Downtime generally runs 1 week at a time (with the last "week" in a stretch of downtime running from 4 to 10 days).
During each stretch of downtime you can take a major action and a minor action.
In addition to this you can generally find enough time to purchase items and socialize during your free time.
Each stretch of downtime you also need to handle your cost of living:
| Standard of Living | Week | Month (45 days) |
|---|---|---|
| Subsistence* | 4 sp | 2 gp |
| Comfortable | 1 gp | 6 gp |
| Fine | 30 gp | 180 gp |
| Extravagant | 100 gp | 625 gp |
- You can attempt to Subsist (see below) using Society or Survival for free.
Paying a month ahead of time is slightly cheaper.
Major Downtime Actions
Earn Income
You use one of your skills to make money during downtime. The GM assigns a task level representing the most lucrative job available. You can search for lower-level tasks, with the GM determining whether you find any. Sometimes you can attempt to find better work than the initial offerings, though this takes time and requires spending your minor action to use the Diplomacy skill to Gather Information, doing some research, or socializing.
After your first day of work, you roll to determine your earnings. You gain an amount of income based on your result, the task’s level, and your proficiency rank (as listed on Table 4–2: Income Earned).
You can continue working at the task on subsequent days without needing to roll again. For each day you spend after the first, you earn the same amount as the first day, up until the task’s completion. The GM determines how long you can work at the task. Most tasks last a week or two, though some can take months or even years.
Earn Income: Crafting Goods for the Market
Using Crafting, you can work at producing common items for the market. It’s usually easy to find work making basic items whose level is 1 or 2 below your settlement’s level. Higher-level tasks represent special commissions.
Earn Income: Practicing a Trade
You apply the practical benefits of one of your Lore specialties during downtime by practicing your trade. This is most effective for Lore specialties such as business, law, or sailing, where there’s high demand for workers. The GM might increase the DC or determine only low-level tasks are available if you’re attempting to use an obscure Lore skill to Earn Income. You might also need specialized tools to accept a job, like mining tools to work in a mine or a merchant’s scale to buy and sell valuables in a market.
Earn Income: Staging a Performance
You perform for an audience to make money. The available audiences determine the level of your task, since more discerning audiences are harder to impress but provide a bigger payout. The GM determines the task level based on the audiences available. Performing for a typical audience of commoners on the street is a level 0 task, but a performance for a group of artisans with more refined tastes might be a 2nd- or 3rd-level task, and ones for merchants, nobility, and royalty are increasingly higher level.
| Task Level |
Typical DC |
Failure | Trained | Expert | Master | Legendary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 10 | 7 cp | 3 sp, 5 cp | 3 sp, 5 cp | 3 sp, 5 cp | 3 sp, 5 cp |
| 1 | 15 | 1 sp, 5 cp | 1 gp, 5 sp | 1 gp, 5 sp | 1 gp, 5 sp | 1 gp, 5 sp |
| 2 | 16 | 3 sp | 2 gp | 2 gp | 2 gp | 2 gp |
| 3 | 18 | 5 sp, 5 cp | 3 gp, 5 sp | 3 gp, 5 sp | 3 gp, 5 sp | 3 gp, 5 sp |
| 4 | 19 | 7 sp | 5 gp | 5 gp, 5 sp | 5 gp, 5 sp | 5 gp, 5 sp |
| 5 | 20 | 1 gp, 5 sp | 6 gp, 5 sp | 7 gp | 7 gp | 7 gp |
| 6 | 22 | 2 gp | 10 gp, 5 sp | 14 gp | 14 gp | 14 gp |
| 7 | 23 | 3 gp | 14 gp | 17 gp, 5 sp | 17 gp, 5 sp | 17 gp, 5 sp |
| 8 | 24 | 3 gp, 5 sp | 17 gp, 5 sp | 21 gp | 21 gp | 21 gp |
| 9 | 26 | 4 gp | 21 gp | 28 gp | 28 gp | 28 gp |
| 10 | 27 | 5 gp | 28 gp | 35 gp | 42 gp | 42 gp |
| 11 | 28 | 5 gp, 5 sp | 35 gp | 42 gp | 56 gp | 56 gp |
Craft
Using the Crafting skill, you can craft an item of your level or lower, for which you have the formula and tools. You need the Alchemical Crafting skill feat to create alchemical items, the Magical Crafting skill feat to create magic items, and the Snare Crafting feat to create snares. You will also need an amount of raw materials depending on your Crafting roll.
Make a Crafting roll. The GM determines the DC to Craft the item based on its level, rarity, and other circumstances.
Critical Success: You successfully craft the item. You must expend an amount of raw materials equal to the item's price reduced by (Income Earned by task of your level + 1) / 2 (reducing the item's cost to a minimum of half price).
Success: You successfully craft the item. You must expend an amount of raw materials equal to the item's price reduced by Income Earned by task of your level / 2 (reducing the item's cost to a minimum of half price).
Failure: You fail to complete the item. Either waste half the item's price in raw materials, or pay the item's full price in raw materials to try again. On this retry a success will mean a completed item (at no reduced cost), while a failure means that an amount of raw materials equal to the item's full price have been wasted.
Critical Failure: You waste half the item's price in raw materials, and get no chance to salvage the project.
You can Craft items with the consumable trait in batches, making up to four of the same item at once with a single check. You also Craft non-magical ammunition in batches, using the quantity listed in Table 6–8: Ranged Weapons.
If you waste materials on a failure or critical failure, depending on circumstances you may actually be able to salvage and sell a large part of the raw materials getting back 4/5 of their cost. (I.E. lose only 10% of the item's price if you waste half the item's price in raw materials, or 20% if you waste the item's full price).
Craft - Refining
If you succeeded on a Craft downtime action the previous downtime stretch, you may spend the following downtime stretch to reduce the amount of raw materials used by an amount equal to Income Earned by task of your level (or your level + 1 if the roll was a Critical Success).
You can also refine your item if your original Crafting roll was a failure, but you succeeded on the retry roll.
Subsist
You try to provide food and shelter for yourself, and possibly others as well.
The GM determines the DC based on the nature of the place where you’re trying to Subsist.
Critical Success: You either provide a subsistence living for yourself and one additional creature, or you improve your own food and shelter, granting yourself a comfortable living. Success You find enough food and shelter with basic protection from the elements to provide you a subsistence living. Failure You’re exposed to the elements and don’t get enough food, becoming fatigued until you attain sufficient food and shelter. Critical Failure You attract trouble, eat something you shouldn’t, or otherwise worsen your situation. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to checks to Subsist for 1 week. You don’t find any food at all; if you don’t have any stored up, you’re in danger of starving or dying of thirst if you continue failing.
This action can be performed as a Minor Downtime Action by taking a –5 penalty.
Create Forgery
Create a major forgery, as per the standard rules.
Longterm rest
Spending a week resting, you will recover all Hit Points, unless something is preventing your natural healing.
Treat Disease
You can treat one or more patient's for disease, as per the standard rules.
Treat Wounds
During a downtime stretch, you can perform Treat Wounds up to 300 times, dividing the treatment among as many creatures as you wish. You may use your passive score in Medicine to establish your general success. Achieving this healing rate does require a continuous flow of patients.
Retraining usually requires you to spend time learning from a teacher, whether that entails physical training, studying at a library, or falling into shared magical trances. Your GM determines whether you can get proper training or whether something can be retrained at all. In some cases, you’ll have to pay your instructor. Some abilities can be difficult or impossible to retrain (for instance, a sorcerer can retrain their bloodline only in extraordinary circumstances).
Retrain Feat
You can spend a week of downtime retraining to swap out one of your feats. Remove the old feat and replace it with another of the same type. For example, you could swap a skill feat for another skill feat, but not for a wizard feat.
Retrain Skill
You can spend a week of downtime retraining to swap out one of your skill increases. Reduce your proficiency rank in one skill by one step and increase your proficiency rank in another skill by one step. The new proficiency rank has to be equal to or lower than the proficiency rank you traded away.
For instance, if your bard is a master in Performance and Stealth, and an expert in Occultism, you could reduce the character’s proficiency in Stealth to expert and become a master in Occultism, but you couldn’t reassign that skill increase to become legendary in Performance.
Keep track of your level when you reassign skill increases; the level at which your skill proficiencies changed can influence your ability to retrain feats with skill prerequisites.
You can also spend a week to retrain an initial trained skill you gained during character creation.
Retrain Class Feature
You can change a class feature that required a choice, making a different choice instead. This lets you change a druid order or a wizard school, for example. The GM will tell you how long this takes — always at least 4 weeks.
While retraining, you still have access to the old class feature.
Minor Downtime Actions
Learn A Spell
You spend some time to learn a spell, as per the standard rules.
Minor Subsist
You try to provide food and shelter for yourself, and possibly others as well, while doing a major Downtime action. See the major Subsist action for the details.
Downtime and Healing
During a normal stretch of Downtime you will recover a number of hit points equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1) x your level x 5.