Level Up (A5E) Level Up's Downtime activities

We have a lot of downtime activities available in the advanced edition of 5E. Crafting, information gathering, recovery, religious devotion, research, spell craft, training, and work. Here's a look at a couple of pages in this chapter.

Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)

The standalone 'advanced 5E' backwards compatible tabletop RPG!

www.levelup5e.com

 

[Morrus]

So are there going to be skill checks for downtime crafting… many of my players complain that they has Artisan tools, but do not even use them for rolls?

Here's a few glimpses...

 

[Darkwynters]

So Garn the craft priest could make a dagger (normal) with a 15 DC for 1 gp. He needs 2 p… (which is less than a week) and has to make 1 check (I think)… but he can sell it for a possible 2 gp. Score!

 

[Stalker0]

Engineering tasks seem extremely difficult, probably too difficult.

if I’m reading this right crafting a sailboat is a DC 18 check, even a skilled craftsman (let’s say +3 prof +3 ability) will fail more checks than they succeed. Simple complexity seems to me should be dc 15, maybe 16 at most….although even that seems pretty high to make a basic sailboat.

also what is the 2p next to light weapons, for some reason it’s driving me crazy I have to know!

 

[Stalker0]

To put it another way, if I think of a craftsman who is solidly competent.

I imagine prof and expertise, so +4. Considering +3 prof bonuses aren’t available until 5th level (aka rare and special), that’s our ceiling.

ability wise…I would allow for a +1…which is already above the curve (aka this person isn’t just skilled they are naturally talented…which is already a bit much for our standard competent craftsman but let’s allow it).

so that’s a +5, so DC 15 with take 10. So we need to respect that to craft dc 15 goods and expect to succeed at your craft, you need to be highly trained and naturally talented.

so how about a crafting master? For that a +3 x2 for expertise makes sense, so +6. Now…I would still argue most masters would have a +1 ability…but I’ll stretch it to a +2. This means to be a master requires lots of expertise AND to be very very gifted. It’s easy for PCs to forget how rare 14s in a stat should be if we consider the standard population.

So that’s a +8, or DC 18 take 10. So a “simple” sailboat is something that only master boatbuilders would make, standard boatbuilders would do it as a special project to enhance their craft…but would assume failure the majority of the time. That does not feel right to me.

Now DC 20 for exceptional items works for me. That’s something a master would struggle with, fail at a few times, and then succeed. Basically a true masterpiece.

to make those regularly (aka +10), would require very high level skill or insane natural talent. That’s your once in a generation craftsman…or a PC

But that’s bounded accuracy for you, realistically most things should get +1 - +3 ranges of difficulty, as +5 represents a HUGE increase in difficulty.

 

[Darkwynters]

Hmmm I wonder if this advanced edition is going to have “masterwork” tools… ie artisan tools +1?

 

[Stalker0]

Hmmm I wonder if this advanced edition is going to have “masterwork” tools… ie artisan tools +1?

can certainly help. But that still means a normal craftsman would need "some of the best tools in the world" to make a simple sailboat consistently. There of course maybe other rules I am missing, but at the glance DC 18 just seems much too high for anything with the word "simple" in it.

 

[Kinematics]

So a “simple” sailboat is something that only master boatbuilders would make, standard boatbuilders would do it as a special project to enhance their craft…but would assume failure the majority of the time. That does not feel right to me.

I think the issue here is not accounting for circumstantial bonuses. The master craftsman building a boat isn't working by himself; he's got a whole team of workers under him. He also has schematics and designs, likely of boats that have been successfully made before (ie: he's not creating something entirely new each time).

So bonus from good tools (as you've already mentioned); bonus for known good designs; help from the workers he employs; and possibly experience building this exact boat design numerous times. I'd give that at least a +6 altogether, and then +6 from proficiency/expertise, and +2 from attributes, for a +14 total. On a Take 10, that means he can reliably hit a DC 24.

Applying the same to a normal craftsman should still give him a +10 or so, meaning he can hit DC 20, and thus manage a decent sailboat (even if not as finely crafted as the master craftsman who could beat the DC by 5 or more).

A single person trying to build a sailboat without vetted designs? I'd expect that to be extremely hard. And a lot of crafting in general is likely to be harder, since it's based on the premise of a single craftsman. But at a certain point you can't scale up using just one person, but having teams work on a project gives you more headroom for high-difficulty tasks.

Also figure that the first time that boatbuilder made a boat, it was probably on a Take 20, where every possible mistake was made, noted, and corrected for in later designs.

 

[Faolyn]

This one:

Is giving me some problems. You cut off the example, but it looks like you're saying "pocket watch." If that's what the example is, there's no way something as complex as a pocket watch should take only one week. Yeah, I know, this is only a tiny fraction of the actual document.

 

[Kinematics]

This one:

View attachment 141069

Is giving me some problems. You cut off the example, but it looks like you're saying "pocket watch." If that's what the example is, there's no way something as complex as a pocket watch should take only one week. Yeah, I know, this is only a tiny fraction of the actual document.

Well, it's going by size, and it looks like the example for "small" is a prosthetic limb, which is hardly less complex than a pocket watch.

I'm not sure what sort of cabinet is being suggested for the medium size, but my initial impression is that the "Engineering" table is for things which are pretty complex all around. It's not like you're comparing a pocket watch to a bookshelf. All of the items being built are likely to be pretty complex, and it's just a matter of how much of that complex stuff you have to build (ie: something that fits in your hand, or an entire arm, or an entire body, etc).

On the pocket watch taking a week, I could certainly see that if most of the components are already made (eg: gears, springs, etc), and it's mainly a matter of designing how it looks, and figuring out how to put all the bits together to get the effect you want.

 

[Faolyn]

Well, it's going by size, and it looks like the example for "small" is a prosthetic limb, which is hardly less complex than a pocket watch.

Depends on the limb. If it's fully a articulated hand that works like many modern prosthetics do, yes. If it's a piece of wood carved to look like a leg, no.

On the pocket watch taking a week, I could certainly see that if most of the components are already made (eg: gears, springs, etc), and it's mainly a matter of designing how it looks, and figuring out how to put all the bits together to get the effect you want.

That's true. I guess we'll have to see what level of complexity they mean.