concerned about crafting.

[krupintupple]

in one of the campaigns i play in, a character wants to take 'time out' to try his luck with some alchemy. while i'm not against this, he's suggesting something in the realm of 2 or 3 months in-game time, so he can stockpile some items that he thinks are worth it - healing salve. i've tried to explain that for their level (5th), healing salve just doesn't cut it for the type of healing they need, but he reasoned that since he has low hp anyhow, the minor boost the salve gives him is cheaper and thus worth the time out.

i'm probably not going to veto this action, should the entire group find it acceptable, but i'm also going to mention next session that i'm not dealing with a divided group again: basically, everyone will remain in town and do a similar activity, work a profession, or do nothing. there's going to be 0 encounters or chances for XP while this is going on. i don't think this is unfair, as even a week or two is acceptable for down time, but taking several months off to make a dozen (he has a low alchemy score) or so low-powered alchemical items seems misguided at best.

 

[Keith Robinson]

I wouldn't worry about it too much, as long as the other players are happy with it and it fits in with your game. Some campaigns often have extended breaks like this. You don't need to roleplay them, just take a session out to do the book-keeping, see what everyone wants to buy/sell/craft/etc. When it's all done, just assume that the months have done and continue. You can always use this time to introduce new rumors, ideas, npcs, etc, into your game.

If you're in the middle of an adventure, however, it might not work too well

 

[Gilladian]

I actually WISH my PCs would do this kind of thing more.

I mean, the usual progression of a campaign is "a bunch of teens start adventuring...six months later, they are 20th level and are still just teens".

A few months here and there, or even a year or two off to have a kid and raise it past infancy has always seemed golden to me.

And it isn't even as if he wants to make the uber-weapon of the gods, just some healing salve. As long as everyone is okay with it, make it a feature, not a flaw in the campaign. Maybe they do their alchemy while a long and nasty winter goes by. And then spring never happens, and they realize that something truly evil has happened, and they need to find out what...

 

[Keith Robinson]

Maybe they do their alchemy while a long and nasty winter goes by. And then spring never happens, and they realize that something truly evil has happened, and they need to find out what...

Nice call

I once played in a game where this happened regularly (getting snowed in that is, not spring not happing!) - our characters would just eat, drink, get some stuff down and spend our money for a few months, before the snow melted and the PCs would pick up on where they'd left off. It worked quite well.