Asked this on the strike to stun forums, but thought it wouldn't hurt to go "Official."

Short version is, I have a player that wants to mine ore, smelt it, and forge armor for the party. I have found no information on how the tradeskills work in this manner. Do they exist? if not, is there a fan version?

I don't know much about second edition, but my question for you is to ask what you want out of having a skill system for that kind of thing. What makes it preferable to just narrating things for the player and saying his character will take so many weeks or months to do all the work required to make armor? Do you want the player to have a chance to fail at this? Do you want the player to have to roll in order to accomplish anything? Do you want there to be rules for how long it will take the character to make things, how much tools and materials cost or for the quality of their work?

Honestly, I think you'd be well set to just look up online for some resources on armor smithing to get ideas for how long it takes and what materials are required. For a price, just go with half the cost of the original item for material costs. Depending on how realistic you want to make it, the player is going to have to pay an initial price for mining equipment, smelting equipment, and forging equipment. Go for like a year's wages for each thing to outright own a pair, or 10% of that to rent equipment.

Honestly, I think that before you start applying rules you should figure out what you want out of them and what the player wants out of them. That gives a better idea for how to houserule.

I want a system because he wants to do it regularly, and possibly for profit. There was something of a system for this in Old World Armory if I recall, and I may have to get my hands on that book again. But I recall it was per day, not per item.

I do want him to have a chance to fail. His character is a tradesman who wants to go into Artisan, then Runesmith. He wants to pack in a ton of XP and skillpoints into being a master smith, and I want that to mean something, have some sort of payoff. Just saying "Yeah, you succeed after X time" doesn't really give that payoff. And while I don't have players roll to accomplish *anything* I do have them roll to accomplish things that, well, have a skill associated with them. Such as Tradeskill(Smithing).

I want rules that give a base time items of various sizes/materials to be made, so I can adjust the creation time based on the roll. Tool are mostly covered, but i'm uncertain of things like how much ore you need to smelt to make a sword, and can you realistically mine if yourself or are you pretty much going to have to buy it, and how much it would cost.

What we both want is for him to have a way to contribute to the party as legitimately as the shieldbreaker combat guy. I wouldn't rule that the Shieldbreaker automatically kills all of his enemies in combat without rolling, and I wouldn't rule that the armorsmith automatically makes the armor without rolling.

IIRC there are details on crafting armours and so on in the Black fire pass suppliment.

IIRC there are details on crafting armours and so on in the Black fire pass suppliment.

Was there a 2nd edition release for that?

Well, your biggest issue with this is timescale and location. All of those skills involve staying at the same place for a long period of time without doing much else. It's going to be a hard time for the player to contribute in any kind of adventure AND use these skills. I mean, you could probably hand wave him having a portable smithing kit, but the other things not so much. You also have the problem of if you're wanting him To be able to fail, a failed roll will mean an entire wasted day or more, as opposed to just a few minutes for most other skills. Even if you lower it to having him roll for every hour, do you really want to have the game stop every day for him to roll several times in a row?

I'm all for encouraging interesting character concepts, but I feel like your player is making someone who will be incompatible with an adventuring party. If he wants his skill to contribute as much as a combat one, he's looking at spending a long long time working on stuff while the rest of the party goes on adventures.

Keep in mind that if you have a player roll, it can be assumed they they won't fail the task, but not succeeding the roll means they take longer, make worse product, etc, while succeeding well means it takes less time, better product, etc.

Basically, I again think more information would be important on how your player sees spending time with the party versus having a full-time job in one place, and how mch traveling your adventure will have.

My recommendation is that you give him portable smithing tools, offer occasional opportunities to do other things, and let him craft stuff as the group travels. In order to reflect time, you can have him make a roll each night or rest for when he smiths and he needs X degrees of successes to create the item, where X is the difference in good pieces cost between materials and item. Failures or degrees of failures cause nothing other than wasted time. The player can spend extra successes to make an item better quality.

The campaign is taking place mainly in Altdorf over the period of several years. The players all have responsibilities and training occuring there, so he's not any more anchored than the rest of the party.

Similarly, due to the timeframe involved, having him spend years crafting the armor is no biggies, it's mainly a question of when he makes it, and what quality it is when he is done.

Just wanted to say that someone pointed me to the "Trades of the Old World" stuff at http://www.liberfanatica.net/Apocrypha.html , and it was perfect for the task. Highly reccomened it to anyone else who, for whatever reason, need to delve a bit into tradeskills beyond "Why yes, that is an anvil, I am quite familiar with those."

Here's what I have on the subject:

Crafting -

Many Trade skills allow you to create new equipment from parts and raw materials. To do so, you must have supplies equal to one-half of the item’s list price. Make the appropriate skill test. On a success, you generate 1d10 silver shillings and each degree of success allows you to roll an additional 1d10 silver shillings. Apply the shillings generated toward the total list price of the item. Once you equal or exceed the item’s price, you have completed it.

On a failed test, you make no progress. If you fail by 30 or more, you suffer a setback. Reduce your progress by 1d10 shillings (which may necessitate spending more money on raw materials if you botch the first test). If you fail by 50 or more, you suffer a disastrous setback and ruin all the materials and lose all progress gained thus far. You must begin again from the start.

*Note: You can change silver to crowns if its more appropiate for the item in question.