Feeling overwhelmed by the wealth of new Starfinder species and class options in the new Character Operations Manual? Well, take a break and spend some downtime with me, and I’ll introduce you to a new system introduced in this very same book.
I love downtime—it’s the home of the montage and the “Meanwhile…”—and it lets you build those flavorful interrelational stories that bring motley crews together between their high-octane adventures. Downtime requires you to take at least one day off. You can still rest for 8 hours, but otherwise you can’t be out there beating up aliens and shooting down Corpse Fleet ships if you really want to focus on your downtime activities.
Let’s you and I hop in a starship and head to Near Space. With 3d6 days of travel ahead of us, we can try out some of the dozens of downtime activities covered by this system!
To start us off, why don’t you spend a few days using the manage course activity? If you succeed, you’ll shave some hours off our trip! I’ll use the maintain readiness activity in the meantime—if we’re interrupted by some combat in the Drift, we’ll get a bonus to our initiative.
Illustration by Mirco Paganessi
After that, it’s time to lounge! I’ll probably watch some trivids and get some vidgaming done in the crew quarters, and you can head to the tech workshop and do some arts and crafts. The next day, we’ll both automatically get some temporary Hit Points and a +1 morale bonus to our first saving throw.
I suppose after that, we’d better get ready for action. We could individually drill specific skill tasks, potentially letting us take 10 on those tasks the next day (even under stress), or we could work together to coordinate, training together to gain bonuses on covering or harrying fire (or further bonuses if we spend multiple days).
And heck, once we reach our destination, we can keep the good (down)times going with activities like build shelter, carouse, practice profession, or secure area, all giving us specific benefits or bonuses, as we choose!
But we don’t have to do any of those; there are more than a dozen other options—grab the book and let me know which you prefer!
Joe Pasini
Starfinder Lead Designer
