so i started reading the downtime rules and....
i'm going to be joining a rather long-term campaign soon, meaning the campaign itself will be set over a long amount of time. I am hoping to have my character to start up a mercenary company to earn money/resources that will eventually be used in re-taking his homeland from greenskins.
the company is going to be lead by his cohort, and consist of followers and/or hired soldiers. The only issue is...
i have no idea how the downtime system works, and beyond just hiring hundreds of soldiers, it seems the only way to construct buildings and "organizations" AKA soldiers
from what i understand you input seed money to startup different buildings and businesses that in turn can earn you money and resources over time, but to earn these resources you have to spend money?
so its not really a very self sufficient system if your wanting to have a growing organization. i am also not quite sure how leadership interacts with the system. it states that you can use followers as labor, but do they count as a consistent resource or are they used up when....used.
also is there a way to earn extra gold using this system, or is it a money-sink only there for RP purposes?
Wow, that's a big question, best served by the answer "read all of the rules".
However, to try and hit the high points of your query without a complete reiteration of those rules:
Your buildings and organisations earn capital (resources) constantly, but your character cannot extract that capital without spending money, and until you've extracted it, you can't use it. The big difference is gold, which doesn't cost you any money to get out of an organisation or building, it just happens.
Followers from leadership increase the amount of labour or influence you spend when you use them, and are not expended, so can be used over and over again (so, for example, you might spend 5 labour, and use 2 followers to increase that by 1, to give you 6 labour to spend).
And yes, you can earn gold. It's not a huge amount to start with, but it's possible to rack up some truly impressive bonuses to earning capital which you can use to earn gold, and get a decent amount per day (though it won't break the game).
I can go into more detail if you want, but most of this is covered in the rules.
I might be wrong , but from my memory from trying to do something similar , i believe there was a rule about your organization being set on a exact place.
This meant you couldnt move your own "soldiers" to another place without paying half what you paid to get them in the first place.
Now let me tell you , hundreds of soldiers arent cheap.
Organisations not tied to a building earn half capital.
Edit, and I now can't find that rule. Weird.
I might be wrong , but from my memory from trying to do something similar , i believe there was a rule about your organization being set on a exact place.
This meant you couldnt move your own "soldiers" to another place without paying half what you paid to get them in the first place.
Now let me tell you , hundreds of soldiers arent cheap.
From Ultimate Campaign PRD
Moving an Organization
You can move an organization to a different settlement by paying half the price of recruiting it. This price accounts for paying relocation expenses for your teams, hiring replacements for people unwilling to move, and so on. Arranging the movement of an organization usually takes 1d6 days per team in the organization; the time needed to actually move the teams is the amount of time it takes to travel from the old settlement to the new one. The organization provides only half its benefits during the time you are arranging the move, and none of its benefits while traveling to the new settlement.
Instead of moving an entire organization, you can move just some of the teams within that organization. For example, if your Thieves' Guild includes two Robber teams, you could move one of the teams to a different settlement by spending 2 points of Influence and 1 point of Labor (half the price of recruiting a Robber team in the new location). This otherwise works like moving an entire organization. You may add these teams to an existing organization in the new settlement or use them to create a new organization.
Found it:
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.
Yeap , unfortunately , i do believe depending on what you want to do in this system , talking to the DM and house ruling the crap out of it is the best solution.
For example , usually this moving "tax" is entirely removed after i talk to the DM , i may then need to pay more to recruit at first and then they return more or maybe the DM just dont care and remove it completely depending on the organization i have...
Usually there are also changes to the whole , "Woops , you just lost control of your own business because you were out for more than a few days."
And so on...
In the end OP , the general "idea" is that it dont actually cost you money , but it dont generate you any fast either.
For example , lets say you have a tavern , in 30 days (you dont need to pay any money to keep the teams you already have usually , only for the manager) this tavern is generating you 800 GPs.
So you could for example take these 800 GPs you got on the first 30 days and on the next 30 days make the tarven generate capital , lets say it can create to you 80 labor (or whatever) , you can then spend the 800 GPs you got on your first month to get 80 labor (10 a piece since you only pay half price here).
And there you have it , no gold spend by you , but you still got 80 labor in 60 days.
that makes alot more sense, thanks for the explanations!
i never would have found the rules about teams not making full money without a building
I use downtime to recenter the Players and let their PCs unwind and develop on their own with help from each other or DM input. Stacking another rule system outside of combat is fun for Players who love systems like Total War, but for a lot of my casuals the in-between moments is when a lot of the fun stuff happens. Mr. ADD kept it cool that whole session? Time to reward him with shenanigans!
The system is nice... I've just shied away from it because it feels like its taking away some creative control. It's already a combat/build-intensive game, and a chance I can interject freeform actions by the PCs I take; it's their break from the railroad. Mine too.