In Xanathar's, adamantine armour would seem to take only 2 work weeks to complete, even if it's plated mail. Is that correct or is this in addition to the time it takes to create the base armour?
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
I think that time is in addition since the PHB states that for the making of a normal plate of armour by yourself you need 300 days, which is a far greater time.
1) Non-magical items only progress at 5GP of value per day, while magic items progress at 25GP per day
2) Neither the DMG nor Xanathar's Guide to Everything indicate anything about needing a base item to enchant already at hand in order to make a magic item, which leaves folks with the assumption that the creation or obtaining of the base materials or items is part of the crafting cost
3) Adamantine Plate, which is a magic version of an item with a base cost of 1,500G, has a listed price of 100-500G, and a crafting cost of 500G, with no notes that it is in addition to the base price of the item.
All of the above means that even if you say the material cost is in addition to the base item, you have a total cost of 2,000, which at 25GP per day is STILL way faster than crafting a non-magical version (80 days vs 300)
So if you're asking as a player, I will say that per RAW, you are 100% correct, it does indeed appear that a valid reading and interpretation of the rules has a magic version of plate mail costing 1/3 as much as non-magic plate mail and being made in 2 weeks vs a year, due to either inadequate clarification or oversight. Good luck with that though, I highly doubt your DM would allow it to work that way.
If you're asking as a DM, the easiest solution and fix is to require the base items to be used for the creation of the magic item to be present and good to go at the Start of the process of creating the magic item, and make those totally discrete. At that point you'd either have to pay for a non-magic plate mail and then pay the additional amount and spend the time to make it magical, or craft it non-magically and then separately enchant it, ensuring it takes longer (though not much longer!) to make a magic version than a non-magic version. This is not in opposition to RAW at all and does not require any houserules, as the base rules simply do not specify either way whether the actual item being converted into a magic item is included in the cost, value, and production times.
For what it's worth, as a kinda separate point but not really that separate, I houserule that production of non-magic items *also* progresses at a 25GP rate per day, which 1) Makes production times for armor and such much more in line with reality, 2) makes blacksmithing and other crafting actually worth the time of the players, and 3) helps prevent a still further skewing of things towards magic users vs non-magic users in the game world. Just my humble opinion, and not relevant to my answer, which is not reliant on this houserule, just felt it appropriate to point it out.
Given that I mentioned Xanathar's in the first sentence, as the first word, it's fairly obvious that I'm not going to be using the DMG rules. If I was to include the base cost of plated mail, then the Xanathar's rules would mean it would take 40 days (30 days for base, 10 days for uncommon) to make a suit of adamantine plated mail.
There is a potential argument to warrant the lesser time of 10 days to create a suit of adamantine plated mail, however. Firstly, it requires specialised knowledge in the form of a formula, as well as exotic ingredients that require adventuring, and there can be complications during the creation process. It's also involving magic, and magic speeds up everything.
The argument against the complications being a factor in the shorter time, however, is that you only have a 10% chance of experiencing a complication per every 5 work weeks (25 days). That means there's no chance of a complication unless you're making an item with a rare or higher rarity. Then again, that brings up the issue of separation between base and magic items; the complication chance wouldn't come up during the base item phase, so it would be no different for common and uncommon items anyway.
All in all, this smacks of these systems having very little testing and revision before publication, IMO.
I think I'm going to go with adding the base item for time required, however I'm also going to determine that to be part and parcel of the magical item creation process. Essentially I'll be saying that you can't imbue magic in any old base item; it has to be especially prepared to receive the magic, and so the base item isn't a regular base item.
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"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
Given that I mentioned Xanathar's in the first sentence, as the first word, it's fairly obvious that I'm not going to be using the DMG rules. If I was to include the base cost of plated mail, then the Xanathar's rules would mean it would take 40 days (30 days for base, 10 days for uncommon) to make a suit of adamantine plated mail.
There is a potential argument to warrant the lesser time of 10 days to create a suit of adamantine plated mail, however. Firstly, it requires specialised knowledge in the form of a formula, as well as exotic ingredients that require adventuring, and there can be complications during the creation process. It's also involving magic, and magic speeds up everything.
The argument against the complications being a factor in the shorter time, however, is that you only have a 10% chance of experiencing a complication per every 5 work weeks (25 days). That means there's no chance of a complication unless you're making an item with a rare or higher rarity. Then again, that brings up the issue of separation between base and magic items; the complication chance wouldn't come up during the base item phase, so it would be no different for common and uncommon items anyway.
All in all, this smacks of these systems having very little testing and revision before publication, IMO.
I think I'm going to go with adding the base item for time required, however I'm also going to determine that to be part and parcel of the magical item creation process. Essentially I'll be saying that you can't imbue magic in any old base item; it has to be especially prepared to receive the magic, and so the base item isn't a regular base item.
No, it is not obvious, because you did not specify it. And no, it would not be 40 days under those rules. Using the rules from Xanathar, you take the base item price and divide by 50, which results in 30, sure. However, that is the number of work weeks the item takes to complete, not days. Adding in the 2 work weeks from the magic item and you're looking at 32 work weeks, or 224 days.
Were you to apply my homebrew and quintuple the base item creation speed to make it equivalent to the speed with which magic items are made in terms of GP/day values, you'd have it instead take 6 work weeks base, +2 for the magic item, meaning 8 work weeks, or 56 days. Note that under Xanathar's rules everything is sped up a bit (2 work weeks or 10 working days out of 14 for a item that otherwise would take 20 days under base rules, 30 work weeks or 210 days vs the 300 from base rules) but the speed up rate is roughly equivalent between normal and magic items, which means the correct adjustment factor to equalize magic and non-magic items would indeed still be 5x base speed for non-magic items.
No, it is not obvious, because you did not specify it.
Well, not obvious to you, obviously. But definitely obvious to most people.
And no, it would not be 40 days under those rules. Using the rules from Xanathar, you take the base item price and divide by 50, which results in 30, sure. However, that is the number of work weeks the item takes to complete, not days. Adding in the 2 work weeks from the magic item and you're looking at 32 work weeks, or 224 days.
Sorry, yes, I was wrong, I forgot to change workweeks to days for the base item. You're still wrong, though; a work week is 5 days, so the total time would be 160 days, not 224.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
No, it is not obvious, because you did not specify it.
Well, not obvious to you, obviously. But definitely obvious to most people.
And no, it would not be 40 days under those rules. Using the rules from Xanathar, you take the base item price and divide by 50, which results in 30, sure. However, that is the number of work weeks the item takes to complete, not days. Adding in the 2 work weeks from the magic item and you're looking at 32 work weeks, or 224 days.
Sorry, yes, I was wrong, I forgot to change workweeks to days for the base item. You're still wrong, though; a work week is 5 days, so the total time would be 160 days, not 224.
You are not most people. You do not have any idea whether it is or is not obvious to most people, and are in the Worst position to judge it, as you are the one counting on THEM finding it obvious what YOU did not state, which is of course obvious to YOU, as you're the one who knew it but did not state it. Don't speak for others, they can speak for themselves. In the future, if you wish someone to take something into account, just state it. Don't rely on your completely unstated assumptions to be obvious to everyone else. As the ONLY person who has responded, it was not obvious to me, so you're batting a 0.000% right now based on people who are NOT YOU responding. Just keep that in mind.
As to the work weeks, they're called work weeks for a reason. If you've ever worked 7 days a week 8 hrs a day for any extended period of time, you already know why that's a bad idea. I even stated and accounted for them being 5 days of work out of the 7, "2 work weeks or 10 working days out of 14", so it's fairly obvious to most people ;-P that I'm assuming you only work 5 days out of 7, like, you know, a normal work week. Certainly if you wish to power through and work every day it can be accomplished faster, and yes you are correct as to the number of days spent actively crafting, and there are no penalties listed for overworking yourself. So yes, your figure is a more accurate one, as it's not reliant on any assumptions.
Edit: As it is impossible to properly convey tone through raw text, the bolded "fairly obvious to most people" is meant to be a joke poking fun at myself for failing to state my own assumptions. As I attempted to make clear, I could and should have had greater clarity in my initial statements on the subject, as 1) there was no reason to assume at all, and 2) only the number of crafting days is relevant since in normal gameplay they will be broken up by adventuring or other downtime activities anyway. So I'm not trying to be hypocritical here, it's just a joke.
No, it is not obvious, because you did not specify it.
Well, not obvious to you, obviously. But definitely obvious to most people.
You are not most people. You do not have any idea whether it is or is not obvious to most people, and are in the worst position to judge it, as you are the one counting on THEM finding it obvious what YOU did not state, which is of course obvious to YOU, as you're the one who knew it but did not state it. Don't speak for others, they can speak for themselves. In the future, if you wish someone to take something into account, just state it. Don't rely on your completely unstated assumptions to be obvious to everyone else. As the ONLY person who has responded, it was not obvious to me, so you're batting a 0.000% right now based on people who are NOT YOU responding. Just keep that in mind.
At a guess, everyone else either doesn't care, doesn't want to get involved, or--like me--doesn't want to get banned for going off-topic. That is based solely on the reasons I have for not mentioning whether or not I find it obvious, though, so the rest of the forum could have entirely different reasons.
I just went off-topic, didn't I? Oh well. While I'm digging my own grave, I might as well mention that I now have no way to determine whether or not I would've found it obvious if I hadn't run into your little argument.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
In Xanathar's, adamantine armour would seem to take only 2 work weeks to complete, even if it's plated mail. Is that correct or is this in addition to the time it takes to create the base armour?
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
I think that time is in addition since the PHB states that for the making of a normal plate of armour by yourself you need 300 days, which is a far greater time.
What page or section are you referencing which makes you believe it's only 2 weeks to complete? I'd love to know what you're referencing.
Both Xanathar's Guide to Everything and the DMG suggest a time of 14-20 days for the crafting of an uncommon magic item.
Ah I see the issue. So let's break it down:
1) Non-magical items only progress at 5GP of value per day, while magic items progress at 25GP per day
2) Neither the DMG nor Xanathar's Guide to Everything indicate anything about needing a base item to enchant already at hand in order to make a magic item, which leaves folks with the assumption that the creation or obtaining of the base materials or items is part of the crafting cost
3) Adamantine Plate, which is a magic version of an item with a base cost of 1,500G, has a listed price of 100-500G, and a crafting cost of 500G, with no notes that it is in addition to the base price of the item.
All of the above means that even if you say the material cost is in addition to the base item, you have a total cost of 2,000, which at 25GP per day is STILL way faster than crafting a non-magical version (80 days vs 300)
So if you're asking as a player, I will say that per RAW, you are 100% correct, it does indeed appear that a valid reading and interpretation of the rules has a magic version of plate mail costing 1/3 as much as non-magic plate mail and being made in 2 weeks vs a year, due to either inadequate clarification or oversight. Good luck with that though, I highly doubt your DM would allow it to work that way.
If you're asking as a DM, the easiest solution and fix is to require the base items to be used for the creation of the magic item to be present and good to go at the Start of the process of creating the magic item, and make those totally discrete. At that point you'd either have to pay for a non-magic plate mail and then pay the additional amount and spend the time to make it magical, or craft it non-magically and then separately enchant it, ensuring it takes longer (though not much longer!) to make a magic version than a non-magic version. This is not in opposition to RAW at all and does not require any houserules, as the base rules simply do not specify either way whether the actual item being converted into a magic item is included in the cost, value, and production times.
For what it's worth, as a kinda separate point but not really that separate, I houserule that production of non-magic items *also* progresses at a 25GP rate per day, which 1) Makes production times for armor and such much more in line with reality, 2) makes blacksmithing and other crafting actually worth the time of the players, and 3) helps prevent a still further skewing of things towards magic users vs non-magic users in the game world. Just my humble opinion, and not relevant to my answer, which is not reliant on this houserule, just felt it appropriate to point it out.
I think I'm going to go with adding the base item for time required, however I'm also going to determine that to be part and parcel of the magical item creation process. Essentially I'll be saying that you can't imbue magic in any old base item; it has to be especially prepared to receive the magic, and so the base item isn't a regular base item.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
Well, not obvious to you, obviously. But definitely obvious to most people.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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