Jewelry Crafting Guide

Jewelry Crafting

Jewelry-making is a very old and profitable profession, and through this guide, you too can turn a profit by investing your time and skills wisely in this ancient art. A player proficient with a Jeweler's Kit may craft jewelry in their downtime, abiding by certain rules.
  Size:
Jewelry is broken into 3 size classes - small, medium, and large. On the small end are rings, necklaces, etc. Medium items are things like crowns and ornamental pieces the size of bracers. Large jewelry items are things like crowns for large-sized humanoids or pieces of ornamental armor.
  Complexity:
There are 3 classes of complexity - simple, moderate, and intricate. Simple items are basic, unadorned objects made from a single material with no extra details added, such as plain gold rings or necklaces. Simple items cannot have any additional components. Moderate items include at least 2, at most 3 of: basic engraving, inlay work, or in-setting gemstones. Intricate works require at least 4, at most 6 of: very small or detailed engraving, large amounts of delicate inlay, or in-set fragile or temperamental components. In all of these examples, materials of each type can only be added once.
  Time & Difficulty:
The time and difficulty of a project is based on the above factors, and the time required is as follows. A check must be made every 8 hours while crafting to determine the progress of the crafter. With proficiency in Jeweler's Tools, a player rolls a d20 and adds their proficiency bonus to the result. The DC they must meet is determined by the table below.   Small: +4 hours, +5 DC
Medium: +16 hours, +8 DC
Large: +48 hours, +10 DC
  Simple: +4 hours, +5 DC
Moderate: +16 hours, +8 DC
Intricate: +48 hours, +10 DC
  Failing checks will result is a 2% reduction in the final sale price of the crafted item. Multiple failures, or too many in a row, will eventually result is the piece being damaged beyond use. This is based on size, and the item is destroyed on the final failure.   Small: 3 failures
Medium: 5 failures
Large: 7 failures
Consecutive: 3 failures in a row
  A destroyed piece does not mean the end, however. A jeweler will manage to salvage 50% of the base material, and must make a roll for each additional material. The DC for this roll is 10+ the DC modifier for the complexity of the piece. Roll a d20 and add your proficiency bonus to the result to determine success. The material you are attempting to salvage must be declared before each roll, and a failed roll will result in it being lost.

Material Cost & Profit

The final cost of a well-made piece of jewelry is determined by several factors.
  Material Cost:
The material cost that the player has to pay for supplies is determined by a percentage of the market value for a pound of the base material the piece is made of, rounded up if an unusable decimal occurs. A small item requires 10% of the market value of the base material, a medium item requires 20%, and a large item requires 30%. For example, if the base material for a decorative bracer (medium item) is gold, and the market value for gold is 50g per pound, 20% of 50g is 10g. The piece will require 10g worth of gold.   For every additional material, you add 5% of the market value for that material to the total cost of materials. So if our gold bracer requires 10g of gold, but we want silver inlay, we take 5% of the market value of silver, which is 5g. In this example, 5% of 5g is .25g or 2 silver and 5 copper. Our total cost so far is 10g, 2s, 5c.   If we want to purchase a gemstone that costs 100g to add a bit of extra beauty to the piece, we simply add the 100g to our total. Now we have 110g, 2s, 5c. This is our final material cost.
  Sale Price:
The base sale price for an item you craft will be 2x the cost of materials you used, minus 2% for each failed crafting check during the creation process.   As a refresher, all currency in 5e converts in sets of 10 (except electrum, but forget about electrum because nobody uses it.) 1 platinum converts to 10 gold, 1 gold to 10 silver, 1 silver to 10 copper.   So say our final material cost was 110g, 2s, 5c. The final sale price would then be 220g, 4s, 10c, except we'd convert the copper into silver. 220g, 5s. Unfortunately for us, I was clumsy while making our bracer, and failed one of my crafting checks. That means we need to remove 2% of our 220.5g profit. Thankfully this is only 4.4g (rounded up.) We're left with a very modest 216.1, or 216g, 1s.   It is advisable when adding additional materials to use more expensive materials so that their value isn't lost in the case of crafting check failures.   In larger examples, with more expensive materials, one can make quite a lot of money. A decorative gold helmet (large) of intricate detail will require 30% of the market value of gold - 15g worth. We need at least 4 additional materials to make this piece intricate, so we decide to add 2 gemstones worth 100g each, adamant filigree at 5% of the market value of 500g - so 25g, and just to flaunt our wealth, we added an inlay of Keruz at 5% the market value of 4500 - so 225g. In total, this amounts to 465g in material costs. I try my best to make the piece over the next 96 hours, but I fail my check 3 times, so a 6% reduction from the final price of 930g, which ends up being dropped to 874.2g, or 874g, 2s. We've made a 409g, 2s profit for our trouble!

Masterworks

A sufficiently skilled craftsman may make an attempt at creating a legacy-defining "masterwork" piece of jewelry. There are a few criteria for this endeavor:
  -Material cost must meet or exceed 500g
-Must be an intricate item
-Must succeed at least half of all crafting checks
-Must roll at least 1 natural 20 during crafting checks
-Must not roll any natural 1's during crafting checks
  If all of these criteria are met, the resulting item will be considered a masterwork. Masterwork items are worth 3x the initial material cost, and suffer no value penalties from mistakes during crafting. Additionally, masterwork items can be given to a competent enchanter in order to imbue them with an effect that may be discussed with your DM.

Conclusion

The fine art of jewelry-making is one that does not come easy. Any person with the right tools can make a gold ring with a little practice, but only an experienced artisan can create the crowns of kings and queens. Keep practicing and one day you may find yourself atop a pile of riches, earned through your own journey into this fine profession.