Crafting Primer

Crafting

A Craft Skill is a Skill related to hand-crafting items, such as Smithing, Glassblowing, or Jewelry Crafting and others. Due to how the Shoppe and the Wealth System work, a PC with a Craft Skill may be able to make items of a higher quality than those usually available to them at their Wealth Tier. Whether or not your PC is able to do this depends on your Skill Level in your Craft Skill. Because higher-quality items are usually crafted with higher-Tier materials, the Crafting Materials available to you also depend on the level of your Craft Skill. These Crafting Materials are the tools, equipment, and other materials that your PC might use when crafting an item. They are located in the Crafting Materials Section of the Shoppe. [Coming soon!]

When purchasing materials for crafting, depending on your proficiency in your Craft Skill, you may be able to make purchases at a reduced rate. Thus, having a Craft Skill, especially one at a high proficiency, is of direct benefit to your PC.

Availability of Resources

Anyone purchasing items made with / using Tier 8 or above base resources, or the resources themselves (eg: metal, wood, gems) which are also described or categorised as rare, very rare, etc, must always get that purchase approved by your city mod. It will usually require a thread to acquire (although this may be a purchase / haggling thread, not a going out mining one), although the mod may approve acquisition without a thread if there is an existing IC reason which has been written. In addition, these materials also come with a value adjustment according to their material. Please check the adjustment in the information on a specific material before purchasing an item made from it.

Quantity and Quality of Resources

1 measure of wood/metal/cloth/etc. is required to craft a household item, a pair of outfits, a weapon or set of weapons. In the Weapons section, see Items Available Per Tier. for examples of weapons that are crafted singularly or in sets.

'2 measures of wood/metal/cloth/etc. are required to craft a full set of armor, or a set of crafting tools or crafting station.

"3 measures of wood/metal/cloth/etc." are required to incorporate into the crafting of a large structure, such as a boat, a building, or other large project.

\ Crafting in Standing Trials concerns the shaping and working of materials into a useable products for characters to then go forth and use. Sometimes it's not so clear which materials pertain to which skill, or how much skill should impact the result of a craft.

Skill determines the quality of the item produced. Please use the following table to decide what quality your crafted items achieve:

For the + quality, e.g. Good+ or Masterwork+, you need a little more than just your lone craft skill. These are usually attained be way of some special condition or application of a second skill, such as Art to give the item something 'a little extra'.

For the way skills impact the results of crafts, we try to be generous to players, but without specific guidelines the results have been mixed and somewhat unreliably determined.

For example, when crafting a set of gauntlets which features cloth, leather, and presumably metal or another hardened material, which of these materials is the most important to determine the quality of the end product?

For that qualifier, we ask a series of questions:

1. What is the most important material used for the functional purpose of the item?
2. What skill is used to work that material?
3. How many ancillary materials are present in the product? Are they consequential to its functional purpose? (the type of flask used to contain a potion, elixir, or poison, may not be as important to such products compared to the metal used to forge a sword's blade.
4. If they're important to the function of the item, then having them at an equal level to the skill used for shaping the primary material will result in a product that is of slightly superior quality. [list]
   1. A competent smith making a decorative dagger with competent jewelry crafting will produce a decorative dagger that is of average+ quality.
   2. A competent smith making a decorative dagger with novice jewelry crafting will produce a decorative dagger that is only of average quality. Etc..

Of course neither skill is unimportant, but the functional purpose is what determines the end quality of the craftsmanship.

So say that an expert smith with novice textile production/needlework/leatherworking is making a set of gauntlets from leather or cloth parts to form the harness, and then metal for the protective bits, they will use their smithing skill to determine the overall quality if the purpose of this gauntlet is to protect the hand. That's not to say it cannot be decorative or attractive to look at or that the gauntlet will be uncomfortable.

In this case, we'll default to the smithing skill, because the function and purpose of the gauntlet is that it protects the hand. So as an expert smith, our pc will produce a good quality set of gauntlets.

In the case where their ancillary crafts such as leatherworking/needlework/textile production is equal to their smithing, then they will produce a good+ quality item, as a benefit for having secondary skills at a greater level.

There are far too many possibilities in terms of the mixed materials and products that can be created to come up with a simple chart that is a one-size fits all solution that we can point to in order to know where quality should land. In lieu of an easy chart one can point to, common sense should rule the day.

If you're making a weapon or armor for which metal is the primary material, smithing is what's important to determine quality, regardless of however much of another material is used to produce it.

If you're making a ship, yes there are parts that require metal and glass and such things, but the construction of the wood is the most important component, therefore woodworking should be considered most important.

There are innumerable examples I could come up with, but hopefully this gives an idea.

The quality of products is not the only consideration. For the purposes of crafting, how much and how many can be crafted within a timeframe is also another consideration.

For most simple crafts we also refer to the Common Sense rule. But also, it's reasonable to expect that a short thread where you're making a small set of items, you could make a singular set for each thread. So that means you'd need to refer to the Price List under a specific section that you're crafting from. For weapons, making a set of javelins means you can produce up to 3. For daggers, up to five. A single sword. One set of armor.

For more involved crafts, such as boats, Common Sense dictates that you would probably not be able to construct it in the space of time covered in a single thread. So for more involved and detailed, large crafts, we'd ask that, at the very least, you post a thread beginning the foundational process of producing a craft, and then another thread where the work is being finished set at a much later date (depending on the magnitude of the craft, whether a house or a ship).

A Note on Gathering/Producing Edibles:

Typically the rule of thumb here, is to produce a measure of 4 materials/edibles per skill level in an individual thread. So at novice smithing/woodworking/field craft/textile production (respectively) you'll come up with 4 pieces of useable metal or wood or cloth if you're gathering/processing materials. Similarly, if brewing potions, at competent you'll be able to produce as much as 8 potions in a single thread.

FAQ

• Q: What if a Skill Isn't written up?

A: Just do your best to describe the focused process of crafting the item at an appropriate level of skill. Nobody expects anyone to be an expert in any field that their PC is, but we do expect it to make some kind of sense. If you're not at all confident in the details, then feel free to skip over them if you can't portray them accurately. Fill the story with interactions or thoughts, or feelings as your character makes their craft. Just a small tip.

• Q: When and where do I have to thread out the crafting of an item?

A: You can drop a mention of having crafted an item if you have the available materials (within wealth tier or purchased/acquired), and have enough skill to craft the item at the desired level of quality.

• Q: Is there an instance where there might be exceptions to assuming the crafting of an item?

A: Yes. If you're building or crafting something that is outside your wealth tier availability (For instance, anyone other than a Seafaring PC acquiring a boat would need to either pay for it, as only Seafaring PCs can assume the ownership/funds for a boat within their wealth tier. Or a house that is beyond your wealth tier. Or using a material that is not available to your wealth tier. Many of the crafts and materials are gated by wealth or possession of the materials needed. If in doubt, consult your local mod.

• Q: What about more complex inventions like magical items? Do I need prior approval or threading in order to create them?

A: Complex items such as ensorcelled objects or products of alchemy may get a passing mention so long as their function is clearly within the lines of the ensorcelling/alchemy write-up. In any other case, new inventions or things that stretch the boundaries of a craft may be PSF'd. Usually you will need to show justification IC of how/when your character was able to devise the invention. But once an invention is created/developed/approved, and assuming you have the materials to reproduce it, it can be produced with a passing mention in thread.

• Q: Does a crafted item need to be reviewed or approved before it can be used in subsequent threads?

A: It depends. If you have access to the resources with which you'll craft an item, and if the crafted item is an invention or special item that has already been approved through another reviewed thread, or PSF ticket, it should be fine to assume replication so long as the quantity and quality are within the limits of your character's skill. Crafting non-magical non-alchemical, non-ensorcelled items are always fine to assume crafting off screen, so long as their stated quality are within your skill limits. Therefore, you can pretty fairly assume if you write a thread where you craft an already approved item, you can do so within those parameters. The same applies to shopping.

In all other cases, where an item lacks sufficient approvals or has yet to be reviewed, it is not eligible to be used until the thread itself is reviewed.