4e Profession Skills

These are just test rules. They aren't finished and they are only guidelines to these skills. If you want to tinker with them then by all means do so. Post your own versions if you want too.

Feel free to give me ideas on what to add, change, or balance.

NOTE: Professions skills in red lettering are only usable by those trained in them. Also nothing here is set in stone of course, anyone can change anything they want, though please do tell me what you change as it may be beneficial to the rules as a whole.

Those not trained in the skills can still make Skill checks to identify things from the practice. Training represents actual skill in the profession.

The Profession Skills:

These are very basic crafting and profession skills. More can and probably will be added. But for now these are the big ones I can think of.

Alchemy (INT): Potion, Salve, and Poison Making.

Consecrate (WIS): Blessing, and creating holy items.

Craft (ANY): Craft allows you to create different items out of their basic materials. Common Crafts are: Armor making, Tailoring, smithing, Woodcrafting, etc.

Engineering (INT): Engineering is a skill where the limit is really set by the DM. Engineering is where PCs can create items that are technologically "advanced". How advanced these items are depends of the setting.

Mining (WIS or STR): The process of finding, and extracting minerals, and metals out of rocks.

Perform (ANY): Perform allows you to entertain others around you through music, strength, sleight of hand (magic illusions), or other acts.

-----------------------

Gaining Training in a Profession Skill:

-At level 1 (or level 0 if you're using Unearthed Arcana Rules) a character may choose 1 Profession skill to have training in alongside their class profession (If the class gives one).

- If a character would like access to more Profession skills they are allowed so through Skill Training feats, or NPC training (Which ever is preferable by the DM).

- Some classes allow immediate training in Profession skills. Multi-class feats do not allow full training in these skills but do confer a +2 bonus to the Profession skill the full class would give.  

-----------------------

Class Professions:

Artificer: Gains training in either Engineering, Jewelcrafting, Smithing, or Tailoring.

Assassin/Executioner: Gains training in the Alchemy skill.

Bard: Gains training in the Perform skill.

Cleric/Warpriest: Gains training in the Consecrate skill.

-----------------------

Racial Bonuses to Professions:

Deva: +2 Alchemy
Dragonborn: +2 Smithing
Drow: +2 Alchemy
Dwarf:+2 Smithing or +2 Mining
Eladrin: +2 Tailoring
Elf: +2 Herbalism or +2 Woodcrafting
Genasi: +2 Herbalism
Githzerai: +2 Tailoring or +2 Herbalism
Gnome: +2 Perform or +2 Engineering
Goliath: +2 Woodcrafting or +2 Smithing
Half-elf: +2 to any
Half-orc: +2 to any
Halfling: +2 tailoring or +2 cooking
Human: +2 to any
Minotaur: +2 Smithing
Shardmind: +2 Jewelcrafting
Shifters: +2 Tailoring
Tiefling: +2 Alchemy or +2 Jewelcrafting
Wilden: +2 Herbalism or +2 Woodcrafting

-----------------------

Feats

Feats to learn more profession skills or improve them

Skill Training (Insert Skill Name Here)
Tier: Heroic
Gain training in (insert skill name).

Skill Focus (Insert Skill Name Here)
Tier: Heroic
Prerequisites: Training in (Insert Skill Here)
Gain a +3 feat bonus to (Insert Skill Here) checks

There will be future feats to support these skills, but for now, these will do.

Alchemy (Int)
Alchemy is used to make potions, and poisons out of herbs, salves, powders, and other materials.

Making Potions and Poisons (Can't be used to make Elixrs)
Tools needed: Potionmaking Kit
Time : 1 day or 8 hour work time
Required Materials: Alchemical Ingredients needed to mix potions and poisons. DMs may have specific ingredients needed to make potions and poisons. These can be gathered from herbs, collected from creatures, or be bought from merchants and stores. The price of the ingredients equals 90% of the potions market cost. The DM can decide that after multiple successful checks in the same location, the base supplies are depleted for the time being and may need to be restocked.
DC: The DC to make a potion or poison is equal to a Moderate DC of the potion or poisons level. The DM may adjust the DC for different environments. For example: creating potions in a lab is much easier than in a cave.
Aid: Nature and Heal can aid a person making a potion. The DC to aid is 5 lower than the Base DC. A successful aid grants a +2 bonus to the final check, while a failed aid grants a -2 penalty for the final check. For a creature to aid the must be present during the entire procedure.

Decipher Effect
Tools Needed: Senses
Time: DM's Discretion (Typically 5-30 minutes)
Skill: You can use your Perception skill if its higher. But you are still require to have training in Alchemy.
Required Materials: An unknown potion, or poison.
DC: The DC to decipher a potion/poisons effects is a Hard DC equal to the potions level.
Aid: Creatures untrained in Alchemy can't decipher ones effects

------------------------------------------------------------------

Consecrate (Wis)
You create sanctified incense, items, and even hallowed land

Create Sanctified Incense
Tools Needed: Holy Implement, or a holy altar
Time: 1 day (DMs choice if numbers seem to high for one day of work)
Required Materials: Herbs, oils, and other materials needed to make the Incense (DM decides specific ingredients). The ingredients requires to make a sanctified incense worth 1 gp (typical market cost) cost 8 sp. The DM can decide that after multiple successful checks in the same location, the base supplies are depleted for the time being and may need to be restocked.
DC: See Table

Check Result_______Total incense created
      15____________________your level x 5
      20____________________your level x 10  
      25____________________your level x 20
      30____________________your level x 50
      35____________________your level x 75
      40____________________your level x 100
      45____________________your level x 125
     

Example: If you're an 8th level cleric making incense and you roll a 24 on your check you would multiply 8 x 10 which is 80, each valuing 1gp, you would have spent 640 sp or 64 gp  on the ingredients. Equation to find the total gp spent creating incense is: (Total amount of incense made) x .8 = (Total gold spent)

Aid: Religion can aid a person making incense. The Aid DC is 5 less than the base DC. A successful Aid confers a +2 bonus to the final check, a failed aid confers a -2 penalty to the final check. For one to aid they must remain present during the entire procedure. (This next rule is for the DM to decide to use) Conflicting religions may make this hard for some people to aid, especially if one is working in a temple or church.

(Note: These incense may be used in rituals if the DM allows it)

Creating Holy (Magic/Divine) Items
Through prayer, belief, and divine rituals your deity invests some of their power into an item.

Tools Needed: Needed: Holy Implement, or Holy Altar.
Time: DM's Discretion
Required Materials: The Sanctified Incense you plan to use, as well as the item, weapon, or armour you plan to bless.
DC: None
Aid: None
Starting at level 6 a character trained in Consecrate may bless items to make them magical without the need for the Enchant Magic Item ritual. The enchantment must be of your level or lower and you must expend incense equal to the price of the magic item. You may also create Holy water without taking the alchemist feat, or using the alchemy skill.

You can create the following items:

Spoiler:

Create Hallowed Land
Through various rites and rituals you create an area of land which the undead can't enter.

Requirements: 6th level
Tools needed: None
Time: See Table
Required Materials: Sanctified Incense, and a way to mark your deities symbol.
DC: See Table
Aid: Religion can aid someone in creating hallowed land. The DC is 5 less than the base DC. A successful aid results in a faster finish time (Typically by shaving 1/4, or 1/6 of the time off. A failed Aid confers a -2 to the final check. For someone to aid they must remain present with the once blessing the land through the entire procedure.

This feature works like the Ritual Undead Ward in terms of effects but works off the following table to determine area of land affected, how long it takes to complete this "ritual", and the cost.

Check Result______Area of Land (In feet)______Time Required______Price Of Materials (In GP)
(Less Than 15) ________ 10x10 ____________ 1/2 Hour ___________ 50 GP
15 __________________ 15x15 ____________ 1 Hour _____________ 100 GP
20 __________________ 30x30 ____________ 1 1/2 Hour __________ 500 GP
25 __________________ 50x50 ____________ 2 Hours ____________ 750 GP
30 __________________ 75x75 ____________ 2 1/2 Hours _________ 1,000 GP
35 __________________ 100x100 __________ 3 1/2 Hours _________ 3,000 GP
40 __________________ 200x200 __________ 4 Hours  ____________ 5,000 GP
45 __________________ 300x300 __________ 4 1/2 Hours _________ 10,000 GP
50 __________________ 350x350 __________ 5 Hours  ____________ 15,000 GP

You can use any land size in between these too.
       

------------------------------------------------------------------

Engineering (Int)
Through study, and practice you have learned how to create complicated devices.

Tools Needed: Engineering Tools and/or a work station
Time: (See Table Below)
Required Materials: Depends on the Device (final price is DM decided). The cost of the materials is only 90% of the finished items actual price.
DC: Varies by Item (See Table Below). A failed check ruins materials equal to 10% of the items price. If you succeed the DC by 5 or more you only spend 80% of the Items cost in materials.
Aid: History and Thievery can aid the Engineering Skill. The DC to aid is 5 lower than the Base DC. A successful aid confers a +2 bonus to the final check, while a failure confers a -2 penalty.

Tech Level: There are 4 different Tech Levels each have their own separate times and DCs. The Tech Levels are: Low, Standard, High, and Advanced. Tech level is entirely setting specific and the DM can of course limit it in anyway.

Examples:

Low: Low tech level items and devices are typically made from non-metal materials. They include conoes, small wooden cabins, and snare traps.

Standard: Standard level items are typically made of metal or other special materials. They include chariots, ships, metal traps, and stone houses.

High: High level items are typically made of metal and small or complex parts. They include things such as firearms, clocks, cannons, and extravagant homes, and buildings.

Advanced: Advanced level items are typically made of very complex parts, and rare or magical items. They Include things such as clockwork items , ornithopters, constructs, large complex buildings such as castles, steam boats and any other extremely complex or crazy items.  

Time & DC Tables (By tech level)

Spoiler:

Repairing Items: Repairing items takes 10% of the time and money spent creating the item but requires no check in order to do so.

reserved

reserved

reserved

I would say that Fishing and Cooking do need explaining, not in the sense of needing to know what the words mean, but in the sense that a player should know what sort of in game benefit these skills provide that they should take them. Especially as fishing would normally fall under Nature(gathering food).

I'd also advise breaking up the ability mods a bit. There are already so many Int and Wis skills, and these are almost all Int and Wis skills. At least, I'd think about making Mining and Smithing based off Strength or Con.

Pashalik wrote:

I would say that Fishing and Cooking do need explaining, not in the sense of needing to know what the words mean, but in the sense that a player should know what sort of in game benefit these skills provide that they should take them. Especially as fishing would normally fall under Nature(gathering food).

I'd also advise breaking up the ability mods a bit. There are already so many Int and Wis skills, and these are almost all Int and Wis skills. At least, I'd think about making Mining and Smithing based off Strength or Con.

Those descriptions were actually just detailing the name of the actual skill, not what ingame benefit it has. Perhaps fishing should be removed as it does fall into nature.

I'll look into replacing a few with different ability scores.

Consider allowing multiple ability scores to be used towards the skills, so as to not only open up usage among race/class combos, but also to invoke different sorts of practices within the skill. For example, smithing might use Strength and Intelligence to govern its usage; Strength being an example of metal working through sheer physical power over the materials, while intelligence might be more of a mathematical balance of the raw components, time to smelt down and shape and other more complex aspects. They both revolve around the same action and result int he same end, but the action is done in different manners based on the ability used to make the check.

ToeSama wrote:

Consider allowing multiple ability scores to be used towards the skills, so as to not only open up usage among race/class combos, but also to invoke different sorts of practices within the skill. For example, smithing might use Strength and Intelligence to govern its usage; Strength being an example of metal working through sheer physical power over the materials, while intelligence might be more of a mathematical balance of the raw components, time to smelt down and shape and other more complex aspects. They both revolve around the same action and result int he same end, but the action is done in different manners based on the ability used to make the check.

Good idea I just now put this in. Tell me if that helps some.

I also made perform for any ability score because you can wow people with sheer amounts of anything.

Be sure to tell me what you guys think about some of the changes I've made. These are some of the first big time houserules I've made.

Coming in from other game systems I understand the sentiment of these proposed rules. That said, I think the 4e development team had the right notion to question the inclusion of these elements in the skill system. While elements such as this should be present in the game, I'm not convinced that the relatively binary pass-fail of a skill check vs. DC is the best way to handle them.

So let's start with the question... why should these tasks be skills and not feats, rituals or martial practices? The only reason to make a check (skill or otherwise) is if there is some significant consequence to failure. If you fail your athletics check to jump you could plunge into a pit. If you fail a cooking check... your eggs are a bit runny? Consuming a limited amount of time could be considered a consquence. If you fail a thievery check to disable a water trap you're one round closer to drowning. But most of these checks you propose wouldn't be happening in combat, or even exploration situations, but in downtime of arbitrary length. Indeed, in prior editions, many of the skills you propose adding were nothing more than a mechanism to determine how long it would take to craft something during a period of downtime or how much money could be made by a character during a period of downtime (my experience in 3.x was that once you could beat a particular craft DC by taking 10, no one ever rolled because the price of failure would often cause the crafting to be just as expensive as if you'd gone out and just bought a finished product).

A related point is that many of the items on your list already exist in 4e's mechanics; alchemy (feat), brew potions (ritual), consecrations (ritual), fishing (nature skill), herbalism (nature and perhaps heal skills, plus a number of the healing rituals), jewelcrafting (master artisan martial practice), smithing (martial practices and a couple of backgrounds), tailoring (master artisan martial practice) and woodcrafting (various martial practices) are already covered under the existing rules.

The commonality of the crafting feats and practices in 4e is that they don't bother with crafting rolls and just run with the idea that you'll eventually be able to produce a finished product, provided you are of sufficient skill (i.e. level) to be able to craft the item in the first place... skipping the middle-man of taking 10 on skill checks.

That leaves just cooking, engineering, mining and perform from your list.

Barring a campaign about dueling gormet schools seeking to win various positions among the noble houses, there's rarely going to be such a degree of consequence for failure associated with overboiled potatoes and burnt toast that a player would need to specifically be trained in the cooking skill. Further, even the most disasterous failure is only going to result in needing to cook a new batch of it up. Likewise, the notion that only those who actually have training in the cooking skill can even attempt to stick a hunk of meat on a stick and hold it over a fire is a bit on the absurd side. If you must have gormet cooking in your game, I'd suggest making it a use of the Master Artisan martial practice (meals are listed in the equipment section after all) and leave it at that.

Engineering could potentially be a useful skill, but I suspect it would function better as a martial practice with level requirements for particular types of buildings (and the Unearthed Arcana article on Strongholds for 4e included a ritual for building a stronghold without needing a check... just ritual components). Other uses of engineering (repairing wagon wheels, making traps, shoring up walls) have been described in the skill section as uses of Thievery, Dungeoneering and, occassionally Athletics (for brute manual labor).

Likewise, most of the Mining related tasked could easily fall under Dungeoneering with a bit of Athletics and Endurance for the actual labor. Personally, I'd make any mining attempt a skill challenge with Dungeoneering, Perception and Athletics as the primary skills with a treasure parcel in the form of raw ore or residuum as the reward for a successful outcome (and perhaps being down a few surges due to injuries on a particularly bad failure).

The same thinking goes for Perform. If the purpose is to persuade a crowd to part with some coin in enchange for entertainment then make a skill challenge with Bluff, Diplomacy and Acrobatics as primary skills and Insight (to read the crowd) and History (referring to local elements in the performance) as supporting skills. Success yields coins (or perhaps an audience with a local Lord who found your act entertaining) while failure yields rotten fruit and perhaps even a hasty exit stage right.

I suspect that the above would work just as well as adding new skills would. If you were to houserule anything, I'd go with simply allowing anyone to take certain martial practices and/or rituals without needing to take the appropriate feat first and leave it at that.

1. "Why should these tasks be skills and not feats, rituals or martial practices?"

I felt that these would do better as skills mainly because of the clunkiness of martial practices. And the reason they aren't feats is because really a feat is a precious thing to most players and it shouldn't be wasted on something that won't be used a lot *looks at the Practiced Study feat*.

2. "The only reason to make a check (skill or otherwise) is if there is some significant consequence to failure."

This depends upon your game and DM. Some DMs make spectacular failures. Some just say it doesn't work and you start where you begun. You made a comment about runny eggs. The point of the cooking skill isn't to cook the most basic things. You should be able to do that anyway if you have training in it, and more than likely anyway

3. "A related point is that many of the items on your list already exist in 4e's mechanics"

Yes they do but they are either deeply embedded with other mechanics or have to be gotten through feats or chains of feats (If you want them to be any good). As I've said I find martial practices very clunky. They aren't hard to understand but they really don't work to well especially when the cost is a feat. At least with them being skills you could save yourself a feat and time by flipping through other books to find the exact effect.

4. "The commonality of the crafting feats and practices in 4e is that they don't bother with crafting rolls and just run with the idea that you'll eventually be able to produce a finished product, provided you are of sufficient skill (i.e. level) to be able to craft the item in the first place... skipping the middle-man of taking 10 on skill checks."

This falls more into a realism category for me. It doesn't matter how good you are at something there is always a chance of failure, whether its forgetting a step, losing a piece, or just plain messing up. If level really dictated your skill then we wouldn't have skill DCs at higher levels.

As for the training for all the skills perhaps I will look over that again. Keep in mind, I'm no expert at designing rules, and you don't have to sue this if you don't like them. They aren't ruling out anything the book has to offer. I'm really making this based on my own needs.

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

I felt that these would do better as skills mainly because of the clunkiness of martial practices. And the reason they aren't feats is because really a feat is a precious thing to most players and it shouldn't be wasted on something that won't be used a lot *looks at the Practiced Study feat*.

Hense my suggestion at the end of my first reply that if you want to make it simple, just houserule that some (or all) martial practices and/or rituals don't require a feat to obtain, just the gp expenditure to learn the practice/ritual.

Quote :

This falls more into a realism category for me. It doesn't matter how good you are at something there is always a chance of failure, whether its forgetting a step, losing a piece, or just plain messing up. If level really dictated your skill then we wouldn't have skill DCs at higher levels.

I guess I'm coming from the ease of play and moving the story along perspective. To me, if the only consequence of failure is having to take more time to get to a finished product and there is no time crunch involved, then having to roll to succeed is just rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice.

In 3e, for example, the crafting DC's topped out at 20 for masterwork items. A level two character with a 14 Intelligence, 5 ranks and skill focus could hit that DC just by taking 10. Given the cost of failure, it never made sense for anyone focused on crafting to make an actual check unless they literally could not fail it by 5 or more (the threshold for ruined raw materials) and even then, the best possible result wouldn't significantly improve your crafting time (by the time you could auto-succeed on the check the difference between taking 10 and a natural 20 is only a 33% time savings and it will only get smaller as you level up).

The reality was that 3.X crafting skill ranks were never actually about a pass/fail check or whether or not you could create an object (you invariably could if you were even slightly built for that purpose). It was just a rather obfuscated timing mechanism (i.e. you make [Skill Bonus +10] x [Item's Craft DC] silver pieces worth of progress on an item for each week of crafting).

So if that's all it really was, why complicate things with a skill check? I'd much rather see something that cuts out the needless dice rolling (or taking of 10 as the case might be) and let's you get back to the story. A much easier mechanism that would accomplish the same thing as 3e's crafting would be "You can craft items with a total value of X gp per Craft rank (however that rank might be determined) for each day of effort. This requires Y gp in raw materials (where Y is some percentage of the object's finished value)."

The other way you could go is the one that the default 4e rules use... they make the difference in crafting skill relevant by allowing higher level craftsmen with the appropriate martial practice to create "magic" weapons and armor (i.e. the common enhancement versions with no properties... representing the masterwork and legendary creations of such artisans) in the same time that it would take a lower level character to produce a non-magical item of the same type. This might be "clunky" but it does have the advantage of letting a character's crafting ability remain relevant even deep into the epic tier of the game.

Another important thing to consider in either case is the value of Y. If you're playing a standard 4e game where balance is the objective then that value should be 100% of the item's value and any profts from crafting should be done via treasure parcel awards. If you're going for a game where you aren't using treasure parcels or expected wealth per level the then Y can instead be a more realistic percentage of the the item's value (one of the campaigns I'm in falls into this category... we had to throw out expected wealth per level due to using the Kingmaker rules. Instead we use enforced Inherant bonuses (weapons, armor and neck slots ONLY provide properties/powers and their enhancement bonuses are ignored).

Just some things to consider when fleshing out your ruleset.

ETA: Side-bar: speaking as a professional craftsman, engraving specifically, the "skill rank as a threshold and timing mechanism" is actually pretty realistic. My error rate is less than 1 in 500 pieces professionally because I don't take projects beyond my current skill level. In my experience, professional craftsman just don't work on projects outside of their skill level professionally (i.e. when they're being paid for it). If they can't perform the needed technique nearly flawlessly, they'll work on practice projects until they can get the techniques down pat and only then will they do a professional project using that technique (this is especially true for me as I'm often asked to engrave objects with a great deal of sentimental value and when you're carving pieces of it out, you don't get a second chance... forget measure twice, cut once... its practice on something similar as many times as it takes to be certain of the results and then measure as many times as it takes to make absolutely certain its going to go how you plan it to and only then do you start to cut). Thus, a less skilled craftsman will take longer to make an object than a more skilled craftsman, but barring a project that's completely beyond their error-free skill level they'll both eventually produce a comparable finished product.

Really to be honest the main point of Profession skills are really just to tie character backgrounds down with mechanics and to give characters something to do during a character down time. That's it. This little skill set can be picked from, used, or just ignored, its really all just suggestions for those who want a little more mechanics behind their crafting abilities.

I'll look into your suggestions and see what I can do with them without radically changing what I've done.

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Really to be honest the main point of Profession skills are really just to tie character backgrounds down with mechanics and to give characters something to do during a character down time. That's it.

Honest question... why do the characters need mechanics for something to do during their down time? Do you actually play out every day of downtime?

From my experience our down times tend to pass in a few sentences from the DM...

Ex. "A week has passed since you got back from exploring the abandoned Toria mines. Now the Duke has sent your party a summons to apear before him. The messenger would say only that the Duke has a task that he feels only your party can accomplish. Unless anyone wanted to do something specific, make whatever transactions (i.e. buy, sell, craft) that you need to and we'll fast-forward to your arrival at the Duke's stronghold."

I'm legitimately curious about how you run down times. Indeed, from the sound of things, it isn't even really down time as I understand it (i.e. a period of time when nothing happens), but rather a non-combat adventure that focuses on matters outside of combat and/or exploration.

Chris24601 wrote:

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Really to be honest the main point of Profession skills are really just to tie character backgrounds down with mechanics and to give characters something to do during a character down time. That's it.

Honest question... why do the characters need mechanics for something to do during their down time? Do you actually play out every day of downtime?

From my experience our down times tend to pass in a few sentences from the DM...

Ex. "A week has passed since you got back from exploring the abandoned Toria mines. Now the Duke has sent your party a summons to apear before him. The messenger would say only that the Duke has a task that he feels only your party can accomplish. Unless anyone wanted to do something specific, make whatever transactions (i.e. buy, sell, craft) that you need to and we'll fast-forward to your arrival at the Duke's stronghold."

I'm legitimately curious about how you run down times. Indeed, from the sound of things, it isn't even really down time as I understand it (i.e. a period of time when nothing happens), but rather a non-combat adventure that focuses on matters outside of combat and/or exploration.

The way you gave the example pretty much explains how I would run a downtime, unless of course the PCs wanna do something really specific in which case there will be some roleplaying involved. It can even be ran that way when a person can't show up for a game. You could make their character stay behind and do something they need/want to do. I'm really thinking your starting to over think the whole idea of profession skills.

After a long hiatus I got Engineering done. Any thoughts?

Chris24601 wrote:

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Really to be honest the main point of Profession skills are really just to tie character backgrounds down with mechanics and to give characters something to do during a character down time. That's it.

Honest question... why do the characters need mechanics for something to do during their down time? Do you actually play out every day of downtime?

From my experience our down times tend to pass in a few sentences from the DM...

Ex. "A week has passed since you got back from exploring the abandoned Toria mines. Now the Duke has sent your party a summons to apear before him. The messenger would say only that the Duke has a task that he feels only your party can accomplish. Unless anyone wanted to do something specific, make whatever transactions (i.e. buy, sell, craft) that you need to and we'll fast-forward to your arrival at the Duke's stronghold."

I'm legitimately curious about how you run down times. Indeed, from the sound of things, it isn't even really down time as I understand it (i.e. a period of time when nothing happens), but rather a non-combat adventure that focuses on matters outside of combat and/or exploration.

This depends on both the DM and the players.  I have a game where the players want to play out EVERY interaction.  The first time I did "a week has passed" in my game, the whole group spoke up and said "Wait!  We wanted to do stuff!!!!"  So now, the only time things are summarized is when they are going somewhere and nothing happens....  Which is slow.....

thanson02 wrote:

Chris24601 wrote:

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Really to be honest the main point of Profession skills are really just to tie character backgrounds down with mechanics and to give characters something to do during a character down time. That's it.

Honest question... why do the characters need mechanics for something to do during their down time? Do you actually play out every day of downtime?

From my experience our down times tend to pass in a few sentences from the DM...

Ex. "A week has passed since you got back from exploring the abandoned Toria mines. Now the Duke has sent your party a summons to apear before him. The messenger would say only that the Duke has a task that he feels only your party can accomplish. Unless anyone wanted to do something specific, make whatever transactions (i.e. buy, sell, craft) that you need to and we'll fast-forward to your arrival at the Duke's stronghold."

I'm legitimately curious about how you run down times. Indeed, from the sound of things, it isn't even really down time as I understand it (i.e. a period of time when nothing happens), but rather a non-combat adventure that focuses on matters outside of combat and/or exploration.

This depends on both the DM and the players.  I have a game where the players want to play out EVERY interaction.  The first time I did "a week has passed" in my game, the whole group spoke up and said "Wait!  We wanted to do stuff!!!!"  So now, the only time things are summarized is when they are going somewhere and nothing happens....  Which is slow.....

This is how most of my groups are. We typically do quite a bit in between adventures. We mostly shop, but we will also talk with NPCs, do some quest hunts, or even just hang around. Once my PC's get the chance to get Strongholds they will probably abuse that too.