Downtime Counting (5e Variant Rule)
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Your party is rewarded with days of downtime (DT) for completing adventures. The amount of DT earned is typically decided by the DM for thematic and narrative purposes. In this variant, DT is instead awarded more like xp in return for certain conditions. The following is a list of examples of ways of awarding DT. I would not recommend using the whole list, or you'll quickly find your PCs spending years of their lives civie-ing around. The more DT you want between adventures, the more clauses you should include. Also, DT should typically be awarded to the whole party, but you could certainly award DT on an individual basis instead. Just what that is supposed to mean or represent is up for grabs.
- 1DT per enemy slain
- 2DT per enemy avoided or neutralized without combat, multiplied by CR
- 1DT per 100xp awarded
- 1DT per PC level at the end of the adventure
- 1DT per natural 20 rolled
- 1DT per PC level up experienced
- 1DT per in-game day passed
- 1DT per play hour
- 1DT per session
- 10DT per party member death (to the survivors, and to the replacement character)
- 1DT per character revival
- 1DT per 100pp collected
- 1DT per inspiration use/award
- 1DT per long rest
Characters age by 1 year for every 365DT awarded to a character. Thus, as they rise in level, the difficulty of life takes its toll on the characters, increasing the likelihood of a character (particulalry humans) dying in downtime. This gives a certain degree of urgency to your DT; if it's going to age you whether you use it or not, it makes more sense to use it and gain something while you're alive and get the most out of it, rather than die of old age sitting on a pile of unspent DT.
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