Questions about Crafting items

[StevenH]

There are some crafting rules in Low Tech Companion 3. What those rules don't really address is specifically trying to make a Fine or Very Fine item. According to the rules (as I understand them), Fine or Very Fine items are made by accident--that is, they are made only if you luck out on your roll when you craft them.

Is this how it's supposed to work?

I would have thought that if a client asked for a Fine sword, a crafter could do it and make a Fine sword. He wouldn't have to spend the time and effort making "normal" swords until he lucked out and finally made a Fine one.
What am I missing? Am I misreading the rules? Is there some kind of skill penalty for making Fine or Very Fine objects? If so, what are they?
If a smith has a skill of 16, how many normal swords will he need to make before he finally lucks out and gins up a Fine one? Why wouldn't he be able to make that first one Fine right off the bat?

[Ulzgoroth]

The success margin quality determination actually does have the effect you want, if you think about it the right way.

The thing is to realize that if you're good enough to make a Fine sword on demand, what that means is that you're able to pull together a high enough effective skill (probably 24+) to have a high chance of succeeding by 12 or better. For a smith who is highly but not incredibly skilled, this likely involves some combination of Extra Time, excellent equipment, and possibly the Crucible Steel and/or Masterwork Blade craft secret perks.

Meanwhile if you're a master just knocking off good enough swords, you can use less time and/or skimp on other elements.

If you try to make a superb sword but fail, you probably still get an okay one. If you try to make an okay sword occasionally you might luck into a superb one. But you have a lot of ability to adjust your performance towards the desired product.

(EDIT: For Fine swords in particular Masterwork Blade is very good - it essentially knocks 6 off the difficulty. Even an otherwise only passable swordsmith could make Fine swords reliably with that if they're willing to take a lot of extra time. Curiously it's basically no help for making Very Fine swords.)

[Varyon]

Canonically, you basically just have to get your effective skill as high as possible - via actual high skill, Craft Secrets, Extra Time, etc - and keep trying until you get a Fine or Very Fine weapon with a good roll.

Personally, I have no issue with just letting a character create a high-quality piece of gear by just “paying off” the cost in labor. For example, IIRC, a Good Thrusting Broadsword is $600, of which around $50 is materials, so normally you’d pay the $50 for materials and have your labor cover the remaining $550. A Fine Thrusting Broadsword is $2400 (again, IIRC) with the same $50 materials, so just work at it long enough for your labor to cover the remaining $2350 (about 4.3x as long) and you’ve got a Fine-quality weapon.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Canonically, you basically just have to get your effective skill as high as possible - via actual high skill, Craft Secrets, Extra Time, etc - and keep trying until you get a Fine or Very Fine weapon with a good roll.

Technically true but misleading for Fine weapons. Even without Masterwork Blade, if you can get premium material for +5 MoS (which you can make yourself with Crucible Steel, if the weapon is metal), have +2 for equipment (good equipment with Equipment Bond), and take 30x time for +5...you've covered the entire difference. You just need to roll at or under your unmodified skill level to get the fine weapon, so if you've got any business doing this you should be succeeding a large majority of attempts.

The last +6 for the Very Fine weapon is a lot harder to pin down except by just being extraordinarily skilled. Still, if you've got the above modifiers and skill 14 you should get fine weapons almost all the time and about one in four very fine. That seems workable.

[edk926]

What's the cost for good crafting equipment assuming TL3 anyway?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Technically true but misleading for Fine weapons. Even without Masterwork Blade, if you can get premium material for +5 MoS (which you can make yourself with Crucible Steel, if the weapon is metal), have +2 for equipment (good equipment with Equipment Bond), and take 30x time for +5...you've covered the entire difference. .

However, you'll probably go hungry selling weapons for 4x cost when they take 30x as long to make. Even VF prices won't justify that 30x crafting time.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

However, you'll probably go hungry selling weapons for 4x cost when they take 30x as long to make. Even VF prices won't justify that 30x crafting time.

That does seem to be a point. Working at list prices, you barely gain any benefit at all from learning and using Masterwork Blade even if your skill level is high enough not to use extra time with it - it takes double time and -5 skill for guaranteeing a fine result on success, whereas if you can pull that off you could make 4 good swords instead (using haste to spend half normal time on each) and get the same revenue (albeit at four times the material costs.)

[Anders]

Originally Posted by edk926

What's the cost for good crafting equipment assuming TL3 anyway?

There are prices in Low-Tech.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That does seem to be a point. Working at list prices, you barely gain any benefit at all from learning and using Masterwork Blade even if your skill level is high enough not to use extra time with it - it takes double time and -5 skill for guaranteeing a fine result on success, whereas if you can pull that off you could make 4 good swords instead (using haste to spend half normal time on each) and get the same revenue (albeit at four times the material costs.)

So you will get some slight improvement in profit from making swords this way (due to that reduced materials cost), lose money on things like maces and spears (only x3 price for fine), but make good money on halberds and axes (x10 price).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Rupert

So you will get some slight improvement in profit from making swords this way (due to that reduced materials cost), lose money on things like maces and spears (only x3 price for fine), but make good money on halberds and axes (x10 price).

That implies non-sword cutting weapons would be the most common to make Fine (best profit margin), which I feel is the opposite of the intended effect. Honestly, the existing CF's seem to be linked to how difficult something is to make Fine (easiest for fairly simple weapons, swords are nearly-there already in that they need high-quality starting materials anyway, while axes and the like can normally make due with relatively low-quality metal but need a more sizable quality boost to get up-to-snuff for Fine), even if the creation rules don't reflect that at all (indeed, if you're wanting a Fine weapon and don't know the Masterwork Blade Craft Secret, axes are still a better bet, as you can crank them out a lot more quickly).

Of course, a way to potentially still turn a profit on even Fine spears, presuming your GM allows Masterwork Blade to apply for those, would be to have a Technique (presumably Hard, like most) that buys off the penalty. [6] isn't cheap - combined with the [1] for the Craft Secret, it's just shy of enough for a +2 to skill, which is what separates a journeyman from a master - but could pay for itself readily. You're still best off making Fine axes, of course.