House Rule: Downtime

There are times where the time in between sessions isn't the awkward pause in time where you gasp as the Stormtroopers blow open a door and then just float there for a few weeks until another session can run. There are times where there is a pre-determined space of time which passes in between a session. It could be a day or a year depending on the circumstances. Regardless of the time passed, the rules for downtime will be the same. This is to avoid elements of powergaming but also managing a month's worth of activity in a 2 week latency on a session. The narrative dice of the FFG system can still provide an interesting interlude which can work in any setting.

So for the sake of fitting this into some sort of framework, I've decided that players can conduct one major activity during their downtime, with the exception of crafting (see Why Crafting Is Different below). The activity will be relative to the time they have. So if there is a day of downtime and the player wants to start an intergalactic conglomerate for Bantha Meat, that isn't reasonable but if they want to walk around town and gather information, that is well within the scope of the time allotted. That being said, for longer periods of downtime, to mitigate the assault of dice rolls it will remain at one major activity but with the challenge to you as a player to not squander the time allotted if it is bigger. With a year your dreams of selling Bantha Steaks could become a reality - dream big!

Some examples of activities you could do are:

• Selling specific groups of items (x1 roll for items)
• Carousing (rules are at pg. 151 in the EoTE CRB)
• Running drills with your team
• Conducting surveillance
• Repairs on vehicles
• Periodic Maintenance and upkeep on vehicles
• Restoring consumables (hunting, doing shuttle runs for food, etc.)
• Running a business

All of these activities would be classified as a major activity and usually could be reconciled in one of two rolls at the most.

For example, you have a series of weapons and you want to try to sell them on the black market. Unfortunately you fail both your rolls and are unable to sell them in the 3 months of downtime. Narratively this is resolved as you are trying to sell them on the Holonet through the Galactic Trade Network (GTN). Unfortunately, a wiley Rodian has copied your design and is undercutting your sales. Despite your best efforts he manages to interdict your attempts to sell. Fortunately you rolled x2 advantage and you were able to figure out where this competitor is, opening up the possibility for some persuasion in the future. 

Why Crafting is Different: Unlike these major activities which can be relative to the duration of the downtime, crafting has already been assigned specific times/credit amounts to complete the task. For this reason a trained crafter can conduct as many crafting checks as fit into the time and so long as they have enough credits for the work. If a crafter elects to spend the bulk of their time crafting the nature of their major activity will be affected (i.e. if you have a month of downtime and you craft for 2 weeks your time spent doing surveillance will not glean as much or be as extensively as it could have been).