Craft (Tinker)
Craft (Tinker) covers the construction of temporary tools, traps, and one-use mechanical gadgets. Most Tinker creations are mundane arrangements of springs, lenses, resonators, powders, wires, weights, and carefully fitted components, although some recipes can incorporate elemental portions for additional effects.
Craft (Tinker) may be used in place of Sabotage Device when deconstructing a trap. The quality rules on this page allow a trained tinkerer to prepare more reliable and powerful devices than could normally be improvised from the surroundings.
Basic Shared Ingredients
Material units are abstract recipe quantities rather than exact pounds. An item's finished weight remains the weight given in its equipment entry. Material units measure how much usable stock the recipe consumes.
Basic Ingredients
- Cordage (C)
- Leather (L)
- Metal (M)
- Textile (T)
- Mineral (K)
- Sundries (S)
- Wood (W)
A Sundries unit represents minor ingredients that are not worth tracking independently. Sundries cannot be an item's primary material and normally do not receive special-material properties.
These seven ingredients are shared by Craft (Outfitting), Craft (Tinker), Craft (Arms), and Craft (Armor).
| Code | Ingredient | Tinker Uses |
|---|---|---|
| T | Textile | Padding, screens, filters, bellows, and fabric housings |
| L | Leather | Flexible joints, straps, seals, pouches, and sound-dampening surfaces |
| W | Wood | Frames, braces, handles, housings, and pressure surfaces |
| M | Metal | Springs, blades, wire, gears, catches, mirrors, and fitted mechanisms |
| C | Cordage | Trip lines, bindings, draw cords, tension lines, and woven mechanisms |
| K | Mineral | Glass, lenses, abrasives, ceramic shells, stone weights, and powders |
| S | Sundries | Glue, wax, oil, charcoal, pigments, reagents, and miscellaneous fasteners |
Tinker Quality
Tinker quality measures the precision, calibration, and reliability of a device rather than the quality category of its ordinary materials. Select the intended quality before construction and make a Craft (Tinker) check against the listed DC.
| Quality | Craft DC | Tool Bonus | Tool Uses | Trap or Flash Reflex DC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poor | 10 | +1 | 1 | 11 |
| Average | 15 | +2 | 2 | 14 |
| Good | 22 | +3 | 3 | 18 |
| Excellent | 32 | +4 | 4 | 23 |
| Flawless | 45 | +5 | 5 | 30 |
These Craft DCs follow the quality progression used by Craft (Alchemy). Unlike alchemical items, a mundane Tinker device does not require quality-rated ingredients unless its recipe specifically includes elemental or special materials.
Limited-Use Tools
A Tinker tool grants its quality's circumstance bonus to the named skill. One use is expended whenever the bonus is applied to a check, whether that check succeeds or fails, and the bonus must be declared before the roll. After its final use, the tool is depleted, bent out of alignment, contaminated, or otherwise unable to provide another bonus until a new device is crafted.
Only one Tinker tool may provide a bonus to a particular check. These tools assist a skilled user and do not allow a check that would otherwise be physically impossible.
| Tool | Ingredients | Affected Skill | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surveyor's Lens | 1 K, 1 M, 1 W, 1 S | Spot | A fitted combination of lenses, shutters, mirrors, and measuring marks clarifies distant objects and permits close inspection of narrow spaces. |
| Listening Horn | 1 M, 1 W, 1 T, 1 S | Listen | An adjustable resonator amplifies faint vibrations through air, walls, doors, or floors while suppressing some surrounding noise. |
| Concealment Rig | 2 T, 1 C, 1 W, 1 S | Conceal | Folded screens, collapsible supports, matched pigments, and quick-set netting help disguise a creature, object, or prepared position. |
| Silencing Kit | 1 T, 1 L, 1 C, 2 S | Move Silently | Temporary pads, wraps, wedges, and measured lubricant suppress noise from footwear, equipment, buckles, and other carried objects. |
| Escape Kit | 2 M, 1 C, 1 S | Escape Artist | Fine shims, hooked wire, waxed cord, and collapsible leverage pieces assist with slipping restraints or forcing a narrow route of escape. |
An Escape Kit must be accessible to its user. Possessing one does not automatically allow a bound or thoroughly searched character to reach it.
Mechanical Traps
A Mechanical Trap is a prepared striking, cutting, crushing, or piercing mechanism activated by a trip line, pressure plate, latch, or similar trigger. Its physical damage type is chosen when it is built from bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing, and the exact form of the trap must be reasonable for its intended location.
Recipe: 2 M, 2 W, 1 C, and 2 S.
| Quality | Craft DC | Reflex DC | Physical Damage | Elemental Supplement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poor | 10 | 11 | 1d8 | +1d6 |
| Average | 15 | 14 | 2d8 | +2d6 |
| Good | 22 | 18 | 4d8 | +4d6 |
| Excellent | 32 | 23 | 7d8 | +7d6 |
| Flawless | 45 | 30 | 12d8 | +12d6 |
A creature triggering the trap makes a Reflex save against the listed DC and takes half damage on a success. The trap affects only the triggering creature unless a particular recipe states otherwise, and it can activate only once. Avoiding the damage still expends the trap.
The completed trap includes its trigger and can be installed in a suitable location without another Craft check. Concealing the installed trap is resolved separately; its Craft quality does not make it automatically difficult to notice.
Elemental Trap Supplement
A Mechanical Trap may be supplemented with 2 elemental portions of the same quality as the trap. Both portions must share one elemental alignment, and the trap deals the listed additional damage of that element's associated energy type.
Adding an Elemental Trap Supplement increases the Craft (Tinker) DC by +5. The elemental damage and the trap's physical damage are resolved together and are halved by the same successful Reflex save. The supplement does not increase the trap's Reflex DC, number of targets, or number of uses.
Flash Charges
A Flash Charge is a brittle shell containing reactive powders and a precisely timed striker. It is thrown using the same range, attack, and scatter rules as an alchemical grenade and affects every sighted creature within a 5-foot radius of where it breaks.
Recipe: 1 K, 1 M, and 2 S.
| Quality | Craft DC | Reflex DC | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poor | 10 | 11 | Blinded during its next turn on a failed save |
| Average | 15 | 14 | Blinded during its next turn on a failed save |
| Good | 22 | 18 | Blinded during its next turn on a failed save |
| Excellent | 32 | 23 | Blinded during its next turn on a failed save |
| Flawless | 45 | 30 | Blinded during its next turn on a failed save |
Every affected creature may attempt the Reflex save, including a creature directly struck by the charge. A creature that cannot see the flash is unaffected. A Flash Charge is consumed when thrown, whether or not it successfully blinds anything.
Smoke Bombs
A Smoke Bomb releases a dense cloud of ordinary smoke that blocks line of sight. It is thrown using the same range, attack, and scatter rules as an alchemical grenade, and the cloud is centered where the bomb breaks.
Recipe: 1 T, 1 K, and 3 S.
| Quality | Craft DC | Smoke Radius | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poor | 10 | 5 feet | 1 round |
| Average | 15 | 5 feet | 2 rounds |
| Good | 22 | 10 feet | 3 rounds |
| Excellent | 32 | 15 feet | 4 rounds |
| Flawless | 45 | 20 feet | 5 rounds |
The smoke blocks line of sight into, out of, and through its area. Strong wind, ventilation, or similar environmental conditions may move or disperse the smoke early at the Definition Master's discretion.
Repairing Devices and Objects
Craft (Tinker) can repair mechanisms, tools, traps that have not activated, and other appropriate objects. Armor and weapons are repaired using Craft (Armor) or Craft (Arms), but they use the same repair DC progression.
| Hit Points Restored | Required Material | Craft DC |
|---|---|---|
| 1d6 | 1 matching standard ingredient | 10 |
| 2d6 | 2 matching standard ingredients | 14 |
| 3d6 | 3 matching standard ingredients | 18 |
| 4d6 | 4 matching standard ingredients | 22 |
| 5d6 | 5 matching standard ingredients | 26 |
The matching ingredient is the material forming the object's principal working structure. Repairing a complicated object restores its physical integrity but does not restore consumed uses, discharged elemental portions, or a trap that has already activated.