D&D 5E Training and Downtime

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[El Mahdi]

250 days seems like a lot to me, especially when some adventurers can learn a language in a matter of days or a few weeks by simply listening...

[video=youtube;lnnREr8BV24]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnnREr8BV24[/video]


P.S.: So many people think Antonio Banderas has an exotic sounding name; though when anglicized, it's simply Anthony Banner...

 

[JohnLynch]

Downtime is a wonderful storytelling tool. You can revisit your characters years later; things may have changed. Your character might be a bit older, now a captain of the guard, taken up a new career. The world may have changed, too.

TV and movies make use of that narrative tool all the time. Many folks also use it in their RPGs.

My. I wonder if there is a game where one of the central conceits to tell lifelong stories, using downtime to achieve that

 

[Morrus]

My. I wonder if there is a game where one of the central conceits to tell lifelong stories, using downtime to achieve that

If only!

 

[Wik]

In my current 5e game, I rule that the winter months are just too harsh for travel. It's a coastal region, and the waves are too bad for travel. So, two seasons out of the year are just no good (half of fall, all of winter, and half of spring). So, PCs get around 180 days of downtime in one big stretch.

It has faults, but it's realistic, it spreads out campaign time a bit, and gives PCs a chance to tackle these new proficiencies. Strangely, no PC yet has tried to gain proficiency in weapons or thief tools... the one who did anything decided to learn a new language, which was a nice change of pace from past campaigns.

If you want to change things to suit your own game, I'd recommend having trainers that can vastly reduce times for certain types of training if you do "favours" for them. Basically, fill your town with, say, ten NPCs. Have each require something, and the PC that does that unlocks that training. Five have languages, and five have tools. They reduce the time to 25% what's listed, and don't cost anything. So, you take a month or two to learn the basics.

I also have markets sell "language stones" that impart languages on PCs. So far, no one's bought one, but only because the languages have been a bit obscure and no PC has had excess funds yet (though... they DID buy a petrified pseudodragon, so...) It could be a way to rid PCs of excess wealth, if you're interested in having that side of the game without having it eat up time.

Personally, I'm a fan of moving the campaign calendar forward. I require PCs to spend downtime between adventures... especially if they want to sell magic items and maybe buy a few (the magic item market is a black market dealio, and it only happens once a month, so if the PCs end an adventure early, they have to wait a few weeks for the auction to get rid of their ill-gotten gains).

 

[Wik]

My. I wonder if there is a game where one of the central conceits to tell lifelong stories, using downtime to achieve that

Pendragon does this.

The game is set in Arthurian England. PCs start off before Arthur, and see the young boy come around. Then, they have kids, who grow up protecting Arthur. Then THEY have kids, who serve an aging Arthur during Lancelot's betrayal.

Or something like that.

Anyways, each adventure is one year - it usually takes up a month of game time. The rest of the game is managing your little fiefdom, getting married, maybe having kids, and going to tourneys. All of which are done with rolls and decisions and whatnot. Basically, your "character" is your bloodline. Many "adventures" can be covered in a few minutes of session time, so it's not too unusual to have four or five years go by in one month of real-time play.

At least, that's the theory. I've never played it, becuase the system makes my eyes glaze over. But the IDEA of the game is pretty damn nifty.

 

[Wik]

Also, 250 days to learn a tool proficiency is about right - assuming D&D style technology. To learn a trade takes four years of on-the-job work, with a total of 24 weeks of school time during those four years. That's accounting for the fact that a trade has a LOT of stuff involved in it that wouldn't occur "back in the olden days" - stuff like building to code, earthquake preparedness, moisture sealing, environmental decisions, etc.

I've got over 250 days of on the job training in carpentry, and while I'm probably a helluva lot better with a hammer and chisel than most people on this site, I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm "fully proficient". So, I'd be willing to say 250 days is about right for a proficiency bonus.

 

[MechaPilot]

So training new languages or tools takes 250 days of downtime.

I'm not arguing the validity of that, but I am saying that it's likely in a majority of games, that's next to useless. What campaign even lasts longer than 250 days, let alone has time for the adventurers to sit around for that long. Let alone, do this more than once.
Or maybe it's just the campaigns that I play in that happen to be short-lived in-game.

Either way, 250 days is way too long for my table. I was thinking about knocking that down, but I'm at a loss as to what to do instead. I understand the rules exist as they stand to keep people from just training all the time and gaining proficiency in every tool or language. I want to add some other requirement but don't know what.

And I don't want to just add gold. With the way 5e economy works, there's no opportunity costs in that because the DM controls the cash flow completely. So then it just becomes "the DM allows you X number of additional proficiencies," since, honestly, what else do you have to spend gold on?

So what other requirements could I add?

One option is to keep the time requirement, but break it down into hours and allow the PCs to chip away at those hours by studying during long rests, and during other non-downtime moments such as while traveling.

Another option is to keep the 500 gp cost and simply reduce the time to whatever is appropriate for your game. That would result in a cost higher than 2 gp per day, but that could easily be reflected through the purchase of learning aids like foreign-language books/scrolls that a PC can study during a short or long rest, or the actual hiring of an NPC who speaks both languages to travel with you and teach you.

Yet another option would be to create a learning subsystem based on Int checks. Maybe the 250 days becomes 250 points. Then, for each week of study the player rolls an Int check. The check must beat a given DC to count. If the check is successful, the roll result is subtracted from the 250 points (maybe you get advantage on the roll if you had a week of actual downtime). Once the points are all gone, the language is learned. Assuming the player consistently rolls 10s and that the DC is 10 or less, this would mean learning a new language in only 175 days.

Still another option is that a character might only learn to speak and understand the language. If you cut literacy out of the equation, then learning a new language would presumably take less time because you don't need to study the written word.

Also, you could break it down into levels of proficiency. Assuming 250 days is for total fluency and complete literacy, you could say that 90 days gets you the basics: you can say hello and goodbye, and you know how to ask for people and ask where things are, but your vocabulary isn't huge and you won't understand everything.

Another option is to simply say that PCs can only benefit from additional training once per +1 of their proficiency bonus (or once per +2 of their proficiency bonus). That keeps the maximum at +6 (or +3).

 

[Lanefan]

Remember that writing is included in the language.

Ah, forgot about this bit. I have learning to write a language be quite different from learning to speak it - and not all characters are necessarily literate at all. My comments earlier were relating to merely being able to speak the language halfway well.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

In my current 5e game, I rule that the winter months are just too harsh for travel. It's a coastal region, and the waves are too bad for travel. So, two seasons out of the year are just no good (half of fall, all of winter, and half of spring). So, PCs get around 180 days of downtime in one big stretch.

This is an excellent way of organically generating downtime just through an aspect of the game world...until the party get access to teleport, planeshift, or anything else that lets them go where and-or when they want; after which downtime can become a lost concept unless something else generates it.

Personally, I'm a fan of moving the campaign calendar forward. I require PCs to spend downtime between adventures... especially if they want to sell magic items and maybe buy a few (the magic item market is a black market dealio, and it only happens once a month, so if the PCs end an adventure early, they have to wait a few weeks for the auction to get rid of their ill-gotten gains).

Also nicely done.

Lan-"I assume you have something in mind should they try to travel overland in winter instead of across the stormy water"-efan