For more information see the following: Crafting Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/639KP3ZWNG0/v-deo.html Crafting Examples Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/5stdWu1xzOU/v-deo.html Crafting Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/FlwDkWDtPFo/v-deo.html Crafting Examples Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/xxHMoDQr4V4/v-deo.html Crafting Part 3: ua-cam.com/video/Iy-t9zwvCMA/v-deo.html Complex Crafting ua-cam.com/video/1Z1kxK-fxcA/v-deo.html Complex Crafting Example ua-cam.com/video/qK29v3SY3o8/v-deo.html Downtime Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/fmICrYZmfYQ/v-deo.html What Products and Services Are Available in a Settlement? ua-cam.com/video/UGaOI3e7SoU/v-deo.html How Much Do Services Cost? ua-cam.com/video/1dVNNLhnjiY/v-deo.html
The larger issue is that most DMs just don't work downtime into campaigns. I think part of that is because Paizo doesn't emphasize it enough. It's treated as an afterthought, not an important part of character development.
I've been DMing for the better part of 6 years and downtime is still one of my biggest struggles. Though it's probably on me, considering I build a lot of campaigns that are designed to go from one mission to the next, a heroes journey if you will, so it's hard to add non-forced feeling downtime.
@@revolverclassic8248 I can relate -- it's been a struggle for me too. What I've tried is building in parts of the journey where they have to pause. For example, the ship that will take them to the next location isn't scheduled to arrive for another 10 days.
And I think the biggest difficulty of downtime is its inherent lack of excitement. Most likely, your group of friends aren't getting together twice a month if you're lucky to piddle around playing shopkeep while the BBEG is out there somewhere amassing followers/ gaining power. Risks are both larger time sinks and less critical at this granularity. No one is going to die but you might end the world if you don't act now! This is especially difficult for groups with less RP and more G. Loved the video!
If you have a chance, look at the downtime events from the ultimate campaign in 1e. I reccomend trying to work some of the story lines, if not mechanics, into downtime. After all, your downtime activity isn't 24 hours a day
I played in a campaign where I was an alchemist, we were in a place that was far from any town or city. Of course I could make my daily infusions, but originally I bought an alchemy lab so I could make extra stuff for my companions. However the 4 day minimum to make stuff made this impossible, so I wasted the money for the lab. Crafting rules hamstring several classes.
What I appreciate about Dave’s videos is his common sense approach and, in this case, big picture view of what, I agree to be, the overall design of the game. As a GM do what you want to make the players experience fun and relevant in regards to the desire to do some crafting. I have always considered those types of activities as “flavor” in the context of the game universe.
I will see your "4 days to make a dagger" and raise you "4 days to make a single torch!" 🤣 Ah, RAW sometimes can just take the absurd to a new level. 🤣 Thanks for all the videos about crafting, it has really helped me understand the system. 😀
I don't disagree at all; I think the crafting rules as is are great from a more generalist perspective. The rub is you have classes like Inventor and Alchemist who are the embodiment of making items to help them fight, and players like that will want it to extend beyond infused reagents or their innovation, and sometimes it can be nice to think of an option for those players. I really liked the crafting rules from Starfinder. You can craft anything with just a few hours that is your engineering level or lower, and it 100% would break even with what you'd hypothetically sell it for. However, cause you made it yourself, you got a bonus on checks to repair (cause you understood it) it and it was slightly more durable compared to commercial weapons. Small, secondary benefits like this would be neat for PF2, and I could see this kinda system being easy to translate to PF2, just by using 'trade goods' as a currency. And cause it doesn't make a profit, it doesn't upset player wealth balancing. (Part of this design-wise is also just cause of how gear-oriented Starfinder is) Alternatively, I could see a sorta "milestone" crafting thing, like a little homebrew I've been working on. Not so much story based crafting, but basically whenever the party finishes a goal, a character with crafting can get Inspired. When Inspired, they can spend some trade goods to try and craft something with no setup time, they just need tools. On a successful craft check, they make progress to a Work in Progress that persists between attempts. The number of successes required (or the amount produced for consumables) depends on the level difference, and as a GM, you treat the batch of materials provided in the treasure horde as having value equal to a magic item for the players' level, but it can only be used this way when 'Inspired,' which goes away after the attempt.
The crafting rules are what I call "not good". If you think about it too much, verisimilitude is too easily broken. It shouldn't require hypothetical PC archetypes or interpreting the intent of the RAW. 4 days of effort for a trained smith to craft a dagger really is irrational. Even 1 day would be irrational for a single dagger. IMO there are 3 things that need to be fixed. 1) There needs to be a hard separation between simple crafting (that CAN be used to generate money) and more complex crafting that requires formulas. 2) The complexity of the item being crafted should be taken into consideration when setting the time needed to make them. 3) Prices should be adjusted in order to balance the above changes.
My house rule is that material costs are “guild prices”, meaning that PCs, not being professional tradesmen, must pay costs that are intended for them not to make a profit. I have allowed one character to join a guild, which I set up as a faction. The higher he goes up the ladder, the more affordable the raw materials. I also allow parties to get the raw items for free… but they must mount a full-session mission to do so.
@@HowItsPlayed While I haven’t yet had to play this card, I use the guilds as the reason for time issues (in a narrative sense). The fabrication resources are never owned by the PCs in my game (or at least, not yet). This implies the character is borrowing forge and anvil, workshop, library or whatnot from the local guilds. It seems reasonable to presume that these groups would not shut down their own industry to make room for an unguilded outsider. So they would likely permit use during off hours, or between activities. So the character must suffer a fair amount of time waiting for the opportunity to use the facilities.
17:37 - Treasure vault suggests an alternative system that splits crafting into using either Nature or Arcana based on how the item is being made, removes the crafting skill, puts all crafting skill feats behind either Nature or Arcana, and makes inventors use Arcana instead of crafting where appropriate. If you think crafting is too expensive to invest into this could be a usable alternative since Nature/Arcana are also extremely useful skills on their own.
9:23 My go-to is guild connections. Quality control, training of apprentices, and maintenance of reputation was a thing even in the medieval era as primitive as it may or may not have been. As the party wouldn't have guild connections in towns they would have to pay premium prices for raw materials just to make the item, then when they went to sell it they would have to drop the price to crafting cost just to get a merchant to purchase an item without a guild association. Be it for fear of a bad product (which would hurt their reputation with customers), or because their main supplier the daggersmith guild, might increase their prices as a punishment for buying outside connections.
Your example of building the exquisite sword for a king, perhaps one thing that could be done is maybe increase the Hardness and HP of the sword. A standard iron or steel sword has a hardness of 5 and 20 HP (with a BT of 10). What if you had the player increase the Hardness by 1 and the HP by 2 for each additional day of work beyond the 4 days, to a maximum equal to their Int Mod? So if they have an Int Mod of +4 and work 4 extra days, then the sword would have a Hardness of 9 and 28 HP (and a 14 BT), making it harder to break because of its higher quality.
All perfectly reasonable ideas! I just didn't want to get too deep into prescribing what additional benefits you would get from additional days of crafting.
So, for the "crafting is for rare and rarer items you can't buy off the shelf and moves the story forward" part: Would you say: Don't(!) provide formulas for rare or rarer items for the PCs to craft them if that process isn't linked to the plot but just give out the item directly?
That was a good point that if you are crafting your earn income table is your level for the extended days (you made money by saving money compared to buying it). Even if you are in a lowly settlement using your level if you outrank the settlement that is good money, because those who cannot craft would need to travel to bigger cities to find higher level jobs. So the crafter does have an opportunity to make money/time in the small town by saving money on their leveled gear and not having to travel to buy it.
about the 22:00 argument of crafting returns vs earn income from other skills, you usually earn income with skills that are mostly used for other things. Crafting is literally almost only for that specific use. If you dont benefit from it enough to justify the investment compared to other skills then it is just a bad choice
18:20 My first response to this would honestly be that there's intelligence based classes already that could spend the feats to become a craftsman of some kind. And you can point them to said classes: Inventor, Alchemist, Wizard, Witch. Simply to clear out any misunderstandings that may arise from picking a class, but being infatuated by the feat system and wanting to become a master of all walks of life. 20:45 Based on Rules Lawyer's video: The real value comes out if Access, of getting an item you can normally not procure.
Exactly. I find the idea that there are just magic shops everywhere selling all items weird. And having a character who picks up magical crafting suddenly becomes amazing for the party if they want a magic item but they can only find the formulas for it from some grand library in the major settlement.
I would make the Adventuring Merchant use a new Exploration mode activity. So they can't Hustle or Search or whatever while they moving goods from place to place.
Crafters using crafting to make money is funny enough in some cases the best way to make money IF your crafting something you would've bought. Settlements have a settlement level. You can't really easily get jobs over that level. However after the initial set up period, you craft at your class level regardless of the settlement level AND you can rush, which lets you get DOUBLE your income over those days. So after you've gone past the setup period of crafting days, your now making profit and a lot of it. Yes there is that flat check at the end for quirky/cursed items, but thats the risk of earning double income. You also need to buy the formula, which is something like 25-30% of the item's cost if you don't find the item if you even can find the formula. This is probably where an issue can come up with cost being a bit too high to craft a single item. But then after you've made the first one, nothing is stopping you from crafting another item afterwords and the DM letting you sell that for like 90% of its value if its a more rare-ish item. Its a bit of a nuanced thing. glad you touched on it.
Funny enough, it takes 2 to 3 days to forge a knife irl. Also, a blacksmith has his shop, apprentices, and their life revolves around that craft, without distractions like adventuring. Even with the advanced rules, it can contextually make sense. ALSO! A pro blacksmith likely has better deals on resources, so their cost to craft a dagger is far smaller than a players.
@@balijosu A good crafting system would take that kind of thing into account. For example, certain spells would be intended to improve a weapon magically, and the casting of those spells would be time added to crafting the weapon. In PF2, though, crafting the runes can be a separate effort altogether, and the runes can be added after the weapon is finished. There's no benefit to adding the runes as the weapon is being made, so while it would add to the total time, it wouldn't really be part of "crafting" the weapon. OTOH, crafting the rune would also take four days, with all the etceteras in the rules, so it might be that it takes twice as long to make a +1 sword as to make a mundane sword, and if you want +1 striking, that's three times as long. This rapidly gets unwieldy. 😞
The concern in my mind is what does crafting add to the game/story/narrative. Crafting is its own skill and the only real use while out in the field is repair. Sure, you can get a special reward to craft an item, but what is the difference between that and just having the DM put the item in as a reward directly. Or the player taking the formula to a craftsman in town to make the item. If the crafting skill was used in skill checks either in combat or exploration modes, then going beyond trained might make sense. And a good DM could work that into play for a player who wanted to play a crafting specialist. I'm new to PF2E, but I just don't see the point. Take repair out of the game and take crafting out of the game and any associated crafting feats out of the game and you don't really lose anything IMO. A DM could replace the entire repair/wands/staves/scroll/potion creation system with a 'magic shop' in town for a minimal fee and the game is exactly the same. Which is a shame because the idea of crafting as an element of adventuring SHOULD have a good system. Someone mentioned having crafted items grant secondary benefits, maybe small ones for expert and bigger ones for master or legendary, but meaningful while out in the field. THST provides ROI to the player who invests heavily in the skills. And perhaps provides adventure hooks for special materials or formulas or even a way to modify an existing formula. I have no idea how to balance such a system, I'm not a game designer. But it seems like Piazo kind of half assed this one.
Fantastic context. I (and I’m sure many others) never thought to contextualize this system in the broader scope of the game and moving a heroic fantasy story forward.
You forgot to mention you need to roll checks for earn income several times (yes, gm is the one making a timestep for check, but i don't think it's unreasonable to make it once a week) while with crafting price reduction it's autosuccess.
Excellent perspective. Its great to hear you talk about the wider aspects of game design. Now i'm imagining a TTRPG where you play a fantasy shop keeper and crafter who hopes to become the greatest crafter in all the lands!
@@HowItsPlayed Haha well there you go. Anyway, I think crafting is an area where Paizo have gone a bit more narrative with 2e, and I think that’s a very good thing. Leaning into the simulation side of crafting leads rapidly to huge amounts of crunch and ‘non adventure’ gameplay.
i honestly love playing crafters and usually if im playing a long campaign i workout with the DM some sort of homebrew thing to craft and progress throughout the story and most of the time i involve other players by crafting them special items that fits their character style as a part of their development in the story. But that said not every dm uses homebrew so i would honestly love to see a better crafting system in pf2e than the one we have cuz honestly its very unsatisfactory you dont get to gather items and craft with them nor make cool items nor be able to combine stuff which imo is very important especially if you have an inventor on your team.
Great video! Wrt crafting a magnificent longsword for a king, why not handle it similar to how Paizo handled the swordcane and exquisite swordcane... Add parry and up the items level by 4-5? The primary benefit of a masterfully crafted blade is that it would be stronger and more durable while maintaining the same balance and weight of a lesser version, and the primary benefit of a strong durable weapon is the ability to parry without fearing the weapon breaking?
The crafting rules as written very reflect the hobby crafter’s saying “why buy a nifty trinket for $10 when for only a week of work and $93 in materials you can make it yourself?” Use crafting to make things you can’t buy. That’s really all there is to it.
I think the main issue is that crafting literally doesn't really get a player anything. What it saves are on par with what you would get for an income generating activity. Meaning for *whatever* you save via crafting you could just instead do anything else with down time and get the same reward, potentially more depending on your formulae and skill. Instead of crafting potions or daggers, go work the docks or do herbalism or any other income generation skill and buy the daggers or potions instead. "Why yes I could forge this myself," or hand it off to the local smith and have him do the work for you. I DO think it depends on the table a bit. EG, if some items can only really be acquired in game via crafting that changes things, or breaking crafting into a series of tasks and making it literally cost nothing for certain items (instead just down time), with minimal scaling costs, especially as down time is, in many respects, a more limited resource than gold. If players just hang out in town crafting, then I think it's on the GM to throw in the plot devices that make that not a possibility. For the next hook to disrupt the 'normal' life of the PC. As it is, I just don't find the Paizo crafting system to be at all rewarding, even from a flavor perspective.
Like if you want flavor and have a player who wants to craft, start giving them ingredients and have their crafting costs be zero. This way, they're hunting down ingredients in every dungeon crawl and it gets them more invested. Make it so that the ingredients are worth more as the potions than if they had sold them. It might unbalance things economically a little bit, but it rewards the player for their choices and feeds into their play style. It makes their contribution to the story more impactful and makes down time more rewarding. I feel like Paizo's system takes away from that.
Also Re: Crafting and how "it didn't make money" I think that's a missing on what crafting does. You can either A) find a job and Earn Income with crafting. (This is what trades people do) B) Make a (probably magic) item for the party. That uses Earn Income to reduce the cost over time, but the big thing is it makes you not dependent on NPCs and you can use Earn Income==level instead at the job lvl you can find in town. This isn't an Earn Income activity, it just uses the table.
@@HowItsPlayed ok general rules on buying and selling are in core rulebook on page 502 and the tradesperson info which could be used as an Archetype are in GM'S Guide pages 244 - 245 you can make Apprentice lvl 2 Merchant lvl 4 Smith lvl 6 and Guildmaster either lvl 8 or lvl 12.
You are absolutely right. The current crafting system in Pathfinder 2e is, and has never been about being simulationist, or using it to farm coin. It's really about being able to customize your character, or other players characters with gear that they might not get or only get a formula for. Player 1 wants to use Magic Item X. Magic Item X is not provided for in the scope of the adventure. Buy/Find formula for Magic Item X. Craft Magic Item X while Player 2 retrains a feat and Player 3 earns income during downtime.
If that is the case, why bother giving the players a formula as a reward, just give them the item as a reward for a quest or make it directly available for purchase. Any crafting system should address the basic question of ROI. What is the ROI for the player to craft an item vs just getting the item directly. The thing is the ROI has to include the opportunity cost of having taken skills and feats that allow you to craft. As it sits today, the only good reason to craft is to be able to repair items in the field. Which means going beyond trained doesn't bring much to the table because it is almost always better for the adventurer to put that skill point into an active adventuring skill, say athletics where it can directly be used to keep the party alive. And if that's the case, why bother with it at all. Just ignore repairing and make crafting a lore skill used for downtime.
One issue is that the rarity and level of a formula is the same as the rarity and level of the item, so if you can't buy the item, you also can't buy the formula. So to get something you couldn't otherwise, the GM would ahve to give you the formula, whcih is basically just giving you the item with extra steps, so why not just give you the item? This is actually what I really liked about pf1e crafting. By being able to craft things for their sale valuie of 50%, it let you sell tresure you didn't like, and use the money you got to craft items you did. If you don't take crafting feats, you are at the whim of whatever treasure the GM gives you, or you can sell it and only buy half as much as what you want. If you do take crafting feats, you can get what you want without lost value. This made taking crafting feats a worthwhile investment. 2e crafting does not. The treasure vault helps a bit but still not quite there yet
@Andrew DeMarco this is large true, and I mostly agree, though rarity beyond uncommon is more for GM control. But let's look at Abomination Vault. Ontario is a level 4 town, but the adventure takes you through level 6. That means, generally, you wouldn't be able to buy 5th or 6th level items. Crafting allows you to reverse engineer or research the formula of some items that you would not be able to buy and create them. It is, of course, up to the GM to provide formulas for players who really want to craft.
@@MostlyHarmless-42 yes, you could reverse engineer something and craft it, whch is only useful if its something more than one person in the party wants/needs. Otherwise as you say the GM would ahve to drop the formulas, which I don't think the APs do much of.
@@MostlyHarmless-42 or the GM just makes one or more items of that level available if they think it is appropriate. The crafting need is completely artificial and unnecessary. Ok, that's not completely fair, there are plenty of RP reasons, but there is no mechanical reason to do so since the DM can just decide to add the treasure or make the item available in town. It certainly doesn't warrant spending multiple skill slots in my mind. If there is no value add to custom items beyond one you find in a shop, even a small one, then you will always be better off spending those skills slots on skills which gives you direct bonuses.
Good video I agree with lots of it but the time it takes to craft items is the biggest problem for me. Many campaigns and even most adventure paths have very little downtime. An alchemist should be able to make more than one batch of potions in a week for example. I love the idea of using crafting to move the story forward but the 4 day minimum kinda saps momentum from an adventure.
My problem is the whole formula thing. Why should you award you players with the formula and not with the item itself? I think the whole crafting system can be funny if you make a campaign about it but for the most campaigns i whouldn`t go with it. In most campagins the only reason i would take crafting is to make some flavor stuff like a engraved hilt or something but it`s quiet niche and wouldn`t take any feats or go higher than trained.
They really do only have value if a player has created a crafting oriented character. But if you do have one then giving a +1 Rune and a Striking Rune formula can do a lot! Now everyone who uses a weapon has that on their ideal one (assuming they have the wealth for it) rather than just the ones provided.
@@mentalkitty789 yeah I agree you get some worth it you need a specific item or rune multiple times. I only started Pathfinder recently but I heard the whole balancing of encounter expects that you have this kind of weapon at the level you can craft these. If this is correct the dm should give the players access to these updates even without crafting, which make it bad again.
Formula can be loots. Someone low level was crafting, on the side. But he had one formula that he wasn't be able to craft because of lack of ressources. (5 level 1 formula but one level 4. (In total, you have a loot of 9gp)
I actually really appreciate that crafting isn't overly profitable. If it was possible to make an exorbitant amount of gold, then why would the party go on grandiose adventures to defeat great evils when they can all invest in crafting, make bank, and then pay someone else to do the adventuring for them? There's a saying in game design that if given the chance many players will optimize the fun out of a game.
I mostly think it should msotly cover your costs if you want to convert treasure you are given into treasure you actually want as a PC. This should be the benefit of crafting. You don't control what treausre the GM hands out, so if you invest in crafting feats, you should be able to craft what you want after selling the stuff you don't for half. This is what pf1e allowed you to do. I don't think it was a perfect system either, but I do wish 2e had a similar system. In 2e you can get this 50% discount, but to do so you would ahve to craft for so long you could (at least by core rules) just use the earn income activity instead. It removed the incentive to get the crafting feats.
Regarding the "You Have to Spend Too Much Money" section: When you compare Earn Income to the crafting example, it's important to consider that, in order to generate any value beyond the Earn Income activity, crafting requires additional rush checks that can reduce the product's market value or completely ruin it. Considering that these are additional failure points beyond the initial crafting check, AND crafting requires a significant monetary investment (as well as feat investments, in some cases) up front to "earn" anything when Earn Income does not, the increase in value is pretty slim. You also assert that crafting benefits are independent of the level of the settlement, but...are they really? Would a reasonable DM allow even a master smith to craft a magic shield in a ramshackle village with a forge that's little more than a fire and an anvil? They'd lack the tools, materials, and other resources necessary for the job. Even if it were allowed, how would the buyer you talk about be lined up to buy it in said village? If the people don't have a certain level of discretionary income, they won't have money to throw away on magic items.
First I'd like to say that I lovee all of your videos. You have been instrumental in learning the system for me. Now my actual comment. I'm currently working on homebrewing a mixture of the complex crafting from TV and the monster parts system from BZB. I think that it will make for an existing and engaging crafting system for my players to to do whatever they'd like.
This is such a critical point. It is totally understandable that not all mechanics or features of a product will be enjoyed equally, but what is paramount is that the product vision remains intact. Anchoring on this opening clause is one of the best responses I’ve seen in awhile. Game design needs more of this (meaning product vision, purpose, guiding principles). It doesn’t mean feedback should be ignored but that feedback should always be measured in terms of the products purpose and intention (it’s directional design). Once it stops honoring that, it will unravel (as many games do).
This makes me really happy to see such an in depth take of craftings strengths and drawbacks. Im still new to PF2E and even with the new additional rules for crafting I was concerned as the more I looked into crafting the more difficult it seemed to build a character around the idea. My first character idea has been this Staff Nexus Universalist Wizard who crafts, repairs, and props up the party a bit as a strong support. Seems like I just need to make sure any game I end up in with this character to talk at length with the dm. Thanks!
The simplest response to "No one could profit from this system" is "you're right, and they don't have to." I don't think there even need to be any imaginary NPC archetypes or feats. Just like Dave said, Earn income: Craft is how you make money while crafting. It's designed to make items to sell at market. They are produced in larger quantities, forged out of simple, inexpensive materials, horseshoes and wagon wheels and the like. "Crafting" is designed to make items for personal use, not for sale. They are probably more durable as they'll have to withstand a lot of punishment. Secondly, I've always reminded players that a good portion of your costs for "Crafting" are from renting/borrowing the forge/tannery/loom, etc to make your personal gear. You likely don't have that yourself as an adventurer, and if you did would probably risk competing with another artisan in town who gets annoyed that troublesome adventurers are also trying to hone in on their territory.
That's not an answer that makes sense to players coming from 3rd edition D&D or any other simulationist system (as rare as those may be these days). The expectation of those players is that a rule doesn't know it's part of a game that's being played, and thus it doesn't acknowledge the existence of "player characters". If there's a crafting activity in the book, it simulates how everyone in the world makes stuff. In that context, if a rule fails to reproduce everyday outcomes and situations, it fails at simulation. Which is never what PF2e crafting was about. The crafting rule is specifically something _adventurers_ do between adventures. Why are adventurers shit at crafting compared to NPCs? For gamist reasons - it wouldn't be balanced, it's not relevant to the game, etc. So, really, it's a player expectation issue. The bigger problem is that, given the chance to expand/revise the crafting rules, Paizo chose not to actually tackle the elephant in the room - the fact that crafting rules aren't _believable_ to simulation-oriented players. Instead, they just made a more intricate version of the already existing, adventurer-facing rules, at which all the same complaints can be levied. As far as optional rules go, it's a shitty approach. It wasted time and page space to _not_ address any of the complaints.
I found this very helpful as a new Pf2e GM. Particularly the notion that you don't need crafting rules for earning income but the earning income rules. It's kind of obvious once being told. Didn't occur to me though. I love these little GM tips from the trenches. "How to approach X in practice?" Awesome.
There's even a Merchant Background. Source Core Rulebook pg. 63 4.0 In a dusty shop, market stall, or merchant caravan, you bartered wares for coin and trade goods. The skills you picked up still apply in the adventuring life, in which a good deal on a suit of armor could prevent your death. Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Intelligence or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost. You're trained in the Diplomacy skill, and the Mercantile Lore skill. You gain the Bargain Hunter skill feat. So you could simply make Apprentice a lvl 2 Archetype , Merchant lvl 4 Archetype , Smith lvl 6 Archetype and Guildmaster lvl 12 Archetype with all the associated details.
When I think of crafting in fantasy settings, think of the opening of Conan with the music of The Anvil of Crom. You see the process and know that this weapon will hold meaning to the hero in future events. The idea of crafting the ultimate or final weapon that a character can make is a good story plot and should be encouraged as throughout history many stories speak of the master smiths final work or the tool of someones revenge. That is what I think crafting should be used for, not for mundane everyday items. The only exception might be in a survival setting that everyday items are a rarity. Shipwrecked? You need to make waterskins in order to travel farther than the beach shore or even common weapons to hunt and protect yourself.
You helped win me over about the rules for crafting. Yes it would be a horrid system to make a living on, but that's not what the rules are made for. I'll look at speaking to my GM about adding a story arc about crafting, perhaps adventuring for the resources and making it at the end as the reward for our efforts.
Great video! I have a few thoughts while listening in on it. Now I think the crafting system itself is really good, one of the best in TTRPGing that I've experienced. I understand the complaints about the time investment by RAW and that a lot of narratives tend to push on the time scale making the idea of crafting feel less accessible. In the 'I want to profit from crafting' this is technically wrong, you can. Just not in the manner people want. You must pay half an item's value and then spend the rest of the time down earn income to gain profit by saving gold while creating the object in question. Now the adventuring merchant example specifically because it really caught my attention while listening. Letting people bargain to gain a few more gold will not destroy things. All you have to do is factor it into the gold earned, though I don't think you were implying PCs couldn't do that! That and in my opinion the TRUE value of heroic merchant or crafter in this brand of campaign is not to earn income but to convert resources. (Though as you mention later it is a better earn income usually!) Imagine having 1000gp but the town only has one +1 sword? Buy it, gain the formula and create one +1 weapon for everyone in the party! Now that gold and your skills give you access to things you otherwise wouldn't be able to get or have in such quantity! The impressing the king example later on stands out though. Isn't that what exotic materials are for? A high-quality silver sword versus a common iron blade? Off that though and in the form of treasure (using the beginner box as an example) you can find a normal steel shield with a fancy design on it worth 3 more gold than a normal shield! So I feel something like this is a silly complaint but does fall more into the land of DM decisions and would just use the crafting system.
I think using exotic materials would be one way to handle it. But what I believe this person was really getting at is, unlike in 1st edition, there is no such thing as "masterwork" quality. Everything is the same level of quality, so it's difficult to say "I can make a better sword than you", because both crafters would be limited by using the same formula and their results would have the same price/value. In other words, if you give a novice blacksmith 1 gp worth of raw materials and give a master blacksmith 1 gp worth of materials, you would assume that the master blacksmith would make a much more impressive and valuable sword. Because of their talent. But this system really doesn't allow for that by RAW... they would both craft the same sword because they used the same formula.
My character is a painter and I heavily invest in crafting. So my DM gave me the ability to make Oil Living Grafitti. They function as followers, I can tell them to scout and do other weird and helpful things.
Our current campaign has the goal of us rebuilding and managing a colony in the "New World." As an inventor, my character is making all the use he can out of the crafting skill as our hamlet got burned down by Demonically-aligned Kobolds and we're starting from scratch. Lots of downtime and we're interacting with the other survivors while trying to set up before the winter. We had to temporarily drop our rebuilding efforts to eradicate a cave of the cultist kobolds that was too close for comfort to our campsite. Ironically the feeling I got when we had to clear the cave was, "Come on, I was working on a project!" As it turned out, the cave was full of iron resources and I was happier, but I still needed to establish a forge. It's been fun. You can make money from crafting as long as the DM allows an established base of operations to have resource nodes like a mine. It will take time to set up and you probably won't be making much for your first levels, but talk to your DM about potential money making methods and what you can spend that money on.
It’s a shame they didn’t play test the new crafting and get all this feedback before going to print. Clearly they missed the mark and it was entirely preventable.
Practical response while solid anchoring on design principles of the game. Dave does a good job of emphatic with practical approaches while also providing bridges to the cornerstones / intention
So according to AON there's 4 ranks of tradesperson.. each with a smithing challenge rating (which could be used as a crafting trade level limit for characters) an Apprentice for example is a background level rank (-1) which has a smithing challenge rating of 2, so if you're an adventurer with the Apprentice rank in trades person then you can craft and sell lvl 2 items in a shop. You can rank up your player to the next rank Merchant, by spending a week's downtime with a merchant. Which all adds to your character Story. It goes Apprentice, Merchant, Smith, Guildmaster. So it's easy to roleplay a traveling tradesperson. You would simply be paid whatever your rank is for the day of downtime spent.
The way to make money crafting is the Earn an Income rule which abstracts things down to a simple role. The other crafting rules are more geared toward creating powerful items for the party,
Also makes me wonder if as an alternative to crafting, players could take the formula to a craftsperson and have them invest the time into creating it, while they could come back for it and pay a little less. Or even exchange a discount on the first item for occasionally coming back and helping to put in enchantments... Could make for a good ally system and reduce the need for extra down time.
Sure, this certainly could work. I would probably use the Income Earned table to help determine what that crafter's labor would cost. And I think I might also turn this into an opportunity for quests... "I'd love to make this for you, but I'll need you to go get this Magic MacGuffin to finish it!"
When it comes to making a more masterful sword to present to the king I am of 2 minds, the first says to simply spend more on the ingredients, so gathering the iron and such then adding gold and gemstones value to the blade. The second is in a world of fantasy the king wouldn't be particularly amused in receiving a ceremonial sword when he really wants an adamantine hammer with the ability to shoot lightning and talk to him. A bit of an exaggeration, but the king will likely be expecting magical rarities and gems or a dragons skull rather than nice sword.
I love your videos keep it up. Just a note the 50 gold from crafting vs the 35 gold from the earn income you have to take in the cost of the formula that she earned that would have cost 13 gold. Also, in a scenario where you want to give an item to a player and no one has crafting you would just give it to a player as loot, giving a formula to a crafting player seems more like a punishment for specializing in crafting more work for some loot that someone else would just get for free, most gm's wouldn't give up on giving you an item just because you don't have crafting, they wouldn't give you formulas unless you have crafting also.
I have written a craft and trade system that allows a player to sit for a week with a crew and A-team prep for a coming boss encounter, turn that dragon into parts then rest for a season while the craft master of the crew makes custom gear. You could also craft small simple gear over a rest. You could also just sit down and start crafting and selling to non players who come by randomly by increasing rapport towards a sale. It’s math heavy when you want to make a buisness out of it but it works.
You might be interested in the Battlezoo Bestiary from Roll For Combat. It'll have quite a lot of content dedicated to harvesting from dead monsters to craft items.
My ruling is I believe what the Playtest for 2e did for Crafting where items that are 1 to 4 levels below the Crafter's Level to show their experience in crafting those lesser items that were once time-consuming to make now take 1 day less per level difference (Item that is 4 levels below the Crafter's taking a mere day to make). I found great success with it even with the less amount of Downtime given to them and woukd reccomend it to any GMs struggling with giving their Crafter PCs chances to make items. I also allow lower DCs if the players go out of their way to get materials for a specific formulae they want to make. I think Crafter's should be given better oppurunities to improve their crafting more since I think a tale of a Heroic Blacksmith or Alchemist gaining dangerous and powerful materials would be interesting.
While I appreciate your take on it, I feel like there's a fundamental issue with the "does it move the heroic tale forward" in and of that, not everything a character does has to be to that end. Some PCs just want to ply a trade. Some PCs just want to make stuff. Some PCs just want to be Good at what they do. Also, one of my personal sticking points is the "no tradesperson could make money with this system", and hand waving it as "it doesn't matter because it's not relevant to the heroic story" feels dismissive at best, condescending at worst. The system is designed to inform the story, not the other way around. I also feel like the "well NPCs just have a better tradesman class" actively goes against your stated "Heroic Story" requirement. What if a PC wants to pursue becoming a Legendary Blacksmith? But every NPC on the street can out-craft them? How do you justify this paradox? This is ultimately why I am not a fan of the complex crafting variant rule. Your ideas work well for the base system, and what I'd hoped for from a _Variant_ rule was to provide an option for a different style of gameplay. Instead, complex crafting is obviously geared for the same style of gameplay, just with more math. It is also why I'll continue to use my homebrew'd crafting system in place of the core or variant versions in order to facilitate my players enjoying the breadth of the game instead of discarding crafting out of hand as being (in my and their opinion) a poorly designed piece of the greater system.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Let me provide some clarification... I am in no way saying, "everything you do needs to move a heroic story forward". What I am saying is the Crafting System provided by Paizo is intended to aid heroic moments and move such a story forward. If you want to do something in a game, crafting related, that does not move such a story forward, then by all means do that thing! Just don't try to apply the official Crafting System to it, because those are not situations that the system was intended for. I really don't see a disconnect (or paradox) between civilian tradespeople being better at crafting than an adventurer with Legendary proficiency in Crafting. Could an NPC tradesperson manage a business selling items better than the adventurer? Perhaps. Could they craft a high-level item of extreme value like an adventurer with Legendary Crafting? No. Moreover, this feels like an issue on paper, but not necessarily in practice. And I absolutely agree with your assessment that the Complex Crafting rules are geared for the same style of gameplay and are not as wide-sweeping of a change as I had hoped. But I think they did a decent job without having to completely replace the system.
Hmm one thing I think that is throwing people off so to speak is coming from 1st edition. There is you took the feats to do the magical crafting you would get it at half price. Now the feat investment is no where near what it was. Where now you just up crafting and take magicial crafting in 2nd, in 1st you needed craft magic arms and armor, then rings, then staves, then potions, scrolls, wands, etc. You also had to invest as many days as well the level of the item in 1st when you only have to put 4 days in. However I think that's where a disconnect is happening. Because Lets say I'm making a 10th level item. If I was to put in the 10 days to make it, there is no way I would get close to the 50% I would get from 1st edition. Plus from a game perspective it doesn't feel great.
exactly, in 1e this made sense. If you as a party took all the crafting feats, it meant you could sell magic gear you didn't like for 50%, and use crafting (investing some downtime) to turn it into gear you did like/want for the same 50%. If you didn't invest in said crafting feats, the items you bought would cost 100%, so you could only trade magic items you didn't like for 50% as much magic items you did like. This made thsoe feats extremely valuable. In 2e, the benefit of taking the crafting feats is miniscule in comparison, even with the treasure vault updates.
Sorry pal -- while I respect your view on this, I just don't think it's well-implemented. Your statement "The crafting system isn't intended for crafting things you can easily buy" is formed on the basis that you can "easily buy" something. Lets say you're playing a Kingmaker campaign and your party finds themselves in the middle of nowhere, and are running low on arrows for your Ranger. Arrows aren't "easily bought" in this case -- you'd have to trek for days, possibly longer to get back up North to Oleg's to buy some arrows, and then days to trek BACK to where you were before. Or you can spend days to craft them (in the current system). Whatever the case, it's days of downtime, which isn't great. The better option would be to create a scaled system, where crafting something simple like 20 arrows or a few potions takes a few hours (assuming you're in a place where the raw materials are available), while crafting something complex like a longsword or a shield takes several days as the Core Rulebook describes...
Formulas are a big part of the problem with Pathfinder 2e’s crafting. I can be a Legendary Magical Crafting Blacksmith Wizard with 22 base Intelligence, and the crafting of a +1 Dagger is beyond my comprehension unless someone else wrote the instructions down first, or I give up yet another valuable feat (and additional time, and additional money/resources) on inventor. And if I want to create something Uncommon, like a Bane rune? I am SOL unless I get someone else’s written instructions, which, RAW, no one would have been able to create in the first place, because even Inventor only allows Common formula. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Re: "4 Days to make a Dagger", I think it's an applicable concern, meaning that there are narrative reasons for wanting to use crafting to solve issues. Imagine if you want to befriend a group of guards or bandits, and want to give them a gift of multiple shortswords/daggers. This is potentially an excellent reason to craft - as perhaps the local blacksmiths don't have the number of items available. This would take multiple weeks using the crafting systems as written, making it a totally unrealistic solution to the problem. There are tons of domestic skills and skill actions that would normally apply here, so I don't get the "heroic" comparison, although I do appreciate you trying to look at the rules here under a different lens.
I think the trick for making crafting work though is highlighted by this video though. Search and find the most exotic items that can be covered by a crafting check, that would be more uncommon to come across in your game setting. Example: As an inventor, you can research the blueprints for common items. A lot of vehicles are common (rowboat, wagon, etc). There is something to be said about spending a week researching and building a rowboat in a situation where you would be unable to purchase one.
@@LittleBlueJug Yes, there is... and what are your friends supposed to be doing while you are building all of this stuff? I think a lot of people are not factoring in that Crafting in the manner that you are discussing takes you out of the story totally.
My DM aproach to this issue is just a 10 min downtime and the cost of the item is doubled cuz you are rushing and wasting more materials, its supposed to be used when you are not at a town
I think the first example used in the video is not literally meant to be that people really want daggers fast, it seemed odd to me as that seemed to be your takeaway. I think its just an example people use to demonstrate what they believe to be ridiculous about the system. Crafting in some games is there to help PCs round out their gear, people want to feel like their character has a means of doing that by crafting the things they are missing if their DM allows it. DMs may want to provide their PCs with that capability, either through they themselves crafting the items or finding an NPC that they can take into their guild (or whatever) and have some sort of optional systems that help flesh out how you can make that sort of thing work. Maybe a research system that lets them figure out how to craft certain types/levels of stuff and then means by which to produce those weapons in a shorter turn around with rules that perhaps balance that out. If you find some broken mithril sword, perhaps you could use it as a base item to craft something you can use. If you are adventuring in dungeons in a sort of campaign that is more constant and does not make sense to have massive amounts of down time (perhaps a mega dungeon) that you could still have some optional systems for that to work. In some instances you have a rune, and are in a dungeon that is constant, you can't RAW really apply it to the weapon without hunkering down for a day. Sure a DM can just say, don't worry about it, but I think some people want systems that are designed for that sort of thing.
@@jeronemitchell right, by if your DM wants to let you craft common items with relative ease but you are in like in a mega dungeon or something there is no logical rules around that. Do you have to just run to town and hangout there for days on end? If you are like on the 10th floor?
Also as for tradespeople making money 1) They likely aren’t buying materials whole sale, they may even own their own mine thus cutting costs of materials down. 2) Unlike players crafters don’t sell items for half ie they’re merchants, the only reason they buy items from players for half is so they can profit on resale. 3) If a player wants to earn money with crafting that’s what the earn income activity is for. The crafting system isn’t supposed to supersede that. As for crafting a simple dagger that is going to take fewer days. Ie it’s item level is lower making its DC easier thus you can optionally raise it to significantly cut down time. Now if you’re trying to make like a +2 greater striking flaming dagger… yeah that might take 6 days for very obvious reasons.
@@edreppert3091 Well yeah it’s simpler than having the GM make up a % every level but narratively it’s the equivalent of going to a pawn shop, you’re offloading a bunch of stuff the merchant needs to make a profit off of on resale so they buy for lower than they’d sell for.
"The existence of a simple dagger is not going to have any impact at all in a game." If my GM heard that I can guarantee our next encounter would involve being swallowed whole.
I'm wondering about the difference between magic weapon +1 and weapon potency+1 rune. Do you need the rune to make the weapon or can you just craft the weapon? If not do you need both formulas?
A "Magic Weapon +1" is a weapon that has a +1 Weapon Potency Rune etched on it. If you wanted to create the entire thing, you would need a formula for the weapon and craft it... and then have the formula for the +1 Weapon Potency Rune and craft it (and you would etch it onto the weapon as part of crafting it).
So if i invest into crafting skill, the only way i can benefit from it is if the game master makes sure to put crafting formulas into their campaign. Amazing.
so how many feats and skill increases did your example character with the shield invest to save 50gp, versus the 35gp for earn income? Seems like a huge investment for 15gp. I understand there is also the benefit of being able to craft things that might not be available in stores, etc, but most things are. I would like to make a comparison to pf1e crafting. That system gave you a 50% discount on items crafted. This meant that if an adventure path didn't drop the kind of treasure you wanted, you could sell the stuff you got you didn't want for 50%, and use that to craft the stuff you did want. This made it worth taking the crafting feats. You did need to have sufficent downtime for it. I wish they would have kept a similar system for PF2e, as the gear dropped isn't always the gear you want/fits your character concept. I do like that PF2e addresses part of that by using the rune system so your weapon and armor peices are interchangable (if you use a longsword but find a +2 striking batlle axe, you cna move the runes over). This is great but it only covers weapons and armor, not other magical gear. Maybe instead of a magic staff with powers that noone in the party can use, you would rather have a magic weapon upgrade, or maybe a ring witha specific ability that fits your character concept, etc. That was the flexibility afforded by 1e crafting that 2e crafting doesn't really have, not without spending an insane amount of money (or an even crazier amount of crafting time to not have to pay half of it, in which case you could just earn income for nearly that much). Coming form a 3.5/pf1e backgorund, 2e crafting just seems nerfed to the point where it isn't worth spending the feats
Silk from the Begariad and Mallorean sagas. Also, rewarding players who go all in with crafting by allotting plenty of down time, may and probably will adversely affect the rest of the party that wants to adventure. Id advise against "special snowflake" syndrome. Unless downtime is handwaved.
Crafting force the GM to let you ''earn an income'' this effect is kite powerful. Also all gold you have is pretty much ''doubled'' in purchasing power because again you are forcing the earn income task. You can also force a critical succes on low level item to earn more than ''earn income''.
Watching this video sparked a deep dive and now I think I have discovered something interesting and potentially broken. A formula book contains enough pages for 100 formulae and costs 1gp; that means that paper for 1 formula costs 1 cp. It takes 1 hours to copy a formula in a formula book regardless of rarity. In theory and seemingly by raw you can reproduce and sell formulae very rapidly for much higher levels of profit than any other for of crafting or downtime activity. Obviously the GM could just populate the world with people that are uninterested in buying formulae, but it would be inconsistent with their existence and your ability to by them for their value form craftsmen. I personally would greatly prefer if making items was the thing that was profitable and worthwhile, and not simply scribing and selling IP rights to NPCs. Especially considering that the price of a formula assumes that one could make more profit by making the item otherwise no one would ever buy a formula. It is frustrating what this addition has done to crafting, as having a logical consistent and coherent world is what pathfinder does better than DnD, but the crafting in pf2e is essentially the same as 5e but with more unnecessary steps.
Downtime outside cities .... where there are no shops, crafting is a way to get those things you need, but unavailable just when you need them ... If you craft an item with a formula for the basic item it might be worth more, but still have the same stats as the basic item If you craft an item without a formula then it looks like a sword, and is worth a lot more, but much more impressive looking, but is not a sword at all, just art ...
On the "You can't make money from crafting." If someone asked Id allow them to roll Crafting when they work as naratively be makinh and selling mundane goods.
If people want to make money with the crafting skill just use Earn Income and role play 'cause it's easy, faster and more fun. There's no need to go all the trouble with the crafting rules. Save the crafting rules for something really important. That's what i think honest.
"the point thats trying to be made" they made the point, the point is valid, how you can say you arent defending the system, then start with this is showinga crazy lack of self awareness.
You didn't really address the concern that formulas are just as hard to find as the items they craft, as they are the same level. If a crafter wants a specific formula that the GM didn't award as loot (formulas as loot is a whole other discussion, which I think you lightly touched on), and they don't have the inventor feat yet (or it's for an uncommon/rare item), then they need to search it out the formula in a settlement. But by the official settlement guidelines, formulas are just as hard to find in a settlement as the items they craft, and as was discussed, if you can buy the item, there's no significant reason to craft it.
People do tend to think that making something is a huge cost reduction. I'm sorry, but that's just not the case. I've done rudimentary things before, and yeah sure, sometimes you can save yourself the cost of the electrician if you open up the box yourself, but when you're crafting good products you're gonna have to pay. Making a table? Well, you could use scrap wood or you can actually buy good wood. What if you have some wood? Well, what tools are you using to sand, to cut, to glue, to nail, et cetera? Screws, treatment for the wood? Stains and sealants, what have yous? Even a 'simple dagger' is a LOT of work in a medieval setting. On top of that, people also tend to think it's so easy to be a master craftman AND adventure all day, when no, your character may know how to work a forge, but unless you craft for a living, you're never going to have the same efficiency and the same finetuned craftsmanship. I don't think it's realistic at all that an adventurer should be able to craft random items in their spare time and sell them.
biggest Issue is People nowadays just go straight by Rules instead of working something out with the whole Table they playing with. The Rules are a Guideline and not a 100% must follow because every Player Seating is different and to be honest....maaaany Players nowadays want to do quick stuff instead of PLAYING a Roleplaying Game. They want it all with less effort and such Players can return to DnD 5e they get it all over there. Pathfinder is for the good Players not for the lazy ones
My only problem with it is that it takes too much time. Considering you basically have to spend the same amount of money, or more if you also need to buy the formula, the standard crafting should not take 4 days. Let me craft stuff during an adventuring day so if we are expecting to fight undeads tonight I can craft something to help me with that. As it currently stands you can only really use it after you finish adventuring and finally have some time to spend. The only campaign that had some good downtime in it was the Strength of Thousands. In any other adventure path I've played in we only had couple of days of downtime which was two or three days at best but never four. So crafting was never an option there. What I want is to able to craft in those situations where you don't have much time. So you craft something, which costs the same as buying the item but you don't need to sacrifice the village that's being attacked by undead while you do so.
Crafting systems are always messy. As a player I love being a crafter, normally for me that is potions and luckily there are feats and archetypes that help that, at least when it comes to making potions for your own use. It sucks that you can't really make a good amount of gold crafting but the argument that town's people wouldn't be able to feed their families is a bit silly. Just using earned income you make a few gold a day and while that isn't a lot for an adventurer for a random towns person that is more than enough to live and feed a family. Ya making long swords isn't going to be profitable really but I'm willing to bet a towns blacksmith spends most of their work day repairing farming tools and shoeing horses not making weapons. As a DM I give my players the ability to source their own raw materials to lower the price. While you are adventuring you can take time to gather raw materials which lower the price when crafting items that use those materials
I have a crafter, my rogue. In her backstory, she comes from a carpenter and blacksmith family, and has built her own weapons. We started at 7, and I said that her sword and crossbow are weapons she has created after her adventures. That being said... It annoys me how this system works because I am a crafting type player. I like making my own gear, I like saying, my shortsword is a curved blade, and looks like a mini scimitar, etc. Just who I am, and I love having gear that is my touch.
Sooooo... what's stopping you from just paying the cost to buy it and coloring it as something that you have made? I mean, if the goal is a specific narrative scenario then there is no real need to involve money and the like in generating the narrative...
@@jeronemitchell I like crafting. I like saying, in my downtime, I am gonna make a new sword, or new bow. I also think the idea that it takes 4 days to make a dagger or 10 arrows is kinda crazy. Some things, yeah, I get it. My current rogue spent 5 6 feats? to be a good crafter. If crafting is supposed to be an NPC only or only narrative driven, there are many things I could spend those feats on. Not everyone likes the same thing in games, I get that. You probably think I am an idiot for wanting this. But many games have robust crafting/enchanting systems, it would be nice if Pathfinder 2, a system I really like, would have one as well, one that doesn't make it so, i might as well buy one and say its "this". I could go back and play AD&D if i wanted that
True, but what I think that question is really getting at is if you give a novice crafter and a legendary crafter the exact same materials and ask them to each make a sword using only those materials, they would each create a sword of identical quality and value. Whereas you would probably expect the legendary crafter to forge a much more valuable weapon. In this system, since they are using the same formula, they would each get the same result.
In the first part of the video I think you lay it it out perfectly. The game designers didn't want the crafting system to do what the players want it to do. It is intended to be simply another flavoured way of getting loot. They do not care about the players that want crafting to be mechanically useful to them.
Gotta say, this all sounds like cope to me. There’s no good reason not to have a decent crafting system in the game. And “you’re trying to play the game wrong” has never been a convincing argument. It sounds good in your head if you don’t care about it, but it never persuaded anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.
"No Business Could Profit from This": Is that even true? Maybe I'm missing something. With a high skill can't you relatively quickly get your margin down to 50%? Has anyone making this complaint ever owned a business or, hell, been a manager at a retail outlet? Most companies would stab their grandmother for a 50% margin. Also, COMPARED TO WHAT? What are these people's expenses and how else could they be making money? Am I wrong or is "Adventurer" a relatively uncommon lifestyle. Most people aren't saving up 10,000gp for a suit of armor, correct? Copper pieces exist, right? Seems to me most "business" people would be happy with about 99% LESS money than the average PC. Goofy complaint in my opinion.
Wow, the response to "no business could profit from this" is something must be happening that we dont know about. Thats not a good reason, its just a complex way of saying "this is just how it is, shut up and accept it" Then peoplewant to craft thigns to make money and you basically say "the game isnt designed like that, so its fine you cannot do it" and suggest they do something other than they thing they want to do, that is just not letting them do what they want and is therefore not a satisfactory answer. Why not making it like real life, where doing it yourself is much much much cheaper than paying an expert but takes time that could be spent earning money through your main job, in the case of a TTRPG, adventuring. Overall, what you are employing is circular reasoning, its right because its written this way, its written this way because its right.
As someone who really likes playing crafters, I'd like to add my own answers: "4 days to craft a dagger": First of, crafting stuff like that does take time, 4 days is not that much (also depends on how your rp it, can be 4 days gathering materials setting up the workshop etc etc). Ofc the example in the criticism is kind of absurd since most people won't bother crafting a level 0 item but fair. "You can't make money/NPCs can't live from it": Since I mentionned realism before, would be unfair to now wave it off so i'll just add to the bit about NPCs because I think you covered it pretty well on the other part yourself. A NPC crafting items and such will spend the full time required to reduce the cost to that of the raw materials. That is why when you end the crafting after 4 days (or earlier than the 50% decrease) you pay up, you get help from professionals to finish the job, that's a labor cost. NPCs will most of the time craft stuff to sell or as something that was ordered (a new batch of spears for the town's guard, the city hall hiring them to repair the old bridge etc etc) those are situations that PC will likely not encounter and they don't have the limit of downtime that would push them to pay up to accelerate the crafting like adventurers do. "You have to invest too much to be good at crafting": Well...yes. Just like if you want to be good at sneaking you'll invest in it. If you want your character to craft very powerful stuff, you'll invest to being good at it. At minimum you'd need Magical Crafting (or alchemical) but yes the absolute extreme would be Speciality crafting, Inventor, Quick Setup, Impeccable Crafting and Craft Anything (though I think on average, magical, Specialty, Impeccable and quick setup would be enough for most crafting characters, so 4 skill feats. It isn't *that* much for a specialist. A specialized Stealth character would get stuff like Quiet Allies, Swift Sneak, Foil Senses and Legendary Sneak for example) "All are the same quality": On that one, with the example of the present to a king, I thought simply of using precious materials. Make it a silver sword, or a sky metal sword. Maybe add a rare rune on it or add the value of gems the characters might have found (like the beginner box jewelled shortsword that is woth 10gp because of the emerald on it) Otherwise your idea for it is pretty nice, I would have simply made it a Hard crafting check based on character level and determined the value by comparing in treasure by level or the value of similar level items or treasure. Or could increase the DC by 1 for each 10 gold of value added (Expert) 100 (Master) 500 (Legendary) with a base DC for the character's level. There is a lot of way to go at it I think.
The 4 Days thing has always been weird to me, especially in regards to many different items. Everything takes 4 days to make, regardless of what it is. Making a Batch of Alchemist's Fire can take as long as making Full Plate. That would be a batch of 3 Level 3 Alchemist's Fire. Alchemist's Fire is a set of chemicals that explode when exposed to air, and at Trained Proficiency it would take over a Month to make 3 Chemical Cocktails or a suit of Armor. Add on another Week to the Alchemist's Fire if you do them at the max of 4 per batch. The Crafting Rules are insane, it's easier and faster to buy the items. You spend the same amount of money and you get much more in a shorter period.
@@Olimar92 At low level especially, yes. Getting "at level" items will take a long time, and that's the point. Money is nothing but time made into something you can trade. That's the case IRL and in game too, if you have *time* you can craft an "at level" item for half price (aka the price you would sell it for) if you do not, you pay more to have someone else's spend the time for you)
@@KalaamNozalys Even getting below level items takes a lot of time. The quickest you can craft an item for half price is 5 Days. That requires you to be at a level where Earn Income is half or more the Item's Price. I'm curious why making 10 arrows would even take 4 days. I would guess the shafts. You don't pay more for someone else to spend the time. The items are already made, unless you make a special order, and NPCs already work on different rules. A PC will always take 4days to make an item, while an NPC could take a day or two. This is particularly true for things like arrows. Takes four days to make 10 for a PC. A Proper Fletcher could make over 40 in less time IRL. Even someone just learning how to make Arrows could make several in a day. The thing is, the PC Crafting Rules would never allow a business to function. The Crafter, if they want to be quick, pays the full price of the item to make it in 4 days. For Half Price they need to spend more time. An armorer would not be able to supply a lot of stuff as it would take a year to arm 3 or 4 people. And everyday items? That's 4 days minimum for a plate or bowl. NPC Crafters, who need a lot more money, can craft in hours what takes a PC days. It's not like the Crafting Rules expect you to be adventuring, since it's a Downtime Action.
@@Olimar92 I think you kind of missed my points. Yeah a proper fletcher might do 40 arrows in a day, that'd be what a rushed setup would do here. You misunderstood what the labor cost meant here, when you buy an item that's already made. You pay the time the NPC spent crafting it in essence. The way RAW works, in a way, 50% of an item's value is the raw materials, the other is the labor and time to craft it. If you do it yourself, and take time, you can reduce it to the cost of materials. If you have all the materials, it also reduces the price (mainly for precious material items, if you have, say, an ingot of adamantine, that's that much less to pay upfront for your adamantine sword) When you pay up to complete the item, you can describe it as the character hiring local artisans to finish it for them or help them finish it faster. Also... Earn Income is based on the settlement, crafting on character level. Unless your party is *always* in a settlement of their level or higher, crafting when you have long downtime will save you money. Especially at higher level where powerful items are meant to be more rare
For more information see the following:
Crafting Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/639KP3ZWNG0/v-deo.html
Crafting Examples Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/5stdWu1xzOU/v-deo.html
Crafting Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/FlwDkWDtPFo/v-deo.html
Crafting Examples Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/xxHMoDQr4V4/v-deo.html
Crafting Part 3: ua-cam.com/video/Iy-t9zwvCMA/v-deo.html
Complex Crafting ua-cam.com/video/1Z1kxK-fxcA/v-deo.html
Complex Crafting Example ua-cam.com/video/qK29v3SY3o8/v-deo.html
Downtime Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/fmICrYZmfYQ/v-deo.html
What Products and Services Are Available in a Settlement? ua-cam.com/video/UGaOI3e7SoU/v-deo.html
How Much Do Services Cost? ua-cam.com/video/1dVNNLhnjiY/v-deo.html
The larger issue is that most DMs just don't work downtime into campaigns. I think part of that is because Paizo doesn't emphasize it enough. It's treated as an afterthought, not an important part of character development.
I've been DMing for the better part of 6 years and downtime is still one of my biggest struggles. Though it's probably on me, considering I build a lot of campaigns that are designed to go from one mission to the next, a heroes journey if you will, so it's hard to add non-forced feeling downtime.
@@revolverclassic8248 I can relate -- it's been a struggle for me too. What I've tried is building in parts of the journey where they have to pause. For example, the ship that will take them to the next location isn't scheduled to arrive for another 10 days.
And I think the biggest difficulty of downtime is its inherent lack of excitement. Most likely, your group of friends aren't getting together twice a month if you're lucky to piddle around playing shopkeep while the BBEG is out there somewhere amassing followers/ gaining power. Risks are both larger time sinks and less critical at this granularity. No one is going to die but you might end the world if you don't act now!
This is especially difficult for groups with less RP and more G.
Loved the video!
If you have a chance, look at the downtime events from the ultimate campaign in 1e. I reccomend trying to work some of the story lines, if not mechanics, into downtime. After all, your downtime activity isn't 24 hours a day
@@dylan9337 I'll have to look into that!
I played in a campaign where I was an alchemist, we were in a place that was far from any town or city. Of course I could make my daily infusions, but originally I bought an alchemy lab so I could make extra stuff for my companions. However the 4 day minimum to make stuff made this impossible, so I wasted the money for the lab. Crafting rules hamstring several classes.
What I appreciate about Dave’s videos is his common sense approach and, in this case, big picture view of what, I agree to be, the overall design of the game. As a GM do what you want to make the players experience fun and relevant in regards to the desire to do some crafting. I have always considered those types of activities as “flavor” in the context of the game universe.
Thanks for the kind words!
I will see your "4 days to make a dagger" and raise you "4 days to make a single torch!" 🤣 Ah, RAW sometimes can just take the absurd to a new level. 🤣 Thanks for all the videos about crafting, it has really helped me understand the system. 😀
I don't disagree at all; I think the crafting rules as is are great from a more generalist perspective. The rub is you have classes like Inventor and Alchemist who are the embodiment of making items to help them fight, and players like that will want it to extend beyond infused reagents or their innovation, and sometimes it can be nice to think of an option for those players.
I really liked the crafting rules from Starfinder. You can craft anything with just a few hours that is your engineering level or lower, and it 100% would break even with what you'd hypothetically sell it for. However, cause you made it yourself, you got a bonus on checks to repair (cause you understood it) it and it was slightly more durable compared to commercial weapons. Small, secondary benefits like this would be neat for PF2, and I could see this kinda system being easy to translate to PF2, just by using 'trade goods' as a currency. And cause it doesn't make a profit, it doesn't upset player wealth balancing. (Part of this design-wise is also just cause of how gear-oriented Starfinder is)
Alternatively, I could see a sorta "milestone" crafting thing, like a little homebrew I've been working on. Not so much story based crafting, but basically whenever the party finishes a goal, a character with crafting can get Inspired. When Inspired, they can spend some trade goods to try and craft something with no setup time, they just need tools. On a successful craft check, they make progress to a Work in Progress that persists between attempts. The number of successes required (or the amount produced for consumables) depends on the level difference, and as a GM, you treat the batch of materials provided in the treasure horde as having value equal to a magic item for the players' level, but it can only be used this way when 'Inspired,' which goes away after the attempt.
The crafting rules are what I call "not good".
If you think about it too much, verisimilitude is too easily broken.
It shouldn't require hypothetical PC archetypes or interpreting the intent of the RAW.
4 days of effort for a trained smith to craft a dagger really is irrational.
Even 1 day would be irrational for a single dagger.
IMO there are 3 things that need to be fixed.
1) There needs to be a hard separation between simple crafting (that CAN be used to generate money) and more complex crafting that requires formulas.
2) The complexity of the item being crafted should be taken into consideration when setting the time needed to make them.
3) Prices should be adjusted in order to balance the above changes.
My house rule is that material costs are “guild prices”, meaning that PCs, not being professional tradesmen, must pay costs that are intended for them not to make a profit. I have allowed one character to join a guild, which I set up as a faction. The higher he goes up the ladder, the more affordable the raw materials.
I also allow parties to get the raw items for free… but they must mount a full-session mission to do so.
Interesting! I like using the guild as a narrative explanation for some of the costs. That makes perfect sense in a fantasy world.
@@HowItsPlayed While I haven’t yet had to play this card, I use the guilds as the reason for time issues (in a narrative sense). The fabrication resources are never owned by the PCs in my game (or at least, not yet). This implies the character is borrowing forge and anvil, workshop, library or whatnot from the local guilds. It seems reasonable to presume that these groups would not shut down their own industry to make room for an unguilded outsider. So they would likely permit use during off hours, or between activities. So the character must suffer a fair amount of time waiting for the opportunity to use the facilities.
17:37 - Treasure vault suggests an alternative system that splits crafting into using either Nature or Arcana based on how the item is being made, removes the crafting skill, puts all crafting skill feats behind either Nature or Arcana, and makes inventors use Arcana instead of crafting where appropriate. If you think crafting is too expensive to invest into this could be a usable alternative since Nature/Arcana are also extremely useful skills on their own.
Ceremonial Dagger, short sword, armor, etc. are "Art Objects" seen in the Gamemastery Guide (chapter 2).
Good point! That may be a great starting point for setting a value for the "sword as art object" I talked about in the video. Thanks!
9:23 My go-to is guild connections. Quality control, training of apprentices, and maintenance of reputation was a thing even in the medieval era as primitive as it may or may not have been. As the party wouldn't have guild connections in towns they would have to pay premium prices for raw materials just to make the item, then when they went to sell it they would have to drop the price to crafting cost just to get a merchant to purchase an item without a guild association. Be it for fear of a bad product (which would hurt their reputation with customers), or because their main supplier the daggersmith guild, might increase their prices as a punishment for buying outside connections.
Your example of building the exquisite sword for a king, perhaps one thing that could be done is maybe increase the Hardness and HP of the sword. A standard iron or steel sword has a hardness of 5 and 20 HP (with a BT of 10). What if you had the player increase the Hardness by 1 and the HP by 2 for each additional day of work beyond the 4 days, to a maximum equal to their Int Mod? So if they have an Int Mod of +4 and work 4 extra days, then the sword would have a Hardness of 9 and 28 HP (and a 14 BT), making it harder to break because of its higher quality.
All perfectly reasonable ideas! I just didn't want to get too deep into prescribing what additional benefits you would get from additional days of crafting.
So, for the "crafting is for rare and rarer items you can't buy off the shelf and moves the story forward" part:
Would you say: Don't(!) provide formulas for rare or rarer items for the PCs to craft them if that process isn't linked to the plot but just give out the item directly?
That was a good point that if you are crafting your earn income table is your level for the extended days (you made money by saving money compared to buying it). Even if you are in a lowly settlement using your level if you outrank the settlement that is good money, because those who cannot craft would need to travel to bigger cities to find higher level jobs. So the crafter does have an opportunity to make money/time in the small town by saving money on their leveled gear and not having to travel to buy it.
about the 22:00 argument of crafting returns vs earn income from other skills, you usually earn income with skills that are mostly used for other things. Crafting is literally almost only for that specific use. If you dont benefit from it enough to justify the investment compared to other skills then it is just a bad choice
Id absolutely allow someone to use crafting as their earn income skill. Tho they just roll it the same as normal earn income.
18:20 My first response to this would honestly be that there's intelligence based classes already that could spend the feats to become a craftsman of some kind.
And you can point them to said classes: Inventor, Alchemist, Wizard, Witch.
Simply to clear out any misunderstandings that may arise from picking a class, but being infatuated by the feat system and wanting to become a master of all walks of life.
20:45 Based on Rules Lawyer's video: The real value comes out if Access, of getting an item you can normally not procure.
Exactly. I find the idea that there are just magic shops everywhere selling all items weird. And having a character who picks up magical crafting suddenly becomes amazing for the party if they want a magic item but they can only find the formulas for it from some grand library in the major settlement.
I would make the Adventuring Merchant use a new Exploration mode activity. So they can't Hustle or Search or whatever while they moving goods from place to place.
Crafters using crafting to make money is funny enough in some cases the best way to make money IF your crafting something you would've bought.
Settlements have a settlement level. You can't really easily get jobs over that level. However after the initial set up period, you craft at your class level regardless of the settlement level AND you can rush, which lets you get DOUBLE your income over those days. So after you've gone past the setup period of crafting days, your now making profit and a lot of it. Yes there is that flat check at the end for quirky/cursed items, but thats the risk of earning double income.
You also need to buy the formula, which is something like 25-30% of the item's cost if you don't find the item if you even can find the formula. This is probably where an issue can come up with cost being a bit too high to craft a single item. But then after you've made the first one, nothing is stopping you from crafting another item afterwords and the DM letting you sell that for like 90% of its value if its a more rare-ish item.
Its a bit of a nuanced thing. glad you touched on it.
Funny enough, it takes 2 to 3 days to forge a knife irl. Also, a blacksmith has his shop, apprentices, and their life revolves around that craft, without distractions like adventuring. Even with the advanced rules, it can contextually make sense.
ALSO! A pro blacksmith likely has better deals on resources, so their cost to craft a dagger is far smaller than a players.
Yeah, my issue with the pf crafting rules is that the time seems way too short when applied to complicated or magic items.
@@balijosu A good crafting system would take that kind of thing into account. For example, certain spells would be intended to improve a weapon magically, and the casting of those spells would be time added to crafting the weapon. In PF2, though, crafting the runes can be a separate effort altogether, and the runes can be added after the weapon is finished. There's no benefit to adding the runes as the weapon is being made, so while it would add to the total time, it wouldn't really be part of "crafting" the weapon. OTOH, crafting the rune would also take four days, with all the etceteras in the rules, so it might be that it takes twice as long to make a +1 sword as to make a mundane sword, and if you want +1 striking, that's three times as long. This rapidly gets unwieldy. 😞
The concern in my mind is what does crafting add to the game/story/narrative.
Crafting is its own skill and the only real use while out in the field is repair. Sure, you can get a special reward to craft an item, but what is the difference between that and just having the DM put the item in as a reward directly. Or the player taking the formula to a craftsman in town to make the item.
If the crafting skill was used in skill checks either in combat or exploration modes, then going beyond trained might make sense. And a good DM could work that into play for a player who wanted to play a crafting specialist.
I'm new to PF2E, but I just don't see the point.
Take repair out of the game and take crafting out of the game and any associated crafting feats out of the game and you don't really lose anything IMO. A DM could replace the entire repair/wands/staves/scroll/potion creation system with a 'magic shop' in town for a minimal fee and the game is exactly the same.
Which is a shame because the idea of crafting as an element of adventuring SHOULD have a good system.
Someone mentioned having crafted items grant secondary benefits, maybe small ones for expert and bigger ones for master or legendary, but meaningful while out in the field. THST provides ROI to the player who invests heavily in the skills. And perhaps provides adventure hooks for special materials or formulas or even a way to modify an existing formula.
I have no idea how to balance such a system, I'm not a game designer. But it seems like Piazo kind of half assed this one.
Fantastic context. I (and I’m sure many others) never thought to contextualize this system in the broader scope of the game and moving a heroic fantasy story forward.
Thanks and I'm glad the video was helpful!
Agreed! It is interesting seeing why decisions where made when considering the design intent of a game and its creators. I think it is really cool!
You forgot to mention you need to roll checks for earn income several times (yes, gm is the one making a timestep for check, but i don't think it's unreasonable to make it once a week) while with crafting price reduction it's autosuccess.
Good point!
Excellent perspective. Its great to hear you talk about the wider aspects of game design. Now i'm imagining a TTRPG where you play a fantasy shop keeper and crafter who hopes to become the greatest crafter in all the lands!
It exists! "Retail Magic RPG": www.drivethrurpg.com/product/140692/Retail-Magic-Golden-Friday-Edition?term=retail+magic
@@HowItsPlayed Haha well there you go. Anyway, I think crafting is an area where Paizo have gone a bit more narrative with 2e, and I think that’s a very good thing. Leaning into the simulation side of crafting leads rapidly to huge amounts of crunch and ‘non adventure’ gameplay.
5e had Acquisitions inc, in which you ran a business. It was fun.
You can do that in Harnmaster, but that's more a simulationist system than PF.
i honestly love playing crafters and usually if im playing a long campaign i workout with the DM some sort of homebrew thing to craft and progress throughout the story and most of the time i involve other players by crafting them special items that fits their character style as a part of their development in the story.
But that said not every dm uses homebrew so i would honestly love to see a better crafting system in pf2e than the one we have cuz honestly its very unsatisfactory you dont get to gather items and craft with them nor make cool items nor be able to combine stuff which imo is very important especially if you have an inventor on your team.
Great video! Wrt crafting a magnificent longsword for a king, why not handle it similar to how Paizo handled the swordcane and exquisite swordcane... Add parry and up the items level by 4-5?
The primary benefit of a masterfully crafted blade is that it would be stronger and more durable while maintaining the same balance and weight of a lesser version, and the primary benefit of a strong durable weapon is the ability to parry without fearing the weapon breaking?
The crafting rules as written very reflect the hobby crafter’s saying “why buy a nifty trinket for $10 when for only a week of work and $93 in materials you can make it yourself?” Use crafting to make things you can’t buy. That’s really all there is to it.
I think the main issue is that crafting literally doesn't really get a player anything. What it saves are on par with what you would get for an income generating activity. Meaning for *whatever* you save via crafting you could just instead do anything else with down time and get the same reward, potentially more depending on your formulae and skill. Instead of crafting potions or daggers, go work the docks or do herbalism or any other income generation skill and buy the daggers or potions instead. "Why yes I could forge this myself," or hand it off to the local smith and have him do the work for you. I DO think it depends on the table a bit. EG, if some items can only really be acquired in game via crafting that changes things, or breaking crafting into a series of tasks and making it literally cost nothing for certain items (instead just down time), with minimal scaling costs, especially as down time is, in many respects, a more limited resource than gold. If players just hang out in town crafting, then I think it's on the GM to throw in the plot devices that make that not a possibility. For the next hook to disrupt the 'normal' life of the PC.
As it is, I just don't find the Paizo crafting system to be at all rewarding, even from a flavor perspective.
Like if you want flavor and have a player who wants to craft, start giving them ingredients and have their crafting costs be zero. This way, they're hunting down ingredients in every dungeon crawl and it gets them more invested. Make it so that the ingredients are worth more as the potions than if they had sold them. It might unbalance things economically a little bit, but it rewards the player for their choices and feeds into their play style. It makes their contribution to the story more impactful and makes down time more rewarding. I feel like Paizo's system takes away from that.
Also Re: Crafting and how "it didn't make money"
I think that's a missing on what crafting does.
You can either A) find a job and Earn Income with crafting. (This is what trades people do) B) Make a (probably magic) item for the party. That uses Earn Income to reduce the cost over time, but the big thing is it makes you not dependent on NPCs and you can use Earn Income==level instead at the job lvl you can find in town. This isn't an Earn Income activity, it just uses the table.
My take "fix" is that your hero can apply their crafting trade under the tradesperson table in the core rulebook.
I'm curious about this fix... which table are you referring to?
@@HowItsPlayed ok general rules on buying and selling are in core rulebook on page 502 and the tradesperson info which could be used as an Archetype are in GM'S Guide pages 244 - 245 you can make Apprentice lvl 2 Merchant lvl 4 Smith lvl 6 and Guildmaster either lvl 8 or lvl 12.
Excellent video as always. Well reasoned, researched and explained. It's amazing how much this one system feature has people talking.
Thanks! It's definitely a polarizing topic.
You are absolutely right. The current crafting system in Pathfinder 2e is, and has never been about being simulationist, or using it to farm coin. It's really about being able to customize your character, or other players characters with gear that they might not get or only get a formula for. Player 1 wants to use Magic Item X. Magic Item X is not provided for in the scope of the adventure. Buy/Find formula for Magic Item X. Craft Magic Item X while Player 2 retrains a feat and Player 3 earns income during downtime.
If that is the case, why bother giving the players a formula as a reward, just give them the item as a reward for a quest or make it directly available for purchase.
Any crafting system should address the basic question of ROI. What is the ROI for the player to craft an item vs just getting the item directly. The thing is the ROI has to include the opportunity cost of having taken skills and feats that allow you to craft.
As it sits today, the only good reason to craft is to be able to repair items in the field. Which means going beyond trained doesn't bring much to the table because it is almost always better for the adventurer to put that skill point into an active adventuring skill, say athletics where it can directly be used to keep the party alive.
And if that's the case, why bother with it at all. Just ignore repairing and make crafting a lore skill used for downtime.
One issue is that the rarity and level of a formula is the same as the rarity and level of the item, so if you can't buy the item, you also can't buy the formula. So to get something you couldn't otherwise, the GM would ahve to give you the formula, whcih is basically just giving you the item with extra steps, so why not just give you the item?
This is actually what I really liked about pf1e crafting. By being able to craft things for their sale valuie of 50%, it let you sell tresure you didn't like, and use the money you got to craft items you did. If you don't take crafting feats, you are at the whim of whatever treasure the GM gives you, or you can sell it and only buy half as much as what you want. If you do take crafting feats, you can get what you want without lost value. This made taking crafting feats a worthwhile investment. 2e crafting does not. The treasure vault helps a bit but still not quite there yet
@Andrew DeMarco this is large true, and I mostly agree, though rarity beyond uncommon is more for GM control. But let's look at Abomination Vault. Ontario is a level 4 town, but the adventure takes you through level 6. That means, generally, you wouldn't be able to buy 5th or 6th level items. Crafting allows you to reverse engineer or research the formula of some items that you would not be able to buy and create them. It is, of course, up to the GM to provide formulas for players who really want to craft.
@@MostlyHarmless-42 yes, you could reverse engineer something and craft it, whch is only useful if its something more than one person in the party wants/needs. Otherwise as you say the GM would ahve to drop the formulas, which I don't think the APs do much of.
@@MostlyHarmless-42 or the GM just makes one or more items of that level available if they think it is appropriate. The crafting need is completely artificial and unnecessary. Ok, that's not completely fair, there are plenty of RP reasons, but there is no mechanical reason to do so since the DM can just decide to add the treasure or make the item available in town.
It certainly doesn't warrant spending multiple skill slots in my mind.
If there is no value add to custom items beyond one you find in a shop, even a small one, then you will always be better off spending those skills slots on skills which gives you direct bonuses.
Good video I agree with lots of it but the time it takes to craft items is the biggest problem for me. Many campaigns and even most adventure paths have very little downtime. An alchemist should be able to make more than one batch of potions in a week for example. I love the idea of using crafting to move the story forward but the 4 day minimum kinda saps momentum from an adventure.
My problem is the whole formula thing. Why should you award you players with the formula and not with the item itself? I think the whole crafting system can be funny if you make a campaign about it but for the most campaigns i whouldn`t go with it. In most campagins the only reason i would take crafting is to make some flavor stuff like a engraved hilt or something but it`s quiet niche and wouldn`t take any feats or go higher than trained.
Yeah, the only reason why I would award formulas is if I have a player who is interested in Crafting.
They really do only have value if a player has created a crafting oriented character. But if you do have one then giving a +1 Rune and a Striking Rune formula can do a lot! Now everyone who uses a weapon has that on their ideal one (assuming they have the wealth for it) rather than just the ones provided.
@@mentalkitty789 yeah I agree you get some worth it you need a specific item or rune multiple times. I only started Pathfinder recently but I heard the whole balancing of encounter expects that you have this kind of weapon at the level you can craft these. If this is correct the dm should give the players access to these updates even without crafting, which make it bad again.
Formula can be loots. Someone low level was crafting, on the side. But he had one formula that he wasn't be able to craft because of lack of ressources. (5 level 1 formula but one level 4. (In total, you have a loot of 9gp)
I actually really appreciate that crafting isn't overly profitable. If it was possible to make an exorbitant amount of gold, then why would the party go on grandiose adventures to defeat great evils when they can all invest in crafting, make bank, and then pay someone else to do the adventuring for them? There's a saying in game design that if given the chance many players will optimize the fun out of a game.
I mostly think it should msotly cover your costs if you want to convert treasure you are given into treasure you actually want as a PC. This should be the benefit of crafting. You don't control what treausre the GM hands out, so if you invest in crafting feats, you should be able to craft what you want after selling the stuff you don't for half. This is what pf1e allowed you to do. I don't think it was a perfect system either, but I do wish 2e had a similar system. In 2e you can get this 50% discount, but to do so you would ahve to craft for so long you could (at least by core rules) just use the earn income activity instead. It removed the incentive to get the crafting feats.
Regarding the "You Have to Spend Too Much Money" section:
When you compare Earn Income to the crafting example, it's important to consider that, in order to generate any value beyond the Earn Income activity, crafting requires additional rush checks that can reduce the product's market value or completely ruin it. Considering that these are additional failure points beyond the initial crafting check, AND crafting requires a significant monetary investment (as well as feat investments, in some cases) up front to "earn" anything when Earn Income does not, the increase in value is pretty slim.
You also assert that crafting benefits are independent of the level of the settlement, but...are they really? Would a reasonable DM allow even a master smith to craft a magic shield in a ramshackle village with a forge that's little more than a fire and an anvil? They'd lack the tools, materials, and other resources necessary for the job. Even if it were allowed, how would the buyer you talk about be lined up to buy it in said village? If the people don't have a certain level of discretionary income, they won't have money to throw away on magic items.
First I'd like to say that I lovee all of your videos. You have been instrumental in learning the system for me.
Now my actual comment.
I'm currently working on homebrewing a mixture of the complex crafting from TV and the monster parts system from BZB. I think that it will make for an existing and engaging crafting system for my players to to do whatever they'd like.
Oh this is unexpected :D Thank you for another video!
You're very welcome!
Golarian Dwarfs don't make their own Clan Dagger, it's something they have from birth.
This is such a critical point. It is totally understandable that not all mechanics or features of a product will be enjoyed equally, but what is paramount is that the product vision remains intact. Anchoring on this opening clause is one of the best responses I’ve seen in awhile. Game design needs more of this (meaning product vision, purpose, guiding principles). It doesn’t mean feedback should be ignored but that feedback should always be measured in terms of the products purpose and intention (it’s directional design). Once it stops honoring that, it will unravel (as many games do).
This makes me really happy to see such an in depth take of craftings strengths and drawbacks. Im still new to PF2E and even with the new additional rules for crafting I was concerned as the more I looked into crafting the more difficult it seemed to build a character around the idea.
My first character idea has been this Staff Nexus Universalist Wizard who crafts, repairs, and props up the party a bit as a strong support. Seems like I just need to make sure any game I end up in with this character to talk at length with the dm. Thanks!
This was awesome and I fully agree with everything you said here.
Earn Income is, in fact, an approved trained use of the Crafting skill! It's in the CRB!
Ikr! Why people forget you can earn income by "eatr income"?!
The simplest response to "No one could profit from this system" is "you're right, and they don't have to." I don't think there even need to be any imaginary NPC archetypes or feats. Just like Dave said, Earn income: Craft is how you make money while crafting. It's designed to make items to sell at market. They are produced in larger quantities, forged out of simple, inexpensive materials, horseshoes and wagon wheels and the like.
"Crafting" is designed to make items for personal use, not for sale. They are probably more durable as they'll have to withstand a lot of punishment. Secondly, I've always reminded players that a good portion of your costs for "Crafting" are from renting/borrowing the forge/tannery/loom, etc to make your personal gear. You likely don't have that yourself as an adventurer, and if you did would probably risk competing with another artisan in town who gets annoyed that troublesome adventurers are also trying to hone in on their territory.
That's not an answer that makes sense to players coming from 3rd edition D&D or any other simulationist system (as rare as those may be these days). The expectation of those players is that a rule doesn't know it's part of a game that's being played, and thus it doesn't acknowledge the existence of "player characters". If there's a crafting activity in the book, it simulates how everyone in the world makes stuff. In that context, if a rule fails to reproduce everyday outcomes and situations, it fails at simulation.
Which is never what PF2e crafting was about. The crafting rule is specifically something _adventurers_ do between adventures. Why are adventurers shit at crafting compared to NPCs? For gamist reasons - it wouldn't be balanced, it's not relevant to the game, etc. So, really, it's a player expectation issue.
The bigger problem is that, given the chance to expand/revise the crafting rules, Paizo chose not to actually tackle the elephant in the room - the fact that crafting rules aren't _believable_ to simulation-oriented players. Instead, they just made a more intricate version of the already existing, adventurer-facing rules, at which all the same complaints can be levied. As far as optional rules go, it's a shitty approach. It wasted time and page space to _not_ address any of the complaints.
I found this very helpful as a new Pf2e GM. Particularly the notion that you don't need crafting rules for earning income but the earning income rules. It's kind of obvious once being told. Didn't occur to me though.
I love these little GM tips from the trenches. "How to approach X in practice?" Awesome.
There's even a Merchant Background.
Source Core Rulebook pg. 63 4.0
In a dusty shop, market stall, or merchant caravan, you bartered wares for coin and trade goods. The skills you picked up still apply in the adventuring life, in which a good deal on a suit of armor could prevent your death.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Intelligence or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost.
You're trained in the Diplomacy skill, and the Mercantile Lore skill. You gain the Bargain Hunter skill feat.
So you could simply make Apprentice a lvl 2 Archetype , Merchant lvl 4 Archetype , Smith lvl 6 Archetype and Guildmaster lvl 12 Archetype with all the associated details.
Congratulations, you've made an NPC, not a hero. 🤣
This is more the kind of character I'd see players creating in a westmarch, rather than a campaign.
@@cidlunius1076 That's so funny.. when you can already be a farm hand a herbalist and a dandy.
And as Archetypes are essentially continuations of your Background.. it's simple to invent an Archetype using what's already available.
When I think of crafting in fantasy settings, think of the opening of Conan with the music of The Anvil of Crom. You see the process and know that this weapon will hold meaning to the hero in future events. The idea of crafting the ultimate or final weapon that a character can make is a good story plot and should be encouraged as throughout history many stories speak of the master smiths final work or the tool of someones revenge. That is what I think crafting should be used for, not for mundane everyday items. The only exception might be in a survival setting that everyday items are a rarity. Shipwrecked? You need to make waterskins in order to travel farther than the beach shore or even common weapons to hunt and protect yourself.
You helped win me over about the rules for crafting. Yes it would be a horrid system to make a living on, but that's not what the rules are made for. I'll look at speaking to my GM about adding a story arc about crafting, perhaps adventuring for the resources and making it at the end as the reward for our efforts.
Great video! I have a few thoughts while listening in on it. Now I think the crafting system itself is really good, one of the best in TTRPGing that I've experienced. I understand the complaints about the time investment by RAW and that a lot of narratives tend to push on the time scale making the idea of crafting feel less accessible.
In the 'I want to profit from crafting' this is technically wrong, you can. Just not in the manner people want. You must pay half an item's value and then spend the rest of the time down earn income to gain profit by saving gold while creating the object in question. Now the adventuring merchant example specifically because it really caught my attention while listening. Letting people bargain to gain a few more gold will not destroy things. All you have to do is factor it into the gold earned, though I don't think you were implying PCs couldn't do that!
That and in my opinion the TRUE value of heroic merchant or crafter in this brand of campaign is not to earn income but to convert resources. (Though as you mention later it is a better earn income usually!) Imagine having 1000gp but the town only has one +1 sword? Buy it, gain the formula and create one +1 weapon for everyone in the party! Now that gold and your skills give you access to things you otherwise wouldn't be able to get or have in such quantity!
The impressing the king example later on stands out though. Isn't that what exotic materials are for? A high-quality silver sword versus a common iron blade? Off that though and in the form of treasure (using the beginner box as an example) you can find a normal steel shield with a fancy design on it worth 3 more gold than a normal shield! So I feel something like this is a silly complaint but does fall more into the land of DM decisions and would just use the crafting system.
I think using exotic materials would be one way to handle it. But what I believe this person was really getting at is, unlike in 1st edition, there is no such thing as "masterwork" quality. Everything is the same level of quality, so it's difficult to say "I can make a better sword than you", because both crafters would be limited by using the same formula and their results would have the same price/value. In other words, if you give a novice blacksmith 1 gp worth of raw materials and give a master blacksmith 1 gp worth of materials, you would assume that the master blacksmith would make a much more impressive and valuable sword. Because of their talent. But this system really doesn't allow for that by RAW... they would both craft the same sword because they used the same formula.
My character is a painter and I heavily invest in crafting. So my DM gave me the ability to make Oil Living Grafitti.
They function as followers, I can tell them to scout and do other weird and helpful things.
Our current campaign has the goal of us rebuilding and managing a colony in the "New World." As an inventor, my character is making all the use he can out of the crafting skill as our hamlet got burned down by Demonically-aligned Kobolds and we're starting from scratch. Lots of downtime and we're interacting with the other survivors while trying to set up before the winter. We had to temporarily drop our rebuilding efforts to eradicate a cave of the cultist kobolds that was too close for comfort to our campsite. Ironically the feeling I got when we had to clear the cave was, "Come on, I was working on a project!" As it turned out, the cave was full of iron resources and I was happier, but I still needed to establish a forge. It's been fun. You can make money from crafting as long as the DM allows an established base of operations to have resource nodes like a mine. It will take time to set up and you probably won't be making much for your first levels, but talk to your DM about potential money making methods and what you can spend that money on.
It’s a shame they didn’t play test the new crafting and get all this feedback before going to print. Clearly they missed the mark and it was entirely preventable.
Practical response while solid anchoring on design principles of the game. Dave does a good job of emphatic with practical approaches while also providing bridges to the cornerstones / intention
So according to AON there's 4 ranks of tradesperson.. each with a smithing challenge rating (which could be used as a crafting trade level limit for characters) an Apprentice for example is a background level rank (-1) which has a smithing challenge rating of 2, so if you're an adventurer with the Apprentice rank in trades person then you can craft and sell lvl 2 items in a shop.
You can rank up your player to the next rank Merchant, by spending a week's downtime with a merchant. Which all adds to your character Story.
It goes Apprentice, Merchant, Smith, Guildmaster. So it's easy to roleplay a traveling tradesperson. You would simply be paid whatever your rank is for the day of downtime spent.
What is the article called? Or what ID does it have (category+ ID that is in the URL)
The way to make money crafting is the Earn an Income rule which abstracts things down to a simple role. The other crafting rules are more geared toward creating powerful items for the party,
Frankly, it would be better not to have crafting rules at all instead of the ones we do have.
This is a really great perspective and very helpful.
Also makes me wonder if as an alternative to crafting, players could take the formula to a craftsperson and have them invest the time into creating it, while they could come back for it and pay a little less. Or even exchange a discount on the first item for occasionally coming back and helping to put in enchantments... Could make for a good ally system and reduce the need for extra down time.
Glad it was helpful!
Sure, this certainly could work. I would probably use the Income Earned table to help determine what that crafter's labor would cost. And I think I might also turn this into an opportunity for quests... "I'd love to make this for you, but I'll need you to go get this Magic MacGuffin to finish it!"
When it comes to making a more masterful sword to present to the king I am of 2 minds, the first says to simply spend more on the ingredients, so gathering the iron and such then adding gold and gemstones value to the blade. The second is in a world of fantasy the king wouldn't be particularly amused in receiving a ceremonial sword when he really wants an adamantine hammer with the ability to shoot lightning and talk to him. A bit of an exaggeration, but the king will likely be expecting magical rarities and gems or a dragons skull rather than nice sword.
I love your videos keep it up. Just a note the 50 gold from crafting vs the 35 gold from the earn income you have to take in the cost of the formula that she earned that would have cost 13 gold.
Also, in a scenario where you want to give an item to a player and no one has crafting you would just give it to a player as loot, giving a formula to a crafting player seems more like a punishment for specializing in crafting more work for some loot that someone else would just get for free, most gm's wouldn't give up on giving you an item just because you don't have crafting, they wouldn't give you formulas unless you have crafting also.
I have written a craft and trade system that allows a player to sit for a week with a crew and A-team prep for a coming boss encounter, turn that dragon into parts then rest for a season while the craft master of the crew makes custom gear. You could also craft small simple gear over a rest.
You could also just sit down and start crafting and selling to non players who come by randomly by increasing rapport towards a sale. It’s math heavy when you want to make a buisness out of it but it works.
You might be interested in the Battlezoo Bestiary from Roll For Combat. It'll have quite a lot of content dedicated to harvesting from dead monsters to craft items.
Wow, this is a great video that has assuaged some concerns I had, and actually given me inspiration for future games!
Awesome! Glad to hear it!
My ruling is I believe what the Playtest for 2e did for Crafting where items that are 1 to 4 levels below the Crafter's Level to show their experience in crafting those lesser items that were once time-consuming to make now take 1 day less per level difference (Item that is 4 levels below the Crafter's taking a mere day to make). I found great success with it even with the less amount of Downtime given to them and woukd reccomend it to any GMs struggling with giving their Crafter PCs chances to make items.
I also allow lower DCs if the players go out of their way to get materials for a specific formulae they want to make.
I think Crafter's should be given better oppurunities to improve their crafting more since I think a tale of a Heroic Blacksmith or Alchemist gaining dangerous and powerful materials would be interesting.
While I appreciate your take on it, I feel like there's a fundamental issue with the "does it move the heroic tale forward" in and of that, not everything a character does has to be to that end. Some PCs just want to ply a trade. Some PCs just want to make stuff. Some PCs just want to be Good at what they do.
Also, one of my personal sticking points is the "no tradesperson could make money with this system", and hand waving it as "it doesn't matter because it's not relevant to the heroic story" feels dismissive at best, condescending at worst. The system is designed to inform the story, not the other way around. I also feel like the "well NPCs just have a better tradesman class" actively goes against your stated "Heroic Story" requirement. What if a PC wants to pursue becoming a Legendary Blacksmith? But every NPC on the street can out-craft them? How do you justify this paradox?
This is ultimately why I am not a fan of the complex crafting variant rule. Your ideas work well for the base system, and what I'd hoped for from a _Variant_ rule was to provide an option for a different style of gameplay. Instead, complex crafting is obviously geared for the same style of gameplay, just with more math. It is also why I'll continue to use my homebrew'd crafting system in place of the core or variant versions in order to facilitate my players enjoying the breadth of the game instead of discarding crafting out of hand as being (in my and their opinion) a poorly designed piece of the greater system.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Let me provide some clarification... I am in no way saying, "everything you do needs to move a heroic story forward". What I am saying is the Crafting System provided by Paizo is intended to aid heroic moments and move such a story forward. If you want to do something in a game, crafting related, that does not move such a story forward, then by all means do that thing! Just don't try to apply the official Crafting System to it, because those are not situations that the system was intended for.
I really don't see a disconnect (or paradox) between civilian tradespeople being better at crafting than an adventurer with Legendary proficiency in Crafting. Could an NPC tradesperson manage a business selling items better than the adventurer? Perhaps. Could they craft a high-level item of extreme value like an adventurer with Legendary Crafting? No. Moreover, this feels like an issue on paper, but not necessarily in practice.
And I absolutely agree with your assessment that the Complex Crafting rules are geared for the same style of gameplay and are not as wide-sweeping of a change as I had hoped. But I think they did a decent job without having to completely replace the system.
Hmm one thing I think that is throwing people off so to speak is coming from 1st edition. There is you took the feats to do the magical crafting you would get it at half price. Now the feat investment is no where near what it was. Where now you just up crafting and take magicial crafting in 2nd, in 1st you needed craft magic arms and armor, then rings, then staves, then potions, scrolls, wands, etc. You also had to invest as many days as well the level of the item in 1st when you only have to put 4 days in.
However I think that's where a disconnect is happening. Because Lets say I'm making a 10th level item. If I was to put in the 10 days to make it, there is no way I would get close to the 50% I would get from 1st edition. Plus from a game perspective it doesn't feel great.
exactly, in 1e this made sense. If you as a party took all the crafting feats, it meant you could sell magic gear you didn't like for 50%, and use crafting (investing some downtime) to turn it into gear you did like/want for the same 50%. If you didn't invest in said crafting feats, the items you bought would cost 100%, so you could only trade magic items you didn't like for 50% as much magic items you did like. This made thsoe feats extremely valuable. In 2e, the benefit of taking the crafting feats is miniscule in comparison, even with the treasure vault updates.
Sorry pal -- while I respect your view on this, I just don't think it's well-implemented. Your statement "The crafting system isn't intended for crafting things you can easily buy" is formed on the basis that you can "easily buy" something. Lets say you're playing a Kingmaker campaign and your party finds themselves in the middle of nowhere, and are running low on arrows for your Ranger. Arrows aren't "easily bought" in this case -- you'd have to trek for days, possibly longer to get back up North to Oleg's to buy some arrows, and then days to trek BACK to where you were before. Or you can spend days to craft them (in the current system). Whatever the case, it's days of downtime, which isn't great. The better option would be to create a scaled system, where crafting something simple like 20 arrows or a few potions takes a few hours (assuming you're in a place where the raw materials are available), while crafting something complex like a longsword or a shield takes several days as the Core Rulebook describes...
Simple solution. Common items take hours rather than days, uncommon items take days, rare items take weeks.
Formulas are a big part of the problem with Pathfinder 2e’s crafting. I can be a Legendary Magical Crafting Blacksmith Wizard with 22 base Intelligence, and the crafting of a +1 Dagger is beyond my comprehension unless someone else wrote the instructions down first, or I give up yet another valuable feat (and additional time, and additional money/resources) on inventor. And if I want to create something Uncommon, like a Bane rune? I am SOL unless I get someone else’s written instructions, which, RAW, no one would have been able to create in the first place, because even Inventor only allows Common formula. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Re: "4 Days to make a Dagger", I think it's an applicable concern, meaning that there are narrative reasons for wanting to use crafting to solve issues. Imagine if you want to befriend a group of guards or bandits, and want to give them a gift of multiple shortswords/daggers. This is potentially an excellent reason to craft - as perhaps the local blacksmiths don't have the number of items available. This would take multiple weeks using the crafting systems as written, making it a totally unrealistic solution to the problem.
There are tons of domestic skills and skill actions that would normally apply here, so I don't get the "heroic" comparison, although I do appreciate you trying to look at the rules here under a different lens.
I think the trick for making crafting work though is highlighted by this video though. Search and find the most exotic items that can be covered by a crafting check, that would be more uncommon to come across in your game setting.
Example:
As an inventor, you can research the blueprints for common items. A lot of vehicles are common (rowboat, wagon, etc). There is something to be said about spending a week researching and building a rowboat in a situation where you would be unable to purchase one.
@@LittleBlueJug Yes, there is... and what are your friends supposed to be doing while you are building all of this stuff?
I think a lot of people are not factoring in that Crafting in the manner that you are discussing takes you out of the story totally.
My DM aproach to this issue is just a 10 min downtime and the cost of the item is doubled cuz you are rushing and wasting more materials, its supposed to be used when you are not at a town
Cost to source and work material along with cultural position or legal taxation is enough to let tradespeople make a living.
Good point!
I think the first example used in the video is not literally meant to be that people really want daggers fast, it seemed odd to me as that seemed to be your takeaway. I think its just an example people use to demonstrate what they believe to be ridiculous about the system.
Crafting in some games is there to help PCs round out their gear, people want to feel like their character has a means of doing that by crafting the things they are missing if their DM allows it. DMs may want to provide their PCs with that capability, either through they themselves crafting the items or finding an NPC that they can take into their guild (or whatever) and have some sort of optional systems that help flesh out how you can make that sort of thing work.
Maybe a research system that lets them figure out how to craft certain types/levels of stuff and then means by which to produce those weapons in a shorter turn around with rules that perhaps balance that out. If you find some broken mithril sword, perhaps you could use it as a base item to craft something you can use. If you are adventuring in dungeons in a sort of campaign that is more constant and does not make sense to have massive amounts of down time (perhaps a mega dungeon) that you could still have some optional systems for that to work. In some instances you have a rune, and are in a dungeon that is constant, you can't RAW really apply it to the weapon without hunkering down for a day. Sure a DM can just say, don't worry about it, but I think some people want systems that are designed for that sort of thing.
Isn't this system rather specifically "Crafting if you're DM allows it"? If the DM wants you to have an Uncommon formula, it shows up as treasure...
@@jeronemitchell right, by if your DM wants to let you craft common items with relative ease but you are in like in a mega dungeon or something there is no logical rules around that. Do you have to just run to town and hangout there for days on end? If you are like on the 10th floor?
Also as for tradespeople making money
1) They likely aren’t buying materials whole sale, they may even own their own mine thus cutting costs of materials down.
2) Unlike players crafters don’t sell items for half ie they’re merchants, the only reason they buy items from players for half is so they can profit on resale.
3) If a player wants to earn money with crafting that’s what the earn income activity is for. The crafting system isn’t supposed to supersede that.
As for crafting a simple dagger that is going to take fewer days. Ie it’s item level is lower making its DC easier thus you can optionally raise it to significantly cut down time. Now if you’re trying to make like a +2 greater striking flaming dagger… yeah that might take 6 days for very obvious reasons.
To me, the whole "half" thing is just another level of abstraction of the economy.
@@edreppert3091 Well yeah it’s simpler than having the GM make up a % every level but narratively it’s the equivalent of going to a pawn shop, you’re offloading a bunch of stuff the merchant needs to make a profit off of on resale so they buy for lower than they’d sell for.
"The existence of a simple dagger is not going to have any impact at all in a game."
If my GM heard that I can guarantee our next encounter would involve being swallowed whole.
I'm wondering about the difference between magic weapon +1 and weapon potency+1 rune. Do you need the rune to make the weapon or can you just craft the weapon? If not do you need both formulas?
A "Magic Weapon +1" is a weapon that has a +1 Weapon Potency Rune etched on it. If you wanted to create the entire thing, you would need a formula for the weapon and craft it... and then have the formula for the +1 Weapon Potency Rune and craft it (and you would etch it onto the weapon as part of crafting it).
@@HowItsPlayed thank you for your help
The time the "creating daggers takes 4 days" isn't about daggers, it's about other tools.
Like if you want to make a item you don't have in the field.
That doesn't change the fact that it takes the same time to make a dagger as a great sword, which is absurd.
So if i invest into crafting skill, the only way i can benefit from it is if the game master makes sure to put crafting formulas into their campaign. Amazing.
so how many feats and skill increases did your example character with the shield invest to save 50gp, versus the 35gp for earn income? Seems like a huge investment for 15gp. I understand there is also the benefit of being able to craft things that might not be available in stores, etc, but most things are.
I would like to make a comparison to pf1e crafting. That system gave you a 50% discount on items crafted. This meant that if an adventure path didn't drop the kind of treasure you wanted, you could sell the stuff you got you didn't want for 50%, and use that to craft the stuff you did want. This made it worth taking the crafting feats. You did need to have sufficent downtime for it. I wish they would have kept a similar system for PF2e, as the gear dropped isn't always the gear you want/fits your character concept. I do like that PF2e addresses part of that by using the rune system so your weapon and armor peices are interchangable (if you use a longsword but find a +2 striking batlle axe, you cna move the runes over). This is great but it only covers weapons and armor, not other magical gear. Maybe instead of a magic staff with powers that noone in the party can use, you would rather have a magic weapon upgrade, or maybe a ring witha specific ability that fits your character concept, etc. That was the flexibility afforded by 1e crafting that 2e crafting doesn't really have, not without spending an insane amount of money (or an even crazier amount of crafting time to not have to pay half of it, in which case you could just earn income for nearly that much).
Coming form a 3.5/pf1e backgorund, 2e crafting just seems nerfed to the point where it isn't worth spending the feats
Silk from the Begariad and Mallorean sagas. Also, rewarding players who go all in with crafting by allotting plenty of down time, may and probably will adversely affect the rest of the party that wants to adventure. Id advise against "special snowflake" syndrome. Unless downtime is handwaved.
Crafting force the GM to let you ''earn an income'' this effect is kite powerful. Also all gold you have is pretty much ''doubled'' in purchasing power because again you are forcing the earn income task. You can also force a critical succes on low level item to earn more than ''earn income''.
Watching this video sparked a deep dive and now I think I have discovered something interesting and potentially broken. A formula book contains enough pages for 100 formulae and costs 1gp; that means that paper for 1 formula costs 1 cp. It takes 1 hours to copy a formula in a formula book regardless of rarity. In theory and seemingly by raw you can reproduce and sell formulae very rapidly for much higher levels of profit than any other for of crafting or downtime activity. Obviously the GM could just populate the world with people that are uninterested in buying formulae, but it would be inconsistent with their existence and your ability to by them for their value form craftsmen. I personally would greatly prefer if making items was the thing that was profitable and worthwhile, and not simply scribing and selling IP rights to NPCs. Especially considering that the price of a formula assumes that one could make more profit by making the item otherwise no one would ever buy a formula. It is frustrating what this addition has done to crafting, as having a logical consistent and coherent world is what pathfinder does better than DnD, but the crafting in pf2e is essentially the same as 5e but with more unnecessary steps.
Downtime outside cities .... where there are no shops, crafting is a way to get those things you need, but unavailable just when you need them ...
If you craft an item with a formula for the basic item it might be worth more, but still have the same stats as the basic item
If you craft an item without a formula then it looks like a sword, and is worth a lot more, but much more impressive looking, but is not a sword at all, just art ...
On the "You can't make money from crafting."
If someone asked Id allow them to roll Crafting when they work as naratively be makinh and selling mundane goods.
By your argument here about the only two reasons for doing crafting, in PF2E, crafting should not be a skill at all.
If people want to make money with the crafting skill just use Earn Income and role play 'cause it's easy, faster and more fun. There's no need to go all the trouble with the crafting rules. Save the crafting rules for something really important. That's what i think honest.
I agree 100%.
"the point thats trying to be made" they made the point, the point is valid, how you can say you arent defending the system, then start with this is showinga crazy lack of self awareness.
You didn't really address the concern that formulas are just as hard to find as the items they craft, as they are the same level.
If a crafter wants a specific formula that the GM didn't award as loot (formulas as loot is a whole other discussion, which I think you lightly touched on), and they don't have the inventor feat yet (or it's for an uncommon/rare item), then they need to search it out the formula in a settlement. But by the official settlement guidelines, formulas are just as hard to find in a settlement as the items they craft, and as was discussed, if you can buy the item, there's no significant reason to craft it.
People do tend to think that making something is a huge cost reduction. I'm sorry, but that's just not the case. I've done rudimentary things before, and yeah sure, sometimes you can save yourself the cost of the electrician if you open up the box yourself, but when you're crafting good products you're gonna have to pay. Making a table? Well, you could use scrap wood or you can actually buy good wood. What if you have some wood? Well, what tools are you using to sand, to cut, to glue, to nail, et cetera? Screws, treatment for the wood? Stains and sealants, what have yous? Even a 'simple dagger' is a LOT of work in a medieval setting.
On top of that, people also tend to think it's so easy to be a master craftman AND adventure all day, when no, your character may know how to work a forge, but unless you craft for a living, you're never going to have the same efficiency and the same finetuned craftsmanship. I don't think it's realistic at all that an adventurer should be able to craft random items in their spare time and sell them.
Considering the length of this video this has to be very concerning o.O
biggest Issue is People nowadays just go straight by Rules instead of working something out with the whole Table they playing with. The Rules are a Guideline and not a 100% must follow because every Player Seating is different and to be honest....maaaany Players nowadays want to do quick stuff instead of PLAYING a Roleplaying Game. They want it all with less effort and such Players can return to DnD 5e they get it all over there. Pathfinder is for the good Players not for the lazy ones
My only problem with it is that it takes too much time. Considering you basically have to spend the same amount of money, or more if you also need to buy the formula, the standard crafting should not take 4 days. Let me craft stuff during an adventuring day so if we are expecting to fight undeads tonight I can craft something to help me with that.
As it currently stands you can only really use it after you finish adventuring and finally have some time to spend. The only campaign that had some good downtime in it was the Strength of Thousands. In any other adventure path I've played in we only had couple of days of downtime which was two or three days at best but never four. So crafting was never an option there.
What I want is to able to craft in those situations where you don't have much time. So you craft something, which costs the same as buying the item but you don't need to sacrifice the village that's being attacked by undead while you do so.
What a banger of a video.
Thanks!
Crafting systems are always messy. As a player I love being a crafter, normally for me that is potions and luckily there are feats and archetypes that help that, at least when it comes to making potions for your own use. It sucks that you can't really make a good amount of gold crafting but the argument that town's people wouldn't be able to feed their families is a bit silly. Just using earned income you make a few gold a day and while that isn't a lot for an adventurer for a random towns person that is more than enough to live and feed a family. Ya making long swords isn't going to be profitable really but I'm willing to bet a towns blacksmith spends most of their work day repairing farming tools and shoeing horses not making weapons.
As a DM I give my players the ability to source their own raw materials to lower the price. While you are adventuring you can take time to gather raw materials which lower the price when crafting items that use those materials
13:20 isn't that pretty much the flavor text of the Bargain Hunter feat lmao
I have a crafter, my rogue. In her backstory, she comes from a carpenter and blacksmith family, and has built her own weapons. We started at 7, and I said that her sword and crossbow are weapons she has created after her adventures. That being said... It annoys me how this system works because I am a crafting type player. I like making my own gear, I like saying, my shortsword is a curved blade, and looks like a mini scimitar, etc. Just who I am, and I love having gear that is my touch.
Sooooo... what's stopping you from just paying the cost to buy it and coloring it as something that you have made? I mean, if the goal is a specific narrative scenario then there is no real need to involve money and the like in generating the narrative...
@@jeronemitchell I like crafting. I like saying, in my downtime, I am gonna make a new sword, or new bow. I also think the idea that it takes 4 days to make a dagger or 10 arrows is kinda crazy. Some things, yeah, I get it. My current rogue spent 5 6 feats? to be a good crafter. If crafting is supposed to be an NPC only or only narrative driven, there are many things I could spend those feats on. Not everyone likes the same thing in games, I get that. You probably think I am an idiot for wanting this. But many games have robust crafting/enchanting systems, it would be nice if Pathfinder 2, a system I really like, would have one as well, one that doesn't make it so, i might as well buy one and say its "this". I could go back and play AD&D if i wanted that
But there is a way RAW to craft high quality weapons, in high quality precious materials
True, but what I think that question is really getting at is if you give a novice crafter and a legendary crafter the exact same materials and ask them to each make a sword using only those materials, they would each create a sword of identical quality and value. Whereas you would probably expect the legendary crafter to forge a much more valuable weapon. In this system, since they are using the same formula, they would each get the same result.
Also, for goodness sake, PCs are Tony Stark, not Ginzu Corporation. Come on.
In the first part of the video I think you lay it it out perfectly. The game designers didn't want the crafting system to do what the players want it to do. It is intended to be simply another flavoured way of getting loot. They do not care about the players that want crafting to be mechanically useful to them.
Gotta say, this all sounds like cope to me. There’s no good reason not to have a decent crafting system in the game. And “you’re trying to play the game wrong” has never been a convincing argument. It sounds good in your head if you don’t care about it, but it never persuaded anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.
"No Business Could Profit from This": Is that even true? Maybe I'm missing something. With a high skill can't you relatively quickly get your margin down to 50%? Has anyone making this complaint ever owned a business or, hell, been a manager at a retail outlet? Most companies would stab their grandmother for a 50% margin.
Also, COMPARED TO WHAT? What are these people's expenses and how else could they be making money? Am I wrong or is "Adventurer" a relatively uncommon lifestyle. Most people aren't saving up 10,000gp for a suit of armor, correct? Copper pieces exist, right? Seems to me most "business" people would be happy with about 99% LESS money than the average PC.
Goofy complaint in my opinion.
Wow, the response to "no business could profit from this" is something must be happening that we dont know about. Thats not a good reason, its just a complex way of saying "this is just how it is, shut up and accept it"
Then peoplewant to craft thigns to make money and you basically say "the game isnt designed like that, so its fine you cannot do it" and suggest they do something other than they thing they want to do, that is just not letting them do what they want and is therefore not a satisfactory answer.
Why not making it like real life, where doing it yourself is much much much cheaper than paying an expert but takes time that could be spent earning money through your main job, in the case of a TTRPG, adventuring.
Overall, what you are employing is circular reasoning, its right because its written this way, its written this way because its right.
As someone who really likes playing crafters, I'd like to add my own answers:
"4 days to craft a dagger": First of, crafting stuff like that does take time, 4 days is not that much (also depends on how your rp it, can be 4 days gathering materials setting up the workshop etc etc). Ofc the example in the criticism is kind of absurd since most people won't bother crafting a level 0 item but fair.
"You can't make money/NPCs can't live from it": Since I mentionned realism before, would be unfair to now wave it off so i'll just add to the bit about NPCs because I think you covered it pretty well on the other part yourself. A NPC crafting items and such will spend the full time required to reduce the cost to that of the raw materials. That is why when you end the crafting after 4 days (or earlier than the 50% decrease) you pay up, you get help from professionals to finish the job, that's a labor cost. NPCs will most of the time craft stuff to sell or as something that was ordered (a new batch of spears for the town's guard, the city hall hiring them to repair the old bridge etc etc) those are situations that PC will likely not encounter and they don't have the limit of downtime that would push them to pay up to accelerate the crafting like adventurers do.
"You have to invest too much to be good at crafting": Well...yes. Just like if you want to be good at sneaking you'll invest in it. If you want your character to craft very powerful stuff, you'll invest to being good at it. At minimum you'd need Magical Crafting (or alchemical) but yes the absolute extreme would be Speciality crafting, Inventor, Quick Setup, Impeccable Crafting and Craft Anything (though I think on average, magical, Specialty, Impeccable and quick setup would be enough for most crafting characters, so 4 skill feats. It isn't *that* much for a specialist. A specialized Stealth character would get stuff like Quiet Allies, Swift Sneak, Foil Senses and Legendary Sneak for example)
"All are the same quality": On that one, with the example of the present to a king, I thought simply of using precious materials. Make it a silver sword, or a sky metal sword. Maybe add a rare rune on it or add the value of gems the characters might have found (like the beginner box jewelled shortsword that is woth 10gp because of the emerald on it)
Otherwise your idea for it is pretty nice, I would have simply made it a Hard crafting check based on character level and determined the value by comparing in treasure by level or the value of similar level items or treasure. Or could increase the DC by 1 for each 10 gold of value added (Expert) 100 (Master) 500 (Legendary) with a base DC for the character's level. There is a lot of way to go at it I think.
The 4 Days thing has always been weird to me, especially in regards to many different items. Everything takes 4 days to make, regardless of what it is. Making a Batch of Alchemist's Fire can take as long as making Full Plate. That would be a batch of 3 Level 3 Alchemist's Fire. Alchemist's Fire is a set of chemicals that explode when exposed to air, and at Trained Proficiency it would take over a Month to make 3 Chemical Cocktails or a suit of Armor. Add on another Week to the Alchemist's Fire if you do them at the max of 4 per batch.
The Crafting Rules are insane, it's easier and faster to buy the items. You spend the same amount of money and you get much more in a shorter period.
Good points!
@@Olimar92 At low level especially, yes.
Getting "at level" items will take a long time, and that's the point. Money is nothing but time made into something you can trade.
That's the case IRL and in game too, if you have *time* you can craft an "at level" item for half price (aka the price you would sell it for) if you do not, you pay more to have someone else's spend the time for you)
@@KalaamNozalys Even getting below level items takes a lot of time. The quickest you can craft an item for half price is 5 Days. That requires you to be at a level where Earn Income is half or more the Item's Price. I'm curious why making 10 arrows would even take 4 days. I would guess the shafts.
You don't pay more for someone else to spend the time. The items are already made, unless you make a special order, and NPCs already work on different rules. A PC will always take 4days to make an item, while an NPC could take a day or two. This is particularly true for things like arrows. Takes four days to make 10 for a PC. A Proper Fletcher could make over 40 in less time IRL. Even someone just learning how to make Arrows could make several in a day.
The thing is, the PC Crafting Rules would never allow a business to function. The Crafter, if they want to be quick, pays the full price of the item to make it in 4 days. For Half Price they need to spend more time. An armorer would not be able to supply a lot of stuff as it would take a year to arm 3 or 4 people. And everyday items? That's 4 days minimum for a plate or bowl.
NPC Crafters, who need a lot more money, can craft in hours what takes a PC days. It's not like the Crafting Rules expect you to be adventuring, since it's a Downtime Action.
@@Olimar92 I think you kind of missed my points.
Yeah a proper fletcher might do 40 arrows in a day, that'd be what a rushed setup would do here.
You misunderstood what the labor cost meant here, when you buy an item that's already made. You pay the time the NPC spent crafting it in essence.
The way RAW works, in a way, 50% of an item's value is the raw materials, the other is the labor and time to craft it.
If you do it yourself, and take time, you can reduce it to the cost of materials.
If you have all the materials, it also reduces the price (mainly for precious material items, if you have, say, an ingot of adamantine, that's that much less to pay upfront for your adamantine sword)
When you pay up to complete the item, you can describe it as the character hiring local artisans to finish it for them or help them finish it faster.
Also... Earn Income is based on the settlement, crafting on character level.
Unless your party is *always* in a settlement of their level or higher, crafting when you have long downtime will save you money. Especially at higher level where powerful items are meant to be more rare