Downtime

Fate's Edge Player's Guide — Chapter 11

What You Can Do During Downtime

Choose any number of the following activities. Each one takes a specific amount of time (usually a day or a week). You may split your downtime between multiple activities, but you cannot be in two places at once.

Recovery

• Clear Fatigue: A short rest (1 hour) removes 2 Fatigue. A full night's rest (8 hours) removes all Fatigue.
• Heal Harm: Without magic, you restore 1 level of Harm per week of complete rest. A successful Wits + Craft roll (DV 3) at the start of the week reduces the time to 3 days per Harm level.
• Remove Conditions: Use medicine, magic, or ritual to purge a Condition (e.g., Poisoned, Cursed). This usually requires a Spirit + Lore roll (DV 3–5) and a full day.

Training

You may spend XP to improve Attributes, Skills, or Talents. Each improvement requires training time (see table). You can train multiple things in parallel if you have enough downtime days.

Rush Rule

If you want to complete training faster, you may attempt a Rush. This carries risk.

Rush Rule Procedure:

1. Declare: You state you are rushing your training.
2. Set Timer: The GM creates a Haste Timer [4].
3. Push Forward: Each downtime action during the rush, you roll Spirit + Endurance (DV 3) to represent pushing through fatigue and distraction.
   • Clean Success: No tick. Progress continues smoothly.
   • Partial: The timer ticks +1. The training is harder than expected.
   • Miss: The timer ticks +2. Something goes wrong—a pulled muscle, a broken tool, a moment of doubt.
4. Complete: If the timer reaches 4 before training completes, the ability or asset is flawed.
   • Attribute/Skill: The new rating is gained, but you suffer a temporary -1 die penalty until you spend a full downtime session retraining (removing the flaw).
   • Asset: The asset is acquired but has a hidden complication (GM chooses: a rival knows about it, it requires unusual upkeep, or it's in a bad location).
   • Talent: The talent works, but the GM gains 2 SB to spend on a complication tied to its rushed nature (e.g., the technique is flashy but draws attention, or it leaves an opening).
5. Clean Success: If the timer never ticks (0 ticks after all required downtime actions), the ability is learned without flaw.

Asset & Follower Upkeep

Assets (safehouses, workshops) and Followers (allies, pets) must be maintained each downtime. Choose one method per asset or follower:

• Efficient (higher XP, less time): Pay XP equal to the acquisition cost divided by 3 (rounded up, minimum 1). No scene required.
• Intensive (lower XP, more time): Pay 1 XP and spend a scene describing how you maintain the asset or relationship (repairing the roof, training with your follower). This counts as a downtime activity.

If you pay neither, the asset/follower degrades:

• Asset: Status worsens one step (Flourishing → Stable → Strained → Collapsed).
• Follower: Loyalty worsens one step (Faithful → Strained → Broken).

Two consecutive downtimes without upkeep collapses the Asset or loses the Follower entirely.

Crafting

Crafting is not shopping. It is a project: something you start, that takes time you could have spent elsewhere, that the world gets a vote on, and that ends up carrying the marks of how it was made. A thing you bought is a thing. A thing you made is a record.

Three kinds of thing.

The roll. Attribute + Craft for a Provision or a Work; Attribute + Arcana for a Wonder. Wits to plan and measure, Body to force and forge, Spirit to coax, Presence to run a shop full of other people's hands.

DV is ambition. 2 to mend, or to make another exactly like the last one. 3 for a competent new thing in a craft you know. 4 for something at the edge of your craft, or in someone else's. 5+ for something nobody has made — and your GM is entitled to ask who told you it was possible.

What each result does at the bench:

One roll per downtime action, or per scene you spend at the bench while the world waits.

Flaws

A Flaw is not a penalty. It is a property the object now has, and it is usually the most interesting thing about it. Name it when you take it.

• Thirsty — it wants something first: blood, oil, a spoken name, a coin left out overnight. Feed it, or roll one Position worse.
• Loud — it announces you. Using it hands the GM 1 SB.
• Remembering — it does what its materials' previous owner wanted, occasionally, and the GM picks when.
• Brittle — on a Miss while using it, it breaks. Not damaged. Broken.
• Marked — anyone who knows the craft can recognise the hand that made it, and that hand is yours.

Buy a Flaw off later with a second project (DV 4, Timer [4]) — or keep it. Your GM should be generous with Boons when you lean into a Flaw at the worst possible moment, because that is what the mechanic is for.

Wonders, and what they cost

You cannot make magic. You can only borrow it and put it somewhere it will stay. A Wonder therefore costs XP at its tier, and Obligation marked the moment it is finished — 1 for a Minor, 2 for a Major, 3 for a Prestige, 4 for an Epic. If you have no Patron you mark it anyway. It goes to whatever answered.

You may be attuned to three Wonders at once; attuning or releasing one takes a scene of quiet. Each attuned Wonder takes upkeep every downtime on the standard curve — max(1, its XP cost ÷ 3, rounded up) — or 1 XP and a downtime scene spent with it. Skip it and the item decays: Maintained → Neglected → Compromised. A Compromised Wonder's enchantment is inert until it is repaired.

Artifacts — things you found rather than made — cost no XP, take no upkeep and never decay. They take Obligation instead, and they choose when.

Gathering

Once per downtime you may gather: Wits + Lore in a settlement or an archive, Wits + Endurance in the wild. DV 2 for common, 3 for uncommon, 4 for rare, 5 for the kind of ingredient that has a name of its own. A success establishes that you have the right stuff — which is to say it buys you Dominant at the bench for one project.

Research

You may spend downtime investigating a mystery, learning lore, or preparing for an upcoming challenge.

• Basic research: Roll Wits + Lore (DV 3). On success, you learn one useful fact (GM discretion). On partial, you learn something, but it's incomplete or costs extra time.
• Extended research: Use a Progress Timer [4–8] for complex topics (e.g., uncovering a noble's secret). Each downtime you can roll to advance the timer.

Carousing & Networking

Spend time socialising to gain rumors, contacts, or temporary favors.

• Rumors: Roll Presence + Sway (DV 3). On success, learn one rumor (true or false — the GM decides). On partial, the rumor is vague or costs you a drink (1 Fatigue).
• Gain a temporary contact: Spend 1 XP to establish a minor contact who can grant +1 die on one relevant roll in the next session. The contact fades after use.

Work & Income

In a currency-free game, "income" is abstract. You may:

• Perform a job: Spend a downtime week working. You earn enough to cover your expenses and have a small amount of barter goods (narrative permission for minor bribes or gear). No roll needed unless you want extra profit — then roll Presence + Sway or Wits + Craft (DV 4). On success, you gain 1 XP or a minor consumable item.

Special Downtime Projects

Your character may have a unique long-term goal (e.g., building a guild, writing a grimoire, taming a monster). Work with your GM to create a Downtime Project Timer (6–12 segments). Each downtime you can describe your progress and roll an appropriate skill to advance the timer. When it fills, the project is complete.

Off-Screen Character Switching (Echo Characters)

If your table uses the optional multi-character rule (see the Enhanced Play chapter), you may send one character off-screen while you play another. The off-screen character maintains a Downtime Log:

• Resource Action: How they maintain assets or relationships.
• Project Action: One goal or project advanced.
• Event Response: How they react to unseen events.

The GM records consequences. When you return to that character, you gain 2 Boons and roll Wits + Spirit (DV 3) to re-establish presence.

GM's Role (Reminder)

Your GM determines how much downtime you have between adventures (usually a few days to several weeks). They also set DVs for downtime rolls and adjudicate any complications. Downtime is not a "free" rest — the world may advance timers (faction agendas, rival plans) while you rest. Ask your GM what has changed when you return.