D&D 5E DMG excerpt: Carousing!

[Tormyr]

I feel like it was worded this way because the assumption is that the PC is available since this is the downtime section of the book. Construction is something you do when you have nothing else going on. The PC not being there is supposed to be the edge case which the rule covers.

Wasn't there a thing somewhere that said that milestones generally granted 10 days of downtime? I think it was in the Adventurer's League packet. I will be interested to see what suggestions the DMG might have on how much downtime might be given in different circumstances. Some things, like the castle, would require a significant break from adventuring to complete such as a break of several years.

DM: Time passes
...
DM: You have a castle!
PC: Squee!

 

[Nebulous]

Silverfire, I'm not certain what they meant. It's so badly worded and without examples I can't tell if they meant what you mean or not. If they do mean what you mean, the math involved if the player leaves and comes back repeatedly is a mess.

Mirtek, I think what Silverfire is saying is that if a project has 2 days left and the player leaves for 2 or 200 days that the time will be extended by no more than 6 (2x3) days.

However, what if the player leaves for 1 day and then comes back. How many days are left?

Do we NEED rules for this? Isn't easier for a DM just to hand wave it and make something up instead of doing a formula?

 

[TarionzCousin]

The table is missing my favorite PC carousing result (DM's, pretend you rolled a natural 1):

[sblock]Venereal Disease: the itchy rash that won't go away![/sblock]

 

[Tormyr]

The table is missing my favorite PC carousing result (DM's, pretend you rolled a natural 1):

[sblock]Venereal Disease: the itchy rash that won't go away![/sblock]

PC: Ah, but I am a Paladin!

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Well, I'll use the rule in the way I thought it worked before reading this thread: when PC is absent, workers need 4 days to accomplish the equivalent of one day of work. Construction will take 60 days, you oversee it for 59 days and then leave for one day. When you're back, one day of your overseeing is enough to finish it. If you stay away for four days, you'll find your building ready when you're back. Seems like the best interpretation of this mess.

Cheers!

 

[Henrix]

PC: Ah, but I am a Paladin!

A carousing paladin?

O, tempora! O, mores!

 

[occam]

Because this is 2014 and our idea of heroism now extends to management principles like efficiency. "I will heroically lead this team to beat our bottom line projections! I took the Agile Development feat and multiclassed into Scrumlord for the +2 to Effectiveness from Standing Meetings feature."

Papers & Paychecks, you're getting closer every day.

How many times can I laugh at a single post?

 

[GameDoc]

It makes more sense if you imagine the actual project taking 3x the time, and the presence of the PC just speeds things up by that much.

Like, a 60 day project is what it is from the PC's perspective. From the perspective of the rest of the world, it's a 180 day project that the PC can manage to get done in 60 days.

Because this is 2014 and our idea of heroism now extends to management principles like efficiency. "I will heroically lead this team to beat our bottom line projections! I took the Agile Development feat and multiclassed into Scrumlord for the +2 to Effectiveness from Standing Meetings feature."

Papers & Paychecks, you're getting closer every day.

I hear that Consultant will be an option for villainous characters in the forthcoming DMG... er HR Manual.

 

[Tormyr]

How many times can I laugh at a single post?

Just once by RAW. However you can exploit the system by removing your laugh and then laughing again. So you can make sure to have the last laugh. With this exploit, the XP system is hopelessly broken.

/ragequit

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think the construction rules are unclear since people have provided two or three conflicting explanations of what they clearly mean.

It matters because some of us actually intend to use them. Most of us who intend to use them (myself included) probably have no issue with house-ruling. But I, for one, like to know what the original rule is before I break it. I'm assuming they wrote these rules for those who actually want them, and therefore it's kind of important for them to be clear and understandable.

IMO, the intention is probably that when the PC is absent it takes 4 days to get 1 day's worth of work done--and posters have provided at least two ways that could have been phrased better.

Hopefully a FAQ will address it.

Of course, after my initial "so you can never finish work? huh?" my next thought was, "yeah, like I'm going to spend thousands of gp building a fortress and not bother appointing a qualified overseer to get it done."