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Earn Income

Skill​Downtime​

You can use a skill-typically Crafting, Lore, or Performance-to earn money during downtime. You must be trained in the skill to do so. This takes time to set up, and your income depends on your proficiency rank and how lucrative a task you can find. Because this process requires a significant amount of time and involves tracking things outside the progress of adventures, it won't come up in every campaign.

In some cases, the GM might let you use a different skill to Earn Income through specialized work. Usually, this is scholarly work, such as using Religion in a monastery to study old texts-but giving sermons at a church would still fall under Performance instead of Religion. You also might be able to use physical skills to make money, such as using Acrobatics to perform feats in a circus or Thievery to pick pockets. If you're using a skill other than Crafting, Lore, or Performance, the DC tends to be significantly higher.

Skill Uses

Crafting Earn Income by crafting goods for the market.

Lore Earn Income by using your knowledge to practice a trade.

Performance Earn Income by staging a performance.

Earn Income

Downtime

You use one of your skills to make money during downtime. The GM assigns a task level representing the most lucrative job available. You can search for lower-level tasks, with the GM determining whether you find any. Sometimes you can attempt to find better work than the initial offerings, though this takes time and requires using the Diplomacy skill to Gather Information, doing some research, or socializing.

When you take on a job, the GM secretly sets the DC of your skill check. After your first day of work, you roll to determine your earnings. You gain an amount of income based on your result, the task's level, and your proficiency rank (as listed on Table 4-2: Income Earned).

You can continue working at the task on subsequent days without needing to roll again. For each day you spend after the first, you earn the same amount as the first day, up until the task's completion. The GM determines how long you can work at the task. Most tasks last a week or two, though some can take months or even years.

Table 4-2: Income Earned

Task Level Failed Trained Expert Master Legendary
0 1 cp 5 cp 5 cp 5 cp 5 cp
1 2 cp 2 sp 2 sp 2 sp 2 sp
2 4 cp 3 sp 3 sp 3 sp 3 sp
3 8 cp 5 sp 5 sp 5 sp 5 sp
4 1 sp 7 sp 8 sp 8 sp 8 sp
5 2 sp 9 sp 1 gp 1 gp 1 gp
6 3 sp 1 gp, 5 sp 2 gp 2 gp 2 gp
7 4 sp 2 gp 2 gp, 5 sp 2 gp, 5 sp 2 gp, 5 sp
8 5 sp 2 gp, 5 sp 3 gp 3 gp 3 gp
9 6 sp 3 gp 4 gp 4 gp 4 gp
10 7 sp 4 gp 5 gp 6 gp 6 gp
11 8 sp 5 gp 6 gp 8 gp 8 gp
12 9 sp 6 gp 8 gp 10 gp 10 gp
13 1 gp 7 gp 10 gp 15 gp 15 gp
14 1 gp, 5 sp 8 gp 15 gp 20 gp 20 gp
15 2 gp 10 gp 20 gp 28 gp 28 gp
16 2 gp, 5 sp 13 gp 25 gp 36 gp 40 gp
17 3 gp 15 gp 30 gp 45 gp 55 gp
18 4 gp 20 gp 45 gp 70 gp 90 gp
19 6 gp 30 gp 60 gp 100 gp 130 gp
20 8 gp 40 gp 75 gp 150 gp 200 gp
20 (critical success) 50 gp 90 gp 175 gp 300 gp

Critical Success You do outstanding work. Gain the amount of currency listed for the task level + 1 and your proficiency rank.

Success You do competent work. Gain the amount of currency listed for the task level and your proficiency rank.

Failure You do shoddy work and get paid the bare minimum for your time. Gain the amount of currency listed in the failure column for the task level. The GM will likely reduce how long you can continue at the task.

Critical Failure You earn nothing for your work and are fired immediately. You can't continue at the task. Your reputation suffers, potentially making it difficult for you to find rewarding jobs in that community in the future.

Sample Earn Income Tasks

These examples use Alcohol Lore to work in a bar or Legal Lore to perform legal work.

Crafting Goods for the Market Crafting

Using Crafting, you can work at producing common items for the market. It's usually easy to find work making basic items whose level is 1 or 2 below your settlement's level. Higher-level tasks represent special commissions, which might require you to Craft a specific item using the Craft downtime activity and sell it to a buyer at full price. These opportunities don't occur as often and might have special requirements-or serious consequences if you disappoint a prominent client.

Practicing a Trade Lore

You apply the practical benefits of one of your Lore specialties during downtime by practicing your trade. This is most effective for Lore specialties such as business, law, or sailing, where there's high demand for workers. The GM might increase the DC or determine only low-level tasks are available if you're attempting to use an obscure Lore skill to Earn Income. You might also need specialized tools to accept a job, like mining tools to work in a mine or a merchant's scale to buy and sell valuables in a market.

Staging a Performance Performance

You perform for an audience to make money. The available audiences determine the level of your task, since more discerning audiences are harder to impress but provide a bigger payout. The GM determines the task level based on the audiences available. Performing for a typical audience of commoners on the street is a level 0 task, but a performance for a group of artisans with more refined tastes might be a 2nd- or 3rd-level task, and ones for merchants, nobility, and royalty are increasingly higher level. Your degree of success determines whether you moved your audience and whether you were rewarded with applause or rotten fruit.