A player of mine in a campaign has gained proficiency in the jeweler's kit and has asked in advance of an upcoming downtime session, to be able to craft jewelry and sell it to make a profit. Because of that, I decided to make a 'simple' item crafting system that can be used by both this player and others.
Disclaimer: This system is not intended to be used for the crafting of magical items.
I wanted to share in case other people find use in this ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How it Works:
Crafting a Mundane Item
If you want to craft a non-magical item during your downtime, you must first determine the worth of the item you are creating (possibly together with the DM). Once the worth of the item is established, you can begin crafting that item.
Note: You must be proficient with an appropriate set of artisans tools to make an item. (Dm’s discretion)
When you craft an Item you can create 10 GP worth of value each day. However, you must spend 5 GP each day you work on raw materials. These raw materials can be bought or alternatively you can utilize materials you have found during your adventures. It is important that these found materials are given a gold piece value. Each day you work, you must roll a D20 and add your proficiency bonus. The result of which will determine if you advance towards completing the item or if a failure possibly causes the loss of time and money. On a roll of 12 or higher, you create 10 GP’s worth of value, but spend 5 GP in raw materials. On a roll of 8 to 11, you do not create any value that day, but keep the 5 GP in raw materials. On a roll of 1 to 7, you do not create any value that day and the 5 GP worth of raw materials are lost. If an item is of such great value that it will take multiple weeks to craft, it is recommended to determine advancement for each workweek (5 days). Doing so would increase the value of 10 GP and the raw materials of 5 GP to 50 and 25 GP respectively.
Why it works this way: Here, i'd like to explain some of the choices that I made.
The choice of value per day of working was largely inspired by the rules in Xanathar's for creating an item. Considering, according to those rules, you can make an item worth 50 GP within a workweek. (A workweek is normally 5 days right?) In this way, it would take someone about a week to complete the crafting of a greatsword for example. Where it becomes a little tricky perhaps is the crafting of a suit of plate armor. As one of the most expensive items in the game, it would take someone 150 days of successful work to create a full suit of armor. It could possibly be ruled that if you get help from someone, you could craft an item at twice the speed. For a PC to hire an NPC to help out, a hireling form the rules about expenses within dnd 5e could be used. Meaning it would cost you 2GP's a day to hire someone to help you out. Still allowing a player to turn a profit in this way.
The reason I chose these DC's are based off of a player's proficiency bonus. The reason the DC is 12 for a successful day of work is because a D20 roll, adding a level 1 PC's PB to it would result in an average of 12. Meaning it would represent an average day's work. The reason that rolling a 7 or lower would cause a loss of raw materials and time is because that would mean that the highest level of player, with a +6 PB would only manage to fail this badly on a Nat 1. Meaning the likely hood is very small, but not impossible.
If any of you found this to be useful or if you see somewhere where this system could be improved, I'd love to hear it.
Thank you for reading this far.
Sincerely, a tired DM
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Why I made this:
Dear people of the internet,
A player of mine in a campaign has gained proficiency in the jeweler's kit and has asked in advance of an upcoming downtime session, to be able to craft jewelry and sell it to make a profit.
Because of that, I decided to make a 'simple' item crafting system that can be used by both this player and others.
Disclaimer: This system is not intended to be used for the crafting of magical items.
I wanted to share in case other people find use in this
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How it Works:
Crafting a Mundane Item
If you want to craft a non-magical item during your downtime, you must first determine the worth of the item you are creating (possibly together with the DM). Once the worth of the item is established, you can begin crafting that item.
Note: You must be proficient with an appropriate set of artisans tools to make an item. (Dm’s discretion)
When you craft an Item you can create 10 GP worth of value each day. However, you must spend 5 GP each day you work on raw materials. These raw materials can be bought or alternatively you can utilize materials you have found during your adventures. It is important that these found materials are given a gold piece value.
Each day you work, you must roll a D20 and add your proficiency bonus. The result of which will determine if you advance towards completing the item or if a failure possibly causes the loss of time and money.
On a roll of 12 or higher, you create 10 GP’s worth of value, but spend 5 GP in raw materials.
On a roll of 8 to 11, you do not create any value that day, but keep the 5 GP in raw materials.
On a roll of 1 to 7, you do not create any value that day and the 5 GP worth of raw materials are lost.
If an item is of such great value that it will take multiple weeks to craft, it is recommended to determine advancement for each workweek (5 days). Doing so would increase the value of 10 GP and the raw materials of 5 GP to 50 and 25 GP respectively.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why it works this way:
Here, i'd like to explain some of the choices that I made.
The choice of value per day of working was largely inspired by the rules in Xanathar's for creating an item. Considering, according to those rules, you can make an item worth 50 GP within a workweek. (A workweek is normally 5 days right?)
In this way, it would take someone about a week to complete the crafting of a greatsword for example. Where it becomes a little tricky perhaps is the crafting of a suit of plate armor. As one of the most expensive items in the game, it would take someone 150 days of successful work to create a full suit of armor.
It could possibly be ruled that if you get help from someone, you could craft an item at twice the speed. For a PC to hire an NPC to help out, a hireling form the rules about expenses within dnd 5e could be used. Meaning it would cost you 2GP's a day to hire someone to help you out. Still allowing a player to turn a profit in this way.
The reason I chose these DC's are based off of a player's proficiency bonus. The reason the DC is 12 for a successful day of work is because a D20 roll, adding a level 1 PC's PB to it would result in an average of 12. Meaning it would represent an average day's work.
The reason that rolling a 7 or lower would cause a loss of raw materials and time is because that would mean that the highest level of player, with a +6 PB would only manage to fail this badly on a Nat 1. Meaning the likely hood is very small, but not impossible.
If any of you found this to be useful or if you see somewhere where this system could be improved, I'd love to hear it.
Thank you for reading this far.
Sincerely, a tired DM