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Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?
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Super campaign dependent and definitely a conversation that should occur in session 0 so that players have an idea of what they should or shouldn't invest in, proficiency-wise.
Fast-paced campaigns just might not have time for crafting all the time or at all. Slower campaigns might use it a lot, with months or years of downtime every so often. Age of Ashes (the only AP I've run so far) leaves a lot of room for long periods of downtime, at least between books.
Edit to elaborate: What I usually do is ask what my players want to do in downtime, figure out the longest activity or combination of activities and just add 3-5 days to that to figure out the cutoff. You don't want to leave it too nebulous or your players will waffle around for 3 sessions.
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Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?
Crafting is 4 days. Now, if you wanted to halve the price, or effectively make ~40 gp without any risk, yes, it would take you 26 days with a critically succeeded check.
Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?
Are they Trained or Expert in Crafting?
If they crit succeeded, it'd be Level + 1 on the crafting table, so Trained, the amount of money reduced each day is 7 sp. 75 gp is basically 750 sp, so dividing 750 by 7 is about 107.14 days (so 108). You always spend at least half the money amount on raw materials, so you cannot reduce by more than half the item's value. So cut in half, the item takes 53.57 days.
If it's Expert, you reduce it by 8 sp. So 750 divided by 8 is 93.75 days. Cut in half, it's 46.875 days (so 47 days).
As for how much time is expected for Downtime mode, it's largely GM dependent. I love running long stretches of downtime in my homebrew game, since it gives the crew time to soak in the current location and lets them Earn Income with the locals or craft any items they've been eyeing at. Typically at minimum I give 1-2 weeks of Downtime in-between story beats, and larger story arcs come with months of Downtime as well.
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I've given a bunch of downtime to my players in my multi table AV campaign (with 16 players), roughly 2-3 days of downtime per session, 5-7 per level. I've allowed them to accumulate their downtime, to use it when they need it the most.
Overall:
- A lot of my players didn't use much of it. Mostly a few days here and there for roleplay reasons or access to some Uncommon Items/Spells.
- A few players used a lot of it for roleplay reasons.
- One player used a bunch of it for retraining.
- One player used all of it for retraining.
- Not a single player used downtime to Earn Income.
I don't have any crafter in the campaign, but I'm not limiting the access to magic items in the store so it reduces the interest of Crafting.
In my opinion, you should give quite some downtime, for retraining mostly. This is a heavy cost and it's just sad to be stuck with options you dislike because you lack the downtime to switch them.
Also, some players will use it for roleplay reasons (2 of my players decided to build a chapel to Angradd at Otari) and it's nice to allow them to perform long lasting tasks between the adventuring days.
Now, clearly, there's a little bit of suspension of disbelief to apply. When the world is at stake, it's a bit illogical to stop for a week to craft an item. But it's a nice feature for out of adventure tasks.
In my opinion, you should give quite some downtime, for retraining mostly. This is a heavy cost and it's just sad to be stuck with options you dislike because you lack the downtime to switch them.
I've found DM's to be pretty reasonable with retraining as long as you aren't doing it every few levels. Most times, I've seen the downtime for it handwaved to match whatever the rest of the party was getting as most time I don't see weeks or months of downtime given out that would normally allow for it. 4-7 days is about the normal time I see for it.
For what Filthy Lucre is doing though, yeah it'll take a pile of downtime and I doubt most Dm's would be willing to handwave the extra time: you either pay up to make it or you wait until you level up several times to get enough downtime to finish it. ;)
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Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?
I don't think there are expectations. I run a converted PF1 AP and I just give a few weeks of downtime between books.
Note that for what your player is doing he is better off just buying the item, then spend the rest of the time adventuring (if possible) or if everyone wants downtime, use the Earn Income action. Unless there is no 3rd level settlement anywhere near, which I doubt. Or he has a cool uncommon formula of an item not sold anywhere nearby.
Crafting is almost never the best option, check the homebrew forum for ideas on how to change that.
I'm DMing Agents of Edgewatch, currently on book 5.
Since the plot don't leave a lot of time between chapters, I usualy give them "One week worth of downtime after each level up". The time dont actualy passes, they simply get the benefits of the downtime. They can do retrainings, crafting or whatever they want.
Here and there they get an extra week because reasons.
Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?
That's about right.
PFS gives 36 downtime days per level for Field Commissioned agents, 24 per level otherwise. Most things at the highest level available will take about a level and a half to Craft.
The value of Crafting depends on the value of Earn Income. For PFS, Earn Income Task Level is Character Level minus 2, and Crafting an item you would have bought anyway is a big plus. As Earn Income Task Level goes higher, Crafting becomes less worth it (just Earn Income and buy the thing).
The GM should give an amount of downtime between what the players need and what the players want.
Side note: As long as it's within reason, I let players retrain for free when they have Downtime, just so they don't get too scared to take experimental feats or otherwise take chances with their character builds.
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We've absolutely had some months-long downtimes at times, it depends a lot on the campaign overall, if its a "plate of meatballs" campaign (bunch of relatively self-contained adventures featuring the same cast) its not hard to take a lot of time between adventures, and not all overarching plots are demanding or urgent enough to restrict it either.
But then again, some are-- overall I'd like to see a move away from 1-20 in a couple of weeks to a year play, and more toward multi year long adventuring careers featuring a profusion of different plots, even if they turn out to have an interrelated background.
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Even my upcoming pirate west marches is probably awarding 10 downtime days per session played as a kind of baseline consolation prize since whether or not you get much treasure is intended to be a central tension decided by skillful play. We're using ABP for the same reason.
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My players decide on their downtime. A GM cannot force the PCs to adventure when they would rather be doing something more mundane, unless the GM pulls out drastic measures such as destroying their town.
In my current Ironfang Invasion campaign, the Ironfang Legion conquers and enslaves another village every week. Thus, the PCs don't want to take any time off.
In my prior Iron Gods campaign, the PCs were investigating Iron Gods who have been around for centuries. Their plans progressed slowly. Thus, the PCs often took two months off between modules or between separate parts of modules in order to craft.
In my earlier Jade Regent campaign, the PCs took three months to travel over the northern ice cap, known as the Crown of the World, from the continent Avistan to the continent Tian Xia. Using Rings of Sustenance and a crafting wagon in the caravan, three spellcasters made magic items during 4 hours of downtime each day.
And level-appropriate crafting in PF2 is very slow. Without a critical success, it could take 90 days. Or the PC could throw money at the problem and finish the item immediately.
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I like downtime best as a GM for letting players come up with and then resolve character specific goals to feel like they are a part of the story. Generally, I try to make any of these goals have a payout that is about as comparable to what the player could have earned succeeding on a level -2 Earn Income task for the same amount of time. This way, a character could focus on Earning Income and coming out ahead, but the character that helps out in the community and forges relationships with NPCs is likely to get interesting and unique boons as well.
Because I like the idea of downtime so much, I fold it over regular play in that I assume that characters are not really capable of adventuring for 16 hours a day without getting fatigued for the second half of the day, so I give 1 day of downtime for every day of adventuring for free, and then give double days on days the party just wants to focus on downtime tasks. (The only exception is when the party is chasing a villain or otherwise running at 200%) Depending upon the format of the game (pbp or face to face, or VTT) I then let the player take pretty firm control over their down time, telling me what goal they are working towards, and then usually resolve the downtime events between sessions or behind the scenes. For example, in my PbP game that I run, I have been incredibly generous with the amount of information that can be gained through research rather than just recalling knowledge on the spot, and this has encouraged the party to be stealthy and cautious in a mega dungeon, returning with a clear strategy to defeat powerful foes, and to develop more interesting relationships with NPCs, because all of that works really well in the PbP format.
Meanwhile my in homebrew VTT game the players really like cramming encounters into our play time, so they just keep a list of things they are interested in accomplishing in down time and we mostly resolve those down time sessions in 5 minutes tops per character.
As with much of the game, a GM should share their interpretation before character creation. I know I have one campaign notion where there's little to no downtime (i.e. resembling Half-Life) and another with so much downtime (due to Elf historical leaps/long-term schemes) that treasure will likely have to be reset after each jump to level norms to avoid breaking the wealth-power curve. The latter makes retraining a breeze, yet investment in Earn an Income (et al) less valuable.
Even normal campaigns can have large differences because of time pressures and player agency. In a campaign interrupted by covid, the players pushed hard rather than use their downtime and they're about a year ahead of schedule (in game) though it's been taxing.
ETA: Before determining which campaign to develop, I sometimes ask my players, giving them a synopsis of traits, i.e. difficulty, sub-genre, or in this case relevance of downtime.