I’m a little uncertain about the alchemy and gadget crafting rules on pages 225-226. It states that the tier of the item produced will be the crew tier + the outcome of the Tinker roll. What does this mean for starting crews, whose tier is 0? If they don’t roll well enough or pay to raise the tier of the crafted item above 0, does the crafting fail?
Also, the rules seem to imply that some items have a minimum tier – how hard and fast should this be? Can shoddier versions of the higher tier items be created, or is it a pass/fail situation? Obviously this is all GM discretion, but I’m looking for advice from more experienced Blades players.
Don’t forget you can increase the roll of a downtime action with coin to make that Tinker successful. If they still aren’t successful, then I would rub my GM hands together gleefully and tell them – sure they can use said gadget or potion, but we’ll just have to wait and find out what happens when they do! It becomes a question I’m interested in answering through play. (usually via a fortune roll).
Don’t forget Devil’s Bargains.
Don’t forget that characters can spend COIN to improve the tier of their creations, so if someone blows their crafting roll, it could just mean they waste a ton of resources building the thing (if they really want/need it).