There's a new way to craft in Dungeons & Dragonswith the advent of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. The new printing of the DMG brings about a great deal of new mechanics, but also revamps and reestablishes many of those that already existed. One concept getting a total makeover in the new version of the Fifth Edition is that of crafting. Crafting has always been a part of 5e, but the rules around it were previously a little too loose, requiring only the requisite tools, proficiencies, and DM discretion. This made it difficult to craft specific items without a lot of improvisation.
Now, though, in the 2024 DMG, the rules around crafting are specific, concrete, and established - though not totally unflexible. Players need to have access to the right materials, tools, and skills in order to craft highly specific items, and there's a definitive way to determine whether the process succeeds or fails. However, they also have access to a much wider variety of crafting recipes, allowing them to create everything from mundane tools, traps, and tackle to potent magical items. Here's everything to know about DnD's new crafting systems.
D&D's New Crafting System Explained
Everything You Need To Know About Crafting In The 2024 DMG
The materials and prerequisites for crafting, as well as the items players can craft, have been greatly refined and clarified in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. To begin with, players can craft items across four different categories: magic items, nonmagical items, potions, and spell scrolls. In order to craft any of the above, players must have access to the requisite tools, and must have proficiency in them.
Some staples of D&D 5e adventures up to this point might be going out the window, and experienced DMs probably won't be sorry to see them go.
These basic rules apply to crafting all items, regardless of their nature. However, there are special provisions for crafting magical items, potions, and spell scrolls, as detailed below.
How Crafting Potions & Spells Works
Special Crafting Recipes In The 2024 DMG
As in earlier printings of 5e, players can also craft potions and spell scrolls using 5e's new crafting rules. Perhaps the most earth-shattering revelation is that players can now craft Potions of Healing in DnD. This works much like crafting nonmagical items, but with a special provision applied for its relative simplicity. While the time it takes to craft an item is normally determined by its cost, a Potion of Healing only takes one in-game day to craft.
Players can craft a wide variety of other potions, too, so long as they have proficiency with the Herbalist's Kit. However, some other potions are considered magic items, and subject to the unique rules around crafting them (see below).
More magically-inclined players can also craft spell scrolls, per the 2024 rules. In order to do so, they must have proficiency in either Arcana or Calligrapher's Tools, and have the spell they're scribing, along with any material components, prepared whenever they wish to work on the scroll. Spell scrolls also have special time and cost restrictions, which are determined by the spell's level as described in the table below.
Spell Level
Crafting Time
Crafting Cost
Cantrip
1 day
15 GP
1
1 day
25 GP
2
3 days
100 GP
3
5 days
150 GP
4
10 days
1,000 GP
5
25 days
1,500 GP
6
40 days
10,000 GP
7
50 days
12,500 GP
8
60 days
15,000 GP
9
120 days
50,000 GP
Note that these crafting costs are generally much lower than they were in the previous printing. With all that in mind, players can craft spell scrolls just as they would any other item. The only other thing to remember is that, for cantrips that scale with the caster's level, the player that casts the spell scroll can cast it as though they were of the scriber's level. For example, if a fifth-level wizard crafts a sacred flame spell scroll, and then it's later cast by a second-level cleric, it'll deal 2d8 damage as if used by a fifth-level caster.
How Crafting Magic Items Works
Advanced Item Crafting In The 2024 DMG
It's no secret that magic items are a major part of DnD since its 2024 revision, and the changes to magic items extend to crafting, too. Players can now craft magic items of various levels, but each one comes with certain restrictions that don't apply to crafting the mundane. In addition to the usual prerequisites, players must also have proficiency in Arcana in order to craft a magic item. If it can cast a spell, like the Wand of Magic Missile, the player must also know the spell it can cast.
Players can craft any magic items except artifacts.
If the magic item is simply an enchanted version of a regular one, then players can craft it using a mundane version of that item. For example, given any sword, a player can create a Sword of Wounding as long as they meet the other prerequisites.
In addition, calculating the cost of crafting a magic item is different from crafting a mundane item. Instead of simply halving the item's purchase cost, the price of a magic item's raw materials is directly based on the rarity of the desired result.
How Crafting Items Works
All Crafting Rules & Rolls In The 2024 DMG
Once again, the changes in the DM's Guideexplain that crafting any item requires a particular tool and proficiency in it. For example, only players with proficiency with Carpenter's Tools can build a ladder or torch, and only those with proficiency in Potter's Tools can make a jug or a lamp. These tools each have defined costs and uses in the DMG, explaining exactly how much a player will have to pay to obtain them, and what they can craft with the right proficiency.
In addition, each specific tool is associated with a specific ability score, allowing for more defined dice rolls to determine the quality of a crafted item. Players receive Advantage on their crafting checks if they have proficiency in both the tool they're using and its associated skill. They can also receive help from any other players or NPCs who also have proficiency in that tool.
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Each crafted item also has an inherent cost, which represents the need to obtain raw materials before making the item. The cost of the raw materials required for an item is half its purchase price, rounded down - for example, a Potion of Healing costs 50 GP, so the raw materials to craft one would cost 25. This is at the DM's discretion, though, as they may decide that the particular raw materials the player needs aren't available, and thus the item cannot be crafted.
Finally, there's time; each crafted item also requires a certain number of in-game days to craft, so long as the player is able to devote eight full hours of each day to working on the object. In order to determine the time required to craft an item, divide its purchase price by ten, then round up. A 1,500 GP suit of Plate Armor, for example, would take 150 days to craft.
The days spent crafting an item don't need to be consecutive
; a player can put a crafting object on the back burner while adventuring, then return to work on it during downtime between sessions.
The introduction of more well-defined mechanics around it means that crafting is likely to become a much bigger part of 5e. Tool proficiencies are more important than ever before, and crafting everything, from the most mundane Potion of Healing to an all-powerful Legendary weapon, is now much more accessible. Whether they're incorporating them into a long-running campaign, or starting a brand new one with the new play materials, players and DMs both have a lot to gain by reading up on the new crafting mechanics in Dungeons & Dragons.
Dungeons and Dragons is a popular tabletop game originally invented in 1974 by Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson. The fantasy role-playing game brings together players for a campaign with various components, including abilities, races, character classes, monsters, and treasures. The game has drastically expanded since the '70s, with numerous updated box sets and expansions.
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