Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Explores Downtime Activities

This is EXACTLY what I wanted and EXACTLY what the game needed.

Then there's this: "For more information, see “Brewing Potions of Healing” in this section on crafting and “Scribing a Spell Scroll” on page Error! Bookmark not defined." (p. 7)

 

[Saeviomagy]

Heh. I noticed that brewing a healing potion takes 1 day and 25 gp.

If giving a spell that creates a healing potion to wizards was a bad thing, now EVERYONE can do it. All you need is proficiency in herbalism.

Go go healing wands.

Well, everyone kind of HAS to, because it costs you 100gp per week to even have a chance of finding someone who might sell you a few. And then they cost 20-70gp each. And then 1/10 of them turn out to be cursed, fake, stolen, enslaved intelligent entities, twice the price or cost you your soul to buy.

 

[Hussar]

Well, everyone kind of HAS to, because it costs you 100gp per week to even have a chance of finding someone who might sell you a few. And then they cost 20-70gp each. And then 1/10 of them turn out to be cursed, fake, stolen, enslaved intelligent entities, twice the price or cost you your soul to buy.

Well, not really. They do call out healing potions as an exception. It's probably because they are available in the PHB. They aren't necessarily "magic items" in the strictest sense.

I was just pointing out that giving arcane casters the ability to create a 2d4 healing potion as a spell for 1 day, isn't really much of a jump when your party rogue can crank out 1/day for 25 gp a pop and they last forever.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, the point of foils is to figure out what recurring NPC would be played by Mark Sheppard in a tv version of your campaign, right?

View attachment 83248

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, we got more options for making, selling, and buying magic items. I happen to like how they tied those mechanics to in-game flavor, but I am willing to bet that the folks who have been demanding rules for magic item creation will not be happy at all.

"You mean it takes me a YEAR to make one rare item? That's BS!"

Eh, the buying and selling rules are a good start, at least.

Definately going to take a hatchet to the time and cost of crafting, and some parts of the buying and selling.

I'll be using the "Sane Magic Item Prices" instead of the listed cost-by-rarity

ditching the cost to find someone who will sell the thing completely, outside of very rare stuff, in which case it's basically a broker fee

Ignoring the complications for crafting, most of the time. Maybe all the time.

Ignoring complications for buying and selling anything more common than "rare", with scaling likelihood of complication by rarity from there up.

Many items will be available for commission or in shops in major cities.

Negotiating selling price applies to buying and selling, and is basically a skill challenge. Each check can either raise or lower the cost from a baseline of the base/market cost, with modifiers as appropriate for setting and circumstance. I'll work out a chart, probably, to help determine starting costs for an item in a given region and time.

*Crafting an item costs no more than 90% of the market price of the item. Some items it's much less, and profit is entirely possible. My games also feature much less treasure, and the need to engage in trade to turn treasure into money, and features a lot more intangible rewards like contacts, favors, etc.

Since my players rarely make characters who adventure primarily for treasure, this has never lead to less adventure. It does lead to varied adventuring input from player characters, and thus more varied adventure types. *

Use the research activity to get to find out info about the market for different things. Becoming a successful merchant isn't easy, or fast, or simple, but it is possible and rewarding.

I do like that buying and selling magic items is like buying and selling art, but I also want more nuance in the numbers part of it, and I want them to recognize that at some tables we don't assume that the ability to craft cool magic stuff is exceedingly rare, and/or a lost art from bygone eras.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One quick and dirty way to reduce crafting time without redoing the math is to count having the right tools, and the right facilities, as if each were a helper. And hire an assistant, or take an apprentice.

In fact, apprentices are great if you like giving players characters new ties to the world as they progress.


But I still think Eberron needs to be supported in 5e, for many reasons, one of which is that it deviates from many standard 5e economic and world building assumptions, and it would add a lot to the game to explore how to run such games in 5e.

And because it has a lot of unique elements, and makes a perfect second example of a setting, because it takes the familiar and casts it in a new light, while adding new unique elements, and using all of that to support *both* the same stories you can tell in FR, and some stories that are a bit more of a stretch for FR, like Noir, Cosmic Horror, Pulp Action, and war drama.

But for a world that doesn't have Cannith Emporiums, this system is a few tweaks away from operational.

 

[CapnZapp]

.

This stuff requires so much rewriting it's essentially useless.

Oh it's useless alright. That much was immediately clear.



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[76512390ag12]

(why would my wizard care if someone else wants to watch him work?)

Yes, why? I can think of one obvious reason but why else? For me that's in and of itself a potentially character building moment.

It's expensive, takes a long time, and generally hurts them more than it was worth in the first place.

Now i like that. A lot of potential for enjoyable roleplaying in just reaching that conclusion.

The players are better off just telling me what they want to do and me just deciding the results of that instead of having these tables.

I respect that, it's your group. Sometimes I just need help to get me out of a rut.
So much so that the only problem with this UA for me is that it's too short!

I use the AEG Compleat Toolbox to keep feeding me ideas I wouldn't have.





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[Chaosmancer]

Yes, why? I can think of one obvious reason but why else? For me that's in and of itself a potentially character building moment.

I'm confused how you see a character building moment here.

Either
A) The Wizard player just says "Yeah, sure what do I care" and nothing happens

B) The DM insists on this being bad, because it is a complication, perhaps making up reasons the character doesn't want this guy (or insisting the player makes up a reason) or messing them over for letting the guy watch (hey you were nice, let's make sure you don't do that again) or

C) very, very rarely, they might decide that this complication is actually a reward, which is against the nature of the event and what is expected according to the UA


IF you have C, I could see character interactions come from this, but the other two aren't good character building moments to me

Now i like that. A lot of potential for enjoyable roleplaying in just reaching that conclusion.

Again, huh?

I wasn't talking about the characters realizing all of this was a bad deal. I'm talking about the players. If they see time after time that doing these downtimes cost them a lot of hard earned money, give them almost no positive results, and instead just make them enemies all over town. They are going to stop using them. The Blacksmith will stop smithing, the librarian will stop researching, the cleric will stop doing holy services, not because their characters would actually want to stop, but because it ends up sucking to try and do things.

That isn't great roleplay anymore than it is for them to stop trusting NPCs because the DM insists every NPC they befriend will eventually betray them. It's just them reacting to the incentives in the game.



Which incidentally, leads me to another oddity here.

I've been talking a lot about how long it takes to craft, especially on other forums, but not all these activities take the same amount of time.

Let's say you have a 3 man party.

1 decides to craft a suit of mail, this takes him 4 months, 16 weeks

1 Decides to go on a crime spree. Targeting only DC 10 targets he'll make 400 gold almost guaranteed as he rolls 48 checks. Odds are he'll get at least four complications, making enemies, going to jail, and ruining people's lives. Actually a Rogue or a player whose confident enough to go after DC 15 targets can make 800 gold (with expertise in the skills a rogue is very likely to get those 15's), and a high level rogue with Reliable Talent can possbly hit DC 20 reliably enough to make 1600 gold.

The last just wants to get drunk. Rolling 16 times on carousing they will probably make at least 2 enemies, gain 14 favors, and lose a minimum of 400 gold while getting all sorts of shenagins.


Oh, and between the Rogue and the last guy, you've got six pressing quests to fix all the stuff they did.


I get some people like all the options and hooks here, but it very quickly gets out of hand if you go in under the assumption that none of this connects to the main plot.

I want value here, but the rules aren't giving me new things, just making the old ones harder or more expensive (or not fixing them). Even the foils rules are essentially "don't forget NPCs exist and may not like the party"... yes, that is the point of NPCs is it not? To exist, make the world more real, and have their own goals and agendas that may or may not interfere with the party.

 

[AriochQ]

I would like some downtime activities for ruling a domain or a church or a thieves' guild.

The 7/5 days in a week/work week doesn't totally work with the calendars in their fantasy setting. Forgotten Realms uses a tenday week and other settings use 8. Why not just keep using days?

I put some homebrew rules for running a thieves guild on dmsguild http://www.dmsguild.com/product/184100/Thieves-Guilds

They don't have all the crazy complications that the UA article includes. Personally, I don't have a problems with adventure hooks in a homebrew campaign. In fact, I have the exact opposite problem. As the campaign matures, there are too many things for the characters to do. The last thing I need is to derail any campaign plotlines for 2 sessions because a PC tried to buy a magic item and is now being hunted by a cult or something.

 

[Iosue]

Nice shout out to the Moldvay Basic sample dungeon!