Do you have to work an 8 hour day?

[Giant2005]

The likes of the Magic Item Crafting rules declare that the times are based off an 8 hour working day.
Could my character work 16 hour days and get the item finished in half the time?

[eastmabl]

The likes of the Magic Item Crafting rules declare that the times are based off an 8 hour working day.
Could my character work 16 hour days and get the item finished in half the time?

No. Max time you can spend crafting is 8 hours per day - it's a game balance thing.

However, you could hire another wizard to help you craft the magic item, which would have a similar effect.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

No. Max time you can spend crafting is 8 hours per day - it's a game balance thing.

However, you could hire another wizard to help you craft the magic item, which would have a similar effect.

Unless the DM says that the reagents needed for the item need time to cool or calm down before you may continue working.

Like good southern tea, you have to let it sit out for X hours and there isn't much you can do about it until it decides to be done. :smallbiggrin:

[Giant2005]

Another question, when crafting a magic item, is that in addition to the base item's crafting costs?
A couple of examples:
1. Mithral Plate Mail is uncommon so it would cost 500 gold to craft. Regular Plate Mail costs 750g to craft. Is the total cost 500 gold or 1250 gold?
2. The Robe of Useful Items is uncommon so it would cost 500 gold to craft. However that same Robe comes with an array of items and cash that are usually well over the value of 500 gold. Do you have to pay for/craft those items in addition to the 500 gold to create the gold, or do those items come free, essentially earning you a fortune every time you craft the robe?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

The likes of the Magic Item Crafting rules declare that the times are based off an 8 hour working day.
Could my character work 16 hour days and get the item finished in half the time?

No. Think of it like this: You are Morin Redwhisker, Archmage of the Vermillion Circle, Lord of the Arcane Hills, etc, etc, and you'd like to make a +2 Wizard Hat of Wizzardry. The trouble is, you have to do it yourself. Which means lifting heavy loads of gold (5,000 gold coins is a lot of cash), and then breaking them down into raw magical components (the Thaum), usually with a Tuning Hammer and a Kawtuul (sound it out). And then there's the sowing, and the swearing, and the knitting, and the lightning, etc, etc. And before you know it, you've put in 8 hours and your hands are on fire someone get me whiskey!!!! And then you want to just jump right back in there?

8 hours is as long as a Wizard can go before he collapses of a heart attack. 16 hours would kill you. And it will still take almost a year to make the damn Hat, and that's if you're not out adventuring, which is what you do as an Adventurer.


However, you could hire another wizard to help you craft the magic item, which would have a similar effect.

Well, yeah there's that. If you don't want to do it properly. :smalltongue:

[MaxWilson]

Another question, when crafting a magic item, is that in addition to the base item's crafting costs?
A couple of examples:
1. Mithral Plate Mail is uncommon so it would cost 500 gold to craft. Regular Plate Mail costs 750g to craft. Is the total cost 500 gold or 1250 gold?

It depends on whether a suit of Plate Armor (I assume you're talking about 1500 gp Plate Armor, right?) is one of the ingredients in the formula. It would be theoretically possible for it not to be, but a sane DM would probably make the armor an ingredient instead of having it materialize out of basilisk's blood or something.

Remember that the formula for a suit of (Uncommon) Mithril armor is Rare (formula is always one step rarer than the item itself), so in practice this scenario won't occur unless your DM sets it up deliberately.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

It depends on whether a suit of Plate Armor (I assume you're talking about 1500 gp Plate Armor, right?) is one of the ingredients in the formula. It would be theoretically possible for it not to be, but a sane DM would probably make the armor an ingredient instead of having it materialize out of basilisk's blood or something.

Remember that the formula for a suit of (Uncommon) Mithril armor is Rare (formula is always one step rarer than the item itself), so in practice this scenario won't occur unless your DM sets it up deliberately.

Basilisk's Blood Armor(Super Super Rare)
+1 Plate Armor
Properties: You are immune to petrification while wearing this plate armor.
Attunment: As an action you may make a gaze attack. The target on a failed Constitution save (DC 8 + Prof Bonus + Con Modifier) has a part of its body partially petrified. You may choose which part of the target's body becomes partially petrified. This effect last till the start of your next turn.

Arm: Takes disadvantage on attack rolls.

Legs: Speed becomes 0

Body: Takes disadvantage on all saving throws except constitution saves.

Head: Becomes blind, deaf, and silenced.

This armor randomly is created when you use Basilisks blood to create a set of armor. It just kinda forms out of the blood and stuff.

[pwykersotz]

Basilisk's Blood Armor(Super Super Rare)
+1 Plate Armor
Properties: You are immune to petrification while wearing this plate armor.
Attunment: As an action you may make a gaze attack. The target on a failed Constitution save (DC 8 + Prof Bonus + Con Modifier) has a part of its body partially petrified. You may choose which part of the target's body becomes partially petrified. This effect last till the start of your next turn.

Arm: Takes disadvantage on attack rolls.

Legs: Speed becomes 0

Body: Takes disadvantage on all saving throws except constitution saves.

Head: Becomes blind, deaf, and silenced.

This armor randomly is created when you use Basilisks blood to create a set of armor. It just kinda forms out of the blood and stuff.

Now let's curse it!

Attunment: As an action you may make a gaze attack. You and the target on a failed Constitution save (DC 8 + Prof Bonus + Con Modifier) has a part of its body partially petrified. You may choose which part of the target's body becomes partially petrified. The same part on you is petrified as well. This bypasses the armors own protections against petrification and the effect last till the start of your next turn.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Now let's curse it!

Attunment: As an action you may make a gaze attack. You and the target on a failed Constitution save (DC 8 + Prof Bonus + Con Modifier) has a part of its body partially petrified. You may choose which part of the target's body becomes partially petrified. The same part on you is petrified as well. This bypasses the armors own protections against petrification and the effect last till the start of your next turn.


Mwuahahahaha :smallcool:

What I like most is that the target gets a save but the wearer doesn't... That's beautiful.

I think Gygax would be proud of you.

[Townopolis]

Anyone working 16 hours a day is going to start making serious mistakes. You might be able to sustain that level of crunch time for a few days, but not the time it takes to craft anything uncommon or better. This is D&D though, so go ahead and ask your GM if they'll allow your character to successfully work double shifts for the 50+ straight days it takes to craft an item. Such a feat is, after all, only statistically impossible... so, like, DC 25.

Of course, they could always rule that every day you work 16 hours adds 3 more days to the crafting process. This is D&D crafting, after all.

[Giant2005]

Anyone working 16 hours a day is going to start making serious mistakes. You might be able to sustain that level of crunch time for a few days, but not the time it takes to craft anything uncommon or better. This is D&D though, so go ahead and ask your GM if they'll allow your character to successfully work double shifts for the 50+ straight days it takes to craft an item. Such a feat is, after all, only statistically impossible... so, like, DC 25.

Of course, they could always rule that every day you work 16 hours adds 3 more days to the crafting process. This is D&D crafting, after all.

I wasn't talking about 16 hour days for 50 days so much, it was more of an enquiry as to whether or not it is divisable at all. Something like 16 hour days, witht he weekends off for rest (The equivalent of a 10 day work week) or perhaps less hours but more consistent such as 10 hour days (An Uncommon item takes 160 crafting hours, so with 10 hour days it would shorten from 20 days to 16).
I'm not interested in working my character to the bone but in reality the 8 hour work day has become a bit of a myth - I don't know anyone that is employed and doesn't work more than 8 hours in a day. In medieval times I wouldn imagine that the lack of infrastructure would compel them to work more than the contemporary equivalent, not less.

[Slipperychicken]

Anyone working 16 hours a day is going to start making serious mistakes. You might be able to sustain that level of crunch time for a few days, but not the time it takes to craft anything uncommon or better. This is D&D though, so go ahead and ask your GM if they'll allow your character to successfully work double shifts for the 50+ straight days it takes to craft an item. Such a feat is, after all, only statistically impossible... so, like, DC 25.


This. Putting in 16 hour days like that is not going to result in quality work, and over the long term will also be devastating for your health. There are reasons why people fought and died for 8-hour workdays IRL.

Besides, you get a free lifestyle while crafting, so what's the rush? :smalltongue:


EDIT: I've heard that before accurate timekeeping and scientific management, people didn't work as long hours as we do now. They couldn't budget their time as precisely because they didn't have good clocks to go by, so life generally took a slower pace.

[Townopolis]

I'm not interested in working my character to the bone but in reality the 8 hour work day has become a bit of a myth - I don't know anyone that is employed and doesn't work more than 8 hours in a day. In medieval times I would imagine that the lack of infrastructure would compel them to work more than the contemporary equivalent, not less.

The most useful answer remains "ask your GM." I do think RAI is that crafting progress is supposed to be calculated by days (ie. strictly 5gp/day) and the 8-hour figure is just a comfortable number that also makes it prohibitively obnoxious to adventure and craft during a single day. On the other hand, 5gp/day can be abysmally slow and mostly just convinces people to never ever bother crafting, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to try to squeeze an extra 1.25gp/day in with 10-hour days.

I don't think it's SUPPOSED to be divisible, but I also don't think it would break anything if it was.

[Giant2005]

What about working less than an 8 hour day? Would you allow that?

[unwise]

I would not allow working more than the 8hrs a day. In game terms I would put it down the having to wait for the next bit to be ready, supplies to arrive, metal to cool, researching techniques, actually living a life etc.

It is way too easy for players to say that their character only need 6hrs sleep and can work the other 18hrs a day without a problem. The same players tend to say that their character eats only the cheapest food and lives in squaller because it is cheap and has no game effect. These characters seem to be the ones that will gladly put their hands in fires to grab things, spend hours sifting through extrement looking for treasure and do all the other stuff that real people wouldn't regularly. As a DM I want to introduce a save vs suicide for such characters, their lives are just so horrible.

[MaxWilson]

It is way too easy for players to say that their character only need 6hrs sleep and can work the other 18hrs a day without a problem. The same players tend to say that their character eats only the cheapest food and lives in squaller because it is cheap and has no game effect. These characters seem to be the ones that will gladly put their hands in fires to grab things, spend hours sifting through extrement looking for treasure and do all the other stuff that real people wouldn't regularly. As a DM I want to introduce a save vs suicide for such characters, their lives are just so horrible.

Quoting from Harry Potter and the Natural 20:

'Another peculiarity in these people was the inordinate amount of down time they required. Milo had to spend eight hours sleeping and an hour memorizing spells, but that left fifteen hours a day to put to use attending class, fighting monsters, and crafting items off-screen. Milo knew an Artificer by the name of Alton who, when he finally got his hands on a Ring of Sustenance, spent two hours sleeping, eight hours crafting magic items (the maximum amount per day) and the other fourteen hours in a day mass-producing baskets to fund his adventuring. Alton did that every day for three hundred years straight, with breaks to fight monsters to recover lost Experience Points, until he'd amassed a fortune large enough to attract the attention of a wandering Blue Dragon. Alton's unfortunate demise aside, it was just good sense to put their hours to use—they were only given twenty-four in a day, after all. And besides, manual labour was the sort of thing done during a timeskip, anyways, it's not like it got in the way of the story. Even Hermione seemed shocked by the amount of time he spent reading and working. In just one week, Milo managed to custom-tailor his fifth-hand Hogwarts uniform (untrained, but with +2 for masterwork tools (which Milo also made himself) and +4 from his Intelligence) until it rivalled Draco's in quality, read more books than any of his classmates (save Hermione) could in a year, and carve holy symbols of Pelor, Heironeous, St. Cuthbert, and Boccob into key locations around Gryffindor Tower. That had earned him some strange looks, despite the fact that the residents there were fully aware that there were vampires on the same continent as them. That was all in addition to the daily chores all first year Gryffindors were required to do as punishment for trying to kill or maim the Slytherins back in September. Milo theorized that, while he had to spend an hour poring over his spellbook, performing arcane research, and memorizing spells every morning, the Wizards here had to spend at four to eight hours a day (judging by comparisons between Hermione and Ron, it was an amount of time equal to eight minus their Intelligence Bonus, in hours per day) sitting around on armchairs and talking about the weather.'

Great comedy.

[Townopolis]

What about working less than an 8 hour day? Would you allow that?
Not sure. If I can enforce the character needing to be in a particular location (e.g. a stationary workshop), then probably. If not, then probably not. Mostly, I'd rather not have players be tempted to try to rush an adventure so they set aside time to craft or, alternately, having the rogue/whatever spend hours at a time searching single rooms for loot while everyone else just pulls out their whittling projects.

It also depends on what's being crafted. If someone wants to know how many GPs worth of dinner they can craft in an hour with a frying pan at the end of the day, sure*. If someone wants to pull out the enchanting kit while waiting for the scout to return, probably not. I'd make something up about the stress of the situation preventing them from making meaningful progress or something.

*according to my math, you can cook 6.25 modest meals in 1 hour.