Long Rest Downtime Spell Prep and Crafting

On these forums I had a bit of a debate whether crafting is part of the Long Rest or not. It isn't the first time and I've had it go both ways. As a DM unless a player rolled a complication or it is hard to craft like a Legendary or something then I let them do it as part of the Long Rest to keep things moving; but then I do make my players gather the supplies and find somewhere they can craft (just because you have the tools doesn't mean you have the space). I also count ammunition and weigh coins in my game. Honestly I am fine doing independent downtime but as an Alchemist main then it means I have to expect both the DM and party to provide the downtime. They recruited an Artificer (or any spell caster) so they should be aware the class requires the downtime to play.

So, I went back through the rules and in the current edition it isn't concrete. If the crafting isn't strenuous then it can be part of the Long Rest but the only tools that say clearly crafting items (and only certain items) are part of the Long Rest are Alchemist Supplies. So, what about Calligraphy? How much effort does it really take to write a letter? Then there is the issue with Wizards because they get to choose spells for their spell book but they still have to transcribe them into the spell book which costs time and money. So, when they level do we need to spend a week of Downtime so they can add their new spells or can that be included in the Long Rest the excerpt on it in the book isn't clear. It doesn't say they are automatically added it says they have to be added so we know the Wizard has to spend time doing it and it doesn't say they are part of the Long Rest instead the cut out on adding spells says it takes an hour per spell level on top of gold. To be fair only Adventurers' League ever forced me to spend the gold to add spells which I thought was bogus because I was playing a Scribes Wizard and they have magical ink so why wouldn't I just use that? I digress, there is also the complications of preparing spells as in earlier editions like 3.5e it was something done after the Long Rest and it takes time:

"Spell Preparation Time, After resting, a wizard must study her spellbook to prepare any spells that day. If she wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller portion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes, the minimum time required to achieve the proper mental state."

Whereas 5e and 5.5e makes no distinction on how long it takes. So, are Wizards and other casters now also a serious drag on time during the campaign now? That is how they were for 1e and 2e but no tables actually play it that way making the party Long Rest then spend a full day preparing spells? And before you say it only takes an hour in 2e the time was based on the spell difficulty rating and the example of a failed spell preparation in the book is for a single spell that takes 4 weeks to prepare.

Then we have things that extra muddle the situation like the Traveling Tools from Acquisitions Inc. that are meant to be used at a camp site to craft implying it is part of the Ling Rest and the teaser video for crafting 5.5e made it sound like crafting and spell preparation is part of the long rest along with gaining the new spells. I get it if these classes should be slowing parties way way way down but no one is really playing it like that except when it comes to me being an Alchemist because, yes I know, Alchemy is utterly broken but it is unfair to ignore the spellcasters who should be also slowing everyone down which would build in the time for me the Alchemist time to brew. It also kind of does make martials make sense since they wouldn't need weeks to prepare a spell and could just get the drop on us prep-time required classes; but again, no one really plays it like that.

Maybe they left this up to the DM to decide because, yeah, we do all do things differently. I mean how many of you weigh coinage? Nonetheless, some concrete clarity would be nice.

That does raise some further questions, at least in me.

Would sorcerers and warlocks become preferred because they don't need to memorize spells?
What about Clerics and Druids? Would meditation on nature and prayers to gods take as much time? What about Paladins?
Would manually tending wounds eat into time since that can be a lengthy process. (I have changed bandages and tended wounds IRL, it takes time.) 
Spending Hit Die is very Vague so what would that look like? Would it be tending wounds? Would it be collecting your thoughts? Is HitPoints even physical damage or a vague 'lucky dodge capacity' which is a whole other conversation. 
Is weapon maintenance a thing? They had Whetstones as part of the kit in 5E so when do you use them? What about Armor maintenance?
Is a basic quarterstaff that can be used as an Arcane focus just a stick of the right length or are there extra steps to make it be able to handle magic?
How long does it take to turn an item into a focus? Does it vary on the class? Would a druid be able to put some sticks and a few bones or feathers together to make a focus while a Cleric needs an entire manufacturing process?

Then when you ask all these questions you start to realize you are getting extremely simulationist and that certain classes are needlessly disadvantaged. Even with clear answers, would those answers be fair or is there BS built into the rules that are hold overs from older editions that are interacting poorly with the current flow?
it is simpler to just ask the DM for their take than to make sense of vague rules that would need a semester of Debate team experience to argue out among the Dev team before they made a ruling. 

How i would do it, is I would look at the complexity of the task. Just putting some herbs in water or Alcohol to steep would be fine. Doing an oil infusion then turning that into a salve would take extra time, and a multi-step purification and distillation would take a lot of time.
Same with Crafting a staff or wand. Is it basic? quick if you are lucky, is it not basic like plus one? not so quick. ETC.

Quote from GnollitAll78450 >>

That does raise some further questions, at least in me.

Would sorcerers and warlocks become preferred because they don't need to memorize spells?
What about Clerics and Druids? Would meditation on nature and prayers to gods take as much time? What about Paladins?
Would manually tending wounds eat into time since that can be a lengthy process. (I have changed bandages and tended wounds IRL, it takes time.) 
Spending Hit Die is very Vague so what would that look like? Would it be tending wounds? Would it be collecting your thoughts? Is HitPoints even physical damage or a vague 'lucky dodge capacity' which is a whole other conversation. 
Is weapon maintenance a thing? They had Whetstones as part of the kit in 5E so when do you use them? What about Armor maintenance?
Is a basic quarterstaff that can be used as an Arcane focus just a stick of the right length or are there extra steps to make it be able to handle magic?
How long does it take to turn an item into a focus? Does it vary on the class? Would a druid be able to put some sticks and a few bones or feathers together to make a focus while a Cleric needs an entire manufacturing process?

Then when you ask all these questions you start to realize you are getting extremely simulationist and that certain classes are needlessly disadvantaged. Even with clear answers, would those answers be fair or is there BS built into the rules that are hold overs from older editions that are interacting poorly with the current flow?
it is simpler to just ask the DM for their take than to make sense of vague rules that would need a semester of Debate team experience to argue out among the Dev team before they made a ruling. 

How i would do it, is I would look at the complexity of the task. Just putting some herbs in water or Alcohol to steep would be fine. Doing an oil infusion then turning that into a salve would take extra time, and a multi-step purification and distillation would take a lot of time.
Same with Crafting a staff or wand. Is it basic? quick if you are lucky, is it not basic like plus one? not so quick. ETC.

 I am with you and I think that is why it is unclear. So that the DM can determine for their campaign how long stuff takes. 

Oh and just a heads up Clerics and Druids had the same rule for how long it takes to prepare spells. They had to spend time in prayer or getting in touch with nature. I think only Bards and Sorcerers could get away without the prep time but they also have only a hand full of spells. It may have just been Sorcerer but I think it was also Bard and Warlock didn't exist so no rules there. In the 2e AD&D class books it goes way down into detail about it all.

Anyway, I guess it needs to be a session zero discussion from now on. I don't like derailing games (unless I am playing my fairy Hym Si'il) or causing a fuss and managing downtime, crafting, weights and all that is sort of like a mini game I enjoy doing for the party. I want to know these rules because it is a lot and the DM already has enough burden. I don't cheat, you can ask anyone I've played with, because it is kind of sad if someone has to cheat at make believe. So, my DMs usually let me handle tracking all of that.

The book is pretty specific about magic items, at least. It says "For each day of crafting you must work for 8 hours. If an item requires multiple days, those days needn't be consecutive." So if an item takes more than the two hours you're allowed some light activity, then it can't be done during a Long Rest.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#CraftingMagicItems

As for some of the other examples. I don't think "Writing a letter" is considered crafting. That's just writing a letter. That would be considered light activity for sure.

I also don't believe Wizards need to spend money and time to add their two free level up spells to their book. That would be silly.

That is kind of the issue. It doesn't really say what is and isn't a "light activity" and the only tool that does explicitly say anything is part of the Long Rest are Alchemist Supplies, but yeah, writing a letter using Calligraphy Supplies seems to me at least to be a "light activity" as does using Cook's Utensils and Brewers Supplies along with many others including potions with Alchemist Supplies not listed.

As for Wizard, yeah, sadly it is in there which is kind of dumb. It is in the Wizard Class section right under the notice that you get spells to add at each level. The idea is your Wizard spent those earlier levels learning the spells you are adding to your book. So, you still have to write them in now that you know them. I ignore this rule for Wizards and just let them have their level up spells automatically but Adventurers' League and West March games will require players to pay and spend the time adding them. So it has come up. Actually, it has come up more than brewing potions as part of the Long Rest does. If anything the Scribes Wizard should get to add them in half the time for half the money since they have the quill and ink that allows them to do that for everything else.

"Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a level 1+ Wizard spell, you can copy it into your spellbook if it’s of a level you can prepare and if you have time to copy it. For each level of the spell, the transcription takes 2 hours and costs 50 GP. Afterward you can prepare the spell like the other spells in your spellbook.", https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/phb-2024/character-classes-continued#Wizard 

No, you don't need to manually add the spells. Here's the exact language:

Whenever you gain a Wizard level after 1, add two Wizard spells of your choice to your spellbook.

Very straightforward- at each level, two additional spells are added to your list of preparable spells. In contrast:

Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a level 1+ Wizard spell, you can copy it into your spellbook if it’s of a level you can prepare and if you have time to copy it. For each level of the spell, the transcription takes 2 hours and costs 50 GP. Afterward you can prepare the spell like the other spells in your spellbook.

Note that unlike this, the former does not describe steps that need to be taken to place the spells learned as you level into the book, it simply instructs you- the player- to add them to the list of spells in the book.

As for what is and isn't a "light activity"- that's what the DM is for. Creating an exhaustive list is simply impossible, ergo they provide examples of activities to set a guideline and leave it to each given DM/playgroup to hash out the minutiae. 

Exactly, after Level 1 Add two spells. If you keep going in the level up spells paragraph it tells you those spells are the cumulative result of your Arcane research meaning until you level you're still working it out and haven't perfected the spell. It also says you have to have the spell slots for them indicating they weren't already in your spellbook. Adding a spell to a spell book takes both time and money to add atop the time perfecting the casting. The excerpt is the rules for adding spells and it reads in that first paragraph that the spells you gain during a level up are added not in there already. The only time this doesn't apply is for spells you always have prepared which is at the bottom of the section on spells gained by leveling up indicating the difference. Again, the spells are not already in the spell book. They must be added unless they are always prepared and you cannot add them until you have the spell slots of the appropriate level.

I agree it is silly so I allow Wizards in my campaign to already have them in their spell book as part of the Long Rest but they do still need to be added during that rest. I just roll it all in there. Again, the Adventurers' League pointed out this distinction when I played a Scribes Wizard and wouldn't even let me use the special ink the Scribes Wizard gets as a class feature. It comes down to whether you consider those spells already being in your spell book or if you have to add them and RAW is that you have to add them.

I thought it was bogus and it became a whole thing. Then they got pissed off at the character I rolled up as a replacement since being a Wizard was a drag on time/money because I was playing a Fairy Bard and soft locked five tables by being mischievous. Everyone did laugh about it having a good time but it was determined I couldn't play Hym Si'il in the league anymore. I could still play just not as Hym Si'il. Then finally one of the girls got super jealous when a new girl joined and started flirting with me. I got her number and then the initial girl I wasn't into made a fuss about it and got us both kicked out. Then she asked them to let me back and I told them it was cool if I played but not the new girl. I chose not to return and never called the girl whose number I got. It is some classic D&D drama and not really anything bad about AL. They were just trying to manage everyone and she had been a member longer than I was having only just moved into town at the time. If that gives you an idea of the rule makers who were forcing me to spent time adding my level up spells?

Copying a spell from another spellbook/scroll takes time and money. It has no relation to the level up process aside from the level/slot checks and the end result of the spell ending up in your book.

Also, the special ink of scribes has never been a substitute for the spell scribing cost in official material, that's just a specious munchkin argument. You can tell because the UA specifically included language reducing the cost, and such language is conspicuously absent from the final draft.

Okay, so then spells from leveling up are innate and do not need to be added to the spellbook? No. You're skipping over the first paragraph of that section on "Expanding and Replacing A Spellbook" which reads, "The spells you add to your spellbook as you gain levels reflect your ongoing magical research, but you might find other spells during your adventures that you can add to the book. You could discover a Wizard spell on a Spell Scroll, for example, and then copy it into your spellbook.", it even reads in the example you would be copying these spells to your spellbook possibly from a Spell Scroll you were studying.

And as I said the Adventurers' League ruled that these spells have to be added which takes time and money. Again I get it because it does create space for martials in a world of magic but think it is a bit absurd because it slows games down. Take it up with AL if you want to but their point to me was the spells weren't already in the spellbook. They had to be added and adding spells takes time and money.

The Wizardly Quill does not require Ink at all and is used to copy spells into the spellbook. You are correct that it doesn't say the cost is eschewed but if the specialized Ink to scribe a spell is not required then it should logically be cheaper than it would be for other Wizards to add spells. I wasn't in the UA. I came to 5e almost as it was completing the run. Honestly, I preferred 2e AD&D and 3.5e despite how clunky those editions could be and those were the editions my friends played. I didn't play online and then when I did I had to switch to 5e because that is what people play online; or at least I thought before I joined Ed Greenwood's Discord where a bunch of us old heads are at.

Edit: Almost forgot they gave example crafting items. They could have easily provided example crating effort for each tool set too. They didn't.

Quote from LonestarF1 >>

The book is pretty specific about magic items, at least. It says "For each day of crafting you must work for 8 hours. If an item requires multiple days, those days needn't be consecutive." So if an item takes more than the two hours you're allowed some light activity, then it can't be done during a Long Rest.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#CraftingMagicItems

As for some of the other examples. I don't think "Writing a letter" is considered crafting. That's just writing a letter. That would be considered light activity for sure.

I also don't believe Wizards need to spend money and time to add their two free level up spells to their book. That would be silly.

But the problem with the DMG rules is that its built on the assumption of down time BETWEEN adventures, while most tables have no down time for pacing reasons.    Once you have an Artificer in a group, all the issues with the crafting system become front and center.  Its also one of the reasons Crafting/Harvesting supplements are among the most popular and numerous resources dedicated to a single subject in 5e's common rule set.  

Going back to the OP, the rules are vague on purpose, and put onus on the DM to adjudicate things.  And DM continue to be confused by it, because the few examples and advise it does give are very impractical when an adventure is already under way.   It took me literal months to explain to the DM that as an Artificer who is managing potion crafting (because we don't have a cleric), I have to do a lot of record keeping, and he needs to let me know how time passes.   So his first "solution" was to make me declare a current crafting project, and down time would count toward its creation...... which sounds reasonable, until he starts time skipping 3 days worth of travel, and saying since I hadn't declared an item, I lost those 3 days because my last project was a basic healing potion that takes an afternoon to make.  I had to claw hour of crafting time out of him, and had to give up long rests because I needed to restock potions after a rough battle.  And because the adventure has strict time pressure, stopping for a week has unacceptable consequences for the story. 

Despite having harvesting rules in the campaign, little thought was put into how crafting works, because the DM is so used to using a hide and seek method of requested magic items.  (IE, players have to ask for specific items, and they 'hidden' within the game world.  Meaning the thing you needed at level 4 doesn't get found until level 9, and couldn't be bought at magic item shops because they're ungodly expensive, and we barely get any gold since all the non-boss encounters are either wild animals or soldiers and guards of established cities).   

We tried Tasha's and Xanathar's rules, but they were only marginally better and still way to expensive and nebulous to get approval to make most items that we actually wanted.   Then Heliana's came out, and it 3 of us a full month to convince him to let us use rules from that book, since it had a proper set of tables for time and difficulty, consistent rules for material harvesting, and enough magic item recipes to extrapolate out to items not covered directly in the book.   For simplicity we ignored the quirks/boons, but use almost everything else.  I then made two inventories on my sheet for crafting.  One is the massive "wish list" of items the party is interested in having, and exists because I frequently forget the name of an item, and don't want to crawl the magic item section of DDB to find it again.   The second is an "active projects" inventory, which has all the items I'm currently trying to make, and each item has notes about time invested, components used, for which character, and anything else I need to remember.   I told the DM to periodically check that inventory in case he wants to black list an item; and when a project is finished, he can easily find it in the inventory (so he knows what it does) before I hand it out the intended recipient.  On his part, he lets me track hours on my own for uneventful travel, but if something is happening, I WILL get on his case about how many hours a series of events took, or the time of day, and work out what that time was being used to accomplish.   

Because I might spend 4 hours investigating documents for information for the story, and then spend a couple hours making arrows, and then at the Inn work on a scroll until he falls asleep half way through.   Wake up the next day, make food for the party (because all my characters is the party cook for some reason), which takes up an hour or two..... then gather herbs for healing potions (roll to see results, and how much time it costed), brew stuff in the cart while we're traveling for 6 hours, work on the scroll some more while the Fighter and Druid harass some sentient creature until it triggers an encounter, maybe harvest some monster parts from the encounter, set up camp and make supper (usually from monster meat),  spend the rest of that night and part of the next morning carving a bone whistle because the Necromancer needed it for a spell, then get a long rest while traveling, and then take first watch in camp later that night. Following that, its usually me trying to burn or smoke something that will go into our supplies while someone takes second watch, then sleep until we hit the road again in the morning.  I have a stock of "Potions of Watchful Rest" so I can still get long rest benefits while baby sitting a fire or still overnight.

Literally nothing in the DMG hints that the above is something that can work.   And it shows how much effort has to get put in by the group to invent a solution the game actively doesn't to address with even a functional example.  

Quote from heydanseegil >>

Okay, so then spells from leveling up are innate and do not need to be added to the spellbook? No. You're skipping over the first paragraph of that section on "Expanding and Replacing A Spellbook" which reads, "The spells you add to your spellbook as you gain levels reflect your ongoing magical research, but you might find other spells during your adventures that you can add to the book. You could discover a Wizard spell on a Spell Scroll, for example, and then copy it into your spellbook.", it even reads in the example you would be copying these spells to your spellbook possibly from a Spell Scroll you were studying.

And as I said the Adventurers' League ruled that these spells have to be added which takes time and money. Again I get it because it does create space for martials in a world of magic but think it is a bit absurd because it slows games down. Take it up with AL if you want to but their point to me was the spells weren't already in the spellbook. They had to be added and adding spells takes time and money.

The Wizardly Quill does not require Ink at all and is used to copy spells into the spellbook. You are correct that it doesn't say the cost is eschewed but if the specialized Ink to scribe a spell is not required then it should logically be cheaper than it would be for other Wizards to add spells. I wasn't in the UA. I came to 5e almost as it was completing the run. Honestly, I preferred 2e AD&D and 3.5e despite how clunky those editions could be and those were the editions my friends played. I didn't play online and then when I did I had to switch to 5e because that is what people play online; or at least I thought before I joined Ed Greenwood's Discord where a bunch of us old heads are at.

Edit: Almost forgot they gave example crafting items. They could have easily provided example crating effort for each tool set too. They didn't.

If you are going that hard into the literal RAW and joining those two features together, then technically you can't add spells to your spellbook from a level-up as the language you are using to do so specifies spells that you "find". As spells from level-ups are not "found", you do not apply that language to them, but if you insist that the blurb from "Copying a Spell into the Book" is the only way to add spells to your spellbook, then the Wizard can't actually add them.

This is, of course, ridiculous. The text outlining the time and money required to copy spells into your spellbook simply doesn't apply to spells you add through your level-up.