Replacing Caravan Rules with Downtime Rules. (With a use for Relationship)

[Chaos_Descending]

SO, It's late where I am, and I lack the brainpower to think this all through, but I want to start the thought off. I've been reading Ultimate Campaign and was thinking it might be possible to replace most of the caravan rules with the downtime rules.

According to the maps, a caravan wagon is 6 squares large (Double the size of a car, but ok.)

By the 4th or 5th level, food no longer really matters, so scrap that. Trade goods and money with the caravan was also pretty bad, so scrap that, add in something like an attachable pavilion tent that provides an extra 30 squares to work with.

One pavilion tent will allow Bunks to be installed, then allowing a spare covered wagon to be turned into a workshop or something small. This turns the caravan into a small traveling base for the party, which means they will be more engaged. The random events called for requires NPCs, this could be used to encourage RP.

Caravan combat; just have the caravan make a single attack as a single "character" with the scaling d6 damage scale suggested in other threads to represent to caravan trying to help the PCs out.

Replace all instances of "Party finds 3D6 Trade goods" with "Party Gains Capital" (I need to work out the details on that)

Now for the relationship scores.

Seems that each NPC could stand for one of the capital types
- Ameiko - Influence
- Sandru - Goods
- Shelalu - Labour
- Koya - Magic

So, play relationship as written, only when you enter into book 5...

oh wait, spoiler tabs needed...

Spoiler:

Alright, so when you enter into book 5, the party kicks the bandits' butts, and take over the fortress. Then is supposed to be the "gathering to forces stage." So, the caravan parks in front of the fortress, adding those rooms to the list of what was done by the bandits, then you take the highest relationship scores with each of the 4 main NPCs and add that capital type to the party pool of getting things up and running, Run up some mechanics that can turn that base of operations into victory points and bonuses for the game's finale.

So, I know this is all incredibly rough, but I wasn't going to get any sleep till I shared the idea. Now, I ask this. Is there any interest in this? should I bother fleshing out the thought? Comments, suggestions?

[Aeshuura]

Sounds cool! Gotta get ready for work, but basically dotted this for interest.