A new skill/crafting system has been implemented on Haven as of January 2010.

Players of GURPS (by Steve Jackson Games) may recognize this skill system, as it is inspired by the skill system found in that PnP RPG. The system is called "secondary" not because it is of lesser usefulness or in some way a "second tier" form of crafting. It is called "secondary" because it uses a second set of skills different from those found in stock D&D.

Skill levels are bought with points. The base skill, achieved by spending one point, is 10 + one half of the relevant ability modifier (INT, DEX, WIS or CHA). There are defaults for skills into which you have not yet placed points; see the table below. In what follows, the term Innate Level refers to the calculation of 10 + modifier/2. The first point you spend gives the base skill value; the second gives +1; the fourth gives +2; every additional 4 points after this gains another +1. You may spend a maximum of 60 points on an individual skill, for a total increase of +16.

Your effective skill is the number you roll against. Effective skill is adjusted by any relevant D&D skill ranks: +1 for every 8 ranks, to a maximum of +4 at skill rank 32. It is also adjusted by recipe difficulty. In addition, if you are not near a necessary appropciate crafting bench, you suffer a penalty ranging from -1 to -4, depending on the skill involved. If you do not have the necessary tools for the recipe, you suffer a penalty of up to -10. Soil and time of day affect planting attempts; time of day affects fishing and gathering attempts. The maximum effective skill you can have is 20, although this is only important for Fishing (which uses your margin of success to determine the quality of the fish you catch), since the highest you can roll is 18.

Skills are rolled against 3d6. Rolls equal to or below the effective skill level are successes; higher rolls are failures. It is possible also to critically succeed and critically fail. A regular failure results in a roughly 2% chance of loss (or 100% chance partial loss for farming/gardening); a critical failure results in a 100% chance total loss of crafting materials for a given recipe. Critical successes produce more favorable results, usually a doubling of
what was being crafted. On a failure, you must wait 5 minutes before you are able to use the same skill again. On a critical failure, the delay is 15 minutes.

A roll of 3 or 4 is always a critical success. If your effective skill is 15 or higher, a roll of 5 is also a critical success. If your effective skill is 16 or higher, a roll of 6 is a critical
success. A roll of 18 is always a critical failure. A roll of 17 is a critical failure if your effective skill is 15 or below. In addition, any roll of 10 greater than your effective skill is a critical failure.

The baseline one-point value of an easy skill is equal to its innate level. The baseline of an average skill is Innate Level - 2. The baseline of a hard skill is Innate Level - 4. The baseline of a very hard skill is Innate Level - 6.

The twenty skills (and their controlling abilities, difficulties and defaults) are below:



Each recipe will have a baseline difficulty, similar to D&D’s difficulty Class.

However, under this system, difficulty is expressed as a negative number, reducing the PC’s effective skill level. Additional modifiers can affect this difficulty, positively or negatively.

Using Skill Points

You get 20 skill points to start and gain 2 points per level (rounded down for the final number), to a maximum of 80 points at level 30. This number does not vary based on class or other considerations.

Recipe Cost Calculations

The (absolute value) component cost for each recipe is roughly half the value of the item being crafted. The only exceptions are enchanting (cost is the full value added to the enchanted item) and socket gems (same as with enchantments). For farming and gardening, each hour of planting time takes 50g off the component cost. Certain recipes (usually those that make tools) will have a difficulty level greater than the item’s value would indicate, as each additional -1 to the skill roll takes 20% off the component cost (to a maximum of -4 for an 80% reduction). In some cases there may be recipes at the normal difficulty with full component cost as well as the harder recipes with a cheaper outlay.

Primary Skill/Feat Bonuses

Certain standard D&D skills and feats will add to your secondary skill levels, at a rate of +1 per 8 ranks, up to +4 at 32 ranks. Alchemy adds to Alchemy. Craft Armor adds to Armoury: Body Armor, Leatherworking and Sewing. Craft Weapon adds to Armoury: Melee, Armoury: Ranged and Woodworking. Craft Trap adds to Traps; it also adds to Engineer at +1 per 12 ranks. UMD adds to Engineer at +1 per 12 ranks as well. (The maximum bonus is still +4, however.) Survival adds to Herb Lore, Farming, Fishing and Gardening. Appraise adds to Jeweler. Perform adds to Musical Composition. Lore adds to Prospecting, Thaumatology and Theology. The feat Brew Potion gives a +2 to Cooking and Poisons; these two skills have no skill rank bonuses.

These bonuses plus the potential bonuses from recipe-specific feats (usually Craft Magic Arms & Armor or Craft Wondrous Items) are collectively called the character sheet bonus. The maximum possible character sheet bonus is +6.

Alternate Calculation

Another way to look at the character sheet bonus is to discard the Innate Level and include the ability modifier/2 calculation as part of the character sheet bonus. Then, the maximum possible bonus is +10. The character sheet bonus is added to a baseline number based on the learning difficulty of the skill: Easy is 10, Average is 8, Hard is 6 and Very Hard is 4. Skill levels from skill points are then added to this result. This is a simpler calculation, but it confuses the distinction between innate capability (ability modifier/2) and learned skill (feat and skill rank bonuses).