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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Secrets of Crafting / Story-Based Crafting

Crafting by Questing

Source Treasure Vault pg. 170 1.1
A young farmer's village is destroyed by a ferocious red dragon, and they set off to forge a sword imbued with the power of ice to lay the dragon low. An elven scout's companions are slain by a fearsome, ancient bulette, and she seeks a suit of armor capable of resisting the beast's claws so she can claim vengeance for her lost friends. A wizard sets out to forge a staff that will enhance their magical power. Story-based crafting is a system by which every major magic item a PC might want is gained through a narrative and may or may not involve the Crafting skill at all. The goal of story-based crafting is to let players seek out the equipment they want for their PCs in a fun and satisfying way that can make every significant, permanent item they use part of an epic and memorable story.

Note that the crafting by questing rules are intended for permanent magical items that will be part of a PCs story for at least the better part of a level, possibly more. Having your PCs quest for simple consumables is liable to get a boring over time and isn't meaningfully different from just getting treasure for completing an encounter as normal (since most level-appropriate consumables won't require more than a single encounter to cover their entire cost anyways). Of course, a rare and powerful consumable item might still make for an interesting quest, but this should be an exception, not the rule.

Treasure by Encounter

Source Treasure Vault pg. 171 1.1
The crafting by questing rules work best when used in conjunction with the treasure by encounter guidelines, reprinted here for your convenience. The rules presented in this section assume that you, as the GM, have the treasure by encounter guidelines in play.

The standard rules count treasure over the course of a level, rather than dividing it up by encounter. If you need to select treasure for a single encounter, such as in a sandbox game, you can use the table above. It takes the treasure budget for each level from Table 10–9 of the Core Rulebook and breaks that down per encounter based on the encounter threat, similar to how XP varies by threat. The final column shows extra treasure you should award if you build an entire level this way. Unlike the standard table, this doesn't include items by item level, as the value doesn't cleanly break down for most single encounters. It's recommended you still give out those permanent items, but you'll need to borrow from other encounters' treasure to account for their value. Include encounters against creatures without treasure to account for this.

Table 5-3: Treasure by Encounter

LevelTotal Treasure per LevelLowModerateSevereExtremeExtra Treasure
1175 gp13 gp18 gp26 gp35 gp35 gp
2300 gp23 gp30 gp45 gp60 gp60 gp
3500 gp38 gp50 gp75 gp100 gp100 gp
4850 gp65 gp85 gp130 gp170 gp170 gp
51,350 gp100 gp135 gp200 gp270 gp270 gp
62,000 gp150 gp200 gp300 gp400 gp400 gp
72,900 gp220 gp290 gp440 gp580 gp580 gp
84,000 gp300 gp400 gp600 gp800 gp800 gp
95,700 gp430 gp570 gp860 gp1,140 gp1,140 gp
108,000 gp600 gp800 gp1,200 gp1,600 gp1,600 gp
1111,500 gp865 gp1,150 gp1,725 gp2,300 gp2,300 gp
1216,500 gp1,250 gp1,650 gp2,475 gp3,300 gp3,300 gp
1325,000 gp1,875 gp2,500 gp3,750 gp5,000 gp5,000 gp
1436,500 gp2,750 gp3,650 gp5,500 gp7,300 gp7,300 gp
1554,500 gp4,100 gp5,450 gp8,200 gp10,900 gp10,900 gp
1682,500 gp6,200 gp8,250 gp12,400 gp16,500 gp16,500 gp
17128,000 gp9,600 gp12,800 gp19,200 gp25,600 gp25,600 gp
18208,000 gp15,600 gp20,800 gp31,200 gp41,600 gp41,600 gp
19355,000 gp26,600 gp35,500 gp53,250 gp71,000 gp71,000 gp
20490,000 gp36,800 gp49,000 gp73,500 gp98,000 gp98,000 gp

Crafting Quests

Source Treasure Vault pg. 171 1.1
As in normal crafting, the first step in initiating a crafting quest is for the player to decide what they want to craft, or for you as the GM to present them with a handful of possible things they can quest to create. You might also plan out a few crafting quests during your session zero so that they can be built directly into the narrative of the campaign and worked into the PCs' backstories. One of the simplest ways to do this is to have each of the players give you a wish list of items during your session zero, listing key items their characters would like to acquire during the course of the campaign. These could be as general as “a magic sword” or “a magic staff,” or as specific as “a suit of devil's bargain armor for my Asmodean cleric.”

Crafting quests should always be significant events for the players and their characters. Don't send the PCs questing to create a simple dagger. Instead consider what items could become iconic parts of the character's story, like a magic bow for an archer, a powerful staff for a wizard, or lucky boots for a rogue. The nature of crafting quests as events that will permanently inform the characters' stories and shape their builds means that there should always be a high level of collaboration between the players and GM. When using crafting quests, you typically won't need to use the Extra Treasure values from Table 5–3: Treasure by Encounter, as those values are to compensate for the PCs finding loot that they won't use or for missing some of the loot entirely. Since the PCs are always set up to get the loot they want when using story-based crafting, and because the value of these items is subtracted from their total treasure, these additional values are superfluous and could give the party too much treasure for their level. If you prefer a campaign where the PCs have a bit more treasure on hand as a way to encourage the use of consumables or “non-essential” equipment, you can use the treasure values as presented.

The items you select for the PCs should all be items that are of a level appropriate to the characters (typically the same as their current level) or appropriate to the level they will be when they complete the crafting quests. For complete examples of crafting quests, see Example Quests.

Building a Narrative

Source Treasure Vault pg. 172 1.1
Once you know what item the characters are questing to create, it's time to build a narrative around that journey. Think of this like a subplot to the main story, with key moments and pivotal scenes that occur alongside the overarching plot of your campaign. If the entire group is searching for crafting quest components, then some parts of this story can take the spotlight and be the focus of an entire part of your campaign. In any event, you should give this story the same consideration you give any other part of your campaign narrative, balancing player desires with appropriate narrative decisions and combat challenges. Make sure that no one character's crafting quests take the spotlight for too long, and always watch for opportunities to align the interests of the various party members.

Start by determining how many encounters you want the PCs to complete before the item is finished. For each required encounter, reduce the required cost of the story-crafted item by 10% of its total value. These cost reductions should never reduce the equivalent cost of the item below 50% of its base cost. This ensures the PCs don't end up with significantly more wealth than they should have and makes sure that their crafting quests don't stretch across too many levels of play. Next, take the remaining price of the item and divide that by the number of encounters. Reduce the reward for these encounters by that amount, to balance it against any other rewards you might include.

Crafting quest encounters should generally be between low and severe difficulty; trivial encounters are too easy to justify the reduction in cost of the story-crafted item and generally won't be narratively satisfying for the players, while extreme encounters are simply too dangerous and may feel unfair to the player trying to story craft.

Low-difficulty encounters are appropriate for a single crafting quest component, while moderate and severe encounters should provide crafting quest components for multiple characters. A severe-difficulty fight against a powerful monster with a treasure hoard, like a dragon, might provide crafting quest components for the entire party. Having the entire party's crafting quests intersect in encounters like this also helps bind the PCs together through shared goals and accomplishments.

Finally, map these encounters and their narratives to your overall campaign or adventure, giving plenty of space between each to allow them to feel like earned pieces of a growing story.

Beginning the Quest

Source Treasure Vault pg. 172 1.1
Starting a crafting quest begins like any other story in your campaign. The PCs might learn of the item and how it can be made through one of any number of sources, from an old formula in a book to a cryptic prophesy that came to them in a dream. The key is to give the PCs an idea about the journey they must undertake and an idea of the reward that awaits them at the end.

Next, give the PCs an opportunity to learn about the locations of the first crafting quest component for their item. They could gain this information through Recall Knowledge checks, Research at a local library, or by Gathering Information. Again, this first piece might also be part of their initial discovery of the quest, but later components should certainly require research or exploration to uncover.

You don't need to give the PCs the locations of all their crafting components up front; as long as they know where to find the first piece, you can leave clues and opportunities to uncover the location of the next crafting quest component at key points in the campaign for PCs to discover naturally during the course of play. Alternatively, you can give the PCs the location of all the crafting quest components up front, though giving them such information all at once works best in a campaign intended to be more of a player-directed sandbox than one trying to follow a central narrative through line.

Once the PCs have learned the location of their first crafting quest components, it's time to begin the adventure!

Gathering the Components

Source Treasure Vault pg. 172 1.1
Locating the individual crafting quest components for a single story-crafted item should occur in separate and distinct areas, even if they're all in one larger location (like a dungeon or one large forest). This makes the item feel like it was earned, rather than given, and prevents the characters from exceeding the normal time limits that are a part of the crafting process.

Each component should be either a part of the final item or something used during the creation process itself. For example, if you were trying to create a powerful bow that calls upon storms, you might need to find the heart of a tree burned by lightning, the scale of a blue dragon, or even the breath of a powerful air elemental. Alternatively, the component might be a person or place necessary for the crafting, like a woodcarver who survived a shipwreck, or a workshop located atop a mountain. In any event, each component should feel like it's building toward a completed item as part of the well-rounded story that tells of its creation.

Forging the Treasure

Source Treasure Vault pg. 172 1.1
Once the PC has gathered together all of the crafting quest components for their item, it's time to assemble the pieces. Depending on the nature of the crafting quests, this might not require a skill check. For a longer crafting quest that included at least three encounters spread across different locations, the simple act of bringing the components together can be enough for their magic to do the rest of the work, uniting the components into a single, completed item the PC can immediately put to use. For a shorter crafting quest taking place in a single location, you can instead require a skill check (likely a Crafting check, but possibly using a different skill depending on the item and circumstances).

When requiring a skill check to assemble a story-crafted item, you should make the check itself something appropriately exciting and epic, a fitting capstone for the completed crafting quest. For example, if the player's dwarf fighter completed a crafting quest that required them to assemble the materials for the haft, head, and grip of a magic hammer, their check could take place at an ancient dwarven forge blessed by Torag, God of the Forge. The DC of this check should be based on the item's level, rarity, and other circumstances. If successful, the item works as intended. If the check fails, it may have a quirk of some sort. If the check is a critical failure, it might be destroyed or even result in a cursed item!

Story-Based Crafting as the Baseline

Source Treasure Vault pg. 173 1.1
There are many reasons you might consider making story-based crafting the base assumption for your game. This system results in items that feel more special and integral to the narrative, which the players have more agency in helping to create. Story-based crafting can make an item feel unique and less like something they just bought down at the local shop.

It's important to note that this style of crafting works best in sandbox campaigns and other adventures where the players are expected to inform a lot of the story's direction and progress, and is less compatible with campaigns seeking to tell a very specific and involved story. The encounters dedicated to crafting just the right weapon still give experience, and since each player should have the opportunity for a roughly equal number of crafting quests, you'll find that a campaign that uses story-based crafting as the baseline won't leave a lot of time open for other encounters and side quests.

An important element of using story-based crafting as PCs' primary method of acquiring new key permanent items in a campaign is ensuring that one player's crafting quests don't overwhelm the narrative and put the other players in the “back seat” for too long. Here are a few general tips for managing this game experience.

Don't feel pressured to do an entire PC's crafting quest through to completion before starting another PC's quests. You should intermix their adventures as much as possible, so that pursuing one character's crafting quest can naturally position the party to tackle another character's quest along the way. For example, if the fighter is crafting a flaming sword that requires traveling into a volcano, and the wizard is crafting a magic staff, you should try and place one of the encounters for acquiring staff components (or perhaps forging them together) inside that same volcano. This both reinforces the party's mutual goals, giving them strong story reasons to adventure together, and keeps the campaign feeling organic and connected.

When weaving multiple characters' crafting quests together, look for key opportunities to align their goals. A single dragon's hoard could easily hold components for an entire adventuring party, along with other treasures. Using powerful monsters with large treasure hoards or notable access to rare materials is a great way to both keep the party's goals united and layer in deeper story threads and some altruistic motivations for the party.