Everything You Can Do Between Adventures (And Why It Actually Matters)
Downtime activities are one of those systems that sits quietly in the rulebook until a player asks “wait, can I just… make a sword?” and suddenly you need to know all of it. The short answer is yes. The longer answer involves math, lifestyle expenses, and the slow dawning realization that crafting a legendary magic item takes 54 years.
The Player’s Handbook Basics
The PHB gives you five options: recuperating, crafting, practicing a profession, researching, and training. Recuperating is for when things have gone genuinely wrong, not just “I need a nap” wrong, but “I have a debilitating disease and need three days and a DC 15 Constitution save to start climbing out of it” wrong. Crafting is the one everyone reaches for first. The formula is simple: take the item’s value, divide by 5 gold pieces, and that’s how many days it takes. You create 5 GP worth of value per day. Non-magical items only, and you will need the right tools and probably a forge.
Training gets its own mention for being strangely specific: exactly 250 days, 1 GP per day, to gain proficiency in a language or tool. Not 249. Not 251. The book has opinions. Days do not need to be consecutive, but each one requires a full 8 hours of work, which is a full-time job worth of commitment every single time.
The DMG Goes Further
The Dungeon Master’s Guide is where things get genuinely interesting. Carousing is the standout: you spend money at a wealthy lifestyle rate, roll a d100, add your level, and find out whether you made friends, fell in love, got thrown in jail, or something considerably weirder. The PHB has seven outcomes. The internet has hundreds. Running multiple carousing tables and letting players roll to determine which one they land on gives you something closer to 400 possible results, which is the right number.
Crafting magical items follows similar logic to regular crafting but requires you to actually be a spellcaster, have access to any spell the item can cast, and expend a spell slot and components every single day of creation. Friends can help, but they need to meet the same magical requirements. The barbarian is not contributing.
Running a business is the one that always comes up eventually, because someone always wants a bakery. The DMG gives you a percentile roll modified by days spent helping out, with results ranging from paying full maintenance costs to turning a profit of 3d10 times 5 GP. There is no built-in system for improving or investing in the business, which is where homebrew picks up the slack and, frankly, does a better job.
Selling magical items deserves its own warning: it is harder than it looks. DC 20 Intelligence check to find a buyer, flat across all rarities. Then a percentile roll to see what they offer, with only a 10% chance of full price and a charisma-based persuasion bonus as your main lever. Very rare items take a -20 to that roll. Plan accordingly.
For additional reference, check out the Player’s Handbook Chapter 8 (pg. 187-188) and the Dungeon Master’s Guide Chapter 6 (pg. 127-131).