Downtime Actions

Things to do between crime sprees

Collections:

Resolving Downtime Actions

Downtime Actions do not have to be all declared upfront. For example, an injured character might choose to use their first action on Rest & Recuperation, and then depending on how the roll goes, might repeat the action or switch to something else.
Bennies do not apply to (and cannot be used for) downtime actions. Bennies are for when the camera is focused on your character!
Gear does not affect Downtime Actions rolls. However, Edges and Hindances that affect skill rolls function as normal.
If your character is currently experiencing Heat or Hunted, all rolls will be opposed; see that section for details.
Although Advancing typically happens during downtime, it does not have to, and it does not take a downtime action when it does.

Downtime actions for long term goals & projects

Deep in the heart of the punk ethos beats a vital dichotomy. On the one hand, there’s the inherent nihilism contained in the ever-present slogan NO FUTURE. Whether patched onto a torn jacket or graffitted onto the decaying walls of slum estate, it can be seen to embody a sense of hopelessness and fatalism in the face of overwhelming forces in society.

But on the other hand, true punks don’t take this lying down. They believe in mutual aid, in sticking it to the man, in protecting the little peope, and by foiling the malicious schemes of the powerful wherever possible. These Downtime Actions are how your characters can attempt to redress some of the unfairness in the Sixth World.

Change The World

Declare what your character wants to achieve. I’ll set out the difficulty level and what skill (or skills) you’ll need to use to complete it. You progress towards your goal like a Dramatic Task: for each Downtime Action you use, you can make a Trait roll using any appropriate skill to work on the project. Test success will tick a segment on the progress clock. Each Raise will tick a further segment. On a critical failure, you lose one segment.

Depending on the project, you may need to use just one skill, be required to use different skills for different stages, or be able to choose a skill. Some projects may be more challenging and so apply a negative modifier to the roll; others may have a time limit that will cause failure if you take too long. It all depends on what the outcome will be and what makes sense in the narrative.

When you complete a Change The World project, you gain Conviction.

Build your stash

If your character is saving up for something long-term (eg. retirement from this endless cycle of violence…), then you can spend a Downtime action to divert funds to it. Each action “buys” one point of Stash. How many points you’ll need depends on what you’re saving for…

Long term project

This is the non-altruistic sibling to Changing The World. Your character is engaged in some sort of extended research, construction, or some other activity, but completion will benefit only themselves. This is resolved similarly to Change The World but it does not grant Conviction on completion.

Healing & recovery actions

Lie Low

If you attracted an unusually breathtaking amount of attention on the last run and so have a Heat or Hunted Die, you can choose to skip town for a while until the heat dies down. This takes one of your actions. You can repeat this, if you want… or need.

If you have Heat, it reduces the Heat Die by three steps (ie. a d10 becomes a d4). If you have Hunted, reduce it by one step. It’s not so easy to shake people off once it’s personal.

If the whole team is has Heat or is being Hunted (and that will usually be the case), everyone has to Lay Low together. Not much point one of you disappearing off the radar if two others are out partying.

Rest & recuperation

For one Downtime Action, you can make a normal Natural Healing roll (see SWADE pg 96 for full details). Roll Vigor; success clears a Wound, each raise clears another Wound. Characters with the Fast Healer Edge can make two Healing rolls for a single downtime action.

If another PC is willing to spend one of their own Downtime Actions tending to your wounds, they can Support your Vigor roll with a roll of their Healing skill. Note that magical healing doesn’t help with long term recuperation, it can only serve as first aid. See support.

Arcane actions

Getting ahead

Favours for favours

Choose a skill, explain how you are using this skill to do a favour for someone important, and roll it at -2. (If it was easy to get ahead in the world, everyone would be doing it.)

You can choose how you want to cash your favour in: good ol’ liquid cash, access to extra gear, or even information or some form of service. You don’t need to declare this right away, you can hold onto the favour into the next mission and use it at any time. However if you don’t use it before the next downtime phase then it disappears.

Reward	Failure	Success	For every raise
LP	2	5	+1
Liquidity	5	10	+2

On a critical failure, you earn nothing.

Book learnin'

You spend some downtime picking up a new hobby or interest, or just learning something fun.

Nominate a topic or area. Whenever this knowledge comes up in the future, take a bonus to knowledge skill rolls such as Common Knowledge, Science, Research, or Arcana.

If your new special interest is very specialised and/or obscure (example: “interior decorating trends for maximising feng shui”), you can take a +4 bonus to rolls. If it’s something broader and more general (eg: “interior decorating”), you’ll get a +2 bonus instead.

Actions affecting your lifestyle

Live beyond your means / Scrimp and save

At the cost of one downtime action, you can divert some of your Payout to funding a nicer apartment than you could otherwise afford. Move up one Lifestyle category.

Alternatively, if you’re happy to live in modest surroundings, you can give up one lifestyle category and receive a bonus action during each Downtime phase.

You can only go up one Lifestyle category, no matter how many meals you skip. But you can go down as many as you like, getting a bonus Downtime Action for each one.

Fund lifestyle perks

If the number of perks you have isn’t enough, you can divert funds from your day-to-day living expenses to pay for extra. You’ll have to keep money back, though, so you can’t afford to do as much as you otherwise would be able to. Hence you have to sacrifice one downtime action. In return you can afford two additional lifestyle perks.

Change lifestyle perks

When your legal life is constructed around a fake identity, it takes some time and care to re-arrange things like leases on property or contracts on outsourced magical security. So changing any of your lifestyle perks takes a downtime action, but you can change any number of perks in that time.

If you start or stop funding extra perks (see the previous action), that doesn’t count as a “change” and you don’t need to use an action for that.

This might be a bit too many options / a bit of a fussy design. It depends on if player’s feel the lifestyle system is interesting enough to interact with, I think. Needs playtesting.

Helping other PCs during downtime

Helping Hand

If you want to spend some time and energy helping your buddies out with their off-duty antics, you can spend a one of your downtime actions on support. One action lets you support each of your fellow PCs on one roll, so if there’s four of them, you can support four times (one per oerson) for just one action!

As usual for SWADE, you roll a relevant skill of your own, and add +1 to their roll for each success/raise you get.

Stand-in

Sometimes, a Support roll won’t cut it. If you really want to show up for your friends who’re in a tight spot, you can also choose to do a roll on their behalf – eg. the team’s face might lead a tricky negotiation so that the street sam can complete a Change The World task. The face steps in, and rolls their Persuasion instead of the street sam’s.

This, however, takes an entire Downtime Action from you, for just one roll, and the person you’re helping has to spend an Action too – you have to work on this together. On the other hand, if they can think of a relevant skill, the person you’re helping does at least get to roll Support on your roll, so that’s something.