By: Jared B
I said last in an earlier post that I was going to go into more depth about how I do equipment crafting, so here we are. In this article, I plan to go over the basics of how I allow my PCs to craft items for themselves and as a way to make income to pay for other things they may want in the game settings.
So the mechanics that I based my crafting system on for my D&D 5e games are detailed at https://growupandgame.com/dungeons-and-dragons/questionable-arcana/dnd-5e-alternative-crafting-system-item-crafting-rules/ (Not my creation at all, just what I use as a basis for crafting in my games)
For this article, I will keep it simple. The Crafter has to invest 50% value of the item in materials. This can be purchased or gathered if simple enough. Once they have the materials, they roll the applicable skill checks to start the process. For common or simple projects, it will only take a few crafting sessions, possibly only one. These crafting sessions are considered to consume 8 in-game hours. So, there is not really much else the character can do on that day other than take a long rest.
I did allow a player one time to “pull doubles” and work 2 sessions, 16 hours, in a go, but it required a Constitution check. If he failed, he had disadvantage on the crafting checks till he took a long rest.
There is “value” added to the project with every crafting session. The amount of value added is the proficiency die roll multiplied by 5, plus 5, plus any location bonus that might apply, assuming a successful skill check. Failed checks see no progression.
Let us do a simple example so you can see how this works.
We will have our Hafling Rogue, Barnabas, craft himself a pair of daggers.
He has proficiency with blacksmith’s tools and access to the local adventurer’s guild’s smithing forge. He buys his materials for 1gp for each weapon.
He then begins his first day of crafting. He rolls his skill, getting a 12 out of the needed DC 10 to succeed. He is proficient, so he rolls his 1d4 proficiency die, getting a 3. So his Gold contribution to the dagger is 5+15+10(location bonus). This is more than enough to craft the 2gp dagger that he wants. The next in-game day, he crafts the second dagger in the same way.
Now, growupandgame does not seem to require a skill roll. I thought they did when I first looked at this crafting system many years ago. Either way, I personally feel there should be a skill check to give a little chance of failure to the scenario, because things just happen sometimes.
Examples of how I let PCs craft and how they used it to pay guild dues and make use of the time they had between jobs.
So, in a game setting, I used a lot of games in a large city with an adventurer’s guild. In the Adventurer’s Guild, the PCs could have a place to stay, access to a guild-only tavern, the job board, etc. Now this came at the cost of 30gp a month. I was trying to give them an incentive to take the jobs off the job board. You know “keep them hungry/wanting more”. But that is a different article. Well, one of the perks was the training grounds and the crafting shops. One of the players had a brilliant idea of setting up a brewer’s shop and using the brewer’s tools to brew basic beer. The Guild agreed to buy it off of him as credit towards his monthly dues, as they would serve it in the Guild Tavern.
His mode of operendi was to start a brew; it took 7 days after his crafting session to be fully brewed, and then they would take a job and be out of town for a few days. He would come back, finish the brew, and sell it to the Guild. Now his barrels of beer/ale were only worth 5gp each, but if they had time before the next job, he would set up around 3 barrels to start brewing. They would go off on a quest, then return. He would roll the barrels over to the tavern and collect his 15gp credit towards his dues. He did this quite consistently, so he hardly ever paid dues with cash.
Another player in that same game had the idea to take some of the treasure loot they had and craft the gems into a metal statue. He bought the base materials and spent a few days crafting. In the end, he turned 3 or so 10gp gems into a statue that was worth about 80-100gp. They got a merchant who would sell it for them. They got paid and carried on their way.
The point is, if you have PCs that have proficiency in tool sets that can be used for crafting, and they like having and using downtime, you can offer them crafting activities. They can craft things for themselves, for their PC and NPC friends, just to sell, or even to enhance the value of loot to increase their payout from a job.
The sky is the limit of what PCs can do with crafting to make the game more immersive or to give them something to do with those tool proficiencies. Thank you for joining me on this little jaunt through a small section of what can add depth to the fun that can be had at the table top!
Game on!
About the Author
Jared “Martel” B has been GMing and playing in several TTRPG’s since late 2013. Enjoys the challenge of bringing his players worlds and stories straight from his mind in the moment that it happens. He is one of the Founders of RPGCounterpoint, happy husband to an active historian wife, and father to two puppers and a toddler!
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