Alternative Rules
Every Dungeon Master is different, and different things annoy different people. I find it strange that it takes so much time to craft items for example, especially if they are small items, such as alchemical potions, which have costly ingredients, but surely would not take so much time to create as that.
Crafting Items
Using the current rules, the time it takes to craft and item seems to be alot longer than it otherwise should be.
For example, when creating a flask of acid (10 gp = 100 sp) with Craft (alchemy), taking an average roll of 15, a weeks progress (15 x 15 sp = 225) will see the flask created in 2.5 days, assuming one week is a working week of 40 hours (5 x 8 hours).
That's 20 hours of work for one flask of acid?! This doesn't seem realistic enough. With the proper equipment, an alchemist should be able to create a batch of acid. In reality, this work could be done in a couple of hours at most.
Simillarily, constructing a light Crossbow (35 gp = 350 sp), again, is a little unrealistic. Taking an average roll of 15, a weeks progress (15 x 15 sp = 225) will see only two thirds of the crossbow complete. Please, a crossbow's components could be assembled in a day, two at maximum.
Additionally, a masterwork light crossbow would take almost 15 weeks to create based on an average roll of 15!!!
Work by the day is also flawed, as it actually takes twice as long as it would if measured by the week. By the day is one 5th of a week. Yet it is calculated in copper pieces, so our one flask of acid (10 gp = 1000 cp) with a day's progress on an average roll of 15 produces 225 copper pieces. But now it takes almost five days to complete one single flask of acid, whereas, by the week we could have created two!
The Solution:
Instead of creating an item based just on its cost, we'll offset that by its physical size - it should not take 2.5 days to make a flask of acid. For medium creatures, use the following table:
|
Size
|
Multiplyer
|
|
Diminutive
|
x 5
|
|
Tiny/Light Melee
|
x 4
|
|
Small/One-Handed Melee/Ranged
|
x 3
|
|
Medium/Two-Handed Melee
|
x 2
|
|
Large
|
x 1
|
|
Huge
|
x 1/2
|
|
Gargantuan
|
x 1/3
|
|
Colossal
|
x 1/4
|
Depending on the type of the weapon, for each week's progress, multiply your progress figure by the amount shown. Calculate day progress in the same way, divided by 5.
So for our flask of acid, which is diminutive, we have our ((15 x 15 sp)) x 5 = 1125 sp/week or 225 sp a day) result: one flask can be made in 1/2 a day (225 sp = 2.25 x target of 100 sp, so it is created in half the time).
NOTE: The scale is relative to medium creatures, so for example, a giant wanting to make a two-handed sword in his size creates it as if it were for a medium creature in the same amount of time, due to scale.
Masterwork Item Crafting:
Pay the same base material costs as per the Player's Handbook, but instead of calculating the progress in the same way, base it as if the masterwork component takes twice the same time again as the unaltered item.
For example, lets say we wish to make a masterwork light crossbow. We pay 35/3 gp for the crossbow and 300/3 for the masterwork component, for a total base cost of 1116 sp (112 gp).
However, when we craft the actual crossbow, we make two progresses, one after the other. The first is for the light crossbow, which is counted as small on the table, ((15 x 15 sp) x 3 = 675 sp/week) which can be completed in under a day (around 6 1/2 days in fact).
The second, masterwork component, instead of taking one and a half weeks, will instead take 19 1/2 hours, or roughly 2 1/2 days of work. This way, the crafter has spent twice as long as the regular component on the masterwork component (which guarantees quality craftsmanship, including ingraving, etc).
|
