Crafting and Making Things
You can make almost anything in R.A.W., and what you make is real: a crafted item becomes part of your inventory and your reputation. There are no fixed recipe lists. You describe what you want, the GM names what it takes, and the dice decide how well it turns out.
The three questions
Before any crafting, answer these with the GM:
- What are you making, and what is it for? A specific, sensible design is a huge advantage. "A folding lockpick made from the clockwork bird's springs" will go better than "I make something sneaky."
- What does it need? Materials (from your stores, gathered, or bought) and tools (a forge, a tanner's kit, a loom, a workbench). You cannot talk your way past a missing forge with a good roll.
- How long does it take? A mended strap is minutes. A masterwork longbow is days or weeks. The GM tells you before you commit.
When you roll
Routine work just succeeds: with the right tools and materials, you can mend clothes, sharpen a blade, or build a simple crate without a check. The dice come out when the work is uncertain and matters — a deadline, a valuable commission, a difficult material, a brand-new design, or real consequences if it goes wrong.
The default crafting stat is Wits — planning, precision, and know-how. The fiction can shift it: Strength for rough heavy work, Reflexes for delicate handwork. One roll resolves the whole project unless the GM rules it happens in stages. Roll the standard check: dice equal to the stat, every 5 or 6 a hit.
What the result means
| Hits | Result |
|---|---|
| 0 | Failure. The project fails: time lost, materials wasted or ruined. You may salvage some of it with effort. |
| 1 | Mixed success. The item is made, but at flawed quality, or with a complication — it needs constant repair, the client is angry, a tool breaks, you owe a debt. You still get something usable. |
| 2+ | Success. The item is made as intended, at the quality you aimed for. |
Quality
Every item has a quality: poor, standard, fine, masterwork, or flawed.
- Poor — rough, hasty, shabby. Cheap, fragile, easy to mock.
- Standard — competent everyday work, the baseline for most bought goods.
- Fine — noticeably well made. Durable, attractive, precise — and worth more.
- Masterwork — exceptional. Draws attention and commands a premium.
- Flawed — functions, but carries one specific flaw: a hairline crack, a sticking lock, a seam that strains.
Quality is about the fiction, not numbers. A fine blade holds its edge on the third day of rain; a flawed one snaps at the worst moment. Fine and masterwork goods impress people and sell for more; poor and flawed goods break and embarrass you.
The Mechanist edge
If your class is Mechanist, crafting is your calling:
- Engineering builds permanent equipment from plans, materials, and a proper workspace — never under pressure — and lets you attempt complex or fine work as routine when nothing is pressing.
- Forge shapes metal, repairs armor and weapons, and turns raw material into tools and goods with Strength and hammer-work.
- Jury-Rig throws a working fix or gadget together under pressure from whatever is at hand — temporary by nature, never permanent.
- Overclock pushes a finished device past its safe limits for a burst of power.
Other classes can absolutely make things — a Hunter can fletch arrows and a Criminal can assemble a still — but the Mechanist's abilities let you do the ambitious work, and do it as routine.
Materials
Materials are the raw world: wood, iron, steel, copper, leather, stone, cloth, glass, bone, and anything stranger you find. Each material has a scarcity — common, uncommon, rare, exotic — that shapes how hard it is to get.
You gather materials from the world: chop wood, mine or pan ore, quarry stone, hunt for hide and bone, forage plants, salvage ruins, or buy at market. Gathering in a suitable place usually just works. Gathering where a material is scarce, guarded, dangerous to reach, or short on time calls for a check — Reflexes to climb and collect, Strength to mine and haul, Wits to find and identify.
Custom items
The rules do not limit you to a catalog. If you can describe it, name its materials, and secure the tools, you can try to build it: a clockwork lockpick, a copper still, a reinforced wagon bed, a dress that hides a knife. Custom work is where your reputation is made. Tell the GM what you want to see in the finished piece — the material's grain, the toolmarks, the shape of the handle — and a good result will put that on the page.
Commissions and income
Crafting is how you eat, if you want it to be. A commission is a project with a client attached: win it with Charm, make it with Wits, and let the quality decide the payment. A fine piece satisfies a demanding client. A flawed piece invites a refund demand, a rumor, or a second chance — at a price.