Crafting Masterwork, Fine and Balanced Weapons

[Varyon]

One idea would be for MoS 5+ to allow another roll (at a penalty) to add Fine Balanced, or Ornate, and getting MoS 5+ on that roll allowing for another to add another quality, and so forth. It might be something like...

On MoS 5+, or any Critical Success, you have a chance to add a special quality to your item. Maintain your MoS as a bonus and make another roll, at a penalty dependent upon what quality you are adding - this is -6 for Ornate (+1 reactions), -8 for Balanced, or -10 for Fine. If this roll succeeds, you add the chosen quality. If you succeed with MoS 5+ again, you may roll again to add another quality or upgrade an existing one. Ornate may be upgraded twice, for +3 total to reactions, at -6 on each roll. Fine may be upgraded to Very Fine, at -15 on the roll.
For example, let's say John is making a Thrusting Broadsword and has Armoury (Melee Weapons)-18. He rolls a 12, for MoS 6, and decides he wants to make the weapon Fine. This requires a roll against 18+6-10, or 14. He rolls a 9, for MoS 5. This allows for a further upgrade, so he opts to go with Balanced. This is a roll against 18+5-8, or 15 - he rolls a 7, for MoS 8. He opts to upgrade Fine to Very Fine, requiring a roll against 18+8-15, or 11. He manages a 10, and ends up with a Very Fine Balanced Thrusting Broadsword.

...

For non-random creation of weapons of quality, I think it should be fine to allow a character to simply take the extra time needed (and possibly use higher-cost materials) to create such. Let's say John set out to make that Thrusting Broadsword as a Very Fine Balanced weapon. Normally, materials cost $75 or so and labor costs $525, which I think is somewhere around 15 man-days (not looking at my books). I think Very Fine Balanced works out to a +19 or so CF, which means a $12,000 sword. If the GM allows him to use the same $75 worth of material, that means labor costs $11,925, which takes nearly a year of work to pull off.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The rules should work as VariousRen describes, but they currently don't. There is one example where a smith can get a bonus for better materials, but the character must apparently have 20 points in a craft skill and a Craft Secret Perk. That does not really suit my sense of realism.

Probably because you take the cult of stat normalization to far? After all these type of weapos where called masterworks for a reaon only a master of te craft were expected to produce them expecting them to be rutin at less than skill 16 to me is silly.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Probably because you take the cult of stat normalization to far? After all these type of weapos where called masterworks for a reaon only a master of te craft were expected to produce them expecting them to be rutin at less than skill 16 to me is silly.

It doesn't work for skill 18 people either. For margins of success to begin mattering at 12+ requires effective skill levels in the upper 20s.

I don't mind that kind of skill, but I do not agree that it represents the typical talented, but unremarkable, smiths who can turn out Fine (Balanced and Materials) small knives for $240 apiece.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Probably because you take the cult of stat normalization to far?

The rules are going to determine what skill levels are needed to emulate the tasks that real people can accomplish. If the modifiers were set up where a cashier needed to have skill 12 or 16 to ring up your purchase, then that would be fine, but these things need to be clearly defined so the different authors can write rules under the same assumptions.

We have Kromm on record saying that physicians often have skill 12.

After all these type of weapos where called masterworks for a reaon only a master of te craft were expected to produce them expecting them to be rutin at less than skill 16 to me is silly.

And if the rules had spelled out that assumption, it would have been easier to understand. As things stand, we don't know what the assumptions were.

There are a number of oddities that I ran into when trying to use these rules. All of the different weapons seem to have the same task difficulty. Make a spearhead or a knife is the same as making a large two-handed sword. There isn't any bonus or penalty for stress or the lack thereof. I would have expected some tasks to be much easier than others. I would have expected making bronze weapons to be much easier than iron ones.

If we're going off the rules we are presented with, making a bronze knife is the same difficulty as making a four-foot-long two-handed steel sword.

The only fully fleshed-out example of the task-difficulty modifiers that we have is the one for Driving found in Campaigns. Going off that, I would expect that most smiths are receiving some kind of bonus to the majority of the tasks they perform, and that there would be a wide range of bonuses and penalties for various tasks. Casting a bronze knife might be a +4, or a +6, or even a +8.



I would have assumed that a master had around skill 11 or 12. That's going off of Kromm's explanation that a physician has around skill 12, and my understanding of the way the task difficulty system works. Creating a masterwork can't be all that different from acquiring a master's degree or a doctorate.

I would expect someone with only a few months of training, perhaps skill 8, to be able to cast bronze knives, spearheads, and arrowheads reasonably well most of the time. It's just not that difficult. Using the rules we're presented with, a full quarter of the time, they manage to ruin half the bronze they're trying to cast! I don't even know how that's possible!

Maybe we're supposed to assume that everyone is using tools that give a +2 bonus, taking extra time for at least +2 more, and that bronze gives the same +5 bonus as crucible steel (or perhaps even better).

It's not clear what assumptions went into these rules, and that makes them extremely difficult to use.

[roguebfl]

a professions starts at 12 but thats only a jurneyman. experts stat at 14. where masters start at 20 And it is spelt in the rules; B172

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

a professions starts at 12 but thats only a jurneyman. experts stat at 14. where masters start at 20 And it is spelt in the rules; B172

Low-Tech specifies minimum skill levels for craftsmen and states that master craftsmen typically have skill two levels higher than that.

Master weaponsmiths should be able to make Fine weapons. Especially Fine weapons that cost less than a normal sword and sometimes less than a Cheap sword.

[Celjabba]

I have not read thoses rules in detail so I cannot comment.
That said, I think it is safe to assume that someone (mass) producing double fine items is at least skill 12+, possibly 14+, have a set of fine tools worth a +1 or +2, is not working under stress or duress (+4), have at least one skilled apprentice or journeyman helping (+1 ?), possibly an optional specialisation on his blacksmithing skill (+2).
A bonus for extra time on the first runs, replaced by a routine TDM bonus later on is not unreasonable either . (+2 ?)
If indeed there is no modifier listed for item complexity, I would rule that a short knife is worth a +2 TDM, while a rapier for example would get a -4 ?
We are at effective skill 20-27 now. It should be enough ?
If not, the rules definitively are off.

Rolling at base skill is for work done on the battlefield with 'of the shelves' tools, imho.

Celjabba

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Low-Tech specifies minimum skill levels for craftsmen and states that master craftsmen typically have skill two levels higher than that.

Master weaponsmiths should be able to make Fine weapons. Especially Fine weapons that cost less than a normal sword and sometimes less than a Cheap sword.

I think there may be a difference between a 'master' weaponsmith in the sense of Low-Tech and one who is expertly skilled. A 'master' merely is able to work alone or to supervise a lower-skilled worker; he's a low-level low-skill manager.

An expertly skilled weaponsmith would be the type of guy who can actually make fine or very fine weapons.

(I still agree that requiring skill 20+ for fine or very fine items is silly)

[Blind Mapmaker]

I never much liked this progression, but I guess the rationale behind it is the following: The designers were not interested in anybody with a regular cinematic skill set (16-18) and access to fine tools (+2) and doubled time (+1) to reliably turn out fine weapons or better. At 16+3 skill, you're at 10% with the current rules, 18+3 improves this to 50% already.

If you went for something that seems more realistic like MoS 6+ gives fine or balanced, 9+ gives both, 12+ gives very fine, 16+3 skill would give you more than 80% of a chance to produce a fine weapon.

A more balanced approach would be to give decent MoS a chance of producing a fine or whatever weapon (given the necessary material quality, of course. That could look like this:

MoS 3-6: Roll 2d6 (2: Fine and Balanced, 3-4: Fine, 5-6: Balanced, 7-12: Nothing)
MoS 7-11: Roll 2d6 (2-3: Fine and Balanced, 4-5: Fine, 6-8: Balanced, 9-12: Nothing)
MoS 12-14: automatically Fine or Balanced, roll 2d6 (2-3: Very Fine or Fine and Balanced, 4-12: Nothing else)
MoS 15-17: automatically Fine or Balanced, roll 2d6 (2-6: Very Fine or Fine and Balanced, 7-12: Nothing else)

Exact values open to change, of course, but this would solve the problem of "automatic" production of fine weaponry, while making the accidental fine weapon possible.

I think the important thing here to keep in mind is that the prices for fine and balanced weapons make you assume they are much more common than they generally are. This is especially true for weapons with low base cost like knives. Even if we assume that they are more common, a master craftsman that produces one "on accident" would probably try and add to its value with Ornate and thus drive up the price. Why have a very fine sword if nobody can tell by looking at it?

I'm thinking of implementing a house rule in my own campaigns that all low-cost weapons have their base price increased to at least $100 if you want to add anything that has a positive CF. Otherwise labour costs just are too low. With that change the mentioned small knives (fine and balanced) come out at a more appropriate $800.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

At 16+3 skill, you're at 10% with the current rules, 18+3 improves this to 50% already.

I have this image of a Japanese smith who can usually turn out a Fine or better quality sword. I'm sure lots of people would imagine the same thing when they think about this topic.

I guess he has the Masterwork Blade perk. I don't think he has access to the Crucible Steel perk. So if he starts with skill 14, has +2 for his tools, +1 for extra time, and -5 for the perk, he ends up at skill 12. That's about a 75% chance for a Fine quality sword, a 20% chance of producing a Cheap quality sword, and a 5% chance of a failure, resulting in lost materials.

That seems okay, I guess. The problem I have is that it's the same whether he's making a nodachi taller than himself or a tanto the length of his finger. Or if he's under incredible stress, such as when he's working frantically to produce spears during a siege when enemy arquebusiers and archers are firing in his direction and men are dying all around him. Those seem like things that should adjust the number he's rolling against, but are absent from the rules.