This is not a post about crafting, really (sorry, not sorry), but about building things for purpose in a constrained time window— such as a raft to cross a river, a ladder for climbing out of a pit, or a temporary shelter to wait out a storm.
Character building
We’re going to treat the constructions as characters, at least in terms of mechanics, giving them an HD (H for hardiness!) value that describes how well built they are. Let’s get to determining!
Resources & Time
A construction is imbued with HD through resources and time spent to build it. We’ll bundle these together as work. The number of Expedition Turns of work it takes to earn 1 HD is equal to the area’s scarcity multiplied by its ruggedness. Start with the values from the terrain type and adjust as needed.
Example: A forest normally has a scarcity of 2 but, for the purposes of building a raft out of wood, it makes sense to reduce the scarcity to 1.
Harvesting the Dungeon
In a dungeon environment, there generally isn't the time or space to explore for resources as you can in the wilderness. In that case, use a scarcity value that matches the amount of resources available or roll some dice on this table:
| 1d6 | Resources | Scarcity |
|---|---|---|
| 1-3 | Poor | 3 |
| 4-5 | Moderate | 2 |
| 6 | Abundant | 1 |
Add up the Expedition Turns for each individual putting in work to calculate the HD earned.
Quality
If the work is done under the supervision of someone skilled, the quality of the construction increases. Without any expertise, the work suffers.
| Skilled Supervisor | Quality | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| None | Poor | HD/2[1] |
| Familiar | Makeshift | 0 |
| Skilled | Decent | +1 |
| Expert | Good | +2 |
| Master | Excellent | +3 |
Investing in diversity
Once the final amount of HD has been tallied, it gets applied to the construction. For simple things, all the dice go into a common pool. For more complex creations, the dice may get split to account for different aspects of the creation.
Example: A simple raft built just to float, would have a single pool of HD; building a raft with a rudder, oars, or a pole, would have two pools: one for overall water-worthiness and one for steering; so if this raft had 3 HD, the dice could be split into 2 for buoyancy and 1 for the steering or 1 for buoyancy and 2 for steering.
Testing the build
Rather than rolling dice immediately to determine the success of the construction, we’ll wait until the creation is put under the pressure of use. Ascertain the difficulty of the moment like in any challenge. Roll dice for the construction to determine how it fairs. If supervised, add the bonus to each die rolled. Tally up the boons. If it passes the challenge, all is well, for the moment. If not, decide what happens and game on!
- No modifier on each die roll but the final HD is divided in half. ↩︎
