Fantasy Craft Q&A Thread!

[Crafty_Pat]

The only problem I see with this is that you are leaving the entire situation to a single player's die roll. If you have 6 people that would normally be 6 chances for success. The PC with a +10 to the skill could still roll worse than the lucky roller with a +2 to the skill. That just overly penalizes poor luck IMO.

Just as a point of note, I generally let all my players roll [because I agree with you], justified as:

PC1: I'm an expert at this, let me look at it.
PC2: *walks up and casually succeeds* "Oh it works like this".
PC1: Lucky guess. *pouts*

If its a team check they all roll, and the highest result has bonuses added to it, as if the most skilled / lucky took over at some point in the check, or pointed out the others errors / gave advice.  I also limit the number of people who can roll based on the suitation.

But thats just me...

I'd argue that, especially with large groups, this reduces the chance of failure to next to nil - which in turn reduces the risk to next to nil, which in turn negates the need for a roll.

But that's just me.

[Crafty_Pat]

Thanks.

How does Divine Favour work?

It says: Effect: You gain a +1 magic bonus with attack and damage rolls equal to 1/3 your Casting Level (rounded up).

Duration is 1 minute.  So if I'm 9th level, do i gain +1 magic bonus, or +3?

Depends on your Caster Level! Presuming you've got Caster Level 9, it's +3. What is confusing you about how it works?

Mainly the wording seems like it says two things at the same time [+1, and yet also equal to 1/3 your casting level].  With the "rounded up" bit, the +1 just led me astray.  Probably just the way I'm parsing it.

The "+1" should be removed.

[Crafty_Pat]

I don't think I've seen this asked anywhere, but how does Beastmaster interact with someone who has more than one Animal Partner, and how does should it interact with someone with the Lancer core ability? 

There are only two ways I can see to get more than one animal partner (Lifetime Companion, Path of Beasts), but it seems in the right campaign you can do both and have 3- and that would be a pretty fearsome set of opponents after some Beastmaster levels.

Chatted a bit with Alex about this. At present, we're comfortable with the Beastmaster's abilities applying to all the character's Animal Partners - even if the ones not awarded by the class.

[Sletchman]

I'd argue that, especially with large groups, this reduces the chance of failure to next to nil - which in turn reduces the risk to next to nil, which in turn negates the need for a roll.

But that's just me.

I should have been clearer, but I only use that sort of setup in a suitation where everyone plausably can participate, and the DC is high enough that the chance of everyone failling exists.  I often only allow a smaller number of members of the group to roll, and even if everyone gets to roll, those who don't succeed often have consequences [frequently very serious ones] which leads some to choose not to actively participate.  Its certainly not everyone rolls, all the time.

This is all because in effect, I agree with you, at least in principal.  I also change DC's of different checks depending on character taking it, but these are probably best not discussed in an FAQ thread.

[Sletchman]

Back on topic, can suitably upgraded armour provide a Defence bonus?

I'm thinking of something like: Fitted Unborn Chain, or Fitted Padded.

[Deral]

Would it be possible to get a rundown of exactly what the second half of Crafting Supremacy changes?

It's wording doesn't seem to directly align itself with any rules as it doesn't quite fit changing minimum crafting time (which is good in situations with slow-building cheap things), and altering the time it actually takes to craft besides that doesn't really do anything, because it doesn't change how much silver you're crafting or how many of an object you can make, and the changing daily checks to weekly checks and so on seems like... an awful lot.

So I'm not quite sure it does any of these things, since they all seem kind of out of place, what am I missing this time?

[Krensky]

Back on topic, can suitably upgraded armour provide a Defence bonus?

I'm thinking of something like: Fitted Unborn Chain, or Fitted Padded.

No.

Upgrades may not be applied to fittings and may not decrease any armor penalty below 0.

[Krensky]

Would it be possible to get a rundown of exactly what the second half of Crafting Supremacy changes?

It's wording doesn't seem to directly align itself with any rules as it doesn't quite fit changing minimum crafting time (which is good in situations with slow-building cheap things), and altering the time it actually takes to craft besides that doesn't really do anything, because it doesn't change how much silver you're crafting or how many of an object you can make, and the changing daily checks to weekly checks and so on seems like... an awful lot.

So I'm not quite sure it does any of these things, since they all seem kind of out of place, what am I missing this time?

The complexity rules. For example, Articulated Plate normally requires at least a month of downtime to make a craft roll. Crafting Supremacy lets you make a roll when you only have a week.

[Deral]

Would it be possible to get a rundown of exactly what the second half of Crafting Supremacy changes?

It's wording doesn't seem to directly align itself with any rules as it doesn't quite fit changing minimum crafting time (which is good in situations with slow-building cheap things), and altering the time it actually takes to craft besides that doesn't really do anything, because it doesn't change how much silver you're crafting or how many of an object you can make, and the changing daily checks to weekly checks and so on seems like... an awful lot.

So I'm not quite sure it does any of these things, since they all seem kind of out of place, what am I missing this time?

The complexity rules. For example, Articulated Plate normally requires at least a month of downtime to make a craft roll. Crafting Supremacy lets you make a roll when you only have a week.

My problem with this is, so much of the way it's written seems to contradict this- it would be far easier to just state it reduces the minimum time required, rather than "the time to make the item," everything's plural in the example which kind of throws me off that as well, since it never takes "weeks" or "days" minimum, and then of course we get to- what the hell is an hourly check?

Also, assuming it works that way- which isn't impossible with rules changes as the book's writing progressed- it seems pretty weak in comparison to both feats that came before it which have about the same increase in production plus something else of pretty significant value- as it stands you can only barely make articulated plate in a week with the X4 and 1000s in raw materials, granted, articulated plate in a week is nice, but the discrepancy seems more significant with the more common weekly to daily and... well I still don't know what daily to hourly would look like.

[blackheart]

Sorry if this has allready been asked....

For skills listed in a Basic Skill Mastery feat, does a character gain trained status with those skills even if they are not class skills?

Ex: A soldier taking Basic Skill Mastery Investigator (investigate and search) but investigate is not a class skill?

[Crafty_Alex]

Sorry if this has allready been asked....

For skills listed in a Basic Skill Mastery feat, does a character gain trained status with those skills even if they are not class skills?

Ex: A soldier taking Basic Skill Mastery Investigator (investigate and search) but investigate is not a class skill?

They do not. Time to use those Origin skills!

[blackheart]

Thanks, Alex. I get it now.

[Crafty_Pat]

My problem with this is, so much of the way it's written seems to contradict this- it would be far easier to just state it reduces the minimum time required, rather than "the time to make the item," everything's plural in the example which kind of throws me off that as well, since it never takes "weeks" or "days" minimum, and then of course we get to- what the hell is an hourly check?

Krensky has it right. I can see where the wording might throw you but he's right about the rule's function.

Also, assuming it works that way- which isn't impossible with rules changes as the book's writing progressed- it seems pretty weak in comparison to both feats that came before it which have about the same increase in production plus something else of pretty significant value- as it stands you can only barely make articulated plate in a week with the X4 and 1000s in raw materials, granted, articulated plate in a week is nice, but the discrepancy seems more significant with the more common weekly to daily and... well I still don't know what daily to hourly would look like.

I disagree. Shaving months, weeks, or days off the minimum time required to make something? Being able to work effectively on huge projects in narrow gaps in the adventure? Not a trivial benefit.

[Deral]

Krensky has it right. I can see where the wording might throw you but he's right about the rule's function.

How does this interact with checks that were once Daily, then?

I disagree. Shaving months, weeks, or days off the minimum time required to make something? Being able to work effectively on huge projects in narrow gaps in the adventure? Not a trivial benefit.

I think what gets me is that it doesn't actually let you craft something more quickly, just lets you finish early if you can, if you could make more than one check during each downtime, it would be, well, a lot better- and I didn't say it was trivial, it's just that usually feats scale pretty directly in the benefit they give as you progress down a tree, the first feat gives a 100% boost to production, plus a good but relatively minor benefit, the second gives a 125% boost to that amount, but the third only gives a 33% boost, and the ability to craft quicker when you both have a limited time and what you're crafting can be finished in that window. It's nice, still a good feat to take, really, it's just that the first two seem to do a lot more for you.

[Crafty_Pat]

Krensky has it right. I can see where the wording might throw you but he's right about the rule's function.

How does this interact with checks that were once Daily, then?

They become hourly.

I disagree. Shaving months, weeks, or days off the minimum time required to make something? Being able to work effectively on huge projects in narrow gaps in the adventure? Not a trivial benefit.

I think what gets me is that it doesn't actually let you craft something more quickly, just lets you finish early if you can, if you could make more than one check during each downtime, it would be, well, a lot better- and I didn't say it was trivial, it's just that usually feats scale pretty directly in the benefit they give as you progress down a tree, the first feat gives a 100% boost to production, plus a good but relatively minor benefit, the second gives a 125% boost to that amount, but the third only gives a 33% boost, and the ability to craft quicker when you both have a limited time and what you're crafting can be finished in that window. It's nice, still a good feat to take, really, it's just that the first two seem to do a lot more for you.

With short-term projects, maybe, but certainly not with the ones you're undertaking by the time you get this deep in the chain: namely, huge, long-term projects that you can potentially finish in a fraction of the normal time, and in smaller intervals than ever before (thereby circumventing one of the primary balancing elements of the crafting system).

Remember, not all benefits are straight bonuses, and not every bonus applies all the time.