I agree with Lauren Moten who wrote that somehow the worst part of the craft game is the craft. I've never felt like my time was spent in a meaningful way when I touched a craft bench, and punching wood is tedious. I fled Valheim as soon as I was expected to care about making a suitably shaped roof tile to assemble on top of a poorly ventilated shed.

"Reading the recent description of the crafting rules in the 2024 Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons 5E may actually be a good thing" Certainly an improvement over the previous downtime rules for building things in D&D.

Now anyone with an herbology kit and the relevant proficiency can make, say, healing potions themselves; it takes "a full day's work and 25 GP of magic potions" to make one, but this is a much more interesting tool than simply identifying poisons or finding plants It is a skilled use of the (I can now also make anti-toxins, healer's kits, and candles.)

As an aside, drinking these potions now requires a bonus action instead of a full action.

On the other hand, skilled users of painting supplies will be able to create their own holy symbols and druidic focuses. Crafting spell scrolls will be cheaper and crafting armor will be twice as fast. The Crafter's Specialty is one of the new Origin Specialties and can be taken from level 1.

Proficiency with tools is now generally more useful, and there are now suggestions and difficulty classes for actions such as sneaking into a locked room before breaking a door with a mason's tool or starting a fire with an alchemist's tool. These are things that a generous dungeon master would already have you do, but it is nice to see them codified in DC. Proficiency in sleight of hand skills would also give an advantage in the thieves' tool checks made when opening locks under the 2024 rule.

I might ignore the addition of a crafting system to an RPG like "Fallout 4," but I will definitely take advantage of this rule in my next D&D game. I'm going to put them through gross ooze hell for it, and every time I need 2D4+2 hit points in a hurry after that, I'm going to remind them where it came from.