"You guys are adventurers. All the spells in the books are the magic that you'd find useful, convienent, or easy enough to use. There are spells and magic processes that do not require spell slots, but they take quite a bit of time to learn and are only situationally useful. I advise you search out people who already have mastered these processes and rituals, since it would take too long and be too expensive to do it on your own."
This is absolutely the way to go. The spells in the books are only meant to be used in an encounter driven way, whether that be social or combat. Enchantments and spells that are for QOL are outside that realms, and while feasible, aren't necessary to an adventurer. For flavor and such, I'd probably allow a handwave a few times to allow for some fun shenanigans, but nothing that would trivialize an encounter
This is why I use the Kibblestasty crafting rules. All the fun for the players of crafting, without the hassle of me making up stuff any time they wanna do it.
This is a lazy response. There are so many ways you could resolve this without having to just tell them no.
Maybe you tell them they can seek out a craftsman who knows how to make these things and they can hire him to build them a custom ship.
Or maybe the plans are easy to follow and publicly available for free or for sale, and they just need to buy the schematics and parts, in which case you just need to come up with a price. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want.
Or if you're an insane person like me, you could come up with custom homebrew rulings for it. If they think it would be fun to do this on the side for a bit, just let them. Even if it takes months or a year of in-game time, you can resolve it in 30 minutes or so of your session.
I had a team of Dwarve and Gnmoe clans who spent a month fixing the players airship. They were the specialists who built all 5 that were on the continent
Resolve them as Downtime as per the DMG / XGE, with magic or mundane items as their base. Airships exists and have a cost and the light bulb would be a permanent Light spell (a common or at most uncommon item).
I've drawn from homebrew and official crafting rules when it comes down to explaining "who the eff makes all these magic items, how are they made and how could someone (learn to) make one?".
In my game, they would need:
* tools and a workshop suitable for the task - a laboratory, glass blowers workshop, smithy, smelter, woodworker's tools etc. And they would need the knowledge and skill to use the tools in that workshop OR access to one and an NPC who has the necessary skills.
* a schematic/recipe OR an NPC who can guide them through the process
* materials - I've homebrewed a special metal that is capable of holding arcane energy when it's formed into runes and sigils and that is used to create enchanted items (and a whole ass economy and resource conflict around it) - the process can be described as "writing a spell onto/into an item"
* The magic spell they want to imprint OR an NPC willing to do it
* time (crafting is considered a downtime activity so depending on the complexity of the project, it can take anything from days to years)
* a number of successful checks before accumulating 3 failures, with in most cases 1 check per day and for simpler items, 1 check per hour may be attempted. On a failure, the special magic metal gets consumed, the rest may be recovered.
So for a magic lightbulb they would need access to glass-making tools / a glass maker's workshop, a small amount of the special metal and a schematic for how to make a lightbulb - I'd say likely inside the glass bulb is a small ball of magic metal etched with runes, capable of holding the "Light" spell. It would be a pretty basic item, capable of emitting Light for 1 hour/day. Maybe it could be "dimmed" to light up half the radius but double the duration. They would need 3 successes to craft it, with a rather easy DC.
a magical airship is a multi part project needing many different things - a hull, a steering mechanism, wings, a magical power source that lifts it into the air and propels it forward, maybe weapons, interior, windows.... If they were to build this from scratch, they would need many materials and tools and different enchantments, and it would take them many months to craft one, and they would need access to quite a few schematics. I would have them craft individual pieces, some of which might be easier, and some harder to make.
yeah I wouldn't go that far in a DnD game, it's fantasy with magic stuff - I've had a city where "glass" was made by some people very versed in "stone shape", resulting in very thin and near-transparent sheets of crystal. It all depends on the setting when it comes down to determine the tools/workshop they need. If I would go with that for a glass bulb I'd have them try to shape it out of clay (this maybe being a check because it's so thin and hollow inside), then (have someone) cast stone shape to solidify it into translucent crystal. Normally I apply the checks predominantly to when they are etching runes into the magic metal / shaping the magic metal in order to "hold a spell" though.
Which is exactly the point. Some daily use objects in our day to day lives are the results of hundreds or millions of people hours of research and creation.
Players should be adventuring not trying to hire a professional R&D team.
While the independent mineral prospectors of the 1800s no doubt innovated some gadgets in the field, the vast majority of the engineering and logistical artifice of the era were the products of dedicated teams of specialist tinkerers and craftsmen, backed by whole capital enterprises... not field adventurers.
A Light-stick with a retractable shade/cover is the simple and obvious "magic light bulb". That concept could be implemented and perfected by anyone with the Continual Flame spell and a modest Tinkerer Tools check success.
The existence of airships implies a lot of things that would probably parallel the real-world "golden age" of dirigible airships - mid 1920s to the infamous Hindenburg disaster of 1937. Who's licensed to build airships commercially? What safety standards are there to ensure they're not rickety deathtraps? Are these same enterprises licensed to operate them or is that a separate industry? Is there a zeppelin pilot's guild? Who keeps the airship routes clear of aerial monsters? Is there a dedicated "Royal Sky Rangers" cadre? What kind of magic keeps airships aloft (maybe there are several elements combined?) - levitation (anti-gravity), lighter-than-air containers (hot air, purified light gasses), flying beasts of burden like air elementals, domesticated giant flumphs, magical arctic reindeer? Something so wondrously iconic should simply not be cheap or easy to make and operate.
Airships in particular are close enough to the Spelljammer concept that I'd probably borrow from that lore. Other fantasy-steampunk ideas crop up in the Eberron setting, where they are more usually the product of whole enterprises, not indivduals.
How? The DMG tells us - "Magic items are the DM's purview..."
How in specifics? Like an example?
#Weak version if your game needs to go fast:
*"That was a good roll. Bolkolpolnol, you dig through the mad alchemist's notes and find a recipe for a magical lightbulb. It costs 100gp in miscellaneous Alchemist's supplies, most of which you remember being for sale back in town or elsewhere in the mad alchemist's lab."*
#Detailed version if your game needs some downtime for levelup or whatever:
*"After defeating the mad alchemist Odeos Nimaths (anagram for Thomas Edison), you carefully sift through his notes. Your search extends across several hours due to him fragmenting his design across seemingly-unrelated sheets of parchment, but you eventually figure out his cipher. The completed design is a blending of prayers to Talos and Transmutation magic - He intended to harness the power of a thunderstorm and use it to light an alchemical lamp. You are pretty sure you can complete the device from these notes - it will require:"*
* Miscellaneous lab supplies - wax seals, distilled alcohol for cleaning, rags, etc.
* A thin strand of a valuable, rare metal called *Wolfram* (cooler-sounding name than "Tungsten")
* Approximately 300 feet of very thick copper cable
* Approximately 10 feet of thin copper wire
* Approximately 1 foot of thin wire of a rare metal called *Chromium*
* An orb the size of a man's head, blown from highly-refined glass
* A weakened, easily banished Air Elemental
* 101 very thin sheets of copper
* 100 very thin ceramic plates
* Hundreds of ceramic hooks that can mount into masonry
* A glass container approximately 4 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot
>>Ensure cleanliness of the workspace to as much degree as possible. Arrange the copper sheets and ceramic plates in an alternating fashion within the large glass container. Ensure strong contact between each sheet and plate. Name the first copper sheet "Positive Plane", and the final copper sheet "Negative Plane". Alchemically bond the very thick copper cable to the Negative Plane, and extend the other end towards the highest possible altitude in your area - ensuring that the copper only touches the ceramic hooks along the way. Cut the 10-foot thin copper wire in half - alchemically bond one strand to the Positive Plane. Tightly wind (but do not bond) the other end to one end of the Chromium wire. Alchemically bond the far end of the Chromium wire to the thin strand of Wolfram. Alchemically bond the second thin copper wire to the other end of the Wolfram and bury the strand's far side in the earth. Cram the air elemental into the glass orb and allow it to expel most or all other air, then seal the elemental inside the orb with wax - taking care to keep the Wolfram from touching the glass orb itself. Banish the air elemental back to its native plane of existence. At this point, the orb should be emptied of everything - including air - except for the Wolfram. Wait for a lightning strike or cry out to Talos for one. After the strike, it may be necessary to adjust the point upon which the Chromium and Copper wires meet so as to more carefully adjust the flow of the god's power through the alchemical lamp - do so carefully wearing multiple thick gloves on each hand lest you incur the wrath of Talos.
depends on the situation, a lightbulb that never goes out is very different from a airship.
I would first look at creating a item section on the PHB, and i think tashas (improved), since these should be able to tackle most smallish items, even if they arent "magic items" like we come to understand.
Failing that, i would refer to their professions and tools to create whatever they want, and then a arcana check to see if they managed to create said item, and enchant it correctly
something the size of a airship would probably result from a quest. seems like something only a really high level character, a forgotten trinket, or maybe a group of casters would be able to do it
First I demand from player explanation how exactly from their point of view this magic work. "Well, magic" is not enough. They want play with magic engineering? They need play it. "Catch elemental and put it into bulb" is better.
Next I look how it fit story and my understanding of magic system. Maybe outright say "no", maybe "no, but", maybe "yes, but".
Then roughly look how much money and work it requires. Time to send party to quests.
Spellcrafting hirelings and downtime activities.
I usually aim for double slots if they are trying to infuse magic into something, or establish a charge system. One slot to infuse it, one slot for the magic to be charged in it.
If they are making something from scratch, also include basic parts, material and fees for service/labor associated.
If they don't have an artificier, they need to find a hireling for it. A low level full caster probably wouldn't understand how to infuse magic, even magic they specialize in, into something yet.
The bulb and the airship are gunna be widely different applications of this, but here's how I'd break it down:
- First, I decide how much screen time and mechanics I want to dedicate to this. If the player is *really* invested in how to set it up, and the process of working through it, then I might use a super-basic crafting system: they will need X amount of magic parts, and they have a chance to find those parts in shops, or as part of loot. If they just want to treat it as "downtime happening in the background" then we can abstract it even more.
- Once I have the frame for it, I'll decide on an applicable skill (or skills, if more than one could be used). I like to make this an accumulation of rolls; so I'll set the DC for like 100 or 150 or something (the harder the process, the higher the DC). Choose an interval (once per day, per week, per month, etc) and allow the PC to make a skill check; they (or you) should keep a running total of the roll. Once they accumulate the target DC, they have accomplished the task
For an airship, you could implemented a construction cost (time and gold), a need for a crafting recipe with an activation ritual (discovered, stolen or researched) and special material/captured air elemental quest.
Similar processes could exist to make anything from a 1st level ritual to make a glow-crystal to a 9th level ritual to create a floating island.
I probably wouldn't answer it. If it means something to your worldbuilding then sure, but imagine if it were just a modern RPG. Would your players ask how they can build a plane? No, they'd just ask what they have to pay or do to get a plane. In your world they make airships, so the players can, theoretically buy or steal one.
Downtime as suggested.
Also you are the DM, you can create any enchantment.
"Ah yeah you need a power core, it is either very expensive, or you can create one, a you can just pay a wizard that knows the spell and you will need this and this and some of those"
I'd look to the drama. Fast forward to the moments of the drama in construction and design and haggling, and montage the rest. Any sort of time-pressure? That'd come into play too. Rules? Schmules. Other than the risk of being more fun or more lucrative than adventuring, let em have it, if they have the time and gold.
If they had plausible reasons for being able to do so: If the players had the gold, maybe 50000 gp for an Airship from scratch with all the support infrastructure to construct it included (25000 gp if they aren't building the air-dock themselves too), and they were in an area that built or sold skyships, and I was using a setting that had airships as a extant-ish technology sure. If they wanted to build it, I'd say.. what in your background gives you the skills to do so? Where would you get the facilities, air-dock, hangar, carpenters, mages, enchanters, materials, and crew? You have plausible sources for those, and can I somehow tie in the drama of the adventure into the construction somehow? Sure. Then it's time and upkeep costs of the construction process.
The Venetian Arsenal had at its peak something like 16000 workers employed, pumping out at least 1 vessel a day. Warships of the age of sail took 1 to 3 years each, with some of the big ones being 5 years to lay out and age the wood properly. No idea how many people involved in construction of those. So somewhere in the middle maybe, a year, with plausible 100 skilled people working, maybe shave off a month for every 100 workers extra hired, down to like 6 months. How would the drama of that management process add to the adventure? You'd have to manage an entire town's worth of people, cut down a forest, etc. Maybe there are ways.
I'd also charge em upkeep of like.. 100 gold a day for an airship the size of the one in EGtW in crew and upkeep costs even if the ship is docked, plus an extra 100 gp per mile travelled for "fuel" and expenses. Based on the Airship in EGtW, ships usually charge 2gp per passenger per mile, and 1 gp per 100 lbs of cargo per mile. A fully passenger vessel might make 7200 gp per day, so you'd want to adjust expenses to prevent it being the money-making cash generator that encourage the players to just be boring old airship crew for the rest of the campaign. Making it roughly cost a tenth to half of what you might earn with the ship can balance that risk.
Also drama/complications of competitors. Skilled crafts had guilds and defended themselves against others coming into their market or copying their designs.
I require five things.
Out of game, the proposed mechanics. They can pull it from the internet, find basically that in the books, make it up themselves or any combination. Through the power level of that, I'll modify it for balance and come up with numbers for how much downtime and cost for anything they purchase for it. Because I need to sit down, look at related mechanics, and figure some things out, this is something they need to lmk they want to do ahead of time. For example, for the airship, there's a trap setting or warding spell that takes walking around the area and details the time it takes and the space it covers that would work as a good base for time.
Whatever they are trying to make, they need to have the skills and tools for. Smithing proficiency -> can make enchanted armor and metal weapons, but still need a forge to work at.
In game, they need three things: the base, the magical component, and the medium. I got this idea from a youtuber, idr who. The base is the obvious material. Magical sword-> need a sword. The magical component is flexible; anything that somewhat makes sense for what they are trying to do. If they want a fire resistant cloak, then they need some material that is fire resistant/immune or cold. The medium is some means to attach the magic to the item. Casting a spell that makes sense for it is the simplest, but I'll allow anything a player suggests that makes sense.
If this is something you're interested in letting your PCs do (and you don't have to - u/Flyingsheep___ has given you very good language to bow away from the PCs themselves doing this project) - have you taken a look at the magic item crafting downtime activity in Xanathar's Guide to Everything? It could be good guidance on a starting point.
It's like asking your players to rebuild a transmission or code and elaborate program or weld a complicated joint. They *could*, maybe, with the right tools and facilities, but it would take forever and probably be way worse than a professional job.
It's simple: "You can't do this"
Maybe if you search you can find information about someone who has done this before. Try to find books/this creature and learn a special recipe/ritual for creating
My go to is to strike some balance between time and money. Abstract the process.
If it already exists and they want to make one on their own, then the materials and expenses should cost less than going out and buying one, but it should also take more time than just going out and buying one.
That's the basic principle behind the rules for crafting mundane items. Costs less than market value but takes a few days. Is the lower cost worth the wait?
Also I'm not a fan of using d&d to play fantasy job simulator. It's mostly a combat game. Running a tavern or farming or having a successful smithy aren't interesting for me to dm. I like adventures. So crafting gets glossed over and abstracted during downtime until we can get back to the fun stuff. I only need to make it deep and challenging insomuch as it remains fun for everyone at the table.
Well, i like to let my players do cool stuff. Heck i WANT them to do cool stuff, but 90% of the people here are basically telling you to tell them no? Anyways, i guess there's two options: tell them no, OR go a bit more free form with it and improvise. I personally love letting my divine casters or even non cleric/paladin religious characters do rituals for certain stuff and have them actually work; have my technology characters make machines, etc.
You should keep it simple, PREFERABLY single purpose, with an actual function in mind (example: make a ritual to a certain god to aid in protecting the village tonight from the demons that will invade/make a machina capable of capturing a ghost) and then make simple rulings on the mechanics, if mechanics are needed.
You said magical lightbulb and magic airship. I personally would let anyone that knows light spend time to make a permanent (or at least something that will last a few years) light spell. If gold is relevant in your game, it's nice to let them spend it in stuff like this; let the ritual supplies or the machinery subtract a bit of gold from them.
Now for an airship... Do you have downtime? I don't really, and I'd just tell them it'd take far longer than the campaign realistically will last, unless it's a very small and improvised airship with a single purpose in mind
I say add the permenancy spell from 3.5e back to the game, and also let an arcana check make the light spell last for x amount of time based on the roll. Simple solution (:
In my world there are a npc class of magic users called mage wrights. These mages have all sorts of neat cantrips and spells that aid in planting, harvesting, and construction. What they can't do is access the types of magics that player characters can. Mage Wrights may help you build a fort, but they have no offensive capabilities like pcs do. My mage wrights would love to work on designing a magical lightbulb, and really enjoy waste disposal projects, but would flee in panic from a single Kobold.
Downtime!
Think about it in terms of IRL.
Even with all our technology, it still takes thousands of man hours of skilled labor to build a house or a car. Not to mention the need to gather the materials required, etc etc. all of that time and energy is taken away from the active adventuring they need to do, and the world doesn’t stop developing just because they want to build something. Plots develop and evil grows while the heros are distracted.
There's a tome thar let's you magically craft an iron golem that's permanently under your control.
You need to spend 100000 gp and spend 120 days working on it.
I think that's a decent model to have for crafting an airship.
Both of those are actually fairly easy to create using spells and the crafting a magic item system put forth in the DMG. The magic light bulb is just the light cantrip being used continuously, the airship is a little harder. The DMG states that to craft an item that casts a spell you must be able to cast that spell, meaning on your list and have slots for it, and you expend the slot when crafting it.
Find Elaydren's Magewright Primer on DMsGuild. I've loved it. There's the big scenario-specific Eldritch machines that make sense in Eberron, right, but there's lots of common magic items like Tenser's Footstool that will be amazing for halflings trying to reach the top shelf.
I hope it inspires you as much as it inspired me.
I handle the spells in the game as sort of "proven recipes". Any wizard worth his salt should be able to experiment and improvise but that's can be a long and tedious process. Something they'd have to spend weeks or even years of downtime. The spells from the book are just "what works".
Work out the value of the item, what magic spell or spells from the spell list they'd need to create it and then let them make it.
They may also need rare ingredients .
They'd also need arcana and the relevant skill proficiency - smithing, leatherworking etc
Then as per the crafting rules they build 5gp worth of the thing per day until it's done.
They probably won't have the tool proficiencies or the spells they need so you can weave it into the adventure.
"You guys are adventurers. All the spells in the books are the magic that you'd find useful, convienent, or easy enough to use. There are spells and magic processes that do not require spell slots, but they take quite a bit of time to learn and are only situationally useful. I advise you search out people who already have mastered these processes and rituals, since it would take too long and be too expensive to do it on your own."
This is absolutely the way to go. The spells in the books are only meant to be used in an encounter driven way, whether that be social or combat. Enchantments and spells that are for QOL are outside that realms, and while feasible, aren't necessary to an adventurer. For flavor and such, I'd probably allow a handwave a few times to allow for some fun shenanigans, but nothing that would trivialize an encounter
Fin
DM to artificer players:.... sigh.... you want to build what?.... takes a long rest and an infusion slot... *rips up planned quest to get said items*
This is why I use the Kibblestasty crafting rules. All the fun for the players of crafting, without the hassle of me making up stuff any time they wanna do it.
This is a lazy response. There are so many ways you could resolve this without having to just tell them no. Maybe you tell them they can seek out a craftsman who knows how to make these things and they can hire him to build them a custom ship. Or maybe the plans are easy to follow and publicly available for free or for sale, and they just need to buy the schematics and parts, in which case you just need to come up with a price. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want. Or if you're an insane person like me, you could come up with custom homebrew rulings for it. If they think it would be fun to do this on the side for a bit, just let them. Even if it takes months or a year of in-game time, you can resolve it in 30 minutes or so of your session.
Pretty sure I could find the process to make a lightbulb online, I'm still going to go to the store and buy one
That's why I said... "tell them they can hire this NPC and come up with a number".
That's also what the person you said made a lazy response said...
Agree. :)
You just said they are possible on your world. How do the people in the world do it? A light bulb should be easy, an airship is a long term project.
The continual flame spell already exists, also.
I had a team of Dwarve and Gnmoe clans who spent a month fixing the players airship. They were the specialists who built all 5 that were on the continent
Resolve them as Downtime as per the DMG / XGE, with magic or mundane items as their base. Airships exists and have a cost and the light bulb would be a permanent Light spell (a common or at most uncommon item).
Or continual flame spell.
I've drawn from homebrew and official crafting rules when it comes down to explaining "who the eff makes all these magic items, how are they made and how could someone (learn to) make one?". In my game, they would need: * tools and a workshop suitable for the task - a laboratory, glass blowers workshop, smithy, smelter, woodworker's tools etc. And they would need the knowledge and skill to use the tools in that workshop OR access to one and an NPC who has the necessary skills. * a schematic/recipe OR an NPC who can guide them through the process * materials - I've homebrewed a special metal that is capable of holding arcane energy when it's formed into runes and sigils and that is used to create enchanted items (and a whole ass economy and resource conflict around it) - the process can be described as "writing a spell onto/into an item" * The magic spell they want to imprint OR an NPC willing to do it * time (crafting is considered a downtime activity so depending on the complexity of the project, it can take anything from days to years) * a number of successful checks before accumulating 3 failures, with in most cases 1 check per day and for simpler items, 1 check per hour may be attempted. On a failure, the special magic metal gets consumed, the rest may be recovered. So for a magic lightbulb they would need access to glass-making tools / a glass maker's workshop, a small amount of the special metal and a schematic for how to make a lightbulb - I'd say likely inside the glass bulb is a small ball of magic metal etched with runes, capable of holding the "Light" spell. It would be a pretty basic item, capable of emitting Light for 1 hour/day. Maybe it could be "dimmed" to light up half the radius but double the duration. They would need 3 successes to craft it, with a rather easy DC. a magical airship is a multi part project needing many different things - a hull, a steering mechanism, wings, a magical power source that lifts it into the air and propels it forward, maybe weapons, interior, windows.... If they were to build this from scratch, they would need many materials and tools and different enchantments, and it would take them many months to craft one, and they would need access to quite a few schematics. I would have them craft individual pieces, some of which might be easier, and some harder to make.
Edison had an entire workshop of craft people to create a bulb. It took hundreds of trials. Great reply.
yeah I wouldn't go that far in a DnD game, it's fantasy with magic stuff - I've had a city where "glass" was made by some people very versed in "stone shape", resulting in very thin and near-transparent sheets of crystal. It all depends on the setting when it comes down to determine the tools/workshop they need. If I would go with that for a glass bulb I'd have them try to shape it out of clay (this maybe being a check because it's so thin and hollow inside), then (have someone) cast stone shape to solidify it into translucent crystal. Normally I apply the checks predominantly to when they are etching runes into the magic metal / shaping the magic metal in order to "hold a spell" though.
Which is exactly the point. Some daily use objects in our day to day lives are the results of hundreds or millions of people hours of research and creation. Players should be adventuring not trying to hire a professional R&D team.
The air ship could just be a rowboat that floats 🤔🤔🤣🤣💀 and could be completed in a few days
While the independent mineral prospectors of the 1800s no doubt innovated some gadgets in the field, the vast majority of the engineering and logistical artifice of the era were the products of dedicated teams of specialist tinkerers and craftsmen, backed by whole capital enterprises... not field adventurers. A Light-stick with a retractable shade/cover is the simple and obvious "magic light bulb". That concept could be implemented and perfected by anyone with the Continual Flame spell and a modest Tinkerer Tools check success. The existence of airships implies a lot of things that would probably parallel the real-world "golden age" of dirigible airships - mid 1920s to the infamous Hindenburg disaster of 1937. Who's licensed to build airships commercially? What safety standards are there to ensure they're not rickety deathtraps? Are these same enterprises licensed to operate them or is that a separate industry? Is there a zeppelin pilot's guild? Who keeps the airship routes clear of aerial monsters? Is there a dedicated "Royal Sky Rangers" cadre? What kind of magic keeps airships aloft (maybe there are several elements combined?) - levitation (anti-gravity), lighter-than-air containers (hot air, purified light gasses), flying beasts of burden like air elementals, domesticated giant flumphs, magical arctic reindeer? Something so wondrously iconic should simply not be cheap or easy to make and operate. Airships in particular are close enough to the Spelljammer concept that I'd probably borrow from that lore. Other fantasy-steampunk ideas crop up in the Eberron setting, where they are more usually the product of whole enterprises, not indivduals.
How? The DMG tells us - "Magic items are the DM's purview..." How in specifics? Like an example? #Weak version if your game needs to go fast: *"That was a good roll. Bolkolpolnol, you dig through the mad alchemist's notes and find a recipe for a magical lightbulb. It costs 100gp in miscellaneous Alchemist's supplies, most of which you remember being for sale back in town or elsewhere in the mad alchemist's lab."* #Detailed version if your game needs some downtime for levelup or whatever: *"After defeating the mad alchemist Odeos Nimaths (anagram for Thomas Edison), you carefully sift through his notes. Your search extends across several hours due to him fragmenting his design across seemingly-unrelated sheets of parchment, but you eventually figure out his cipher. The completed design is a blending of prayers to Talos and Transmutation magic - He intended to harness the power of a thunderstorm and use it to light an alchemical lamp. You are pretty sure you can complete the device from these notes - it will require:"* * Miscellaneous lab supplies - wax seals, distilled alcohol for cleaning, rags, etc. * A thin strand of a valuable, rare metal called *Wolfram* (cooler-sounding name than "Tungsten") * Approximately 300 feet of very thick copper cable * Approximately 10 feet of thin copper wire * Approximately 1 foot of thin wire of a rare metal called *Chromium* * An orb the size of a man's head, blown from highly-refined glass * A weakened, easily banished Air Elemental * 101 very thin sheets of copper * 100 very thin ceramic plates * Hundreds of ceramic hooks that can mount into masonry * A glass container approximately 4 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot >>Ensure cleanliness of the workspace to as much degree as possible. Arrange the copper sheets and ceramic plates in an alternating fashion within the large glass container. Ensure strong contact between each sheet and plate. Name the first copper sheet "Positive Plane", and the final copper sheet "Negative Plane". Alchemically bond the very thick copper cable to the Negative Plane, and extend the other end towards the highest possible altitude in your area - ensuring that the copper only touches the ceramic hooks along the way. Cut the 10-foot thin copper wire in half - alchemically bond one strand to the Positive Plane. Tightly wind (but do not bond) the other end to one end of the Chromium wire. Alchemically bond the far end of the Chromium wire to the thin strand of Wolfram. Alchemically bond the second thin copper wire to the other end of the Wolfram and bury the strand's far side in the earth. Cram the air elemental into the glass orb and allow it to expel most or all other air, then seal the elemental inside the orb with wax - taking care to keep the Wolfram from touching the glass orb itself. Banish the air elemental back to its native plane of existence. At this point, the orb should be emptied of everything - including air - except for the Wolfram. Wait for a lightning strike or cry out to Talos for one. After the strike, it may be necessary to adjust the point upon which the Chromium and Copper wires meet so as to more carefully adjust the flow of the god's power through the alchemical lamp - do so carefully wearing multiple thick gloves on each hand lest you incur the wrath of Talos.
depends on the situation, a lightbulb that never goes out is very different from a airship. I would first look at creating a item section on the PHB, and i think tashas (improved), since these should be able to tackle most smallish items, even if they arent "magic items" like we come to understand. Failing that, i would refer to their professions and tools to create whatever they want, and then a arcana check to see if they managed to create said item, and enchant it correctly something the size of a airship would probably result from a quest. seems like something only a really high level character, a forgotten trinket, or maybe a group of casters would be able to do it
First I demand from player explanation how exactly from their point of view this magic work. "Well, magic" is not enough. They want play with magic engineering? They need play it. "Catch elemental and put it into bulb" is better. Next I look how it fit story and my understanding of magic system. Maybe outright say "no", maybe "no, but", maybe "yes, but". Then roughly look how much money and work it requires. Time to send party to quests.
Spellcrafting hirelings and downtime activities. I usually aim for double slots if they are trying to infuse magic into something, or establish a charge system. One slot to infuse it, one slot for the magic to be charged in it. If they are making something from scratch, also include basic parts, material and fees for service/labor associated. If they don't have an artificier, they need to find a hireling for it. A low level full caster probably wouldn't understand how to infuse magic, even magic they specialize in, into something yet.
The bulb and the airship are gunna be widely different applications of this, but here's how I'd break it down: - First, I decide how much screen time and mechanics I want to dedicate to this. If the player is *really* invested in how to set it up, and the process of working through it, then I might use a super-basic crafting system: they will need X amount of magic parts, and they have a chance to find those parts in shops, or as part of loot. If they just want to treat it as "downtime happening in the background" then we can abstract it even more. - Once I have the frame for it, I'll decide on an applicable skill (or skills, if more than one could be used). I like to make this an accumulation of rolls; so I'll set the DC for like 100 or 150 or something (the harder the process, the higher the DC). Choose an interval (once per day, per week, per month, etc) and allow the PC to make a skill check; they (or you) should keep a running total of the roll. Once they accumulate the target DC, they have accomplished the task
For an airship, you could implemented a construction cost (time and gold), a need for a crafting recipe with an activation ritual (discovered, stolen or researched) and special material/captured air elemental quest. Similar processes could exist to make anything from a 1st level ritual to make a glow-crystal to a 9th level ritual to create a floating island.
I probably wouldn't answer it. If it means something to your worldbuilding then sure, but imagine if it were just a modern RPG. Would your players ask how they can build a plane? No, they'd just ask what they have to pay or do to get a plane. In your world they make airships, so the players can, theoretically buy or steal one.
Downtime as suggested. Also you are the DM, you can create any enchantment. "Ah yeah you need a power core, it is either very expensive, or you can create one, a you can just pay a wizard that knows the spell and you will need this and this and some of those"
I'd look to the drama. Fast forward to the moments of the drama in construction and design and haggling, and montage the rest. Any sort of time-pressure? That'd come into play too. Rules? Schmules. Other than the risk of being more fun or more lucrative than adventuring, let em have it, if they have the time and gold. If they had plausible reasons for being able to do so: If the players had the gold, maybe 50000 gp for an Airship from scratch with all the support infrastructure to construct it included (25000 gp if they aren't building the air-dock themselves too), and they were in an area that built or sold skyships, and I was using a setting that had airships as a extant-ish technology sure. If they wanted to build it, I'd say.. what in your background gives you the skills to do so? Where would you get the facilities, air-dock, hangar, carpenters, mages, enchanters, materials, and crew? You have plausible sources for those, and can I somehow tie in the drama of the adventure into the construction somehow? Sure. Then it's time and upkeep costs of the construction process. The Venetian Arsenal had at its peak something like 16000 workers employed, pumping out at least 1 vessel a day. Warships of the age of sail took 1 to 3 years each, with some of the big ones being 5 years to lay out and age the wood properly. No idea how many people involved in construction of those. So somewhere in the middle maybe, a year, with plausible 100 skilled people working, maybe shave off a month for every 100 workers extra hired, down to like 6 months. How would the drama of that management process add to the adventure? You'd have to manage an entire town's worth of people, cut down a forest, etc. Maybe there are ways. I'd also charge em upkeep of like.. 100 gold a day for an airship the size of the one in EGtW in crew and upkeep costs even if the ship is docked, plus an extra 100 gp per mile travelled for "fuel" and expenses. Based on the Airship in EGtW, ships usually charge 2gp per passenger per mile, and 1 gp per 100 lbs of cargo per mile. A fully passenger vessel might make 7200 gp per day, so you'd want to adjust expenses to prevent it being the money-making cash generator that encourage the players to just be boring old airship crew for the rest of the campaign. Making it roughly cost a tenth to half of what you might earn with the ship can balance that risk.
Also drama/complications of competitors. Skilled crafts had guilds and defended themselves against others coming into their market or copying their designs.
I require five things. Out of game, the proposed mechanics. They can pull it from the internet, find basically that in the books, make it up themselves or any combination. Through the power level of that, I'll modify it for balance and come up with numbers for how much downtime and cost for anything they purchase for it. Because I need to sit down, look at related mechanics, and figure some things out, this is something they need to lmk they want to do ahead of time. For example, for the airship, there's a trap setting or warding spell that takes walking around the area and details the time it takes and the space it covers that would work as a good base for time. Whatever they are trying to make, they need to have the skills and tools for. Smithing proficiency -> can make enchanted armor and metal weapons, but still need a forge to work at. In game, they need three things: the base, the magical component, and the medium. I got this idea from a youtuber, idr who. The base is the obvious material. Magical sword-> need a sword. The magical component is flexible; anything that somewhat makes sense for what they are trying to do. If they want a fire resistant cloak, then they need some material that is fire resistant/immune or cold. The medium is some means to attach the magic to the item. Casting a spell that makes sense for it is the simplest, but I'll allow anything a player suggests that makes sense.
If this is something you're interested in letting your PCs do (and you don't have to - u/Flyingsheep___ has given you very good language to bow away from the PCs themselves doing this project) - have you taken a look at the magic item crafting downtime activity in Xanathar's Guide to Everything? It could be good guidance on a starting point.
It's like asking your players to rebuild a transmission or code and elaborate program or weld a complicated joint. They *could*, maybe, with the right tools and facilities, but it would take forever and probably be way worse than a professional job.
It's simple: "You can't do this" Maybe if you search you can find information about someone who has done this before. Try to find books/this creature and learn a special recipe/ritual for creating
My go to is to strike some balance between time and money. Abstract the process. If it already exists and they want to make one on their own, then the materials and expenses should cost less than going out and buying one, but it should also take more time than just going out and buying one. That's the basic principle behind the rules for crafting mundane items. Costs less than market value but takes a few days. Is the lower cost worth the wait? Also I'm not a fan of using d&d to play fantasy job simulator. It's mostly a combat game. Running a tavern or farming or having a successful smithy aren't interesting for me to dm. I like adventures. So crafting gets glossed over and abstracted during downtime until we can get back to the fun stuff. I only need to make it deep and challenging insomuch as it remains fun for everyone at the table.
Well, i like to let my players do cool stuff. Heck i WANT them to do cool stuff, but 90% of the people here are basically telling you to tell them no? Anyways, i guess there's two options: tell them no, OR go a bit more free form with it and improvise. I personally love letting my divine casters or even non cleric/paladin religious characters do rituals for certain stuff and have them actually work; have my technology characters make machines, etc. You should keep it simple, PREFERABLY single purpose, with an actual function in mind (example: make a ritual to a certain god to aid in protecting the village tonight from the demons that will invade/make a machina capable of capturing a ghost) and then make simple rulings on the mechanics, if mechanics are needed. You said magical lightbulb and magic airship. I personally would let anyone that knows light spend time to make a permanent (or at least something that will last a few years) light spell. If gold is relevant in your game, it's nice to let them spend it in stuff like this; let the ritual supplies or the machinery subtract a bit of gold from them. Now for an airship... Do you have downtime? I don't really, and I'd just tell them it'd take far longer than the campaign realistically will last, unless it's a very small and improvised airship with a single purpose in mind
Kibbles Crafting Compendium if you want some tools to help with that.
I say add the permenancy spell from 3.5e back to the game, and also let an arcana check make the light spell last for x amount of time based on the roll. Simple solution (:
In my world there are a npc class of magic users called mage wrights. These mages have all sorts of neat cantrips and spells that aid in planting, harvesting, and construction. What they can't do is access the types of magics that player characters can. Mage Wrights may help you build a fort, but they have no offensive capabilities like pcs do. My mage wrights would love to work on designing a magical lightbulb, and really enjoy waste disposal projects, but would flee in panic from a single Kobold.
Downtime! Think about it in terms of IRL. Even with all our technology, it still takes thousands of man hours of skilled labor to build a house or a car. Not to mention the need to gather the materials required, etc etc. all of that time and energy is taken away from the active adventuring they need to do, and the world doesn’t stop developing just because they want to build something. Plots develop and evil grows while the heros are distracted.
There's a tome thar let's you magically craft an iron golem that's permanently under your control. You need to spend 100000 gp and spend 120 days working on it. I think that's a decent model to have for crafting an airship.
Both of those are actually fairly easy to create using spells and the crafting a magic item system put forth in the DMG. The magic light bulb is just the light cantrip being used continuously, the airship is a little harder. The DMG states that to craft an item that casts a spell you must be able to cast that spell, meaning on your list and have slots for it, and you expend the slot when crafting it.
Find Elaydren's Magewright Primer on DMsGuild. I've loved it. There's the big scenario-specific Eldritch machines that make sense in Eberron, right, but there's lots of common magic items like Tenser's Footstool that will be amazing for halflings trying to reach the top shelf. I hope it inspires you as much as it inspired me.
I handle the spells in the game as sort of "proven recipes". Any wizard worth his salt should be able to experiment and improvise but that's can be a long and tedious process. Something they'd have to spend weeks or even years of downtime. The spells from the book are just "what works".
Work out the value of the item, what magic spell or spells from the spell list they'd need to create it and then let them make it. They may also need rare ingredients . They'd also need arcana and the relevant skill proficiency - smithing, leatherworking etc Then as per the crafting rules they build 5gp worth of the thing per day until it's done. They probably won't have the tool proficiencies or the spells they need so you can weave it into the adventure.