Leatherworking
Leatherworking is often seen as something of the "light armor" equivaliant to a blacksmith, but it covers quite a bit more ground that. While it may be the unsung hero, an adventurers best friend is a study leather backpack. Backpacks, belts, waterskins, quivers and more all fall to these talented artisans to make, and can prove essential to every day life.
In addition to their more mundane wares, however, leather, hide, scales, and carapaces of monsters in the fantastical settings these craftsmen find themselves in often provide more opportunity than the basic components of mundane items. A leatherworker is essential if you wish to get the most mileage out of your harvested monsters.
Quick Reference
While each step will go into more depth, the quick reference allows you to at a glance follow the steps to work items from leather.
- Select the item that you would like to craft from any of the Leatherworking Crafting Tables.
- Acquire the items listed in the materials column for that item.
- Use your Leatherworking Tools tool to craft the option using the number hours listed in the Crafting Time column, or during a long rest using the crafting camp action if the crafting times is 2 hours or less.
- For every 2 hours, make a crafting roll of 1d20 + your Dexterity + your proficiency bonus with a Leatherworking Tools.
- On success, you mark 2 hours of completed time toward the total crafting time.
- On failure, the crafting time is lost and no progress has been made during the 2 hours. If you fail 3 times in a row, the crafting is a failure and all materials are lost.
Materials: Leather & Hides
Leatherworking uses leather and hides, primarily harvested from monsters, however sometimes they work with heavy quited clothes, metal, carapaces, and sometimes even metal pieces.
Crafting Roll
Putting that together that means that when you would like to make an item, your crafting roll is as follows:
Leatherworking Modifier = your Leatherworking Tools proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier
Success and Failure
For Leatherworking, after you make the crafting roll and succeed, mark your progress on a crafting project. If you succeed, you make 2 hours of progress toward the total crafting item (and have completed one of the required checks for making an item). Checks for Leatherworking do not need to be immediately consecutive. Failure means that no progress is made during that time.
Once an item is started, even if no progress is made, the components reserved for that item can only be recovered via salvage. If you fail three times in a row, all progress and materials are lost and can no longer be salvaged.
Cobbling
A specialized branch of Leatherworking is Cobbling. These are the folks that make shoes and boots. While it might not be obvious at first glance, these folks are what keeps an adventurer running... literally, you take their boots and most of them won't be going anywhere fast.
It shares all the rules and materials as leather working, but replaces any instance of Leatherworking Tools with Cobblering Tools, and may optionally use Wisdom in place of Dexterity, being a trade for the old practiced hands.
Any item found the "Cobbling Crafting Table" is part of the Cobbling subdomain of Leatherworking.
But what is the point?
The rules the game typically assume your player is already wearing boots. Making boots is generally something that is more related to a character's back story than their adventuring needs, but such things come up occasionally.
However, in more immediately useful objectives, sometimes crafting things like boots makes sense as a prerequisite of enchanting them - some magic gear requires an expensive component item (for example, "boots worth 200 gp or more")... magic has expensive taste. So, occasionally, crafting branches like this can be useful for that, though it should generally be expected that Cobbling is not (nor intended to be) as useful as some of the more relevant branches of crafting for an adventurer.
Acquiring Materials
Foraging
While you cannot generally forage leather or hide (for obvious reasons), you may sometimes find scales or other pieces that can be used in leather working at your DMs discretion (metal scraps), hardened wooden plates that could count as scales, etc.
Salvaging
Leather can be salvaged from any gear in which it was used to math, but it is not a lossless process. For each sheet of leather or hide that was used to make that item, you can recover 3d6 scraps of that material type. For gear forged out of scales, you recover half the scales used to make that gear.
Monster Harvesting
Hides, scales, and carapaces all tend to be harvested from monsters. Leather is a product of hides that can be processed from what it is harvested from the monster.
The DM determines if a monster provides hide, scale, or carapace. Hides do not come in different sizes, rather larger creatures simply provide more hides, and monsters that are not large enough to produce one hide provide only hide scraps.
Scales are likewise abstracted - each increment is simply an arbitrary unit of scales that the unit of scales covers - scales can be much larger or small from different sized creatures.
The system does not attempt to say how many scales a creature provides or how many literal actual scales makes up scalemail, but rather provides a number that is then consistently used.
Creatures are harvested using a Survival check, with its DC listed below. If the DC check is failed, the harvest does not fail entirely, but instead they get 1d4 hide scrapes in place of any hides, carapaces of one size smaller, and half as many scales.
| Creature Size | Difficulty | Harvest Result |
|---|---|---|
| Tiny | N/A | Nothing |
| Small | DC 12 | 1d4 x hide scraps or 1 x small carapace or 1d4 x scales |
| Medium | DC 10 | 1 x hide or 1 x large carapace or 2d6 x scales |
| Large | DC 12 | 2 x hides or 2 x large carapaces or 3d6 x scales |
| Huge | DC 14 | 3 x hides or 3 x large carapaces or 4d6 x scales |
| Gigantic | DC 14 | 4 x hides or 4 x large carapaces or 5d6 x scales |
In addition to scale, rare and tougher creatures provide more valuable hides, carapaces, and scales. This depends on the CR and AC of the creature (counting only natural armor - harvesting the hide of a creature that was under the effect of mage armor provides no additional benefits).
Some monsters may provide additionally benefits. This are materials from more powerful and dangerous creatures, though harvesting these materials is harder. If you fail the the check with the harvesting difficult modifier, you can still harvest the default materials of that creature size, but do gain any of the special modifiers to the materials harvested.
Further details can be found on the special materials tables.
Processing Hides
The process of turning hide into leather takes quite awhile (as per the crafting table), and is often something adventurers can delegate to NPCs (delivering hides to be processed) or do during downtime. If you would like a more expeditated system, there is no balance reason for this, and you can short the leather crafting process to taking 2 hours, it just won't be exceedingly realistic.
Purchasing
The easiest and quickest way to gather materials is to simply buy them. The problem with this approach is that you are generally not going to be saving much money over simply buying the gear itself, as most places that would have materials to sell would have a competent Leathworker capable of making them. However, sometimes it can be cheaper or more flexible - for example, if you are interested in making something unusual or customized, you can buy materials and make them later, or sometimes you will have the materials you need, and can just buy the rest cheaper than making the gear.
The standard pricing is following, but modifiers may apply based on locale - generally speaking more remote locations will sell at a better price, as cities have lower supply and higher demand, but rare or rarer reagents are generally only found in cities.
| Rarity | Price |
|---|---|
| Buckles | 2 sp |
| Hide Scraps | 1 sp |
| Hide | 2 gp |
| Leather Scraps | 1 sp |
| Rawhide Leather | 2 gp |
| Boiled Leather | 3 gp |
| Tanned Leather | 3 gp |
| Scales | 1 gp |
| Medium Carapace | 4 gp |
| Large Carapace | 30 gp |
| Tough Leather | 600 gp |
Leatherworking Tables
Armor
| Name | Materials | Crafting Time | Checks | Difficulty | Rarity | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leather Armor | 3 rawhide leather 2 buckles |
4 hours | 2 | DC 12 | Common | 10 gp |
| Studded Leather Armor |
3 rawhide leather 6 metal scraps 2 buckles |
6 hours | 3 | DC 16 | Common | 45 gp |
| Hide Armor | 2 rawhide leather 1 hide 2 buckles |
4 hours | 2 | DC 10 | Common | 10 gp |
| Scale Mail | 25 scales 5 leather scraps 1 armor padding |
12 hours (1.5 days) | 6 | DC 13 | Common | 50 gp |
| Carapace Breastplate (-1 breastplate)* |
1 large carapace 2 leather (any) 2 buckles |
8 hours | 4 | DC 13 | Common | 50 gp |
| Tough Carapace Breastplate |
1 large tough carapace 2 leather (any) 2 buckles |
12 hours (1.5 days) | 6 | DC 15 | Common | 400 gp |
| Carapace Shield | 1 medium carapace 1 leather piece 4 leather scraps |
6 hours | 3 | DC 12 | Common | 10 gp |
| Leather Buckler | 2 boiled leather 2 leather scraps |
4 hours | 2 | DC 13 | Common | 7 gp |
Weapons
| Name | Materials | Crafting Time | Checks | Difficulty | Rarity | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whip | 1 tanned leather | 4 hours | 2 | DC 14 | Common | 4 gp |
| Scourge | 1 tanned leather 3 metal scraps |
6 hours | 3 | DC 18 | Common | 10 gp |
Miscellaneous
| Name | Materials | Crafting Time | Checks | Difficulty | Rarity | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rawhide* | 1 hide | 8 hours | 4 | DC 6 | Common | 2 gp |
| Tanned Leather | 1 hide or rawhide | 16 hours (halved for rawhide) | 8 | DC 6 | Common | 3 gp |
| Boiled Leather | 1 hide or rawhide | 16 hours (halved for rawhide) | 8 | DC 6 | Common | 3 gp |
| 20 x Leather Scraps | 1 leather(any) | 2 hours | 1 | DC 4 | Common | 2 gp |
| Hide | 20 hide scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 10 | Common | 2 gp |
| 20 x Hide Scraps | 1 hide | 2 hours | 1 | DC 4 | Common | 2 gp |
| Belt | 4 leather scraps 1 buckle |
2 hours | 1 | DC 12 | Common | 1 gp |
| Quiver | 5 leather scraps | 4 hours | 2 | DC 12 | Common | 1 gp |
| Sheath | 4 leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 10 | Common | 6 sp |
| Holster | 2 leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 10 | Common | 5 sp |
| Waterskin | 2 leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 12 | Common | 2 sp |
| Backpack | 1 sheet of leather 4 leather scraps 2 buckles |
2 hours | 1 | DC 14 | Common | 4 gp |
| Bag | 12 leather scraps 1 buckle |
2 hours | 1 | DC 12 | Common | 2 gp |
| Coin Purse | 6 leather scraps 1 buckle |
2 hours | 1 | DC 10 | Common | 1 gp |
| Leather Toolcase | 4 leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 12 | Common | 1 gp |
| 10 x Parchment | 10 x leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 10 | Common | 1 sp |
| Armor Padding | 1 tanned leather 2 buckles |
2 hours | 1 | DC 12 | Common | 5 gp |
| Dice Bag | 1 leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 13 | Common | 3 sp |
| Book Covers | 2 leather scraps | 2 hours | 1 | DC 12 | Common | 5 sp |
| Tricone Hat | 1 tanned leather | 4 hours | 2 | DC 15 | Common | 5 gp |
| Cowboy Hat | 1 tanned leather | 4 hours | 2 | DC 14 | Common | 4 gp |
| Instrument Case | 1 boiled leather | 4 hours | 2 | DC 12 | Common | 4 gp |
- When making a sheet of leather in 8 hours, you can make up to 10 sheets of leather per crafter. If you would like the quicker creation of leather, you can make this take 2 hours without any balance consequence.
Cobbling
| Name | Materials | Crafting Time | Checks | Difficulty | Rarity | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shoes* | 8 scraps of leather 1 buckle |
4 hours | 2 | DC 12 | Common | 2 gp |
| Boots* | 1 sheet of leather | 4 hours | 2 | DC 12 | Common | 4 gp |
| Fancy Boots* | 1 sheet of leather valuable materials worth 100 gp |
8 hours | 4 | DC 16 | Common | 200 gp |
- *Uses the Cobbling subtype rules of Leatherworking
Special Materials
| Minimum CR | Additional Requirements | Modifier | Harvesting Difficult |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Harvested from a creature with AC 16 or higher | Tough | +4 |
| 7 | Harvested from a creature with resistance to an elemental damage type |
Resistant | +5 |
- If the difficult modifier is not meet, the material is harvested without the modifier, it's special property ruined during harvesting.
Modifiers
| Modifier | Effect | Difficulty Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Tough | If all materials for a piece of armor have this modifier, it gains +1 AC | +4 |
| Resistant | If all materials have the same resistance property, the armor grants resistance to that damage type |
+ 5 |
| Forest Camouflage | If all Hide, Carapace, or Scales used to craft armor comes from a creature with natural forest camouflage, you count as lightly obscured while in that locale from creatures more than 30 feet from you | +1 |
| Desert Camouflage | If all Hide, Carapace, or Scales used to craft armor comes from a creature with natural desert camouflage, you count as lightly obscured while in that locale from creatures more than 30 feet from you | +1 |
| Winter Camouflage | If all Hide, Carapace, or Scales used to craft armor comes from a creature with natural winter camouflage, you count as lightly obscured while in that locale from creatures more than 30 feet from you | +1 |
| Rare | The material has increased value if it comes from a rare creature; this rarity is applied at the DMs discretion, but typically is due to the coloration, rarity, or CR (10+). Items crafted from this material are worth ten times as much | +5 |
| Tanned | Unsuited for armor. Increased the quality of other leather goods, required for some. | N/A |
| Boiled | Tougher than rawhide; can be used to make studded leather or hide armor without the non-leather components |
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License
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, LLC. System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright 2016, Wizards of the Coast, LLC.; Authors Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright 2016, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
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