🔨Crafting

Crafting allows characters to modify equipment, create chems and cooked food, refill repair tools, and improvise useful objects from raw materials. Crafting is a core part of Wasteland survival — the best gear isn’t found, it’s built.

Crafting Principles

• Most crafting requires a workstation (Workbench, Chemistry Station, or Cooking Station)
• Crafting consumes materials (Scrap, ingredients, or specific items)
• Many crafting activities are perk-gated — you need the right perk to unlock certain recipes
• Every recipe and operation has a 🔨 Crafting Time — crafting is available anywhere, any time, and the cost is game time

Crafting Time

Every recipe, repair, and workstation operation has a Crafting Time. Crafting is not restricted to rest — you may craft whenever you have the workstation, the materials, and somewhere safe to stop. What it costs is time, and the GM advances the clock accordingly.

Crafting Time

• During a 🏕 Long Rest, the Repair/Craft activity provides 6 hours of Crafting Time at no additional cost — the rest is already happening. This is the efficient window.
• At any other time (including a 🏕 Short Rest), Crafting Time is spent from the game clock. The world moves while you work.
• Crafting requires a safe place to stop. You cannot craft while in combat, under pursuit, or otherwise pressed.
• The GM will state the cost before you commit: “That’s three hours. Do you want to spend them here?”

Time by activity and tier

Crafting Time derives from the recipe’s category and tier — the same two axes that set its 📊 DC.

Everything else is a flat cost:

One charge = one hour. This applies uniformly — item repair, robot repair, kit or improvised Scrap. A 6-hour Long Rest is therefore 6 charges’ worth of work.

Only five values exist — 15 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 4 hr.

Batch crafting

Crafting multiple identical items in one sitting costs full time for the first and half time for each additional — same setup, same tooling.

Example: Six Molotovs = 15 min + (5 × 7.5 min) ≈ 55 minutes, rather than 90.

Crafting Time is concurrent

Crafting Time is spent per character in parallel. Three characters each crafting a 1-hour item costs the party 1 hour, not 3.

The block is a shared scene. When crafting is declared, the GM states the duration and asks what everyone else is doing with it — their own crafting, a Medical Treatment, Scavenging, questioning an NPC, standing watch, or nothing.

Worked examples

Workstations

Different crafting activities require different workstations. Workstations are found in settlements, workshops, and occasionally in the field.

A campfire is a Cooking Station. A party camped in the wilderness can cook, brew, and purify water normally.

What requires what

Field Crafting

Kit-based repair works anywhere — that is what kits are for. The 🎯 Field Repairs milestone (Repair +3) extends field capability to the bench-work repairs: 🎯 Jury Rigging, Duplicate Combining, and repairing Robots.

Modification, chem crafting, kit refilling, and cooking always require the appropriate workstation. You cannot modify a weapon in the middle of the Wasteland without tools.

When You Can Craft

Repair/Craft is a single activity — you do not need to choose between repairing and crafting. You have 6 hours of working time during a Long Rest and can split it as you see fit.

Material Types

Scrap (3 Tiers)

⚪ Scrap is the universal mechanical crafting material. It abstracts all mechanical components — adhesive, wires, metal, circuitry, oil, fuses, gears, and similar materials — into three tiers of increasing rarity and quality.

Scrap is found through Scavenging, looting, trading, and dismantling (see below).

Ingredients (Cooking)

Cooking uses specific named food items as ingredients — Brahmin Meat, Mutfruit, Tatos, Razorgrain, Purified Water, Salt, Spices, etc. These are found through scavenging, butchering creatures, foraging (Wasteland Survivor milestone), and trading.

Ingredients are individual items with their own Inventory presence. They can be eaten raw (with varying effects and possible radiation) or cooked into improved meals at a Cooking Station.

Medical Items (Medicine)

Medical treatment uses specific named medical items — Stimpaks, Med-X, Blood Bags, Antiseptic, Surgical Sutures, Bandages, Smelling Salts, Osteosynthesis Implants, etc. These are found through scavenging, trading, and crafting at a Chemistry Station.

Medical items have direct uses (a Stimpak heals HP, Med-X reduces pain) AND serve as components for treating 🤕 Injuries. This creates resource tension — using a Stimpak for immediate healing means it’s unavailable for treating a Major Injury later. See ⚕ Medicine for the full treatment system.

Chemical Components (Chem Crafting)

Chem crafting uses a mix of specific named items and Scrap. Recipes vary by chem but typically require a combination of chemical base materials (Abraxo Cleaner, Mentats ingredients, Fertilizer, Acid, etc.) and Common or Uncommon Scrap.

Crafting Activities

Weapon Modification

Requires: Appropriate perk + Workbench + Scrap

Add, swap, or remove weapon mods that change a weapon’s performance — receivers, barrels, grips, stocks, magazines, sights, and muzzle devices. The full catalogue is at Modifications.

Slots

A weapon’s type decides which slots it has. Its Tier does not limit how many you fill — every slot a weapon has can hold one mod. Each weapon page lists its own slots.

Thrown and placed explosives take no mods at all. A Fire Rate 0 weapon — bolt, pump, lever or break action — accepts no fire-mode mods, and has no Burst Fire Penalty for a Burst mod to reduce.

Power Bands

A mod’s band is how hard it is to build. The perk is always required; above Basic, a skill milestone is too.

Effects scale with the host weapon’s Tier, not the mod’s. A Hardened Receiver is +1 damage on a Tier 1 weapon and +3 on a Tier 4 — one mod, built the same way, fitted to whatever it goes on.

Process:

1. Select the weapon and the mod you want to install
2. Verify you have the required perk, skill gate, workstation, and materials
3. Roll INT + 🔧 Repair vs the mod’s build DC — INT + 🔬 Science for energy weapon mods
4. On success, the mod is installed and materials are consumed
5. On failure, materials are consumed but the mod is not installed. A CRITFAIL may damage the weapon.

Removing and Re-fitting

• Removing a mod needs the same perk and workstation, but no Test and no materials. It returns to your Inventory as a 1 🔳 item.
• Fitting a mod you already own costs no materials and no Test.
• A mod that gets replaced is destroyed unless you remove it first.
• When a weapon reaches Broken Condition, its mods survive by default. A brutal enough break is the GM’s call.

Limits

• No mod changes a weapon’s attack AP cost. Reload AP is the only AP a mod may touch.
• Range reductions stop at Close. A ranged weapon never drops to Melee range.
• Burst Fire Penalty never falls below 0, and no single mod reduces it by more than 2.
• 🎯 Accuracy from mods caps at +4 on any one attack.

Mod Scrap Costs

Cost is set by the mod’s band — what the mod is worth, not what you bolt it to. Each band runs at roughly a fifth of its own cap value.

The host item’s Tier changes the effect, not the price. A Hardened Receiver costs the same on a pipe pistol as on an anti-materiel rifle — it simply does more on the rifle.

🤖 Robot chassis mods are the one exception, at 1.5×, because chassis plating covers all six limbs at once — one mod doing the work of six.

Each mod is priced separately — a weapon with four mods costs four times the figure above. Grenades and mines take no mods at all.

The 🎯 Efficient Repairs milestone (🔧 Repair +7) reduces the Scrap cost by 1 on a success.

Armor Modification

Requires: 🎖 Armorer perk + Workbench + Scrap

Add or swap armor mods that change a piece’s protective properties or grant a special effect. Armor has two slots per piece:

Helmets take a Material swap only — there is no room for a lining in a helmet.

Every lining effect is per-limb. It applies only to the piece carrying it, and only when that limb is the one hit. A Lead Lined torso does nothing for a leg.

Bands, DCs, the process, and the removal rules are the same as 🔨 weapon modification — armor runs on the 🔧 Repair ladder throughout. 🧵 Ballistic Fiber is consumed by the Ballistic Weave lining, which is its only sink.

Power Armor Modification

Requires: Workbench + Scrap, and the perk named by the mod

Power Armor does not use DT. Each piece has its own HP pool and its own 💎 Hardness, so it takes a different pair of slots from ordinary armor. Every piece — Torso, Head, Arm, Leg — has both.

Plating raises HP, not 💎 Hardness. Exactly one mod in the game raises a piece’s Hardness — Ablative Plating, at the Master band, and it trades away half the HP to do it.

Servo mods fit one piece type only. Arms take the fists, legs take the mobility, the helmet takes the sensors, the torso takes the frame. Each mod’s page names the piece it fits.

Perks

Unlike weapon and armor mods, Power Armor does not sit behind a single perk:

EMP and Power Armor

Power Armor is vulnerable to EMP. A wearer struck by an EMP attack on an unshielded piece is ✨ Stunned — the suit seizes with them inside it.

• Composite Plate or better grants that piece EMP Shielding.
• 🦾 X-01 is shielded on every piece by default, whatever its Plating.
• Shielding is per piece, so a suit is only as EMP-proof as the piece that gets hit.

Power Armor is how you punch. Wearing Power Armor bars carried 👊 Unarmed weapons. The Arm servos upgrade your 🥊 Fists in place — added damage, 🩸 Bleed, Piercing, or a conversion to ♨️ Energy damage — and are the only unarmed option a Power Armor wearer has.

Overdrive Servos switches off a Power Armor penalty rather than adding to a stat — it restores 💨 Sprinting, at the cost of a Fusion Core charge each time. It is a Leg servo, and like Explosive Vent it requires the servo in both legs.

A suit also needs a Fusion Core to do any of this. Without one it keeps its HP and 💎 Hardness and nothing else: no 💪 Strength bonus, no environmental protection, no movement at all, and Evasion capped at 5.

Bands, DCs, the process, and the removal rules are the same as 🔨 weapon modification. Power Armor Tests run on the 🔧 Repair ladder and price on the Standard scrap column.

Robot Modification

Requires: 🎖 Robotics Expert perk (INT 8) + Workbench + Scrap

How Robot player characters and robotic Followers are upgraded. The chassis is the robot’s armor — one frame covering all six limbs — so it carries the mods.

A robot carries three modules at once. Spares ride in your Inventory and can be swapped, but a swap is a full install — the perk, the workstation, a Test, and 🔨 Crafting Time. You do not change loadout in the field.

Chassis Plating covers all six limbs at once, unlike armor Material which protects only the piece carrying it. That is why chassis mods cost 1.5× — one mod doing the work of six.

EMP Shielding is a Module. A chassis that is not EMP Shielded takes full EMP damage and is stunned; the module removes both. It is the single most valuable thing to bolt onto a robot.

Robot mods run on the 🔧 Repair ladder throughout.

Cooking

Requires: Cooking Station + Ingredients

Prepare food that provides improved HP recovery and temporary buffs compared to eating raw ingredients.

Any character can cook basic recipes (grilled meat, boiled water) without a skill requirement. Advanced recipes that provide significant buffs require the 🎯 Wasteland Survivor milestone (Survival +5) and higher-quality ingredients.

Process:

1. Select a recipe and verify you have the ingredients
2. Roll END + 🏕 Survival vs the recipe’s DC (basic recipes auto-succeed)
3. On success, the cooked item is created
4. On failure, ingredients are consumed but the result is a lower-quality or ruined version

Cooked food is consumed during 🏕 Long Rest (eat and drink step) or from a Quick Slot during combat. The Wasteland Survivor milestone allows cooking food that grants meaningful temporary buffs until the next Long Rest.

Chem Crafting

Requires: Chemistry Station + chemical components + Scrap

Create chems like Stimpaks, RadAway, Jet, Psycho, Buffout, and other chemical compounds.

Process:

1. Select a chem recipe and verify you have the components
2. Roll INT + 🔬 Science vs the recipe’s DC
3. On success, the chem is created
4. On failure, components are consumed and the chem is not created. A CRITFAIL may produce a toxic or unstable result.

The 🎖 Chemist perk doubles the duration of chems you create and unlocks advanced recipes with the Chemist perk as a prerequisite.

The 🎖 Demolition Expert perk unlocks Explosives crafting recipes (grenades, mines, charges) which are also crafted at a Chemistry Station using chemical components and Scrap.

Repair Kit and Toolkit Refilling

Requires: Workbench + Scrap

Repair Kits and Toolkits are refilled at a Workbench by restoring their charges using Scrap. Each charge restored consumes a set amount of Scrap.

Refilling does not require a Test — if you have the Scrap and the Workbench, you can restore charges. This is a simple resource conversion, not a skill-based activity.

Kits can also be refilled by NPCs at settlements for a caps cost, bypassing the Scrap requirement.

Note: First Aid Kits and Doctor’s Bags are no longer charge-based items. They function as utility tools that provide passive bonuses. Medical treatment consumes specific medical items directly. See ⚕ Medicine for details.

Improvised Crafting

Requires: Workbench + Scrap + GM approval

Characters may attempt to craft improvised items from raw Scrap — barricades, simple tools, crude weapons, furniture, shelters, traps, or other objects that aren’t covered by a specific recipe.

Process:

1. The player describes what they want to build
2. The GM determines the DC, Scrap cost, and time required based on complexity
3. Roll INT + 🔧 Repair vs the DC
4. On success, the item is created
5. On failure, some Scrap is consumed but the item is not completed (partial progress may be preserved at GM discretion)

Improvised items are generally lower quality than found or purchased equivalents. A crude pipe pistol crafted from Scrap is functional but inferior to a proper weapon found in the world. The purpose of improvised crafting is to create something when you have nothing — a survival tool, not an optimization path.

Examples of improvised crafting:

• A barricade to block a doorway (Common Scrap, low DC)
• A crude melee weapon (Common Scrap, low DC)
• A basic pipe firearm (Common + Uncommon Scrap, moderate DC)
• A simple shelter or camp improvement (Common Scrap, low DC)
• A trap using mechanical components (Uncommon Scrap, moderate DC, may also use Explosives skill)

Custom Gear

Requires: 🎯 Jury Rigging milestone (Repair +5) + Workbench + Scrap + GM approval and gating

A character may design and build equipment that does not exist anywhere in the game — a new item, with a real mechanical benefit, invented by the player.

Custom Gear is distinct from Improvised Crafting. Improvised Crafting builds a crude substitute for something that already exists; Custom Gear produces a new item that does something nothing else does.

Building Custom Gear requires the 🎯 Jury Rigging milestone — improvising working devices from parts is exactly what that milestone describes. Non-Repair Custom Gear uses the domain equivalent: 🎖 Chemist for a novel chem, 🎖 Demolition Expert for a novel explosive.

Tier ladder

Higher-tier inventions require deeper 🔧 Repair investment.

The five rules

1. One effect, one number. The item must be expressible as a single line of mechanics. If it needs a paragraph, it is a perk, not an item.
2. Sized to a mod. The effect may not exceed what an existing weapon/armor mod or a single milestone at the same tier provides. Price materials with the 🔨 mod scrap cost table.
3. Bolt onto an existing system. No new damage types, no new action types, no new resources, no new slots. Custom Gear modifies a number the game already rolls.
4. No stacking. If a perk or milestone already does the same job, take the better of the two — never both.
5. The industrial-workshop rule still applies. Custom Gear is never a workaround for ammunition, manufactured tool-kits, or Tier 3+ / energy / power gear.

Gating

The milestone is the baseline gate. The GM assigns at least one more per item:

Process

1. Pitch — describe the item in fiction and name the one mechanical effect you want.
2. Rescope — the GM accepts, rejects, or counter-offers. Counter-offering is the normal outcome.
3. Gate — the GM assigns the tier and any additional gates.
4. Build — workstation + materials + Crafting Time + the build Test at the tier DC. Failure consumes materials.
5. Field test — the first session of use is provisional and the GM may adjust the number once. After that the item is finalized and joins the world — NPCs and traders may have one too.

Building Gear From Scratch

Beyond modifying existing equipment, a character can build certain gear from raw materials — improvised weapons, low-tier armor, clothing, chems, food, drink, and explosives. This is separate from the mod system: you are assembling a whole item, not upgrading one.

Most fabrication happens at a 🔧 Workbench on an 🧠 INT + 🔧 Repair Test. Chems (INT + 🔬 Science, ⚗️ Chemistry Station), cooking/alcohol (END + 🏕 Survival, 🍳 Cooking Station), and explosives (PER + 💣 Explosives, Chemistry Station) use their own workstation and skill.

DC by tier (anchored to 📊 Difficulty): Basic/T1 10, Standard/T2 15, Advanced/T3 20, High-end/T4 25. Explosives run one band lower but are perk-gated harder (see below).

The industrial-workshop rule

A field workstation can only produce things a person can assemble by hand. It cannot manufacture:

• Ammunition ( 9mm, 12ga, 🔋 Small Energy Cells, and the like) — precision cartridges and cells need primers, casings, and calibrated tooling. Scavenge or buy.
• Manufactured tool-kits ( Repair Kit, 🧰 Toolkit, First Aid Kit, Doctor’s Bag, 🔧 Multi-Tool, 🦴 Osteosynthesis Implant) — precision-assembled devices, found or bought. (Refilling Repair Kit / Toolkit charges with Scrap still works.)
• Sealed and powered devices (🔦 Flashlight, ☢ Geiger Counter, 📻 Radio, 📼 Holotape Player, 🔓 Electronic Lockpicker, 👤 Stealth Boy, 📱 Pip-Boy) — calibrated electronics, found or bought. (Repairing a broken one still works.)
• Advanced weapons & armor (Tier 3+, energy weapons, power armor, robot chassis) — these stay on the 🔨 mod system.

Establishing a factory / industrial workshop later in the campaign would unlock a separate abstracted production system for these — a future addition, not part of hand-crafting.

Pipe Weapons (Small Guns, Tier 1)

Craftable without a perk — crude by nature, and they keep their ⚠️ Unreliable tag.

Melee Weapons

Tier 3–4 melee (Combat Knife, Sword, Ripper, Super Sledge, gauntlets, Chainsaw) are found or modded.

Armor (Tier 1–2)

Gated on 🎖 Armorer. “Material” = 1 Hide tagged meat for hide sets, 1 Chitin-tagged meat for Shell/Bone/Hodag sets, or 1 extra ⚪ Common Scrap for Raider/Tire/Scrap-Metal sets.

🧵 Ballistic Fiber is not used to build base armor — it is consumed by the Ballistic Weave Lining mod, which is its only sink. Tier 3+ armor (Combat, Metal, Marine, Synth, Robot Chassis, Power Armor) stays found or modded.

Explosives, Grenades & Mines

Crafted at a ⚗️ Chemistry Station on a 👁 PER + 💣 Explosives Test. Each craft yields one grenade or mine.

Perk gates: the Molotov is the only explosive that needs no perk. Every other explosive requires 🎖 Demolition Expert, and the energy devices (Plasma, Pulse, Cryo grenades & mines) additionally require 🎖 Science!.

The Fat Mine is effectively a ☢ Mini Nuke with a sensor bolted on — it consumes a whole Mini Nuke, which is the real gate. Launchers (Grenade Rifle, Pump / Revolver Grenade Launcher) are found/modded Big-Guns weapons; their 40mm ammo follows the ammo rule.

Consumable & clothing recipes

Recipes for chems (🛡️ Rad-X, 💉 Med-X, 💪 Buffout, 💊 Addictol, 💨 Jet, …), drinks/alcohol (🍺 Beer, 🍷 Wine, 🍾 Rum, 🥃 Whiskey, 🍸 Vodka, 🥃 Bourbon), clothing (Athletic Clothing, 🥼 Lab Coat, 🕴 Formal Clothing), and utility items (🧶 Rope, 🎆 Signal Flare, 🔥 Torch, 🏮 Lantern, 🔥 Matches, 🕯️ Lighter, 🎒 Small Backpack, 🎒 Large Backpack, 🔏 Lock Pick Set) live in the > [!abstract] Crafting callout on each item’s own page.

Repair Methods

In addition to crafting, there are three ways to repair damaged equipment:

Kit-Based Repair

Use a Repair Kit (for Minor Malfunctions on robots/vehicles) or 🧰 Toolkit (for Major Malfunctions and System Failures) to perform the Fix or 🔩 Fix Malfunction action. Kits provide significant bonuses to the Repair Test and consume 1 charge per use.

This is the primary repair method during combat and in the field. Kits are reliable, provide large bonuses, and work anywhere.

Jury Rigging (Repair +5)

The 🎯 Jury Rigging milestone allows repairing weapons, armor, and equipment using raw Scrap instead of kit charges. This is the field-expedient option when you’re out of kit charges.

Limitations:

• +3 Difficulty on the Repair Test
• Cannot restore an item to full durability
• Scrap cost depends on item quality

The 🎯 Efficient Repairs milestone (Repair +7) reduces Jury Rigging Scrap costs by 1 on success.

Duplicate Combining

You may combine two identical items to improve their condition. This follows the classic Fallout approach — two poor-condition 10mm Pistols can be combined into one good-condition 10mm Pistol.

Requirements:

• Both items must be the exact same item (same weapon/armor type)
• A Workbench is required
• No Scrap cost — the second item IS the material
• Roll INT + 🔧 Repair vs a DC based on item complexity

The resulting item has improved condition based on the combined durability of both source items. The second item is consumed in the process.

This method can restore an item to full durability — unlike Jury Rigging, combining duplicates has no durability ceiling. However, it requires finding or carrying a duplicate, which costs Inventory space.

Dismantling

Characters can break down items and defeated enemies into raw materials.

Dismantling Items

Any item can be dismantled into Scrap at a Workbench. The Scrap tier and quantity depends on the item’s quality and materials:

• Simple items (pipe weapons, basic clothing) yield Common Scrap
• Complex items (military weapons, advanced armor) yield Common + Uncommon Scrap
• High-tech items (energy weapons, power armor components) yield Uncommon + Rare Scrap

Dismantling requires the 🎖 Scrapper perk to yield Uncommon or Rare Scrap. Without Scrapper, all dismantling yields only Common Scrap regardless of item quality.

Dismantling Robots

Defeated robotic enemies can be dismantled for Scrap, similar to how biological creatures are butchered for meat and materials.

Test: 🧠 INT + 🔧 Repair

The Scrap tier and quantity depends on the robot’s type and your Scrapper perk level. Higher-quality robots (Sentry Bots, Assaultrons) yield more and higher-tier Scrap than basic robots (Protectrons, Mr. Handy units).

Butchering Creatures

Defeated biological creatures can be butchered for meat and crafting materials.

Test: 🏊 END + 🏕 Survival

Butchering yields meat appropriate to the creature (Brahmin Meat, Radstag Meat, Deathclaw Meat, etc.). Meat represents all usable organic material — flesh, hide, bone, and sinew — and can be used in both cooking recipes and leather/hide-based crafting recipes.

Meats are tagged by type:

Some creatures have specialty ingredients in addition to their meat — Radscorpion Eggs, Mirelurk Eggs, Deathclaw Eggs, etc. These are noted on the individual creature’s stat block.

The Hunter perk (Rank 2) grants +1d4 additional meat when butchering animals. The 🎖 Entomologist perk grants extra materials from insect corpses.

Scrap Refinement

Characters can refine lower-tier ⚪ Scrap into higher-tier materials at a 🔧 Workbench. This is a sidegrade — the process loses total cap value but converts abundant common materials into the specialized materials needed for advanced crafting.

Test: 🧠 INT + 🔧 Repair

On failure, half the input Scrap is consumed. See ⚙️ Scrap Refinement for the full system.

Crafting Summary

Quick Reference

To craft or modify, you need four things:

1. The right workstation
2. The right materials
3. The right perk (for gated recipes)
4. Enough Crafting Time — and somewhere safe to spend it

When you can craft:

• Long Rest (Repair/Craft activity) — 6 hours free
• Short Rest — unlimited; the rest lasts 1 hour + the longest job
• Any other safe moment — the game clock advances

Repair methods (in order of preference):

• Kit charges — best bonuses, works anywhere, limited charges
• Duplicate combining — restores to full durability, requires duplicate item
• Jury Rigging — uses raw Scrap, field-expedient, can’t reach full durability

One kit or toolkit charge = one hour of Crafting Time.

Material sources:

• Scrap: Scavenging, dismantling items/robots, trading
• Ingredients: Scavenging, butchering, foraging, trading
• Medical items: Scavenging, chem crafting, trading
• Chemical components: Scavenging labs/hospitals, trading