Can someone explain to me why Craft(Basketweaving) is a meme?

like escape artist there's only one reason you'd take basket weaving as a skill

File: woah.gif (777KB, 233x173px) Image search: [Google]

777KB, 233x173px

>>50675758
Someone tried telling me it was a useless skill.

then I took Master Craftsman and made magical baskets.

The look on his face when I saved the party from downing by turning a small basket into a sailboat was pic related.

>>50675786
So, tt's basically skub in a skill form.

>>50675758
It is randomly picked as something useless.
For example in an char-op discussion of a build that lets you substitute any skill for a diplomacy check, as well as get mad high ranks in a skill. So basketweaving was chosen for a joke.

>>50675758
It's a prime example of the kind of extremely specific and useless skills that clog up the skill list in a lot of RPGs and serve no point other than create an illusion of depth. Basketweaving is a skill so specific and unrelated to adventuring that there is no reason whi it should appear in the skill list of a game like DnD except for the fact that the devolopers felt that by having a separate skill for every possible thing makes the system deeper and more realistic, when it practice it just results in a ton of skills nobody ever takes (why spend xp into putting points in baskeweaving, when you could instead put them into something that's actually useful for an adventurer, like tracking or climbing) and make the statblocks of every high-level NPC take up an entire page because god forbit we don't know how many ranks Asmodeus has in perform: dance.

>>50677427
>>50675758

Hmhmn. Close.

There was a theory craft thread hundreds of years ago that wanted to "Break" D&D 3.5 with the most unadventurous method possible.

Skill Craft(Basketweaving) with a metric ton of bonuses added onto it. One check to determine a week's worth of value (using the 3.5 rules for normal labor) landed the theory character with such an astronomically amount of GP. The character was considered busted for break the atmosphere of wealth by level.
This can be done with an craft skill but Basketweaving was what it landed on.

>>50677496
Ooh I wanna see this

In the old days, when university people wanted to make fun of people on athletic scholarship or other people they felt shouldn't be there, they suggested that their major could be "Underwater Basket-weaving". This came about from a niche cultural study of an exotic tribe that used a pool to weave baskets from reeds. It was thought at the time that this was a cultural oddity with religious connotations, but it turned out that the reeds had to be completely immersed in water in order to be pliable enough to weave. Once the finished baskets were removed from the pool, the water drained from the reeds and the baskets became rigid and suitable for carrying heavy loads. The insult called into question the practicality of certain niche majors in the same way that the game skill does.

>>50677971
I've actually weaved baskets a scan confirm it would be way easier were they permanently immersed

>>50675765
To weave baskets?

>>50675813
>skub
No that shit's genuinely useless.

File: 1365895740913.jpg (72KB, 293x398px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 293x398px

>>50675786
You do realize that in that context your skill in basket weaving could have been replaced by literally anything and made just as much sense right.

You could just as easily justify using a giant magic vase made with pottery as a buoy or sailing on a giant paper boat made with origami. That doesn't make you a genius for picking a worthless skill or justify its existence when you applied it to something that its not realistically meant to aid in.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pIl2xdrOX20

>>50675758
>unstoppable composite wicker armor

>>50680069
Oh wow there are many ways to solve a problem in D&D
How grand an observation you have made

File: get a load of this guy.jpg (98KB, 776x602px) Image search: [Google]

98KB, 776x602px

>>50684566
>Why is choice X considered so suboptimal as to be worthy of a meme, really near worthless?
>Because as written it performs essentially no useful function that cannot be done better by any other choice.
>B-B-BUT IN M-M-MY GAME O-O-ONE TIME I DID A TH-THING WITH WITH THE CH-CHOICE!! BEST CHOICE!!111 I-IT'S NOT U-USELESS I S-S-SWEAR!
>But anon, thing could have been done better with any choice. You made the worst choice possible. That you managed to eke any use out of it at all (through heavy DM fiat and not anything resembling RAW) is incredible.
>"Oh wow there are many ways to solve a problem in D&D
How grand an observation you have made"

>>50684692
Are you okay Anon. Do you wanna talk about something?

>>50684720
>Obligatory "u mad?" post.
What's next? "I was only pretending to be retarded."?

File: 111jani111-2.png (1MB, 1024x1024px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1024x1024px

Gather round, children.

The skill as a D&D meme originally comes from a thread on the old WotC forum where some guy was statting up a Cacodemon (pic related) and randomly gave him ~20 ranks in Basketweaving because he had skill points left over and it was a hoot because the thing doesn't have any prehensile limbs.

The only good Craft skill is Weaponsmithing.

What you do is craft wooden clubs. Crafting time and material cost depend on the market price of the item you're crafting. Clubs cost 0gp. Make infinite clubs in a fraction of a second and destroy the universe. Demand individual XP for every creature killed, then slap your way back out of the afterlife with your dick.

>>50684827
That sounds a little bit silly.

>>50684858
It's the only campaign you can finish in under half a minute and without a GM.

>>50684875
I too like to play with myself while imagining my dick being used.

>>50684692
Not the guy you're berating but Jesus Christ dude
Stop it with the "B-B-BUT IN M-M-MY GAME" shit, makes you look like a fucking retard.

>>50684766
You sound like a salty bitch.

>>50675758
There is also the occasional prestige class that required in in 3.5, but nobody cares about that. Long story short, the worthless minutiae of DnD could be made useful, but it had to be forced. That's the joke.

Basket weaving was a random "bet you can't break this aspect of the game" bet on the original CaOp wizards board. There were hundreds of break this threads. it was glorious.

Another example. The leadership rail cannon.
1- take leadership feat with appropriate build to max it.
2- actually take all followers.
3- everyone is trained to ready an action to pass a brick to the next person in line when it is handed to them.
4- you have a readied action to throw a brick when handed to you.
5- you cohort hands the first follower a brick.
6- all readied actions take place in 1 round with you throwing it.
7- That brick will travel 5' per follower x number of followers over 6 seconds. By the time you throw the brick it is going above mach 1 with enough followers.

it takes nothing but 1 feat and a brick.

I'm going to build a basketweaving artificer who crafts enchanted wicker constructs to do his bidding.
He picks wicker over more common materials because reeds are cheaper than iron, easier to build with than stone and lighter than wood.
>but so is X
So? I choose wicker. Bring on the basketmonsters.

>>50685835
if I were running a sillier game I'd allow that.

It is a play on the old joke about college degrees that are worthless or so specific you would never be able to make a living on them.

It is used to make fun of the fact that most old american football players where neanderthals that got bullshit degrees to justify being at the college they played for.

>>50680069
Yes, but in my particular case it involved the very skill that OP stated.

That's what made it relevant to this particular thread.

Moron.

>>50685835
>the second to last guy in line realizes the brick being passed to him is currently traveling at mach 1
>his hands explode
The peasant railgun is retarded, even as a RAW argument or demonstration of system mastery. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

>>50685835
Doesn't actually work.

>>50684827
Doesn't actually work.

>>50675758

Not sure of the origins, but one reason it lives on is that game designers have to choose between open-ended and close-ended skill lists.

Open-ended skill lists have all kinds of mechanical problems, not the least being that once you're a few years into an edition you have skill bloat and often the new skills overlap or conflict with one another. Example: oWoD

Close-ended skill lists (D&D and to some extent GURPS 4e come immediately to mind) have the problem that either you list every possible skill and so have large numbers of them which are like basketweaving either worthless or ridiculously situational. Or you have a very tight small list that supposedly encompasses nearly everything but is very vague because each skill is very broad. Or it doesn't encompass everything and now you're back to open-ended except now the game designers won't support the mountain of house ruled fanon skills that starts building up.

It's actually a very tough problem in game design and I don't think people have really hit on a solution to it yet. GURPS, for example, is a very elegant system but on skills even the diehard fans usually acknowledge that the skill list is a mess.

>>50687028
>once you're a few years into an edition you have skill bloat and often the new skills overlap or conflict with one another
>Example: oWoD

Not to say you're wrong, but I am ignorant of this. Can you exemplify?

>>50677427
so...how many ranks DOES Asmodeus have in Perform - Dance?

>>50684692
Dude just wanted to bring up a story he thought was fun. Why you gotta be a jackass?

File: 1389888840494.jpg (57KB, 300x450px) Image search: [Google]

57KB, 300x450px

>>50687282
The Devil is a gentleman, so presumably, he has them all.

>>50687282
None but he has a +32 to acting so he can perform a hell of a play for you.

>>50680050
SKUB SOLVES ALL PROBLEMS!

alright here is a challenge, make (soapmaking) overpowered

>>50690446

Magic soap.

Here's a hint: in D&D if you can insert *magic* into it, it becomes OP.

>>50690455
how do you make mundane soap worthy of legend?

>>50685835
I want to make a BBEG who has a base with giant lines skeletons designed to do exactly this and the entire base rotates with clockwork to hit targets around the globe

>>50690475
weave giant wicker baskets, then use them as shields that can stop cannonballs

>>50690459
Soap so strong it can cleanse evil from your soul.

>>50690489
Due to the D&D power tax, that is some fucking expensive soap.
I hate it already.

>>50675758
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_basket_weaving#Possible_origin_of_the_phrase

It's a backformation from that.

>>50680050
>Skub provokes hostility wherever it goes
>Useless
It's clearly a cursed item that infuriates and deludes anyone around it.

>>50675816

Underwater Basket Weaving, Specifically

>>50690459
Soap that dispells magic when used to clean someone or something

>>50675786
> Not having the Barbarian Intimidate the water

Pleb.

>>50690446
>make soapshoes
>slide everywhere

>make a soap armor
>people can't hold you anymore

>>50685835
The railgun doesn't actually work because of how readied actions work in 3.5.

HOWEVER, my favorite thing to ever arise out of one of these threads, without counting Pun-Pun, is the Arseplomancer, the guy who crawls up inside people's ass, makes them explode, and gains a horde of fanatical minions by doing so. And this one ACTUALLY WORKS in rules as written, even in RAI.
There's an article in 1d4chan for it. Read it.

>>50687028
>It's actually a very tough problem in game design and I don't think people have really hit on a solution to it yet.

Fucking ADnD fixed this problem you nigger.

>>50687028
This isn't the problem. The problem is that the only "abilities" a player character should have is the stuff that is relevant to the game being played. Has there ever been a good reason why a D&D character should know how to weave baskets?

>>50690489
What about the 0.01% of evil that isn't destroyed?
Soap destroys 99.9% of germs, so that means that we still have 0.01% still running around causing havoc

>>50693643
>0.01% still running around causing havoc
That's just standard "human" evil. The original sin.
Everyone has it, so there is no problem.

>>50685978
Your skill was still useless.

moron.
>>50685220
Not that guy but you're a wrong person.