RealSorceror's PF2 Crafting Guide

Almost everything I’ve compiled here can be found in the Archives of Nethys. I would also recommend checking out the How It’s Played channel on Youtube, which was very helpful. This guide contains no information that has not been made public by Paizo.

My unfinished guide to Command an Animal/Animal Companions can be found here: RealSorceror's PF2 Animal Guide

Changelog

**10/15/24** Been a full year and some sections are still not updated to the Remaster. Working on it.

**11/16/23** Will be updating the guide with the Remaster rules over the coming days.

**3/01/23 Updating the Look** Working on revamping charts and wording throughout. Once I’m done with the first half I’ll get around to the character building half.

**2/22/23 Adding Treasure Vault Content** Purchased the pdf this morning and will be adding new content throughout the week as I read through. Lots of fun stuff in here.

**2/9/23 Watching NoNat** I have added a new section called Alternate Crafting Rules based on what I was able to gather from NoNat’s video. I will adjust as needed once I have the full rules myself. Also I corrected some math on the Int chart that was wonky.

**2/6/23 Happy New Year!** I have added a section on Cooking at the very end. I will be doing another major update with the release of the new crafting rules at the end of this month/early next month.

Step 1: How It’s Made - Basic Rules        3

Proficiency        4

Feats        4

Tools        4

Spells        4

Formulas        5

Check DC: Assurance vs Intelligence        5

Adjusting Difficulty        7

Getting Bonuses        7

Step 2: Get That Bread - Other Uses        8

Earn Income        8

Repair Gear        9

Lightning Round        9

Step 3: Equipment Categories - What Can You Make?        10

Snare Crafting        12

Specialty Crafting        13

Step 4: Runes & Precious Materials        13

Fundamental Runes        14

Property runes        14

Accessory Runes        15

Transfering Runes        15

Precious Materials        15

Step 5: From The Vault - Alternate Crafting Rules        16

Complex Crafting        17

Deconstructing Items        18

Critical Crafting        18

Nature Crafting        19

Suggestions & Houserules        19

Step 6: This Town Ain’t Big Enough - Settlement Level        20

Buying & Selling        20

Abilities & Structures        21

Step 7: Building a Builder - Character Creation        22

Ancestry        23

Background        24

Class        24

Archetype        27

Step 8: Crafting Feats & Skills        29

Step 9: The Right Tools        32

Unobtainable Gear        35

Proficiency Without Level (Variant Rule)        36

Step 10: Around the Campfire        37

Good Cooking        38

Gardens of Wonder        39

All About Crafting

Crafting in Pathfinder 2e is more accessible than ever before. Most staple items like magic weapons, healing potions, and boots of elvenkind no longer require a caster level or spellcasting ability. This means that every character can create their core gear on their own without needing to rely on a party member or npc. Characters can also branch out into other areas, perhaps creating mutagens or bombs to compliment their class abilities.

The Crafting skill now incorporates much of the functionality of old 1st edition skills like Appraise, Knowledge Engineering, and Profession. Crafting can also be used to repair damaged gear and earn a weekly income, making it a more versatile and useful skill to characters of every class. However, there are downsides. Crafting is still time consuming and expensive, and the various rules are spread throughout the core book.  

In the first half of the guide I’ll cover the crafting system itself and some of the more complicated aspects. In the second half I’ll go over character build options and rate them with the typical color code we all know from many other online guides.

I would highly suggest doing Crafting between sessions and planning for logical breaks in the adventure to allow for downtime. Because there may be several real life weeks between games, it can even fit the narrative that your character was busy building something while everyone was away. I have also found it helpful to do some “shopping” at the beginning of a session, letting the party discuss their budget and who needs what gear. This will give crafters a better idea of what is needed and how much resources they have to spend.

Step 1: How It’s Made - Basic Rules

There are two major considerations when crafting any item; Time & Money.

When creating a new item, you will always spend at least half the item’s listed Price, either in coin or raw materials. It takes a minimum of 2 Days of downtime to create any item, unless otherwise stated. These days do not need to be consecutive, but must be done in 1 day increments. If you have the formula for the item, it takes only 1 Day.

At the end of those days you must succeed at a Crafting skill check. The DC is based on the item’s level, rarity, and any other factors decided by the GM. On a Success, you may pay the other half of the item’s cost to finish it right away. Or you may continue working additional days to reduce the remaining cost. Use your Crafting result as if you were Earning Income. At any time you may stop and pay the remaining difference or work until no cost remains

Consumable items such as bombs, scrolls, potions, and talismans can be made in Batches of 4. You must still pay the cost of materials for all of them, but this is more efficient than crafting one potion at a time.

Ammunition like arrows, black powder, and bolts can be crafted in Batches of 10. Magical ammunition, on the other hand, follows the same batch of 4 rules as other consumables.

Proficiency

You must be at least Trained in Crafting to create an item of your level or lower. Higher level gear will require higher levels of proficiency. Remember that most characters can only become Legendary in three skills

Feats

All mundane gear only requires that you have the right Proficiency level. However, several major groups of equipment require specific feats. Alchemical Crafting covers everything with the Alchemical trait, such as bombs, elixirs, and poisons. Snare Crafting covers only snares, which are traps that debuff and hamper enemies.

The largest category is Magical Crafting, which requires you to have Expert proficiency and includes almost everything that isn’t covered by the above.

As we’ll discuss in the character building chapter, Alchemical Crafting is an amazing feat that you usually won’t want to take by itself. Alchemist Dedication is almost always the better option. Snare Crafting is difficult to specialize into unless you are a Kobold, Ranger, or Snarecrafter. Magical Crafting, on the other hand, you will almost always want to take on any dedicated crafting build.

Tools

Crafting requires a set of Artisan’s Tools related to the item you’re making (Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Woodworking, etc) and in some cases may need a full workstation or forge. If the type of workspace is unclear, assume a relatively safe and stable location where the crafter can work with minimal interruption.

• An Alchemist’s Lab is needed to craft alchemical items during downtime. An Alchemist, Investigator, or similar character only needs Alchemist’s Tools to use their daily class features.

• A Snare Kit has all the necessary tools for creating snares through downtime and special abilities.

Spells

While the majority of magic items no longer require to be a caster, most items that replicate spells require that spell to be cast during crafting. This includes scrolls, staves, and wands. This spell must come from you or an ally. Magic items cannot be made using spells from other magic items.

Formulas

All equipment has a recipe or blueprint explaining how to create it. Having an item’s formula reduces the initial setup time needed to craft it by 1 Day. Owning a formula is never required for Common items, but is necessary for Uncommon and Rare items unless you have Access to those items (such as through your ancestry).

Formulas are typically treated as rolled up parchment weighing Light Bulk, but they can take many forms and be written in any language. A Basic Crafter’s Book contains all common level 0 formulas in the Core Rulebook. Certain feats and class features grant additional formulas.

Common formulas can be purchased or copied from an NPC for the price listed below. Copying a recipe into your formula book takes 1 Hour. If you have the original copy, you can also attempt to make a new copy using the Crafting skill. Uncommon and Rare formulas are more expensive, if they are even available for purchase. Otherwise these can appear as treasure or rewards determined by the GM.

Reverse Engineer: If you have the item but not the formula, you can spend 2 Days disassembling the item to discover the recipe. At the end of the two days, make a Crafting check against the DC to create the item. No benefit is listed for critical success, but I would recommend being treated as 1 level higher when earning income.

The disassembled components are worth half its Price in raw materials and can be recreated using the normal crafting rules, including the reduced crafting time if you learned the formula. If you are using the Deconstruction variant rules from Treasure Vault, these could also be used toward making a different piece of gear instead.

Check DC: Assurance vs Intelligence

Throughout this guide we will be discussing two paths for crafting characters; Assurance vs Intelligence. There is also a third path for Wisdom-based characters. However, it is not as straightforward and will generally require specialty feats and gameplay variants. Wisdom characters will need to meet the same DC’s as Intelligence.

On the chart below we can see how they stack up against the standard Level-Based DCs. A character using the Assurance build will simply take the feat at 1st or 2nd level and upgrade their Crafting skill as early as possible. The Assurance feat skips rolling, and gives you an automatic result of 10 + Your level + Your proficiency bonus (either +2, +4, +6, or +8). Therefore, a level 3 character with Expert proficiency would automatically succeed at a DC 17 check. If your GM sticks to the suggested DC’s, a character using Assurance will usually be crafting items one or two levels below their character level. Usually this is fine. The major drawback is that you cannot critically succeed on checks unless the item is significantly lower level. On the other hand, you cannot critically fail.

The Intelligence build, meanwhile, assumes an Int-dedicated character such as a Witch, Inventor, or Alchemist. They have boosted their Intelligence at every opportunity and used their skill upgrades as early as possible. Furthermore, they have access to equipment that grants an item bonus on Crafting checks at the earliest level it becomes available. Most characters will probably lag behind a few points.

The final column on the right shows the minimum roll needed for a maxed-out Int character to succeed on the check. In the early game, you’ll probably want to play safe and craft items that are lower level. However, a character in the late game (lvl 15+) is all but guaranteed to make their check and has a high chance to critically succeed (pass the check by 10 or more). For this reason I would recommend low-level characters seek out Circumstance bonuses (such as from an ally using Aid) or begin as an Assurance build and retrain out later.

*Never* attempt the check if there is a chance of Critical Failure!

Examples…

So let’s say you’re a 2nd level Fighter with the Assurance feat. You will automatically succeed at making a level 0 item (DC 14), so you decide to make a battleaxe. Because you have a Basic Crafter’s Book you get to reduce the setup time to just 1 Day and spend half the axe’s cost of 5 sp. You decide to continue working for two more days (making 3 sp a day) to ignore the remaining cost.

If this same character wanted to make a bastard sword, which costs 4gp, this could take significantly more time. You would expend the initial 2 gp and 1 Day of work. Earning 3 sp a day, you could pay off the other half of its cost in 7 days of work.

Adjusting Difficulty

Along with the suggested Level-Based DC’s above there is a table for how to modify the difficulty. One recommendation given in the Core Rules that I would definitely implement is lowering the difficulty for items that the player has crafted previously. It also notes that the DC for Repairing an item is not modified in most circumstances. Since the math of the game typically assumes Common items, I would only raise the difficulty of crafting very sparingly.

Getting Bonuses

The Aid Action can be used on downtime activities, assuming both characters are present and collaborating. Followers and Hirelings are the easiest to use, but only another player or cohort will have the stats to reliably succeed on their Aid check. The ally should only need to assist for the initial Setup Time to aid the initial check.

The suggested Aid DC is 15.

Item Bonus: Better quality tool kits and magic items can provide an Item Bonus on Crafting checks. The earliest level at which these appear is 3rd (+1), 9th (+2), and 17th (+3). These won’t help with the Assurance feat, but any character actually rolling their checks should seek these out as soon as they can. Crafting gear is discussed further in the character building chapter.

Status Bonus: Spells and effects such as Guidance and Heroism grant a Status bonus on skill checks. Due to their short duration, it is difficult to get this bonus on downtime checks. The rules require that a bonus be constant or applied so frequently that it is effectively constant.

Rerolls - Things like Hero Points or Halfling Luck cannot be used during downtime activities. This reinforces the fact that you only get one roll. Better make it count.

Hirelings & Followers

As they are written in the core rules, hirelings aren’t very useful for crafting. An unskilled hireling can’t even make the check since it’s a trained activity, and a skilled hireling only has a +4 bonus. Even with item bonuses and the Hireling Manager feat they can’t reliably Aid you.

The Pathfinder Society hirelings are more promising, but still limited. These scale with your level and come in Trained, Expert, and Master varieties. So their bonus will typically be your level plus their Proficiency mod. They can also be upgraded to have a single skill feat, which could include Alchemical or Magical Crafting.

The problem is these hirelings are forbidden from aiding you or receiving aid in return, and can’t get item or status bonuses. They also assume you are using the Reputation subsystem as they don’t have hiring costs. Still, they could be great for alternate uses of the Crafting skill such as driving vehicles, recalling knowledge, and identifying elixirs.

Followers and Lieutenants gained from Leadership have none of these restrictions, but will always be much lower level than the party. Even so, they are perfect for building specifically for assisting on downtime activities.

Step 2: Get That Bread - Other Uses

Earn Income

When you’re not spending your downtime building something, a Trained character can also use Crafting to Earn Income. Unlike creating an item, many of the factors for earning income are more loose. When you decide to look for work, the GM determines what jobs are available in the area and how long those jobs last. The rules assume a typical job is one to two weeks, although a project like helping to build a castle could take months or years. The GM also determines the level of the job, which sets the check DC and how much money you can earn each day. Finding work lower than your level is considered easy and requires no further actions, but finding jobs higher than your level requires socializing, research, or just gathering information with a Diplomacy check.

Once you’ve found a job you want and completed your first day of work, you’ll make a Crafting check to determine how much you make each day for the duration of the job or until you decide to stop. The Earn Income chart is also used when determining how much money you save when working to reduce the cost of a crafted item, as discussed earlier. Just match your proficiency rank to the level of the job.

A Success on your roll means you get paid this amount each day you work. A Critical Success treats the job’s level as one level higher. A Failure still means you get paid, but you use the Failure column and not your proficiency rank. A Critical Failure is just like critically failing at your job in real life. You get paid nothing and they ask you to leave.

If you’re a crafter trying to earn money, this is usually an easier way to do things than actually creating and reselling items. You don’t have to invest any money yourself and you don’t have to find a buyer for your wares. Note that other skills can be used to earn income, most notably Performance and Lore.

The chart has been extended for 20th level characters who roll a critical success or are using an Inexplicable Apparatus.

Repair Gear

Even if you are untrained (but why would you be?), you can spend 10 minutes trying to fix a damaged item. This requires both hands, a Repair Kit, and a flat surface like a table or tree stump. The DC is set by the GM, but should usually be the item’s level unless circumstances are making things easier/harder. Success restores hit points as shown below. Critical Failure deals 2d6 damage to the item, but the damage is reduced by the item’s hardness.

Lightning Round

Here’s a quick run down of additional uses of the Crafting skill;

• Recall Knowledge: An untrained character can use Crafting to perform any of the functions of the old Appraise and Knowledge Engineering skills. This includes determining the value of an item, understanding how trap mechanisms work, the traits of unusual materials, and identifying alchemical or mechanical monsters such as constructs.

• Identify Alchemy: A Trained character with an Alchemist Kit can spend 10 minutes testing the properties of an alchemical item to understand what it does. This requires a Craft check with a DC set by the GM (I would recommend using the item’s level). On a critical failure you incorrectly identify the item as doing something else.

• Obstacles & Hazards: Crafting is listed as an alternative to Athletics and other skill checks when resolving certain obstacles and hazards. Usually this involves things like repairing a rope bridge or reinforcing an unstable mineshaft or corridor.

• Piloting Vehicles: Crafting is the primary skill check used to pilot Alchemical vehicles such as airships and steam giants. The Gamemastery Guide doesn’t explicitly say players can craft or repair vehicles, but it does list their level and price, which is all you need to determine their DC.
• Rituals: Several rituals require a secondary caster to make a Crafting check; Planar Binding, Animate Object, Consecrate, Imprisonment, and Primal Call.

Step 3: Equipment Categories - What Can You Make?

Pathfinder 2nd Edition has mostly done away with old ideas like body slots and undefined categories like Wondrous Items, while also introducing new types of items. You still cannot wear two pairs of gloves or two pairs of goggles, but you can wear as many rings as you have fingers. I have organized everything here by the same categories used on Archives of Nethys.

• ADVENTURING GEAR: All mundane equipment that can be crafted by anyone Trained in Crafting. With the exception of high level locks and manacles, most of this gear is level 0-3. Some of it is so cheap and minor (such as pieces of chalk) that it should probably be done during a rest or morning preparation instead of using the Craft system.

• Armor: This includes mundane armor, unique magic armor, and armor made of precious materials like mithral. We’ll discuss precious materials later on.
• Shields - These include your basic shields, special material shields, and unique magic shields.
• Weapons: This includes mundane weapons, unique magic weapons, and those made of precious materials like mithral. We’ll discuss precious materials later on.

• ALCHEMICAL ITEMS: These all require the Alchemical Crafting feat and an Alchemist Lab when created during downtime. Classes such as Alchemist and Investigator can create these items for free during their daily preparation with an Alchemist Kit. Most of these count as Consumables and can be made in batches.

• Bombs - Most bombs deal damage and sometimes splash, but some have other effects.
• Bullets - Firearm ammunition uses black powder or other alchemical components.
• Elixirs - Non-magical potions that typically provide healing and temporary buffs.
• Poisons - Put these on your weapons or feed them to someone you don’t like.
• Tools - Classic D&D items like the Tindertwig and Sunrod, as well as new items.

• CONSUMABLES: This is a broad category that covers any magic item that is destroyed or worthless after being used. Most of these require the Magical Crafting feat and can all be crafted in batches of 4. In addition to the categories listed here, a few other magic items like Feather Tokens also count as consumables.

• Ammunition - Mundane ammunition can be crafted in batches of 10, while magic ammunition follows the normal batch of 4. Firearm bullets require the Alchemical Crafting feat, but otherwise follow the same rules as other ammo.
• Fulus - Magical sticky notes that activate based on a certain trigger. Interestingly, fulus can be crafted in 1 day instead of 2. This reduces their duration from 1 year to 1 month.
• Gadgets - Technological items that produce a one-time effect. Since gadgets are all uncommon or rare, typically only Inventors have easy access to them.
• Oils - Lotions and ointments that are applied to other gear or characters. Typically they take 1-2 actions to apply and reproduce a spell or provide a temporary effect.
• Potions - Magical liquids that you drink to gain a temporary benefit. Alchemical Elixirs are similar to potions but are considered non-magical.
• Scrolls - These parchments are single use copies of a spell. You or an ally will need to cast the spell during the creation of the scroll. There is a formula for each level of scroll, not for each individual spell.
• Snares - These are small traps that players can create themselves using the Snare Crafting feat. They require only 1 minute to create and set if you have the materials on hand. Crafting a batch during downtime uses the normal Craft rules, so it is usually easier to bring mats and make them on the spot as needed.
• Talismans - Basically magic key chains and decorations you tie to your weapons and other gear. They can be activated later to provide a one-time bonus.

• RUNES: This is the primary method of enhancing weapons and armor. Runes can be moved from one piece of gear to another so you don’t have to stick with the same item forever. Full rules for runes are described further down.

• Fundamental: Your standard +1 magical enhancement or increase to damage dice. Also covers armor enhancement and resistance bonuses.
• Property: Special upgrades for armor and weapons such as Shadow or Bane.
• Tattoos: While they are inked onto a creature, tattoos function like an invested item. After being crafted, they require a month to heal. Magical or alchemical healing reduces the healing period to 1 day. Requires the Specialty Crafting (Artistry) feat.

• MISCELLANEOUS: These are catch-all categories for various equipment. Each category includes both mundane and magical gear.  

• Assistive Items: Various mobility aids and prosthetics for characters with impairments. Aside from interesting roleplay opportunities, many of these have other fun applications.
• Companion Items: Equipment intended for mounts and animal companions.

• Held Items: Any non-weapon item that needs to be held and manipulated to function. This includes rods, musical instruments, figurines, and bags.

• Staves - A staff can hold multiple spells related to a theme, like fire or healing. You will need to provide each of the spells listed during the crafting process. Using a staff requires that you can cast spells from that tradition and of that spell level. The number of charges it has are equal to your highest level spell slot. You can’t charge more than one staff each day.
• Wands - Once per day these can cast a specific spell or produce a special effect. You can try to force a wand to cast again with a flat DC 10 check, but you risk destroying it. When crafting the wand you must supply a spell that meets its crafting requirements.

• Worn Items - All varieties of clothing accessories like goggles, bracers, boots, and cloaks, as well as jewelry like rings and amulets. Worn Items also collects a few slotless items like aeon stones.

• Apex Items - These are powerful, endgame versions of old items like Gloves of Dexterity or Periapt of Wisdom. They require using one of your 10 item investment points to bond them to you, which effectively prevents you from easily sharing apex items.

• UNCRAFTABLE: These are additional categories which either can’t be crafted by players or don’t have clear rules on their creation.

• Artifacts: Items so legendary and rare that they cannot normally be purchased or crafted. Generally these only appear if the GM adds them to the story.
• Relics: Like Artifacts, relics typically can’t be crafted or found normally. Relics scale in power with the character and allow for more customization and choice. Spellhearts work identical to relics but are inherent to the character and not tied to an object.
• Structures - Most structures are created using resource points gained via the Kingdom building system. This is a whole separate ruleset that doesn’t interact much with character skills.
• Vehicles - Most of these are listed in the Gamemastery Guide and range from simple carts and wagons, to galleys and airships. Electric and Clockwork vehicles can be piloted with Crafting.

Suggestion: Crafting Vehicles & Structures

As written, there are no clear rules on crafting vehicles and buildings other than their cost and item level. However, the Guns & Gears book has special rules for crafting siege weapons. It is suggested that a crafter have a number of assistants equal to the normal Crew required to operate the weapon. These workers help with gathering materials and physical labor of the project. I would recommend a similar requirement for vehicles. For example, a gargantuan sailing ship would need 8 workers in addition to the primary crafter. For structures, consider something based on size or occupants.  

Where is Craft Construct?

While the Bestiary mentions golem manuals and goes into detail about their construction and lore, it never goes so far as to state any solid mechanics or methods for players to access them. However, we can surmise from the Animate Object and Raise Undead rituals that creating golems and homunculi will likely be more complicated than a mere Craft check. Any custom ritual for golem creation be the creature’s CR or higher.

Snare Crafting

Snares are simple traps that are created with the Snare Crafting feat and Snare Kit. Snares are quickly created and deployed in 1 Minute, if you have the purchased raw materials on hand. If you want to craft snares at a discount or in batches, you must follow the usual downtime rules for consumables. The difficulty of detecting and disarming your snares scales with your proficiency in Crafting!

Specialty Crafting

Several feats and tool kits require that you designate a particular area of expertise, but don’t go into exact detail about what those areas are. Here are the categories provided in the description of the Specialty Crafting feat. I’ve listed what I believe they could apply to but, with the exception of Alchemy, none of these are clearly defined in the rules. I would also recommend looking at the Common Lore Subcategories in the core rules for more suggestions on crafting specialties.

As you can see, there are some clear winners and losers here. Several categories simply don’t cover anything useful or contain too few items. Alchemy may look good, but unless that’s your only focus there are other ways to get bonuses to crafting alchemicals.

Artistry, Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Woodworking all cover a respectable subset of gear and any are a strong choice depending on the makeup of your party. Blacksmithing if you have lots of armored warriors, Woodworking for mages and archers, and so on. Some types of items don’t have a clear category they belong to. Do potions and oils fall under Alchemy even though they are magic? Discuss this with your GM and go with whatever makes the most sense.

Step 4: Runes & Precious Materials

Runes replace the old magic enhancement system for weapons and armor. It can appear complicated at first but is in some ways more friendly than 1st Edition. Most notably, runes can be transferred between equipment or temporarily stored on a Runestone. You no longer have to keep the same sword for your entire career and sometimes you might grab runes off looted armor instead of selling it. There are three categories of runes; Fundamental, Property, and Accessory. The first two are for weapons and armor, while Accessory runes are for shields and utility gear.

Fundamental Runes

There are only four types of Fundamental runes, and they essentially replace the old Enhancement bonus system. They either add an Item Bonus attack rolls, saves, and AC, or increase damage.

Fundamental runes have three ranks; Normal (+1), Greater (+2), and Major (+3).

• Armor Potency: Adds an item bonus to armor class. The number of Property runes you can add to your armor is equal to your Potency (1, 2, or 3).
• Resilient: Adds an item bonus to saving throws. Does not count against your Property runes.
• Weapon Potency: Adds an item bonus to attack rolls. The number of Property runes you can add to your weapon is equal to your Potency (1, 2, or 3).
• Striking: Adds additional damage dice to your weapon, of the same type that weapon uses. Does not count against your Property rune limit. (ex. a striking longsword deals 2d8 damage. A major striking dagger deals 4d4 damage)

Property runes

These are the exotic effects like Flaming, Ghost Touch, and Energy Resistant. Your weapon or armor’s Potency rune sets the limit on how many Property runes you can have. Thankfully, it’s a simple one for one. A +2 Potency weapon can have 2 Property runes, and so on. Some Property runes also have Greater and Major versions. The Resilient and Striking fundamental runes do not count against your limit, but don’t grant extra slots either. Any armor with runes gains the Invested trait, meaning it requires you invest one of your 10 points each day to gain its benefits. Clothing can have runes. Specifically, Explorer’s Clothing counts as armor for the purpose of applying runes, allowing even Wizards and Monks to gain benefits.

Accessory Runes

There are only a handful of accessory runes, which are attached to shields and other pieces of gear. These provide shield-specific benefits or utility effects, like keeping food fresh or making you hard to track. Items may only have one accessory rune and gain the Invested trait.

• Sturdy Shields: Unlike armor, shields use their own upgrade system called Sturdy. This comes in six tiers and improves the shield’s Hardness, HP, and Break Threshold.

Transfering Runes

You can use 1 Day of downtime to move a rune from an existing item onto a new item, trade runes between two items, or transfer a rune from a Runestone onto an item. Moving a rune to another item costs 10% of the rune’s price, while copying from a Runestone is free. Swapping a rune between two items uses the higher level rune to determine the cost. Aside from being 1 day instead of 4, this is otherwise identical to making a new item. You pay half the cost, make a Crafting check, and can choose to pay the other half or continue working.

The major limitation here is that these cannot be illegal moves. You can’t put a ranged property onto a melee weapon or a weapon property onto armor. If you take a Potency rune off of an item, any existing Property runes become inert.

• Runestones: These are 3 gp consumable items that can hold a rune and are destroyed once that rune is transferred to a permanent home. Hint to GMs: Runestones are a great way to hand out upgrades if you don’t want to explain why an ancient dungeon happens to have a better version of the weapons and armor your party likes to use.

Precious Materials

Note: Much of this section needs to be updated to the Remaster

Most of the precious materials are rare metals that we’re all familiar with from various table-top games; cold iron, silver, mithril, and adamantine. Precious materials also include other rare substances like dragonhide and darkwood. Crafting with precious materials requires you to be at least Expert and that your level is higher than or equal to the material’s level, as shown above on the Runes chart.

Materials come in three grades; Low, Standard, and High grade. This determines several factors of the item, such as the hardness, hit points, and broken threshold of the item. The grade restricts the level of the item and the level of the runes that can be applied to it. And lastly, the grade determines what percentage of the cost must consist of that precious material.

The grade can be improved later using additional Craft time, paying the difference in cost, and providing additional precious materials.

The actual cost and minimum level of these items, unfortunately, has several different progressions.

• Shields: A static cost based on the grade of material and type of shield.
• Tools & Misc: A cost multiplied by the item’s bulk.
• Weapons & Armor: A base cost plus an additional modifier multiplied by the item’s bulk.

For example, all Standard-grade Mithril armor has the same base cost of 1,600gp. A Mithril Chain shirt (bulk 1) costs an extra 160gp, while a Mithril Breastplate (bulk 2) costs an extra 320gp. I have listed the minimum item level of the different categories below, but the cost was so specific it would need multiple charts to list it all. I’d recommend checking your rulebook or online reference for that.

Step 5: From The Vault - Alternate Crafting Rules

The Treasure Vault presents some interesting variant options that can be stapled onto the normal system. While they make it significantly faster and easier to craft consumables and lower-level items, they can also make it longer and more challenging to craft permanent gear of your level. Overall, this is a massive buff to Alchemists and other characters who like scrolls, talismans, and potions. For most other characters, this is more mixed.

Complex Crafting

WARNING: With the new Remaster, much of the Complex Crafting variant is now defunct and its interaction with the current rules is unclear. I am going to try and provide advice on how to still use this variant, but please be aware there is no official statement from Paizo at this time.

The original intent of Complex Crafting was to make lower level items faster to create and provide options for reducing setup time even further by increasing the Crafting DC. With the Remaster already cutting setup time in half and the new formula rules taking off another day, the new timeline of the variant looks something like this;

Note this progression barrows from what is given for the Rush the Process variant and Quick Setup feat, so while it is not official it’s not complete guesswork, either. You can still try and use those variants with the Remaster, but there is no clear progression after the time is reduced to hours.

I would not recommend homebrewing anything less because this would create situations where players can just convert money into immediate encounter solutions. If you still want to provide some benefit, consider allowing them to get bonus Income Earned when spending additional days to reduce the cost of the item.

Below are the original rules for Rush the Process. Characters with the right proficiency tier can attempt a higher DC to reduce the setup time. If they are able to reduce the crafting time of a consumable to less than 1 Day, it can be created in only 4 Hours. If you would like to allow it, you can use the progression from Quick Setup as a guideline for further progression. Based on that chart, reducing the crafting time of a permanent item to less than 1 Day also makes it 4 Hours.

Typically I would avoid attempting Crafting checks at such a high DC as it can lead you to Critically Failing, and the new setup time is already quite short.

Rush the Finish - This part of the variant still works fine and is generally very good. If you are Expert or better in Crafting, you can rush the additional days after initial setup as if you were earning twice the gold listed on the Earn Income chart. Essentially, you cut the remaining time in half and potentially avoid paying the other half of the item’s material cost.

However, once you have finished crafting you must make a Flat check against DC 10 + item level - your Crafting Proficiency Bonus. If the check is successful, you have cheated God and everything is chill. On a regular failure, the item gains a Quirk (Gamemastery Guide ph 86). Which isn’t the worst thing, some of them are funny.

But on a critical failure, the item is destroyed or becomes cursed and bound to you. Do Not Critically Fail.

Deconstructing Items

This variant owns pretty hard and I would definitely recommend using it. This smooths out some of the issues with randomized loot tables and predetermined AP loot that doesn’t fit the party. Players can spend time taking apart a permanent item and recycling the materials for permanent gear they actually want.

Deconstructing items to immediately make a similar item is the most cost efficient, but crafters can also just harvest half the raw materials to store for later or to craft a completely different item. There is some GM interpretation as to what constitutes “similar”, but generally it should have the same function or theme. One example given is a Ring of Climbing to create Slippers of Spider Climb, so the items don’t even need to be in the same category.

You must spend 1 Day of downtime to deconstruct an item. This follows the normal proficiency requirements of Master for 9th level and Legendary for 16th level and higher. Both the item you are unmaking and the one you are converting it to must be your level or lower. Both items must have a cost and can't be artifacts or relics. And of course, you must have appropriate tools and workspace. Finally, make a Crafting check against the same DC it would take to create that item.

On a Success, you recover materials equal to 75% of the item's cost that can apply to a similar item, or 50% of the cost that can be applied to a different type of item. On a Critical Success, these values improve to 80% and 55%.

On a Failure, nothing bad happens but you will need to start over. On a Critical Failure, the item is damaged. You will need to either repair it or try to deconstruct it again and lose 5% of the value.

If the new item is of a similar kind and price point, you’ve already worked off 2/3rds the price with only 1 Day of downtime. When you begin on the new item, you need only pay half the remaining cost and can potentially work off the other 1/6th in no time.

Critical Crafting

This variant offers alternate results for Critical Success and Critical Failure aside from just saving or losing money. This is an interesting option for making truly unique gear or offering an alternative when characters roll well but don’t have time to benefit from earning income. Under this rule, some critical failures can still result in the item getting made. But it’s evil now.

Variant criticals can be limited to natural 20’s and 1’s, or simply additional options on regular criticals. The rules don’t say how to determine which effect occurs, but since not all of them can apply to every type of item it may be best to pick the most appropriate ones or use the player’s intent and story for inspiration. Or you can roll on this table I put together from the examples provided.

Nature Crafting

This is a variant of regular crafting in which items are grown in a garden or orchard rather than forged or brewed. Consumables could appear as fruit, for example. Most of this variant is just for flavor, but there is an option to allow the Grow activity to be governed by the Nature skill instead of Crafting. This is a huge change that should be carefully considered beforehand.

Gardening Tools: Rather than using tools for carpentry or smithing, nature crafting will typically use gardening tools. Mechanically, these are still Artisan’s Tools or a similar item. Nature crafting can also substitute playing music instead of physically cultivating a plant. In this instance, the tool is an instrument.

Fertilizer: Nature crafting still requires the same cost in materials, but flavored as magical nutrients and accelerants. A character trained in Herbalism Lore can substitute that skill when determining how much value they get each day of extra work, as per the Earn Income table.

Seasonal: The wording on this isn’t as clear as I’d like, but as written it seems to give you a bonus day of reducing the cost of an item at the end of each season so long as you put in at least one day of downtime. Assuming a normal season lasts 3 Months of about 30 each, that means you get a bonus day every 90 days. That seems pretty worthless to me, even on gear that takes several months. Hopefully Paizo will provide clarity on this.

Alternate Skills: Practically a variant within a variant, GMs can choose to have Nature be the key skill for growing items instead of Crafting. This would create two parallel crafting systems, with one using Intelligence and the other using Wisdom. GMs can further choose to keep Crafting as is or move magical crafting to the Arcana skill. You could also have some gear governed by one or the other. Lots of options to consider.

Step 6: This Town Ain’t Big Enough - Settlement Level

Looking at all the rules here you might ask yourself the question; Why use the Crafting system at all? Why not just buy your gear normally? We can talk about the satisfaction of making your own stuff or the possibility of saving money, but in this section I want to focus on an aspect of the rules that might get overlooked: Settlement Level.

The Gamemastery Guide and Kingmaker AP both list levels for settlements based on size, with some slight variance. These are meant to provide guidance to GMs for determining the highest level NPCs, jobs, and gear in the area. This is not a hard limit that must be followed, but it does make intuitive sense that the podunk town the game started eventually won’t be able to provide relevant equipment for the whole campaign. Likewise, a party leaving a high level settlement to venture into backwater territory may not find any merchants with gear their level.

A settlement’s level sets a soft maximum level on NPCs that live there. This does not affect unique named characters, but would come into play if you’re rolling a random smith, priest, or merchant. This will also limit what level of services can be found, such as arcane spellcasting or divine healing. And finally, it sets a mark for what level of jobs are available to Earn Income. Even if you could earn income as a 15th level character, a normal town may not have any tasks above 7th level.

A repeated recommendation for players who want to find services, gear, or tasks above the normal limit is that it should require them to do something beyond walking into a standard shop. At minimum, this could be a Diplomacy to gather information or a Society check to know about obscure guilds. It could also involve just roleplaying and socializing with NPCs, exploring the town, or as part of a quest.

Buying & Selling

You can usually assume Common items of the settlement’s level or lower can be easily purchased. If higher level or uncommon equipment are there at all, it might require a skill check or something more complicated to access. It’s likely that the settlement’s NPCS are using the best gear in town rather than having it for sale on the shelf.

On a similar note, not every settlement can afford to buy everything you haul back to town. Typically a community will purchase gear of the settlement’s level or lower. Similar to purchasing gear, finding a buyer for expensive equipment could require a skill check or quest.

Lastly, settlements don’t have unlimited gear available. The GM Guide gives a quick and dirty method for determining how many permanents and consumables of the highest level are available in a settlement. Compare the settlement’s level to the Party Treasure By Level chart and subtract 1. I’ve included part of this chart below. It’s safe to assume that a settlement has more lower level items available, so you may want to increase the quantity by 1 or more for each level below max.

Abilities & Structures

The Gamemastery Guide and Kingmaker also offer ways in which a settlement might count as a higher level in some situations. The first is Settlement Abilities; these are unique qualities about that community that give it special boons. A City of Artisans counts as 4 levels higher for finding gear within a certain category. The example given could be as broad as Armor or Weapons. The Trinket Trade ability allows consumables up to 10th level to be purchased, even in a much smaller town.

In Kingmaker, a settlement is treated as 1 Level higher when determining what items are available so long as it has a building or structure related to that tradition or type of gear. For example a Temple increases the level by 1 for divine magic items, while an Alchemy Laboratory improves the level for alchemical items. These increases can stack if there are multiple buildings of this type in the settlement, to a maximum of +3 levels.

Step 7: Building a Builder - Character Creation

When considering your character build, your main goal is to ensure you succeed at your Crafting check. As we discussed earlier, there is only one roll when crafting and it’s pretty important. Therefore, you have two directions to go in; focus on Intelligence and get your bonuses as high as possible OR rely on the Assurance feat for guaranteed results. Optimally you would do both, but not all crafters want to specialize that much. Either route is viable so don’t worry if you can’t spare the ability boons.

CR - Core Rulebook (Original)

PC - Player Core (Remaster)

GM - GameMastery Guide

AG - Advanced Player’s Guide

AP - Adventure Path

GG - Guns & Gears

TV - Treasure Vault

Purple - Extremely good, useful for almost everything

Blue - Often your best choice, useful most of the time

Green - A safe choice, strong in specific scenarios

Orange - Okay if you can get it for free, very niche situations

Red - Pretty much worthless, almost never useful

Ancestry

With how fluid ability bonuses are, there aren’t really any wrong answers here. Even an Intelligence penalty can be overcome with an Assurance build. Therefore, the following ancestries and feats are rated more on how much they interact with the system.

Dwarves: Strangely, the vanilla Core Rules dwarf doesn’t have much synergy with Crafting. Newer splatbooks add several strong options.

• Anvil Dwarf (CG). You are automatically trained in Crafting and gain the Specialty Crafting feat for free. What's unique here is they are allowed to pick two specialties. If you later take Impeccable Crafting you can critically succeed with both specialties.
• Eye for Treasure (APG), grants training in Crafting (or any skill) and the Crafter’s Appraisal feat.
• Dwarven Reinforcement (APG), allows you to temporarily add a small amount of hardness to an item or structure. I don’t think this is worth the time investment.
• Battleforger (CG) Allows you to spend an hour to treat your weapon as if it had Potency +1. If you don’t have potency +1 by level 9, something is wrong. Maybe useful for backup weapons.

Elves: Starting with Int boost, elves are an obvious choice for Int-based spellcasting.

• Ageless Patience (Core). This allows elves to spend twice as long on any activity to receive a +2 competence bonus, but more importantly it prevents Critical Failures from natural 1’s on the check. Spending eight days or more on crafting sucks, but critically failing and losing money also sucks. At endgame levels, an elven Int-crafter using Ageless Patience cannot fail.
• Ancient Elf (CG). Start the game with a free multiclass feat if you meet the ability-score requirements. Alchemist, Witch, or Wizard are obvious grabs.

Gnomes: Pathfinder gnomes don’t really fill the tinker fantasy from other games.

• Inventive Offense. This allows you to temporarily add weapon traits for free. These stay until you hit or change them. Your rank in Crafting reduces the number of actions needed to add a trait.

Goblins: These little guys get the best ancestry feat related to crafting.

• Junk Tinker: First, you can craft level 0 items (but not armor), out of trash. This reduces the Price to one-quarter but results in shoddy quality. Thankfully you get to ignore the penalty for shoddy items you created yourself. Second, you can choose to incorporate junk into any other item you create. This grants a discount as if you had spent an extra day crafting. The only downside is that this may affect the item’s value when trying to sell to npcs that hate recycling. If you’re a Goblin crafter I see no reason not to take this wonderful feat.

Halfling - Unfortunately the Halfling Luck feat chain does not work with crafting.

• Intuitive Guidance and Helpful Halfling feats (CG), allow halflings to provide some serious Aid bonuses to the party crafter.

Humans - Easily pick up an Int boost and multiple ways to get important skills and feats.

• Skilled Heritage or Versatile Heritage are both solid.

• General Training & Advanced General Training will help you specialize in crafting without detracting from your primary build
• Cooperative Nature and Cooperative Soul are great choices for assisting the party crafter if you are not crafting yourself.

Androids - A great stat array and flavor. The Artisan Android heritage grants training in Crafting and the Speciality Crafting feat.

Hobgoblins - If you plan to focus on alchemical items, the Alchemical Scholar feat grants a lot more formula known and stacks with those gained from Alchemical Crafting and the Alchemist class.

Kobolds - As we all know, Kobolds love traps. Their Snare Setter feat is a straight upgrade of Snare Crafting feat. And their Snare Genius feat grants free snares during daily preparation. This makes them a shoe-in for Ranger and the Snarecrafter archetype. Or both.

Oread - Being a Versatile Heritage means you could combine Oread with anything else. Of note here is the Elemental Trader feat, which grants Specialty Crafting in both Stonemasonry and Smithing. An Oread Anvil Dwarf could potentially have four specialties.

Ratfolk - In addition to the Int bonus, ratfolk also get a ton of silly ancestry feats for storing, repairing, and retrieving items. There is a lot of Alchemist-synergy here. Of note is the Tinkering Fingers feat, which grants proficiency in Crafting and lets you repair without a Repair Kit at a -2.

Shoony - Those weird little pug people don’t have any crafting synergy. Their Handy With Your Paws feat lets them repair items without a Repair Kit, but only non-magical items. Strictly speaking this is worse than the comparable Ratfolk feat.

Automatons & Poppets - Neither of these construct races have any special Crafting related feats. However, they both have an easier time with integrated weapons since you don’t have to chop off any flesh and blood limbs.

Background

The Artisan and Tinker backgrounds are the most ideal as they provide an Intelligence boost, training in the Crafting skill, and the Specialty Crafting feat. However, there are other ways to acquire these abilities so this is not a vital part of your build.

Alternatively, the Alkinstar Tinker and Wonder Taster provide the same benefits but grant the Alchemical Crafting feat instead. This may be preferable to characters who don’t qualify for the Alchemist Dedication archetype.

The Raised by Belief (Gods & Magic) background. A deity such as Shelyn or Torag can grant training in Crafting and Assurance in the Crafting skill. Brigh is even better, adding that plus a bonus in Intelligence.

Another background worth mentioning is Cook, which provides the Cooking Lore skill and a +1 bonus on checks to prepare food. This is perfect for games using the optional cooking rules from Kingmaker.

Class

There are no classes that are actively bad at Crafting. As mentioned, classes that don’t prioritize Intelligence will have a difficult time making checks without the Assurance feat. Likewise, spellcasters have a slight advantage when crafting items such as wands and scrolls that require the actual spell to be cast during the crafting process. That said, there are a few that are worth mentioning.

ALCHEMIST ★★★★★

The original crafting class is still the best. Alchemists can create free daily items from the second largest pool of equipment, allowing them to fill many of the same roles as a spellcaster or skill-monkey. Most of their feats center on making alchemical items more viable in combat by augmenting range, duration, or function. Alchemists synergize well with any other Int-based Multiclass Archetype and are my suggested archetype for most crafters.

• Research Fields: Each specialization of Alchemists corresponds to bombs, elixirs, mutagens, and poisons. Each grants additional formulas and benefits specific to your favored item.
• Alchemist Feats: So many of your class feats interact with Alchemical items and crafting that it would take up a whole section by itself. Better to look up a separate Alchemist guide.

• Efficient Alchemy: Allows an alchemist to double the number of alchemical items in each batch when crafting during downtime. Usually from 4 to 8. This does not reduce the cost or amount of materials needed, but if you want a load of extra bombs and potions this almost makes it worth your time.

INVENTOR ★★★★★

Filling many of the niches of a Ranger, Inventors are the most martial of the crafting classes and perhaps the most flavorful. They gain automatic upgrades to their Crafting skill, freeing up skill boosts for other areas. Many of their class features require high Intelligence and Crafting checks, meaning you’ll get full use out of your investment even when you don't have downtime.

• Lvl 1 Inventor: You automatically gain the Inventor skill feat much earlier than normal. It’s usefulness still depends on how much downtime is available, but this is a great free bonus.
• Built-In-Tools: Allows you to build two sets of tools weighing a total of 2 Bulk or less directly into your minion, weapon, or armor without increasing their weight. A very convenient way to stow your heavy Artisan’s tools.

• Reverse Engineer: Allows you to study items to learn their formula, potentially without destroying it. Additionally, you gain the ability to use Crafting in place of Thievery when disabling traps and picking locks.
• Lvl 4 Gadget Specialist: Grants you a small number of free gadgets each day based on your Crafting proficiency, along with a handful of formulas. Gadgets are a new type of consumable introduced in Guns & Gears. Like an Alchemist’s potions or bombs, the versatility here is almost as good as getting spell slots. You can invest in this branch further with the Ubiquitous Gadgets and Contingency Gadgets feats.
• Lvl 16 Just the Thing! and You Failed to Account for This! are quirky feats that let you pull a made-up invention out of thin air to help resolve a skill check or avoid an attack using your Crafting skill. I would rate these higher because of how fun they are, but they don’t come online until level 16.

WITCH ★★★★★

Witches are Intelligence-based casters that can choose any of the four spellcasting traditions, giving them a distinct edge over Wizards. By planning ahead and taking the Magical Crafting skill feat, you’ll have access to whatever staves, scrolls, or wands suit your playstyle.

• Lvl 1 Cauldron: Allows you to craft potions and oils in batches of 6 instead of 4. In addition, you automatically learn potion and oil formulas as you level up. Your familiar can retain these for you instead of keeping them in a formula book.
• Lvl 10 Temporary Potions: You may create a batch of 2 potions or oils of the same type for free each day. This improves to 3 and 4 if you have Master or Legendary proficiency.

WIZARD ★★★★

While Wizard was the go-to magic item crafter in previous editions, it doesn’t shine as bright as the aforementioned classes since most magic items no longer require spellcasting. Even so, Wizard is still a high-Intelligence caster with the very useful Arcane spell list for scrolls and staves.

• Arcane Thesis: A Staff Nexus wizard should always be investing in Crafting. This is your primary means of upgrading your staff.

• Lvl 10 Scroll Savant: Allows you to create free scrolls each morning during your daily preparation. If you are Legendary at Crafting this is like getting 4 extra spell slots.

ROGUE ★★★★

With their massive number of skills and skill increases, Rogues can safely invest in Crafting without detracting from their combat build. Strangely, Rogues can select Magical Crafting one level earlier.

• Rackets: The Mastermind and Eldritch Trickster rackets both allow rogues to focus on Intelligence. Notably, an Eldritch Trickster can select Witch Dedication and gain any tradition of spellcasting.

INVESTIGATOR ★★★★

Like Rogues, Investigators have more skill increases to play around with. Investigators can also gain a weaker version of the Alchemist’s ability to create items, which is easily one of their best methodologies available.

• Lvl 4 Alchemical Discoveries: This is absolutely vital for alchemical Investigators as it doubles your number of formulas known and grants additional free items based on your Crafting proficiency.

ANIMIST ★★★

On its own, animist isn’t any different from a druid or cleric. You would likely be pursuing the Wisdom Crafting route through Herbalist or something similar. However, the Crafter in the Vault spirit provides one of the most game-changing suite of abilities for crafters in any build. Utilizing this ability will require some forethought and planning, as wisdom characters don’t naturally lend themselves to this role.

• Traveling Workshop: This bonkers focus spell belongs to the Crafter in the Vault, granting you training in Crafting and Thievery that scales with your level and provides phantom toolkits for thievery, repair, and alchemy. If you cast the out of combat version, it now lasts 8 hours and summons a phantom alchemist lab and forge. Anywhere. As if that weren’t enough, you are treated as already having any materials needed to repair gear.
• What are the limitations? You can’t use this for Earn Income checks and anything you make disappears shortly after leaving your person (consumables and ammo last long enough to take effect). Furthermore, you must stay bound to the Crafter in the Vault until the item sees use in combat. That means if you are making permanent gear it needs to be only for you and preferably a wearable such as an amulet or ring that won’t be removed. Still, this provides huge potential for problem solving without travel.

PSYCHIC ★★★

Good for all the same reasons Wizard is good. Psychics can go all in on Int and be a primary crafter. However, they have no interaction with the system other than their ability scores, and some Psychics may go Charisma instead.

RANGER ★★★

Rangers are uniquely skilled at using a new consumable called Snares, which behave much like traps. Snares can be created faster than other items but usually require setup and prep-time. Rangers have feats to bypass this restriction and can actually deploy snares during combat.

• Lvl 4 Snare Specialist: Grants you free formula for common and uncommon snares and lets you prepare a number of snares each day that can be “quick deployed” in 3 actions instead of 1 minute. The number of snares and formula increase with your Crafting proficiency. At level 16 with the Ubiquitous Snares feat, that’s 16 snares.
• Lvl 6 Quick Snares: Let's deploy any of your snares in 3 actions, instead of just the ones from your specialist feat. This seems like diminishing returns unless you’re just shooting out snares every round. Lightning Snares upgrades this to 1 action.
• Lvl 8 Powerful Snares: Allows you to use your Class DC or the snare’s regular DC. Since Ranger class DC increases slowly, I would not be in a rush to take this. Come back to this once you have Master proficiency or an Apex item.

THAUMATURGE ★★★

The spiritual successor to the Occultist, Thaumaturge is an odd duck. It has no spellcasting of its own, but gets all four of the magical knowledge skills and gains numerous talents for using and crafting free scrolls and talismans. Even more interesting is that they can break the limits of invested items, allowing them to attune to a lot more gear than normal. Hard to say how good this class is without more active play.

GUNSLINGER ★★

Creating firearm ammunition requires the Alchemical Crafting feat, while magical ammo *also* requires the Magical Crafting feat. Gunslingers don’t benefit directly from Intelligence, so players who want to maintain their own armoury should consider the Assurance feat.

• Lvl 1 Munitions Crafter: This feat solves a lot of your problems and is almost as good as the Alchemist Multiclass Archetype. Definitely worth picking up at 1st or 2nd level.
• Lvl 6 Munitions Machinist: Upgrades your alchemical skill so you can create higher level bombs and ammo. Sadly, it doesn’t provide any free formulas.
• Lvl 10 Precious Munitions: Allows you to spend your infused regents to make ammunition with special metal properties. Automatically upgrades to high-grade at level 15.

SUMMONER ★★

This isn’t completely obvious, but your Eidolon is one of the only types of companions that does not have the Minion trait. It could therefore use your Reaction to Aid you on crafting checks, making Summoner one of the only classes to get an Aid bonus by itself. The downside is that Summoner is not an Intelligence class and the benefit you get from Aid only works to offset your low Int.

• Eidolons: The dragon and psychopomp eidolons can have a respectable 14 Int and will have an easier time making the skill check.

• Lvl 1 Dual Studies: Your eidolon is already trained in all your skills and you should have picked crafting first if you’re even considering this build.
• Lvl 4 Skilled Partner: Grants your eidolon two skill feats in case, which is nice because most feats that deal with crafting are skill feats.

Note on Companions 

Creatures with the Minion trait do not have Reactions and therefore can not Aid you on crafting checks. This unfortunately includes familiars and animal companions. However, they can still pickup abilities like Lab Assistant, Extra Reagents, and Toolbearer to help synergize with alchemy characters.

Archetype

With the inclusion of the APG, there are quite a few archetypes related to crafting. We’ll start with the multiclass feats and move on to other archetypes from there.

Alchemist Dedication - Level 2, Int 14

This is easily superior to most other archetypes and level 2 class feats. Even if you don’t want to craft, having free level 1 items is fantastic. This dedication grants you infused reagents equal to your level. These are replenished each day and can be expended during your morning preparation to craft a batch of 2 alchemical items each. It also grants the Alchemical Crafting feat and a total of 8 formulas for free.

Witch Dedication - Level 2, Int 14

Unless you know you’re going with arcane casting, this is the better option for Alchemist crafters. Wizards wanting a familiar should consider this, too. The Witch Dedication grants a familiar and a small number of cantrips from the tradition of your choice. Grab Basic Witchcraft for the Cauldron feat and Basic Witch Spellcasting, then move on to whatever other archetype you want.

Inventor Dedication - Level 2, Int 14

This one requires a little more investment to get the same utility as those above. You do gain the Inventor skill feat, so if you were planning to take that anyway this gives you more bang. The primary draw here is getting a free weapon, armor, or companion.

Wizard Dedication - Level 2, Int 14

Among the archetypes that require Intelligence, this is the inferior option. Crafters usually want to take Alchemist Dedication instead. However, if you are already an Alchemist or have no interest in alchemy, this feat will allow you to use and craft arcane scrolls, staves, and wands. If you prefer the Occult spell list, go Psychic Dedication instead.

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Artisan’s Calling - Mythic

You can spend mythic points to use mythic proficiency (+10!) on a Craft or Repair check and you regain a mythic point the first time you critically succeed on a Repair check each day.

This seems very easy to game, almost giving you a free repair each day at mythic proficiency. It is exceedingly good for craft checks, especially at lower levels, as it provides just enough of a bonus to close the gap between low rolls and normal DCs. Interestingly, this may allow Assurance builds to craft things slightly earlier so they aren’t behind Intelligence builds.

The edicts are very easy to meet and likely something you’d do anyway. The anathema are a lot harder; you cannot use an item crafted by someone else except to learn how it works. I would clarify with your GM if this includes things that are forced on you, such as healing potions given while you are unconscious. The other consideration is having to make new clothing and armor from scratch at level 2. If your GM is even allowing this path, they should be providing you downtime as well so this will be more of an annoyance than a road block.

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Assassin - Alchemical Crafting; trained in Crafting, Deception, and Stealth

This version of the assassin is really leaning into that poison-use angle. Although typically something you think of for Rogues, a Toxicologist Alchemist would also be an interesting combination. Since you don’t get free poisons from the archetype itself, I almost feel like Poisoner might be the better route.

Beast Gunner - Trained in Arcana and trained in Crafting, plus RP Quest

This isn’t clear from the name, but this is essentially the Gun Mage archetype.  You gain spellcasting and specialize in unique guns made from monster parts. Beast guns provide some interesting roleplay opportunities as they require you to hunt down and harvest crafting materials from monsters.

Bellflower Tiller - Charisma 14, expert in Stealth and Survival

Like with Halflings, you don’t play as the Tiller. The reason I’m adding this to the list is the Practiced Guidance feat, which improves a successful Aid check to a critical success. A Tiller with the Helpful Halfling feat or who is Legendary in crafting can grant you a +4 circumstance bonus. That's significant enough to push your own check into a critical success.

Eldritch Archer - Expert in at least one type of bow

As you might expect, the Eldritch Archer just kind of bypasses this whole guide at around 8th level. Through the Magic Arrow and Precious Arrow feats they can create specific magic arrows or arrows made of precious metals during the action used to fire them. It’s worth checking out if you’d rather not deal with all this crafting business but you still want special pew pew arrows. The downside is they only last a turn and you can’t share them with other people.

Firework Technician - Trained in Crafting

Ooof. No thanks. While it grants the Alchemical Crafting feat and infused reagents, the only thing you can craft for free are the fireworks that come from the archetype. This means that unlike Alchemist, which draws from an ever expanding list of items, Fireworks Technician will stay this bad forever.

Golem Grafter - Expert in Arcana and Crafting

Disappointingly, this doesn’t let you craft golems. Rather, you augment your body with golem parts. I’m including this since the prerequisites state an ally (which might be you) can help bypass the required Expert in Arcana and Crafting. Otherwise this archetype seems aimed more at Monks because of its required Expert in unarmed strikes.

Herbalist - Trained in Nature, Natural Medicine

For Int-based crafters, this isn’t anything special. But this is a huge boon to Wisdom characters like Druids, Clerics, and Rangers. Herbalist allows you to craft free healing consumables like an Alchemist, and lets you use the Nature skill when crafting these items during downtime. If you find yourself stuck in the healer role but don’t want to use your precious spells, consider herbalism.

Poisoner - Trained in Crafting

You can create free doses of poisons like an Alchemist. This is probably better than playing a Toxicologist Alchemist, since a normal Alchemist or Rogue could grab this. I don’t have much experience with poisons in 2nd edition, but historically they have been weak compared to other consumables. Still, if you plan to use poisons, it's better to get them the fast way than making them during downtime.

Scroll Trickster - Trained Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion

This archetype has some interesting implications, but requires a lot of feat and skill investment. First, it grants the Trick Magic Item feat, which you might need to pickup anyway. Secondly, the Basic Scroll Cache feat potentially lets you craft a free scroll of any 1st level spell in the Core Rulebook. You just have to be trained in the corresponding skill (ie. Occultism for Occult spells). At much later levels (12th and 18th) you can expand this to include any spell up to 7th level.

This archetype is overshadowed by the Craft Anything feat at 15th level, which doesn’t need all these skills and feats. The upside being that a Scroll Trickster can actually cast these scrolls.

Scrounger - Trained in Crafting

You become an insane Macgyver-esque inventor, able to use 10 minutes to put together temporary 1st and 0-level items made from literally anything available. You can’t create consumables (except ammunition), but any weapon, armor, or whatever else you can think of is fair game. On top of that, you don’t need tools, a workshop, or even a formula book. All your formulas are memorized, meaning you never run the risk of losing your stuff.

At 4th level, Scroungers get a superior ability to learn formula from existing items. If you critically succeed on your Crafting check, you automatically reassemble the item in addition to learning the formula. At 6th level, you may improve your Magyver ability to craft anything up to 3rd level, greatly increasing your problem solving.

Snarecrafter - Trained in Crafting, Snare Crafting

You gain the ability to create free snares during daily preparation. Obviously, this has great synergy with Ranger and Kobolds. It counts as (and stacks with) the Snare Specialist feat. Each feat of the archetype expands what snares can do and how you can use them, almost to the point of rivaling an Alchemist’s bombs. It’s a niche item, but the archetype really expands their usefulness.

Trapsmith - Snarecrafter or Snare Specialist Ranger

An oddly specific archetype that actually requires a previous archetype or a Ranger feat. Trapsmiths can create technological snares that can be deployed in midair or underwater, reuse and recycle their existing snares, or set specific visual triggers like size and color. Very interesting.

Talisman Dabbler - Level 2

I’m not usually a fan of talismans; they’re uncommon single-use items that don’t appear as often as other consumables like potions or bombs. However, this archetype changes things. You learn all of the talisman formula from the Core Rulebook and can create a few free talismans each day. You also improve how quickly you can add or remove talismans. These keychains tend to be more useful to martial types than to casters, so Fighters and Barbarians should give this a look.

Vehicle Mechanic - Trained in Crafting, Int 14

As you might expect, the usefulness of this feat depends entirely on whether or not vehicles are a prominent feature in your game. Most of the feats passively improve just by you increasing your crafting proficiency and don’t depend on you actually making checks. Works great for Assurance builds.

Step 8: Crafting Feats & Skills

Crafting is very self contained and generally doesn’t need other skill proficiencies to support it. That being said, if you’re using an Intelligence build, Arcana and Occultism should be no brainers. A few related feats like Trick Magic Item or the Scroll Trickster archetype above will also call upon these skills. In rare interactions, Diplomacy might be used when finding a job to Earn Income. Or Nature might be used to survey the land for precious materials. But a Charisma or Wisdom based party member could just as easily make those checks for you.

Thankfully, most feats related to Crafting are skill feats. This means you don’t have to sacrifice much of your combat potential to be focused on crafting.

Alchemical Crafting - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

If you have at least 14 Int, skip this feat and take the far superior Alchemist Dedication archetype. This feat is for dummies who still want to make bombs and potions. Still a huge selection of items, so it may be worth it if you can’t spare the Int boosts.

Assurance - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

After spending 4 days at work an unlucky dice roll can be devastating. Assurance is a great way to play it safe on this very crucial check. This feat is mandatory for low Int characters and even high Int characters may want to consider it during their early career.

Keep in mind that Assurance doesn’t benefit from item bonuses and you’ll rarely be getting critical successes. Assurance players will also run into trouble making Check DCs at very high levels, since they can never achieve the DC 40 recommended for level 20 items. Most games don’t reach that level but it’s something to keep in mind if your GM sticks closely to the suggested DC’s.

Crafter’s Appraisal - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

This feat is useful but situational based on your build. It allows you to substitute Crafting for any other skill when identifying the properties of a magic item. Int-based crafters are probably already trained in Arcana and Occultism, but other crafters may not have the skill bonuses needed to get Nature and Religion on top of that. Dwarves can get this feat for free through their Eye for Treasure feat.

Improvise Tool - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

You can now repair items without a repair kit and, so long as you have materials available, can craft most of the mundane tools in the Core Rulebook without needing a Basic Crafter’s Book. I don’t feel this is useful unless you find yourself bereft of your gear on a regular basis. Both Ratfolk and Shoonies can already do the repair trick using ancestry feats.

Medical Researcher - Level 1, Trained in Medicine

This is a rare feat from the Lost Omens: Legends book, so you might need GM permission to even take it. The main benefit is that it allows you to use Medicine instead of Crafting when making non-magical support and healing items. When you consider that alchemical items count as non-magical, this is a fair amount of stuff. Unfortunately you’ll still need to have the Alchemical Crafting feat to get the full benefit. The only time I’d consider this feat is if you’re a Wisdom character who can’t spare any boosts for Intelligence or the Crafting skill. Alternatively, check out the Herbalist archetype.

Quick Repair - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

Repairing gear only takes 10 minutes outside of combat, so reducing to 1 minute won’t help much if your stuff needs immediate repair. Maybe consider taking this feat later when you have master or legendary proficiency which will allow you to repair during combat.

Seasoned - Level 1, trained in Alcohol Lore, Cooking Lore, or Crafting

The narrow focus of this feat grants a +1 circumstance bonus to craft food, drink, and potions. This improves to +2 at master proficiency. I would rank this as about as useful as Specialty Crafting, especially for Witches who plan to brew lots of potions. If you are using Campsite and Special Meal rules, this improves to Blue.

Snare Crafting - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

Unlike other items, snares only require 1 minute to craft and set up if you have a Snare Kit and raw materials equal to their price on hand. Because they are consumables, you could spend the usual 4+ days of downtime to craft a batch of 4 at a discount. But that’s a lot of investment for little gain. This feat is a prerequisite for Rangers wanting to further specialize in snares.

Specialty Crafting - Level 1, Trained in Crafting

You can get this feat for free from multiple backgrounds: Artisan, Artist, and Tinker. It allows you to choose a specialization and gain a +1 circumstance bonus (+2 for master) on Crafting checks when making applicable items. Artistry is probably the broadest category, but your GM ultimately decides if the specialty applies and may give a reduced bonus. The main reason to take this feat is that it is a prerequisite for Impeccable Crafting, and because bonuses are hard to come by in 2nd edition.

Trick Magic Item - Level 1, Trained in Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion

At some point you may be able to craft items that you can’t actually use, especially once you have access to the Craft Anything feat at higher levels. Trick Magic Item allows you to make a relevant skill check (like Religion for divine items) to use a magic item even if you can’t cast spells from that tradition. This is very build dependent so it’s not a must have.

Magical Crafting - Level 2, Expert in Crafting

This is the only way to gain access to basically all high level gear and a huge number of utility items. The feat starts you off with four formulas of 2nd level or lower. Because it requires Expert proficiency, most characters won’t be able to access the feat until 4th level. You can choose to spend a General Feat to gain it at 3rd, but in most cases there are better uses for your General feats and you won't have the bonuses and resources to be effective that early anyway.

Tweak Appearances - Level 2, Expert in Crafting

This oddball feat lets you grant an ally an item bonus to Diplomacy and Performance based on your Crafting proficiency level. It takes one minute to apply and basically lasts for that scene or encounter. Expert is +1, Master is +2, and Legendary is +3. In most cases I would skip this unless you’re in a social intrigue heavy game.

Tattoo Artist - Level 2, Int 14

Confuselly, this appears as both a skill feat and a Runelord archetype feat. It grants formulas and a small bonus to Crafting checks for tattoos. I wouldn’t recommend either unless you’re really focused on this. Generalists crafters can create tattoos if they have the Magical Crafting feat and Specialty Crafting (Artistry) feats.

Improvised Repair - Level 3

Allows you to take three actions to turn a broken item into a shoddy item. This doesn’t restore hit points or protect it from being broken again. If you’re really worried about repairing your items during combat, the Quick Repair feat does this but better once you have Master proficiency in Crafting.

Bless Tonic & Bless Toxin - Level 7, Master in Crafting, Deity that grants heal or harm

These two feats seem very niche to me. They allow you to add a special boost to either your healing elixirs or poisons, but only those you craft during downtime. They specifically don’t work with Quick Alchemy. There are definitely better feat options at this tier.

Impeccable Crafting - Level 7, Master in Crafting, Specialty Crafting

This feat turns your success rolls into critical successes when crafting items that fall within your specialty. Critical success is otherwise difficult to achieve on a regular basis. Due to the wording of “when you roll” I am unsure if it can be combined with Assurance.

Inventor -  Level 7, Master in Crafting

Inventor allows you to craft any formula without needing to have an existing item to study and disassemble. This potentially allows you to discover any item on your own without needing to rely on your GM to tell you what is available on the market. Therefore, I feel the feat’s usefulness will depend entirely on the campaign and what resources and downtime you have available to you.

Quick Setup - Level 7, Master in Crafting

This is a feat that is only available if you are using the Alternate Crafting Rules presented in the Treasure Vault. It can greatly reduce the crafting time of items 6 levels lower than yours, potentially to as little as a few hours. My first impression is that it’s a major boon to Alchemists and characters that rely on consumables, but really doesn’t do much for characters wanting to craft relevant permanent items.

Rapid Affixture - Level 7, Master in Crafting

This allows you to affix a talisman in 1 minute instead of 10 minutes. Like the Quick Repair feat, this really doesn’t do much for you in combat. At Legendary you can affix a talisman in 3 actions, but if you really like talismans I would invest in the Talisman Dabbler archetype instead.

Craft Anything - Level 15, Legendary in Crafting

Remember how I keep saying only spellcasters can craft wands and scrolls? This feat allows you to break that rule. So long as you have the right skill feat and proficiency requirement, you can craft anything you have the formula for. You do still have to provide any expensive material components for spells, just not the spells themselves. This excludes items like the philosopher’s stone which are exclusive to the Alchemist, unique artifacts, and any other item the GM says no to.

Note that you’ll still need a feat like Trick Magic Item to actually use the wands and scrolls yourself.

Step 9: The Right Tools

There are scant few items that aid you in crafting. For the most part you’ll pick up your level 0 tools and a Basic Crafter’s Book and then later grab a level 3 or 4 item that grants an Item bonus to Crafting. Remember that you can only benefit from one Item bonus so don’t bother with items that don’t stack.

Alchemist’s Tools - Level 0, Price 3 gp, Bulk 1 (Errata)

Unlike other tool sets, these are only used by Alchemists and characters with Alchemist Dedication to create their special daily items.

Alchemist Lab - Level 0, Price 5 gp, Bulk 6 (Errata)

A character who actually wants to use downtime to craft alchemical items will need a full laboratory. These are very heavy and pretty much inferior to getting quick items through the Alchemy class feature. Still, if you want to craft batches of items and don’t want to be stuck in town, consider setting up a mobile lab in a covered wagon. There is an Expanded Alchemist’s Lab that grants a +1 item bonus to crafting alchemical items, but it sucks. There are better items that grant this bonus.

Artisan's Tools - Level 0, Price 4 gp

You’ll need these to craft anything that isn’t alchemy or snare related, and there are multiple kinds of artisan’s tools. I would assume the different varieties match up to the examples given in the Specialty Crafting feat. There is a more expensive set of Sterling Artisan’s Tools that provide a +1 item bonus on crafting checks, but for the price it’s better to buy a Crafter’s Eyepiece instead. The rules don’t provide the price and bulk of full workstations like a smithy or forge, so consider using the Alchemist Lab above as an example. Otherwise artisan’s tools are Bulk 2, which is still heavy for some characters. Best leave them with your mount or cart whenever possible.

Basic Crafter’s Book - Level 0, Price 1 sp

This wonderful book contains all of the formulas for crafting every common armor, shield, weapon, and adventuring gear in the Core Rules. It also includes a number of low level elixirs, potions, and other useful tools. It’s cheap and light, so definitely grab one for the party.

Cookware - Level 0, Price 1 gp, Bulk 2 (CR)

While none of the camping and cooking activities explicitly say you need cookware to make any of the special recipes, it's safe to assume you need to fry your rice in something. These are a hefty 2 Bulk, so leave them with your pack animal or tie it to your Barbarian.

Formula Book (Blank) - Level 0, Price 1 gp

This empty formula book has enough space for 100 different items. It’s free (and necessary) for Alchemists, but other characters with only a few recipes may want to carry them individually in a scroll case or backpack to avoid the extra weight.

Repair Kit - Level 0, Price 2 gp

Repairing gear can be done untrained, so it isn’t vital for you to be the one fixing things. Still, the party should pitch in to share a kit for the group. The more expensive Superb Repair Kit provides a +1 item bonus on checks to repair gear, but the Crafter’s Eyepiece is more superb.

Repair kits are also used when adding or removing a talisman from a piece of gear. No check is needed.

Snare Kit - Level 0, Price 5 gp

The regular Snare Kit and Specialist Snare Kit cover a very niche subset of items. Their worth is entirely dependent on how often you plan to use snares. Usually you can ignore these.

Writing Set - Level 0, 1 gp

Quills, ink, and parchment are needed for scribing Scrolls and probably other paper-related crafting projects like documents and forgeries. Refilling your ink and paper only costs 1 sp, although the set doesn’t specify how many uses require a refill.

Crafter’s Eyepiece - Level 3+, Price 60 gp

This sweet monocle essentially gives you a Heads-Up-Display of whatever you’re working on. It provides a +1 item bonus to Crafting checks and increases the hp restored from Repairs from 10 to 15. This is only a few gp more than Sterling tools and covers all varieties of items. The level 11 Greater Crafter’s Eyepiece increases the bonus to +2. This is superior to Alchemist Goggles for generalists crafters.

Alchemist Goggles - Level 4+, Price 100 gp

If you use bombs at all, these are a better purchase than the Expanded Alchemist Lab. They provide the same +1 item bonus to crafting alchemical items but also grant a +1 item bonus to attack rolls with bombs. In addition, they allow you to ignore lesser cover when attacking with bombs. There are Greater and Major versions that improve these bonuses by +2 and +3 respectively.

Bellflower Toolbelt - Level 6, Price 220 gp, Bulk 1 (TV)

An expensive toolbelt that transforms any object of 1 Bulk or less into a tool matching the profession it is imitating. If enough objects are added, it functions as a set of artisan’s tools for that trade. This is probably meant to sneak in thieves' tools or assassin weapons, but what if you just attach a different set of artisan’s tools so now you have two different sets for less bulk that you can transform at will? Would be more fun if it were cheaper.

Lucky Kitchen Witch - Level 6, Price 250 gp, Bulk L (AP)

Found in Pathfinder #182, this little witch mobile hangs in your kitchen. And it's amazing! While working in a kitchen with this doll, you can reroll Crafting and Cooking Lore skill checks made during downtime to Earn Income, craft alchemical items, and cook food (this should cover Special Meals as well). Even being conservative about what items can be made in a kitchen, this is huge.

Traveler’s Any-tool - Level 6, Price 200

Essentially a Swiss-Army rod that does everything. The Any-Tool can be substituted for basically any mundane tool, but since it provides no Item bonus it’s not really worth the cost. I might suggest the party purchase one for the group to avoid lugging around a golf bag of other gear.

Chair of Inventions - Level 8, Price 875 gp, Bulk 1 (TV)

This beauty is a wheelchair with a built in Superb Repair Kit. Once per hour it can deploy an entire Expanded Alchemist’s Lab which lasts until dismissed, providing a +2 circumstance bonus to Earn Income using the Crafting skill. While much more expensive than the lab itself, it's only a fraction of the bulk and much more portable.

Bountiful Cauldron - Level 9, Price 680 gp

Found in Pathfinder #147, this big cooking pot provides a +2 item bonus when crafting most liquid consumables; alchemical items, potions, and oils. While it’s not as broad as I’d like, it is half the cost and two levels lower than the Greater Crafter’s Eyepiece and Greater Alchemist Goggles. So it’s worth considering for witches and alchemists. Also it can make tasty stew on command, so that’s nice.

Alchemist’s Haversack - Level 11, Price 1,400 gp, Bulk 1 (TV)

Apart from acting as a mundane backpack and a Bag of Holding Type II, this thing seals out all liquids and debris, cleans itself once an hour, files desired items at the top, and keeps mundane food and drink fresh forever. Additionally, it grants a +2 item bonus on Crafting checks for alchemical items and an extra batch of Infused Reagents each day. This beats the pants off the Greater Crafter’s Eyepiece if you are an alchemy-only crafter.

Greater Crafter’s Eyepiece - Level 11, Price 1,200 gp, Bulk N (CR)

This is the standard upgrade generalist crafters will want at this level. It grants a +2 item bonus on all Crafting checks and improves the HP restored when repairing from 10 to 15 per proficiency tier. Lastly, it can be activated to cast a 5th level Creation spell with a 1 minute casting time.

Ring of Maniacal Devices - Level 11+, Price 1,175 gp

This ring made the list because it grants an item bonus to craft and repair snares, but it also acts as a set of Thieves’ Tools to disable devices and pick locks. The standard version grants a +2 item bonus while the Greater version grants a +3. Definitely consider it if you’re the party trapsmith.

Artificer Spectacles - Level 17, Price 15,000 gp (TV)

This new Apex item from the Treasure Vault is essentially your endgame headpiece. While the Diadem of Intellect is nice, the spectacles provide a +3 item bonus to Crafting checks and on any skill check to identify Magic.

Diadem of Intellect - Level 17, Price 15,000 gp (CR)

The intelligence based Apex items can give even a dumb Fighter an 18 Intelligence for a +4 bonus. Alchemists and Wizards will want to pick one up if the Artificer Spectacles are not available.

Inexplicable Apparatus - Level 18, Price 19,000 gp, Bulk 2 (CR)

This thing is absurd. The +3 item bonus to Crafting, Repair, and Earn Income are nice and all. But the biggest reason to grab this is the Inexplicable Apparatus reduces the minimum time required to Craft to just 1 day. But wait, there’s more! It also treats your level as 1 higher when determining how much money you save when working additional days and this can stack with Critical Success. And on top of that, once per day it can temporarily repair an item you’re holding during combat.

The only downside is that this gizmo comes very late in your progression. So more than likely you’ll be using it to crank out all the party’s endgame gear right before going to fight the final boss of your campaign.

Torag’s Silver Anvil - Level 18, Price 24,000 gp

Conceptually, I like this thing. It’s literally an anvil on a chain that you hit people with. It counts as a portable heated forge and provides a +3 item bonus on Craft involving metalworking. However, at this level it’s competing with the Inexplicable Apparatus and by level 18 you should have multiple solutions for crafting in the field (like teleporting home). It’s a fairly strong weapon, but otherwise it’s not vital.

Unobtainable Gear

Artifacts, relics, and rare or unique items that cannot be crafted and don’t appear without GM approval.

Guiding Chisel - Level 16, Price 10,000 gp, Bulk 1 (AP)

Found in Pathfinder #148, this unique tool is either incredibly powerful or very niche depending on your GM. It provides a +3 item bonus related to stonemasonry, but more importantly reduces the time it takes to craft an item to 1 day and quadruples the cost reduction for spending additional days crafting. The wording suggests it probably only applies to projects you could reasonably use a chisel on. Maybe you can justify jewelry but definitely not potions. Oh, and it can spawn a house once per day.

Inventor’s Chair - Level 4, Price Relic, Bulk 3 (TV)

This bad boy is an example of the new Artistry relic aspect, which is perfect if your GM is using relics. If they don’t use relics, you’re SOL as it can’t be crafted. Aside from being a Traveler’s Chair that can climb stairs and ladders, it provides an item bonus to Crafting checks that scales with your level, becoming +3 at 17th level. Amazingly, its Grand Gift turns any successful Crafting check into a critical success!

Toolkit of Bronze Whispers - Level 5, Price Rare, Bulk 2 (TV)

A set of intelligent tools that functions as Sterling Artisan’s Tools. Most importantly, these things know every common item formula of 5 level and lower, plus any bonus formula the GM is willing to give it. The downside is you have to spend the normal time copying the formula and it's a priceless rare item, so getting it is up to GM fiat.

Immaculate Instrument - Level 12, Price Artifact (WoI)

Once per month you can attempt a perform or craft check at mythic proficiency. You treat any critical failures with these checks as regular failures. This is a little underwhelming for an artifact, but if you can get one it's a great comfort knowing you are totally safe from crit fails.

The Worldforge - Level 25, Price Artifact (Wol), Bulk (I think it's a structure?)

You must be mythic to even use this thing. The Worldforge counts as a workstation for crafting checks and essentially follows all the normal rules. However, each day of work counts as 10 days! At the end of every day you must spend a mythic point or increase your drained condition by 1, potentially killing you if it reaches 4 or greater. While it is great to bend time and save a ton of money, that’s really all you accomplish here. I would have liked to see something more unique from a level 25 artifact. Like actually forging worlds, creating life, or writing laws into reality.

Axe of the Dwarven Lords - Level 26, Price Artifact, Bulk 3 (GM)

This legendary artifact grants +4 item bonus when Crafting armor, jewelry, metalworking, stonemasonry, snares, traps, and weapons. Which is great and all, but...where do you get one? And unless you’re a dwarf you don’t gain many other benefits of having this weapon.

Philosopher’s Extractor - Level 28, Price Artifact, Bulk 6 (GM)

This artifact acts as an alchemist lab and maximizes the numeric values of any alchemical item crafted with it. It also allows you to include monster abilities in your mutagens. But like the Axe of the Dwarven Lords it is out of reach of player characters and relies on the generosity of the GM.

Proficiency Without Level (Variant Rule)

This is a variant rule that removes the level bonus from all checks and DC’s that scale with level. The variant offers two options for setting DC’s; either subtract the level from the standard skill DC or use the simplified skill DC option. Either can really throw a monkey wrench into the crafting system. I would recommend a GM using this system be generous with adjusting the difficulty of crafting checks for more routine and common items as this will help players meet certain thresholds that would otherwise be impossible.

Simplified DC - Unrainted - DC 10, Trained - DC 15, Expert - DC 20, Master - DC 25, Legendary DC 30

I would recommend never using this option for crafting in a game without level. If we assume the DC is the same tier as the minimum proficiency requirement, this would mean crafting anything at all is a Trained DC 15. Assurance builds can not meet this until they become Master at 7th level, and can essentially never craft even basic magic items! Intelligence builds also suffer as they will always be rolling a 50/50 chance of failure to make anything of their current level.

Standard DC - Intelligence builds come out okay when using standard check DC’s without level. However, the curve isn’t as smooth and the minimum roll they need stays a little higher on average. Assurance builds, on the other hand, are completely locked out of crafting anything until they can reach their Expert and Master proficiency increases. And since the DC eventually surpasses 18, they can never make any of the endgame items. Definitely consider adjusting this if your campaign reaches that level.

Step 10: Around the Campfire

Kingmaker introduced several subsystems that work similar to crafting that rely heavily on Survival, giving Wisdom-based characters a moment in the sun. Cooking is of special interest here because it is significantly faster than other crafting methods and can provide your whole party with *Status* bonuses that last up to 24 hours! These can be hard to come by, especially for that duration.

Prepare a Campsite is a special downtime activity that takes about 2 hours, which involves searching a Hex for a safe and secure location to camp. If you aren’t using hexploration rules, this time can be reduced or tailored to better suit your campaign. Once a camp has been prepared in a hex the first time, any future attempts in that area are reduced to 1 hour (or half of whatever you decide on).

At the end of their search, the player makes a Survival check against a DC based on how dangerous the region is. Kingmaker provides example DCs for each zone in the AP, but for other campaigns I would recommend a skill DC based on the average threat level of enemies and hazards. A normal woodland with deer and goblins should be an easy DC 14, but a volcanic mountainscape crawling with fire giants will be very difficult.

On a success or failure, the campsite is prepared. A critical success actually reduces the chance of random encounters while resting there, while a critical failure can cause a random encounter and prevents you from performing campsite activities such as cooking.

Other characters don’t need to participate in preparing the camp or performing camp activities. Instead, they can be doing any other exploration mode actions like treating wounds, repairing gear, and identifying magic items. Other new 2 hour activities include Camouflaging Campsite and Tell Campfire Story, which utilize Stealth and Performance, respectively.

Good Cooking

Cooking is a 2 hour downtime activity that uses Survival or Cooking Lore. Anyone who took the Cook background is feeling really special right now. Cooking in the wilderness will require you to have made a campsite as described above, but otherwise you just need access to a kitchen or cookfire in any settlement. The size of your party doesn’t change the time or DC needed, but does increase the number of resources used.

• Cook Basic Meal - All characters know this action, which is a tough DC 22 Survival or DC 18 Cooking Lore check. Effects last until your morning prep, so typically this is something you’ll want to do at night before sleeping. A success provides a +1 status bonus on all saving throws, while a critical success provides additional healing equal to your Con mod (min 1) x your level during your rest. A critical failure makes everyone sickened until morning, so don’t try this until you can’t roll below 13.

Recipes: The Cook Special Meal action requires knowing the specific recipe. Recipes have a level and rarity, exactly like any other consumable. The Hearty Meal recipe is gained automatically in Kingmaker. For other games, say everyone knows it or simply include it in a Basic Crafter’s Book.

Characters Trained in Cooking Lore can learn common special recipes through the Discover Special Recipe action. The character expends twice the normal ingredients for one serving of the desired recipe, then attempts a Survival or Cooking check. The party learns the recipe on a success and recovers half the ingredients on a critical success. A critical failure imposes that recipe’s critical failure penalty on the chef.

Uncommon and rare recipes must be purchased, given as a reward, or found as treasure.

• Hearty Meal - This recipe is an easier DC 16 Survival or DC 14 Cooking Lore check. Success provides characters with a +1 status bonus on their first saving throw in the next 24 hours, while critical success increases it to three saving throws. Critical failure instead gives everyone that sleepy turkey feeling and they take a -1 penalty on Initiative until their next rest.
• A list of other recipes can be found here; https://2e.aonprd.com/CampMeals.aspx

Ingredients: All meals require expending 1 daily ration (or 1 provision gained from Subsisting) per serving, as well a number of Basic Ingredients per serving. Some special meals may also require Special Ingredients.

Ingredients are acquired by purchasing them in a settlement (Basic ingredients are probably level 0 items) or using the Hunt and Gather activity. A character trained in Survival can Hunt and Gather in 2 hours of downtime by making a skill check against the same zone DC you would set for camping in the area.

The GM can also decide to provide special ingredients from overcoming certain enemies and hazards, either as treasure or harvested from a creature (ie. A purple worm should obviously provide ingredients for Hearty Purple Soup). A Critical Failure also triggers an extra roll for random encounters at your campsite.

Ingredients are largely generic and up to the GM and party to describe, but many special meals assume the party eats meat. GMs and players should feel free to create new recipes or reflavor (pun intended) existing ones for characters who are vegan or have some unusual diet (there are plant, robot, and undead ancestries. Go wild).

Eating: After cooking is done, characters can choose what they want to eat from the options available. If there aren’t enough servings prepared or a character doesn’t want to benefit from that meal, they can instead eat rations, rely on their Ring of Sustenance, cast Heroe’s Feast and so on. Characters can only gain bonuses from one meal each day, so true gourmets may want to cook multiple dishes to ensure each player gets optimal benefits.

After a character has eaten the same successful meal twice (or a critical success once) they may declare that recipe their Favorite Meal. This grants an additional minor benefit specific to that recipe. Characters can change their favored meal after eating a different recipe that critically succeeded twice.

Builds? Aside from having the Cook background, any character with high Wisdom who plans to max out Survival should handle food and/or ingredients for the party. This will typically fall on the party Ranger or Druid.

Gardens of Wonder

Presented as a variant in Treasure Vault, a garden is a type of permanent structure that grows or manufactures a daily consumable on its own. Such consumables expire at the end of the day like any temporary item. Within the rules, this garden could be any type of sanctuary or workspace such as a kitchen, ranch, laboratory, or chapel. The visuals and logistics are up to you. Gardens can be used in addition to Nature Crafting or on their own.

To establish a garden, players pay a cost in gold or materials equal to a permanent item that is 2 levels higher than the level of consumables they would like to grow. The Grow or Craft systems can also be used to create a garden, including the ability to reduce the cost by half using the normal Earn Income chart. What’s interesting here is almost any skill can be used for the income check, so long as it fits the theme of the garden. A church might use Architecture Lore, while a bakery might use Cooking Lore.

It is recommended that a party not have more gardens than half the number of PCs, rounded down. Gardens can also be given as rewards or treasure, especially if it would encourage a party to visit or return to an area or to use an item they wouldn’t normally create on their own.