealthy life style with profit, aristocrats like nobles and kings live on about 10 gold a day so its allot of money.
Personally I really like the structure of xanathar's rules for buying and crafting magic items. It has you spend money on a roll to find a seller who gives you an offer that you can take or leave and in magic items it encourages you to integrate special ingredients from quests. Using this it can be allot more than something just done in to fill down time and make money it can be a whole character motivation and quest line. They can work on parts of it as they do questing like sowing or drawing plans during long rests. You can integrate materials and facilities into quests. Magic forges in dungeons, ores in caved, kidnapped leather workers or hags with enchantments that you can suggest mid way to make it a magic item if mundane stops being worth the effort. You can let other players join in using magic to heat metal on the road while travelling, make checks to find material providers or negotiate better prices what ever. It really doesn't need to be this simple transactional thing of " you spend x time and x money"
I know a website that does kind of crafting guides. They homebrew mechanics and a couple ideas for each of the published tools. It is called dumpstatadventures.com. Look in the section titled The GM is Always Right. It may take a good deal of scrolling to find the necessary tools though.
It takes time to do that, use time jumps. If your campaign is not fit for that, they’ll have to purchase or find it in a dungeon (dm).
unless you rule it differently. It’s a video game perspective to something that isn’t really set for that , again unless you rule differently or your campaign is okay with time jumps.
i find similar thing with players wanting to learn new skills or training animals - they want it done immediately-ish but no (for me).
…they make progress at a rate of 5 gp per day for every day that they work a full 8 hours. The item is complete when they've spent half the item's market value.
Not quite. Crafting the item takes (market price / 5) days and costs the crafter (market price / 2) GP.
Consider a suit of plate armour. At a market price of 1,500 GP, it will take a smith 300 days to craft and cost that smith 750 GP. Or 3 smiths can work on it together, reducing the time to 100 days (but the cost is still 750 GP). You've also got to pay living expenses for that time. And convince the rest of your party that they should take 10 months downtime.
A long time, right? What else could the crafter have done in that 10 months? Raided 300 dungeons and looted their treasure? Yep. This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Workshops & Wagons.
OK, that last bit was silly, but my point is serious. If you want some plate armour then you do some adventuring to either find the plate armour or find enough gold to buy one. Which also gains you XP.
In summary - crafting doesn't mix with adventuring, both ingame and out of game. D&D doesn't really "do" crafting. Gently encourage the player to focus on the adventuring.
Or homebrew the rules to enable it to be done faster. I have an artificer who wanted to make a +1 shield, I decided he could take a total of 16 days, working 8 hours a day, he decided to just park himself in the smithy and spend every waking second doing it, sleeping while there (benefits of being a warforged). I have another player who has got enough mithril for a suit and a half of plate armour, he is hoping to use the half to offset the cost, I have already decided he will find a large Blacksmith in the capital who will be able to make it in 3-4 weeks and it will cost him just an additional 800 gold, neither item is game breaking and letting them gain it this way rather then as "loot" or letting them just buy it gives them a greater sense of achievement.
Crafting can be one of the 4 pillars, you just need to be more creative in how you apply the rules.
Sorry, I only read the first few posts as some of them are very long. I hope nobody said this already but...
My players who wanted to craft instead of adventure had their desires filled by gathering reagents/materials during the adventure and bringing them back to town for a local craftsman. They made a mutually beneficial enterprise and the craftsman's shop grew until they were able to craft special and personal items for the party.
The party actually wanted to adventure more so they could retrieve materials along the way.
I have to disagree with you on this. Dnd specifically has crafting outlines for a reason. Dnd is not just about adventuring, it’s about role playing. I do however agree with your point that your way is more efficient.
To add to dungeons and dragons and not workshops and wagons (would make great title for crafting suplement book btw).
Crafting should be an option since adventuring is a profession in the world. I think not enough DM explore the institution of Adventurers guild to manage said individuals and their work similar as it is presented in amny video games/anime.
Main thing is world building. Adventuring wouldn't exist as profession if you couldn't depend on at least seasonal work and some information Network to direct people to next job. What are the chances that a group of independent agents always stumble on that big conspiracy on their own? It also works well as tool to put the groups togather and to give them nudge in right direction when needed. Or if they are really bad at gathering Intel, now they can just get some from the guild.
Either way, crafting needs to be profitable to some degree for everyone who can afford the investment. After all everyone functions in same world as NPCs. Sure if group starts crafting swords for sale en masse, local craftsman, tradesman and nobles might have issue with that.
We had a house rule that items made for use and not for selling only took half the amount of time.
This could be combined with a feat that gives yoi tool expertise and multiplies the amount of daily craft value by your character's proficiency bonus.
The player could then hire some help to boost it even further, making it quite possible to craft a full plate armor during a few months of downtime in town. Meanwhile the others could do their own things for example the wizard finding new low level spells for their spellbook.
For making crafting more interesting, you could use a system similar to death saves.
Roll 10 times and mark your score.
Poor <10
Good 10-15
Excellent 16-20
5 or more “poor” marks = poor quality
5 or more “excellent” marks = superior quality
Natural 20 grants two “excellent” marks
Critical failure grants two “poor” marks
A “poor” mark can be turned into “good” by spending additional days and gold crafting the item. This can be done at any point and used an unlimited number of times.
The DM can give bonuses and penalties based on circumstances. A drunken character may get a nasty penalty, while having an assistant or high quality tools may grant a bonus. A penalty could also come from particularly difficult or unfamiliar materials
Superior gives some sort of a feature that is not quite magical, but handy. I made a superior chainmail so the DM removed the stealth disadvantage. Poor gives something bad, could be just cosmetic value related stuff or a minor hindrance. I wouldn't give any clear penalties like -1 unless it was made out of scrap metal and put together quickly in the middle of a dungeon.
You seem to have rolled a character who wants to be a blacksmith. That's fine, but .. just not relevant. I have to ask you to roll a character who wants to be an adventurer - because while your previous character spends the next year at the forge, the adventure keeps moving.
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You seem to have rolled a character who wants to be a blacksmith. That's fine, but .. just not relevant. I have to ask you to roll a character who wants to be an adventurer - because while your previous character spends the next year at the forge, the adventure keeps moving.
I have to disagree with some people here. I see nothing wrong with a player wanting to be a blacksmith. As long as they don't expect the game to become a crafting simulator.
Op said the player wants to make gear for the party. I don't find that irrelevant at all. As a forge cleric it's part of their religion too, so I would even encourage that and try to find a way for them to play this part of their character in a fun and effective way that doesn't hinder the party too much.
It all comes down to the rhythm of your campaign. Some campaigns take a very limited amount of in-game days and meaningful crafting is difficult. In that case I would suggest that the player rethink that part of their character.
But. The big but.
Some campaigns consist of multiple smaller adventures where the DM can easily give the player characters some downtime in between adventures, allowing them do their personal stuff like craft a plate armor.
The player gathering materials in town is in my opinion a great thing because it creates depth in their character. They could also be completely indifferent towards their character's personality and just go from dungeon to dungeon, mindlessly repeating Attack.
So it all depends on the rhythm the DM knowingly creates. 😄
I feel that the dm can work the rules with the players, I want to play an artificer and craft my own weapons and armor, because I feel that this make them special ok? :(
I have a particular player (Dwarven Forge Cleric with the Guild Artisan Background) who really wants to craft weapons and armor for the party. Every time the party is in a city he wants goes around looking for ore and leather in a shop so he is obviously gathering materials for something. Is there a mechanic for what the players can make?
My thought was something like having him roll a skill check (d20 + Smiths tools(Proficiency mod) ) and basing the cost of materials and time around that. So if we take a suit of plate armor for example ... the default value is $1,500 Gold. the 1,500 gold would then equate to like a DC 10 skill check ... if the player rolls above it ... the cost goes down ... the player rolls bellow it the cost goes up. So with a natural 1 rolled i would say plate armor is going to cost the player 3000 Gold ... and with a natural 20 it would only cost them 750 gold ... or something like that ....
The real question is how to account for time ... i think i saw somewhere maybe an old DMG that its like 25 gold / day of crafting .... so that would take between 120 and 30 days to complete? does this seam reasonable?
how would using different metals effect the cost ? like if they wanted to make a +1 plate armor from a better metal ?
any ideas?
The Player's Handbook/Basic Rules have some straightforward rules for crafting mundane items in chapter 6 under Between Adventures, Downtime Activities, Crafting.
The short version is that if they have proficiency with the right tools and materials are readily available, they make progress at a rate of 5 gp per day for every day that they work a full 8 hours. The item is complete when they've spent half the item's market value. They may need access to certain facilities depending on what they're trying to do (e.g. a forge.) There's no skill checks involved in this system; the rules assume that someone proficient with a tool is skilled enough to practice that trade for a living.
Magic items are a special case. To quote the DMG, "magic items are the DM’s purview, so you decide how they fall into the party’s possession." There's separate rules for crafting magic items in DMG chapter 6. These rules require the crafter to be a spellcaster of a certain level and acquire a formula for the item; progress is made at a rate of 25 gp per day.
Xanathar's Guide to Everything has (in my opinion) better rules in chapter 2. Those rules involve acquiring rare materials guarded by monsters of a certain CR. XGtE's downtime rules also introduce the potential for complications during the crafting process (e.g. "A powerful noble offers a hefty price for your work and is not interested in hearing no for an answer.") There's also separate rules for spell scrolls and healing potions which makes crafting those items more accessible than using the DMG rules.
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This is no help.
Not quite. Crafting the item takes (market price / 5) days and costs the crafter (market price / 2) GP.
Consider a suit of plate armour. At a market price of 1,500 GP, it will take a smith 300 days to craft and cost that smith 750 GP. Or 3 smiths can work on it together, reducing the time to 100 days (but the cost is still 750 GP). You've also got to pay living expenses for that time. And convince the rest of your party that they should take 10 months downtime.
A long time, right? What else could the crafter have done in that 10 months? Raided 300 dungeons and looted their treasure? Yep. This is Dungeons & Dragons, not Workshops & Wagons.
OK, that last bit was silly, but my point is serious. If you want some plate armour then you do some adventuring to either find the plate armour or find enough gold to buy one. Which also gains you XP.
In summary - crafting doesn't mix with adventuring, both ingame and out of game. D&D doesn't really "do" crafting. Gently encourage the player to focus on the adventuring.
If you are looking for easy homebrew rules, try this:
- assign a fitting ability score to the craft (e.g. Strength for Smithing, Dex for Woodworks like longbows...)
- treat the crafting attempt as an ABILITY (tools) check and allow the player to add their proficiency for these checks
- only allow crafting of generic +1 / +2 / +3 items if you don't want to worry about magic item balance. Give them a hard-cap on the best thing they can create depending on their proficiency bonus (e.g. proficiency bonus / 2, round up)
- crafting requires PHB cost / 2 GP worth of material for the basic item. Double the cost for each tier (i.e. +1 costs the full PHB cost, +2 costs double, +3 costs 4 times as much)
- the check is made against a DC of 15 for normal items, increasing by 5 for every tier (so at most 30 for +3 which is close to the legendary difficulty that those items warrant)
- they have to succeed on one check for normal items. Double the checks for each tier, up to 8 checks for +3 items.
- each check takes half a workday ingame time (4 hours) and can be split along two long rests (assuming 6 hours of sleep) or one long rest for elves (only 4 hours sleep due to trance)
- if they fail the check by more than 10 points, the material goes to waste and they have to start anew
- if they fail by less than 10 points, their time was wasted that day, but they can continue on their project when they find more time to do so
This should allow the crafters to actually do their work while adventuring (option to interleave the crafting with long rests) while still maintaining game balance.
The hard-cap ensures they can't craft things outside their levels, the limitation on mundane items makes sure there is still reason to go adventuring and the time required to get better items together with the material cost should ensure they don't craft too many items.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with the material costs... if they are in town they can just buy the material and carry it with them (Bag of Holding is every crafter's friend :D)
For the better items you can even create adventures around rare ingredients... a fire elemental's core might be suited to create an armor of resistance and a dragon's bones might make for excellent weapons against dragons.
The system is a very rough translation of the crafting rules used in another RPG I really love, but it should be reasonably well balanced for D&D as well.
I think it's actually quite sad that D&D doesn't have usable crafting rules on its own. If you go by DMG or Xanathars you will probably never craft a single thing since buying or "finding" gear is far more efficient.
Imho crafting can be an adventure as well, and it might open up a whole lot of new tactics, options and story elements for your players. :D
I am actually working on building out a crafting system for cooking/alchemy mainly, but plan to expand it into other types of crafting as well. If you are interested there are more details on this forum post https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/advertisements/65856-crafting-and-cooking-tool-looking-for-feedback-and
While yes you do have somewhat of a point, D&D should be about adventure and aspects that are not as minimal as crafting, to some players (Myself included since i find the challenge of crafting magical accessories for spells like "Sending") We/they like to try and add different aspects to the world and/or game. Where one wants to just pillage and plunder a dungeon they had conquered, some might want to start a shop or rest and craft different items that may be helpful in the future, or even just for fun and funny banter between the party members. (I for one had "cursed" glasses for the party that i said was going to have 2 charges for enhance abilities {whichever ones they chose since its up to the caster} however would cast minor illusion that put popup adds into their vision for 2 hours. It was really funny to see the GM/DM crack up in laughter every time they rolled for a popup add to appear in their vision)
The point im trying to make is, the game is meant for those who want to do what they want (within reasonable limits) to do just that, and to have fun doing it no matter what it may be. Also the GM/DM's I've had do and dont like crafting, They like the creativity but hate the time consuming nature of most of it. so mostly if they have it to where we need to prepare for something weeks/month in advance I mess around and craft my items, mainly to not upset others with long periods of waiting to get them done, and also to make it much simpler on those who run the game we love so much.
I like most of this, but not +# mundane items, as by default those are magic items in d&d, unless there's some clause to it, like 'requires attunement'.
Crafting time should also be based on macro-component of the item, a suit of plate or scalemail will probably take a week or two, but a suit of studded leather or a sword only a couple days.
I really like the idea of breaking it into 4-hour sessions with a roll for each, and that works with component based timing, as you can say each individual section of a suit of plate is one session, going by historical examples, a single section would then take 4-8 crafting sessions.
4 hour sessions allows time for up to 2 full sessions a day, 3 with a point of fatigue every other day or 4 full sessions with a point of fatigue per day, so a full suit of plate would take 24-48 sessions at optimum (6-24 days), adding a session for each failed crafting roll (or 2 for a botch and you could then subtract session duration or add some bonus for a crit if you wanted).
Given the d&d world is all craftsman-level production, not a massproduced one, labour would probably be more than half the cost of most items, before thinking about facility rental and equipment costs, so material costs are probably closer to ¼<⅓ retail value.
Sorry, most of this is really just stream of consciousness rambling inspired by your post.
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If the player is a Forge Cleric, he can use is Channel Divinity's "Artisan's Blessing" to create things within 1 hour of the ritual (no workspace, forge etc required as RAW), meaning that he can create a 75gp Chain Mail every day, if he has diverse scrap metal.
You could allow this feature to work in parts (as most armour consists of several parts), creating a 400gp Breatsplate in four days (breastplate, backplate, left pauldron, right pauldron), or the ritual to affect looks, like blueing an armour piece, give it fluting etc.
Don't make the crafting process too complicated with rules in time and creation. I'd rather give the player some "solo time", where he can roleplay out the process, perhaps with assistance of the other players (artisan tool skill checks, group skill checks, etc)
Crafting mundane items isn't a big deal and you should let them do it especially if they are a forge cleric. The main thing is that you need to make crafting things take longer based on the amount of profit, you don't want them to make more money as a crafter than as an adventurer. Based on dmg/ xanathars the range they recommend is 5 gold a work day or 50 gold a work week (7 gold a day). That's around 200-300 days for a suit of plate mail as a rough estimate. Multiple players can contribute bringing down that time but that's the time for 1 player. For context if a crafter gets payed the equivalent of that daily they will make enough money for a wealthy life style with profit, aristocrats like nobles and kings live on about 10 gold a day so its allot of money.
Personally I really like the structure of xanathar's rules for buying and crafting magic items. It has you spend money on a roll to find a seller who gives you an offer that you can take or leave and in magic items it encourages you to integrate special ingredients from quests. Using this it can be allot more than something just done in to fill down time and make money it can be a whole character motivation and quest line. They can work on parts of it as they do questing like sowing or drawing plans during long rests. You can integrate materials and facilities into quests. Magic forges in dungeons, ores in caved, kidnapped leather workers or hags with enchantments that you can suggest mid way to make it a magic item if mundane stops being worth the effort. You can let other players join in using magic to heat metal on the road while travelling, make checks to find material providers or negotiate better prices what ever. It really doesn't need to be this simple transactional thing of " you spend x time and x money"
I know a website that does kind of crafting guides. They homebrew mechanics and a couple ideas for each of the published tools. It is called dumpstatadventures.com. Look in the section titled The GM is Always Right. It may take a good deal of scrolling to find the necessary tools though.
It takes time to do that, use time jumps. If your campaign is not fit for that, they’ll have to purchase or find it in a dungeon (dm).
unless you rule it differently. It’s a video game perspective to something that isn’t really set for that , again unless you rule differently or your campaign is okay with time jumps.
i find similar thing with players wanting to learn new skills or training animals - they want it done immediately-ish but no (for me).
DM - And In The Darkness, Rot: The Sunless Citadel
DM - Our Little Lives Kept In Equipoise: Curse of Strahd
DM - Misprize Thou Not These Shadows That Belong: The Lost Mines of Phandelver
PC - Azzure - Tyranny of Dragons
Or homebrew the rules to enable it to be done faster. I have an artificer who wanted to make a +1 shield, I decided he could take a total of 16 days, working 8 hours a day, he decided to just park himself in the smithy and spend every waking second doing it, sleeping while there (benefits of being a warforged). I have another player who has got enough mithril for a suit and a half of plate armour, he is hoping to use the half to offset the cost, I have already decided he will find a large Blacksmith in the capital who will be able to make it in 3-4 weeks and it will cost him just an additional 800 gold, neither item is game breaking and letting them gain it this way rather then as "loot" or letting them just buy it gives them a greater sense of achievement.
Crafting can be one of the 4 pillars, you just need to be more creative in how you apply the rules.
Sorry, I only read the first few posts as some of them are very long. I hope nobody said this already but...
My players who wanted to craft instead of adventure had their desires filled by gathering reagents/materials during the adventure and bringing them back to town for a local craftsman. They made a mutually beneficial enterprise and the craftsman's shop grew until they were able to craft special and personal items for the party.
The party actually wanted to adventure more so they could retrieve materials along the way.
I have to disagree with you on this. Dnd specifically has crafting outlines for a reason. Dnd is not just about adventuring, it’s about role playing. I do however agree with your point that your way is more efficient.
To add to dungeons and dragons and not workshops and wagons (would make great title for crafting suplement book btw).
Crafting should be an option since adventuring is a profession in the world. I think not enough DM explore the institution of Adventurers guild to manage said individuals and their work similar as it is presented in amny video games/anime.
Main thing is world building. Adventuring wouldn't exist as profession if you couldn't depend on at least seasonal work and some information Network to direct people to next job. What are the chances that a group of independent agents always stumble on that big conspiracy on their own? It also works well as tool to put the groups togather and to give them nudge in right direction when needed. Or if they are really bad at gathering Intel, now they can just get some from the guild.
Either way, crafting needs to be profitable to some degree for everyone who can afford the investment. After all everyone functions in same world as NPCs. Sure if group starts crafting swords for sale en masse, local craftsman, tradesman and nobles might have issue with that.
We had a house rule that items made for use and not for selling only took half the amount of time.
This could be combined with a feat that gives yoi tool expertise and multiplies the amount of daily craft value by your character's proficiency bonus.
The player could then hire some help to boost it even further, making it quite possible to craft a full plate armor during a few months of downtime in town. Meanwhile the others could do their own things for example the wizard finding new low level spells for their spellbook.
For making crafting more interesting, you could use a system similar to death saves.
Roll 10 times and mark your score.
Poor <10
Good 10-15
Excellent 16-20
5 or more “poor” marks = poor quality
5 or more “excellent” marks = superior quality
Natural 20 grants two “excellent” marks
Critical failure grants two “poor” marks
A “poor” mark can be turned into “good” by spending additional days and gold crafting the item. This can be done at any point and used an unlimited number of times.
The DM can give bonuses and penalties based on circumstances. A drunken character may get a nasty penalty, while having an assistant or high quality tools may grant a bonus. A penalty could also come from particularly difficult or unfamiliar materials
Superior gives some sort of a feature that is not quite magical, but handy. I made a superior chainmail so the DM removed the stealth disadvantage. Poor gives something bad, could be just cosmetic value related stuff or a minor hindrance. I wouldn't give any clear penalties like -1 unless it was made out of scrap metal and put together quickly in the middle of a dungeon.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Like Greenstone said:
You seem to have rolled a character who wants to be a blacksmith. That's fine, but .. just not relevant. I have to ask you to roll a character who wants to be an adventurer - because while your previous character spends the next year at the forge, the adventure keeps moving.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I have to disagree with some people here. I see nothing wrong with a player wanting to be a blacksmith. As long as they don't expect the game to become a crafting simulator.
Op said the player wants to make gear for the party. I don't find that irrelevant at all. As a forge cleric it's part of their religion too, so I would even encourage that and try to find a way for them to play this part of their character in a fun and effective way that doesn't hinder the party too much.
It all comes down to the rhythm of your campaign. Some campaigns take a very limited amount of in-game days and meaningful crafting is difficult. In that case I would suggest that the player rethink that part of their character.
But. The big but.
Some campaigns consist of multiple smaller adventures where the DM can easily give the player characters some downtime in between adventures, allowing them do their personal stuff like craft a plate armor.
The player gathering materials in town is in my opinion a great thing because it creates depth in their character. They could also be completely indifferent towards their character's personality and just go from dungeon to dungeon, mindlessly repeating Attack.
So it all depends on the rhythm the DM knowingly creates. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
I feel that the dm can work the rules with the players, I want to play an artificer and craft my own weapons and armor, because I feel that this make them special ok? :(