Grod_The_Giant
2019-06-24, 08:47 PM
SMILE! You've got downtime!
The 5e rules provide plenty of guidance for active adventuring--kicking down doors, killing monsters, and taking their treasure. They're a lot more abstract when it comes to the things that characters do on their days off. If a player wants to build themselves a castle, or invent a repeating crossbow, or found a town, the DM is left pretty much totally in the dark. The SMILE system exists to extend some guidance to that sort of thing, to provide structure and depth without excess complexity.
The core of the system are Resource units-- abstract representations of the different things a big project might demand. Breaking the cost up into multiple types helps keep crafting from feeling like commerce-by-another-name, and allows for smoother integration into the flow of a game, while keeping things somewhat abstract keeps would-be craftsmen from getting bogged down in minutia.
What's a Project?
Put simply, a "project" is something that requires few active choices, but a great deal of effort. Cooking dinner isn't a project, because it doesn't take much effort (comparatively). Clearing a dungeon of goblins, or discovering who murdered the baron, aren't projects because they require numerous choices and decisions. Building a cathedral is a project-- once you've made the initial decisions, there's really not much more you can do. Forging a magic sword, or starting a guild, or clearing a forest--all of these might be projects, set into motion by a character but requiring little to no attention from the player.
The Five Resources
It's hard to accomplish great things without great effort. Sometimes that means thousands of laborers toiling night and day; other times it means years of brilliant scholarship or political maneuvering. Here, we abstract this effort as one of five types of Resource. Each unit of Resource represents a significant collection of the appropriate type of thing.
Supplies: A castle isn't going to get built without a lot of stone and timber. A team of scientists won't get much done without a well equipped lab. There are some projects that just need stuff. Supplies covers all sorts of raw material, from quarried stone to rare alchemical reagents. A shipment of lumber, the deed to an iron mine, and the establishment of a new trade route would all earn you Supplies. Expending Supplies means that they're physically gone-- your stockpiles are used up and your mines have run dry.
Magic: You can't make a magic item without the magic. Magic represents how much raw magical might you can call on to complete your project, be that in the form of natural wellsprings, spellcasting allies, or mystical reagents. A hired wizard, a demon's heart, and a broken enchanted sword would all count as Magic. Expending Magic means that reagents have been consumed, and your allies exhausted or out of patience.
Influence: It's not what you know, it's who you know. There are some things--particularly projects that might affect the local political order--that can't get done without the support of other powerful people. You probably can't build a castle on the king's lands without his permission, after all. Influence is an abstract measure of how much weight your name carries-- and how much dirt you have on your rivals. Throwing a grand ball, stealing private correspondence, and being knighted for valor in battle would all earn you Influence. Expending Influence means that you've called in favors and laundered your name for all it's worth.
Labor: Some projects are subtle, depending on the work of just a few experts, while some just need a thousand peasants toiling night and day. Labor is a representation of how many common workers you can drum up to help with your project. A favored owned by a town guild, a band of loyal retainers, or an unresting golem would all count as Labor. Expending Labor means that contracts with your workers have run out, of that wandering laborers have moved on.
Expertise: You need stuff, you need workers, but sometimes you also need a brain. Expertise represents how much planning you've done, how much lore has been discovered and how many scholars and master craftsmen you've recruited. A private library, a university scholar, and an ancient blueprint would all contribute to your Expertise. Expending Expertise means that you've exhausted existing sources of knowledge, and need to find more.
Gaining Resources
The easiest way to gain resources is just to buy them. As a general rule, one hundred gold will buy you one unit of Resources. The process varies, depending on what you're looking for-- buying Supplies might be as simple as walking up to a merchant and handing them a bag of gold, while buying Influence would probably demand a more indirect strategy of throwing parties and making favorable deals.
The slow but sure way to gather Resources is to produce them yourself. At the each week of downtime dedicated to gathering Resources, make a DC 15 ability check. If you succeed, you gain one unit of one Resource, plus an additional unit for every 5 points you beat the DC-- two units if you roll a 20, three units if you roll a 25, and so on. The ability, skill, or tool that applies will vary, depending on what you're attempting to gather-- mining iron ore might take a Strength check, gathering Influence might take a Charisma (Persuasion) check, and harvesting magic herbs might be an Intelligence (Herbalism Kit) check.
The final method is to earn Resources. At the DM's discression, characters might be able to find or earn Resources in the course of their adventures. If the party drives a tribe of goblins away from a village, perhaps they offer the party ten units worth of Labor, or perhaps the central eye of a beholder the party just killed is worth fifty units of Magic. If you're using the SMILE system, DMs should make an effort to include Resources as quest rewards.
Spending Resources
Once you've gathered Resources, you can spend them to complete a project. Every task has a specific cost, requiring so many units of such and such Resources. Building a castle or lobbying for a title takes time, though-- a project takes about one day per unit of Resource it requires. If you spend extra Resources, each extra unit committed to the project reduces the time required by one day, to a minimum of one-half the original time. The extra Resources must be of types the project already requires, though-- bringing in a team of scholars won't do much to speed up the construction of a city wall, nor will a mob of day laborers help forge a magic sword.
For most projects, your character doesn't have to be present for the full time. A construction site only needs to be checked in on occasionally, and even a magic item being worked on might involve extensive downtime. Howevern, if your character is directly involved in the process, you may make ability checks to hurry things along. At the end of each week, you may make a DC 15 ability check. On a success, double your progress for the week, effectively doing two week's worth of work in just seven days. For every 5 points by which they you the DC, they increase their progress by another week's worth of work-- three weeks if you roll a 20, four weeks if you roll a 25, and so on.
The DM determines the cost of a project. When doing so, a helpful strategy is to determine how much the project should cost in gold pieces, or how long it should take to construct, and then translate that into units using the formulas for gathering Resources. For example, say that a player wants to craft a Flame Tongue. As a Rare magic item, it would normally have a price of 500-5000 gold pieces-- 3500gp seems like a fair price, the DM decides, so forging the sword should require 35 units of resources. Most of that would be Magic, but Expertise seems like it would help too, since the player would need to know how to set the enchantments. Thus, the final price might be 30 units of Magic and 5 units of Expertise.
Transferring Resources
To a greater or lesser extent, Resources are local. Influence in one kingdom might not be useful in another; a mine ten miles away will much more helpful than one a thousand miles away.
You cannot spend Resources unless you're in the same location they were acquired. When you want to transport your stocks of Resources from one location to another, you will likely lose some along the way, whether due to bandits raiding your carts or distant workers being less helpful then nearby ones. Resources can be transported up to 10 miles with no trouble. You may bring them up to a hundred miles at the cost of one fourth of your stock or 20 gp/unit transferred. Transporting your Resources up to a thousand miles results in losing half your stocks (or paying 40gp/unit], and transporting them any farther results in the loss of three fourths of your stock (or 60gp/unit).
Alternately, the characters can commit to a full-time involvement in the process. At the DM's discretion, this might mean simply setting aside downtime to manage their affairs directly, or it could mean active adventuring to escort a caravan or bring word of their greatness to a new city.
Example Projects
Project
Gold Equivalent
Crafting Time (Days)
Supply
Magic
Influence
Labor
Expertise
Common Magic Item (x2)
100
1
--
1
--
--
--
Uncommon Magic Item
300
3
--
2
--
--
1
Rare Magic Item
3,000
30
--
25
--
--
5
Very Rare Magic Item
30,000
300
--
250
--
--
50
Legendary Magic Item
300,000
3000
--
2500
--
--
500
Cottage
100
1
1
--
--
1
--
Family Home
300
3
1
--
--
2
--
Modest Inn
600
6
2
--
--
4
--
Grand Inn
1,200
12
4
7
1
Manor
30,000
30
14
--
5
10
1
Keep
115,000
115
55
--
10
40
5
Castle
250,000
250
75
--
25
135
15
Flying Castle
500,000
5,000
50
4,700
--
150
100
Road (1 mile over easy terrain)
100
1
--
--
--
1
--
Road (1 mile over rough terrain)
200
2
--
--
--
2
--
Footbridge
200
2
--
--
--
2
--
Stone Bridge
400
4
1
--
--
3
--
Palisade Wall (100ft)
100
1
1
--
--
1
--
Stone Wall (100ft)
1,000
10
5
--
--
5
--
Found a Guild
250
25
--
--
25
--
--
Establish a Village
200
20
5
--
10
5
--
Magically protect a house
1,000
10
--
9
--
--
1
Magically protect a village
3,000
30
--
25
--
--
5
SMILE and Spells
The following new spells may be learned by Bards, Warlocks, and Wizards.
Unseen Laborer
2nd level conjuration (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 minute
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Concentration, up to 8 hours
This spell functions as Unseen Servant, but you conjure two invisible entities, each with a Strength score of 10. You may direct your servants to either gather Supplies from an appropriate source, or provide Labor on a project-- if you successfully concentrate for the full 8 hours, your servants gather 2 units of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of an ongoing project by 2 units, to a minimum of zero.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you conjure one additional laborer, and your servants can gather 1 additional unit of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of a project by 1 additional unit for each slot level above 2nd.
Bigby's Helpful Hands
3rd level evocation (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 minute
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
You create three pairs of Small hands of shimmering translucent force in unoccupied spaces you can see within range. These hands have AC 10, hit points equal to your casting ability bonus, Strength and Dexterity scores of 13, and Proficiency with one type of tool. These hands can be commanded to carry out tasks similar to an Unseen Servant.
You may direct the hands to either gather Supplies from an appropriate source, or provide Labor on a project-- if you successfully concentrate for the full hour, the hands gather 3 units of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of an ongoing project by 3 units, to a minimum of zero.
B]At Higher Levels[/B]: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you conjure one additional pair of hands, with Strength and Dexterity scores 1 point higher. The hands can gather 1 additional unit of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of a project by 1 additional unit for each slot level above 3rd.
Fabricate
5th level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous
With the wave of a hand, you convert raw materials into finished product. Casting this spell provides the equivalent of one week of work on an ongoing project and reduces the Labor requirement by seven, to a minimum of zero. If the project requires Influence or Magic, this spell cannot reduce its crafting time below one day.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, it provides an additional week's worth of work and reduces the Labor requirement by an additional seven units for every slot level above 5th
The 5e rules provide plenty of guidance for active adventuring--kicking down doors, killing monsters, and taking their treasure. They're a lot more abstract when it comes to the things that characters do on their days off. If a player wants to build themselves a castle, or invent a repeating crossbow, or found a town, the DM is left pretty much totally in the dark. The SMILE system exists to extend some guidance to that sort of thing, to provide structure and depth without excess complexity.
The core of the system are Resource units-- abstract representations of the different things a big project might demand. Breaking the cost up into multiple types helps keep crafting from feeling like commerce-by-another-name, and allows for smoother integration into the flow of a game, while keeping things somewhat abstract keeps would-be craftsmen from getting bogged down in minutia.
What's a Project?
Put simply, a "project" is something that requires few active choices, but a great deal of effort. Cooking dinner isn't a project, because it doesn't take much effort (comparatively). Clearing a dungeon of goblins, or discovering who murdered the baron, aren't projects because they require numerous choices and decisions. Building a cathedral is a project-- once you've made the initial decisions, there's really not much more you can do. Forging a magic sword, or starting a guild, or clearing a forest--all of these might be projects, set into motion by a character but requiring little to no attention from the player.
The Five Resources
It's hard to accomplish great things without great effort. Sometimes that means thousands of laborers toiling night and day; other times it means years of brilliant scholarship or political maneuvering. Here, we abstract this effort as one of five types of Resource. Each unit of Resource represents a significant collection of the appropriate type of thing.
Supplies: A castle isn't going to get built without a lot of stone and timber. A team of scientists won't get much done without a well equipped lab. There are some projects that just need stuff. Supplies covers all sorts of raw material, from quarried stone to rare alchemical reagents. A shipment of lumber, the deed to an iron mine, and the establishment of a new trade route would all earn you Supplies. Expending Supplies means that they're physically gone-- your stockpiles are used up and your mines have run dry.
Magic: You can't make a magic item without the magic. Magic represents how much raw magical might you can call on to complete your project, be that in the form of natural wellsprings, spellcasting allies, or mystical reagents. A hired wizard, a demon's heart, and a broken enchanted sword would all count as Magic. Expending Magic means that reagents have been consumed, and your allies exhausted or out of patience.
Influence: It's not what you know, it's who you know. There are some things--particularly projects that might affect the local political order--that can't get done without the support of other powerful people. You probably can't build a castle on the king's lands without his permission, after all. Influence is an abstract measure of how much weight your name carries-- and how much dirt you have on your rivals. Throwing a grand ball, stealing private correspondence, and being knighted for valor in battle would all earn you Influence. Expending Influence means that you've called in favors and laundered your name for all it's worth.
Labor: Some projects are subtle, depending on the work of just a few experts, while some just need a thousand peasants toiling night and day. Labor is a representation of how many common workers you can drum up to help with your project. A favored owned by a town guild, a band of loyal retainers, or an unresting golem would all count as Labor. Expending Labor means that contracts with your workers have run out, of that wandering laborers have moved on.
Expertise: You need stuff, you need workers, but sometimes you also need a brain. Expertise represents how much planning you've done, how much lore has been discovered and how many scholars and master craftsmen you've recruited. A private library, a university scholar, and an ancient blueprint would all contribute to your Expertise. Expending Expertise means that you've exhausted existing sources of knowledge, and need to find more.
Gaining Resources
The easiest way to gain resources is just to buy them. As a general rule, one hundred gold will buy you one unit of Resources. The process varies, depending on what you're looking for-- buying Supplies might be as simple as walking up to a merchant and handing them a bag of gold, while buying Influence would probably demand a more indirect strategy of throwing parties and making favorable deals.
The slow but sure way to gather Resources is to produce them yourself. At the each week of downtime dedicated to gathering Resources, make a DC 15 ability check. If you succeed, you gain one unit of one Resource, plus an additional unit for every 5 points you beat the DC-- two units if you roll a 20, three units if you roll a 25, and so on. The ability, skill, or tool that applies will vary, depending on what you're attempting to gather-- mining iron ore might take a Strength check, gathering Influence might take a Charisma (Persuasion) check, and harvesting magic herbs might be an Intelligence (Herbalism Kit) check.
The final method is to earn Resources. At the DM's discression, characters might be able to find or earn Resources in the course of their adventures. If the party drives a tribe of goblins away from a village, perhaps they offer the party ten units worth of Labor, or perhaps the central eye of a beholder the party just killed is worth fifty units of Magic. If you're using the SMILE system, DMs should make an effort to include Resources as quest rewards.
Spending Resources
Once you've gathered Resources, you can spend them to complete a project. Every task has a specific cost, requiring so many units of such and such Resources. Building a castle or lobbying for a title takes time, though-- a project takes about one day per unit of Resource it requires. If you spend extra Resources, each extra unit committed to the project reduces the time required by one day, to a minimum of one-half the original time. The extra Resources must be of types the project already requires, though-- bringing in a team of scholars won't do much to speed up the construction of a city wall, nor will a mob of day laborers help forge a magic sword.
For most projects, your character doesn't have to be present for the full time. A construction site only needs to be checked in on occasionally, and even a magic item being worked on might involve extensive downtime. Howevern, if your character is directly involved in the process, you may make ability checks to hurry things along. At the end of each week, you may make a DC 15 ability check. On a success, double your progress for the week, effectively doing two week's worth of work in just seven days. For every 5 points by which they you the DC, they increase their progress by another week's worth of work-- three weeks if you roll a 20, four weeks if you roll a 25, and so on.
The DM determines the cost of a project. When doing so, a helpful strategy is to determine how much the project should cost in gold pieces, or how long it should take to construct, and then translate that into units using the formulas for gathering Resources. For example, say that a player wants to craft a Flame Tongue. As a Rare magic item, it would normally have a price of 500-5000 gold pieces-- 3500gp seems like a fair price, the DM decides, so forging the sword should require 35 units of resources. Most of that would be Magic, but Expertise seems like it would help too, since the player would need to know how to set the enchantments. Thus, the final price might be 30 units of Magic and 5 units of Expertise.
Transferring Resources
To a greater or lesser extent, Resources are local. Influence in one kingdom might not be useful in another; a mine ten miles away will much more helpful than one a thousand miles away.
You cannot spend Resources unless you're in the same location they were acquired. When you want to transport your stocks of Resources from one location to another, you will likely lose some along the way, whether due to bandits raiding your carts or distant workers being less helpful then nearby ones. Resources can be transported up to 10 miles with no trouble. You may bring them up to a hundred miles at the cost of one fourth of your stock or 20 gp/unit transferred. Transporting your Resources up to a thousand miles results in losing half your stocks (or paying 40gp/unit], and transporting them any farther results in the loss of three fourths of your stock (or 60gp/unit).
Alternately, the characters can commit to a full-time involvement in the process. At the DM's discretion, this might mean simply setting aside downtime to manage their affairs directly, or it could mean active adventuring to escort a caravan or bring word of their greatness to a new city.
Example Projects
Project
Gold Equivalent
Crafting Time (Days)
Supply
Magic
Influence
Labor
Expertise
Common Magic Item (x2)
100
1
--
1
--
--
--
Uncommon Magic Item
300
3
--
2
--
--
1
Rare Magic Item
3,000
30
--
25
--
--
5
Very Rare Magic Item
30,000
300
--
250
--
--
50
Legendary Magic Item
300,000
3000
--
2500
--
--
500
Cottage
100
1
1
--
--
1
--
Family Home
300
3
1
--
--
2
--
Modest Inn
600
6
2
--
--
4
--
Grand Inn
1,200
12
4
7
1
Manor
30,000
30
14
--
5
10
1
Keep
115,000
115
55
--
10
40
5
Castle
250,000
250
75
--
25
135
15
Flying Castle
500,000
5,000
50
4,700
--
150
100
Road (1 mile over easy terrain)
100
1
--
--
--
1
--
Road (1 mile over rough terrain)
200
2
--
--
--
2
--
Footbridge
200
2
--
--
--
2
--
Stone Bridge
400
4
1
--
--
3
--
Palisade Wall (100ft)
100
1
1
--
--
1
--
Stone Wall (100ft)
1,000
10
5
--
--
5
--
Found a Guild
250
25
--
--
25
--
--
Establish a Village
200
20
5
--
10
5
--
Magically protect a house
1,000
10
--
9
--
--
1
Magically protect a village
3,000
30
--
25
--
--
5
SMILE and Spells
The following new spells may be learned by Bards, Warlocks, and Wizards.
Unseen Laborer
2nd level conjuration (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 minute
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Concentration, up to 8 hours
This spell functions as Unseen Servant, but you conjure two invisible entities, each with a Strength score of 10. You may direct your servants to either gather Supplies from an appropriate source, or provide Labor on a project-- if you successfully concentrate for the full 8 hours, your servants gather 2 units of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of an ongoing project by 2 units, to a minimum of zero.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you conjure one additional laborer, and your servants can gather 1 additional unit of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of a project by 1 additional unit for each slot level above 2nd.
Bigby's Helpful Hands
3rd level evocation (ritual)
Casting Time: 1 minute
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
You create three pairs of Small hands of shimmering translucent force in unoccupied spaces you can see within range. These hands have AC 10, hit points equal to your casting ability bonus, Strength and Dexterity scores of 13, and Proficiency with one type of tool. These hands can be commanded to carry out tasks similar to an Unseen Servant.
You may direct the hands to either gather Supplies from an appropriate source, or provide Labor on a project-- if you successfully concentrate for the full hour, the hands gather 3 units of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of an ongoing project by 3 units, to a minimum of zero.
B]At Higher Levels[/B]: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you conjure one additional pair of hands, with Strength and Dexterity scores 1 point higher. The hands can gather 1 additional unit of Supplies or reduce the Labor cost of a project by 1 additional unit for each slot level above 3rd.
Fabricate
5th level transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous
With the wave of a hand, you convert raw materials into finished product. Casting this spell provides the equivalent of one week of work on an ongoing project and reduces the Labor requirement by seven, to a minimum of zero. If the project requires Influence or Magic, this spell cannot reduce its crafting time below one day.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, it provides an additional week's worth of work and reduces the Labor requirement by an additional seven units for every slot level above 5th