Difference between revisions of "Craft"

Revision as of 22:33, 16 June 2019

Typically used with: Intellect.

In short: make a thing. When you get that creative itch, the Craft skill lets you scratch it. Craft is used when a character wants to make something from raw materials or repair an existing creation. Your creative itch might come in the form of ammunition, knots, medicines, weapons, meals, suits of armor, or works of art. You might even require a a set of tools or a specialized workshop to produce your creation. The ability to find the tools of the trade and a place suitable for making the item is sometimes as difficult as acquiring the knowledge to construct the thing in the first place.

Your GM has the final say on whether you can attempt to create any given thing, but any creation reasonably within the purview your character's Occupations should be fair game.

Creating Objects

Anybody can try their hand at crafting, but it's only the extremely lucky or the very experienced who can make something truly remarkable. The bonus from ranks in an Occupation relevant to the item being made are what separate the amateurs from the masters. When Crafting, the higher the DL, the more valuable, noteworthy, or complicated the item is. For every 5 points away from the DL to create the item (either up or down), the quality of the item is affected. Unlike most skill checks, a failed Craft check still results in an item being created — it just sucks. This table demonstrates how the difference between the roll and the DL affect the quality.

Each time you roll a Craft check to create a work, any materials involved in the construction are consumed. As a result, you cannot Take the Best on this check unless you have a stockpile of materials and oodles of time. Afterwards, you'll have lots of attempts of varying quality lying around. Critical Failures are usually pretty comical when creating items (you've dumped the entire pepper shaker into the stew, you've sewn the sleeve on inside-out, or your wooden spoon has a hole in it). Depending on the creation's size and complexity, it could take minutes, hours, days, months, or even years to produce a single item. Your creations could be sold, gifted, kept in your home, or copied and disseminated throughout the world.

Below are some ideas for things to create during your adventures.

Art

You can produce decorative works of art, such as paintings, sculptures, or pottery. A Craft check could also be used for penmanship, such as composing a symphony or writing a play. Note that a Craft check is not used for any kind of performance art, such as dancing or playing an instrument. That's where the Perform skill comes in.

Buildings

You can create structures from an outhouse to a palace, or even the blueprints to do so.

Cloth, Clothing, and Jewelry

You can weave fabric and tapestries, forge jewelry, sew garments, and assemble shoes and hats. After all, it's not who you know, it's how you dress.

Food and Drink

You can assemble any food or beverage, such as preparing meals, baking bread, distilling spirits, brewing ale, or pressing wine.

Gear

You can make anything listed in the Gear section of Chapter 11: Equipment and any other object of a utilitarian nature.

Medicines and Antidotes

Using the ingredients in the natural world, you can craft medicines such as salves, pills, and teas, which combat or cure disease. You can also create an antidote, antitoxin, or antivenom using a chemical countering agent. See both the "Diseases" and "Poisons" entries in the Damage and Death section of Chapter 4: Life and Death.

Hazards

To keep your enemies at bay, you can create obstacles and traps. This works just as well on the battlefield as it does deep in the dungeons.

Trade Goods

You can collect crops and refine them into useful goods, like molasses, sugar, resin, rubber, coffee, leather, or honey.

Vehicles

The voyage is half the fun. You can build wagons, carriages, ships, and anything else that gets you from point A to point B.

Weapons and Armor

Pretty much anything can be used as a weapon or a shield if you're willing to improvise, but when an tool of war is forged with talent, that's something special indeed. When forging weapons and armor, the ornate and well-made modifications both require a Craft check at least 5 points above the DL. The cheap modification results from a Craft check at least 5 points below the DL. See the Modifications section in Chapter 11: Equipment.

Tying Knots

You can use this skill to tie somebody up, splice ropes together, or secure an object. Make a Craft check, adding in any relevant Occupation bonus. The result of your roll is opposed by the Thievery check of the detainee to escape. The creature you're tying up has to accept willingly or have gained the paralyzed, immobilized, or unconscious conditions. It takes several rounds to finish binding a creature. So long as you're not in a hurry, and the creature to be bound can't stop you, you can choose retry as often as you like, or to Take the Best on this check, which requires up to 5 minutes.

You can also roll a Craft check to undo knots tied by someone else (so long as you're not bound by them), such as a ship's rigging. In this case, you're making opposed Craft checks. You can retry as often as you like or Take the Best.