Because even Galdrax -one- the Destroyer -two- enjoys the occasional -three- day job when -four- he’s not -five- smashing skulls.
-Lauren Nestrange, Quartermaster
First and foremost,
Time in Chromatia is all over the place. Threads involving the same character may be happening at the same time in real-life, but in-game, they may be hours, days, or even weeks apart. The specifics are intentionally left vague and to that extent, this sets the precedent that somewhere in there, there can be periods of time where your character is off doing their own things even when you’re not actually playing them. These “off-screen” moments are considered downtime and are generally not considered problematic in regular play.
For the purposes of Chromatia, we equate one in-game day to one real-life week. This is not an exact science. Nor is it really accurate to game lore. But since we have to track these things somehow, it is what it is. Once each week, you’re granted a small stipend of gold and experience, representing your character completing menial work and relatively trivial tasks “off screen” so-to-speak, where you don’t necessarily have to roleplay the interactions. You’re welcome to, of course – we love it when people find excuses to hang out and play in character – but it’s generally understood that anything that happened during downtime happened and happened successfully, without needing to get nit-picky about it.
Base Stipend
Your weekly stipend is equivalent to 100x your character level (in other words, add two zeroes to the end of your level). You gain this value as both gold and experience points. While it’s not required, we strongly recommend players fill out the embed pinned under
#downtime-abbey and notate what exactly you did during your downtime (provided it’s within reason for your character’s level and approximate skill in the associated field). It can be whatever you want. More importantly, posts in
#downtime-abbey count towards
Giving Tree rewards, and GMs and other players may include references to your downtime work in other missions and play.
Check Please
In addition to this stipend, you’re free to go over to
#profession-checks and attempt either a combat or skill check to support your downtime work. These have the potential to fail but, should you succeed, net additional experience(combat) or gold (skills). Use the pinned embeds to format your checks and provide some of that delicious RP flavor we love and crave – like
#downtime-abbey, posts in
#profession-checks count towards GT progress and offer another avenue for living world references to your character’s work.
A profession check is simple: determine your modifier, determine your target DC, roll, and multiply the result.
- Determining Modifier. For combat checks, you choose your highest attack modifier (either weapon or spell attack as appropriate). For a skill check, use the skill modifier (the matching ability score plus your proficiency bonus – for example, Persuasion uses Charisma).
- Determining Target DC. Your DC is based on your job “Tenure” less your character’s level. Your choice of tenure will set your multiplier and the base DC, then subtract your character’s level (the result can be no lower than 10). Expand the below table to check Tenure DCs and multipliers.
- Roll. Go to #profession-checks and make your roll! If you have a racial trait, class ability, or something similar that reliably grants you advantage on a check (like the rune knight’s permanent advantage to checks related to smithing, or the mounted combatant feat in combat), you may make this roll with advantage. If you’re not sure whether a trait grants this benefit, check in #ask-a-gan.
- Multiply. Once you’ve made your check, assuming you’ve succeeded, multiply your result by the Tenure multiplier and add that value as gold (for skills) or experience (for combat).
In the event you fail the check, you’re free to roleplay the result of failure as you see fit provided it makes sense for whatever it is you’re doing. Perhaps its as simple as breaking the bar’s glassware. Perhaps it is as severe as incurring a
Lingering Injury from the mishap, as listed in the DMG, prompting a chance to go pop into the medical ward for treatment. It’s not at all a requirement, but it definitely helps build up interactions, connections, and backstory with your fellow players and the community at large and can greatly improve your gameplay experience.
In any case, the choice is yours as long as it reflects your tenure. A novice will not be leading an entire army into war …
... not effectively, at least.
