D&D Character Professions and Why We Need More of Them

What 5e D&D lacks

Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is a wonderful thing, but there is something it’s missing. Something that’s a big deal to a few of us, even as others don’t even notice it’s missing. That thing is an official crafting system. Of course, there are fan rules up on the internet for this kind of thing, and some of them are really great. That’s what I want to talk about today.

Making things is fun. There is something undeniably cool about having your character in one campaign craft an item or a weapon and then three campaigns later having a character find that item in a dungeon and you as a player getting to feel the rush of excitement that comes with remembering that thing.

I, for one, killed a stupid amount of hours customizing weapons, designing hilts and blades, deciding on materials and going on adventures to gather them. (Anybody remember Kaorti Resin from 3.5? It was super hard to get your hands on but a piercing or slashing weapon made from it would give you a x4 crit modifier.)

As my wizard in my Saturday game, one of the major things I’ve been doing is Alchemy. We’ve been using a variant of these rules to do it. We’re not using them verbatim, but it’s pretty close and it’s a solid basis.

In a nutshell, it takes a number of days equal to the spell level of the potion being brewed and costs a quarter of the market value of the potion to make. We’ll use a Potion of Speed as an example. Haste is a Level 3 spell, and the market value is 1350 gp. Therefore, it would cost 450 gp to get the reagents to make, and take three days to brew.

If you’re brewing a batch of potions, you are able to brew as many at once as you have spell slots per day for that spell level. So a level 13 wizard like Nicophel could brew a batch of three Potions of Speed at once, over the course of three days. This is important because it stops you from just making a dozen Potions of Speed at once and having infinite money. Also, the linked rules assume that cantrips can be made into potions, but we’re running as though cantrips are just not strong enough magic to be brewed into a potion and it won’t take.

We’ve also been running with a different way to get recipes for potions, where if you study a potion over a long rest you can figure out how to make it. This also consumes the potion. It also assumes you have to have access to a 1000gp alchemy lab and enough time to do your brewing and let it sit. It’s not something you want to be attempting in the middle of a dungeon or on the road for sure.

That said, this is crafting, and that’s how it should be. I highly recommend playing a character with a profession or allowing your players (if you are the DM) to have professions and actually do things with them.

The potions are fairly easy, but they’re also consumable. I’d advise more time and difficult materials for something like blacksmithing or tailoring where you’re making an item that’s going to last and not just get used up. It makes alchemy a good place to start.

Crafting for RP and adventure

Some players want a lot of role play. Some players want to kick in the door, beat the monster and take its treasure. Having a profession allows you to mix the fluff and crunch together to an extent. You have prices to keep track of, materials to collect, and a whole community of other alchemists or blacksmiths or tailors or whatever it is you are to consult about your trade. You get to talk shop. You get to invent your own equipment.

When you swing a sword you made yourself, it can feel so much more rewarding than just something you found in a dungeon somewhere. I mean, yes, you had to fight a dragon for it. It was probably a really difficult battle. You could have that same difficult battle to get ore to create your own sword, make it to the exact specifications you want, probably dump resources into it, but there would be no question that is your weapon.

You might be thinking, “Hey, my players would go way over the top with this, we don’t need everybody carrying around a vorpal sword made out of mithril, that’s ridiculous.” Bear with me. It’s not. It’s the adventure.

Think about it. If your player is a blacksmith and they want that mithril sword, or they want to make it out of some other really awesome rare material that does something cool, you have a hook to get them into a dungeon. If they want that sword enchanted, you have a hook to get them to talk to an enchanter and try to convince them to do that for them.

You may have seen this post floating around regarding forging a sword from the blood iron of your enemies. I had a dwarf try to do that once. Literally went around draining the blood out of everything we fought and collecting it in a series of barrels. No one in the party ever asked her what she was doing with all that blood, they just kind of ran with it.

It turns out the blood of 400 slain enemies is a lot. That sword is still not done yet, but believe you me I have so many plans to get back into the game playing her son and finishing collecting the reagents needed. I’ve got a name picked out for the blade and everything, and after spending this much time working on it, you can bet that’s an item I’ll treasure.

If your player wants to make an item that’s going to be crazy powerful, make it something that they’re going to have to take a lot of time to make. They’ll appreciate it more in the end, even if they end up getting it at a level where it’s more appropriate. Talk to them about scaling it down, if it’s way too over the top, and then set a series of tasks for them.

They may well level up in the dungeon they went through trying to get the materials. They might have to jump through hoops trying to acquire a sapphire exactly the right size and cut for the pommel they’ve made to hold the enchantment they want the sword to have. If they want awesome light weight armor with a high AC score and low weight that they can sneak around in, make it a dangerous process. Let them fail in the crafting a couple of times.

Spider silk, in real life, has a tensile strength several times stronger than steel. A strand of it the width of a pencil can stop a jet in mid-flight. It really does not hold up well to fire at all and it’s not going to do a thing against bludgeoning damage and that is what makes it a valid choice for something in a tabletop game. No way slashing and piercing are going to screw you up in a spider silk shirt, but if somebody decides to punch you while you’re wearing it, the damage will be real. Not to mention, you’re probably going to have to take on a spider to get it.

It’s by no means officially supported, but so many fun things aren’t. So if your game is starting to feel stale, if you feel like you’ve exhausted different ways to smack things into oblivion and you want to try something a little bit different, work something out for crafting. Let your players get creative. Crunch some numbers and decide how you want to handle materials that aren’t in the source books. And hells, let them make some money off of it, because to be honest the professions in 3.5 D&D as written weren’t super stellar in terms of making a living wage at them.

According to the 5E DMG, it takes 10gp a day at least to maintain a wealthy lifestyle. If you’re making around 700gp per potion, you’re going to be a pretty wealthy person by those standards. But if you’re going into dungeons and risking your life fighting monsters to get rare materials to make items out of, you’re going to deserve it.

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