A party can choose to rest before they continue forward on their journey, and when they do, each PC has the chance to make two downtime moves. Though downtime is their chance to recover from the dangers they’ve faced, it’s also an opportunity for characters to have important, emotional scenes with each other—to learn more about one another in their quiet moments together and have character-centric conversations they might not have had time for during big battles or high-intensity exploits.

When the characters decide they want to have downtime, they choose between a short rest and a long rest. A party can take up to three short rests before their next rest must be a long rest. If a short rest is interrupted (such as by an adversary’s attack), characters don’t gain its benefits. If a long rest is interrupted, the characters instead gain the benefits of a short rest (even if they’ve already had three short rests).

Short Rest

A short rest is when the characters stop to catch their breath, taking a break for about an hour. Each player can swap any domain cards in their loadout for cards in their vault, then choose two of the following moves (or choose the same move twice). Some short rest downtime moves require you to use your tier as a value. This is covered in the upcoming “Tiers of Play” section.

Long Rest

A long rest is when the characters make camp, relax for a few hours, and get some rest. Each player can swap any domain cards in their loadout for cards in their vault, then can choose two of the following moves (or choose the same move twice).

Refreshing Features During Downtime

Resting can refresh the availability of your features and end some temporary effects.

• Any effects that last until your next rest end when your character finishes either a long or a short rest. Likewise, any features that can be used a number of times per rest refresh when your character finishes either a long or a short rest.
• Any effects that last until your next long rest end when your character finishes a long rest. Likewise, any features that can be used a number of times per long rest only refresh when your character finishes a long rest.

Once per Session Features

Some features say you can use them “once per session”. These features don’t refre—sh during rests, but instead are available again at the start of your next Daggerheart session. If your table decides to play a long session, the GM might decide that all “once per session” abilities are refreshed during a break in play instead.

Downtime lets the players recover resources during short and long rests, but it also provides an opportunity to zoom in on the relationships between characters and how they process the intense emotions of their adventures. You can use downtime scenes as a pressure release valve to vary the intensity of the story and give the PCs room to breathe.

Empower your players to frame their own downtime scenes. Ask the players what it looks like as they tend to their wounds or unwind together, encouraging them to take the reins and work with other players whose characters are involved.

For GM

GM Downtime

When players use downtime to rest and refresh, you gain Fear and can progress a countdown happening in the background:

• On a short rest, gain 1d4 Fear.
• On a long rest, gain an amount of Fear equal to the number of PCs + 1d4 and advance a long-term countdown.

This helps make the world feel alive—and it reminds players that the more resting they do, the more the world moves without them, so they might want to be careful how much they rest.

Extended Downtime

If you’re fast-forwarding the story across multiple days (or longer), you probably don’t need a separate scene for each long rest during that time. During these longer stretches, consider talking to your players about what their characters want to accomplish, then using montages to illustrate the passage of time. You gain 1d6 Fear per PC and can advance the long-term countdowns as appropriate for the extended period of rest.

Some PC goals might require a single roll (or none at all). Others might call for a series of progress countdown rolls to advance a project across several long rests. It’s trivial for a bard to gather rumors during a week-long stay in the city, but you might ask them to make a Presence Roll to see whether they learn some especially important information in the process. Similarly, you could ask your warrior to make a Finesse Roll if they’re trying to enhance their armor with rare materials obtained in their last adventure.