Downtime and Training

[Breakstone]

So I was thinking of ways to establish training during "downtime" in my campaign. This is what I've got for now. Tell me what you think, and what you do with downtime in your campaigns!



Hey there dudes. I'm introducing a new rule into the game, which is the concept of downtime:

Downtime

Your characters just journeyed across the Desert of Endless Suns, fought off an army of Fiendish Half-Dragon Giant Scorpion Sorcerers, invaded the underground lair of Necrus, the Litch King with a thousand Skeleton Warriors, battled Necrus himself atop collapsing piles of human bones while dodging giant Hellbats with razor claws, collected your treasure, and managed to find your way back to the small town of Ember, right? Well, your characters could go on their next quest to return the Shattered Sworn of Swornhall to its rightful heir... or they could take some time off to bind their wounds, train with that cool new Firespitting Trident they found, and help the locals rebuild the bar that collapsed when you fought those ogres.

This is what we call Downtime. Downtime requires a minimum of a week of non-activity, and can go for as long as you like (or as long as this crazy world will allow). Downtime "stacks," so if you take a week of in Ember, go off on an adventure, and then take three weeks of downtime in the castle of King Graldmore, that stacks up to a month total.

During a month of Downtime, a character can do many things, including:

- Skill Training: a character gains an unnamed +1 bonus to one skill.

- Weapon Training: a character gains an unnamed +.5 bonus to attacks with one weapon (so after two months of Weapon Training, this becomes +1).

- Testing: a character gains an unnamed +.5 bonus to one saving throw.

- Healing: a character gains one bonus permanent hit point.

- Spell Training: a character may train with one spell so that it takes half the time to prepare.

- Commune: a cleric, paladin, or other holy man may cast a free Augury with a 100% chance of a correct answer.

- Re-equip: a character can exchange non-magical items (but not gems or pieces of art) for new equipment at an equal price. Items may not be exchanged for money.

- Exchange Spells: an arcane caster may exchange one spell known with a spell of equal or lower level for free.

All these effects take place at the end of one month's training.

Keep in mind your character can instead:

- Earn money through Craft, Perform, or Profession.

- Craft magic items.

- Research new spells.

- Perform "odd jobs" for money once per week. A thief might make a Pick Pockets check to see how much he can steal (and if he gets away with it), a fighter might make an Attack Roll to see if he successfully makes money being a mercenary, a Druid, Ranger, or Barbarian might make a Wilderness Lore check to see if they can collect wild berries, herbs, and materials to sell. Keep in mind these will not be roleplayed.

 

[PoWer]

Downtime

First we establish downtime by rolling 1d8+4 to determine how many months of downtime the party gets between adventures.

We allow them to train skills, stats, spell research, craft items, and role-play individual character sub plots.

The time is takes to acquire additional points in skills or stats is extensive. It may require 2-3 downtime sessions to acquire a stat point. Skills are slightly easier, 1-2 point per session usually. Spell research can get you 1-2 mid level spells per downtime session on an average roll.

PoWer

 

[Evilhalfling]

In response: I think it looks good
I dont like spell exchange or spell training though.
I would role them into:

Spell Research: a Wizard may learn any one spell that is lower than his maximum spell level.
A spontaneous caster can replace a spell known with a an new spell of equal or lower level.

My prospective system:
Training and Leveling:
Leveling is automatic, HD, saves, BAB & skills (mostly) If you need training and do not receive it that power or feat is unavailable. Untaught spell levels can be used to cast lower level spells.

New powers must be taught: including every odd spell level 1st, 3rd,5th.7th.9th
Comprehensive list (below 10th lvl): DR; Inspire Greatness; Wildshape, Ki Strike (any) Wholeness of Body; Spell Use, Favorite enemy (unless encountered personally); Odd # of dice on rogue sneak attacks (+1d6, +3d6,+5d6) 8th level Sorcerer ability (HR from Kaalis).

Feats that take a character in a new direction- (example Cassie the Archer learning Weapon Focus: long sword.) (IMC Cassie was a 12+ lvl fighter who in 5 months never drew her sword)

Skills are learned in practice, if you learn a new skill you can only take 1 rank that level
unless you receive training. 4 ranks is the most that can be added at any other level without training.

Learning a new power takes 2 weeks and can be learned from training with a mentor, books(in a library), direct prayer(in holy site) or practice. Practice takes longer (+1 week)

 

[Evilhalfling]

Further response:
Can NPC's do this ?
If so it really throws your world out of whack. These kind of benifts normally accrue as levels.
but these extra modifiers are going to be tricky to keep track of.
and addtionally there should probably be capps on the unnamed bonuses: the the party just decided to take 6 months off -
+3 to hit with 1 weapon (ie better than 2 feats)
+6 Hp (1-2 feats)
+3 to one save ( 1.5 feats)
+6 to concentration checks.

I know you could prevent this but.....
a better system might just be xp -
One cr1 encounter per month? more realistic for NPCs, even at 1/2 exp they will still level faster than most worlds. But it is not much encouragement for high level characters.
20 months from 1st to 4th, slightly over 3 years for an NPC. Another 8 years to reach 7th level

making the addtional assumptions that you must spend this whole time training as an adventurer (ie earning no money and having to pay upkeep) would reduce a lot of the NPC problems - i.e. you dont get this for NPC levels, as they are too busy making money and raising a family to do constant training. But they might still accumlate training time occasionally.

I this is how I treat it unoffically anyway, it just codifies it so the PCs can use it as well,

 

[TerraDave]

So I was thinking of ways to establish training during "downtime" in my campaign. This is what I've got for now. Tell me what you think, and what you do with downtime in your campaigns!



Hey there dudes. I'm introducing a new rule into the game, which is the concept of downtime:

Downtime


This is what we call Downtime. Downtime requires a minimum of a week of non-activity, and can go for as long as you like (or as long as this crazy world will allow). Downtime "stacks," so if you take a week of in Ember, go off on an adventure, and then take three weeks of downtime in the castle of King Graldmore, that stacks up to a month total.

During a month of Downtime, a character can do many things, including:

- Skill Training: a character gains an unnamed +1 bonus to one skill.

- Weapon Training: a character gains an unnamed +.5 bonus to attacks with one weapon (so after two months of Weapon Training, this becomes +1).

- Testing: a character gains an unnamed +.5 bonus to one saving throw.

- Healing: a character gains one bonus permanent hit point.

- Spell Training: a character may train with one spell so that it takes half the time to prepare.

- Commune: a cleric, paladin, or other holy man may cast a free Augury with a 100% chance of a correct answer.

- Re-equip: a character can exchange non-magical items (but not gems or pieces of art) for new equipment at an equal price. Items may not be exchanged for money.

- Exchange Spells: an arcane caster may exchange one spell known with a spell of equal or lower level for free.

All these effects take place at the end of one month's training.

Keep in mind your character can instead:

- Earn money through Craft, Perform, or Profession.

- Craft magic items.

- Research new spells.

- Perform "odd jobs" for money once per week. A thief might make a Pick Pockets check to see how much he can steal (and if he gets away with it), a fighter might make an Attack Roll to see if he successfully makes money being a mercenary, a Druid, Ranger, or Barbarian might make a Wilderness Lore check to see if they can collect wild berries, herbs, and materials to sell. Keep in mind these will not be roleplayed.

I allow extra training for XPs--simple and it doesn't really discriminate against any kind of class or charecter concept.

Still, looks interesting

 

[Cyberzombie]

I haven't thought about down-time, really, but the posts in here do give some interesting ideas. I'll have to ponder more on this topic now.