Pit Fighting RAW at Xanatar's too strong?

[ironkid]

Hello everyone, I just gave my players three month downtime, intended to be used for activities as presented in Xanatar's. The thing is, I do believe Pit Fighting, RAW, is rather strong: there's no risk involved for the player and there's a potential pot of 200gp PER WEEK if you pass three checks that average dc 16. It doesn't seem right to me. I'd appreciate any suggestions (including telling me that I'm wrong)

[Kurt Kurageous]

Hello everyone, I just gave my players three month downtime, intended to be used for activities as presented in Xanatar's. The thing is, I do believe Pit Fighting, RAW, is rather strong: there's no risk involved for the player and there's a potential pot of 200gp PER WEEK if you pass three checks that average dc 16. It doesn't seem right to me. I'd appreciate any suggestions (including telling me that I'm wrong)

I have no game experience with it, as I rarely do the downtime thing. So I can't say if it is too good.

You could increase the risks to match the reward. Keep the DC the same, but consider adding long term lingering injuries as a consequence of failure. That's just like the real world.

[No brains]

200gp per week isn't a lot, especially if you don't offer them the right things to buy with it. (From my experience) most players will probably 'waste' that on healing potions, which are less powerful and more of a psychological safety net.

But if you want to increase the risk, look at the information on rivals in the beginning of the downtime section of Xanathar's. Pit fighting it pretty likely to attract aggressive people who might play dirty, so they might make complications more likely than the regular chance.

If you're really worried about player cash, try limiting pit fights to monthly events. Organizing a series of matches every week is a pretty brisk pace for organizers, so it would make sense if pit fighting weren't available every single week.

[J-H]

It's a lot riskier than sitting in a library reading books, or sitting in a temple handing out Remove Disease every day, isn't it?

[Zhorn]

there's no risk involved for the player

Suggest looking at the Pit Fighting Complications table on the same page. Each fight is a 10% chance of incurring a complication, and those act as plot hooks for you to bring in a risk thematically appropriate to the activity.
Those are the risks; activities that can interrupt the party's downtime with things that need to be resolved, which may chew up time, resources, or alter available options they have moving forwards.
3 Months (~12 weeks) at 10% chance per week of complications, that's a ~71.8% of one or more complications in that time.

200g per week isn't that big a deal for an adventurer.
Adventuring is far more profitable in a shorter time frame, this is just pocket money for prepping extra potions and such.

I'd say the bigger issue is the players have 3 months of downtime that they clearly didn't need.
if they are pit fighting week after week instead of using the downtime for completing a project, then they'd have been better off adventuring and playing the campaign.
Pit fighting is the type of thing a player does while waiting for others in the group to finish their stuff. it's not a goal activity, it's a filler for if they finish their personal downtime goals before the others in the group.

[Yakk]

Pit Fighting to me looks like something you'd have in a specific place. Like, not every place has pit fighting.

And if you can't turn "you have a habit of doing pit fights" into juicy adventure hooks, hang up your DM robe.