Resources / Downtime

[The Shadow]

Could it just work as simply as you get an extra +1 to any Wealth awards? (Or +1 to Reputation awards for Renown, or -1 to Reputation awards for Low profile...)

Sure. Though I suggested at the time that Low Profile might work better as halving and rounding down.

[elf23]

Sure. Though I suggested at the time that Low Profile might work better as halving and rounding down.

Ok, that sounds good. So:

Wealthy: +1 to Wealth awards
Renown: +1 to Reputation awards
Low profile: Reputation awards halved (rounded down)

I wonder if Wealthy and Renown could also grant a bonus to profession checks?

[elf23]

Also: I was thinking that a Time point could be required to Take 20 on a Wealth check to buy something. (This would slightly limit the use of this, which is probably a good thing imho.)

[iwatt]

More than one TIme point. The True-ditional way is that taking 20 ona Wealth checks takes 20 times as long. The time to buy something is already 1 hour per cost, so taking 20 on a wealth check is very time consuming:

DC*20/8 ---> 2,5xDC in time points. So buying a DC 25 house takes 63 TPs

In any case, this is shaping up nicely.

[elf23]

More than one TIme point. The True-ditional way is that taking 20 ona Wealth checks takes 20 times as long. The time to buy something is already 1 hour per cost, so taking 20 on a wealth check is very time consuming

Oh wow, yeah i'd completely missed that in the rules!

It does say that's for "less common items", which i guess is just down to the Narrator to decide.

DC*20/8 ---> 2,5xDC in time points. So buying a DC 25 house takes 63 TPs

Nice! I'm tempted to say it should be Time to Take 20 = Purchase Difficulty x 2, for simplicity's sake...

Yeah this is all coming together nicely now!

[iwatt]

yeah, x2 is easier

[elf23]

Ok, here's the current state of play of the Resources system, as i'm going to be playtesting it.

(As i mentioned previously, the relationship between Time and Conviction is in a simplified form for this playtest - it could be improved further, i think.)

Time
Time awards
You are awarded Time points by the Narrator to represent down-time between adventures, which you may have made use of in various ways. One Time point is roughly equivalent to a day of down time.

Uses of Time
Time points can be spent when awarded, or can be accumulated for future use. The maximum number of Time points you can accumulate is:

• 10 + ½ level + Int + feats

Any excess Time points must be spent when awarded, otherwise they are lost.

Time points have the following uses:

• Gaining Wealth, Reputation or Conviction
• Recovering from conditions
• Re-rolling
• Craft checks
• Shopping around when purchasing items (Taking 20)

Using Time in retrospect
All the above uses of Time (except for recovering from conditions) can be used in retrospect – you can declare how you have used your down-time at the point of needing the end result.

Gaining Wealth
You can attempt to increase your Wealth by spending 10 Time points and making a profession check:

• Professional skill + d20 vs Difficulty 10 + current Wealth

If you succeed your Wealth increases by +1. For every additional 5 points of success you gain a further +1 Wealth.

Wealth awards
You may be awarded Wealth by the Narrator for any valuables or rewards which you have gained through adventuring. Wealth awards are generally no more than +4.

Gaining Reputation
You can attempt to increase your Reputation by spending 10 Time points and making a profession check:

• Professional skill + d20 vs Difficulty 10 + current Reputation

If you succeed your Reputation increases by +1. For every additional 5 points of success you gain a further +1 Reputation.

Reputation awards
You may be awarded Reputation by the Narrator for any renown you have gained through adventuring. Reputation awards are generally no more than +4.

Gaining Conviction
You can attempt to increase your Conviction by spending down-time engaging in whatever kind of activity you find relaxing, inspiring and refreshing. Spend 1 Time point and make a Conviction recovery check:

• Cha + d20 vs Difficulty 10

If you succeed you gain a Conviction point.

Alternatively you can spend 3 Time points to automatically gain a Conviction point.

Conviction awards
You may be awarded a point of Conviction by the Narrator in the following situations:

• Following your Nature.
• As an award following a particularly spectacular or heroic deed.
• If the Narrator uses Conviction against you, you are awarded a Conviction point in return.

Condition recovery
You can recover from various debilitating conditions (such as injury or disease) by spending Time points and making a recovery check:

• Con + d20 vs Difficulty 10

If you succeed you have recovered from the condition.

Alternatively you can spend 3 times as many Time points to automatically recover from the condition.

The number of Time points required depends on the condition you are recovering from.

Re-rolling
Spending your down time honing your skills, researching, networking, or just relaxing gives you the ability to maximise your performance when the going gets tough. You can spend a point of Time to re-roll any die roll you make, in the same way as using Conviction.

Using Craft
To make items using the Craft skill, you must spend Time as follows, in addition to making the required skill check:

• Simple items require ¼ Time point × the materials cost of the item.
• Moderate items require ½ Time point × the materials cost of the item.
• Complex items require 1 Time point × the materials cost of the item.
• Advanced items require 2 Time points × the materials cost of the item.

The materials cost of an item is equal to its purchase Difficulty - 4 (to a minimum of 1).

For items which take less than a single Time point to manufacture, you can make multiple items by spending one Time point.

Shopping around
To Take 20 on a Wealth check to purchase something, you need to spend Time points equal to double the item's purchase Difficulty.

Resource related feats
Resourceful
You use your time well. Increase the maximum of your accumulated Time points by +2.

You can take this feat up to three times.

[elf23]

Actually, i've just been rethinking the limit on the amount of Time points which can be accumulated.

The reason for the cap was to limit the number of Time points that Heroes can spend on re-rolls and gaining Conviction, which would get out of control if they could accumulate, say, 100 Time points! Other uses of Time don't need to be limited.

So instead of a limit on Time, i was thinking that we could simply limit the number of re-rolls and Conviction recovery checks that can be bought with Time. The most obvious limit would be one re-roll per scene and one Conviction recovery check (or auto Conviciton gain) per scene.

I guess this system would have the con of slightly increasing the complexity of using Time, by adding these extra conditions on when it can be used. Also the use of Time as a re-rolling mechanism would be lessened.

The pro of course would be the eradication of the Time accumulation limit (and hence there'd never be any need to pay the Time costs of complex Craft checks in cumulative chunks).

Any thoughts?

[elf23]

A side benefit of un-capped Time is that the Resourceful feat can be made to nicely mirror Wealthy and Renown...

Resourceful
You use your time well, and gain a bonus to Time awards. You gain a +1 bonus for every 10 Time points (or fraction thereof) you are awarded. So you get a +1 bonus for an award of 1 - 10 Time points, a +2 bonus for an award of 11 - 20 Time points, and so on.

[elf23]

First playtest report for the Resources system:

So far, so good... Everything we tested seemed balanced and simple to use and understand. I really liked it, and the players enjoyed it too. I gave them 14 Time each, here's what they used it for:

Recovering conditions: One Hero was wounded from the last session, and spent Time to recover (I've got it set at 1 Wound = 1 day to recover).

Conviction recovery: They all spent Time to recover all their Conviction. After recovering wounds, this seems like it'll probably be the priority use of Time between adventures.

One thing we noticed, that i'd not considered before, is that while a character with a high maximum Conviction has the ability to do lots of cool stuff, he also needs to devote a lot more Time to recovering his Conviction. This felt like a good balance.

(One thing i'm not sure of is whether it gives too much of an advantage if Cha governs both maximum Conviction (using the optional rule where Conviction = 1 + Cha + Half level) and Conviction recovery checks...)

Re-rolls: I encouraged the players to describe how they were using Time for re-rolls, and they really enjoyed it. It was a really nice roleplaying process - getting into their characters and talking about their lives during down-time, outside of the adventures.

Using Time for re-rolls also definitely had the desired effect of freeing up Conviction for it's other uses. I said they could use one Time re-roll per scene, which was fine, in this playtest at least.

Gaining Wealth: Only one player, who was very low on Wealth, spent the 10 Time points to make a profession check. I think this will probably be something that players will use when they get longer periods of down time, which makes sense and seems fine.

[elf23]

Time re-rolls in scenes: I'd say a Time based re-roll keeps a scene Ordinary (doesn't make it Dramatic).

[The Shadow]

Are you allowing Time rerolls for anything? For most campaigns, I don't see any reason why not.

[elf23]

Are you allowing Time rerolls for anything? For most campaigns, I don't see any reason why not.

Yeah, for anything.

[elf23]

Thinking about un-capped Time: basically what it means, in the most extreme case of a character having dozens of Time points saved up, is that they can get a re-roll and a Conviction recovery check every scene. I don't see that as a bad thing actually, though I guess it maybe depends on the style of campaign...

Another thought i had, which would serve to somewhat limit players from hoarding Time: living expenses. (This might be getting a bit too detailed for some play-styles...)

I realised that if a player never spends Time to make profession checks, that basically represents that his character isn't working for a living. But, of course, he's got to be spending money to live somehow, so maybe he should be automatically losing Wealth as Time passes, which he can replenish, if he chooses to, by spending Time to make profession checks (or by adventuring, of course ).

What I imagined was something roughly like this:

Every 10 Time points you are awarded, make a Wealth check for your living expenses:

Destitute: Difficulty 2
Poor: Difficulty 5
Average: Difficulty 10
Middle-class: Difficulty 15
Luxurious: Difficulty 20
etc

(With the normal consequences of losing Wealth.)

It'd basically mean that you could easily live, without losing Wealth, at a level within your means, but living above your means would cost you.

[The Shadow]

Interesting. What's the downside to failing the Wealth check, if it's not enough to make you lose Wealth?