Long Rest Downtime Spell Prep and Crafting

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 have a brother, a sister-in-law who are retired RNs and a cousin who over the course of his lifetime was an Army medic, then a fire fighter and RN. Trivializing the healing arts is some thing that I avoid.

I had always assumed that a quarter staff was a six foot long length of relatively straight wood that had metallic bands around each end to prevent the staff from splintering. For such a weapon to be used as a spell focus, probably an arcane sigil might be inscribed into each band.

The 2024 PHB states that it takes about one work day to make one potion of healing. To me, that means you first take a Long Rest, then you are ready for the potion making. Trying to cram healthful, needful rest into the same time period as potion making, scroll scribing and other activities seems ludicrous to me.

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.

 True, warlocks and sorcerers do not memorize their spells because those spells are seared into their minds, and in the case of a warlock, only one of those spells can be swapped out when the warlock gains a new level. That is the boon of a sorcerer or warlock (no clumsy, heavy spell tome) and the bane of a sorcerer or warlock, because their spells can not be swapped out easily.

Quote from GeijerFeyLock >>

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.

 True, warlocks and sorcerers do not memorize their spells because those spells are seared into their minds, and in the case of a warlock, only one of those spells can be swapped out when the warlock gains a new level. That is the boon of a sorcerer or warlock (no clumsy, heavy spell tome) and the bane of a sorcerer or warlock, because their spells can not be swapped out easily.

 Yeah, they are spontaneous casters. In older editions they, before Warlock was around, they would still have to use downtime to prepare their own spells. It was significantly less than Wizards, but they still had to do some sort of ritual or something. I think what they were going for is a balance between how long it takes to prepare and how powerful the class is. The classes that require the most downtime i.e. Artificers are the strongest then Wizards then the spontaneous casters all the way down to the Marital classes like Fighters. A level 20 Fighter can still mess most things up but a Level 20 Wizard who is prepared? Not a chance, but where the Fighter shines is their ability to enter and win most fights without hesitation. A Wizard who hasn't memorized their spells is screwed. Artificers can give away their powers to others which is why they are technically the strongest. Wizards can raise undead armies, but an Artificer can outfit their own with enchanted gear. It just takes longer.

You want finely detailed explanations of what goes on during a Short Rest, when players can spend Hit Dice to recover from their wounds!? Just how many pages of either the DMG or the PHB do you want the developers and editors to devote to this matter? Does Wizards of the Coast need to add the entire field medical guide of the U.S. Army to the next edition of the PHB? The 2024 PHB does not provide excruciating details of what happens with the spending of Hit Dice because that would slow the game down even more and most people do not want to spend an entire day inside a hospital's emergency department: I have frequently been inside one, even when my life has been saved, it has been a bore.

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.

 Exactly how much detail do the PHB and the DMG have to include regarding the care and maintenance of a character's clothing, food stuffs and gear? Do these books have to include a chapter on the correct method of using a whetstone, or a chapter on how to correctly sew a doublet or a cod piece or a chapter on how to prepare a seasoned ground fish pie?

Are you willing to pay a $100 or more for a 2000 page PHB that submerges you into what medieval life was really like, where diseases like small pox, chicken pox, measles, mumps, diphtheria could wipe out entire villages? Where diseases like polio, cancer, and various corona viruses were seen as divine retribution?