Want to do something different

>want to do something different
>make my character a blacksmith
>use lots of points into blacksmithing weapons, guns and armor
>after game starts he tell me making a basic sword takes a week
Is this accurate? If so should I retire this character? Not much I can do if making something so basic takes so much time.

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Dick move on the GM's part. Should've told you while you were making the character.

>is this accurate?

We don't know, what's the fucking system

DnD 3.5.

He said that real life smithing takes a lot of time. Is that the case?

It's probably one of those "in the long run" types, where for now you can't do much, but eventually you'll be making 50 masterwork enchanted 99 charges unobtanium swords.

Do you have access to a forge?

You have to refine your own metal?

You got a young little assistant that you can make huff the fumes and beat out rough iron for you?

It's accurate.
The real question is:
Is it fair, game play wise?

it doesn't take a week to make a fucking sword if you've got the proper tools and equipment.

Is he a weeb? I bet he's a weeb. Pic related.

>murder hobo
>blacksmithing equipment

>but eventually you'll be making 50 masterwork enchanted 99 charges unobtanium swords.
That would be cool, but the problem is time. If I cannot speed the process the story will move without me.

Yes, I have a forge. The DM actually didn't bring about refined metal, so I think I'm using ore.

I didn't ask for an assistant actually. Maybe this would help cut down time. Thanks.

Well, I would say no, because I wouldn't have made this character if he told me before.

Not that I don't have the patience, but just that he wants the story to go.

A young little assistant?

He wants two burly apprentices with sledgehammers just for rough shaping. Probably another pair to sit there filing and grinding all day until they rotate with the sledge lads. The rookie will spend the first few months simply cutting coal to suitable size before getting promoted to working the billows. Etc.

Then once we have a finished blade, that's sold off to a cutler (for cheap blades by the bucket), who turns it into a complete sword, once again with plenty of apprentices to help, and probably subcontracting some of the major hilt components to other craftsmen as well. For high end work a goldsmith may be brought in here.

On the tv show about blacksmithing they usually give the guys 5 days at their home forge to forge a sword or something.

This is one of those things which varies wildly in viability depending on the amount of downtime the GM gives the party. If you're doing multiple encounters every day and/or constantly travelling, crafting is pretty useless. If you have a month or more of downtime fairly regularly, it's good money.

Modern steels and power hammers are a wonderful thing.

none of that is realistic unless you're trying to arm the local constabulary in a weekend.

If you're working a normal workday during downtime and the sword is your only project, and you know what you're doing, you ought to be able to forge and finish a usable sword in a weekend. Less in a world where you can go down to your local mage's guild and get them to prestidigi shiny it for you.

>people with modern tools an equipment still take just under a week to make a sword
That just proves that OP'S DM was being somewhat generous.

>hobbyists working in backyard forges are equivalent to a professional working in a smithing shop

>hobbyists aren't going to buy modern equipment relevant to their hobby
>modern equipment isn't going to out-perform centuries/millenia old out dated equipment

If a hobbyist working with historical tools bangs out a complete sword in a week, then there's a few more weeks of work lying on the cutting room floor.

I think that your GM should have told you beforehand, however just because blacksmithing takes a long does not mean that it cannot be accomedated. If the party is 'ashore' or has some down time in a town of city, or if you have a castle or a base or similar, then you can all just have your character have a break from the adventure, and your character works the forge an anvil, while the others might do other things, like trying to make some coin with another trade on the side, or engage with not so important NPCs like family members or clansmen, go carousing or fishing - and all of this does not have to be acted out for a long while in real time.

See it as if it was an episode of a TV-series you like, they don't show everything all the characters do in real time, they pick some of the important things for the scenes which drive the plot or expand on the characters and the story. And it is a hard thing to as the GM I find: On the one hand keeping track of ingame time, but on the other hand picking out the important scenes to have where the players get to shine and be spotlighted.

Just buy a horse and have it carry the anvil with you in a cart, have a mobile workstation.

That's what I'm doing in my game.
What is a week when you can choose to craft a few hours before going to bed.

Get a Dedicated Wright to make stuff for you while you're out. Or take feats that reduce crafting time/cost.

youtube.com/watch?v=J6woycxQzA0

You can make a sword over the course of a weekend to 5 days. The big defined time sinks in the video are 5 hours of heating iron ore and 11 hours of hammering an ingot of steel, up to a few days of polishing.

Many of the contestants are professional bladesmiths.

Most bladesmiths are coincidentally big fat middle aged dudes with beards.

I know the show, and I love the show.
First, some points: we have seen people with historical tools build a blade in those five days, with hilt and decorations. There was one guy where his forge was a salvaged satellite dish, and he did fine. It wasn't modern quality, but our modern quality is medieval masterwork quality (unless you bought a cheap-ass blade from a festival. Then it's shit).
In Europe in the 1100's, the Romans of 300BC-100AD, and China of 40BC and possibly earlier, we have Trip Hammers - water powered Power Hammers, effectively. They were much slower, but still effective.
Depending on how high or low your standards are, you can crank out cheap swords very quickly - if you cast the blanks before giving them a quick forging to provide a rough edge for the grinding to shape, you can get about 3-4 a day (SRWAG - semi-realistic wild-ass guess) if you have some help with grinding.

Can I just ask why any of this matters?

If the character is forging their own equipment or making magic items or making occupational income, it's going to happen between adventures and a week's labor is no problem.

During an adventure or dungeon crawl, a blacksmith character can use their skill to make simple tools and repairs, appraise items, and break things, with only modest equipment or labor time. But you shouldn't assume that you can shit out broadswords at will.

It's a perfectly viable character background, assuming you didn't sink all your points into crafting skills, in which case what the fuck are you doing out fighting monsters?

The sword crafting happens between sessions. As long as your team isn't fighting for 16 hours every single day, you should be fine. If they travel a lot, then you will need a portable forge. This could be achieved through a magical portable castle, an airship, a magic bag that is bigger on the inside etc. You just have to get creative.

This desu. Being a blacksmith doesn't mean you make shit and do fuck-all else. Knowledge of metallurgy, on-the-spot equipment repairs, and shit like that can still be useful in a dungeon crawl, and the actual crafting should be happening offscreen between adventures, during the same time the wizard is using to research new spells, etc.

One of my players had a gunsmith character in Fantasycraft game. 4 armed clockwork unborn. Some master smith created his body and tried to move his mind into it so that he could live forever but instead he died and gave birth to the character, Mark Morecraft. He got some of the personality and talents of his creator. An uppity noble brit visionary of making perfect rifles and small arms to revolutionize the world. He became famous for whacking demonic hounds back to the hell with his cane because silly minion damage saves.

tl;dr Fantasycraft has good crafting rules, maybe your GM can borrow something from it.