Functional Craft Item Rule (3.5e Variant Rule)

Author: Eiji-kun (talk) Date Created: 6-22-11 Status: Complete Editing: Clarity edits only please

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While not as problematic as crafting traps and more rarely used by PCs, crafting items with the craft skill has its share of problems. It's slow, it's terribly slow. It makes you wonder how the armies of nations arm themselves with full plate and shields when crafting such things takes weeks, months, years! And while "realistic" for a gritty world where all commoners work on dirt farms and they're lucky to see a piece of meat once a year, it's not very fun, and I dare argue it's not very D&D-like, not when you have wizards and fairies and golems, and especially not in more advanced settings like Eberron or anything where full plate and magic items aren't a once in a blue moon occurring. So, here's how you speed it up.

Functional Craft Item

This one is easy, you keep the normal rules, but you always measure it by daily progress, and you measure in gold. That is:

Your progress (check result × DC) is in gold pieces per day.

Everything else can be kept.

Effect on the Game

Unlike the rule which makes crafting traps easier, crafting other items is both more varied and more likely to have a market and a need for them. Everyone needs a shovel. Lots of people need swords. Plenty of people need clothes. Ultimately, this makes your average NPC richer. How much richer? ×70 more, which given that the average commoner makes an average 71 copper a day, means they now make 50 gold a day. It may seem like a huge number, but given just the basic need for living, buying food for themselves and their family, getting a home, paying taxes, and all those other boring things that PCs don't do because they're PCs, it's not bad. More importantly, the numbers are still low enough that even the best PC crafters will find that spending all day working on items generates a lot less money than simply adventuring, making crafting for profit a feeble venture at best.

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