Lord of Creation
A guide to making the ultimate crafter in Pathfinder 1st Edition

by: Andrian

Latest Revision: 6/11/2020

Introduction

Crafting in Pathfinder is clunky, to say the least. Let's face it: Paizo doesn't really like player-crafted items much, at least judging by how the rules are set up. Crafting is time-consuming and, under normal circumstances, it's impossible to make any profit from making magic items. Still, if you're anything like me, you actually enjoy the idea of the adventurer crafter who forged their own legendary weapon and engraved their armor with records of their most famous battles. This is going to be a guide to creating the ultimate crafter - someone who is so fast and good at crafting that they can actually produce gear for themselves and their friends quickly enough to make it actually worth becoming a crafter.

In a way, crafting like this allows us to approach the abilities of a god, but a very different kind of god than, say, the God Wizard. Instead of being an active god who intervenes on the behalf of his worshipers in flashy, obvious ways, we're a more subtle deity who grants blessings and boons to our followers, enhancing their personal abilities so that they can better serve us... provided they give us a modest offering in exchange. Our followers see our hand in the things we have created - the gifts we have bestowed upon them and upon which they rely for their very existence. They may often forget to thank us for our providence, but we know who really deserves the credit for their success.

Now, there are two kinds of build that I will be discussing in this guide. There is the standard build, which uses the ordinary rules for character creation, with mention of the variant rules that may or may not be available in your game, such as background skills, skill unlocks, and variant multiclassing, and there is the gestalt build, which uses a popular set of rules borrowed from DnD 3.5. The gestalt will be significantly better in many areas than the standard build, for obvious reasons, but isn’t going to be possible in most campaigns.

The Goals

Before I begin speaking about the specifics of the builds, I want to expressly state what this build is supposed to be. It is an optimized build, but it is not optimized for the sorts of things you normally are going for in a campaign. Instead of aiming for abilities that will be most generally useful in combat or the sorts of non-combat interactions normally used in the game, such as social interactions, scouting, etc., I am going to focus on maximizing a character’s crafting potential while still remaining a functional asset to the party.

This is going to be accomplished via a combination of class features, skills, and feats (and to a lesser degree traits and racial abilities) that will help accomplish this goal. Most prized are those rare abilities that increase the amount of progress we can make each day.

In brief, there are several major components that can help us accomplish this goal: Cooperative Crafting (available through the Valet familiar archetype), The Forgemaster Cleric, the Soul Forger Magus, the Dwarf favored class bonus for Wizards, the Father’s Forgehammer, and the Wizard's Arcane Builder discovery. I'll go over these in more detail later on, but for right now I'll just say that there are basically two possible builds to go for, one based on Wizard, and one based on Forgemaster Cleric.

Why This Build?

Having read the last section, you might be asking why you'd want to play this build at all. In his guide to the Wizard, TreantMonk described taking crafting feats as trading feats for money, and this is actually pretty accurate. I've taken this approach a step further, opting to select archetypes that are normally considered sub-optimal in order to improve crafting even more. To adopt this build is to take on the ULTIMATE support role, sacrificing even your character's own abilities to give yourself and your friends better gear as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

Also, isn't spending your time crafting a distraction from actually playing the game? Isn't the point of Pathfinder to delve into dungeons, fight monsters, and generally do cool, exciting stuff? Who wants to sit around in town for a few weeks making stuff when we could just buy it from the local merchants and get on to our next adventure?

I think these are fair criticisms, and I recognize that this build is not for everyone. However, I do feel that there is a case for making a crafting-optimized build. How valuable this build will be will depend on what sort of campaign you are in. In a campaign where the party has almost no downtime, is getting lots of treasure, and has access to every magic item they want pretty much whenever, this build is marginally useful at best. However, in a campaign with at least some downtime, where treasure isn't raining from the sky, or where it's hard to get the magic items you want, crafting can have some pretty big mechanical benefits. In addition, the build I'm proposing helps to mitigate the biggest obstacle to crafting - how long it takes. By stacking up speed boosts, it's possible to make crafting while adventuring a viable option, and you won't need nearly as much downtime to get a lot of work done.

More importantly, crafting can be very flavorful and rewarding. When you make your own gear, you can decide what it looks like, and you can become attached to that piece of gear because it's something YOU made. You can give your friends gifts that reflect their wants and needs, and that are personalized to them. This can be a component of rich storytelling, which for me is a lot of fun. Most likely, if you've picked up this guide, you want that experience, and I'm here to help make it happen.

Making the Crafting Rules Work for Us

So, you want to strive for godhood? I warn you, it is not an easy path to walk, and it is often thankless. This is not the path for those who seek personal glory. It is for those with the subtlety and patience to see the big picture. Still, those who persevere will have the power to bend reality and reshape the world. You will be able to affect the rise and fall of nations. Even should you perish, your legacy will live on in the things you have created, which kings and heroes will strive to obtain.

Since we will be primarily playing a Cleric, it seems fitting that we should have tried so hard to emulate the deities that in the end we become one. However, even gods have to follow rules, and we are no exception. However, it's important that we make the rules work for us, so let's take a look at them, shall we?

Mundane Crafting

I will grant that mundane crafting is very poorly-handled in Pafthinder. It's actually nonsensical in some cases. Still, unless your DM wants to homebrew or use 3rd-party rules, we've got to work with them. The formula for determining progress in silver pieces per week is Craft Check times the item's DC. Here are the most important things to note about mundane crafting:

• Progress is measured in SP per week, but we can opt to split that up into daily increments. Personally, I hate this. Having everything measured in silver pieces, when the most common currency is gold pieces, makes things confusing. In addition, look at some of the costs for heavy armors. Without our speed boosts, it could take months or even years to craft a single suit of masterwork armor! This is why we want to be as fast as possible. However, the fact that we can split our progress up into daily increments is helpful, since it means we do not need a full week free to craft something. We can do it one day at a time as we have free time. In addition, we will have a spell called Crafter's Fortune, which grants us a +5 bonus to one Craft check per day. This is important because...
• The higher your Craft roll, the more progress you make. Every tiny bonus to crafting you can get allows you to craft faster. It's not just about meeting the DC. I actually like this, since as you gain experience in your craft, you get better at performing it. Be sure to use Crafter's Fortune every day!
• The higher the difficulty, the more progress you make. You'll notice that more expensive items are more difficult to craft. This helps to offset that cost difference. It's an odd design choice, in my opinion, however, since, for two items of the same value, it's faster to craft the item which is more difficult to make. The best way to earn profit, then, is to find an item which is cheap, yet difficult to make, and mass produce it. Having a high skill level in Craft lets us hit those higher DC's, which allows us to be even faster.
• You can raise the crafting DC to increase your speed. Since higher DC's mean faster crafting, it's possible to do accelerated crafting by raising the DC by 10. If you can safely do this, it's always worth it. Still, it's kinda lackluster. As written, it seems to imply that you can only do this once. Still, if your DM will allow you to add any multiple of 10 to the DC, this gets even better.
• You can Take 10 on most Craft checks. Most crafting will be done in quiet conditions without any distractions and plenty of time. This means you can be reliable, not wasting any materials or time by failing your check.
• Mundane crafting costs 1/3 of the item's base price. This is great, since the standard selling price for items is 1/2 it's base value. This means you can generate wealth in your free time if you don't have anything better to do. It also means you can make profit from other party members, even if you give them a huge discount. Everybody wins!

Magical Crafting

Though mundane crafting is nice and has its purposes, real crafting power comes from being able to make magic items. Fortunately for us, creating magic items is a lot simpler and faster than creating mundane items by cost. Here's the basics of magical crafting:

• Base progress is 1000 GP per day. HOLY MOTHER OF TORAG! This is great compared to the rules for mundane crafting, even if it doesn't make much sense. Shouldn't it be faster and easier to make a 330 GP masterwork heavy steel shield than it is to double its AC bonus with a +2 enhancement? Apparently the game designers didn't think so. Also, notice that this is a fixed value that doesn't scale with skill level. It will always take you the same amount of time to apply a +2 armor enhancement, no matter how high your skill in Spellcraft is. That is, unless you can beat the DC by 5, because...
• Daily progress can be doubled by increasing the DC. For the love of all that is holy, this is amazing! Add 5 to the DC and double your progress. This is just a kick in the nuts to mundane crafters, whose accelerated crafting can't really stand up to this. Note that this also stacks with all our other speed bonuses.
• Crafting a magic item costs 50% of the base price. Well, I guess there has to be SOME drawback to magical crafting, and here it is. This prevents you from making any profit by selling your magic items. If you craft a masterwork item, then enchant it, then sell it, you'll only make as much profit as you would if you'd just sold the masterwork item. However, there are traits that can reduce this cost, which I consider a must for this build.
• You must have the appropriate crafting feat to make a magic item. This is important. There is a feat tax for creating magic items, and it's another drawback of magical over mundane crafting, as the opportunity cost of skill points is way lower than that of feats.
• You can ignore prerequisites by increasing the DC. This is great. It means that, so long as we're skilled enough, we don't need to know the required spells to enchant an item. It will still be nice for us to have the right spells available and prepared, but we don't need them.
• The CL of an item is only used to set the DC, and is not part of its requirements. While some items do have a required minimum CL, the CL of the item itself is not a requirement. You do not even need to be able to cast spells of the required level.
• You can only make one magic item per day, regardless of its price. While scrolls which cost 250 GP or less can be crafted in only 2 hours, and all other items take a minimum of 8, there is still a cap on the number of items you can produce per day. Since we will eventually be able to produce items with blinding speed, this will be important for us to consider, as a more expensive item will often be a better use of our time. Also note that if we can craft mundane items in under a day, we can use any time left over on projects that take more than 8 hours, but less than a multiple of 8 hours to fill out our day. (So basically, if a magic item project would take us 10 hours to finish, we can use the six hours left over to do mundane crafting.)
• You can craft while adventuring, spending 4 hours per day, and making 2 hours worth of progress. This is one area where our blinding speed is really going to help us. This is really inefficient, but at least if we've quadrupled our crafting speed, we're making as much progress as a normal crafter doing 8 hours of work. Unfortunately, because of the 8-hour minimum crafting time, this means that items other than cheap scrolls take a minimum of 4 adventuring days to complete, no matter how fast we are. Bummer.
• You can take 10 on magic item crafting rolls. Magic item crafting generally requires the same conditions as taking 10. Do it if you can, and consider whether it's worth the risk of failure if you can't.

The Ratings

I am going to adopt what has become more or less the standard rating system for Pathfinder guides.

Purple - This is the best you can get. You want this. Take it. Use it. Love it.

Blue - A very strong option. You definitely want this.

Green - A decent option. You probably want this, but it's no huge loss if you can't get it.

Orange - A poor option. Not totally useless, but there's almost certainly better stuff.

Red - An awful option. Either totally useless or detrimental. Avoid like the plague.

Stats

Which stats you choose will depend on which build you’re going for.

Cleric

This build is most dependent on two stats: Int and Wis. Everything else is non-essential, and can be shored up with stat-boosting items.

Str determines your carrying capacity and your ability to hit with melee weapons. Sadly, you probably won't have the points to make yourself a terribly good melee combatant, and most of your gear can be carried by an animal until you can afford to make yourself a Bag of Holding or Handy Haversack. It can be pretty safely dumped.

Dex boosts your AC, Reflex Save, and Initiative, but other than that does little else to help you. You don't really need a high Initiative, but it certainly won't hurt, and every bonus to AC and Reflex you can get is welcome, since you'll need it to survive encounters. Still, there are more important stats.

Con determines your HP and Fortitude Save. It's as useful or more useful than Dex for helping you stay alive.

Int controls all your important skills - Craft and Spellcraft, and the higher it is, the more of those skills you can take. Make this as high as possible.

Wis will be your main spellcasting stat (since you'll be a cleric) and will determine the maximum level of spell you can cast. You want to get at least a 19 eventually.

Cha would be nice to have on a crafter, since you might want to haggle with merchants to get the best prices for your wares, but the fact is that you probably don't have the points for it. The only skill that actually helps you craft based on this stat is UMD, which, while nice, is not essential. This is probably your dump stat. However, if you want to take the Eldritch Heritage feat to pick up a familiar on a Cleric, you’ll want a final score in this stat of at least 13. Still, you can always make yourself a headband to boost your Charisma and qualify for the feat that way.

My priority for stats on this build is Int>Wis>Con=Dex>Str>Cha. The only number you need to hit is 19 Wis by level 18, but that’s not really that difficult if you can get a +6 headband that boosts Wisdom. If you’re having a hard time with point-buy, you can leave Wis as low as 13.

Wizard

Stat-wise, this chassis is less MAD than the Cleric build. You only need Int to make it work. Again, everything else is non-essential and can be shored up with stat-boosting items.

Str determines your carrying capacity and your ability to hit with melee weapons. Sadly, you probably won't have the points to make yourself a terribly good melee combatant, and most of your gear can be carried by an animal until you can afford to make yourself a Bag of Holding or Handy Haversack. It can be pretty safely dumped.

Dex boosts your AC, Reflex Save, and Initiative, but other than that does little else to help you. You don't really need a high Initiative, but it certainly won't hurt, and every bonus to AC and Reflex you can get is welcome, since you'll need it to survive encounters. Still, there are more important stats.

Con determines your HP and Fortitude Save. It's as useful or more useful than Dex for helping you stay alive.

Int controls all your important skills - Craft and Spellcraft, and the higher it is, the more of those skills you can take. Make this as high as possible.

Wis is not very important for a Wizard. Will is already your best save, so the only reason to take this would be for Sense Motive or Perception, neither of which are vital to this build. Just keep it at 10 or above and you’ll be fine.

Cha would be nice to have on a crafter, since you might want to haggle with merchants to get the best prices for your wares, but the fact is that you probably don't have the points for it. The only skill that actually helps you craft based on this stat is UMD, which, while nice, is not essential. This is probably your dump stat.

My priority for stats on this build is Int>Con=Dex>Wis>Str>Cha. Since this isn’t as MAD as the Cleric build, you’ll probably be able to afford a better Dex and/or Con, which will be important for keeping us alive.

Races

This is an important choice. The fact is, that to make the ultimate crafter, you must either play a Dwarf wizard and take the the dwarf’s alternate Favored Class Bonus, or you will need to have access to the Forgemaster Cleric archetype. There are basically two ways to do this: Play a dwarf, or play a race that qualifies for the Racial Heritage feat. Ask your GM if Racial Heritage gives you access to the dwarf’s FCB, because otherwise your only option as a non-dwarf is Forgemaster Cleric.

Dwarf - This is hands-down the best option. +2 to Wis and Con are almost perfect for the Cleric build, and -2 to one of our dump stats. For the Wizard build, this is your only option, as you need the Dwarf Favored Class Bonus. Feat-wise, it's on-par with the Human, and it has some great alternate racial traits that will help you out. Craftsman gives you a boost to Craft or Profession checks involving stone or metal (meaning most weapons and armor, as well as rings and a lot of Wondrous Items), and Unstoppable gives you Toughness as a bonus feat and +1 to Fort saves, making you a lot more durable! However, the real gem for us is Industrious Urbanite, which doubles the speed of all mundane crafting! Your base movement speed isn't great, but armor won't slow you down, and since you're not likely to have a high strength, that's great.

Human (Racial Heritage) - This option has some things going for it. The floating stat bonus is nice, and the extra skill rank is right up our alley. The extra feat gets canceled out by having to take Racial Heritage, though. Overall, not a bad choice, but Dwarf is better.

Half-Elf (Racial Heritage)* - I'm actually surprised at how good half-elves are for this build. While I still don't think they're as good as dwarves, their abilities do work well with the build, making them at least equal with humans. Again, there's the floating stat bonus working in your favor. You're going to be multiclassing, and half-elves have some racial abilities that really help with that. Multitalented is good, letting you multiclass without sacrificing a hit point or skill point from not choosing your favored class, but you might consider replacing it with Multidisciplined to get +1 to your effective CL for all your spells, which will ease the pain of messing up that Caster Level progression. You also get Skill Focus as a free feat at level 1, which is okay, but it's at the cost of having to spend your level 1 feat on Racial Heritage, which is bad.

Half-Orc (Racial Heritage)* - These are bad. Just... bad. You've got a floating stat bonus, sure, but there's literally nothing else. None of the racial abilities will boost your crafting. Don't bother.

Aasimar (Scion of Humanity, Racial Heritage) - This option feels kinda cheesy to me, but it will definitely work by RAW. The alternate racial trait, Scion of Humanity, allows you to take Human racial feats, which qualifies you for Racial Heritage. This means that you will count as a Native Outsider, a Human, and a Dwarf, which makes for some interesting flavor, to say the least. You get some good racial abilities, including skill bonuses and a spell-like ability. While any of the Aasimar heritages would work fine, granting, bonuses to two stats and no penalties, the real gem here is Peri-Blooded, which I would consider just barely blue. It grants a bonus to Int and Cha, making it easy to qualify for Eldritch Heritage, and grants a bonus to Spellcraft rolls! Even their flavor matches pretty well! Of course, the big drawback to playing an Aasimar of any kind is that you have to spend your level 1 feat on Racial Heritage, which is a pretty significant drawback.

Tiefling (Pass for Human, Racial Heritage)** - The default Tiefling has excellent stats for this build, with a bonus to Dex and Int and a penalty to Cha. The variant heritages are all inferior to the base Tiefling, so stick with that. There’s no crafting bonuses here, but the bonus to Int is very nice for boosting Craft and Spellcraft. Of course, we do have to use our level 1 feat, which is just as bad for Tieflings as for anyone else.

Ifrit (Mostly Human, Racial Heritage)** - The hit to Wisdom is definitely going to hurt Cleric builds, and there’s no bonus to Int here. The only thing that saves this option from being red is the Forge-Hardened alternate racial trait, which gives +2 to Craft (Weapons) and Craft (Armor). I have to admit the flavor is pretty cool, even if this is a sub-optimal option. Still, you’re giving up your level 1 feat to make this work.

Sylph (Mostly Human, Racial Heritage)** - The Con penalty is not great, but we’ve got a bonus to Int and Dex that soften the blow. No other bonuses to crafting, but since Int covers Craft and Spellcraft, it’s still pretty solid. Again, spending that level 1 feat hurts.

Undine (Mostly Human, Racial Heritage)** - A penalty to one of our dump stats, and a bonus to Dex and Wis, which makes for a pretty solid Cleric. Nothing specifically to help with crafting. If it weren’t for giving up that level 1 feat, this would actually be a solid choice. Still, the lack of redeeming class features bump it down to orange.

Oread (Mostly Human, Racial Heritage)** - The Wis bonus is great for a Cleric, but we’ve got a bonus to one dump stat and a penalty to the other. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either. There’s no abilities that would help with crafting specifically, but the Gem Magic alternate racial ability seems very interesting. Ask your GM if you can use Gem Magic to enhance magic items. If so, this option might become green. Of course, Oreads would be better if they didn’t have to spend their level 1 feat.

*.Thanks to this FAQ, these races are eligible for Racial Heritage.

**These races should be able to take Racial Heritage due to having the human subtype, but not everyone will agree, and there is no official ruling. Ask your GM if they’ll allow this.

Classes

Now, I've already spoiled you that we're going to be taking the Forgemaster Cleric as our basic chassis, but I want to explain why and go into a little more detail about the various components we'll be using and why I've made the choices I have. Let's talk about the merits of each class that will be an ingredient to this build.

Wizard

When I first wrote this guide, I gave Wizard a bad rating. As far as class features go, it’s not actually that great for crafting, apart from a 1-level dip. However, Coidzor pointed out to me that Dwarves get a Favored Class bonus that increases the amount of progress you make on magic items, making this a more than viable option for a crafter. Truly Wizards are the gods of Pathfinder!

Hit Die - Worst in the game. No one wants to be squishy!

Skills - 2+Int per level. Not great. The selection is good enough, providing us with Spellcraft and, of course, Craft (but everyone gets that), but there's not a lot of general utility outside of crafting for us here.

BAB - 1/2 BAB. Abysmal. Fortunately we don't need it for much.

Saves - You get a good Will Save. Handy when you need it, but you can always wish for better. For Clerics, Wisdom is one of our best stats, so it's not like we're hurting with our Will Saves. For pure Wizards, this lets us safely leave our Wis low.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies - These suck. 'Nuff said.

Spellcasting - This is the wizard's bread and butter. Full casting, based on int, and with a wide variety of spells available for meeting crafting prereq's, this is great! Granted, you do need to get your hands on scrolls and spellbooks  and spend time and money scribing them into your own spellbook to increase your repertoire, but the Wizard list is the most expansive and versatile.  This would be purple except for the arcane spell failure chance in armor and the fact that you have to spend time and money collecting spells. For Cleric builds, this class feature is rather unimpressive.

Bonus Language - Access to Draconic as a bonus language? Sure, we've got room for that, and it's pretty flavorful. Not especially useful, but not totally useless, either.

Arcane Bond - This is one big reason why we're here! We want a familiar! Specifically, a familiar with the Valet archetype! This gives us a constant companion with the Cooperative Crafting feat, which means we get to double our daily progress on all magical crafting an get a +2 on our crafting checks! And the companion is treated as though it has all our crafting feats, so we don't have to mess up another caster's feat progression and use up their free time helping us outfit the party! It's a shame the familiar won't level with us if we go Cleric, because the ability to deliver touch spells would be super useful to us in combat.

Arcane School - Personally, I hate arcane schools. They make Wizards way too complicated and taking one requires you to have opposition schools. To the Cleric dipping Wizard, this is very uninteresting, since we're probably only taking one level of this class. For them, Universalist might be the best choice, since it lets you have access to the widest variety of cantrips and first-level spells, at the cost of one less level-1 spell per day that you probably won't be using anyway. For pure Wizards, though, this is going to be an important choice. In general, I will defer to the wisdom of those who have made other Wizard guides, but I do want to draw attention to the Arcane Crafter Universalist sub-school. This school trades away Hand of the Apprentice, an ability which generally stinks for a Wizard, for a bonus feat at level 3 and +2 to crafting magic items with metamagic feats. The bonus feat can be either a crafting feat or a metamagic feat that you qualify for, both of which are great for us. I’m not going to give the school a rating, as I’m not sure how it stacks up to other school powers, but I suspect that for us, it’s at least a decent option. You have to decide for yourself whether that extra feat is worth having one less spell per level per day to cast or not.

Scribe Scroll - Hey, a free item creation feat! Every caster can use a few extra scrolls! It's a shame scrolls aren't made of metal, though, which prevents Clerics from cranking them out at lightning speed.

Arcane Discoveries (Arcane Builder) - This is the reason Clerics want to take a level of Wizard instead of getting their familiar from another source. There are other ways to get a familiar, such as the Familiar Bond feat, or dipping another arcane class such as Witch, but only Wizards have the ability to take Arcane Discoveries. The important one for our purposes is the Arcane Builder Discovery, which lets you select a category of magic items and craft them 25% faster and grants +4 to Spellcraft checks for crafting items of that type. This is almost purple, and would be if the speed bonus was higher or if it applied to all crafting. Even so, it's worth the level dip, since you can take the feat at any level and you can take it multiple times, each time for a different crafting feat.

Bonus Feats - Useless to Clerics taking a dip, but awesome for Wizards.

Cleric (Forgemaster Archetype)

This is a very solid main class choice for an ultimate crafter, and for good reason. In addition to being very flavorful, it will double your crafting speed for a large category of items. Alone, it's much worse than playing a Wizard, but when combined with Wizard (and possibly Magus, but I'll discuss that later), this archetype makes for a great crafter. The big draw here is Master Smith at level 5, and since we've already sunk 5 levels into this archetype for that ability, we might as well go the rest of the way with it so we get access to those high-level spells.

Hit Die - Pathfinder's "average" hit die. You're no Fighter or Barbarian, but at least you're not a Wizard.

Skills - It's the basics for the build and nothing more. 2 + Int modifier isn't great, but at least our Int modifier will be high.

BAB - 3/4 BAB is nice enough. We really shouldn't be using it much, though, since our physical stats probably suck.

Saves - Two out of three ain't bad. Fortitude and Will both play to our strengths

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies - Good enough. We get medium armor and shields, which we're definitely going to want, and we can make our own. Weapons really don't matter much, since we won't be good at using them. Pick up a crossbow or a shortbow in case you run out of spells, and any melee weapon just so you can threaten adjacent squares if necessary.

Aura - This is almost entirely fluff, I think. As far as I know, it neither harms nor helps you.

Spellcasting - Vital for our build, spells will be useful both for crafting and for helping the party during adventures. We won't be as good at casting as most Clerics, but we still have access to the whole list every day, which is useful for meeting crafting prerequisites. We'll want to focus on buff, healing, and utility spells - stuff that doesn't give enemies a save or require an attack roll, and fortunately that's something Clerics do very well.

Spontaneous Casting - I'm all in favor of not having to prepare cure spells in advance! Becomes orange for Clerics who get inflict spells instead.

Bonus Languages - Three more bonus language options? Sure, why not? Certainly can't hurt. Too bad we suck at Cha, or we'd make a pretty nice party face with all these languages we speak.

Artificer - You only get one domain, and while it's very appropriate, it's kinda lame. More useful for you than anyone else, though, since you never have to prepare Mending. Could also be useful on the rare occasion that you need to break an object. The 8th-level ability probably isn't going to be of much use to us, so this is mostly a dud. The spell list isn't great, either, but at least you never have to prepare any of those spells. Also, you have to worship a deity with the Artifice domain if you worship a deity, but that shouldn't be a big problem.

Steel Spells - The only ones I see here that are of any interest are Crafter's Fortune and Keen Edge. Crafter's Fortune is a spell to prepare on days when you want to do mundane crafting. Even if you can easily meet the DC, remember that the amount of progress you make in mundane crafting depends on how high your Craft roll is, so this helps you increase your output. Keen Edge is a prerequisite for making Keen weapons, so there you go.

Divine Smith - You do have spells that affect weapons, shields, and armor, so getting +1 CL on those certainly doesn't hurt. There isn't much room in the build for Metamagic feats, unfortunately, so that slot reduction is probably going to go to waste. You probably won't be casting a lot of the spells that qualify for this, though, as they aren't that useful compared to more general buffs.

Runeforger - Now this is a cool ability! Reminds me of the Magus's Arcane Pool, though it's not as flexible, while also having options and abilities unavailable to the Magus, such as the ability to hand the piece of equipment you just enhanced to someone who can use it better than us! The full-round action is a bit of a drag, but you can use multiple charges to increase the duration of the effects, and with our high Int score, we should be able to pull off at least a couple long-term equipment-based buffs every day even from mid-levels. Here’s a breakdown of the various runes by the level at which they become available:

Forgemaster’s Blessing (1st) - This one you have to take, but fortunately it’s not bad to have at early levels. This will be most useful for weapons, since +1 to hit is more valuable than reducing Armor Check Penalty, and we can’t use it on our tools at all.

Ancient Splendor (2nd) - This glyph is an absolutely fantastic buff, especially at early levels. A +2 Circumstance Bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidation that you can just hand to the party face, and which can easily last the length of an important conversation at level 2, and longer as you level up, is just great. You’ll probably get use out of this the entire game.

Durability (2nd) - This is the glyph to use if you’re going to be fighting Lord Sunder and his Sunderlings. If you’re not fighting them, it’s pretty safe to skip this.

Featherlight (2nd) - Unfortunately, you can’t use glyphs on anything except weapons, armor, and shields, so the value of this is pretty limited. Being able to halve the armor check penalty for Acrobatics and Climb checks could come in handy once in a while, but we’re blocked from using this for more creative purposes. Maybe if you’re looting a lot of giants, you’ll find this more valuable.

Glowglyph (2nd) - The Light cantrip already accomplishes most of what this does. Still, the ability to blind someone, then immediately plunge the surrounding area into darkness could have its uses. Talk to your Rogue and see what they can come up with.

Spellguard (2nd) - How often will a weapon, armor, or shield be the target of a spell? If it applied spell resistance to the wearer, it would be better, but it doesn’t.

Tracer (2nd) - This seems like it was intended as an anti-thief measure, but with some creativity, I’m sure it could have some circumstantial uses. Get the Rogue to plant a dagger on the enemy spellcaster to nullify their invisibility, for example. Until higher levels, the maximum duration will be too short for it to let you protect your stuff.

Bloodthirsty*(4th) - Level 4 is when the runes start getting good. Wounding is pretty good to have on a weapon! Take note that Wounding can only be applied to a melee weapon. Ask your GM if this rune is an exception to that, since it does not specify that the weapon has to be a melee weapon, just a slashing or piercing weapon. Note that this rune has an asterisk and cannot be put on a weapon that already has another rune with an asterisk.

Deathstrike (4th) - Death Knell is a powerful spell, but the fact that actually using it expends all the runes is rough - especially if the target succeeds its save! If you want this, wait until higher levels when one inscription will last a whole fight. However, Spellglyph can replicate the effects of this rune and more, so I’d suggest taking it instead.

Ghostglyph* (4th) - Fighting insubstantial creatures sucks. This glyph makes fighting them not suck. This rune may be circumstantial, but it’s a circumstance I like to be prepared for. Note that this rune has an asterisk and cannot be put on a weapon that already has another rune with an asterisk.

Return* (4th) - Returning weapons are fun, and since by now you can make this last up to 4 hours, it’s almost as good as a permanent weapon enhancement if you don’t have anything else to do with your runes.Note that this rune has an asterisk and cannot be put on a weapon that already has another rune with an asterisk.

Spellglyph* (4th) - Unlike Deathstrike, this rune doesn’t get expended when the spell is cast. Death Knell is on your spell list, so you can replicate its effects using this rune if you want, or you can load any other spell you want into it. In fact, other spellcasters in your party can put spells into the weapon. And, you can use this ability as many times as you want until the duration ends or your party runs out of spells to load into the weapon. Note that this rune has an asterisk and cannot be put on a weapon that already has another rune with an asterisk.

Powerstrike* (6th) - This is a handy buff that I’m sure the martial characters would appreciate having on their weapons. Unlike the Keen weapon enhancement, there’s no restriction on the type of weapon you apply this to, and if you expend enough runes, the duration can be greater than Keen Edge. Your archer and/or hammer-wielding Barbarian will thank you for taking this. Note that this rune has an asterisk and cannot be put on a weapon that already has another rune with an asterisk.

Thief-Curse (6th) - A rune for the paranoid. While I can think of some creative uses for this, it’s not going to be as useful as a lot of other runes. It is, however, a good way to curse a lot of people at once - if you can trick them all into grabbing the cursed item.

Invulnerability* (8th) - Damage Resistance is pretty sweet. So long as your enemies can’t deal magic damage regularly, this will save someone in your party a lot of hurting throughout the day. This does have an asterisk, but as no other runes with asterisks are for armor, you won’t need to worry about it.

Craft Magic Arms and Armor - A free item creation feat two levels early? YES PLEASE! This is also the feat you'll probably get the most use out of, as most arms and armor are made of metal. See below for why that's important.

Master Smith - This is why we're taking this archetype. Double-speed crafting, both magical and mundane, on all metal items. That's a very big category, covering most weapons and armor, rings, some Wondrous Items, and other categories, such as rods and constructs if you want to get into those. Even wands can be made of metal! The monk or druid in the party won't like this quite as much, but everyone else will be ecstatic at your high-speed crafting abilities. So far as I can tell, this stacks with Cooperative Crafting, so in combination with your Valet Familiar, you can craft metal items in 1/4 the standard time. Combine it again with Arcane Builder and/or the Father’s Forgehammer, and you begin to understand the true power of this combination of abilities. Would be purple if it applied to all items.

Magus (Soul Forger Archetype)

This is sort of a runner-up option. It's not useful as a one-level dip like Wizard, it doesn't get 9th-level spells, we have to wait until level 7 for its big crafting speed boost, and said crafting speed boost applies only to weapons and armor. Unless you're playing a gestalt character or one that's going to go beyond level 20, there won't be room in your build for this archetype. All that said, though, there's some great features here, if we can manage to get them without losing the important components of the rest of our build.

Hit Die - Pathfinder's "average" hit die. Same as Cleric - good enough, but not great.

Skills - All the basics, plus UMD, which can be useful, but is not essential. Still best to get someone else to do your UMD casting if you really need it. Again, we're stuck at 2 + Int Modifier, so we gain nothing here by gestalting.

BAB - Same as Cleric, 3/4. We're not using it much anyway.

Saves - Also same as Cleric, Fort and Will. You again gain nothing here by gestalting.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies - Better weapons than the Cleric, but worse armor. Until you get to level 7, you have to choose between better AC and the ability to cast Magus spells without an arcane failure chance. Personally, I'd go with the AC and use Magus spells in situations where I don't have to be armored. For Wizards, this is an upgrade, but not by much, since we can never cast Wizard spells without an arcane failure chance.

Spellcasting - Int-based casting with a spell book! Very nice! We can meet our prerequisites and do a tad more every day. Not as useful as it could be, though, since Clerics will probably want to wear Medium Armor before level 7 and because of what comes next...

Diminished Spellcasting - Boo! I know we won't be relying on Magus spells a lot for our bread and butter, but it always hurts to lose a spell slot at every level.

Arcane Bond - Hey look, a free Masterwork weapon!

Arcane Pool - A very handy ability that lets you temporarily enchant your weapon on the fly. Unfortunately, we won't be able to make the most of this ability due to our crummy Strength score and mediocre Dexterity. Still, when the situation arises, it's always handy to have a quick way to bypass DR. Faster and more flexible than the Cleric's Runeforger ability, it also doesn't last as long and can only be used on your own weapon. Note that this can apply to any weapon you are holding, which allows you to enhance ranged weapons, which we'll be using more often and to better effect than melee weapons.

Spell Combat - Not great for us, since Clerics really want a shield and will have an arcane spell failure chance until level 7. Also, only usable when wielding our bonded weapon, not that that's much of a problem. Slightly better for Wizards, but still not great.

Spellstrike - Suffers from the same problems as Spell Combat. Also only usable when wielding our bonded weapon.

Magus Arcana - There's some good stuff in here, especially at higher levels, but a lot of it relies on Spellstrike or Spell Combat. With Broad Study, you could ditch your shield and use your Cleric spells with Spellstrike and Spell Combat, but you'd still have to contend with your low Str score. I recommend aiming for defensive and utility abilities.

Fortify Bond - This trades away a great ability for a virtually useless one. Unless you expect to run into enemies constantly trying to sunder your bonded weapon (And why would they? It's not like it poses that much of a threat to them!), this ability is worthless.

Bonus Feats - Hell yeah! Feats! We desperately need those! And we can get Magic Item Creation feats or Metamagic feats with them!

Master Smith - A bonus equal to your magus level in all Craft checks to manufacture armor, shields, and weapons, and all Spellcraft checks for Arms and Armor is great, but it gets better! At level 7, we can craft mundane weapons, armor, and shields in 1/10th the time (Hey, full plate can now be made in a reasonable amount of time!), and magic weapons, armor, and shields in half the time. This should stack with Cooperative Crafting, the Cleric's Master Smith ability, and Arcane Builder for a truly MASSIVE speed boost to metal weapons and armor. And, with that bonus to Spellcraft checks, we should have no problem meeting the increased DC for accelerated crafting, allowing us to halve our crafting time yet again.

Medium Armor - Well, now we can cast our Magus spells in medium armor, and just in time to get third-level spells like Fireball! We might actually be able to use the occasional offensive spell! Green because of how long it takes to come online and the fact that we still won't be using Spell Combat or Spellstrike with it very often. Virtually Useless for Wizard builds.

Improved Spell Combat - If only we were using Spell Combat...

Fighter Training - I can't think of any Fighter feats we'd want to take anyway...

Reforge - For merely damaged items, this ability is a waste. Just cast Mending and accomplish the task for free. However, this ability allows you to resurrect destroyed items and restore their enchantments! This isn't something that's likely to come up often unless your DM really likes sundering stuff, but you will love having it when the Fighter's beloved +5 Flaming Shocking Thundering Ghost Touch Frost Greatsword that you slaved over for... a few days... gets eaten by a rust monster. Sure, you have to take some temporary negative levels, but you'll get better.

Heavy Armor - Oh, hey, look at that! Now we're proficient in that suit of full plate we've been working on. How convenient! Shame it took so long, though. And, in the case of Wizards, this isn’t really helping at all.

Greater Spell Combat - Well, maybe there's a way to make Spell Combat a viable option for us at this point, but probably not. If we have managed to pull it off, though, hooray! A boost to that!

Destructive Counterstrike - I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario when this would even be likely to happen. Do enemies at this level tend to carry around a lot of magic items to activate during combat? If it does happen, though, don't bother with the sunder attempt. Swing for the enemy and pray you roll high.

Instantaneous Reconstruction - This ability sucks pretty hard. It replaces something awesome, and in exchange lets you reforge a destroyed item as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. When would this ever be useful? You've been cranking out powerful magic items all campaign, and have run into a sunder-happy enemy. Shouldn't you and your allies have backup weapons that can last them until the fight is over by this point? What's the point of fixing destroyed armor, as it'll take until the fight is over to get back into it? Even if you can fix the item, that's maybe one move action to get to the item and touch it, a standard action to repair it, and then spending another turn getting the destroyed item back to its original owner. In addition, the wording is vague. Am I using the Reforge ability, only faster? Can I instantly restore enchantments to the destroyed item? The way it's worded is very unclear. There's just so much awful in this ability it hurts my brain.

True Magus - Well, this is your capstone, everybody. You probably won't see it, even if you're playing all the way to level 20 on a gestalt character, and it's all about Spell Combat, an ability you probably won't be using. Huzzah!

Skills

Skills shouldn't be very difficult for anybody to figure out at this point, but I want to be thorough. For most skills, the conventional wisdom applies, and you can see any Cleric guide for the best general skills to take. What I want to focus on are the skills that will make us a good crafter.

Spellcraft - This is by far the most important skill for us, and fortunately it's a class skill no matter what class we're looking at! We need it for magic item creation rolls, plus it has applications outside of that, like identifying spells!

Appraise - If anyone should take this skill, it's us, but... ugh does it suck! Unless you're in a campaign with a GM who's a huge stickler about this sort of thing, you can safely give it a pass. If you find out you do need it for some reason, make yourself a Headband of Vast Intelligence with this skill loaded in.

Craft - Apart from Spellcraft, this is our most important skill. Problem is, it's actually a ton of skills rolled into one. Let's discuss the merits of the most common ones here:

• Weapons - The title is misleading. It doesn't actually let you craft ALL weapons, just most of them. Still, very important if you want to produce arms and armor. Most items made with this skill will be made of metal.
• Bows - Lets you craft all the weapons not covered under Weapons - namely bows. Some of these items might maybe be made of metal (Some historical bows were made of spring steel. Ask your DM which items they'll allow to be made of metal). Less vital because of its narrow focus, you can probably safely pass on this one and just buy bows to enchant.
• Armor - This is great. All armor and shields for one skill. A lot of these are made of metal.
• Jewelry - Useful for making rings and wondrous items, and still useful for making things out of metal, even if you can't use this skill to make weapons or armor. Also fits well if you want to decorate your weapons or armor with precious metals or gems.
• Alchemy - Not much for us here. We get no bonuses or speed boosts, and it doesn't let us make anything that we can enchant. There's useful stuff in here, but it's just not what we're going to be best at.
• Clothes - This skill lets you make stuff that will be the basis of many wondrous items. Unfortunately, none of them are made of metal, nor do they count as weapons or armor, so you won't be getting much in the way of a speed bonus.
• Traps - Arguably could be made of metal. You're probably better off making magical traps with Craft Wondrous Item instead, though.
• Shoes - Some wondrous items are footwear. Still, not a lot. And I don't think any of them are made of metal.
• Leather - Maybe needed for some belts?
• Everything Else - Maybe there are some edge cases in here, but I really can't see any that are worth the skill points.

Use Magic Device - Handy for meeting spell prerequisites that we don’t already have, and generally useful for everyone, this isn’t a class skill for us unless we’re gestalting or took a trait. For builds planning on taking Improved Familiar, this is better, but it’s still an uphill battle because of our low Cha.

Traits

Sadly, most of the traits we might want are all Magic traits, and there's a clear winner in that category. Still, that one trait is important to the build, as it allows us to make profit off of magic item crafting, so I'm not even going to discuss other magic traits.

Spark of Creation (Magic) - +1 to all Craft checks and a 5% discount on crafting magic items? Yes please! Note that this actually allows you to make profit off your crafted items, since usually magic items cost as much to make as you can get for selling them. I have been informed that you might have to worship Torag to take this trait, but since I don't own Champions of Purity, I can't verify that. If that's the case, it's no big deal, though, since Torag provides the Artifice Domain and makes the most sense for us thematically.

Hedge Magician (Magic) - Just a 5% discount on crafting magic items this time. Only take it if you can't get Spark of Creation for some reason.

Dusk Agent (Regional) - Thanks again to Coidzor for pointing this trait out to me. This trait is hard to rate. First off, it’s a regional trait, and so in any campaign not set in that region, you’d have to get DM approval to use it. In a campaign where you’re spending a lot of time in the one city this trait applies to, it’s awesome, granting you 10% more profit for your work, and 10% lower costs for buying things (making you the designated purchaser of everything for the party). In a campaign where the party travels around a lot and rarely sees the same place twice, this trait is almost useless. Campaigns in-between these extremes will have ratings in-between. If you’re starting at a level above 1, ask your DM how this trait’s effects on starting wealth will apply. Getting double Wealth By Level on a crafting build with a 10% discount is so broken I can’t even describe it.
Azlanti Engineering (Racial, Human - Azlanti) - Thanks to Brett Johnson for sharing this nifty little trait with me. If you want a way to set yourself apart from other crafters, what better way than making your products more durable? While the mechanical benefits of this trait are small, I think the trait just barely earns a green rating due to the flavor and the fact that it isn’t a magic trait. Obviously, this one is setting-dependent and will require you to use the Adopted trait if you want to pick this up as a non-human.

Eldritch Smith (Magic, Dwarf) - 5% discount on crafting magical and mundane items of metal or stone. While more limited in the kinds of items you get the discount for, it does apply to mundane items, which is very handy. There are a few items that let you do mundane crafting faster, but increase the crafting cost, so this will let you profit from those.

Favored Son/Daughter (Campaign) - Similar to Dusk Agent, the value of this one will vary heavily upon how much time you’ll be spending near your hometown during the campaign. The real prize here is the Tavern Owner option, which will give you a 10% increase when selling items, giving you an increase to your profits. The problem is that the Tavern Owner herself has to sell the items, which means you need to be able to visit her regularly. If you’ll be around the Tavern Owner a lot, this is very nice, but if your adventures will be taking you away from her most of the time, it’s probably not worth it.

Curator of Mystic Secrets (Magic Exemplar) - This option is interesting, but it might also be a trap. As an Exemplar Trait, it counts as two traits, and the bonus the trait itself grants won’t help our crafting, but the big prize here is the ability to use the Additional Traits feat to pick up as many Magic traits as you want. If you can take a Drawback in exchange for an extra trait, then spend one feat on Additional Traits, you could have Spark of Creation, Hedge Magician, and Eldritch Smith all at once for very high profits! The problem, of course, is that we’re feat-starved already, and this trait won’t help. Still, if you can find a way to make room for it in your build, the profit boost could make this quite viable.

As for the rest of the traits, conventional wisdom for Clerics and Wizards applies. Do pay attention to the racial traits, as many of them are quite good and may be able to do things similar to Magic traits.

Variant Rules

There are some variant rules that should be considered when building this character. These can affect your build significantly, and you should know which ones are being used before you begin building your character.

Background Skills - Two free Craft skills! This is exactly what we want. Either use this to broaden your repertoire of Craft skills, or, since you were almost certainly going to take at least two Craft skills anyway, use the extra skill points to improve other skills!

Skill Unlocks - There's a lot of different ways Skill Unlocks can be implemented, making this kind of a mixed bag. The skill unlocks themselves are great for us, and we'd love to have them, but whether we can get them will depend on how the DM wants to implement them. If you have to take the Signature Skill feat, this option is green at best, since it requires a feat to get unlocks for a single skill. If you get one or more Signature Skills for free, this is a solid blue. If your DM is extremely generous and lets you get Skill Unlocks on all your skills automatically, this is amazing for us (and everybody, really, but especially us), making the option purple. The best picks for these skills are Craft skills, since the unlocks have ways to increase our speed. I recommend Weapons or  Armor, since those will be the things we craft that we already get speed boosts to, and those items tend to take the longest to craft, especially when special materials are used. Spellcraft, our main skill for crafting magic items, only gets unlocks related to its other uses, and so isn't really a good option.

Variant Multiclassing - At first glance, this might seem like a good option for us. Clerics are planning to dip a level of Wizard anyway, and wouldn't it be nice to not mess up our progression in another class to get those features? Unfortunately, it does so by sacrificing half our feats. This would be better if we could use this with archetypes (in which case it would probably be better to play a Wizard VMC'ed with the Forgemaster Cleric or Soul Forger Magus), but I don't see an option for that. Still, let's consider what it has to offer Clerics in more detail.

• School - We get this for free at level 1, but it also does nothing for us until we gain school abilities. On the upside, there seems to be no drawback to choosing a school, so pick the one that has the powers you most want and go for it. Still, the things this modifies are both red, so I can't justify making this a better color.
• Familiar - Even better than what we get from the level dip! The one drawback to getting our familiar from a Wizard dip is that our familiar never progresses. This is worth two feats (essentially giving us Familiar Bond and Improved Familiar Bond). The big advantage this gives us is that it allows our familiar to deliver touch spells for us, which is great for a Cleric, letting us deliver healing and buffs without having to move around the battlefield ourselves. Valet Familiars even get an improved version of this, allowing them to move before and after delivering the touch spell. This is the only reason to take VMC over a Wizard dip, but it still isn't worth the lackluster options. Take Boon Companion to gain most of the benefits of this for one feat instead of 5.
• School Power - Most 1st-level school powers are lackluster to begin with, and now we're sacrificing a feat to get one. It doesn't help us with our crafting, so there's really very little value here for us.
• Cantrip - Really? We're spending a feat for this? One at-will cantrip? Is there a color worse than red?
• Discovery - So, we're getting one of our feats back, but it's more restricted. Fortunately the options are all stuff we want. Ask your DM if you qualify to take Wizard Discoveries with your regular feats before this, then evaluate whether you've got enough room left for any of them.
• Greater School Power - Well, these are at least better than the 1st-level school powers, but they come very late and don't help us with crafting like a feat might. At this point, these are probably obsolete.

Feats

There are... a lot of feats in Pathfinder. Like, a LOT. In light of that, I'm going to just highlight the feats that are going to be of special interest to us. As for other feats, in general, standard advice for members of our class with similar stat spreads will apply to us . Anything that helps us heal or buff more effectively will work well for us.

Scribe Scroll - Not my favorite feat, to be honest, since only spellcasters use scrolls and they're not the most cost-effective way to extend your daily spellcasting. However, we do get it for free so long as we take one level of Wizard, and scrolls will let us prepare for contingencies, so there's certainly nothing to complain about here. Scrolls that cost 250 GP or less are the only magic items that can be crafted in 2 hours, meaning you can make one of them every adventuring day.

Craft Wondrous Item - This is a great crafting feat with a lot of mileage. Available from level 3, it lets you make bags of holding, pearls of power, cloaks of resistance, belts/headbands of stat increase, and a lot of other goodies. A good chunk of these are made of metal, and thus qualify for the Forgemaster Cleric's Master Smith ability.

Craft Magic Arms and Armor - This is another awesome feat, which Clerics will be getting automatically at level 3! Most of these are made of metal, and all of them are weapons, armor, or shields, which means that we'll be able to crank these babies out at ludicrous speeds if we're playing the gestalt build.

Craft Construct - Okay, so this is awesome if your DM will allow it. Given enough time and money, you can build yourself an army... with Darkvision and a boatload of immunities. Available at level 5, and able to be made of metal! There’s a lot of constructs out there, varying in price and usefulness. This feat alone could use a guide all to itself, which I may add to this one if I’m ever feeling really ambitious.

Inscribe Magical Tattoo - This is certainly an interesting one. You need to burn a few skill points on Craft (calligraphy, painting, or tattoos), but you can double up almost all of a character's item slots. So far as I can tell, you can inscribe tattoos on yourself (you being a willing creature), though I think it would be fair if the GM ruled that you can't inscribe a tattoo on areas of your own body that you can't reach easily, such as your back or shoulders, or even your dominant arm. The rules for what you can create seem a little vague, but as far as I can tell, you generally use the rules for creating new magic items. This is probably something you want to do exclusively between adventures (unless you're working on yourself) due to the fact that the recipient of the tattoo has to just sit around doing nothing while you work. Might make for some fun roleplaying opportunities, though. Needless to say, you can't make these out of metal, so you'll be no better than any wizard with a Valet familiar.

Craft Rod - The big draw here is metamagic rods, but there are also a lot of other cool rods you can make, too. These are usually made of metal. The problem here is how narrow the field of items is, as well as the general limitations of having to hold something in your hand. Some rods can function as weapons, most notably the Rod of Lordly Might, and so might serve as an alternative to magic weapons if your party members are interested. If you expect to use a lot of rods, take this feat, but otherwise it's safe to skip.

Craft Wand - More cost-effective than scrolls for spells you want to cast regularly, crafting wands is basically dedicating time and money to extend your daily allotment of often-used spells. Wands can be made of metal.

Craft Staff - Staves are pretty cool items, and can be made of metal, but chances are no character is going to ever use more than one or two during their career. It's probably best to forego crafting these and just buy them if you can.

Inscribe Rune - More magic tattoos? A few of these are pretty cool, and the effects of some are valuable enough to be worth taking the feat just so you can inscribe it on yourself. Each character is limited to a single rune, so choose wisely. The Rune of Contingency makes its bearer very difficult to kill, assuming they have friends who are able to stabilize them, delaying the dying condition for 5 rounds. Plus the ability to breathe underwater for 10 hours (or more) per day and survive one long fall per day? That's definitely worth a feat! Sadly, not able to be made of metal.

Forge Ring - Rings are powerful magic items that can be made of metal and which anybody can use. You'll definitely want to have at least a few of these throughout your career. Still, not as vital as Arms and Armor or Wondrous Item.

Brew Potion - I admit I'm not really a fan of this one. Potions are less cost-effective than wands, and can't be made of metal. I'd rather spend my time and money crafting stuff with more lasting effects.

Craft Ooze - Why would you ever want to spend time and money making enemies?

Arcane Builder - This is the feat to take for those crafting categories you want to truly master. You'll get the most out of this with Arms and Armor, but anything with enough metal items in its category will also shine when combined with this.

Boon Companion - This feat is definitely worth taking for Clerics dipping Wizard! Our familiar will get a little better in most areas, but the big draw is Deliver Touch Spells, which will allow our familiar to cast buffs and healing on our allies. Since many familiars are more mobile than we are (being faster and possibly having the ability to fly), this is great. It doesn't help us with crafting directly, but it will make us much more useful in combat. Obviously not needed for full Wizard builds.

Familiar Bond/Improved Familiar Bond - These feats are for if we really don't want to dip Wizard, which I can understand. The Wizard dip sets us back a level in spellcasting and delays some of our class features. Familiar Bond will give us a Valet Familiar that scales with our level, but it won't gain all of the standard familiar's features, most importantly the ablility to deliver touch spells. For that, you need Improved Familiar Bond. It's hard to rate these because of how big an impact choosing them over the Wizard dip will have. I used to have them rated green, but I’ve since discovered that Eldritch Heritage is a much better way to get a familiar - you spend one less feat and the prerequisite feat is more useful.

Improved Familiar - This might look like a good option for us, but it’s a trap. While Improved Familiars are a great option for most builds that gain familiars, for crafters, they suck, and for one simple reason: they’re incompatible with the Valet archetype, since Improved Familiars don’t have Speak With Animals Of Their Kind. It’s a shame, because being able to craft wands for our familiar to use in combat would be great.

Master Craftsman - I am surprised to find that this is actually a feat worth considering for this build. For most builds, this feat serves merely as a gateway to being able to craft magic items for non-casters. For us, however, it’s actually a viable way to gain a boost to magic item creation rolls. As written, the feat does not limit you to only making magic items that you could make with the chosen Craft skill, nor does it require you to use the feat to qualify for Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Arms and Armor. As I read it, the feat allows you to craft any item you could make with Craft Wondrous Item or Craft Arms and Armor, so long as you roll Craft instead of Spellcraft. Considering the fact that it’s much easier to get bonuses to Craft rolls (and this feat provides one of them) than it is to get bonuses to Spellcraft rolls, this would be a huge boost to early crafting, allowing you to use accelerated crafting and ignore more prerequisites. You get +2 to the relevant Craft roll from this feat, if you’re a dwarf working on a stone or metal item, you’d gain another +2, using Masterwork Tools would grant you yet another +2, and if you cast Crafter’s Fortune on yourself, that would be another +5, meaning that this feat means a potential bonus of at least +11 to the stuff you’re going to be fastest at making. Check with your DM to see if they’ll allow that level of cheese, but if they will, this is much better than Skill Focus (Spellcraft) for those two categories of magic items, even if it isn’t as generally applicable. Still, it does cost a feat to get this bonus.

Skill Focus - I’m not nearly as much a fan of this feat as I am of Master Craftsman. While it is nice to get a boost to a skill (and we almost certainly want Spellcraft here), the bonus is relatively small until level 10. Combining this with Master Craftsman makes the former feat even cheesier, though, speeding up your mundane crafting while also letting you ignore a ton of prerequisites. Question is… how many prerequisites do we really need to ignore? We’re playing full casters, after all! This spell is a prerequisite for Eldritch Heritage, though, and in that case we’ll want to take a Knowledge skill with this feat.

Eldritch Heritage - This is the best way to pick up a Valet familiar for anyone whose class doesn’t grant it, hands down. Pick up the Arcane bloodline, and you’ve got yourself a familiar 2 levels lower than your own. If you really want those two levels back you can take Boon Companion. The hardest prerequisite to meet is Cha 13, though of course permanent increases to your Cha score, such as through a headband, should make you eligible for this. You can choose any Knowledge skill for Skill Focus, so pick your favorite and enjoy the bonus.

The Builds

Well, now that we've looked at all the pieces, let's put them all together! I'm not going to suggest feats or class options here unless they are vital to the build, as mostly these are a matter of personal preference. You can't do everything, so even two characters with the same basic build can be different based on which feats they take. You can also adjust how crafting-focused you are based on your feat choices. More crafting feats will generally mean being a better (or at least more versatile) crafter, but they will hamper your combat effectiveness, which is already going to be low because of the generally sub-optimal build choices we've already made. Gestalt builds are always going to be superior to standard builds, and so will be rated relative to the other gestalt builds listed.

The Acolyte - Standard Build:Forgemaster Cleric 19/Wizard 1

This is a very solid build that is easy to play and grants good crafting speed without sacrificing too much durability or combat potential. It gets you most of what you want. The big question with this build is when to take that wizard level. If you take it at level 1, your crafting will be faster right out of the gate, but you'll set your early spellcasting progression behind, which will really hurt your chances of surviving and being useful. I advise patience. Take your first 5 levels in Cleric, then dip Wizard at level 6. That gets you up to the point where you can cast 3rd-level spells and get double-speed crafting on metal items before you take the Wizard dip.

The Orthodox - Standard Build: Forgemaster Cleric 20

This alternative Cleric build is not quite as effective a crafter as the Acolyte, but it will be easier to play, with no delayed spell levels and better class features. The secret to making this build work is taking the Eldritch Heritage feat to pick up the first-level Arcane Bloodline ability. It requires that you have Cha 13 and Skill Focus in a Knowledge skill, but will grant you a Familiar 2 levels lower than your own. The cost of two feats is steep, meaning that the earliest you can get your familiar is level 3, and to do that, you may have to delay taking crafting feats. However, you will have the full casting progression of a Cleric and a Valet familiar that can deliver touch spells for you, which will probably mean that you’ll be better in combat overall from level 5 onward.

The Generalist - Standard Build: Forgemaster Cleric 5/Wizard 15

This build is a gamble. You will be a much faster crafter than The Acolyte, but you will be far squishier and less effective in combat. For the first six levels, it’s almost identical to The Acolyte, but instead of returning to Cleric after a one-level Wizard dip, it continues on with Wizard. You must play a dwarf for this build to work, and you must take Wizard as your Favored Class. What makes this build work is the combination of the Forgemaster’s Master Smith ability with the Dwarf Favored Class Bonus for Wizard. I recommend starting out as a Cleric, getting early access to Craft Arms and Armor and starting the game with more HP and better defenses, then transitioning over to using Wizard spells. This build has a LOT of drawbacks, though, even when it comes to crafting. In addition to being squishier, you’ll be seriously messing up your CL and spell progression. You won’t get access to Forge Ring, for example, until Level 12. Plus, you’re trading away a lot of high-level spells to make this work. This class combo is much better as a gestalt than a multiclass. Also, you’re giving up five levels of Favored Class Bonuses. You could tweak this by taking more Cleric levels to get access to crafting feats earlier, but then you’ll be trading away some of your crafting speed and even more high-level spells. This is the build that will benefit most from Master Craftsman and Skill Focus, since this build will have more trouble meeting prerequisites, and will be locked into Wondrous Items and Arms and Armor for a long time.

The Scholar - Standard Build: Wizard 20

This build has a lot of things going for it over the Cleric builds. It gets access to higher-speed crafting earlier on, more feats, a full-level familiar at no cost, and access to the awesome powers of prepared arcane spellcasting. You must play a dwarf for this build to work, since the only thing that elevates the Wizard into the realm of high-speed crafting is the Dwarf’s Favored Class Bonus, which lets you make 200 GP more progress per day for magic items of one category every time you take it. Ask your DM if this must always apply to the same Item Creation Feat, or if you can pick which one to give a speed boost to at every level, as this will significantly affect which feat is the best choice. Either way, for magic items, this build is the best you can get, allowing you more flexibility and the potential for truly ludicrous crafting speeds if you specialize in a single category, rivaling or even surpassing gestalt builds at level 10+.

The Idiot Savant - Standard Build: Forgemaster Cleric 5/Soul Forger Magus 7/Wizard 8

This is the build for players who are willing to sacrifice basically everything for sheer crafting speed. I do not recommend it for player characters, because you WILL be a burden to your party starting at level 6. I’m highlighting it here because it offers the fastest crafting possible crafting speed for a single category of items - namely metal arms and armor. If you are foolish enough to attempt this build, you must play a dwarf. Your favored class is Wizard, but you won’t be taking any levels in it for awhile. Probably the optimal way to take your levels is 5 levels of Forgemaster Cleric, then 5 levels of Wizard, then 7 levels of Soul Forger Magus, and finally 3 more levels of Wizard. If you somehow manage to survive to level 20 and you take every possible speed boost to magic item crafting, including the Father’s Forgehammer, you will be able to craft 73,955 gp worth of metal arms and armor per day. Yes, you heard that right. You will be able to craft at almost 37 times the speed of an ordinary magic item crafter using accelerated crafting. This is the ultimate in min-maxing, but in a direction that almost no one would want to go. Maybe we should call it max-minning?

The Armorer - Gestalt Build: Forgemaster Cleric 20//Wizard1/Soul Forger Magus 19

If you're in a gestalt campaign and want to play a crafter, this is a great build. You've got more feats, more spells, no delayed Cleric levels, a bonus to your crafting rolls equal to one less than your level, and massive boosts to crafting metal weapons and armor. I recommend taking that Wizard dip at level 1. You'll be waiting quite awhile for the Magus crafting speed boost to kick in anyway, and the familiar will speed up all your crafting significantly right out of the gate. Also, it's important to note that the Familiar arcana grants a familiar that scales with your Magus level. It's unclear whether this means you get two familiars or just lets you use both Magus and Wizard levels to determine the strength of the one familiar, but in either case it gets you a familiar with full levels. Ask your DM precisely how it works, but if you can get two familiars, both at full levels, that will be a big boon. The familiars need not have the same archetype, after all, and each would be able to grant a small bonus to us or become an Improved Familiar. There's really no reason to eschew the Wizard dip with this build, since immediate access to a familiar and the ability to take Arcane Builder will more than outweigh the delayed access to high-speed Arms and Armor crafting and a +1 to all Craft rolls. Taking Arcane Builder for Arms and Armor on this build is ridiculously good, due to the multiplicative nature of our speed boosts. Starting at level 8, if we can use accelerated crafting, we can craft metal arms and armor in 4.6875% of the standard time. For perspective, that lets us apply a +5 armor enhancement in 9 hours, 23 minutes. At this point, we have achieved true godhood. What other build can spend nearly 12,000 GP and two days of downtime or 5 days of adventuring to grant someone a permanent bonus to AC? Oh, right, the next two builds!

The Genius - Gestalt Build: Wizard 20//Soul Forger Magus 20

This build is named for the fact that, of all the gestalt builds, this is the least MAD, allowing you to pour everything into Int, and will have the highest bonus to Craft and Spellcraft rolls. If you’re playing a gestalt game with limited point-buy or only one good stat roll, this is the way to go. Even if you’ve got good stats, though, it’s not a bad pick. You’ve got a Valet Familiar from level 1 (and possibly a second from Magus Arcana, depending on how your DM rules), a ton of bonus feats, a bonus to crafting rolls equal to your level, and Int-based spellbook casting from both classes. Mage Armor and magic items can compensate for your inability to wear armor, and you’ve got a boatload of bonus feats to make you effective as both a crafter and a fighter. Broad Study will let you use Wizard spells with Spell Combat and Spellstrike, giving you a lot more punch in combat. You won’t be as good at fighting as an optimized Magus//Wizard, but you’ll definitely be able to contribute. As far as crafting goes, you’ve got everything you need, and can either play to your strengths and focus on Arms and Armor, or diversify and spend your FCB to boost other crafting feats, knowing you’ll already be fast with Arms and Armor. This build would have a higher rating if the high-speed crafting from Magus came online sooner and/or was more generally applicable, but it’s still at least as good as The Armorer. Of course you want to play a dwarf and take Wizard as your Favored Class (and if you don’t, this build is pure orange).

The Divine Scholar - Gestalt Build: Forgemaster Cleric 20//Wizard 20

This is what I would consider the true ultimate gestalt crafting build. For pure magic item crafting speed, this is almost the best you can get. At level 5, if you put every level of FCB into Weapons and Armor, you’re just as fast as a level 8 Armorer build when crafting metal weapons and armor, and at higher levels you can become even faster. However, unlike the Armorer, you’re not locked into that. You can choose to speed boost Wondrous Items, Rings, or Constructs instead, still gaining synergy from the Forgemaster’s Master Smith ability for metal items. This is definitely the build for those who want to build an army of robots! With a full-level Valet Familiar from level 1, bonus feats, full access to the Wizard and Cleric spell lists, and ludicrous crafting speeds, this build has almost everything you could possibly want. The only thing the Soul Forger Magus builds have over this is the bonus to crafting rolls. Of course you want to play a dwarf and take Wizard as your Favored Class (and if you don’t, this build is only green). Play this to be a god among gods.

The Savant - Gestalt Build: Wizard 20//Forgemaster Cleric 5//Soul Forger Magus 15

Much like its standard build cousin, the Savant combines all three of the super-speed crafting classes for extreme crafting speed. Unlike its standard build cousin, this build actually has a chance to survive to level 20 and be useful to the party all along the way. Like the Divine Scholar, you have the option of either focusing on a single category or diversifying and being a master of several categories. If you decide to focus on metal arms and armor, you will be reaching relativistic crafting speeds on metal, surpassing even the Divine Scholar. Needless to say, you must play a dwarf for this build to work, since it relies on the Wizard’s favored class bonus. Because you’ll be playing a full-level wizard, you’ll be a quite viable character, especially since your Int should be your best stat. The other side of the Gestalt will provide some valuable class features and spells, but compared to the other gestalt builds, it’s just not going to be as good at adventuring due to the smaller number of high-level spells and class features you get from the other builds. You also won’t have the breadth of spells available that the Divine Scholar or Armorer builds do.

Sources of Bonuses to Crafting

This section is undoubtedly incomplete. There are so many spells, magic items, and class abilities that it’s hard to pin down every one of them. I want to highlight some of the ones I’ve found that will help with crafting. Most ordinary skill bonuses won’t work, because the duration is too short to be of much use, so I’ll be looking for bonuses with a duration of at least 8 hours. Be sure to keep track of which kinds of bonuses stack and which don’t. Circumstance and untyped bonuses stack with other bonuses of the same type unless they’re from the same source or basically the same source, but most other bonuses don’t stack with bonuses of the same type. I will exclude bonuses that you can get from feats, racial abilities, or taking levels in a class, as those things have been discussed fairly well in the rest of the guide, and those choices are fairly obvious.

Bonuses to Craft

Crafter’s Fortune (1st-Level Spell) - +5 Luck bonus to your next Craft roll for 1 day. This is your bread and butter, especially at early levels. Forgemaster Clerics get it and Wizards get it. Prepare as many of these as you need every day.

Visualization of the Mind (2nd-Level Spell) - +5 untyped bonus to all Int-based skill checks for 24 hours. This spell is amazing! It does take 1 hour to cast, and it costs 200 gp per casting, so that’s a drag. Still, if you can afford it, it’s a solid bonus that stacks with everything. It’s available to Clerics and Wizards.

Masterwork Tools (Mundane Item, 55 gp) - +2 Circumstance Bonus on one kind of Craft skill. I personally prefer the Traveler’s Any-Tool, but this is a good starter item.

Traveler’s Any-Tool (Wondrous Item, 250 gp) - Counts as Masterwork Tools for all Craft Skills, and can also serve as other mundane tools. Very handy!

Father’s Forgehammer (Wondrous Item, 4,800 gp) - What a gift Torag has granted his faithful dwarven servants! This magic item is amazing, especially for its price. It’s basically Masterwork Tools for smithing purposes, plus a few other goodies. For worshippers of Torag, however, it’s a real treat, as it grants them a 25% reduction in crafting time for magic arms and armor that stacks with all our other crafting speed boosts. Getting your hands on this item takes out some of the sting for Clerics who don’t want to dip Wizard, since it’s basically the equivalent of the Arcane Builder feat for magic arms and armor. This is a very good reason to worship Torag, in addition to the fact that the flavor just makes a lot of sense. If you’re in a campaign without Torag as a deity, ask your DM if you can substitute another appropriate dwarven deity (such as Moradin in the Forgotten Realms) for this item.

Headband of Vast Intelligence/Mental Prowess/Mental Superiority (Wondrous Item, Price Varies) - Is anyone surprised about these being on the list? These give you a permanent boost to Int, and other mental stats as well, depending on which one you decide to go for. Definitely worth picking up to boost both your Craft and Spellcraft rolls, as well as all your other mental skills! The bonus language and skill points are pretty great, too!

Cooperative Crafting (Feat taken by others) - +2 Circumstance Bonus to Craft or Spellcraft rolls. I know I’ve touched on this before elsewhere, but I just want to point out the bonus here. In addition to crafting things faster, you also get a bonus to your skill from having someone help you. This is why we want the valet familiar, as a +2 bonus to all our crafting rolls is really nice.

Monocle of Flawlessness (Wondrous Item, eyes slot, 8,750 gp) - +5 Competence Bonus to Craft rolls in which you are trained and you make the masterwork components of mundane items twice as fast. It also has some other handy and flavorful abilities that will make it helpful during adventuring, such as giving you a bonus to seeing through illusions!

Amazing Tools of Manufacture (Wondrous Item, 12,000 gp) - +4 Circumstance Bonus to a single category of Craft roll. If you have 6 or more ranks in that category, you can craft one item worth 2,000 gp in one hour, or make 2,000 gp worth of progress on an item in that hour. However, the cost of materials is half the item’s base cost, so you can’t make money this way. You can, however, make heavy armor and items made of special materials very quickly! The item description says that the craft skill is determined randomly. Talk to your GM about whether you can decide what skill these apply to if you buy them or craft them yourself, lest you waste all your money on a set of tools for mass-producing expensive pottery! If you have money to burn, you can have several sets of these for different craft skills and headbands of vast intelligence that give ranks in the associated skill, allowing you to make the Ranger that really nice longbow she wants without having to actually put skill points into it.

Bonuses to Spellcraft

Visualization of the Mind (2nd-Level Spell) - +5 untyped bonus to all Int-based skill checks for 24 hours. This spell is amazing! It does take 1 hour to cast, and it costs 200 gp per casting, so that’s a drag. Still, if you can afford it, it’s a solid bonus that stacks with everything. It’s available to Clerics and Wizards.

Headband of Vast Intelligence/Mental Prowess/Mental Superiority (Wondrous Item, Price Varies) - Is anyone surprised about these being on the list? These give you a permanent boost to Int, and other mental stats as well, depending on which one you decide to go for. Definitely worth picking up to boost both your Craft and Spellcraft rolls, as well as all your other mental skills! The bonus language and skill points are pretty great, too!

Cooperative Crafting (Feat taken by others) - +2 Circumstance Bonus to Craft or Spellcraft rolls. I know I’ve touched on this before elsewhere, but I just want to point out the bonus here. In addition to crafting things faster, you also get a bonus to your skill from having someone help you. This is why we want the valet familiar, as a +2 bonus to all our crafting rolls is really nice.

Miscellaneous Bonuses

Father’s Forgehammer (Magic Item, 4,800 gp) - What a gift Torag has granted his faithful dwarven servants! This magic item is amazing, especially for its price. It’s basically Masterwork Tools for smithing purposes, plus a few other goodies. For worshippers of Torag, however, it’s a real treat, as it grants them a 25% reduction in crafting time for magic arms and armor that stacks with all our other crafting speed boosts. Getting your hands on this item takes out some of the sting for Clerics who don’t want to dip Wizard, since it’s basically the equivalent of the Arcane Builder feat for magic arms and armor. This is a very good reason to worship Torag, in addition to the fact that the flavor just makes a lot of sense. If you’re in a campaign without Torag as a deity, ask your DM if you can substitute another appropriate dwarven deity (such as Moradin in the Forgotten Realms) for this item.

The Last Azlanti’s Analects (Spellbook, 10,030 gp) - Thanks to Brett Johnson for pointing this item out to me. There are two versions of this spellbook. One is just a regular spellbook, but for 3,000 gp more, you can get the version with the Efficient Creator ritual, which lets you use Craft to create magic items instead of spellcraft. It’s basically spending money to get the Master Craftsman feat, except that it can apply to any class of magic items. The price is quite steep, and it doesn’t seem like the sort of item you’re likely to find in just any campaign. Still, if you can convince your GM to let you pick it up one way or another, you might find it useful. Crafting bonuses are, after all, much easier to come by than spellcrafting bonuses. It would certainly be the sort of treasure that a dedicated crafter might go questing after.

Artificer’s Lab (Portable) (Mundane Item, 300 gp) - This one is tricky, and I’m not sure whether to recommend it or not. Thanks again to Brett Johnson for pointing me to this item. The lab lets you get an extra hour per day of magic item crafting accomplished when you’re adventuring, but at the cost of a -5 penalty to the spellcraft roll. The flavor also suggests that using this lab precludes you from taking 10, as well, making this a high risk, high reward sort of item. You’ll have to consider carefully whether it’s worth the risk to use it. If you have a high enough bonus to make it work without too much risk of wasting your materials, though, it does give you a 50% speed bonus when crafting on the road.

Final Thoughts on Playing This Build

So, why do I say that a crafting build of all things gives you the powers of a god? Well, in addition to the fact that it fits the flavor of many deities, who are described as creating the world, or at least aspects of it, this build has more strategic value than most standard builds. The fact is, most Pathfinder characters are only influential on a tactical level - they have the ability to do great deeds such as slaying powerful foes or dealing with small-scale disasters. Some might be able to lead armies or even nations with their grand rhetoric and keen minds, but an optimized crafter has the ability to reshape the world in ways that no other build could.

Nothing has reshaped the world more significantly than the advancement of technology, and a crafting build taps into that power. Magic in Pathfinder is just another technology, and magic items are the products of that technology. Wands, Staves, and Rods are labor-saving devices that reduce the need for the study of magic. A gifted few can share their powers with others in exchange for profit. Just as steel weapons and armor are superior to bronze, magic weapons and armor are superior to mundane weapons, and would provide a similar (if not greater) boost to the combat-effectiveness of an army that wielded them.

Think of high-speed crafting as the assembly line. It allows you to increase output while requiring fewer laborers at no increase to the cost. This is the sort of invention that creates billionaires and transforms societies. Take the Acolyte build as an example. A single level 6 Acolyte is able to produce more GP worth of magical equipment in a given length of time than four ordinary crafters of the same level. This means that, under ordinary circumstances, an Acolyte can easily make a hefty profit while providing a discount to their customers. The availability of magic items and those capable of crafting them in the world will determine how big an impact such a skilled craftsman would have. If a king can consider himself lucky to have two mages capable of crafting magic items in his employment (a scenario in which this sort of crafting build will be highly-effective), then a lone craftsman can easily change the political landscape simply by choosing which ruler to work for and outfitting an army with magic weapons and armor, or simply by mass-producing wands for an army with training in their use. In a more magically-advanced civilization, however, a crafter will have to be a bit more subtle and careful, using their crafting ability to earn significant capital and investing it strategically. Teaching others to follow in your footsteps could prove to be quite profitable and gain you significant influence, but might also be a bit of a two-edged sword, as your apprentices might eventually become your competitors. Still, a powerful caster with the ability to make magic items could probably devise some way to prevent such an eventuality.

Speaking of armies and assistants, let’s not forget the awesome power of Craft Construct, which could allow you to single-handedly take over the world, given enough time and resources.

Of course, all this theory is nice, but let's be honest here. We're playing Pathfinder, so chances are we really don't want to sit around our table discussing business models and best practices. We're mostly going to be interested in going on adventures, fighting monsters, and finding treasure, so how will this build help us do that?

Simply put, with you around, your party has the equivalent of a team of skilled crafters with them at all times. You will be able to create custom equipment for them, upgrade their existing equipment, and make sure they don't run out of expendable magic items. In addition, you will be able to produce these items at a vastly reduced price, which means the party can afford to have more and better gear as long as there's enough time to craft it. However, I do not recommend offering your services for free. You are sacrificing a lot to become such a good crafter, and as such, you, more than anyone else, will need better gear to make up for the fact. Still, it's probably best not to get too greedy, either. 40-50% less than the standard price will probably be a fair compromise (and you can get away with 50% if you took Spark of Creation or Hedge Magician), netting you a little profit while still letting your allies stretch their resources much further than they otherwise could.

Now, while you will eventually be very fast, you do have your limitations. You can only work on one magic item per day, remember, and more expensive magic items will still require multiple days to craft. Unless your party can only afford one piece of gear at a time or you regularly have a lot of downtime, you'll need to prioritize which items to make. The two big factors you'll be considering are, of course, time and money. While we've done our best to limit the effects of crafting times, situations will probably still come up where we'll need to decide whether it's better to get something right away from a shop or take the time to craft it. This doesn't just apply to expensive items that take more than one day, either. Once you get fast enough, low-cost items might not be worth the 8 hours of work to make them unless you have nothing better to do. Level 1 wands, for example, have a base price of 750 GP. At early levels, when your maximum crafting progress is only 1,000 or 2,000 GP per day, it might be worth it to spend a day to make a wand of Cure Light Wounds, but once you can make 4,000 GP or more progress in a single day, it's probably better to spend your time working on something more valuable, assuming you can afford it. If you really need that low-level wand, the amount of money you save by making something more expensive can contribute toward buying it.

In general, prioritize the things you do best. Metal items, especially weapons and armor if you're playing The Armorer, should be your focus, because that's where you'll really shine. Still, what you make and when will largely depend on the situation - the availability of gold and materials, the present needs of the party, and any special situations that might arise.

And, of course, above all else, HAVE FUN! If you've got any bent toward art, maybe try drawing the unique items you make. Name your creations. Decide what your maker's mark looks like. Come up with a cool backstory for how you learned to be so good. Challenge other craftsmen to contests of skill. Maybe make up some religious rituals or prayers that you can perform during your crafting. There's a lot of opportunities for flavor and roleplaying with this kind of character, so make the most of it!