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The section on Aid Another is fairly vague regarding hard numbers of "extra workers" working on a craft project. I wanted to find a pre-existing formula (I find it helps with reinforcing the ability to remember the rule) to help structure a guideline for such estimations.
I also wanted to explore the concept of projects so large they could conceivable have multiple "primary workers" with their own "extra workers". Things like houses, sailing ships, and the like. Even something like a longspear, where the metal head and the wooden haft both require distinct crafting.
I ended up with this:
A craft project can generally have a number of "primary workers" and "extra workers" equal to the item's size modifier +1, minimum 1.
A dagger, being tiny, is 1 primary, and 1 extra.
As is a longsword, cauldron, or saddle (and other small and medium items).
A large item can have 2 primary, each with 2 workers (total of 6). An example would be a lean-to shelter, a dinghy, or a ballista.
A huge object could support 3 primary, with 3 extras each (total of 9). Examples: small home, fishing boat, trebuchet.
A gargantuan object could host 5 primary, with 5 extra each (total of 25). Small warships, larger homes, a stone watchtower.
A collosal object could host 9 primary, with 9 extra each (Galleons, small forts, mansions, large bridges.)
Are some of these workers just doing things like moving raw materials around? Yes. But they need to do so in a way that doesn't interfere with the current activity, and makes the next step of activity go faster. Which is the essence of the Aid Another check. I won't post the math, but several explorations with 5th level "master craftsmen" with averages of +16 in their skill, and untrained laborers, all came quite close to the reasonable expectations of larger craft projects.
Obviously, this doesn't address craft issues like functional value vrs. artistic value, nor does it take the relative size of the workforce into account. Building castles with giants is obviously faster, doing it with pixies, not so much. conversely, pixies could conceivably gang up on medium chainmail, but a giant is pumping the bellows at best. Easy enough to modify by the relative size mod, but that is outside the scope of this post.
Thoughts?
Items that consist of many separate parts could have more people working on it than their size suggests though. A crossbow could have a carpenter carving the stock, a blacksmith forging the prod and stirrup while a locksmith is working on the lock. And that still leaves a rope-maker for the whipcord and a weapon-smith to put all the parts together.