The requirement for 25 steel to craft the torturer’s bench does not make any sense, progression wise. This makes the iron truncheon completely useless.
If I am able to get steel to craft the bench, I would just craft the steel truncheon as well.
So it goes from hand crafting the wooden truncheon to requiring steel to craft the table, to craft the iron truncheon, to crafting the steel truncheon.
Changing the requirement to iron (pretty sure it used to be iron) would make much more sense.
at least with leather you don’t have to go back a step afterwards, like using animal skins for the iron one. the issue at hand isn’t that you need other structures to get the ressources, but that the better truncheon made from iron needs materials above its own tier, that in turn is used to make the next one step better.