Between trips into dungeons and battles against untold evils, adventurers need time to rest, recuperate, and prepare for their next adventure. Many adventurers also use this time to perform other tasks, such as crafting items, buying and selling treasures, performing research or many other activities besides. This article covers some of the common activities you can do, but you’re of course able to do other stuff as well!
Design note
The activities listed here amalgamate and replace those listed in the Player’s Handbook (PHB), Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything (XGE). While they provide excellent reference points, the nature and details of our campaign make many of them less usable than what’s presented below.
Time requirements
Most downtime activities require at last one full day of effort, and a few might use larger amounts. A character must spend at least 8 hours of each day engaged in the downtime activity for that day to count towards the activity’s completion.
Engaging in activities that produce something in the end don’t have to be done consecutively. But the period of time taken in total should be no more than than twice the required time, lest you invite complications or even additional costs due to inefficiencies and overhead.
Resolving activities
The description of each activity tells you how to resolve it. Follow the steps in the activity, and determine the results.
Resources. An activity may require requires to engage in, whether it be gold to ante up into a card tournament or herbs to brew potions. These must be readily available for consumption during the activity’s resolution.
Preparation. Some activities allow you to prepare for them by spending time and money with the intention of improving your chances of a good outcome in the skill check. This is totally optional, but depending on the activity, is advised.
Resolution. Activities typically involve one or more ability check. Recommended skills will be listed, but there may be other skills that you can use to resolve the activity if you can explain how that skill is used. Depending on the applicability and implications of the skill used, the DC might be adjusted or the risks of a complication might change.
Complications. Each activity includes a description of possible consequences for engaging in activities. Complications aren’t necessarily bad, and also don’t always happen because of a poor skill check; in fact, they might happen because of great ones!