How to make a little bit of gold during downtime.

[Belier]

Hello guys,

PHB states that a player can choose his kind of living in chapter 5. The basic average living to maintain would be modest(1gp) as it grants you the ability to maintain your equipment and live decently. This living is also free if you craft or if you practice a profession as per chapter 8.

In Chapter 8 They mention that if a player is proficient into performance he is able to maintain a wealthy living for free(4 gp worth).

So I was wondering if it is RAW that a player choosing to maintain a modest life style with proficiency in performance be able would be able to gain 4 gp per 8 hours of performing while paying his 1 gp modest living to maintain his gear and live decently, thus gaining 3 gp per downtime day.

The other things I was wondering,

They have a notice about survival skill proficiency in chapter 5 giving you confortable life(2gp) for no expanse if you practice it 8 hours per day.

if the player has outlander background, he is then granted the ability to forage for 6 person. This part is more RAI related than RAW but I expect someone to be able to forage 12 pound per day because a ration for a day is 2 pounds. After eating 2 pounds per day to maintain comfortable life, the outlander could then sell every 2 pound of food for 5 silver(ration price) earning a flat 2.5 gold per day. I know this one can't be raw, it is RAI.

[Belier]

This thread went into the far realm and was never heard of again

[Quoz]

Frankly, if you are playing an adventurer where your 'day job' generates enough gold to matter you should probably retire as an adventurer.

[Sigreid]

Xanathar's has a lot of help with this kind of thing. Interestingly a rogue or bard set up to be a gambler with a good stake of gold has the most wealth earning potential.

[Belier]

Frankly, if you are playing an adventurer where your 'day job' generates enough gold to matter you should probably retire as an adventurer.

3 gp a day is not gonna get you magic items soon and nor the fun of adventure and role play. It is howerver a good help at lower levels of play. It's not broken on my opinion since one good adventure on the higher tier is enaugh to earn you years of modest living.

[DarkKnightJin]

Frankly, if you are playing an adventurer where your 'day job' generates enough gold to matter you should probably retire as an adventurer.

Except the 'day job' is something they do on their downtime to keep busy. And I'm not entirely sure that 2-3gp per day is enough to matter that much.
There's always other costs that you run into, that aren't covered by the day to day pricing.

[JackPhoenix]

RAW, working on downtime doesn't generate any money, you'll just use it to cover the pay for the mentioned lifestyle (AL actually mentions that, you use the activity to pay for the lifestyle, you can't deliberately choose worse style and pocket the difference).

Same with Outlander. You don't create "pounds of food", you scrape enough not to starve. That food isn't necessarily fit for long-term storage, and definitely isn't equal with preserved, non-perishable rations. Both RAW and RAI. I can gather some mushrooms, berries and other food to survive, but I can't expect it will still be edible a week later, or that someone will be willing to pay me for it. And if they will, the money will go back to keeping my gear in working order after I spent time sleeping in the wild and trecking through mud.

Also, lifestyle expenses isn't just food. You can't eat one portion of rations and think your lifestyle is paid for. Proper food, rent, taxes, repairs and maintenance... it's outright stated right there in the book.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

My Bard earns a couple coins playing in town when others are doing this or that. Being a Lore Bard every once in awhile there should be more fun things to do like become the inspiration behind a political movement, or at least Bob Dylan like lol.

Belier, does your campaign have things like 3 month fast forwards or something where you are trying to get 30 or 60 extra gold into your purse during that time? I don't find that unreasonable.

[HolyAvenger7]

Just have your forge cleric make something worth up to 100GP / day out of scrap metal for a greater ROI.

[Corpsecandle717]

@OP I'm curious about your motivations, and I think it would probably help others out with how to help you.

In my experience the books don't cover anything interesting about how to handle day-to-day for your characters. They give you some options, but they're never fun or exciting because really they can't be.
Making downtime valuable defeats one of the major drivers for adventuring.

Instead I've always worked directly with the DM on these matters and they've always made the campaign more interesting. It's a great way to help the DM build the world, as long as everyone's expectations aren't ridiculous.

For instance: In 3.5 my wizard and a my rogue buddy opened up a basic magic shop so we could sell our junk magic without having to take as big a hit on resale. Since we couldn't be there all the time we had to hire some staff that we could trust not to steal from us. This led to a mini-adventure where we were trying to figure out who to hire etc. My DM was clever enough to make it a whole party adventure. So we ended up with a Priestess of Waukeen (goddess of trade in FR) running our shop for us as a partial owner. Eventually this priestess got bored since we couldn't provide enough magic to keep her busy, and so she asked us to expand the business. I had just gotten teleport and my rogue buddy ended up with portable hole, so we started a shipping business for exotic goods. We'd buy these goods on our adventures, or we'd get special requests (adventure hooks) and the shop grew. It was always a fun thing and we never really got enough money back from it to break the game, but it gave us the leeway to basically live however we wanted (within reason) and get some interesting adventures and stories out of it.

[Sigreid]

My anecdotal experience is that the time between adventures is usually just ignored and always has been as just not worth tracking.

[SociopathFriend]

Step 1 - Be any primary caster other than Warlock
Step 2 - Take Mending (or Prestidigitation but that violates Step 1 since it's more restricted)
Step 3 - Walk around town and offer to fix (or clean if Prestidigitation) everything under the sun
Step 4 - Profit

Someone's farming pitchfork snap in half? A new one might cost (I have no idea) 5 Silver? Offer to fix their old one for 1 less Silver.
A wagon wheel break off the axle? Have someone hold the thing in place and fix it- possibly saving the entire wagon from being abandoned.
Did that irritating child get their only set of good clothes dirty and the mother has no time to clean it? Lucky for them- you can clean them with a whistle and a touch.

Literally anytime something breaks be there, hand extended, ready to work; hell if they're too poor fix it anyways- you get no coin but that goodwill pays off somewhere. Your DM might try to block you and insist nothing in the entire area is broken- and while you can respect that- you can also call them a liar to their face and ask if everything in their house works perfectly with nothing at all being broken, cracked, or torn (or in need of cleaning for Prestidigitation).

[KorvinStarmast]

Step 1 - Be any primary caster other than Warlock
Step 2 - Take Mending (or Prestidigitation but that violates Step 1 since it's more restricted)
Step 3 - Walk around town and offer to fix (or clean if Prestidigitation) everything under the sun
Step 4 - Profit

Someone's farming pitchfork snap in half? A new one might cost (I have no idea) 5 Silver? Offer to fix their old one for 1 less Silver.
A wagon wheel break off the axle? Have someone hold the thing in place and fix it- possibly saving the entire wagon from being abandoned.
Did that irritating child get their only set of good clothes dirty and the mother has no time to clean it? Lucky for them- you can clean them with a whistle and a touch.

Literally anytime something breaks be there, hand extended, ready to work; hell if they're too poor fix it anyways- you get no coin but that goodwill pays off somewhere. Your DM might try to block you and insist nothing in the entire area is broken- and while you can respect that- you can also call them a liar to their face and ask if everything in their house works perfectly with nothing at all being broken, cracked, or torn (or in need of cleaning for Prestidigitation). Well played.

[SirGraystone]

Performance doesn't get you 4 gp, it get you the same living that 4 gp would by you. For example if you perform in an Inn, you'll get free meal, drink and/or lodging that you would get if you spent 4 gp.

[Coec]

Or be a lightfoot halfling rogue and convince the local orphanage to take you in. Free room and board. Now you just need to find
the work.

[Corpsecandle717]

Or be a lightfoot halfling rogue and convince the local orphanage to take you in. Free room and board. Now you just need to find
the work.

"Jonny, we love you and really wish we could take care of you, but you eat 5 times as much as the other children so we're going to have to let you go"

HA!

[FreddyNoNose]

I use downtime a bit differently. They don't have a day job unless they go out and get one. Being broke is a good motivation to look for work and/or adventure.

They are free to try to do stuff in the world. As to adventures, there is always something to be found but that doesn't it make it the rich treasure hoard they dreamed of. Those major adventures may only come around once in a while which might be years. They can seek out lesser adventures (they don't know they are lesser adventures for certain) and find poor gains. They can do escort work or become mercenaries or higher help. They can also start business or do research on how to make things like magic items, spells, or potions.

Want to build that castle or start a town? Downtime is great for that.