D&D 5E New L&L When Adventurers Aren’t Adventuring

[Ichneumon]

This seems like a great foundation. I can't wait to see how this gets fleshed out.

One of the best parts of this is that characters will have something to spend their gold on aside from magic items or gear.

I expect it to be the primary place to spend gold.

 

[MortalPlague]

I expect it to be the primary place to spend gold.

I hope so!

 

[MarkB]

<Falls over>

Wow, second page of a Legends & Lore thread, and every single response so far is positive!

I've no intention of breaking the trend - this sounds like an interesting system that I look forward to seeing in practice.

It also sounds potentially quite 'portable'. If the mechanics are sound enough, I could see myself borrowing from it heavily even in non-5e campaigns.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I wonder if this replaces (or is the latest version of) the legacy system. I like this better, since it's not tied to an arbitrary class level milestone. i.e., it's not "when you hit 8th level, you can build a fortress." It's "after you've put in the necessary legwork, paid your dues, got on the duke's good side, and raised the money, you can have your fortress--and you'll probably be 8th level by then anyway."

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I wonder if this replaces (or is the latest version of) the legacy system. I like this better, since it's not tied to an arbitrary class level milestone. i.e., it's not "when you hit 8th level, you can build a fortress." It's "after you've put in the necessary legwork, paid your dues, got on the duke's good side, and raised the money, you can have your fortress--and you'll probably be 8th level by then anyway."

Hopefully - I certainly like the idea of trying to establish a castle right from level 1. Personally I'd love detailed rules on the costs involved - per cubic metre of stone wall, that sort of thing.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am also a huge fan of downtime activities, and this column's ideas together with the exploration rules (in large scale i.e. "travel mode") would be great for me. I am not sure how much mechanics we really need, but today's column mention that the target is having simple rules so not heavy mechanics fortunately.

The only one bit that worries me a little is the part about investing money... IMHO they need to be careful about how this will interact with PC's personal wealth, especially since there can be a huge difference depending on magic item availability. I want magic items to be rarely (if ever) on sale, except for the smallest trinkets and potions, so for me it doesn't really matter if a PC can make a lot of money, it will hardly make a difference in adventures if you can buy 1000 masterwork swords or just 1. But for a group that wants to have a similar wealth management as in 3e, a downtime activity that grants you extra money can make a lot of difference.

I wonder if this replaces (or is the latest version of) the legacy system. I like this better, since it's not tied to an arbitrary class level milestone. i.e., it's not "when you hit 8th level, you can build a fortress." It's "after you've put in the necessary legwork, paid your dues, got on the duke's good side, and raised the money, you can have your fortress--and you'll probably be 8th level by then anyway."

I hope so too. It's best for this to be level-independent, so that it can be used more freely by different groups. E.g. a group might be very interested in downtime activities, but not so keep on taking the typical complexity at high levels.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm a big fan.

...and the first thing I think of is that another use of downtime mechanics is Healing. Getting back to full HP, removing curses or diseases or injuries, etc., happens during your party's downtime.

...and maybe getting spells back, too....

There's no reason to hard-code that, but having an area where I could plug that in is pretty positive.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Sounds good to me. This could also help some new DM too by offering a structure during downtime.

 

[billd91]

To repeat my comment from the mothership, it sounds great, but it doesn't answer WHY adventurers aren't adventuring. In my current campaign, the party is about to finish up an adventure, and they have a bunch of hooks for other adventures. It would be cool for them to chill in Waterdeep and do downtime stuff for a bit, but why would they not immediately go and do another adventure? The game needs to encourage this kind of downtime, and two-day rests isn't the way.

Well, in 3e and PF, crafters engaging in magic item creation is a good time for non-crafter characters to get in various downtime activities, but that doesn't seem like a very likely reason in D&D Next given the general feel of the magic items so far (much to my approval). But there are other incentives that you can build in, both positive and negative. Pathfinder's downtime system (recently published in Ultimate Campaign) enables the PCs to use some of the capital obtained in downtime (like goods, labor, and influence) to be spent to aid things like skill checks. Certainly making a check to gather information could be improved by spending labor and/or influence. They also include negative incentives with some resources degrading if the PCs don't spend some downtime on them every once in a while.

 

[Zustiur]

could it be that skills won't be tied in with your class levels at all? That might be cool, after all, there's only so much you can learn whilst out adventuring. Maybe a tick system (Call of Cthulhu style) could be implemented so that those skills specifically adventuring related will level up with you, and others require downtime.

I'm hoping so. If they don't make it, I will. I was already trying to determine how best to divorce skills and ranks from classes and levels.