Non-Magical Items
The PHB14 crafting rules are in Chapter 8: Adventures (p. 187), and are expanded substantially in PHB24’s Chapter 6: Equipment (p. 233)
Both versions require that the character making an object possess and be proficient with the necessary tools for making the desired object. PHB14 generically referred to these as “artisan’s tools” while PHB24 has an expanded selection of specialist tools (pp. 220-221) either incorporated from other sources or newly-defined. The PHB14 requirement for “special materials or locations necessary” is replaced by the '24 specialist tools - no more traveling to a forge to craft a longsword.
The intended item’s stated purchase price is used to calculate both the downtime days required and the amount of raw materials (expressed in GP) needed to craft it. The purchase price of the item as stated in the appropriate table or section of Chapter 6:
- Weapons - p. 215
- Armor - p. 219
- Ammunition - p. 222
- Adventuring Gear - p. 223
- Arcane Focus - p. 224
- Druidic Focus - p. 225
- Holy Symbol - p. 226
- Tack, Harness, Vehicle - p. 230
Raw material costs are unchanged from '14: half the purchase price (rounded down)
Downtime days required are effectively halved from one day per 5GP (PHB14) to one day per 10GP (PHB24), but the way this is expressed on the page is less of a math-homework word problem than it used to be.
PHB14 allowed any number of tool-proficient helpers to contribute toward the final product’s downtime cost. The newer rules encourage that this be limited to a single helper, giving explicit override discretion to the DM.
PHB24 also removes the “lifestyle” discount of '14, so crafting will no longer work to eliminate the cost of maintaining modest lodgings during downtime.
Brewing Potions
If this was covered in '14, the finding of it might inspire an entire campaign quest line. Implicitly, brewing potions would have been limited to those available from the Adventuring Gear table (p. 150) and take 10 days to brew a Potion of Healing - the only potion on that list.
PHB24’s equipment list is similar, but specifically states that brewing a Potion of Healing is accomplished in a single 8-hour day of work and otherwise follows the crafting rules on page 233.
Scribing Spell Scrolls
This is all-new to PHB24 and may sound familiar to anyone who’s played a Wizard, scribing scrolls into their spellbook. Except this works the other way around, and for any spellcaster. The details are on page 233, it requires Arcana or Calligrapher’s Tools proficiency, any materials required by the spell, and the cost in time and gold is determined by the level of the spell.
Interestingly, the casting of the spell happens with the statistics of the scroll creator at the time of crafting. This could have some interesting applications for parties with a high-level caster and multi-classed or half-casters using the same spell book: e.g. a Wizard accompanied by an Arcane Trickster and a Bard.
Magic Items
Crafting of magic items, other than spell scrolls and Potion of Healing, is not covered in the PHB but in the DMG and '24 (characteristically) makes some big changes to the particulars of the process.
Generally, the DMG24 rules for magic item crafting (pp. 220-221) are consistent with crafting non-magic items, so I’m not going to repeat them. Here are the differences for magic items:
- Requires Arcana proficiency for everyone involved in the crafting
- “Upgrading” or “enchanting” non-magic items requires the base item as a raw material
- Certain item types will require tools and proficiency with those tools, as described on p. 221
- The raw materials might not be available (I’ll come back to this in a moment)
Overall, this is streamlined and more accessible than the DMG14 rules for the same. Not only does '24 remove the requirement of a “formula that describes the construction of the item,” it also dramatically adjusts the days required to craft the item. Under the '14 rules, it would take 200 days and 5,000 gp to craft a Rare magic item; DMG24 budgets the same at 50 days and 2,000 GP. It’s worth mentioning, though, that Common items will take 1 day longer to craft in '24, but they require half as much GP as before.