First Look: Crafting (Alchemy)

First off... this is a deeply incomplete version. This isn't the most complete version I've made over the past months even, and it's by all rights too early to share. But I've decided to share this version, because I feel like this is probably the direction things are going, and I figure I should include you all in that process.

High level overview:

• This version of crafting aims to be quick. Some things take longer to craft (as we get into Blacksmith, we'll see some 4-8 hour crafts), but this is not something where things take days or work weeks.
• Consequently, the gates to creation are more dependent resources and player skills, including a new introduced crafting skill that rides on top of tool proficiency.
• The crafting die is a d6; this is because we want to reduce the overall randomness of crafting things. There should be a lot of things that eventually you just automatically succeed at making with crafting skill + proficiency.
• This version contains only craftable items already present in D&D, and just provides a new method for crafting them.

This version is only Alchemy unfortunately... this was intended to include Blacksmithing and the start of Enchanting, but I seem to have made a rather large mistake in trying to get it ready for publish and lost... quite a lot of work on those two subjects, unfortunately. A few days; fortunately I probably remember most of it, and some of it came from older versions that can be resalvaged. Always a warning to be very careful when relying on online tools (not really the fault of GMBinder, it was more user error; I copy pasted somewhat incorrectly, and then published, which apparently removed my ability to undo my last change, making the mistake a bit more permanent than it might otherwise have been). Those were a little less complete than Alchemy, so I didn't lose as much as I could have.

The way I am approaching crafting is akin to classes; they will use the same overall framework and model, but they will have core differences; for example, in Alchemy, the Critical Failure threshold is almost always 1, but the crafting is fast and requires only a 1 to a few successes, while Blacksmith takes longer, but has a much higher tolerance for failure, as well as a few more factors of input (familiarity with the Template + the Material, instead of just knowledge of the recipe), but also allows for special techniques.

So this is the overall design for Alchemy; in the next few days we will see Blacksmithing, then a clean up pass for both, then Enchanting. Once Alchemy, Blacksmithing and Enchanting are added, I'll start expanding on those a bit, either into additional branches, or expanding into new craftable items beyond the scope of standard stuff.

I have quite a bit written up for blacksmithing and enchanting from other versions I've made that I'm porting over to this; unfortunately I did just lose quite a bit of the work I've done there, but those should still be coming along in not too long. Similarly, in the first draft, they will focus on how you create what already exists, and we will see some overlap there; both Blacksmithing and Enchanting can make a +1 weapon, for example, through different routes, and we'll get into those when they are available.

Anyway; this is a first look of the most recent version of my crafting, and I think the one I'll be moving forward with. The pros of this version is that I think it hits the three key points I want in crafting (though it still may need quite a lot of fine tuning):

• I want crafting to feel unified between the branches, but with as much difference as there is difference between two difference classes.
• I want crafting to be quick, but not a gateway to unlimited items.
• I want crafting to be easy to understand once you've done it once. There's no system this complicated that will be that simple, but I want it to be very systematic, so that once you've run through it once or twice, everyone basically knows how it will work the next time.

Anyway, thanks for the patience, and I'll be back soon when I retype up what I've lost in document saving errors.

I should note that prices listed here are... not the prices i use in my game. But they are prices modified to be closer to the D&D Standard pricing for things. My pricing tends to be quite a bit different, which is why i typically avoid putting gold prices, but in this case that's unavoidable, so I've some math to make the prices somewhat closer to D&D normalized prices.