Recipes
A recipe defines what ingredients are needed and what results are produced. Recipes belong to a crafting system and follow that system’s resolution mode. GMs author them in the Crafting Admin panel, and the public API can create them too.
What a Recipe Contains
Every recipe brings together a few things.
- A name and a piece of flavour text that describe it.
- An optional category that helps you organise recipes, when your crafting system groups recipes by category.
- The ingredients it needs, made up of one or more sets of required materials.
- The results it produces, made up of one or more groups of items.
- Any reusable tools it requires, such as a forge or a cauldron.
- Whether active effects carried by the ingredients are copied onto the results.
- Whether the recipe is enabled, which controls if it can be crafted.
- Whether the recipe is locked, which lets players see it exists but stops anyone other than the GM from crafting it.
- Who can see it, which is set by the crafting system’s visibility settings.
- For a recipe that teaches itself through an in-world item, the item that unlocks it for knowledge-based visibility.
- In a routed system, the result groups it can produce when more than one outcome is possible.
For multi-step recipes, the ingredients and results are defined on each individual step rather than on the recipe as a whole. See Multi-Step Recipes for details.
Enabling and Disabling Recipes
Whether a recipe is enabled controls whether it can be crafted. A disabled recipe is hidden from players, but it remains available through the API.
Why disable rather than delete? Disabling is non-destructive. You can hide a recipe from players while you are still configuring it, or temporarily remove it from circulation without losing its ingredient and result configuration.
Programmatically. You can switch a recipe between enabled and disabled through the API. See the Recipe Manager API reference for the method that updates a recipe.
Ingredient Semantics
Ingredients are organised in a three-level hierarchy:
- Ingredient Sets (OR, any one set satisfies the recipe)
- Ingredient Groups (AND, all groups in the set must be satisfied)
- Options (OR, any one option satisfies the group)
- Ingredient Groups (AND, all groups in the set must be satisfied)
Example: A sword recipe might accept either iron or steel:
- Ingredient Set “Metal Sword”
- Group “Metal” (need any one of):
- Option: 3x Iron Ingot
- Option: 2x Steel Ingot
- Group “Handle” (need any one of):
- Option: 1x Oak Wood
- Option: 1x Leather Wrap
- Group “Metal” (need any one of):
The recipe is craftable if the player has materials to satisfy all groups in at least one set.
Ingredient Matching
Each ingredient option decides how it is matched against the items a player is carrying.
- Match a specific component managed by the crafting system.
- Match any item that carries a given set of tags.
- Match an essence amount, satisfied by any combination of items whose totalled essence reaches the amount.
- Match a currency cost, paid from the crafter’s coins rather than consumed items.
An essence is a first-class option like any other, so it can sit inside a group as one of several Accept instead alternatives. For example, a group might accept either 2x Iron Ingot or 3 units of Fire essence, and either one satisfies the group.
Earlier versions attached a separate essence requirement to the whole ingredient set. That per-set essence map is superseded: each former essence requirement is now a single-option essence group, kept required (AND) alongside the set’s other groups. Fabricate migrates existing recipes automatically, so authored behaviour is preserved.
Resolution Modes
The resolution mode determines how ingredients map to results:
| Mode | Sets | Result Groups | Check Required | Use When |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | 1 | 1 | Optional | Basic A + B = C crafting |
| Routed by ingredients | 1+ | 1+ | Optional | The ingredients used select the result |
| Routed by check | 1+ | 1+ | Yes | A skill-check outcome selects the result |
| Progressive | 1 | 1 (ordered) | Yes | Skill check value “buys” results in order |
| Alchemy | 1 | 1+ | Set by check mode | Players experiment with ingredients. Recipe names are hidden |
Multi-Step Recipes
When multi-step recipes are enabled, recipes can have several sequential steps. Each step has its own ingredients, results, required tools, and optional time and currency requirements. Conceptually, each step is a separate recipe that is part of a larger recipe. You could achieve the same outcome using multiple recipes.
See Multi-Step Recipes for details.
Tools
Tools are reusable items required for crafting, such as a blacksmith’s forge, an alchemist’s cauldron, or a wizard’s staff. A recipe can require Tools for the whole recipe or for a single step. In Routed by ingredients, each named ingredient set can also require its own Tools.
See Tools for source linking, prerequisites, breakage, and usage tracking.
Tool behavior
The recipe Tools tab selects required Tools; it does not configure how they behave. Tool Studio owns each Tool’s prerequisites, bonus, wear, breakage, and on-break action. Crafting System check settings own check-driven breakage.
Fabricate adds every distinct eligible Tool bonus to crafting and salvage checks. A Tool whose prerequisites use Bonus is withheld contributes nothing when those prerequisites fail, but it still satisfies the Tool requirement. A Tool whose prerequisites use Tool is unusable blocks crafting when those prerequisites fail. Gathering applies no numeric Tool bonus.
Authoring and Crafting Surfaces
GMs author recipes in the Crafting Admin panel. The recipe editor has dedicated tabs for the recipe’s overview, ingredients, results, tools, access, and validation. The Overview tab edits identity (name, description, image, and whether it is on or off) and links a recipe item. When the system is in player mode, the Overview tab can also restrict a recipe to specific players. When the system uses a fixed Routed by check crafting check, the Overview tab also offers a per-recipe minimum success tier. See Minimum success tier for fixed routed checks. When the system has a check-modifier catalogue, the Overview tab also lets a recipe override which modifiers are eligible and how they combine. See Check modifiers.
Players craft in the Crafting tab of the unified Fabricate window. They browse the recipes their character can see, choose which owned actors supply the materials, roll any crafting check, and craft.
Recipe authoring and runtime crafting are also available through the public API. See the Crafting Engine API reference and the Recipe Manager API reference for the methods that create recipes, check craftability, and run a craft.