For elements that don’t attack, allow each successful check to reduce that element’s effectiveness
by one-third. A lock’s DC is decreased, or a gate opens wide enough to allow a Small character
to squeeze through it. A mechanism pumping poison gas into the room becomes defective,
causing the gas’s damage to increase more slowly or not at all.
It takes time to disable a complex trap. Three characters can’t make checks in rapid succession to
disarm a complex trap in a matter of seconds. Each would get in another character’s way and
disrupt the effort. Once a character succeeds on a check, another character can’t attempt the same
check against the same trap element until the end of the successful character’s next turn.
Not all of the characters’ options need to be focused on stopping a trap from operating. Think of
what characters can do to mitigate or avoid a trap’s effects. Making the trap vulnerable to this
sort of effort is a way to engage characters who might be ill-suited to confront the trap directly.
A successful Intelligence (Religion) check might provide insight into the imagery displayed by a
trap in a temple or shrine, giving other characters a clue about how and where to direct their
efforts. A character could stand in front of a dart trap while holding a shield that the darts can
target harmlessly, while other characters trigger that element as they work to disable it.
Downtime Revisited
It’s possible for the characters to start a campaign at 1st level, dive into an epic story, and reach
10th level and beyond in a short amount of game time. Although that pace works fine for many
campaigns, some DMs prefer a campaign story with pauses built into it — times when
adventurers are not going on adventures. The downtime rules given in this section can be used as
alternatives to the approach in the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, or you
can use the material here to inspire the creation of your own options.
By engaging the characters in downtime activities that take weeks or even months to complete,
you can give your campaign a longer time line — one in which events in the world play out over
years. Wars begin and end, tyrants come and go, and royal lines rise and fall over the course of
the story that you and the characters tell.
Downtime rules also provide ways for characters to spend — or be relieved of — the monetary
treasure they amass on their adventures.
The system presented here consists of two elements. First, it introduces the concept of rivals.
Second, it details a number of downtime activities that characters can undertake.
When minions come back from a mission, sometimes I send them shopping.
Shopping is this thing where minions give away their stuff to other people, and other people give
them different stuff.
It’s so strange.