Crafting

Crafting is the art of making, modifying and repairing items: weapons, armor, clothing, tools, ammunition and other gear.

• Masterwork items are of exceptional quality: more durable than normal, often with an extra benefit by type, and the required base for any permanent magic item.
• Magic items are made by binding magical essence (a part of a creature's spirit) harvested from magical creatures and supernatural beings into a suitable Masterwork item, giving it supernatural properties.
• Alchemical Crafting makes potent mixtures, compounds, reagents, bombs, elixirs, salves and similar items. Alchemical concoctions aren't magical: their effects come from volatile substances and reactions that draw on the recipient's own vitality.

Tool Proficiency

Crafting needs the right tools. When you gain your 1st rank in Crafting, choose one tool set from the table below and become proficient with it; at Crafting ranks 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11, choose one more. When you craft an item whose tool set you aren't proficient with, you add only your Intellect to the check, not your Crafting ranks, and you can't make Masterwork or magic items with that tool set at all.

* Crafting alchemical items also needs the Alchemical Crafting talent.

Requirements

To craft an item:

• its level must be your level or lower;
• you need Crafting ranks equal to at least half its level, rounded up;
• you must be proficient with its tool set;
• you need access to the required materials;
• some items also need a workshop, a formula or a specific talent: Alchemical Crafting for alchemical concoctions, Magical Crafting for magic items, Snare Crafting for snares.

Formulas

Common items don't need a formula, though having one makes the work easier (see Workspace and Formulas). Items of Uncommon rarity or higher need either a formula or an example item to copy (GM's discretion), unless a rule says otherwise.

Craft (Downtime, Manipulate, Skill, Trained)

You try to make an item, a rune or a batch of items from raw materials, meeting the requirements above. The project's complexity sets how long it takes and how hard it is; a Crafting Challenge partway through decides how it turns out.

Crafting Complexity

Every project has two ratings: a Craft DC Rating (the DC of its crafting challenge) and a Craft Time Rating (its setup time). They're often similar but needn't match: a project can be hard without taking long, or take long without being hard. When setting them, weigh the item's level, size, intricacy, number of parts, moving parts, fitting, material, instability and overall scale. As a rule, item level sets the minimum expected DC Rating for magical, alchemical or otherwise unusual items, though the GM may raise it for an unusually demanding project. Size usually affects time more than difficulty, unless the scale really does make the work harder.

• Simple: crude, small or straightforward, with few parts and little precision.
• Involved: shaping, assembly, fitting or moderate precision, but still standard work.
• Complex: careful construction, several difficult steps, tight tolerances, or several interacting parts.
• Articulate: rare materials, unstable processes, unusual precision or very demanding construction.
• Immaculate: exceptional skill, advanced methods, rare materials or extremely refined work.

Usual complexity by item level: levels 0–4 are usually Simple, Involved or Complex; 5–10 Involved, Complex or Articulate; 11–16 Complex, Articulate or Immaculate; 17+ Articulate or Immaculate.

Craft Time is the total setup and working time needed to attempt the project, not the time for each check in the challenge. Use the low end of the range for smaller, simpler or well-supported projects, and the high end for larger, fitted or multi-part items, difficult materials or especially fine work. Size and labour mostly drive time; precision, instability, rare materials and technical difficulty mostly drive the DC. A large but straightforward project may have a low DC Rating and a high Time Rating; a small but extremely delicate one, the reverse.

Workspace and Formulas

A proper workshop lets you work normally. An improvised or poor workspace gives Misfortune on your first check of the crafting challenge; a workshop especially well suited to the item gives Fortune on it instead. Having a formula for a common item, or a suitable example item to study, also gives Fortune on that first check.

The Crafting Challenge

When half the required time has passed, roll a Skill Challenge using Crafting: 3 successes before 3 failures, against the DC set by the project's complexity. As usual for a Skill Challenge, a natural 20 or beating the DC by 15 or more is a success that also removes 1 failure (or counts as 2 successes if there's no failure to remove); a natural 1 or missing by 15 or more is a failure that also removes 1 success (or counts as 2 failures if there's none to remove).

If the result would add to the project's time, you must spend that extra time to finish, or cut your losses and abandon it: you lose half the raw materials, and for a magic item the essence may be wasted (GM's discretion).

Batches

Consumables, ammunition and other small repeatable items can be made in batches of up to 4 by default: one setup time and one crafting challenge, but materials for the whole batch.

Masterwork

When you start a project for an eligible item, you can declare a Masterwork attempt: the Craft DC rises by 5 and the raw material cost by 50%, and success gives you the Masterwork version. Without that declaration you make the normal version, unless you score a critical success on the challenge (and still have and use the extra raw materials).

Every Masterwork item has double Durability and double Broken Threshold. Some also gain a benefit by type:

• Weapons: +1 to attack rolls and +1 to damage rolls made with it.
• Armor: +1 Soak, +1 MD, −1 CP and +1 Hardness.
• Shields: +1 to its shield bonus and +1 Hardness.
• Tools: using a Masterwork tool, kit, instrument or similar for its intended purpose gives 1 level of Advantage on the related check.
• Vessels (clothing, jewelry, books, rods, staves, wands, charms, masks, boots, cloaks, belts and the like) usually gain nothing beyond the normal Masterwork benefits unless a rule says otherwise.