Ultimate Campaign: I Could Use Some Downtime

Looking good. Will this also expand into city building rules?

I could also see these rules used by the GM:

"You arrive at a tavern after traveling through the woods and it has a working bathroom. Whose taking a bath?"

It could give incentive to PCs to explore the town and it's various rooms and amenities.

This. Yay! Can't wait to use the downtime!!! My players tend to show up in waves starting after our supposed start time. While waiting for everyone it would be GREAT to do some downtime type stuff with those that are there.

Ah, that is going to be awesome! Structured rules and the ability to make hanging around town meaningful.

Can't wait!

My character in Rise just started renovating one of the buildings you come across and is going to make it into essentially a wizard academy. I cannot state enough how much I'm looking forward to this book.

This alone could be the reason I am buying this book...its not...but i5 could be. I cannot express how excited for this chapter I am. BRAVO paizo, bravo. I also just got into minecraft and cant help but feel this is inspired from that and RTS games. Thats not a baf thing...just stating what I noticed.

Sounds interesting, although I'm usually a bit leery about prices for real estate in D&D; they tend to be a bit on the high side for my tastes.

Ooo! Will this also be usable in PFS play in some way? I've got a dwarf who would LOVE to own his own jeweler's store some day. Using the same effect type as the Bar...+1 to gather knowledge.

Time to plan my monastery :D

Sweet!

I feel like an experience with con crud may have inspired the rules for the bath.

So, 1 package of good or labor equates 20 gp but one package of influence equates 30 gp?

Must....build...temples.....for....Razmir...

Ooo! Will this also be usable in PFS play in some way? I've got a dwarf who would LOVE to own his own jeweler's store some day. Using the same effect type as the Bar...+1 to gather knowledge.

Very very doubtful. I don't say never because never say never but I can't see any of this coming over to PFS.

That looks amazingly awesome! *going through his stuff to look for money*

Uuuuuuh yeeeeah hrmf... Thursday product previews keep me going.

These look good. And PCs can now own their own sauna among other businesses? Heh, great idea, though I wonder what will happen the first time some group of PCs discover that they're making more cash from their business than from their adventuring.

Really, I am so looking forward to this book!

These look good. And PCs can now own their own sauna among other businesses? Heh, great idea, though I wonder what will happen the first time some group of PCs discover that they're making more cash from their business than from their adventuring.

Really, I am so looking forward to this book!

The best adventures don't use cash as the prime reason to go adventuring.

These look good. And PCs can now own their own sauna among other businesses? Heh, great idea, though I wonder what will happen the first time some group of PCs discover that they're making more cash from their business than from their adventuring.

Really, I am so looking forward to this book!

That is actually highly unlikely. Businesses are good at rooting your PCs to a community, giving them a reason to care, and getting them involved with politics and other dynamics in an area, but they are not the way that PCs are going to get rich. In most cases, it would take about a year just to recoup the initial investment.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

I hope based off this that Ultimate Adventures, a book covering in depth adventure site creation rules from general site locations down to the depths of building all things dungeons, is in the planning stages. Just putting that out there.

@Nukruh:

Well maybe in the future, but I have it on good authority that the next big one will be Ultimate Cuddle, among other things with rules on how to befriend Cthulhu.

Finally, I can take a BATH!

...in game. Why are you looking at me like that?

Yes, yes...a thousand times yes. I just had a 6-email discussion w/a player over the last couple days, regarding a survival shelter built into a hillside cave that was given to the party as a boon. He wants to develop it into a space part home, part business space. Due to the particulars of the campaign, he doesn't want to hire out the labor or advertise much.

I didn't have an easy answer. By the end of the chain my method was so convoluted and full of gray area that he didn't even want to try anymore. I need to save up some "various types of currencies" and get this book when it hits the FFG shelves. Smileyface

Will this fit into the kingdom/settlement-building rules? If you own a business in your constructed city, will it count as a building on that level?

There is a strong parallel between the types of buildings you can construct with the kingdom-building rules (Chapter 4) and the types you can construct with the downtime rules (Chapter 2). So if you spend BP to create a tavern, you can look up the stats of a typical tavern in Chapter 2 to see what rooms that default tavern includes.

If you want to add specific rooms to it, you'd have to use the downtime to rules to add onto it, as the kingdom-building rules only address building complete buildings or converting a specific building into another specific building (such as a Temple into a Cathedral). So Ch4 would let you upgrade your Bar into a Tavern, and you could see what Ch2 says a typical Tavern has, and if you wanted to build something different onto your Bar (say, adding a shrine because you worship Cayden Cailean) you'd have to customize it with the Ch2 rules.

Although I can't say I'm one that believes everything needs a codified set of mechanics, this will certainly make my job as a GM a lot easier. Can't wait until the release!

I'll prolly never get to use this book in actual play. My gaming group turned into vapourware awhile ago now.
But I still want it. Is that so wrong?

It's not wrong.

See, the great thing about this is, if your group has vaporized, your character now has ALL DOWNTIME. So now you have a book you can use!

I'll prolly never get to use this book in actual play. My gaming group turned into vapourware awhile ago now.

But I still want it. Is that so wrong?

I'm in a similar position. I havent looked forward to a rulebook this much since the Gamemastery Guide, despite being nearly 100% confident it will never get any use.

LOVE THE WEEKLY PREVIEWS!! :) Can't tell if they make the wait easier or more agonizing, either way, I eagerly look forward to next week! :D

The Pale :)

There is a strong parallel between the types of buildings you can construct with the kingdom-building rules (Chapter 4) and the types you can construct with the downtime rules (Chapter 2). So if you spend BP to create a tavern, you can look up the stats of a typical tavern in Chapter 2 to see what rooms that default tavern includes.

If you want to add specific rooms to it, you'd have to use the downtime to rules to add onto it, as the kingdom-building rules only address building complete buildings or converting a specific building into another specific building (such as a Temple into a Cathedral). So Ch4 would let you upgrade your Bar into a Tavern, and you could see what Ch2 says a typical Tavern has, and if you wanted to build something different onto your Bar (say, adding a shrine because you worship Cayden Cailean) you'd have to customize it with the Ch2 rules.

Exactly what I was hoping for, thanks :)

There is a strong parallel between the types of buildings you can construct with the kingdom-building rules (Chapter 4) and the types you can construct with the downtime rules (Chapter 2). So if you spend BP to create a tavern, you can look up the stats of a typical tavern in Chapter 2 to see what rooms that default tavern includes.

If you want to add specific rooms to it, you'd have to use the downtime to rules to add onto it, as the kingdom-building rules only address building complete buildings or converting a specific building into another specific building (such as a Temple into a Cathedral). So Ch4 would let you upgrade your Bar into a Tavern, and you could see what Ch2 says a typical Tavern has, and if you wanted to build something different onto your Bar (say, adding a shrine because you worship Cayden Cailean) you'd have to customize it with the Ch2 rules.

awesome!

Eric Hinkle wrote:

These look good. And PCs can now own their own sauna among other businesses? Heh, great idea, though I wonder what will happen the first time some group of PCs discover that they're making more cash from their business than from their adventuring.

Really, I am so looking forward to this book!

That is actually highly unlikely. Businesses are good at rooting your PCs to a community, giving them a reason to care, and getting them involved with politics and other dynamics in an area, but they are not the way that PCs are going to get rich. In most cases, it would take about a year just to recoup the initial investment.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Also, awesome. This books looks like a must have.

This is starting to look like a must have. Every time an option to own a business pops up one of my players jumps all over it. He loves sorting out inventory and how he is going to run it. He also enjoys sorting out keeping it running when he goes out to do something.

This will make it easy to finally give him costs for all off that and also the ability to expand without me having to tinker with it to make it work.

Want to train up your hit points because you rolled poorly last time you gained a level?

Colour me interested, no more blues for rolling 1 or 2 for hitpoints for 2 years?

I'm salivating over this book, seriously. This is something that more games need to have like as a core thing.

There is a strong parallel between the types of buildings you can construct with the kingdom-building rules (Chapter 4) and the types you can construct with the downtime rules (Chapter 2). So if you spend BP to create a tavern, you can look up the stats of a typical tavern in Chapter 2 to see what rooms that default tavern includes.

If you want to add specific rooms to it, you'd have to use the downtime to rules to add onto it, as the kingdom-building rules only address building complete buildings or converting a specific building into another specific building (such as a Temple into a Cathedral). So Ch4 would let you upgrade your Bar into a Tavern, and you could see what Ch2 says a typical Tavern has, and if you wanted to build something different onto your Bar (say, adding a shrine because you worship Cayden Cailean) you'd have to customize it with the Ch2 rules.

Okay, this book is now an official must have for me.

All of this info excites me, I’ve been looking forward to this book for a long time now.

The only thing I am leery about is the ability to swap feats. How is this different than the Fighter’s class ability to do so? I hope this doesn’t overshadow a class ability.

And to say this one takes more time than a Fighter doing it on the fly (when he levels) I don’t feel is enough of a differential, unless the time is substantial. I’m curious to see how this is handled.

Eric Hinkle wrote:

These look good. And PCs can now own their own sauna among other businesses? Heh, great idea, though I wonder what will happen the first time some group of PCs discover that they're making more cash from their business than from their adventuring.

Really, I am so looking forward to this book!

That is actually highly unlikely. Businesses are good at rooting your PCs to a community, giving them a reason to care, and getting them involved with politics and other dynamics in an area, but they are not the way that PCs are going to get rich. In most cases, it would take about a year just to recoup the initial investment.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Okay, and thanks for the explanation, but I was mostly joking. Or maybe I read one too many fantasy stories by De Camp wherein the 'hero' retires at the end to open up a business because that's safer than everything he just went through.

And I think that's a great list of reasons for why a PC might want to do this. Heck, PC clergy of Abadar ought to love this section.

All of this info excites me, I’ve been looking forward to this book for a long time now.

The only thing I am leery about is the ability to swap feats. How is this different than the Fighter’s class ability to do so? I hope this doesn’t overshadow a class ability.
And to say this one takes more time than a Fighter doing it on the fly (when he levels) I don’t feel is enough of a differential, unless the time is substantial. I’m curious to see how this is handled.

Fighter: no cost, instant, doesn't require a trainer.

I have to say, the density of the room types around that range of the letter "B" has me mighty curious about just how many options there are going to be. :O

I wonder how easy it will be to lose self-control and go Sarah Winchester all over one's house.

I keep forgetting Lirianne is a half-elf. Also, ha, the sign. :)

When I read this, it sounds like one of those build-a-town iOS apps.

That is actually highly unlikely. Businesses are good at rooting your PCs to a community, giving them a reason to care, and getting them involved with politics and other dynamics in an area, but they are not the way that PCs are going to get rich. In most cases, it would take about a year just to recoup the initial investment.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

That's good to hear. I wonder if I can pause my RotR campaign for a few months until these rules come out...

I know it doesn't have much to do with Chapter 2, but does the Kingdom Building Rules in this book still assume that you're using the 36-block grid? I personally never cared for it considering that the grid doesn't model how a city organically grows very well.

hmmm

I know it doesn't have much to do with Chapter 2, but does the Kingdom Building Rules in this book still assume that you're using the 36-block grid? I personally never cared for it considering that the grid doesn't model how a city organically grows very well.

The grid is supposed to be a complete abstraction, though...

I suggested to the art team that we could post a couple of variant grids for different city configurations, like in a bay, so your grid squares would be arranged in a semicircle around the water. Thanks for the reminder. :)

This is shaping up to be a perfect Father's Day gift (for me!).

Looking forward to this book. It should get here just in time for my group's downtime between Burnt Offerings and The Skinsaw Murders.

That's cool!
My players were talking about start a scarf factory the other day.
I need this book.