Downtime Actions

[Rule Hound]

Some people like the downtime system and others feel it limits their ability to accomplish things.


By the book. 3 downtimes + influences. Time frame does not matter by the book, it is per game.

cost minimum 1 downtime to feed
Crafting, patrolling, feeding, investigation, beyond your means (cast 1 downtime each)

Question: Having trouble finding it, do retainers grant you a downtime by the book?





Us:
2/3 downtimes (we break it into time-periods for convenience and narative, but ultimately it is per game also)
1 always used for feeding, generic travel to gathers and shield of safety and other misc day to day survival and stuff in the Dark ages

So 2 downtimes to use as you want.

Influences and some backgrounds do not grant a downtime but add greatly to what someone can accomplish, (more so than if you got a downtime for each level)

Retainers lvl 3 and above can perform a downtime using their skill set or possibly oversee something you have put in motion.


Skills and the ability to realistically do something.


From the beginning we have emphasized that downtimes are going to be played as closer to realism, make sure your character has a realistic chance of being able to do something (skills, money access to someone who does...)

ie) Do you want to ride a horse at full gallop through tight paths with trees and branches, jump over a creek and so forth. You need the Ride skill. We do not let someone create Greek Fire just because they want to and are willing to spend a downtime, they have to have the appropriate skill and ability to gather the ingredients.


NOTE: I have been letting the realistic ability for your character to do something slide a lot by lightening the requirements for everyone but still trying to hold to the bare bones minimums.

[Rule Hound]

So my question is this, would you like us to go to the by the book system. Extra downtime actions based on influences? You can only accomplish what you directly can do or your influences can.

You submit 1 sentence per downtime.

They would all be due two weeks after game and the results would be out within the week prior to game (at the latest)

[Johan the Smith]

Ah, I was wondering where the third downtime was. The hand of hunger is an interesting system, I don't see any reason to change it, but if it's back to the book, then an action into feeding results in full blood, if I remember correctly, so that would necessitate a change to the domain system as well. Way more effort than its worth, in my opinion.

The one thing in the current downtime system that stands out for me is the test system. Perhaps set a difficulty for the tests, so that it isn't assumed a loss on a tie regardless of character skill?

Setting the difficulty per test would likely take too much effort, so maybe figure out an average for the court as a whole and use that? Something between 15 and 20 seems like it would allow success for people who focus in that field, while being a high enough bar that the things they don't focus on shouldn't pass just off base stats, given how many high elders we have around.

[Jaak Alemayehu, Shango Kholo]

... I do believe a difficulty is set for actions, I have won tests that were a tie, based upon my skill combination.

My only question about changing Retainers for Influences, to gain additional DT actions, would be that some people have been specifically building their Retainer base for growing their DT actions. To switch the method now, would there be any compensation/adjustment since their xp spends were spent with different expectations?