House Rules: Downtime - Activities

Earn XP
If you’ve missed a campaign session or otherwise fallen behind in XP compared to the other characters, you can spend downtime adventuring to help catch up to the other PCs. Usually downtime adventures feature encounters that are much easier than you’d normally expect as part of a group.

Spending one day to earn XP requires you to make a check: roll 1d20 and add both your character level and your highest ability score modifier. For every 10 of your result, you defeated a CR 1 encounter. You may take 10 on this check.

If using this downtime activity would increase your XP above the highest XP value among all the PCs in your party, it increases your XP to that value instead; any XP earned beyond this amount is lost. This activity allows you only to catch up, not to get ahead.

Leveling Up NPC
With GM's permission, you can help an allied NPC increase in levels. You and the NPC would spend downtime days performing the Earn XP activity. However, this will cost you gol equal to 25 x NPC's level x the number of days spent. If your NPC does not have defined ability scores, her modifier to her Earn XP check is equal to 2 + 1.5 times her current level. As a quick reference, NPCs gain XP per day equal to 10 + their Earn XP modifier divided by 10 (rounded down), and then multiplied by XP for a CR 1 encounter. If the NPC holds a Leadership Position in your nation, you may use BP to pay this cost without penalty. Leveling up an NPC does not take any time away from your own downtime.

As a general rule, you can only sponsor an NPC's growth up to a CR equal to your total Hit Dice - 2.

Scheme for an Upcoming Adventure
You can use downtime to prepare for an upcoming adventure or event. Every day spent on this activity earns you 1 Prep point. In addition, you can buy additional Prep points during this period by spending 100 gol per point. Prop points can be used to give you boosts to your actions during the adventure. You can spend 1 Prep point to gain a +2 bonus on one skill check; you can spend multiple Prep points on one check and their effects stack.

Alternatively, you can spend Prep points to perform a Flashback action. You can instigate a Flashback at any point during your adventure, going back in time up to one week to declare that you did an action that would affect the present. You must have been free and present at the location of when and where you wanted to do this action, and the action's success must be possible for you to accomplish. Flashback actions can only alter circumstances in the present as long as they have not been confirmed to be fact. For example, when your enemy reaches in their pocket to pull out a magic item, you can say that you pickpocketed the item with Sleight of Head on a previous day in your Flashback, but you cannot say that you killed him at that time. The GM has the final say as to what could or could not have happened in the Flashback.

Each Flashback action costs 4 Prep points, but they are always successful. Multiple creatures can participate in the same Flashback as long as they did this downtime activity together, and they each use their own Prep points.

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