One of my new-ish to DF Felltower players was asking about special orders.
Special Orders
Takes 1d weeks to arrive, minimum two. Any non-custom item. Cost is as listed. Quantity is effectively unlimited (and they all arrive at once.)
To do this, the PC must stay in town and pay upkeep, to represent the time spent getting to the shops, getting the shopkeeper to do it, etc.
Cost is paid at the time of ordering.
Custom Orders
Takes 2d weeks to arrive. PC must stay in town and pay upkeep to get an order in.
Cost is paid at the time of ordering.
All rolls are made on the day the order is placed - retroactive, "Can I have ordered this last session?" type orders are not allowed to save the GM's sanity, especially since 1 real world day = 1 game day.
Basically, pay in advance, and tell the GM in advance, it comes based on the day you ask for it, and time is random.
So your Outdoorsy Characters have to pay an extra surcharge for specialty goods and custom orders? Not sure that's exactly 'fair'...
ReplyDeleteBy surcharge, you mean the same upkeep cost that they avoid session in, session out? It's more than fair to require it. You want the benefits of a city, you have to be in that city, not camping out in the woods.
DeleteYes, I do mean surcharge. As they've already paid the cost to be able to camp in the woods by having skills otherwise useless to your campaign.
DeleteI'm not saying you're wrong to do this, I'm just saying the Barbarians, Scouts, and Druids all have a set of skills (and Advantages) that are a waste in a megadungeon for anything other than saving $150 a week.
Of course, I also just remembered that you don't run Felltower every week. So that means they're likely at worst getting dinged for a week or three, even if you roll max time.
That argument seems predicated on this part of your statement - "skills otherwise useless to your campaign."
DeleteSurvival is not useless in my campaign. It's the skill you roll to harvest monster parts for loot (organs are Surgery, but skin, horns, etc. are Survival). It is the skill that was used to get to and from, and get around in, the Lost City. The Cold Fens have a critical Survival element. Some places in the megadungeon do, too, and it's literally a gateway to some wilderness areas.
Survival is useful on a regular basis even without camping out. Lack of Survival has hurt the PCs enough that some non-"Outdoorsy" types have learned it.
And even if camping out was a no-roll, no-cost, just-works prospect, it's not fair to both camp out in the wilds for free and reap the benefits of town. You have to pick and choose. That's an eminently fair tradeoff to have to make. For PCs who load up on Intolerance (Urbanites) and Vow (Never Sleep Indoors) and Loner and whatnot, they might not be able to make any other choice, but they made that bed. They don't get rumors, they can only make special orders during the session by asking someone else to do it for them, they can't get Fine armor because they're not around for the fitting, etc.
We only charge one week of upkeep between sessions. Any time spent in town is sufficient to trigger that.