In the current AL DMG (v8.2), under the Character Disease, Death, and Recovery section, there is a statement: "Diseases, poisons, and other similar effects last until removed, but characters can spend downtime days to receive spellcasting services or to recuperate..."
It then references the PHB. The PHB does cover recuperate, but not "receive spellcasting services". I have a player who was bitten by the two headed death dog, which does not have a cure condition, so he will need a lessor restoration. The table for the gp cost of such a service is in the AL DMG, but not the equivalent downtime days.
I think they are referring to the AL players guide, PCs can spend a day of downtime to have a spell cast. If they want an NPC to cast it, they'll have to pay for it based on the spellcasting services table.
Hmmm, I see where you may mean, but the guide specifically states the players handbook, not the players guide.
I can see the use of a downtime day to either cast spells (I would rule that if during a session you could cast all your spells and then get them back the next full rest, you could cast all your spell slots available to you for one downtime day, assuming material, costs, etc., not the one spell that seems implied). The gold cost of 40 gp for a 1st level character that played their first game for a lesser restoration to cure a disease just because a cure condition was not listed in the text is in my opinion exorbitant, particularly as the cost has not changed since season 1, even though the rules for gaining gold did. I think they intended to have downtime days as equivalent for such situations, but neglected to put that in the table in the DM guide. Someone has such a table, but I am looking for an authoritative source that can confirm those numbers.
Character Disease, Death, and Recovery Bad things happen to characters; adventuring is a risky job. Here are the rules on how to deal with it. Disease, Poison, and Other Debilitating Effects. Diseases, poisons, and other similar effects last until removed, but characters can spend downtime days to receive spellcasting services or to recuperate (see Player’s Handbook). Characters with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until cured.
Dead characters that can’t afford the gp cost of the service or treasure checkpoint cost of a spell scroll may incur a treasure checkpoint debt as needed to purchase one.
Spellcasting Services During a session, characters can receive spellcasting services from an NPC located anywhere that is town-sized or larger but must be able to travel there. Otherwise, they’re available only between sessions.
Services provided by an NPC are limited to this list. Characters may purchase spell scrolls containing these spells using treasure checkpoints which NPCs cast for free to benefit the character who purchased the scroll.
ALPG:
Buying Potions and Scrolls Similarly, your character can purchase potions and scrolls per the tables below. The cost of scrolls below is in addition to any component cost—regardless of whether it’s consumed or not.
Downtime: Spellcasting Services. You can spend 1 downtime day to cast a spell, or to have a spell cast by either another character or an NPC. Spells cast during a session use the normal rules for spellcasting (spell slots, material components, etc.) instead of downtime, while spells cast by NPCs usually require spending downtime as well as gold or treasure checkpoints. You can only receive spellcasting services from characters at the same table as you are.
RECUPERATING (PHB 187) You can use downtime between adventures to recover from a debilitating injury, disease, or poison. After three days of downtime spent recuperating, you can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a successful save, you can choose one of the following results: • End one effect on you that prevents you from regaining hit points. • For the next 24 hours, gain advantage on saving throws against one disease or poison currently affecting you.
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1) The ALDMG refers to spellcasting services which is specifically defined in the ALDMG and also references recuperation which is defined in the players handbook.
2) For recuperation you spend downtime days to either end a condition or gain advantage on a saving throw attempt to recover from the poison or disease IF the poison or disease can be ended in this way.
3) In your case, the character has been poisoned and recuperation is not an option since it does not have a saving throw to recover. They need to use spellcasting services from the ALDMG.
4) The character needs to purchase a scroll of lesser restoration (or have a character who can cast it in the current adventure use the spell for them). Lesser restoration costs 40gp as a spellcasting service.
5) The entry on downtime spellcasting services in the ALPG spells it out. The character spends one downtime day and 40gp to purchase a lesser restoration spellcasting service. The alternative would be to purchase a second level spell scroll of lesser restoration and get someone to cast it for them but this costs 150gp. Since treasure points can be exchanged for 50gp each it is much more cost effective to expend a treasure point converting to 50gp then spending 40gp and one downtime day to cure the poison. Even if the character has only completed one tier 1 module they should receive at least 2 treasure check points for a 2 hour module (a four hour module would be 4TCP and 75gp from leveling up).
6) If a PC casts the spell for you during the module there is no downtime cost. If an NPC casts the spell during the module because you happen to be in a sufficiently large city then there would also likely be no downtime cost. Downtime only comes into play for spell casting services between sessions.
Finally, 40gp is pretty trivial even for a level 1 as long as they have at least one treasure point. By the time they are level 2 or 3 it isn't a big deal at all.
Thanks David, I was not aware that a TP could be used that way. As I had found the sribd article easily enough, I had assumed there was a conversion table, just not easily accessed or known. I will advise the player accordingly :)
Thanks David, I was not aware that a TP could be used that way. As I had found the sribd article easily enough, I had assumed there was a conversion table, just not easily accessed or known. I will advise the player accordingly :)
Yep, the treasure point rules are spread over the ALPG, the ALDMG and the AL content catalog. The 50gp/TCP is in the content catalog under evergreen items.
"Gold pieces. You can ‘sell’ your treasure checkpoints (Treasure checkpoints) at a rate of 1 TCP for 50 gp. This can be done at any time."
The folks in charge of AL seem to work hard trying to juggle lots of opinions and viewpoints but organization doesn't seem to be their forte. Trying to come up with a good, usable, character reward system that doesn't result in loopholes where folks try to game the system is a challenge.
They also want a system that is as simple and accessible as possible.
Personally, I would suggest something like ...
- Award XP for modules played. XP rewarded is based on tier and hours of play to the maximum for a specific module. This gives a similar impact on play as using ACP but also just uses the XP rules straight from the players handbook in terms of leveling. Awarding flat XP rewards the players for completing the module using whatever techniques they like rather than trying to kill everything for maximum XP.
- Award gold based on treasure found in the module up to a cap based on tier. The cap is only needed if the AL admins feel the characters have too much gold and to reduce the farming of modules like White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors from Tales of the Yawning Portal that award disproportionate amounts of treasure.
- If a magic item is in the module let anyone playing the module have a copy if they wish and implement the magic item limit/character/tier as suggested in their season 9 article on magic items. This avoids all the gaming the system that went on prior to season 7 where characters were built specifically to obtain high tier magic items by keeping their magic item count low. This will result in a proliferation of some magic items but at least the system is fair to everyone.
- Remove the evergreen list and NEVER put Legendary items on a list like that ever again. (I may have several of these items on a couple of my characters but they were a bad idea and I have NO idea who thought it would be a good idea). This is mostly because it tends to strongly unbalance tier 3 play. Allowing them at tier 4 is less of an issue but even then it is better if the items are found in modules rather than being available to everyone. (I can understand why they have placed only +1 magical weapons on the season 9 list since resistance to non-magical weapons increases through tier 2 and if you don't happen to play a module that drops the +1 great sword/whip/staff/hand crossbow that you really need then your character will be less effective ... so I could see this very limited evergreen list going either way ... however, it shouldn't be available as an option until tier 2).
Finding gold, treasure and XP are a fundamental part of the character reward system and the different rewards obtained by different characters as they play different modules becomes one of the differentiating factors between characters that adds to the fun and uniqueness of each. Anyway, rewards in D&D games shouldn't be rocket science. They should keep it reasonably close to the base rules while making it reasonably fair across the board.
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In the current AL DMG (v8.2), under the Character Disease, Death, and Recovery section, there is a statement:
"Diseases, poisons, and other similar effects last until removed, but characters can spend downtime days to receive spellcasting services or to recuperate..."
It then references the PHB. The PHB does cover recuperate, but not "receive spellcasting services". I have a player who was bitten by the two headed death dog, which does not have a cure condition, so he will need a lessor restoration. The table for the gp cost of such a service is in the AL DMG, but not the equivalent downtime days.
I have found two conflicting sources - the excellent What the Heck to Do With Downtime Days! (stating one downtime day for any service?), and a scribd version D&D 5E Downtime Rules
That had a table showing lessor restoration for an equivalent 10 downtime days... but I cannot find this information anywhere else.
SO, is it one downtime day for any service (unreasonable, IMHO), or can someone provide an authoritative answer to this query? Thanks in advance!
I think they are referring to the AL players guide, PCs can spend a day of downtime to have a spell cast. If they want an NPC to cast it, they'll have to pay for it based on the spellcasting services table.
Hmmm, I see where you may mean, but the guide specifically states the players handbook, not the players guide.
I can see the use of a downtime day to either cast spells (I would rule that if during a session you could cast all your spells and then get them back the next full rest, you could cast all your spell slots available to you for one downtime day, assuming material, costs, etc., not the one spell that seems implied). The gold cost of 40 gp for a 1st level character that played their first game for a lesser restoration to cure a disease just because a cure condition was not listed in the text is in my opinion exorbitant, particularly as the cost has not changed since season 1, even though the rules for gaining gold did. I think they intended to have downtime days as equivalent for such situations, but neglected to put that in the table in the DM guide. Someone has such a table, but I am looking for an authoritative source that can confirm those numbers.
The ALDMG says the following:
Character Disease, Death, and Recovery
Bad things happen to characters; adventuring is a risky job. Here are the rules on how to deal with it.
Disease, Poison, and Other Debilitating Effects. Diseases, poisons, and other similar effects last until removed, but characters can spend downtime days to receive spellcasting services or to recuperate (see Player’s Handbook). Characters with lycanthropy or vampirism can’t start a new session until cured.
Dead characters that can’t afford the gp cost of the service or treasure checkpoint cost of a spell scroll may incur a treasure checkpoint debt as needed to purchase one.
Spellcasting Services
During a session, characters can receive spellcasting services from an NPC located anywhere that is town-sized or larger but must be able to travel there. Otherwise, they’re available only between sessions.
Services provided by an NPC are limited to this list. Characters may purchase spell scrolls containing these spells using treasure checkpoints which NPCs cast for free to benefit the character who purchased the scroll.
ALPG:
Buying Potions and Scrolls
Similarly, your character can purchase potions and scrolls per the tables below. The cost of scrolls below is in addition to any component cost—regardless of whether it’s consumed or not.
Downtime: Spellcasting Services. You can spend 1 downtime day to cast a spell, or to have a spell cast by either another character or an NPC. Spells cast during a session use the normal rules for spellcasting (spell slots, material components, etc.) instead of downtime, while spells cast by NPCs usually require spending downtime as well as gold or treasure checkpoints. You can only receive spellcasting services from characters at the same table as you are.
RECUPERATING (PHB 187)
You can use downtime between adventures to recover from a debilitating injury, disease, or poison. After three days of downtime spent recuperating, you can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a successful save, you can choose one of the following results:
• End one effect on you that prevents you from regaining hit points.
• For the next 24 hours, gain advantage on saving throws against one disease or poison currently affecting you.
----------
1) The ALDMG refers to spellcasting services which is specifically defined in the ALDMG and also references recuperation which is defined in the players handbook.
2) For recuperation you spend downtime days to either end a condition or gain advantage on a saving throw attempt to recover from the poison or disease IF the poison or disease can be ended in this way.
3) In your case, the character has been poisoned and recuperation is not an option since it does not have a saving throw to recover. They need to use spellcasting services from the ALDMG.
4) The character needs to purchase a scroll of lesser restoration (or have a character who can cast it in the current adventure use the spell for them). Lesser restoration costs 40gp as a spellcasting service.
5) The entry on downtime spellcasting services in the ALPG spells it out. The character spends one downtime day and 40gp to purchase a lesser restoration spellcasting service. The alternative would be to purchase a second level spell scroll of lesser restoration and get someone to cast it for them but this costs 150gp. Since treasure points can be exchanged for 50gp each it is much more cost effective to expend a treasure point converting to 50gp then spending 40gp and one downtime day to cure the poison. Even if the character has only completed one tier 1 module they should receive at least 2 treasure check points for a 2 hour module (a four hour module would be 4TCP and 75gp from leveling up).
6) If a PC casts the spell for you during the module there is no downtime cost. If an NPC casts the spell during the module because you happen to be in a sufficiently large city then there would also likely be no downtime cost. Downtime only comes into play for spell casting services between sessions.
Finally, 40gp is pretty trivial even for a level 1 as long as they have at least one treasure point. By the time they are level 2 or 3 it isn't a big deal at all.
Thanks David, I was not aware that a TP could be used that way. As I had found the sribd article easily enough, I had assumed there was a conversion table, just not easily accessed or known. I will advise the player accordingly :)
Yep, the treasure point rules are spread over the ALPG, the ALDMG and the AL content catalog. The 50gp/TCP is in the content catalog under evergreen items.
"Gold pieces. You can ‘sell’ your treasure checkpoints (Treasure checkpoints) at a rate of 1 TCP for 50 gp. This can be done at any time."
The folks in charge of AL seem to work hard trying to juggle lots of opinions and viewpoints but organization doesn't seem to be their forte. Trying to come up with a good, usable, character reward system that doesn't result in loopholes where folks try to game the system is a challenge.
They also want a system that is as simple and accessible as possible.
Personally, I would suggest something like ...
- Award XP for modules played. XP rewarded is based on tier and hours of play to the maximum for a specific module. This gives a similar impact on play as using ACP but also just uses the XP rules straight from the players handbook in terms of leveling. Awarding flat XP rewards the players for completing the module using whatever techniques they like rather than trying to kill everything for maximum XP.
- Award gold based on treasure found in the module up to a cap based on tier. The cap is only needed if the AL admins feel the characters have too much gold and to reduce the farming of modules like White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors from Tales of the Yawning Portal that award disproportionate amounts of treasure.
- If a magic item is in the module let anyone playing the module have a copy if they wish and implement the magic item limit/character/tier as suggested in their season 9 article on magic items. This avoids all the gaming the system that went on prior to season 7 where characters were built specifically to obtain high tier magic items by keeping their magic item count low. This will result in a proliferation of some magic items but at least the system is fair to everyone.
- Remove the evergreen list and NEVER put Legendary items on a list like that ever again. (I may have several of these items on a couple of my characters but they were a bad idea and I have NO idea who thought it would be a good idea). This is mostly because it tends to strongly unbalance tier 3 play. Allowing them at tier 4 is less of an issue but even then it is better if the items are found in modules rather than being available to everyone. (I can understand why they have placed only +1 magical weapons on the season 9 list since resistance to non-magical weapons increases through tier 2 and if you don't happen to play a module that drops the +1 great sword/whip/staff/hand crossbow that you really need then your character will be less effective ... so I could see this very limited evergreen list going either way ... however, it shouldn't be available as an option until tier 2).
Finding gold, treasure and XP are a fundamental part of the character reward system and the different rewards obtained by different characters as they play different modules becomes one of the differentiating factors between characters that adds to the fun and uniqueness of each. Anyway, rewards in D&D games shouldn't be rocket science. They should keep it reasonably close to the base rules while making it reasonably fair across the board.