So I'll probably take some flak for this, but here it goes...

It seems a little wrong to me that there appear to be any number of uses for the Craft skill, but few of them involve actual crafting. And I don't see any mention of crafting anything useful in game...by useful I mean, for those crunchy gamers like me, things that you use to hit Orcs with in combat (or avoid getting hit by Orcs, or mitigating getting hit by Orcs...)

Craft as a means to reduce shadow, while a nice touch, just seems...not very epic or adventurey. I mean, really, I'm all about Art Therapy, just not in my RPGs.

So, has anyone tried implementing some real honest-to-valar-I-craft-weapons-and-armor rules?
How would you implement it? Since "Rewards" take the place of magic loot in this game, you can't really have crafted armor/weapons come into play which are as good as (and certainly not better than) what you might otherwise get from Rewards, generic or cultural.

I've thought about a couple things,and really I'm just brainstorming, but any of the following could apply:

-You can create weapons and armor and sell them for Treasure or trade them for other things.
-You can break the rules of some of the current Reward paradigms.
-for example, if you have let's say 4 ranks in Craft, you can add a 4th advancement onto a weapon or armor. If you have 6 ranks in Craft you can add a 5th advancement. (instead of being limited to 3). Perhaps these would require great or extraordinary successes.
-You can get "half" steps in weapon or armor advancements:
-reduce the Enc by 1
-add +1 to damage or injury TN
-reduce edge by 1 vs. piercing attacks or crush attacks or slicing attacks.
-add +1 to a parry rating in a specific stance only.
-add +1 to protection tests vs a specific kind of attack (pierce, crush, slice)
-link the armor or weapon to some common skill or task (+1 when using Awe to intimidate foes)

Nice post, liked the idea a lot, but such thing must be done very carefuly, the heros should not get too powerful in the game.

But it would be nice to have some rules like that.

I personally would be against it. But that doens't mean it won't fit the preferences of playstyle of those wanting the game to be more "crunchy" as you put it.

I found (and fell in love with) TOR because I was trying to escape the crunchy style of gamers that permeate and in my opinion ruin a lot of D&D/Pathfinder games.

The introduction to crafting in that game IMO broke the spirit of "magic items" in that game system. I like the notion that Craft is more for therapy as you put it. I don't want it to create better equipment or be used to circumvent the notions of Rewards, and such.

I have a feeling it would also unbalance things. For instance, you indicating three ranks or whatever could be used to add an additional REWARD on an item sounds intriguing and I'm not opposed to having an ability to do this. BUT one character (only) is needed to have spent those skills and can now outfit his entire party with such benefits. That's something to consider.


All that being said, - I've seen and used Craft in my games for many more reasons than just therapeutic removal of Shadow Points. If you're familiar with D&D 3rd+ editions, I use Craft in many ways that you would use Profession skill (as well as the Craft skill).


I used it for instance for a character to navigate and sail a raft down a very treacherous patch of river. (a situation that Profession: Sailor would be relevant for in the D20 games). I've used it to create traps. I've used it for gardening. I've used it for someone who wanted to distill their own mead/ale.

I suppose a number of these you can indicate that you can market and make a profit from it - but then again treasure/wealth is so vague and abstract that it almost seems irrelevant to track it. I could however make room for the idea that someone wishing to do such during their Fellowship Phase could earn a treasure point (or two with a Greater and three with an Exceptional success) using Craft.

But I would draw the line at allowing someone to improve their in-game benefits of their equipment.

Agree with SirKicley, some good points made there with regard to preferred play style, options, and TOR's design elements.

A couple of my characters used Crafting, together with another character's Boating trait, to build a serviceable raft. The character with boating then got them over the river on it. They've used Craft as a knowledge skill when assessing stonework.

I'm just wondering - apart from Dnd, which epic heroes (from books and films) spend their time crafting weapons and armour and stuff which they then use to adventure with?

I'm struggling to think of any.

Could you list a few? The A Team don't count .

Not such a big thing in D&D for the most part as there are that many magic items lying around!

Umm....every frekkin' Noldor Elf in Tolkien's work!?!?

Ok, not everyone, but a lot of them.

I hate to sound like a simpleton here but shouldn't the Craft skill be used primarily to..ya know...Craft stuff?? I think allowing it as an assist for knowledge rolls is ok, but it becomes a little patronizing if that's the only way to use it.

-Gendry from Game of Thrones has his bull-head's helmet.
-The Hero in Dragonslayer, Galen Bradwarden crafted his Dragonscale Shield and the Spear (ok he had help, but the idea remains).
-Elven Smiths at Rivendell reforge Anduril.
-Celebrimbor forging the Rings.
-Countless references to the Smiths of Khazad-dum and Erebor.
-Many many examples of potion making and alchemical crafting.
-The Beginning of Conan the Barbarian opens with one of the most Epic crafting scenes ever accompanied by super-awesome crafting music.
-The bad guy in Iron Man 2 played by Mickey Rourke is a crafter-dude, as is Iron-man himself.

And I don't disagree with all the comments about imbalancing the game. I'm keenly aware of that.

I like the Raft idea.
To me it seems like there is not enough to do in the Fellowship Phase that is player driven, and crafting seems like a good way to me to do things. In D&D, the structure of the game doesn't allow for a "defined" fellowship phase, and so a lot of players who could otherwise craft things don't because adventuring "downtime" is simply glazed over. But I've had characters in both D&D and Savage Worlds that crafted stuff.

On point 1, I agree/sorta disagree. I think the mechanics of it were utterly gamist and left a very bad taste in my mouth. But I very much appreciate what they attempted to do, which was put the ball in the player's court to craft their own magic items and stuff, and that they attempted to quantify says a lot to me. As a GM/LM, I would prefer to see players crafting their own gear rather than me littering dungeons with ancient magical stuff, however I can only properly do that with players who share my vision of the prevalance of magic stuff. I a player who power-levels his way into "Craft Wondrous Item" at level 5 or whatever it is, and is kicking out Belts of Giant Strength for the whole party like it was a Southeast Asian Sweatshop is breaking the spirit of the game. But that's a *player* problem as much as it is a *game* problem.

As you said, Sir Ick, I don't want such an inclusion to subvert rewards either or really create better equipment, but I just wonder if there isn't a way to let a player use the "Craft" Skill in order to push through his own "Rewards" (instead of having them be "given" to him by a Patron or "found" as a part of the more banal "loot" system.) Certainly one could rule that this just "happens" by a player having the Craft skill and let that weave it's way into the narrative of the game, What about a compilation of other generic "Rewards" that look/function more like Cultural Rewards but require craft checks?*

As for point #2, I agree that many of the brainstorms that I had above would unbalance things, hence why I have not implemented it yet and am looking for feedback. I think there are other things that can be done.

*On a related but different note, has anyone noticed that by and large, the cultural rewards seem to be a little underpowered compared to the just selecting 3 generic rewards? Most of them seem to rely on rolling a "G" on the Feat Die or rolling the Feat Die twice. My opinion is that the consistancy for the generic rewards (+2 damage, -1 Edge, +2 Injury TN) outweight most of what you get with cultural rewards.

Gendry is not exactly an Epic hero - he's a blacksmith.
Elven Smiths are NPCs (non heroes)
Celebrimbor didn't use the rings he gave them as gifts*
Dwarven Smiths are NPCs
Potion making and alchemical crafting is usually plot driven and not usually done directly by the hero (though there might be a few exceptions).
Conan never forged his own sword it was passed to him. Cultural Reward.

Iron Man I'll give you. (although that kind of is his thing)
Galen Bradwarden I'll also give you.


*this is another use of craft, to make small gifts to give to people can aid with encounters. (okay Celebrimbor's weren't small but you get the point).

Sorry if I'm coming across as antagonist Rocmistro (I don't mean to), I'm just curious where this idea of heroes crafting stuff and then using it to adventure comes from (other than DnD).

I don't think you're being antagonistic. I do think you (and others) are being a bit narrow-minded though in terms of what you are thinking of as NPCs.

You disqualified, for example, many of the stories I spoke of as being NPCs, thus the reward givers.

I disagree.

Feanor was a "PC" in his story. He was a very high level Player Character, he was the main character of his story, and no doubt he was an crafter/artificer (among other things). In the context of playing an RPG set in the 3rd age, sure, he's an NPC. Have any of you ever played an RPG, where characters from a campaign got to high level and then became NPC's to new characters? We had it occur all the time. In my first 3.0 campaign, our characters became "The Stuff of Legends" for our new group; our Dwarven Warrior became the earth and mountains, my character Jonas became the constellation Orion, etc. etc.

I'll grant you , what we know of Celebrimbor suggests that he was not an "Adventurer" and the focus of the camera was never truly on him. I guess he just made super high level powerful artifacts and gave them away to everybody. That has it's own problems, of course, to model in RPGs. "Have a problem with Orcs fo' shizzle? Come on down and see Cele-brizzle! He's got rings, trinkets, swords and mail, he'll make your dark lord all trippin' and frail!!" Word.

Gendry's not an Epic Hero...ok...bit of straw man though as *I* never said someone had to be an Epic Hero. In fact, in the context of drawing parallels to a TOR campaign character, Gendry is one of the closer archetypes to do that with. Just an average guy (who happens to be a King's bastard with a claim to the throne). I haven't finish George Martin so i don't know what fate awaits him and if we see any more of his crafting in the books. I'll let you know in 5 years once I finish all the books.

Conan's father certainly had his own adventures and stories we just don't see them on film. It's not as though he was "only a crafter" though and that was his profession. he was a pretty tough dude at the beginning of the film.

I guess, ultimately, though, I'm even missing the point of these disqualifications as valid arguments. In Middle-earth, people (elves, dwarves, even Orcs) craft things.....a lot. All the time. There is ample precedent for crafting in Middle-earth...it's practically laden in the text. A whole batch of primary antagonists and characters were all crafters: Feanor, Aule, Celebrimbor, Sauron. Let me reiterate that I'm not looking for ways to introduce players forging Rings of Power. I'm just looking for ways to allow players to, ya know, craft stuff with the craft skill and have it yield, a direct, measureable, correlated effect in their game world. Francesco put the Craft skill in the game, guys,not me. If he wanted to have a skill that allowed us to heal, I daresay Song or Inspire would be better ways to model that, and if you wanted it to be a supplement to knowledge skills, I think a simple Lore or Trait would model that better. It doesn't seem overly obtuse to me to take a direct and literal interpretation of the skill "Craft" and look for ways to implement that.

A comment on the knowledge rolls. A lot of the skills are to be used as Knowledge as well as Action. The Lore skill is pure research and book-learning. The Craft skill is to do with manufactured items. The Hunting skill would be what animal makes tracks like that, or what plant is that (though that could be Healing or Explore as well). Courtesy would be the knowledge of how to behave in a certain situation. Knowledge isn't one skill in TOR, each skill could be used to provide knowledge to the character as well as allowing the character to perform some action.

Well in our last game (which was Don't leave the Path) our woodswoman was give the axe head by the Hermit. She wants to put up her Valour in the next fellowship phase. Her dwarf friend will be trying to reduce his shadow points during the same phase.

Putting the three things together. He has crafted a handle for her Bearded Axe cultural reward. He gets to craft something, she get's her reward and it makes sense from a story point of view.

The other dwarf character spends his time crafting little figurines that he gives as gifts to people he likes. He ties that into using the courtesy skill during encounters or when it makes sense in the story.


So you can work crafting into the game it just has to make sense.

Now a character reaching ranks 5-6 in craft might actually craft a mighty item and it would be pretty cool to have it be a substitute for a cultural reward. Even cooler if he passes it on to his heir.


I think G.R Martin has forgotten about Gendry. I won't say any more (don't want to spoil things for you).

Your point about Middle Earth and crafting was answered by yourself. 'A whole batch of primary antagonists and characters were all crafters: Feanor, Aule, Celebrimbor, Sauron.'

They are antagonists in the stories not protagonists*, they make the magical stuff that other folk use/wield.

*Maybe you could count Feanor as a protagonist, though Feanor crafted plot coupons/magical whatsits for the most part.

I understand that and agree with it Valarian. I think it's a good way to build the mechanic for a game without adding in 18 other specific "Knowledge" or "Lore" skills.

But I also think it's possible and more than that, necessary, to have a direct, literal interpretation for the skill in question or it risks seeming useless at best and totally disingenous at worst. "Sure guys here's the craft skill...except it's not really used in any way whatsoever for crafting." It seems to me that the game and the players (as indicated by the comments here on the forum) are resistant to that notion, and I think that's a shame. My reading of Tolkien's work suggests a world ripe with unique and awesome things, labored over by skilled hands, and they fill me with a love for such things. I really don't understand the resistance to having players assume that roll.

Here's the in-game conversation I see with my players using the observed responses.

Player 1: "Hey, I want to do something cool with my Craft skill. I have 5 ranks in it, which according to the Adventurer's Book means I'm an Outstanding crafter."

LM: "Well you can craft a raft to get across a river..."

Player 2: "Hey, my dwarf is rich so I can afford a luxury cruise liner to get us across, no worries on the raft, I don't even have to roll or subtract any money, I can just do it. Shazzam!"

Player 1: "Hm...ok well that's a good point, maybe I can craft some weapons or armor or even mundane silverware during fellowship phases and sell that, earning a treasure or two that I can then invest into raising my standing..."

LM: "yeah, no, that's really not how the game mechanic works....I award you treasure in super small increments, like 1 or 2 per adventure, then at year's end you have to spend 12 just to raise your standing to 1...which goes away if you don't spend your fellowship phase at home"

Player 1: "Hrm...um...ok. Well can I make better weapons or armor for myself or my companions?"

LM: "Not really, that's what rewards are for..."

Player 1: "Yeah, but who made the Axes that Beorn is giving to us?"

LM: "Other crafters. Craftsmen that DON'T go adventuring. Crafting is to burn off your frustrations at the Smithy..."

Player 1: "How does making a gauntlet remove my guilt at slaughtering those Easterlings that we came across or seeing the burned out villages that we encountered because we didn't get the Orcs in time?"

LM: "Do you have any idea how un-Tolkieny you're being right now??"

There's a misunderstanding of the Craft skill that tends to crop up now and then. The skill is not the skill of making anything at all; it's the skill of working with your hands. To make a sword you use the Craft skill for the working-with-your-hands part, but this is the roll needed for anyone who is untrained as a smith. Successfully making a sword without being a smith would require a fairly high TN. Anyone with the Smith-craft trait (i.e., trained as a smith) would be able to invoke that trait for an automatic success to make an ordinary sword.

So: skills represent the natural abilities and general learning of a character; specialties represent specific training in a particular field. In general, a character won't succeed at doing something that is normally done only by a specialist, but they can still try. The specialist, however, will usually succeed—it's only when they're trying something unusual that they even have to roll.

I don't know that I fully agree with that, although I would be *ok* with that interpretation. I'd like to see a reference in the published material that supports your summary. I do think that interpretation breaks down at a certain point. You cannot be an "outstanding" or "prodigious" crafter, hunter, battler, persuader, riddler, researcher without really assuming at some level that you had some specialized, formal training. That having been said I'll be the first to admit that after 20 gaming sessions starting in the summer last year, not a single one of my players has a single skill (Common or Weapon) at over 3 ranks yet.

But even if we were to go 100% with your interpretation...I'm ok with it. If someone takes the Smith-craft (or Woodcraft) trait, all the more reason where I had better, as LM give them some way to employ that skill.

If I may: What I think i hear (read) you advocating for is: not so much for something fantastic to craft per se - but to use Craft Skill to create tangible in-game beneficial stuff (armor, weapons, trinkets etc).

If this is true: unfortunately the game as written is not designed to introduce these. Doesn't mean you have to like it or agree with it - but it doesn't change it, either. You can of course change these ideas, and if you do - your ideas of "mini-rewards" (statistically speaking) makes as much sense as anything else would. The warnings and cautions of unbalancing things have been noted, and you did seem to acknowledge them - so it's not like you'd be doing so cluelessly.


What I would like to propose however, is that my earlier statement of D&D ruining "Magical Items" with its crafting, to which you somewhat agreed - did so because it only created an arms race. Nothing more. Fun, interesting, wonderful magical items that once existed in the game in previous editions were never considered again. The magic items were all statistical improvements. Cloaks of Resistance, Rings of Protection, Armor of Plus, and Weapons of Plus, items of Ability Score Pluses, and Amulets of Nat Armor pluses. Did you ever see a wizard character with Craft Wonderous ever make....a cloak of the bat? Cloak of the Manta Ray? Neclace of Wound Closure? Girdle of Dwarvenkind??? If not rarely, never. That's because the game was focused on statistical improved arms race. Is this a bad thing? No. It' just is. Some like it. Some don't. For me this was a shame. Cool items were just sold off-handely, so that they had the money to increase their cloak of resistance from +2 to +3. And this is because the power curve design needed you to have a +X number in each category at Y level in order to be comparable to Encounter Level Z at that stage in the game. You NEEDED those iconic bonuses to be on par with the encounters and adventures that your party level were meant to face. Again - is this bad for all? No. Some like Pepsi Max or Android Phones. Some prefer Coke Zero, and Iphones.

TOR is not an arms race. My fear (mirrored by many others) is that providing a statistical gain for crafting ones gear is step towards that end in a game that has no such mandatory power creep to play. You can make it that way, sure, but it's counter-design. It's a fish out of water, or square peg in a round hole. Furthermore, the only people that truly need to have a "Craft skill that actually crafts something useful" are those who come from that arms race mentality and cannot or prefers to not divorce themself from that. I get it. I had a hard time "unlearning" much of my D20 habits, and style usage when I first got TOR. Some aspects were harder than others, but I learned to appreciate the simplicity of it, and recognize the differences and need for those differences for the sake of the game play and balance. The hardest part is thinking outside the box and abstractly about some of the skills and such - Craft is one of the hardest.

As has been said - it's just a matter of expectation of what to do. This thread has already shown a number of ways that Craft can be useful in providing helpful vocationary assistance in circumstances, professional knowledge of work, and other types of tasks meant to be done via physical/manual labor. You can also use it to reverse engineer / deconstruct as well.

So what else does Craft do within the Tolkien world? How else do you think all that wonderful elven architecture of Lothlorien or Rivendell was designed? or the jaw-dropping artistic work within Erebor/Moria. Minas Tirith? The Argonath? Craft was not just about creating weapons of renown quality. You could use it to make a great meal. Grow the best tobacco/pipe weed, create a vintage wine, you can repair weapons/shields, making sure you have the right fancy knot or safe knot on a rope you're about to use. As for wanting something within a game, most are more aesthetic reminders of the flavor of the world. You can Craft to assist in rebuilding Lake-Town, or Dale, etc. Do you gain anything? Not necessarily tangible - but it's how your abstract from it - your craft allows you help build, so it explains why you're increasing your standing there. Or as someone said - its crafting figurines that is a factor in his Courtesy when meeting others. A character can craft gear for the party - but instead of a statistical bonus, perhaps it's time spent to make someone wonderfully attractive or ornate. So it's not "just a sword you started with" or your helmet is fashioned to resemble something grand. Yes this matters not in D&D if it doesn't carry with it some statistical gain to improve upon, but in this setting it does make a difference. These items generates stories, it carries with it rumors, and songs, and legends, reputation, renown, and other such theoretic notions.. All the way down to Aragorn convincing a young lad at Helm's Deep that he has a good sword. Things like this are memorable, and perhaps it has in game aesthetic story based return on investment later when it woven back into the story.

In the end, it may be something you and your players just to decide it's not a skill worth spending additional points into after the character culture auto-assigned is taken into account. Then again, you never know when it could come in handy. Given enough time to prepare for a battle, a well used Craft Skill could come in handy in preparing defenses. I would hand out additional D6s (a la Battle Roll) for the oncoming battle if a greater/extraordinary success is made.

Ultimately the skill - like many other parts of the game - is only as limited or useful as you can find ways to implement it. So too is the Merry trait or the Smoking distinctive feature.

Adventurer's Book, p. 92: "The Craft skill doesn't really cover the whole range of abilities of smiths, wrights and other artisans, but reflects the talent of a character for making or mending things by hand, although Traits like Smithcraft or Woodright can be used to reflect proficiency in a specific craft."

Note that word "specialized." You're applying it to "common skills": by definition, not specialized skills. Skill at Hunting doesn't only mean stalking game; it also means setting traps and training animals, tracking, and identifying creatures by their signs. Skill at Battle is more than just learning tactics; it includes keeping calm during a fight and maintaining morale of troops. And so on. Common skills aren't pure talents only; they are an amalgam of talent and training, but in a very broad way.

Specialties are traits that focus on one specific trade. They're not skills, per se, but they let the player narratively declare things about his or her character. Anyone can try to make a sword, but it's pretty hard; someone with Smithcraft can do it easily. Anyone can try to heal another, but someone with Leechcraft can do it without fail.

Specialties also aren't bound to specific skills; they're useful whenever the players say they're useful (given the approval of the loremaster).

There's only one thing that the system cannot do: you cannot be unusually skilled at a narrow task. To be an amazing smith, Smithcraft is not enough; you need a good Craft score, in which case you are good at all kinds of things having to do with fine, manual work. Most people in Middle-earth are not this skilled at anything, so I'd say this isn't that big a deal.

Even then, a character with Craft 6 and Smithcraft will be able to make the most wonderful boats, but it's when he makes a sword that he'll be able to get advancement points.

Really excellent post (again!), SirKicley.