This week we once again take a look at an area of Realm of Runes that underwent significant growth during the playtest, crafting. While not every character will choose to utilize these sub-systems, the goal is to ensure that those who do find it to be effective and intuitive. In order to meet this goal, the Crafting skill is the one skill that changed the most over the course of the playtest. Let's explore the skill in greater detail.
Crafting & Formulas
Most uses of the Crafting skill require a formula. Every item in Realm of Runes has an associated formula, which represents the processes and materials required to create the item. Formulas can be memorized or written down, can be gained through skill perks, class perks, bought, taught, reverse engineered or invented. Indeed, the easiest way to get a lot of formulas is to Reverse Engineer items that you already encounter. Reverse Engineer is a trained-only use of the Crafting skill, but requires no other character investment. Spend a downtime shift studying an item in your possession, then attempt a Crafting check against the DC to create it. If you succeed, you now have the formula. You can keep it memorized or write it down. If you write it down, your friends can follow it, too!
Formulas are obviously useful for consumable items. Bombs, Elixirs, Potions, Poisons and Ammunition are all things that a character will need to replaced as they get used up. Having the formula for such items makes replenishing these items easy no matter where you are. But formulas are also extremely handy for more permanent items, such as swords or armor. As we'll see later, Crafting can be used to improve the quality of an item you already have. If you've got the formula, you don't have to pay to replace your gear with improved versions or wait until you find them as loot. The Crafting skill puts you in the driver's seat.
Crafting In Batches
Not only does having the formula for an item give you the freedom to get more of it whenever and wherever you need, it's also less expensive. This is always true for any item, but it's especially dramatic for consumables. All consumable items in Realm of Runes can be made in batches, resulting in multiples of the item for just the one Crafting session. The default batch size is four items. You can buy an Elixir of Life if you're in a hurry, but when you make it instead you get four! Better yet, these batches do not increase the parts or labor costs. It's four for the price of one, both in terms of time and money! If a high-level consumable item is expensive enough that it becomes difficult to decide when to actually use it, the batch discount makes that item much easier to part with if you've got the time.
Some items come in different batch sizes. Arrows and crossbow bolts tend to come in batches of 10 instead. Even some items that aren't consumable come in batches, too. Many weapons in the Darts weapon group are designed to be thrown, which tends to make them difficult to use in an extended combat. Javelins, for example, come in a batch of three for this reason. When you buy or make these weapons, you get a bunch of items at once, which helps to ensure that you've got enough to last. Batch crafting was one of the first additions to the crafting skill, and it has dramatically increased the viability of many items that are too rare to buy consistently or too expensive to part with regularly.
Parts & Labor
When utilizing the Crafting rules, the process is broken down into two separate costs: Parts and Labor. Parts costs money in terms of materials, while labor instead costs time in terms of downtime shifts. When you buy an item, none of this matters. But when you make the item yourself, the majority of the cost is converted from currency into time, reducing the actual monetary investment to the parts cost.
The parts cost can be thought of as the absolute minimum that the item requires in order to exist. This price is always 40% of the buying price for the standard version of the item, and only changes if the material changes. So if your Steel item would cost 10 silver to buy from a shop, you can make it with 4 silver worth of Steel instead. Since costs for non-default materials are multiplicative, this discount exactly scales like it would to buy. If the item from this example was Stainless Steel instead, that material's cost adjustment of x4 would make the cost to buy the item 40 silver instead, and so the parts cost is 10 silver worth of Stainless Steel. If in a settlement you can generally just spend currency directly on common materials. If out in the world, or using an uncommon or rare material, you have to have that amount of material on hand, either purchased or found as loot.
The labor cost is where a character's actual skill at Crafting comes into play. Every item has an associated labor cost, which is valued in downtime shifts, based on the item's level and quality. Higher-level items require more labor. The base labor cost for an item is half its item level, rounded up. This base cost is then modified by the item's quality modifier. Since the quality modifier for standard quality is +0, this is not an adjustment. Fine quality increases the labor cost by +1 shift, superior by +2 shifts, and exquisite by +3 shifts. Poor quality is an interesting case here, as its quality modifier is -2. So a poor item reduces its labor cost by 2 instead. While the labor cost typically cannot be less than one, if the labor cost would be reduced to 0 or lower, the item can be made with Quick Craft instead. What this means will be discussed a little later on.
The quality of the final item is only accounted for in an item's Labor Cost. Whether you make a standard sword or an exquisite sword, the Parts Cost remains the same. Since higher-quality items are more expensive to buy, this is huge. The exquisite version of the 10 silver item we've been using as an example would cost 300 silver to buy from a store, but would only cost a crafter 4 silver in parts to make!
The Crafting Process
So you've got your formula, you've got your parts, and you have time set aside to do the labor. What happens now? After each downtime shift you use to Craft, you attempt a Crafting check. The difficulty of this check is based on the item level of the final product, and the quality at which you wish to make it. A poor quality item is just an Easy DC of twice its item level, referencing the challenge table in the rulebook. A standard item is a Medium DC, a fine item is a Hard DC, a superior item is an Incredible DC, and an exquisite item is an Ultimate DC. In this way items increase in challenge both with their own intrinsic power level and with the intricacy of its construction.
If you succeed at your check, great! You have paid one shift of the Labor Cost for the item. If the total labor cost was more than one, you've made progress but there's still more Crafting sessions in your future before you're done. If you manage to beat the DC by 10, however, you get a bonus. For each multiple of 10 by which you exceed the actual difficulty, your session further reduces the Labor Cost by one more shift. Doing really well on your checks can help you finish a powerful and/or high-quality item quickly. The item is complete once you've progressed the same number of shifts as the total Labor Cost of the item.
If you failed your check, don't worry. You didn't reduce the Labor Cost, but you also didn't waste any of your materials and you can keep trying. Just watch out for critical failures. For every 10 by which your check falls short of the DC, the Labor Cost is increased by 1 shift. There's nothing stopping you from attempting to make really difficult items, but if the DC is way over your ability you might be at it a while. No matter how badly you do on your check, though, the Parts Cost never changes. The only thing you're ever at risk of wasting is your time.
Using Crafting To Improve Items
Characters can grow attached to their gear. It's been with them through a lot, and in some cases it might even be a family heirloom or a gift with additional personal significance. Crafting can be used to improve the quality of items you already have instead of just creating new items from scratch. This can help your favorite gear keep up with you as you grow in power, so you don't have to hope that an enemy has a better version of your gear and you don't have to set aside your grandmother's plate mail simply because you found something better. When you use Crafting this way, the Parts Cost is already paid. The only things standing between you and better versions of your gear are time and difficulty.
Advanced Crafting
Anyone can use the Crafting skill to craft items, whether you're trained in the skill or not. All you need is the formula, the materials and the time. Actual training in the skill unlocks a few extra benefits of the skill in addition to qualification for skill perks which make the process faster and easier. As we discussed above, Reverse Engineering items for their formulas is something that a character can only do if they are at least trained in the skill. One other huge improvement for training is access to Quick Craft.
Quick Craft allows you to do some limited crafting during your Daily Preparations, instead of always requiring downtime shifts. Adventurers don't always have 8 hours to spend whenever they want. This use of the skill can help get you some of the items you need, when you need them. It functions the same as regular Crafting, except that it can only be used to produce consumables or items whose Labor Cost has been reduced to 0 or less (such as poor quality items). Some Crafting skill perks let you use Quick Craft at times other than your Daily Preparations, or widen the pool of items you can make using this activity beyond the default.
Crafting And Starting Equipment
Crafting always requires formulas, but it can be possible to gain formulas during character creation. In these cases, a character gains an advantage. Since there is essentially an unlimited supply of pre-game time, characters with formulas can "pre-craft" items they have formulas for. This is automatic, and allows the character to pay the parts cost of the item instead of the list price! While the quality of the gear you buy with your starting funds is not normally restricted, the quality of pre-crafted gear is limited by the character's proficiency with the crafting skill. Untrained only lets you get poor quality gear this way, trained gives you standard, and expert gives you access to fine. If you're starting at much higher levels, though, master proficiency can let you start with superior pre-crafted gear, and legendary proficiency gives access to exquisite. This just helps keep things from getting out of hand right at the beginning of a campaign.
There are more ways to use the Crafting skill besides making items, such as Repairing items and Identifying them, but the item creation process is a huge part of it. These rules are designed to provide a distinct monetary advantage to those that make use of them without bogging down gameplay around it. Next week we'll continue our introductions of the Class Exemplar, with the Cleric.
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