You are trained in a craft, trade, or art, such as alchemy, armorsmithing, basketweaving, bookbinding, bowmaking, blacksmithing, calligraphy, carpentry, cobbling, gemcutting, leatherworking, locksmithing, painting, pottery, sculpting, shipmaking, stonemasonry, trapmaking, weaponsmithing, or weaving.
Like
Knowledge,
Perform, and
Profession, Craft is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Craft skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.
A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something. If nothing is created by the endeavor, it probably falls under the heading of a
Profession skill.
Check
You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the craft's daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.)
The basic function of the Craft skill, however, is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check results, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item's finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.
In some cases, the fabricate spell can be used to achieve the results of a Craft check with no actual check involved. However, you must make an appropriate Craft check when using the spell to make articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
A successful Craft check related to woodworking in conjunction with the casting of the ironwood spell enables you to make wooden items that have the strength of steel.
When casting the spell minor creation, you must succeed on an appropriate Craft check to make a complex item.
All crafts require artisan's tools to give the best chance of success. If improvised tools are used, the check is made with a -2 circumstance penalty. On the other hand, masterwork artisan's tools provide a +2
Circumstance Bonus on the check.
To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.
- Find the item's price in silver pieces (1gp = 10sp).
- Find the DC from the table below.
- Pay one-third of the item's price for the cost of raw materials.
- Make an appropriate Craft check representing one day's work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item, then you've completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn't equal the price, then it represents the progress you've made this day. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next day. Each day, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.
If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this day.
If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin 1/10th the raw materials and have to pay 1/10th the original raw material cost again.
Progress by the Hour: You can make checks by the hour instead of by the day. In this case your progress is 1/10th the result calculated above, and a failure by 5 or more ruins one hundredth of the raw materials.
Progress by the Week:
You can make checks by the week instead of by the day. In this case your progress is 5 times the result calculated above, and a failure by 5 or more ruins half of the raw materials.
Creating Masterwork Items: You can make a masterwork item - a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on its use through its exceptional craftsmanship, not through being magical. To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield) and a Craft DC of 20. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished. Note: The cost you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials.
Crafting Items With Special Materials: When crafting an item using a special or exotic material, you apply a crafting check modifier and price adjustment based on the material used (found in the
Objects and Materials article). When crafting an item using an alternative material, half of the listed price modifier is added to the cost of raw materials for crafting this item. This increase does not apply to the price calculated in step 1 above, though it does affect the cost of lost raw materials when failing a check by 5 or more. Additionally, crafting with an alternative material applies a modifier to the craft checks made each day (or hour or week), again given in the
Objects and Materials article. Finally, some exotic materials may have special requirements for tools or facilities to properly work them.
Repairing Items: Generally, you can repair an item by making checks against the same DC that it took to make the item in the first place. The cost of repairing an item is one-fifth of the item's price.
When you use the Craft skill to make a particular sort of item, the DC for checks involving the creation of that item are typically as given on the following table.
Creating an Artistic Composition: In addition to concrete goods, Craft covers artistic endeavors such as writing and musical composition. As with the standard use of the Craft skill, the DC, your check results, and the value of the composition determine how long it takes to compose a musical or written work.
The only raw materials required for a written composition are pen, ink, and parchment. In the course of one day's work, you spend about 2 gp on materials. Use this cost rather than the cost of the normal materials (a total of one-third of the item's price). If you are making checks by the day, you spend about 4 sp per hour.
Craft (boatbuilding): Many craft skills are required to fabricate various parts of a ship - carpentry for the hull and masts, blacksmithing for the iron fittings and nails, sailmaking for the sails, even ropemaking for the thousands of feet of hawsers, stays, and line necessary to rig the ship correctly. However, small craft such as canoes, rafts, and skiffs are all covered under Craft (boatbuilding).
A boatbuilder can handle any vessel of Huge size or smaller, although a single boatbuilder working on a ketch or launch of Huge size might take six months or more to finish the work. Building a larger ship requires the skills of a shipwright (see Knowledge). The chief difference between a shipwright and a boatbuilder is that the boatbuilder rarely works off of any sort of plans, instead using various rules-of-thumb and his own skilled eye to build a serviceable vessel.
Repair Warforged: A character with ranks in certain Craft skills can attempt to repair a warforged character who has taken damage. A check requires 1 hour and restores a number of hit points equal to the Craft check result -15. A character can take 10 on this check but can't take 20. Other constructs can't be repaired in this way (but a character with the Craft Construct feat can repair such a construct). Applicable Craft skills include armorsmithing, blacksmithing, gemcutting, and sculpting. A warforged with an applicable Craft skill can repair itself. Repairing warforged requires some crafting expertise. This particular use of the Craft skill cannot be performed untrained.
Action
Does not apply. Craft checks are made by the day or week (see above).
Try Again
Yes, but each time you miss by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again. Each time you fail a check by 5 or more when creating an artistic composition, you must start over from the beginning of the creation process.
Special
A
Dwarf has a +2
Racial bonus on Craft checks that are related to stone or metal, because dwarves are especially capable with stonework and metalwork.
A
Gnome has a +2
Racial bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks because gnomes have sensitive noses.
You can voluntarily increase the DC of crafting an item by any multiple of 10. This tactic allows you to create the item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each daily or hourly check.
You can take a 10 on a craft check, but the progress made with each check is halved when crafting by the day or by the hour (progress is not halved if crafting by the week).
You can take a 20 on a craft check, but the progress made with each check is quartered, and you must spend half the item's price in raw materials rather than one third. You do not gain the +10 bonus of a critical when taking a 20.
To make an item using Craft (alchemy), you must have alchemical equipment and be a spellcaster. If you are working in a city, you can buy what you need as part of the raw materials cost to make the item, but alchemical equipment is difficult or impossible to come by in some places. Purchasing and maintaining an alchemist's lab grants a +2
Circumstance Bonus on Craft (alchemy) checks because you have the perfect tools for the job, but it does not affect the cost of any items made using the skill.
Crafting
Poison requires the use of Craft (alchemy). Any character with the poison use class feature can use Craft (alchemy) to make poisons regardless of whether or not they are a spellcaster.
You can use Craft (blacksmithing) or Craft (weaponsmithing) instead of Craft (siege engineering) to construct or repair siege weapons by taking a -5 penalty.
Skill Unlock
A character who selects this skill for the Signature Skill feat or a
Rogue who selects it for their Rogue's Edge class ability gains the following abilities when they reach the designated number of ranks in this skill:
- 5 Ranks: When determining your progress, double the result of your Craft check before multiplying the result by the item’s DC.
- 10 Ranks: You do not ruin any of your raw materials unless you fail a check by 10 or more.
- 15 Ranks: When you determine your progress, the result of your check is how much work you complete in gold pieces rather than silver.
- 20 Ranks: You can craft magic armor, magic weapons, magic rings, and wondrous items that fall under your category of Craft using the normal Craft rules.
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