If you try to build something that's within the normal capabilities of your culture, roll a simple contest against a default resistance of 14. The quality of the item will be a standard value (e.g. 16 for bronze armour, 10W for a longhouse, W3 for a stone temple), modified by the simple contest result:
major or better success: +10% of crafters skill
marginal failure: -1
minor failure: -10%
major failure: -50%
complete failure: unusable
Some items require the equivalent of an extended contest to create, but using a fixed set of skills, and usually with no active opposition. For example, building a longship may require 40 AP worth of carpentry, 20 AP worth of sailcraft, 10 AP of ropemaking, 60 AP of shipbuilding, 20 AP worth of blessing.
In crafting terms, a full days work by one person is a 1AP bid. Consequently, followers are the best way for most crafters to create large items.
Some items are only creatable by smiths of extraordinary skill, after extensive preparation, the collection of numerous rare ingredients, and under auspicious circumstances. For example, working with iron has a D+40 modifier, and other rune metals d+20, meaning the default 14 is replaced by 14W2 and 14W1 respectively. These items normally have much higher ratings than the standard, modified by the crafters skill as normal.
It is rumoured that some cults have the secret of iron working, which negates the D+40 modifier, allowing iron items to be created by non-heroic smiths.
Smiths from some cultures create items, from the same materials, that are better than others. Loskalmi plate armour is noticably better than Sartarite, but Loskalmi smiths have to train no longer and harder than Sartarite ones. In such cases, the basic equipment rating is higher.
For example, Rothari bowmakers know the secret of the longbow, which has a default rating of 19 (made up value). Most other bowmakers only produce composite bows, which are rated at 12. In any situation where the power of the bow, as opposed to the skill of the user, is tested (e.g. a knight decides to rely on his armour to protect him from a hail of arrows, instead of dodging), the owner of a masterwork rathori longbow will be at a substantial advantage.
Mostali, of course, know many recipes that no other culture does.
Finally, in order to create an item never before created by anyone in your culture, you can perform a heroquest. The result can be a one-off piece of equipment that matches or betters a mostali iron masterwork, or a recipe that any crafter in your culture can follow to make something better than they could before.
soru
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