[RPG] On-the-Fly Crafting

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I do not believe there are any 5e rules for this, so this is as much asking for potential houserules as anything else. If there is an official rule somewhere, by all means, please point it out.

Let's say a PC is in a dungeon and would like to craft some kind of explosive arrows by rigging an arrow with various materials, right then and there. It's not a matter of using the 5e Basic Rules for crafting, because it's quick and dirty and he does not need a whole day to do it.

What kind of skill rolls would be involved in this?

Or are there any skills? Should it just be untrained stat checks? If so, how many and what kind?

Update: Specifically, I'm interested in which skill(s) or stat(s) would apply. Or perhaps an additional skill is house-ruled in for this purpose. The type of crafting is essentially akin to what a Tinker Gnome would do, cobbling together things to create something greater than the sum of its parts, but without that ill-fated race's somewhat… dramatic results. A DC would be determined per the difficulty of the item being created. Perhaps success or failure on various rules results in different degrees of success or failure.

Or am I completely overthinking this?

Best Answer

I think SevenSidedDie's response covers the basics pretty well.

On the specific question asked, if I where the GM, my ruling for this action would be (I am considering L1-4 characters):

  1. Make an Intelligence ability check DC 13 during a short rest.
  2. Spend 2d6 G worth of materials.
  3. On a success, creates 1 explosive arrow. It must be fired within 1 day or it looses its effect as the components dry up. You can create and safely transport a number of arrows at a time equal to your Intelligence modifier.
  4. Upon attacking with the arrow, the target and every creature within 5 ft makes a Dexterity save DC = 8 + Int modifier. Each creature that fails takes d10 fire damage, or half damage on a success.

Aside from following the mental process described by SevenSidedDice, I made these specific choices along the path:

  1. The effect is kind of in the same tier as a level 1 spell.
  2. The material cost and expiration date on the arrows ensures that casters with a similar effect are not overshadowed by it. The 2d6 is just a ballpark estimation, could be too much or too little depending on your style of play.
  3. For more potent explosive effect I would add a higher DC to the crafting and much higher cost, but try to limit the damage and effect to something appropriate to the level of the characters.
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