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Quality is a special item, so it should take longer and cost more. Add in a special effect and it should be even longer than that and cost even more. Mundane stuff shouldn't take much time so 1 hour is right for those because they don't really give you any type of mechanical advantage. At one hour you could make approx 24 mundane things an event with 2 nights of decent sleep.

I haven't given up yet!

I agree crafting in your sleep is cheesy. Now saying that I'm suggesting the following changes to get craftsman in line with all the other crafting/creation skills
1. Treat the skill as if it is a charge skill. If you get distrupted, you lose what you are working on and the resources used.
2. Can not stop and restart. Must take the time to create item straight through.
3. Can not craft while you are sleeping
4. Cut all the event crafting times by 4. Quality armor takes 1 hr to make, a sword, 15 minutes, etc...

Time is not the limiting factor for a craftsman, it is actualy resources used to create the item and resources required to upkeep the item. It really does not matter if a craftsman creates 100 swords in an event, becasue if they do not have the resources to upkeep them, they can't be used at the next event. This is escipaly true for commidity items. The balance factor for crafted items is upkeep. Keeping the crafting time long creates double negatives for a craftsman compared to other crafting/creation disaplines.

This suggestion should help the craftsman and open more time for the craftsman to do other things during the game if they want.

General Maximus wrote:I haven't given up yet!

4. Cut all the event crafting times by 4. Quality armor takes 1 hr to make, a sword, 15 minutes, etc...

Time is not the limiting factor for a craftsman, it is actualy resources used to create the item and resources required to upkeep the item. It really does not matter if a craftsman creates 100 swords in an event, becasue if they do not have the resources to upkeep them, they can't be used at the next event. This is escipaly true for commidity items. The balance factor for crafted items is upkeep. Keeping the crafting time long creates double negatives for a craftsman compared to other crafting/creation disaplines.

This suggestion should help the craftsman and open more time for the craftsman to do other things during the game if they want.

I remain strongly opposed. Time should also contribute to being a limiting factor.

I'd say that crafting should be something you can walk away from and return to later. Your work and materials don't just vanish or become useless because you go to the bathroom or take a nap.

I'd also say the total crafting time should still be significant - even more so for items of quality.

If we wanted to put an "epic" mechanic involved, we could reduce total crafting time by the number of craftsmen involved and/or by the amount of resources expended. Two craftsmen (of the necessary level)= 1/2 time, Three = 1/3 time, four = 1/4 time and so on. Do something similar with resources where 2x the needed resources = 1/2 time, etc.

I have been under the belief that crafting times are much too long. I've never cared enough to champion the cause (and still don't, mainly because the craftsman never seemed to care) but since it was brought up, I thought I would give my two cents. The reasoning is simply this: If you give an arcane four hours, they could do immense amount of damage, quite possibly wiping out a town. If you give a craftsman four hours, they can complete a full suit of normal armor with helmet. It doesn't seem like you can balance that disparity by allowing the crafstman to work on it off an on at their leisure because at the end of the day, that armor wasn't done by the time they were killed by the uber spell half a mile away...

What are people afriad of if the craftmans can create more item's? The item's still need to be kept up? There is just a lot of push back and I'm wondering why people don't want to make craftsman better? I'm I missing something? People usually like when skill's get improved. Please explain becasue I'm not getting it.

I dont think the issue is making things quicker, as much as it is the fact that you cant start something and then take it back up later....Ive never seen a true craftsmen finish a suit of armor in one sitting... and i think most people are mimicing that train of thought. Now as for actually having any true standing on this, I do not, because my ADD would make it extremely tough to be a Craftsman/Arcane/anything that takes lots of time just sitting around...

But who knows

General Maximus wrote:I'm wondering why people don't want to make craftsman better? I'm I missing something? People usually like when skill's get improved. Please explain becasue I'm not getting it.

I don't believe "Better" isn't always mechanical. I think sometimes it's a matter of balance with the roleplay. Much like the "boffer combat", the act of crafting is already just a token of the actual skill/time/effort required to physically craft something. (the full time to fully repair an item has already been reduced from 8 minutes to 5 in the last year.)

Now... I do like the idea of being able to combine craftsmen to reduce the times required to produce something. Divided into equal parts per craftsman involded sounds like a simple mechanic and I don't think it would be unbalanced (but maybe there's an example where it would be?), though I'd like to see it reduced by something like 1/3 (since you've got folks with their hands on the same item) or some other "slight hinderance", but it would still allow for something of great importance to be created with great haste. example: 1/3 is hard to math. If it was 1/4 then 1 person takes 1 hour. 2 people takes 45 minutes. 3 people takes 30 minutes, 4 people 15.. so maybe the "halfed by each person" works better all around?

Hey, if people what the craftsman skill to be under powered compared to all other disaplines in the game, that's fine by me.

Here is a GM question, will crafting while sleeping still be allowed for the craftsman. So far I have a yes and a no from the GM's. What will the final ruling be?

Ok from someone who played one...

Please don't under-power craftsman.

I think either speed up some of the production times if you use more then 1 craftsman on a project or allow people to be able to put the crafted item down and come back to it.

I don't see the craftsman as underpowered, once they create something it never goes away unless it's shattered. Sure you have to upkeep it and recharge it but it's forever there. Those uber potions some people think are over powered take 24 + hours and are consumed.
Most of those potions will also use as much mystic as upkeeping a decent magic item for atleast a year of games. You want ultimate sneaky kill alot of people power, be an arcane. You want 1 shot an event mega combat prowess be an alchemist. You want multiple things that will always be there as long as you wear it and upkeep it, be a craftsman. They are all different, and after seeing the cache of stuff Donovan had, and knowing only a couple of things that Corbyn had, it will be a hard thing to convince me that craftsman is underpowered. In this game, magic items can make much more of a difference than skills.

That said I would be all for making it where multiple craftsmen can cut time down.

Let's extrapolate the sleeping and crafting. If you can craft (use a skill) while sleeping, then logic would dictate that I could swing for damage while sleeping.

Heck why stop there I might as well cast spells, heal, do research, interrogate and handle allegiances.

I mean it only makes sense.

I think craftsman should be able to stop and come back to it, in my opinion. The in your sleep crafting does seem cheesy from a purely common sense perspective.

As for the working together thing, the advanced skill Helping Hand was written specifically with the craftsman in mind so I guess I'm not opposed to the idea.

but it's a fantasy game! *snicker*

The catch of items that Corbyn and Donovan had where not crafted items. They where magic item's that the craftsman cannot create. The only neat thing's a craftsman can create are commidity items and they are limited on the items cost and having to have some one making said commidity.

I personaly do not see a problem with a craftsman making 20 quality suits of armor during an event. First they have to come up with the materials to make them, secound, good luck on upkeeping all those suits of armor. And to a warrior, 3 more soak is nice, but not broken. the 3 soak is great for none warriors. The same can be said for commididty items, make as many of them as a craftsman want, but good luck on upkeeping them. Now if people are not upkeeping the commidity items, than there is an issue and I can see then why people want such a long crafting time.
Managing a group of 16 people for many years, we could only aford 1 to 2 commidity items and about 9 suits of quality armor. After that, there was not enough resources coming in to cover the additional upkeeps. The true limination for crafting is resources, time is just for roleplaying reasons and some minor balance issue.
My point of view is coming from my many years of managing 16 people resources and upkeeps, 8 trade routes, 2 commidite routes, and a militaty, and using 2 craftsman to create what the commidity items the group needed. Once all said and done, time meant nothing, it all boiled down to resources. So I do not see a point on have craftsman sitting for hours in game to craft a single item. It just does not seem right, fair, and adds nothing to the game.
The only reason I suggested the craftsman could not start and stop is if the times are lowered by a factor of 4 and than craftsman would work like all the other skills in game and there would not have to be an exception. It would standardize the rules some more and remove some unnneeded complication to the rules.
That's all. I want to stream line and make stuff simplier, not more complex.