D&D 5E [Let's Read] A Life Well Lived: A Series of Character Development-Based Subsystems

Libertad

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Back around late 2022, Cubicle 7 took the Journey sub-system from Adventures in Middle Earth, building upon and converting it to the more general 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. But this would not be their only project for D&D, as earlier this year they came out with another sourcebook. Instead of focusing on a singular central sub-system, A Life Well Lived contains several, from a Lifepath method of character creation to group patrons and base building. Whereas Uncharted Journeys reflected the physical exploration of PCs, this product reflects the more social and introspective side of characters.

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Although most well-known in Traveller and Cyberpunk, the concept of the Lifepath has appeared in many other RPGs. It’s a form of character creation where major mechanical decisions of the PC come about from life events before their first adventure. Sometimes it takes the form of randomly-generated results on tables, other times it can be a Choose Your Own Adventure style multiple choice flowchart. A Life Well Lived’s Lifepath is mostly random, with a few options (notably class) allowed to be chosen by the player.

The Lifepath system is a five-step process. The first, Lineage, determines the PC’s fantasy race. It can either be randomly rolled on a d100 table (humans and elves are the most common at 20% each, while dragonborn, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings the rarest at 4% each) or chosen by the player. The lineages are all from the core rules albeit their mechanics differ slightly. They have some and not all of their race’s abilities, notably the more biological-sounding options like darkvision or a dragonborn’s breath weapon. As opposed to culturally-implied features like weapon proficiencies. There are also no subraces, and races who’d ordinarily have it have some of them folded into the default lineage, like the Dwarf gaining the Hill Dwarf’s +1 hit point per level. The “lost” features are intended to be made up for via other results in the lifepath system. Additionally, lineage doesn’t affect one’s ability score bonuses; that too is in the later steps. But in the event where a lost feature would be important for a PC idea, the book says for the player to work with the GM who also has the right to balance things by making other changes in exchange.

Notably, the elf has new features that aren’t available in the core rules. An elf’s Keen Senses grants not just Perception proficiency, but also +5 to Passive Perception. They have a free cantrip like that of the High Elf, but can be drawn from either the Druid or Wizard spell lists. Humans use the features of a Variant Human, but without the free feat.

Lifepath is the next step and the longest, divided into seven steps representing important developments in the PC’s life. These range from what astrological sign they were born under to unique quirks they picked up. The Lifepath more or less acts as a combination of Background and standard Race, providing various proficiencies, starting gold, and some novel features. The astrological sign determines what +1 they gain to a certain ability score, while another +1 is determined by d6 tables for how they grew up in their early childhood environment. These options are evenly balanced among the six scores, so for instance you don’t have cases where growing up in a noble estate results in a bias towards mental abilities. Adolescent Experiences represent defining moments as the character grows up and gets a wider perspective on the world yet not yet at full adulthood, which culminates in giving them a skill proficiency. Life Lesson rounds out the third +1 ability bonus via a d12 table of a random life-changing decision. While the moments themselves are randomized, each decision has three options in how the PC resolves it, which determines what ability score bonus they get. For example, Blaze has their neighbor’s house catch on fire. Hauling what they can out of the house grants +1 Strength, consoling and keeping the neighbor safe grants +1 Wisdom, and working all night to douse the flames grants +1 Constitution.

Pivotal Moment represents the PC’s first brush with adventure and a life beyond predictable mundanity. These options are more fantastic and exciting, such as stumbling upon a planar incursion that warped the land near the PC’s home, or signing on to a merchant’s caravan where they find a ciphered journal left behind by an undercover spy. This step grants proficiency in a language, tool, or a single type of weapon along with a single piece of equipment, usually what would be a Trinket.

Occupation is partially random, where the prior Pivotal Moment grants the player one of three related jobs for their PC to choose. The job grants proficiency in a single skill and tool, a set of relevant tools as free equipment, and an Income Die that determines their Starting Funds. The Die ranges from 1d4 to 1d8, and is rolled against a fixed amount of gold pieces determined by class that is multiplied to determine how much money the PC has. Between this and Pivotal Moment, every skill and OGL tool from the core rules is covered here.

Quirks represent the final stage of the randomized Lifepath system, being a d20 table of some feature or personality trait. These quirks break with convention in that not all provide explicit mechanical effects, and those that do give things you can’t get by default in the core rules. For example, Contortionist grants advantage on checks to escape a grapple, Fearless lets the PC spend an action to remove the Frightened condition on themselves, and Etiquette lets a PC effortlessly blend in and socialize with a specific group of people such as criminals, nobles, or scholars.

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Class more or less follows the core rules with two important exceptions. One’s class grants +1 to the ability score (or one of two ability scores) most important to the class, while there’s no option for default class equipment; instead a PC uses their Starting Funds to buy their gear. After that, there’s some various Finishing Touches fleshing out the character, such as the Call to Adventure determining the reason they abandoned a (relatively) safe life, or Skeletons in the Closet showing a secret they hide from others. These particular results are all open-ended rather than specific, being more of a jumping-off point like “you have a destiny you must fulfill” or “the event from your Early Childhood is how you prefer to tell the story; the truth is far uglier.”

You might have noticed that there’s a net +4 to ability scores using the Lifepath system: +1 from an astrological sign, +1 for early childhood, +1 for a life-changing decision, and +1 for class. So it's much easier to get a modified score of 18 or 20, but as only one of the increases is non-randomized this isn’t guaranteed to happen. In fact, the book suggests two alternate methods of ability score generation if other ways aren’t to one’s liking. The standard array is 14, 14, 12, 12, 10, and 8, while rolling to determine ability scores is 2d6+6.

Goals is the final section of this chapter. They’re determined at character generation, but are developed by the player rather than randomized and can change over the course of the campaign. Short-term Goals represent causes the PC can accomplish within 2-3 sessions, the end of a minor quest, or at the end of a story beat. Completing them grants the party an experience award based on their level, or a Narrative Reward which is a more nebulous benefit such as being able to change one’s subclass or some other vital aspect of the character; or gaining a new Contact in the form of an Ally or Rival, a new mechanic covered later in this book. A long-term goal is the PC’s raison d’etre for adventuring, and may be a motivation or ideal to hold onto over the course of one’s life rather than something that can be plausibly accomplished. A PC who takes actions for forwarding this goal gains Inspiration or a Narrative Reward. If a PC manages to accomplish this goal, the GM should reward them with a significant boon. The book says that the player and GM should work out the details, but should be something along the lines of receiving a free feat, leveling up, or gaining a magic item.

Party Goals are the last type, but they receive the least attention. Basically they’re things the group wants to accomplish together and aren’t tied to any one particular PC. Usually they’re in line with the plot hooks the GM comes up with, and if Milestone Leveling is used then they should be the yardstick for determining advancement for leveling up.

Thoughts So Far: In terms of serving as a replacement for race, background, and starting equipment, the Lifepath system isn't significantly unbalanced to the point that PCs made for it will be notably stronger or weaker. One notable change with Lifepath is that tool proficiencies become a given rather than a possibility via Occupations, and 7 out of the 10 Pivotal Moments have tools as options for proficiency alongside languages and weapons. As 5th Edition by default doesn’t include intricate crafting and business subsystems, this won’t have much of a direct impact on character power, but it does make PCs better-versed on mundane trades than the standard rules. However, tools are very important for the other sub-systems in this book, so while technically isolated all of the rulesets in A Life Well Lived are meant to build off of each other.

Theoretically speaking, characters made for it have a slight advantage via the net +4 ability score increase and a possibly useful Quirk. However, the randomization of results can push characters away from playing exactly what they’d want. If you end up with +2 to Strength and no bonus to Intelligence, you’re most likely not going to play a wizard. My greatest criticism is the lineages. Given that many campaigns nowadays use non-core sources, there should have been discussions for how to incorporate non-standard options such as warforged and genasi, or made race-specific benefits part of the broader randomized system. Something like having it so that half-orcs can get the high elf’s bonus cantrip or a halfling getting the half-orc’s triple damage on a melee crit.

Join us next time as we see what PCs do between adventures in Chapter 2: Campcraft and Chapter 3: Downtime!
 
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As a GM I like the randomization- but I'm sure it'd mess with some players preplanned builds 🙄
I also liked randomization in other games though- so I guess it's not a GM thing, it's a matter of taste.
 

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The next system in this book is a kind of mini-downtime that takes place during a Long Rest, particularly when the party’s camping somewhere for the night. PCs have the opportunity to undertake two different tasks during this time: Bonding and Campcraft Activities. Bonding focuses on character development between PCs, and after some appropriate roleplay the DM can reward participating characters with one Bonding Die each. A character’s Bonding Die is tied explicitly to that other PC, and can be spent as a free action to add 1d4 to their attack roll, ability check, or saving throw if both characters are within 5 feet of each other.

Campcraft Activities are things a PC does in the wee hours, and only one can be done per PC per Long Rest. They’re usually an extended series of die rolls whose total number of successes determines the progress and/or magnitude of success. Additionally, many Activities have a Goal, a value that can be the same as or different from the DC. The difference between a d20 result and the Goal adds or subtracts Progress, and at the end of the Extended Test the total Progress is added up. If the Goal isn’t met, the Activity fails. If the result meets or is greater than the Goal, the Activity succeeds. Activities that require no checks or a single check don’t have Goals, and most with Goals require three die rolls.

There’s an awful lot of Campcraft Activities to choose from, 30 in all. They have explicit benefits and rewards, albeit some of them are dependent on other factors such as location. You can’t Go Shopping if you’re in the middle of the wilderness, for instance.

Some of the more interesting Campcraft Activities include Alchemy (roll three Alchemist’s Supplies tool checks to create a common or uncommon potion, a few of which are unique to this book and not in the core rules), Chronicle Adventures (write a series of your exploits; no check required but gain advantage on History checks related to your adventures), Crash Course (teach another party member about a skill, tool, or weapon with which you are proficient; they add your Proficiency Bonus to checks made with that skill, tool, or weapon until your next long rest; both of you perform this Campcraft Activity together), Forage (Survival or Nature checks that can either be used to make medicine granting one additional Hit Die restored during the rest, or finding a number of rations equal to your Wisdom bonus, minimum 1), A Moment’s Meditation (single Insight check, success grants advantage on next Constitution or Wisdom save), Mourn the Lost (requires the corpse of someone the party feels pity for; Investigation, History, and/or Religion checks perform a funeral rite that can prevent the deceased from rising as undead for 10 days, success by 5 or more causes their patron deity/ancestors to make their presence known and grants each party member Inspiration), Repair Vehicle (requires a vehicle, successful Strength or Intelligence checks restore vehicle to original status, advantage if proficient in vehicle, if already fixed it gains +1 AC for a week), Scope the Battlefield (Stealth check, success grants one helpful hint regarding the next encounter, can also possibly avoid it), and Write Home (no check, but doing it grants Inspiration regardless of whether or not the letter is sent).

Out of curiosity I decided to compile the various required checks by skill and tool:

No check 6
Open-ended/any that can be justified 2

Animal Handling 1
Deception 1
History 2
Insight 2
Investigation 1
Medicine 1
Nature 2
Performance 1
Persuasion 1
Religion 2
Sleight of Hand 1
Stealth 1
Survival 4

Alchemist’s Supplies 4
Cobbler’s Tools 1
Cook’s Utensils 2
Glassblower’s Tools 1
Herbalism Kit 1
Smith’s Tools 1
Tinker’s Tools 1
Weaver’s Tools 1
Woodcarver’s Tools 1

As you might notice, the system is weighted in favor of mental ability checks, and outdoorsman style characters such as Druids and Rangers have a pretty good array of options. Some of the broader skills like Arcana and Perception have no associated Activities, nor do the purely physical ones of Acrobatics and Athletics. As for tools, they’re overall evenly spread save when it comes to Alchemist’s Supplies, and while where’s a Performance skill there are no tool checks for musical instruments. The Activity in which you’d expect this, Put On a Show, has Performance as a skill but none for musical instruments, which feels weird. There are quite a few tools with no Campcraft Activity: Brewer’s, Calligraphers, Carpenter’s, Cartographers, Jeweler’s, Leatherworker’s, Mason’s, Painter’s, and Potter’s.

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Similar yet larger in scope than the prior chapter, Downtime represents projects undertaken by characters in a montage-style fashion between adventures. For the purposes of this system, Downtime is a vague period of time that takes place while the characters are “off-duty” when it comes to onscreen heroics, and each PC may take up to 3 Downtime Activities during this time. Downtime Activities take a week to complete and cannot be undertaken more than once during the same period of Downtime unless otherwise noted. For periods that may last longer (months or years), the DM is encouraged to expand the scope of the activities in a narrative fashion. If two or more PCs wish to work together or want to request the aid of an allied NPC, this doesn’t have any mechanical impact by default. For example, if the Barbarian PC asks the Wizard PC to come along as moral support for musical lessons in the Learn An Instrument activity, the Barbarian must spend the Activity and roll the check. The Wizard cannot mechanically aid the Barbarian in any way, but doesn’t have to spend their Downtime slot just for being there. The exception is if the aiding PC will stand to gain something; if the Wizard also wants to learn to play, they’d also need to Learn An Instrument.

There are 60 unique Downtime Activities, and vary more in both scope and unique mechanics than Campcraft Activities. While several of them involve rolling appropriate ability or tool checks, just as many do not or have their own sub-systems for resolution. Even on a failure, a lot of them have a “fail forward” or “no, but” consolation prize, such as granting the PC advantage on the next roll for when they perform the same Activity due to learning from their failures.

Some of the more interesting Activities include Adopt a Pet (PC buys an uncommon monster whose cost is determined by type and a random roll; training it is a separate Activity known as Train a Companion), Construction (build a room in your Base, a future sub-system in this book, at 75% cost), Forge a New Path (undergo a significant life change that allows you to retrain some mechanical aspects of your character as well as gender or appearance), Let Loose (roll a series of Constitution and skill checks where spending more gold lowers the DC, gain a new Ally on a success or Rival on a failure [both part of a later sub-system in this chapter], regardless of result gain +1d4 bonus on Charisma saves until next period of Downtime), Meditate (Insight or Religion checks, success lets them hold 1 additional Inspiration until the next period of Downtime), Perform a Heist (series of checks to pull off the heist, undertaking related Activities beforehand can grant an edge on some of these; there’s a Final Twist d6 table determining an unforeseen challenge that pops up at the end of the Activity), Purge Curse (cure a curse, disease, or other persistent condition via Arcana or History research; success points you in the direction of someone or something that can cure it), Return to Nature (leave civilization to find yourself for a time; gain a persistent benefit until the next period of Downtime that’s either dependent on class, such as a bonus use of Wild Shape for a Druid, or proficiency [or expertise if already proficient] in Nature or Survival skill), Teach a Class (roll an appropriate check to teach three students in a skill or tool, get paid gold for your time and on a successful roll they become proficient on a success until your next Downtime), and Volunteer in the Community (open-ended skill or tool check, success grants Inspiration and an Ally, an Ally on a failure, and a Rival on a failure of 5 or more).

Like Campcraft, I compiled a list of Activities and relevant skill and tool checks:

No check 8
Open-ended/any that can be justified 12

Acrobatics 2
Animal Handling 4
Arcana 6
Athletics 8
Deception 1
History 2
Insight 8
Intimidation 1
Investigation 7
Medicine 1
Nature 3
Perception 4
Performance 2
Persuasion 11
Religion 2
Sleight of Hand 3
Stealth 3
Survival 6

Alchemist’s Supplies 1
Musical Instrument 1
Thieves’ Tools 1
Tinker’s Tools 1

There’s a lot less specific Tools for Downtime, but every skill has some representation. The latter category is heavily weighted in favor of Athletics, Insight, Investigation, and Persuasion. Sagelike characters relying on Intelligence have a plethora of options, although non-Persuasion Charisma checks are quite sparse. We do have a lot more Activities that are broad in nature to allow for imaginative players to come up with justifications, which helps balance out the weak spots.

I would like to call out several Activities as being potentially abusable: Arcane Experimentation represents a PC learning the inner workings of a known spell, learning to apply it in unforeseen ways. A successful Arcana check (uses primary casting modifier of relevant class) lets them change either its damage type, saving throw, school of magic, or casting time from an action to a bonus action and vice versa, and certain changes can increase or decrease the default spell level. It is treated as an entirely new spell, automatically learned or always prepared without counting against existing spell limits. The book even notes that this Activity in particular is the most subject to abuse, and that the DM should pay more attention and work closely with the player.

Another Activity, Learn a new Spell, is exactly as it sounds. The PC chooses from either the Warlock or one of the primary casting classes (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard) for the Activity, and if they succeed on the Arcana check they learn one 1st or 2nd level spell, and the spellcasting attribute they use is based on the class from which they took it. The spell is always counted as prepared, doesn’t count towards spells known, and is known until the next Downtime Activity. A failed result creates a Rival or vague magical mishap.

While Learn a Spell doesn’t require one to be a spellcaster to take, it doesn’t say how the spell works if taken by a noncaster such as a Fighter or Rogue. Is it cast once per long rest, then? The other spell-based downtime activities have being able to cast a spell and a relevant ability score of 14 or more as a prerequisite, so I don’t know if this is an oversight.

The third spell-based Activity, Master a Spell, lets the PC be able to cast it once per long rest without expending a spell slot, and this lasts until the next period of Downtime. The PC’s spellcaster level determines the maximum spell level they can Master in such a way.

While one bonus spell or an additional use of a spell may not be the most drastic change in the world, being able to cast something like Fireball as a bonus action all the time is much more abusable, even if one cannot ordinarily cast two leveled spells as an action and bonus action per round.

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Allies, Contacts, and Rivals are the other half of this chapter. In spite of sounding like three different types, Allies and Rivals are two specific types of Contacts, who are NPCs that can provide unique benefits and complications to the PCs. Characters can gain Contacts via Downtime Activities, but also as rewards and consequences upon completion of quests or even as part of one’s backstory. An Ally provides unique benefits that make a PC’s life easier in certain areas, while a Rival can impose additional challenges or make existing ones more difficult. The latter is more narrative in penalties, often involving certain NPCs having negative dispositions to the party. In several cases an Ally can be taken on as a worker at a PC’s headquarters for the Base system later in this book, often making certain rooms and their utilities cheaper or easier to do.

There’s 18 different types of Contacts, with suggested statblocks of NPC types from the Core rules should their stats become relevant. Some of the more interesting ones include Farmer (as an ally you can spend rests at their place, gaining one extra Hit Die for healing and reduce the cost of a Greenhouse for Base building by 50 gold; as a Rival they disparage your reputation in rural communities and the party is no longer allowed to travel across fields or private lands), Mage (Ally lets them teach a cantrip to the PC and creating spell scrolls with them reduces cost by 50%, RIval causes rare spell components to become harder to find, rumors are spread that the PC is an incompetent spellcaster), Merchant (as an ally grants advantage for Procure An Item downtime activity, rival causes some merchants to refuse to do business with the party), Sailor (PCs can passage on their ships even in risky waters, advantage on Perception and Survival checks while on their ship, Rival makes it harder to find passage on ships), Soldier (Ally lets the PC gain +1d4 to Constitution and Strength saves if they or their fellow soldiers are within 30 feet of them, Rivalry causes the town guard and soldiers at outposts to believe that the party are untrustworthy or dangerous people), and Soothsayer (Ally lets the PC choose to automatically get a natural 20 up to 2 times on Downtime activity rolls per Downtime period, rival causes the PC to gain inaccurate information passed to them indirectly by the Soothsayer).

Thoughts So Far: Campcraft, Downtime, and Contacts really fleshes out particular avenues of 5th Edition that had barebones rules at best in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. I do like how the former two categories have a plethora of options for just about every character type, and the unique benefits encourage PCs to engage with the system. I also like how they make tool proficiencies have more mechanical weight, which explains how easy they were to get in the last chapter’s Lifepath system.

My major criticism is that despite the diverse options, PCs are inevitably going to gravitate towards Activities that they have the best chances of succeeding, which can end up making campcraft and downtime periods monotonous events of “time to roll three more Religion checks” again. While preventing Downtime Activities from being chosen multiple times per period helps with this, there’s no such limitation for Campcraft, which is more at risk of this. Additionally, the DM more or less has to prepare Allies and Rivals as fully fleshed-out characters ahead of time, who can be made at the end of an Activity, unless they’re fine with having them start out as stock archetypes thought up on the spot.

Join us next time as we finish up the rest of the book in Chapter 4: A Place To Call Home, Chapter 5: Who Pulls the Strings, and Chapter 6: Hanging Up Your Sword!
 
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I didn't know about this supplement, so thanks for the review. The life path tables in Xanathar's are quite possibly my favorite character creation tool, so I'll be giving this a look as well.
 

The more I read this review @Libertad, the more I become interested in this product. I have added it to my DriveThruRPG cart and will pull the trigger (yay or nay) after your next installment. Thank you as always for these in-depth reviews.
 

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This chapter brings the concept of a Base into 5th edition, a stationary dwelling for PCs to rest at and commit to various projects. A Base’s primary characteristics are its Size and Rooms. A Size determines its initial cost to buy (unless the PCs get it for free as a reward) and how much it costs to Upkeep for each period of Downtime. Rooms are physical spaces that can be customized for specific needs and usually provide some kind of in-game benefit, and the total number of Rooms is based on Size.

There are different sizes which are roughly determined by square feet and general building type, ranging from 1,000 square feet to 20k+ or more at the highest end. The first 4 categories are rather evenly spaced out in terms of price, from 750 to 5,000 gold, but the last two categories are much more expensive at 20,000 and 100,000 gold. Fortunately the Upkeep cost doesn’t rise exponentially, generally being 1.5 to 2 times the prior value (20, 60, 90, 120, 250, and 500 gold).

There are 30 different Room types, some of which have specific requirements but all of them need a set amount of gold for construction. The Rooms don’t differ drastically in cost, generally being 100 gold for the cheapest to 600 as the most expensive. Some of the more interesting ones include Bathhouse (gain advantage on all Constitution saves to resist Exhaustion at the start of each Downtime period, ends when you take your first level of Exhaustion), Greenhouse (advantage on Herbalism Kit checks while in room, restore 1d10+2 charges to a Healer’s Kit at the end of each Downtime period), Mage Tower (add double proficiency on Arcana checks while in the tower, required gold for copying and scribing spells is halved), Map Room (advantage on Calligrapher’s Supplies and Navigator’s tools while in room, can accept Chart Course Preparation without counting towards preparation limit if using the Uncharted Journeys rules), Storage Room (reinforced iron door with DC 20 lock, can hold one type of consumable resource if not used to store treasure), Training Room (can impart two proficiencies instead of one when doing Crash Course Campcraft activity, advantage on tests to Train An Apprentice Downtime activity), and Watchtower (advantage on Perception checks while in tower, nobody can approach the Base unseen without the use of magic if at least one person is standing guard here).

There’s also seven Features, modifications to the Base as a whole which are unconnected to any Rooms in particular. They’re much more expensive, being in the thousands of gold piece range for costs, but include some rather nifty boosts such as Hidden Passageways which connect secret doors to every Room in the Base and require DC 17 Investigation or Perception checks to find. Or Defenses, which can be purchased twice: one option forces invaders to overcome a relevant ability check in order to get inside, while the other grants people inside a +5 on saving throws to resist magical intrusion and spying. There’s even a Portal that magically links to a place within the Base, an established teleportation circle, or similar magical transportation on the Base’s plane of existence.

This chapter ends with a d100 table of Local Events that can crop up while the PCs spend a period of Downtime in their Base. These events affect everyone in the party, and only for the current period of Downtime. They generally resolve automatically as opposed to requiring an adventure or encounter to alter. For example, a poor harvest imposes disadvantage on Farming and Farmhand Downtime Activities, and food-based businesses treat their Income Level as one lower.

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This chapter is similar to but distinct from Contacts in that it covers a new NPC type, the Patron. Unlike Contacts, Patrons deal with the party as a whole rather than one specific PC, the benefits and hindrances they give are thus group-based, and there’s more material to flesh out their backstories and personalities given their increased importance. Patrons can be made either via random dice table results or the DM picking what feels best, and the book suggests that a Patron be made with the input of players at the table. The rationale is that it helps create a clear objective and reason for the Patron and PCs to work together.

Each Patron supplies each PC with a Salary during a Downtime period, whose amount depends on the party’s current Tier. The funds come with strings attached, intended to be discretionary spending for tasks and adventures in line with the Patron’s interest, and payment can be withheld if they lose trust and confidence in the party. Each Patron also has one of twelve Types, reflecting their occupation and area of influence, such as a feudal baron, high priest, or a powerful extraplanar entity. A Patron’s type comes with a series of suggested Boons which grant the party both implied and explicit benefits. No Boons are locked into or restricted by type, as it comes down to how the DM justifies their influence and resources.

The twelve Boons are quite open-ended and a few have explicit mechanics. For example, Esoteric Archives grants the party access to a secret storehouse of knowledge, giving them advantage on Investigation checks for relevant research. Safe Passage, meanwhile, lets the party safely go through an otherwise dangerous area due to the Patron pulling strings to remove obstacles in their path.

Liabilities are the opposite side of Boons, where a Patron’s personality, organization, and restrictions come with setbacks that the DM can spring on the party. They’re generally personality types such as an Unforgiving patron who is particularly vengeful against certain groups and ideologies, and can hold a grudge against PCs who fail them or don’t act in line with their views. But one of them, Blackmailed, reflects someone extorting the Patron to act in counterproductive ways. This Liability is more temporary than the others, as it’s inevitable that the PCs will be called upon to deal with the blackmailer. There’s also a table of Patron Events that occur at the beginning of a Downtime period and last until the next one, such as lending the party a magic item for their next adventure in exchange for returning it undamaged.

The other aspects of a Patron are less mechanical and more roleplay-centric, such as determining their long-term goals and desires, how PCs may gain or lose a new Patron, how a Patron can become an Ally, and short sentences of sample personality traits to flesh them out. Our chapter ends with Lord Kustap Van Rouque, a one page sample Patron who is the head of a librarians’ guild. He hires adventurers to look for rare books, first-hand reports, and other bits of valuable knowledge in the wider world.

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The final chapter of this book is also the shortest, covering how a PC may retire from play in a more fleshed-out way while keeping them in the story. A fair portion of this chapter is less about explicit rules and more general outlines of common reasons for an adventure to retire, how to best fit a new PC into the ongoing plot, how the former PC may still aid the party from afar, and also when it would be appropriate for the story to bring them back in for “one last adventure.”

The only major mechanical rule in this chapter is a d12 table, How Have You Changed, reflecting how a PC’s time in retirement affected them should they come back into the fray. They tend to either be purely beneficial (walks at night help them see up to 30 feet in dim light as if it were bright light), or a double-edged sword (advanced age granting -2 on Strength saves but +2 on Charisma saves). Two changes that are stronger than others are training exclusively with a single weapon type, granting +2 bonus on attack rolls with it but -2 with all other weapon types. Another one has the PC lose their social filter, which lets them pester a creature that can hear and understand them, imposing disadvantage on that creature’s next ability check. This last thing doesn’t specify an action type, implying it’s a free action.

This is the final chapter of the book. The remaining pages are an index and compilation of Campcraft and Downtime Activities, the latter being two large tables with short descriptions and page numbers for easy referencing.

Thoughts So Far: Of the final three chapters, my favorite is the one where PCs can build and maintain their own Base. It’s a good means of giving players tangible benefits for spending money in 5th Edition, and given that it will take a while to save up funds for the largest buildings and features it has a sense of incremental advancement over the course of a campaign rather than being a one-and-done purchase. My only real criticism is that not all campaigns may be suitable for a stationary base of operations. While the Portal Feature is designed to accommodate for this, not all settings are guaranteed to have rapid long-distance travel. It’s easier for PCs in Eberron to take the lightning rail or airship to far-off countries without much consequence, but in the low-magic world of Dragonlance such an endeavor would be an adventure of its own.

Patrons sound like a nice idea, but I would’ve preferred it if they had more explicit mechanical benefits rather than the paltry Salary. They basically feel like Contacts with a broader focus and budget. I have similar feelings about the Retirement rules, in that they’re more general advice that is of varying quality depending on the group in question. The contents could be thought-provoking for some, self-evident for others.

Final Thoughts: A Life Well Lived is packed full of content, yet done so in a manner that feels like an easy read. The five different subsystems are individually easy to understand, and by giving mechanical rewards for things that would be glossed over in the typical 5th Edition campaign it can enhance the “role-playing” nature of PCs becoming fixtures in their local communities. The Campcraft and Downtime activities are broad enough to cover a variety of tasks and ideas, from running a business to offscreen dungeon crawls not important enough to cover in the main plot. And the Base building is definitely something I’d be tempted to use in a future campaign.

The Lifepath and Patrons are more of an acquired taste, and I can’t see myself using them. The former in particular is a very different departure from how a lot of 5e gamers play, and its lack of Lineage options makes it suitable for more generic “Tolkien clone” settings vs more diverse realms.

But with all that said, I found A Live Well Lived a Purchase Well Made, for it has enough ideas I’d like to implement in my own games. There’s a little bit of something for everyone here who wants to flesh out what PCs do “offscreen.”
 
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I didn't know about this supplement, so thanks for the review. The life path tables in Xanathar's are quite possibly my favorite character creation tool, so I'll be giving this a look as well.

Cubicle 7 has done great work in expanding on a lot of concepts the official rules experimented with. I haven't read Broken Weave yet, but between this and Uncharted Journeys they already have a good track record for involved yet transparent sub-systems.

The more I read this review @Libertad, the more I become interested in this product. I have added it to my DriveThruRPG cart and will pull the trigger (yay or nay) after your next installment. Thank you as always for these in-depth reviews.

Happy to hear that I helped you find a book to your liking. Safe to say that my final score for this one is a thumbs up.



I'd also like to note at one point where I possibly misspoke about ability scores in Lifepath going up to 22. I meant that as a rolled result, but the sub-system doesn't alter ability score maximums. It's still 20.
 

Bad news for Cubicle 7 that WotC is, apparently, doing some of this stuff in the 2024 books, which I have to imagine isn't going to help sales until the books are out and people can judge the final version of Bastions and downtime activities, for instance.
 

Bad news for Cubicle 7 that WotC is, apparently, doing some of this stuff in the 2024 books, which I have to imagine isn't going to help sales until the books are out and people can judge the final version of Bastions and downtime activities, for instance.
It is unlikely WotC will go into the depth the Cubicle 7 is doing with there supplements. I mean, "A Life Well Lived" alone is 144 pages. I don't expect 144 pages in the DMG devoted to downtime and bastions. Not to mention "Uncharted Journeys" is another 294 pages (IIRC). So those two books are bigger than the 2024 DMG!

They will still have space in peoples shelves who want more crunch than WotC will provide
 

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