It's been weeks coming, but I've uploaded the Artifice sphere. Along with the Artifice sphere, there's been changes to Survival, a new talent for Scout, and a few other changes to Equipment and other places here and there. Vocation isn't ready, but I finally understand what to do with it now that Artifice has its shape, so expect to see it coming soon.

Artifice has been incredibly hard to hit with that sweet spot of being ignorable for those who don't want it, usable for those who want basic rules, and also usable for those who want to delve deeply. The main problem, of course, being that Artificing is not just one rule, but interacts with Survival and Vocation in several specific ways (this is part of why it took so long to show it, I was really hoping Vocation would be ready at the same time, but it still needs a little bit.)

I would love feedback; do the rules work, and if they work do the numbers work well, that sort of thing, but the biggest question is whether or not the three spheres of Survival, Artifice, and Vocation are supporting each other.

Survival, Artifice, and Vocation

The three spheres of Survival, Artifice, and Vocation should support each other well; Survival gathers resources, Artifice creates items from them, and Vocation sells them for a profit. However, each one uses slightly different mechanics.

Survival interacts with the game world in real time: if you want to cut down a tree, or break down a dungeon wall with a pickaxe, how long does it take? If you want a little less of a tight focus and want to gather food as you travel, what roll do you need to make?

Artificing, however, deals in money: if you want to craft something, you need raw materials worth 1/3rd its market price. What material? Every item has a 'base material' that it counts as (wood for bows, metal for swords, etc.). How large are those materials? Simplest answer is 'as large as the item being made'.

So how do those interact? If a bow is made of wood, and trees are made of wood, obviously you should be able to cut down a tree and turn it into a bow, right? Of course; make a rule as with Artificery that deals in money and say you can gather X amount of resources with a day of work, just as you can craft X amount of items with a day of work.

However, there are questions that pop up if you look at both of these spheres closely, and the two spheres, while complementary, don't quite match up. If, for example, Survival tells you how long it takes to cut down a tree AND how long it takes to gather X amount of resources, does that mean we can calculate down and figure out the gold value of an individual tree?

One approach would have been to say 'yes'. Every tree has a time to cut it down, a size, and a gp value, and every tree is the same. However, I've never felt comfortable in games that mimic computer games so closely, or that would work so hard against you if you happen to know a lot about trees. After all, 'bows' are not just crafted out of 'wood'; there are different types of wood, different ages and sizes of trees, and a logger is going to be cutting down different trees than a bower.

So, we've opted for the answer to be 'no'; we have rough guidelines for determining the size of X value of raw materials, but otherwise the rules are different if you want to be cutting down a tree to block a road vs gathering materials for crafting, and we try to give enough guidelines that if the GM needs to bridge that gap they can hopefully do so with minimal complication.

Is this the best approach? You tell me; take a look and let me know if this looks like it would be helpful in your games, or would you prefer something more mechanically consistent?

OR have we done a terrible job of presenting the mechanics and you find it too confusing to use? Please let us know, and thank you again.