Downtime Question -- Organizational Earnings?


Rules Questions


I like the IDEA of the Downtime rules, but they look easy to "game" in silly ways. I'm trying to build a thieves' guild and can't help but notice that raising an army of soldiers would be more profitable (+5 gp per day with soldiers instead of +2 gp per day with scofflaws).

Maybe I'm just confused on how to earn money with an organization. How DO you do that, anyway?

Let's say I have a modest thieves' guild with one team each of scofflaws, cutpurses, and soldiers (enforcers). The scofflaws add +2 gp, the cutpurses add +3 gp, and the soldiers add +5 gp.

Does that mean my guild earns 10 gp per day total?

Does the guild have to make an "earnings" check once per day, with a +10 to the roll from these teams, and then earn whatever the check is divided by 10 in gp every day? If this is the case, what is the "earnings" check based on? One of the guildmaster's skills?

I feel like I'm missing something important.


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That's... not how it works (although it's a common misconception when starting to work with downtime).

"Earnings: This entry indicates what bonuses the room or team gives to its building's or organization's *checks* made to generate capital. Buildings and organizations act like characters in that they can attempt a check each day to earn capital performing skilled work (without costing you any downtime). You must pay for capital earned in this way as normal.
...
Most of the time, it's simplest and quickest to just apply all the gp bonuses from all the rooms in each of your buildings and take 10 on the roll.
"

So those Capital modifiers on your crew? That's a bonus to your check, not a flat number of actual gp you earn.

"If you chose gp, divide the result of your check by 10 to determine how many gp you earn that day. For example, if your check result is a 16, dividing it by 10 earns you 1 gp and 6 sp that day (round to the nearest silver)."

So taking 10 a with modifier of +10 gets us 20, and that comes out to...
wait for it...

2 gp/ day

But wait, there's more! (less)

"For a team, the Earnings amount assumes they are working at a building you own. If you don't provide a building for the team to work in or from, halve the Earnings for that team."

See, all they want is a 'ome somewhere, far away from the cold night air...

But you didn't so much as buy them a ratty shack to operate out of, so your dastardly crew of vagabonds and ne'er-do'els working the streets scrapes in a whopping... 1gp/ day of profit for you (that's after the cost of paying them has automatically been deducted).

That's not how you become the Kingpin.

So. First thing's first - get a base of operations. A basic Shack will cost you 50 gp if you earn the goods an labor, and one person can build a it with simple tools and basic materials.

At least then you're making 2/gp per day because they have a building in which to meet/sleep/hide out in/etc.

Next, I assume since you're founding a thieves' guild (more of a street gang really), that your character is of some sort of Rogue flavor. So *you* make the Skill check for gold when you have downtime in town, and add their modifier to that. Even at level 1, assuming you have +3 modifier in Dex, you should have a +7 in Sleight of Hand. 7 (you)+10 (your crew)+10 (take ten)=27 or 2 gp, 7 sp. You're moving up in the criminal underworld!

Get some more staff on payroll, and you might even be able to afford a manager!


Managers never seam to work out well enough to earn their pay.

Also remember that if you choose the run your business action you gain an additional +10 to your roll.

To make managers better I let the take an action for you each day and use their skill mod in the check. This is still not enough to make them profitable but it helps. On top of that I cap the size of each business that a person can at +10 per rank in the relevant skill with an additional 10 for feat related to the skill. Managers allow you go beyond that cap.


Mathius wrote:
remember that if you choose the run your business action you gain an additional +10 to your roll.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. 3 gp, 7 sp, here we come!

Mathius wrote:
To make managers better I let them take an action for you each day and use their skill mod in the check.

That just makes sense. For what we're paying them, they'd better be bringing their skill check to the table and not just sitting around, being a glorified babysitter.

Mathius wrote:
On top of that I cap the size of each business that a person can at +10 per rank in the relevant skill with an additional 10 for feat related to the skill. Managers allow you go beyond that cap.

I dunno about adding artificial "caps" like that... couldn't a PC just run more than 1 business?

But yeah, Managers are grossly overpaid...

Downtime Rules wrote:
If you chose gp, divide the result of your check by 10 to determine how many gp you earn that day. For example, if your check result is a 16, dividing it by 10 earns you 1 gp and 6 sp that day (round to the nearest silver).

So what does an average worker make? The prices given in the equipment and services tables for hirelings are generally arbitrary bs, because they’re completely contradictory to what is clearly stated in the Profession skill rules. Skills is one of those segments of the rule systems that’s pretty much the same for everybody, regardless of whether you’re the ultimate dragonslaying badass, or Joe Peasant with rats in your basement.

Even Commoners get 2 Skill points per level, most putting them into Craft or Profession. So your average human (and who’s more average than a Commoner?) with 10s in all ability scores will have 2 skills with a +4 modifier (1 for the rank +3 for the class skill bonus). Assuming that most times they’re Taking 10 (which is playing it safe), they’ll pull in 14 silver per day in their main money-making profession.

Now let's look a typical manager: "Guildmaster (Artisans' Guild)"
He makes 3gp/day. Managers are typically 3rd-level NPCs and have a +7 or +8 for class skills. So even if he has Profession (manager) +8, that'd normally only be making a reasonable 18 silver a day if he were playing by the same rules - not much wealth gap there. But he's a lackey for the PCs, watching over their inn while they're off in the dungeon, so he can demand a considerable mark-up on his services, apparently.

I dunno, maybe there's a "Manager's Guild" somewhere in the fantasy world that sets these wages...


We interpret the book a little different, given the note that individual Rooms and/or Teams can earn differing capitals, even at the same time:

"If the room or team's Earnings entry says "capital" and a number, it can contribute a bonus on the building's or organization's skilled work check for any type of capital (gp, Goods, Influence, Labor, or Magic). If the Earnings entry lists specific types of capital, it can contribute a bonus on its building's or organization's skilled work checks only for capital of those types. You can apply each room's or team's bonus to any one listed type or capital each day or divide it among multiple listed types of capital. For example, an Alchemy Lab can generate only gp, Goods, or Magic, and not Influence or Labor. One day you could use all +10 of its bonus on the building's capital check to generate gp, on the next day you could use +5 on a check for generating gp and +5 on a check for generating Goods, and so on."

We allow a check (Take 10) for each Room and Team; although the Room or Team may split it's bonus, it can only make one roll to earn capital.

So given our interpretation, a Thieves Guild running from within a Black Market, led by a Underboss Manager, would earn the following (Offices in our game earn the same as Storage, not nothing):

Cut purses +3 (x2), Robbers +4, Scoffaws +2, Soldier +5; False front +2, Guard Post +4, Office +2, Storage +2; Underboss +8, Taking 10 and Running the Business action (which is effectively Taking 20).

So, we have 9 Rooms/Teams taking 10, total 90. The bonuses all add up to +27. In addition, our Manager gives a +28 total. Total earnings per day are 90+20+35, or 145. 145/10 is 14.5 gp per day, but we must pay our Manager his 2 gp out of this. Total per day is now 12.5 gp.

To get our monthly total, we multiply that by 20 Downtime Days. We must also subtract out 7 gp per every 2 weeks because of attrition, so we lose 14 gp from the total. Total for the month is 12.5*20-14=236 gp.

Here are the attrition references:

"For every 7 days you've been away from the settlement (whether they were downtime days or not), reduce the total amount of gp earned by 7 and reduce the Goods, Influence, Labor, and Magic earned by 1 each (minimum 0)."

Then, under Manager...

"Having a manager delays capital attrition (Upkeep phase step 3) from 1 every 7 days to 1 every 14 days. As long as the manager's pay is up to date, having a manager look after your business prevents business attrition."

I hope that explains the system better (including our interpretations, which may differ from others)...


Adding to the Manager discussion...

In my above example, the Under-boss charges 2 gp/day for his services. However, by both Taking 10 and Running the Business action, he earns 2.8 gp per day, granting an effective .8 gp profit per day.

The Under-boss, with his firm hand, also prevents an additional 14 gp per month attrition.

Without the Under-boss, our profits shrink by 30 gp per month...


Step 1 of the Income Phase says "Attempt a capital check for each building you control in the settlement that generates income and is able to provide you benefits."

Note that it specifies "for each building", not "for each room". The rooms function collectively as a single building, sharing their bonuses. They don't get to take 10 individually. Similarly, teams contribute their bonus to the organization, and you can take 10 for the organization, but not each team.

If you want to let rooms and teams take 10 separately in your game, that's fine; just be aware that it's a house rule.


I go a step farther and make it all sources of income get 1 roll. I also limit the how large a bonus you can get before you need a manager. This way managers are actually needed to run a large business.


Generally I allow one "main capital" (usually gp) roll for the majority building, and then "remainder" rolls if you want to use your other rooms that can't generate gp for other stuff.

So for example, let's say you've got a Guildhouse with some workshops producing gold (by manufacturing stuff and selling it) and and a Sitting Room where you meet with clients. So I'd let the player make one big roll (or take 10) for the gp-factories, but there's no reason the Sitting Room should just... sit (ha!) fallow, so I allow a "remainder" roll if you want to use it to generate Influence.

But if you have another "Influence only" room you want to use that day (such as an Altar) in addition to the aforementioned gp-generating rooms, I'd still only allow 1 total roll (or take 10) for Influence.

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