Buying a Magic Item

Attempt to find a seller with a particular magical item not found in existing stock

Brewing a Healing Potion

Brewing a healing potion requires the necessary herbs, an herbalism kit, and proficiency with the kit. A single potion per worker may be brewed per day.

Crafting an Item

A character who has the time, the money, and the needed tools can use downtime to craft armor, weapons, clothing, or other kinds of nonmagical gear.

Gambling

Games of chance are a way to make a fortune—and perhaps a better way to lose one.

Pit Fighting

Pit fighting includes boxing, wrestling, and other nonlethal forms of combat in an organized setting with predetermined matches. If you want to introduce competitive fighting in a battle-to-the-death situation, the standard combat rules apply to that sort of activity.

Relaxation

Sometimes the best thing to do between adventures is relax. Whether a character wants a hard-earned vacation or needs to recover from injuries, relaxation is the ideal option for adventurers who need a break. This option is also ideal for players who don't want to make use of the downtime system. While relaxing, a character gains advantage on saving throws to recover from long-acting diseases and poisons. In addition, at the end of the week, a character can end one effect that keeps the character from regaining hit points, or can restore one ability score that has been reduced to less than its normal value. This benefit cannot be used if the harmful effect was caused by a spell or some other magical effect with an ongoing duration.

Religious Service

Characters with a religious bent might want to spend downtime in service to a temple, either by attending rites or by proselytizing in the community. Someone who undertakes this activity has a chance of winning the favor of the temple's leaders.Performing religious service requires access to, and often attendance at, a temple whose beliefs and ethos align with the character's. If such a place is available, the activity takes one workweek of time but involves no gold piece expenditure.

Research

Forewarned is forearmed. The research downtime activity allows a character to delve into lore concerning a monster, a location, a magic item, or some other particular topic.

Scribing a Spell Scroll

With time and patience, a spellcaster can transfer a spell to a scroll, creating a spell scroll.

Cost

See Table

Duration

See Table

Source

XGTE

Scribing a spell scroll takes an amount of time and money related to the level of the spell the character wants to scribe, as shown in the Spell Scroll Costs table. In addition, the character must have proficiency in the Arcana skill and must provide any material components required for the casting of the spell. Moreover, the character must have the spell prepared, or it must be among the character's known spells, in order to scribe a scroll of that spell. If the scribed spell is a cantrip, the version on the scroll works as if the caster were 1st level.

Spell Scroll Cost

Spell Level	Cost	Time
Cantrip	15 gp	1 day
1st	25 gp	1 day
2nd	250 gp	3 days
3rd	500 gp	1 week(s)
4th	2,500 gp	2 week(s)
5th	5,000 gp	4 week(s)
6th	15,000 gp	8 week(s)
7th	25,000 gp	16 week(s)
8th	50,000 gp	32 week(s)
9th	250,000 gp	48 week(s)

Selling a Magic Item

Selling a magic item is by no means an easy task. Con artists and thieves are always looking out for an easy score, and there's no guarantee that a character will receive a good offer even if a legitimate buyer is found. A character can find a buyer for one magic item by spending one workweek and 25 gp, which is used to spread word of the desired sale. A character must pick one item at a time to sell.

Explore Territory

No matter how densely populated or remote and wild the territory in which a franchise is licensed to operate, that territory has secrets. Characters and franchise staff can explore their licensed territory in search of useful features, hidden lairs, resources, and creatures that can be engaged in beneficial service. (Or, you know, sold for parts. If you're okay with that). Exploration can be done any number of times in a franchise's territory, representing new areas being explored, new discoveries, or elements that have changed since the last exploration.

Franchise Restructuring

A growing franchise often needs fine-tuning to improve its operations and remain lean and capable. Efficiency measures, bold new paradigms, shiny business plans, internal audits, and inventory management can be key to new profits. The best plans often end up creating an auxiliary market for "how-to" books, such as Can't-Miss Principles of Franchise Reinvisionary Strategery and What to Inquire about How to Acquire. In some campaigns, Head Office might periodically require this task to ensure that a franchise grows effectively.

Headquarters Modification

Major headquarters modifications are made as a regular part of franchise advancement. But it's sometimes desirable to update a previous modification in ways that don't provide any additional mechanical benefits. Characters and franchise staff members can use this activity to modify an existing headquarters feature. This change is subject to DM approval, and is typically done within the same feature category, such as swapping one weapon option for another. In response to pressing need, the DM might allow a franchise to swap options between categories, such as losing a weapon option in favor of an arcane option. The DM can limit how often this activity is used.

Marketeering

Every successful franchise knows that brands require constant management. Developing new markets, shaping catchy slogans, and surveying and engaging customers can all create new sources of revenue. Should you write and sell exciting chapbook serials based on the exploits of Omin, Jim, Môrgæn, and Viari? Should you sell a complex investment scheme to a city's guild masters? Should you create a branded stage production based on your franchise's exciting adventures, with a line of clothing to match? All those things and more are encompassed by the fine art of marketeering.

Philanthropic Enterprise

It can feel great to give to charity and help those in need. Pretending to care about others can also be a great way to earn favor with governments and nobility, gain tax write-offs, or win over customers. Head Office might suggest (or even require) that a franchise undertake this activity if it has recently gained negative publicity or been discovered to engage in shady activities. Franchise members should select a philanthropic cause related to a nearby area, settlement, or group of people. Example causes include such efforts as picking up trash from roads or forests, improving schools, and raising funds for victims of a recent disaster. (That last one is an especially good idea if the disaster was caused by the franchise). Success benefits the franchise by helping the selected cause—or at least giving the appearance of having done so. Failure might worsen both the underlying issue and the franchise's reputation.

Running a Franchise

Running a business is one of the downtime activities presented in the Dungeon Master's Guide, but an Acquisitions Incorporated franchise is no mere business. This new downtime and franchise activity covers the many and varied duties necessary to keep a franchise running smoothly, and determines how well the characters and their staff manage those duties.

Cost

-

Duration

1+ days

Source

AI

Running a Franchise Success Level

d100+days	Result
01-1	The franchise has a ruinous month. Declining sales and rising expenditures increase the franchise's monthly cost by 150 percent.
11-2	The franchise suffers severe setbacks. Monthly cost increases by 125 percent.
21-3	The franchise struggles. Monthly cost increases by 100 percent.
31-4	The franchise performs poorly. Monthly cost increases by 50 percent.
41-5	The franchise operates normally. Monthly cost does not change.
51-6	The franchise sees strong sales and trims expenses. Monthly cost decreases by 50 percent.
61-7	The franchise improves operations and sales. Monthly cost decreases by 100 percent.
71-8	The franchise has an excellent month. Monthly cost decreases by 110 percent.
81-9	The franchise has a fantastic month. Monthly cost decreases by 125 percent.
91+	The franchise is a shining example to other Acquisitions Incorporated franchises. Monthly cost decreases by 150 percent.

Scrutineering

As a member of an Acquisitions Incorporated franchise, you scoff at those who limit their intelligence-gathering activities to mere research or sagery. The scrutineering activity covers basic research easily enough (finding a new profitable venture, learning what pleases Head Office, amassing lore about a site or monster, and so forth). But it can also expand across a much broader range of activities. You might engage ("kidnap" is such a harsh word) members of a rival group, learn the secrets of a stronghold known only to those who built it, assess an organization's business model to determine its weaknesses, or lay rightful claim to any information that might benefit your franchise in some way.

Shady Business Practice

The quickest path to success often runs straight through the thickets of questionable legality. Franchises that can overcome the morally dubious aspects of certain enterprises—and can deal with the risk of being caught engaging in those enterprises—might wish to consider such time-honored practices as back-of-the-wagon discount sales, fly-by-night gambling halls, highway robbery, racketeering, and pyramid schemes. Shady business practices can also include corporate espionage against rivals and other Acq Inc franchises, including stealing goods or sabotaging commercial efforts.

Schmoozing (Carousing)

The schmoozing activity is more than just random carousing, chatting people up at society parties, or pumping strangers for information over copious drinks. (Full disclosure: copious drinks are often still a part of the bigger schmoozing picture.) For characters in an Acquisitions Incorporated campaign, schmoozing is a carefully focused engagement of bargaining and influence, designed to harvest contacts important to a franchise's interests.

Team Building

The frenetic pace of adventuring and running a franchise sometimes covers up underlying issues. Has the party's cleric accidentally started worshiping a dark god? Is the majordomo at odds with the occultant's habit of displaying entrails in the great hall? Is the fighter questioning their life choices? The team building activity can help characters work through problems, settle differences, and adjust the work-life balance. In the end, everyone ends up with a healthier working relationship. Or at least that's the plan. At the DM's determination, characters might be directed by Head Office to run this activity each time a new franchise rank is gained, or during times of exceptional chaos or uncertainty.