Expenses

When not descending into the depths of the earth, exploring ruins for lost treasures, or waging war against the encroaching darkness, adventurers face more mundane realities. Even in a fantastical world, people require basic necessities such as shelter, sustenance, and clothing. These things cost money, although some lifestyles cost more than others.

Lifestyle Expenses

Lifestyle expenses provide you with a simple way to account for the cost of living in a fantasy world. They cover your accommodations, food and drink, and all your other necessities. Furthermore, expenses cover the cost of maintaining your equipment so you can be ready when adventure next calls.

At the start of each week or month (your choice), choose a lifestyle from the Expenses table and pay the price to sustain that lifestyle. The prices listed are per day, so if you wish to calculate the cost of your chosen lifestyle over a thirty-day period, multiply the listed price by 30. Your lifestyle might change from one period to the next, based on the funds you have at your disposal, or you might maintain the same lifestyle throughout your character's career.

Your lifestyle choice can have consequences. Maintaining a wealthy lifestyle might help you make contacts with the rich and powerful, though you run the risk of attracting thieves. Likewise, living frugally might help you avoid criminals, but you are unlikely to make powerful connections.

Wretched. You live in inhumane conditions. With no place to call home, you shelter wherever you can, sneaking into barns, huddling in old crates, and relying on the good graces of people better off than you. A wretched lifestyle presents abundant dangers. Violence, disease, and hunger follow you wherever you go. Other wretched people covet your armor, weapons, and adventuring gear, which represent a fortune by their standards. You are beneath the notice of most people.

You have a 5% chance per downtime day spent in this lifestyle chance to receive a disease with 1 level of exhaustion. If you are above 100 days of downtime, you suffer one additional level of exhaustion per 100 days, rounded up. For example, if you spent 15 days of downtime in this lifestyle, you roll a d100 at the end of your downtime and if you get a result of 1-75 you are afflicted with disease and one level of exhaustion. You can spend additional days using the recuperation downtime activity to recover from the disease.

Squalid. You live in a leaky stable, a mud-floored hut just outside town, or a vermin-infested boarding house in the worst part of town. You have shelter from the elements, but you live in a desperate and often violent environment, in places rife with disease, hunger, and misfortune. You are beneath the notice of most people, and you have few legal protections. Most people at this lifestyle level have suffered some terrible setback. They might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer from disease.

You have a 2% chance per downtime day spent in this lifestyle chance to be mugged, beaten, and assaulted. If you are above 50 days of downtime, you endure one additional mugging per 50 days, rounded up. For example, if you spent 60 days of downtime in this 4 lifestyle, you are automatically mugged once at the end of your downtime, you roll a d100 and if you get a result of 1- 20 you are automatically mugged again. At each mugging, you lose 1d20 times the number of days you spent in this lifestyle worth of silver pieces. If you do not have coins to spare, you lose other objects roughly equal to the value you rolled of sp, focusing on the smallest and most expensive objects first, which includes magic items.

Poor. A poor lifestyle means going without the comforts available in a stable community. Simple food and lodgings, threadbare clothing, and unpredictable conditions result in a sufficient, though probably unpleasant, experience. Your accommodations might be a room in a flophouse or in the common room above a tavern. You benefit from some legal protections, but you still have to contend with violence, crime, and disease. People at this lifestyle level tend to be unskilled laborers, costermongers, peddlers, thieves, mercenaries, and other disreputable types.

You have a 1% chance per downtime day spent in this lifestyle chance to receive the poisoned condition. For example, if you spent 80 days of downtime in this lifestyle, you roll a d100 at the end of your downtime and if you get a result of 1-80 you are automatically afflicted with the poisoned condition. You can spend additional days using the relaxation downtime activity to recover from the poison. In addition, the DM can determine that your poisoning goes beyond a badly prepared meal, but a part of something more sinister, for example the story villain abducting you, dosing you with truth serum, or laying you up to prevent an attack on a town.

Modest. A modest lifestyle keeps you out of the slums and ensures that you can maintain your equipment. You live in an older part of town, renting a room in a boarding house, inn, or temple. You don't go hungry or thirsty, and your living conditions are clean, if simple. Ordinary people living modest lifestyles include soldiers with families, laborers, students, priests, hedge wizards, and the like.

There are no noticeable consequences to living a modest lifestyle.

Comfortable. Choosing a comfortable lifestyle means that you can afford nicer clothing and can easily maintain your equipment. You live in a small cottage in a middle-class neighborhood or in a private room at a fine inn. You associate with merchants, skilled tradespeople, and military officers.

You’ve spent money in this town and the other middle-class people welcome you as a friend. For a number of days equal to the days you spent in this lifestyle times 2, you have access to every salesperson, their private stocks, and low-level city officials within the town you maintained a comfortable lifestyle in. The law will give you the benefit of the doubt, the townsfolk will protect your location from your enemies, within reason, and every one of your acquaintances will have higher dispositions towards interacting with you (easier to Persuade them).

Wealthy. Choosing a wealthy lifestyle means living a life of luxury, though you might not have achieved the social status associated with the old money of nobility or royalty. You live a lifestyle comparable to that of a highly successful merchant, a favored servant of the royalty, or the owner of a few small businesses. You have respectable lodgings, usually a spacious home in a good part of town or a comfortable suite at a fine inn. You likely have a small staff of servants.

Your money opens many doors and invites a lot of things to happen. (1) For a number of days equal to the days you spent in this lifestyle (minimum of 60), you have access to every sales person and their private stocks, and are offered a 5% discount or a single-use line of credit on an item 5000 sp or less within the town you maintained a wealthy lifestyle in. Furthermore, you have access to all city officials regardless of rank. (2) There is a 5% chance after spending at least 10 downtime days that you will either be targeted with an abduction for a ransom demand or a theft of one uncommon magic item or up to 50 coins you are carrying (Passive Perception 18 or higher required to thwart).

Aristocratic. You live a life of plenty and comfort. You move in circles populated by the most powerful people in the community. You have excellent lodgings, perhaps a townhouse in the nicest part of town or rooms in the finest inn. You dine at the best restaurants, retain the most skilled and fashionable tailor, and have servants attending to your every need. You receive invitations to the social gatherings of the rich and powerful, and spend evenings in the company of politicians, guild leaders, high priests, and nobility. You must also contend with the highest levels of deceit and treachery. The wealthier you are, the greater the chance you will be drawn into political intrigue as a pawn or participant.

There are few doors you cannot breeze into now. (1) For a number of days equal to the days you spent in this lifestyle (minimum of 60) divided by 2, you have access to every sales person, their private and secret 5 stocks, and are offered a 10% discount or a single-use line of credit on an item 10,000 sp or less within the town you maintained a wealthy lifestyle in. Furthermore, you have access to all city officials regardless of rank and will be granted at least one audience with the ruling body, such as nobility or royalty. (2) There is a 5% chance after spending at least 10 downtime days that you will either be targeted with an abduction for a ransom demand or a theft of one rare magic item or up to 500 coins you are carrying (Passive Perception 18 or higher required to thwart). (3) There is a 10% chance that you will be drawn into some political intrigue. For every additional 10 silvers pieces spent on lifestyle expenses above 100 sp, all values above (except time) are increased by an additional 1%, to a maximum of 500 sp per day. For example, at 250 sp per day, you would have a 11,500 sp line of credit or a 25% discount, a 20% chance of targeted crime, and a 25% chance of intrigue.

Self-Sufficiency

The expenses and lifestyles described here assume that you are spending your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of whatever services you can afford--paying for food and shelter, paying townspeople to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on. Some characters, though, might prefer to spend their time away from civilization, sustaining themselves in the wild by hunting, foraging, and repairing their own gear.

Maintaining this kind of lifestyle doesn't require you to spend any coin, but it is time-consuming. If you spend your time between adventures practicing a profession, you can eke out the equivalent of a poor lifestyle with all its consequences. Proficiency in the Survival skill lets you live at the equivalent of a comfortable lifestyle.