Pathfinder (2e): Basics of Crafting Part 1

I hate how crappy crafting is in any RPG because I love the idea of being able to make my own equipment and gear but pathfinder crafting is the exact same as shopping with extra steps. Oh, I have to pay the same amount of gold, take 4 days to make it and have a chance to screw up and just lose gold and another 4 days......or I can just go to the corner shop like every other adventurer.

In my opinion the fact that it takes 4 days to make and you have a chance at failing is more than enough to justify only needing half the item's price in gold to make it. Also it's kinda funny to me that by RAW most shopkeepers are selling their items at cost lol.

The crafting rules are pretty simplistic, but how big is that basic crafters book for all formulas to create all the common items. It would have to be a set of encyclopedias to cover everything. I find this aspect of the crafting rules, lazy writing.

so, if rafting costs the same as the listed price of the item, then isn't better to just buy the item and remove the chance of failing?

so, the only things worth crafting are consumables and ammo?

I don't know if I understand right

One question i hope someone reads and answers: how is the DC for the required skill check determined? is there a table for it or does the GM decide?

Can the new Alchemical Gauntlet use striking runes or handwraps of mighty blows ? And does it multiply the 1d4 damage of the bomb's damage type ?

My group just recently switched to PF2e and I just took Snarecrafter Dedication, but I'm considering going deeper into crafting because it looks so interesting. This series is helping a lot, so thanks!

4 days to make 10 arrow is still pretty ridiculous. I would say an hour

Legit question if still read past vid comments. With the upcoming treasure vault and new crafting rules will you do a vid going into details and specifics for it?

this is an even worse crafting system than DnD 3.5....

Sounds like any campaign without weeks of downtime basically makes crafting unusable.

is it just me, or is crafting pointless? you don’t save any money unless you craft for a few decades. makes no sense.

I have a question.
Downtime is a mode when the PC is in home or aren't adventuring.
Time scale: Day, weeks, months, years...
As you say, in pf1 it's 8 hours but here they measure it differently.
You must spend 4 days at work....
My question.
Do those four day have to be consecutive?
Can you count as work day when you are on adventure and return to your base and spend the rest of the day in Downtime?

Does crafting in batches of 4 also mean that if you buy a potion for 6 gp you get 4 of them?

Simple homebrew: to craft any item, a player must pay 4 days of downtime and 2/3 of the price. Apart from that, the rules for crafting are ok.

well made video. helped me a bit

but I have to say, the core rulebook has some weird phrasing about the handbook, where some basic crafting recipe are inside.
it doesn't stand directly what you get, as it leads you to the rules how formulars are, like that you need to buy them and so
only one or two lines mention, that the handbook has all items for lvl 0 or 1 and the recipe in chapter 6 have all lvl 0 and 1 items you can craft, if not stated somehow else

a other interesting thing is: is the handbook adaptiv? like can you add new formulars or do you need that expensiv collegebook aka empty formularbook for that?

Any idea what the narrative intention is when you're just paying the remainder of the cost to finish a project after day 4?

My impression is that perhaps in-world, the crafter needs 4 days to make a bare bones item. And any additional days is spent with extra details like engravings or decorated paraphernalia that would increase its price.
Lowering the cost with the additional days is just a simplification so that we don't have to track different item prices for two longsword that are functionally exactly the same.

so if you decide not to spend additional days reducing the cost of the crafted item, you essentially pay full price for the item

I'm pretty new to this, so could someone explain to me the in-world process of spending money for crafting materials? I presume in a population centre it's supposed to represent buying the materials for the item, but what about when travelling? If a ranger wants to craft more arrows, and there's plenty of materials for them in the nearby forest etc, where does the gold come into it? I understand from a mechanical sense, keeping the game balanced and rules oriented, but what actually happens from the character's perspective? How does the gold get 'spent' when making arrows or a sword or whatever when out exploring?

I'm going to do it, make the most useless PC in PFe2 Full on crafter, Magic and mundane as if you go too far you wont even be a functional PC anymore i fear but with the 'feat' economy most of my feat pick are sub par anyways.... Going to do this as proof of how $hit PFe2 crafting is! Maybe have to go class X and archetype Y and Z to try and cheat system a bit, Skilled and adoptive heritage might also help...Seems like a broadly worded Lore Skill would give you a better focus for some crafting?

-Ahh 4 days for anything that makes perfect sense.
-Hmm random GM item DCs just what a GM needs to stop the fun and the plan.
-Secret #7 your GM can't be a huge dick and let you gain said item BP and materials or that the item EVEN EXISTS for arbitrary reasons.
-SO what happens to materials if you hit 0gp sounds like you don't get them or actual GP back just made a nicer item... pointless if you are using in party.....SO i might get the 1/2 GP cost back yeah i miss e1 crafting with all its crassness

Could you stop your additional days of crafting to go adventuring and then pick it back up later?

i need to watch more carefully I missed some important info...

the ONE dislike lmao

Refreshing myself on this information for my player's first week of downtime!

I am.... SO confused about where, exactly, "raw materials" come from. I am new to Pathfinder and table top RPGs in general so when I think of "raw materials" i think going out and collecting flowers, roots, powders, Ghast tears, etc and going to my alchemy stand; think The Witcher/Skyrim/Minecraft/etc. So where exactly do I get "raw materials"? Can I find them on an adventure? Can I buy them in town? Do I need speific materials or is everything created from the generic "raw" category. Do "raw materials" have a specific cost, like "this batch of raw materials costs 100gp" or do you just buy 10 of the 10gp raw materials. I am soooooooo confused and the player's handbook does NOT seem to give a clear indication of where these are found. Gah!

I know some people don't like this crafting system, but it seems pretty ok to me assuming: 1. specific uncommon-rare items are sometimes difficult to find in your campaign. Just opening up the options of what you can "buy" alone makes it a nice option. and 2. The GM makes sure to give enough occasional downtime for players that want to do crafting. Creating things by hand like that in real life can take a while, especially intricate pieces of armor.

Although that's ignoring having to find formulas, which makes it much less useful since you have to find the recipe for something before you can even consider crafting it. I also think it could be nice if the scaling from trained - legendary was a little higher, so that if a player invests in crafting they can get a bigger discount quicker.

Also, something interesting that I think could be done (if you have players that are really into crafting) is occasionally rewarding players with raw materials that make up for part or all of the 50% upfront cost. It's almost like gifting them a special coupon that only they can redeem since their character is skilled enough to craft whatever the item they want is, and they get to decide what to use the materials on which could be fun too.

"Paying off an item" makes no sense to me.

So say you meet the prerequisites to make arrows while weeks away from civilization.

HOW IS MONEY GOING TO HELP YOU FINISH ARROWS? can you NOT just gather everything you need to make arrows and make them?

What if you find a forge in isolation and again you meet the prerequisites to make the item. In isolation how does gold help you finish the item? Makes NO sense to me.

Can you not just get ALL of the materials needed to make anything and make it without gold?

Great great great job as usual!

On the assumption of working at least an 8 hour day, agreed.

I worked out how long to make a mail hauberk, chain mail.
Level 1 Item costing 6gp.
Raw materials Iron wire and rivets, costs 3gp.
Assuming a level 1 character who succeeds on his crafting roll.
He does 2sp in value of progress per day.
30sp/2 per day+4 days, means 19 days to make a mail hauberk.

I assumed that you could buy the wire already drawn. Else it would take another 19 days to convert the iron to wire. I would allow you in this case to only provide 1/4 of the materials.

For the Downtime time, you mention 8 hours, per 1st edition, but I think it's important to consider 2e's time system, where things are either encounter, exploration, or downtime time, based on GM discretion. What this means is that, largely, the number of hours is kind of up to the GM, given that crafting is a downtime activity. Which is to say, 8 hours might be an Ok baseline, if you want to know how much an artisan might be able to do in their spare time, but it doesn't mean you can spend 16 hours crafting, in a day, to get double the progress, at least without GM permission, in the same way a, say, bard couldn't spend 16 hours on performance to earn double the income with the "Earn Income" activity. This is largely because downtime isn't really measured in hours, the way exploration might be, but in days, so days, rather than hours is the appropriate unit for the timescale that the activity is performed in. In general, it's useful to consider the domain of the action, in terms of how long something takes, rather than the actual time spent, so for things in encounter scenarios, rounds (aka 6 seconds) or actions (a subdivision of that, roughly, but not necessarily 2 seconds), or for exploration scenarios, 10 minutes, or sometimes units of hours, and for downtime, days or sometimes weeks. Subdividing further than that isn't really what the game expects.

Very professional and well made - thumbs up

Great video, as usual. What I find is wrong, is that there is no need for the Expert experience proficiency for creating.

Not all campaigns have a lot of downtime. And this is literally only useful for low level items and ammo. Being 10th level and crafting a 10th level magic shield would take something in the range of a year to make. Completely useless. Most campaigns I'm in have little more than a week or two between each ",event". We had to homebrew it to make it at least viable.

Incredible video as always! Weak crafting system though. Thank you so much for your content, I'll be waiting for the 2nd part, specially for the runes!

Levels on items is the worst thing Paizo has done. So much for sandbox tabletop RPG play.

Awesome video! Thank you.

Great video! Lousy crafting system. This will be getting some heavy modification in my game. Due to the mandatory 4 day period up front of the crafting process, you literally lose money crafting items as opposed to spending your downtime doing other jobs. As trainwreck as crafting is in 1E it at least serves the obvious desired intent behind making your own stuff. Cost efficiency. In any campaign where you have access to a metropolis, crafting will be pointless. A bard will obtain items much more efficiently by using perform checks to earn gold on downtime, and then haggle a merchant down a bit, than any crafter can do by crafting the item themselves.

Can someone help me with a Pathfinder 2e question?
So I'm playing a monk.
I want to play a grappler but I also want the wholeness of body ki spell for the extra health.
Do I need to take one of the level 1 monk feats that specifically say that they give me a focus point pool? Or can I just take any ki spell I want and it will automatically give me a spell pool? For instance, can wholeness of body be the only ki spell I learn without any other prerequisite, or must I absolutely take a level 1 ki spell feat beforehand?
Thanks for the help.

I think the initial crafting period should be based on per day cost to a minimum of 1/2 day and max of 4 days. Then the remaining cost can be calculated in 1/2 day increments. So, low cost items can be completed in 1 day. 5 days to make 10 arrows is a bit out-of-touch.

Great video! I think Holy Water is level 1 and requires Magical Crafting.