You are skilled in the creative arts, following your aesthetic sensibilities to bring to life the wonders of your imagination. Like
Craft,
Perform, and
Profession, Artistry is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Artistry skills, each with its own ranks. The most common Artistry skills are choreography, criticism, literature (including poetry), musical composition, philosophy, and playwriting.
Like
Craft, an Artistry skill is focused on creating something. However, what it creates is not necessarily a physical object; it could be a pattern or blueprint for an item, or a better method for crafting a type of item. Thus, an Artistry (musical composition) check could be used to create a new song, but the important act of creation is the song itself, not the paper on which it is written or even the performance. An artist is not necessarily a skilled performer, though she might be. An artist’s province is the creation of ideas and concepts, and the realization of those ideas in a way that can be enjoyed by others and contribute to the broader culture of the arts. Some art forms (such as painting or sculpture) skirt the line between Artistry and
Craft. It’s up to the GM to rule whether certain
Craft skills can be taken as Artistry skills instead.
Check
You can create works of art and try to earn a living by impressing possible patrons with your talent and ideas.
| DC | Workmanship |
|---|
| 10 | Pedestrian work. No one buys your original work, but you get a few odd jobs using your skills—often just repairing or copying someone else’s work. You earn 1d10 sp per day. |
| 15 | Pleasing work. In a prosperous city, you find a few who wish to purchase your work, and earn 1d10 gp per day. |
| 20 | Impressive work. In a prosperous city, you earn 2d10 gp per day, and may receive an artistic commission from a wealthy or public figure. As a result, you gain a local reputation. |
| 25 | Memorable work. In a prosperous city, you earn 5d6 gp per day, and you are likely to attract the attention of wealthy patrons and to develop a national reputation. |
| 30 | Masterful work. In a prosperous city, you earn 1d10 pp per day. In time, you may draw attention from distant patrons, or even from extraplanar beings. |
Since works of art are products of imagination, masterwork tools are of no use in their creation.
Creating a Commissioned Work: If you are creating a specific commissioned work, determine the value of the work you wish to create by looking at the table below, then follow the listed steps. You must have a patron willing to pay this value to attempt to create a commissioned work. The amount earned from trying to make a living using Artistry is for works that are distributed among many people and publications, not bought by one patron.
- Step 3: Attempt an Artistry check with the appropriate DC, representing 1 day’s worth of work. If you succeed, multiply your check result by the DC. If the resulting value equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the work of art and gain your commission fee. (If the resulting value equals double or triple the price of the work in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the completion time in the same manner.) If the resulting value doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress you’ve made this day in sp. If the check fails, you make no progress.
- Step 4: If you didn’t complete the work of art, you can either continue working or call it done and cut your losses. If you continue working, you must spend 1/4 the price again for each day you work. Record the result of your check from the first week, and add your progress for each subsequent day to the total until you either complete the item or cut your losses. If you decide to cut your losses, you gain the commission of the highest-quality level that your total could have completed. For instance, if you were trying to create a memorable work (a commission price of 1,000 sp) and have made only 600 sp worth of progress, you can cut your losses to gain a commission fee for an impressive work (500 sp, or 50 gp). You can’t earn the value for a higher quality than you were aiming for, so if you aimed to create a memorable work but ended up creating a masterful work, you couldn’t gain a commission price higher than 100 gp. When you cut your losses, you don’t gain back any money you spent on supplies and services. So if you spent 250 sp when trying to create a memorable work, selling an impressive work would net you only 250 sp total if you spent 1 day of work, and would cause you to break even if you spent 2 days. It’s possible to lose money working on a commission.
Action
Varies, but typically made in 1 day increments.
Try Again
Yes. Retries are allowed, but they don’t negate previous failures. If you’re trying to earn a living as an artist in a city where the public hasn’t been impressed with your work (because you failed a DC 15 Artistry check in the previous day), you have a hard time breaking into the marketplace with future artwork (increase the DC by 2 for each previous failure). If you leave the area for a month or more before trying again, this increase resets to 0.
Special
Atristry is a background skill, and background skill points may be spent to add ranks to it.
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