HR Crafting

[OgreW]

As per the rules, crafting type rolls are every 30 minutes for extended tasks. Which most of them are. As per HR crafting it is ever 6 days. About 300 times slower (Well 288 to be precise). Which makes making stuff fairly pointless as black market acquisitions are so much quicker. Presuming you are not after something entirely legal in which case you just walk into a shop

By this standard, something like a dagger or a spear which can be done in a day or so, takes over a working week. How would any craftsman make any money?

Anyway just wondering why it was houseruled so extremely? and if it can be put to something a bit more realistic. So that those of us who like playing chars who make things can have a good go at it.

[Sulis]

Where is this house rule documented? I might be being dense, but I can't find it.

[Grimm]

+hr crafting

and +hr crafting-2

And I agree, it's patently absurd. Both from a thematic point of view (a skilled craftsman can serial-produce several blades in a day), and from a mechanical point of view - it is easier, and much faster to get stuff through the black market. Whereas one skilled craftsmen can only produce a certain kind of item (blade, piece of clothing, whatever), one person can get any kind of item at all from the black market, if he has a decent pool. Crafting us currently slow, and difficult, and so not worth it. I kind of wonder why it was set at 6 days per roll.

[Sedna]

Not sure why it was set at six days, but it's very frustrating, on staff side, to go OKAY! You got your nifty sword.......a month and a half from now. The only bonus to forging I see is for hand-forged iron, and cold iron, since most bought things are steel. But even then, SIX DAYS per roll on something that might take 7 rolls to get is just....wow.

[Loki]

I think 30 minutes per roll is a bit too fast, but I also agree that 6 days per roll is somewhat over the top.  I'd probably prefer to see something like 2 hours per roll, with a maximum of 4 rolls per day (8 hours of work).  Even 8 hours is probably more than a skilled blacksmith can really put into making weapons non-stop. 

That said, it really ought to also vary based on what you're doing. Metalworking should be 2 hours per roll, but sewing should be more like every 30 minutes, and so on.

[Fry]

The crafting times should probably be dependent on the price (resource dots) of the end product. While a few things here and there might be more unrealistic, that's the easiest way to prevent potential abuse of the system.

Maybe increase it by 5x for complex items or something.

[Grimm]

Well, if there's no basis for the house rule, I suggest one ought to change it?

You would still factor in complications like silver (which is very hard to make into weapons) and stuff. 2 hours per roll is not unreasonable. A skilled craftsman can serial produce items very fast, but most crafted items are not serial produced stuff, more custom. So taking like 4-10 hours to make something is quite reasonable.

[Sedna]

I agree that two hours is a more reasonable time for forging items then six days. I think, while it's not a serial production line, that if you have made ten swords (Arbitrary number here) that you might even gain a bonus for familiarity with the item you're making. I'd support the change from six days to a more reasonable amount of time, such as hours, with the stipulation of only being able to work eight to ten hours in a day purely for the fact its hot, and tiring, work.

[Dervish]

I might suggest that especially tiresome tasks require the same number of successes, but (for example) twice as long as the regular tasks. For example, cold iron or silver(?), which are considerably more work to forge than the regular materials, especially if you want to make a viable sword without using steel.

[Grimm]

Cold iron is not hard to forge.

I imagine it's easier to forge, in fact. Most of the weapons that people made before steel was discovered were made of "cold iron".

When people think of cold iron, they often think this means cold forged iron. Cold iron is, in fact, iron smelted with a certain method - bloomeries. It's not terribly difficult. In fact, smelting in a bloomery is a more primitive method than actually melting the iron. Cold iron is heated just like any other metal when it's being forged.

The definition of cold iron is iron that has not been melted. As iron is forged at around 600-800 celsius, and as iron has a melting point of around 1,4-1,5k celsius, this is not a problem.

[Dervish]

Most of the effectiveness of swords and daggers come from the properties of the various kinds of steels used in making the blade, and they vary quite a bit over the width of the blade. Cold iron weapons are nowhere near as good -- yet have identical properties, as far as combat stats. I'm trying to suggest a way to justify that difference -- either make them harder to make or not as good as weapons.

Assuming you *can* make a cold iron weapon as good as the steel equivalent, there has to be a difference in what it takes to make the thing. Either construction cost/time or making the weapon not quite as good.

Does that explain why I made that suggestion?

[Grimm]

If you want, make them less effective. Iron weapons don't hold an edge as well, and are not as durable as forged steel weapons. They are probably still more durable than steel weapons that have not been forged, but still.

My point is that iron is not hard to handle. The very reason why the "discovery" of iron was such a revolution is that it is not hard to forge at all. It is readily available, and easy to manipulate.

[Lilith]

I had issue with this as well -- at the beginning of the year, I had two PCs come to me, where one had commissioned the other to make two daggers for her (one basically a combat knife, the other a Bowie knife for all intents and purposes).  They had to wait nearly 2 months... for two daggers.

Yes, six days per roll for melee weapons is outrageous.  What I was originally told was the reason, though, was that it would be too easy to "flood the market" with weapons otherwise, particularly melee weapons.  I cringe to think how this affects Werewolf, with Lodge of Arms and Lodge of Metal, because then they're potentially talking months to forge their weapon as part of their ritual initiation into the Lodge.  I'd feel better with a roll per day, or maybe two rolls per day, for melee weapons than I do with six days per roll.

[Grimm]

I assume this is specifically silver/iron/other weapons? As when I buy normal melee weapons, I've never had to even use streetwise for them.

Buuuuuuuuuut. I dunno. I've always been a bit meh about that. If you really want a silver or iron weapon or something, you will get one. Artificial and unrealistic hoops aren't gonna help.

This way, the impetus is on the supers keeping their weaknesses secret, rather than something else. I personally salute the staff call made on iron. It was a way around the silly "speshul iron/silver" stuff you so often see in the books. Like "real iron" is iron pulled from the earth bare-hand, danced around by naked druids, and then quenched in the spit of righteous virgins or something. I mean. Iron is iron, right?

[OgreW]

As some of us are involved in big crafting projects, any movement on this?