Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Blade2718 Aug 22, 2014 9:14:58	As an Outlander, I start with the poor lifestyle. If I use downtime for Self-Sufficiency while trained in Survival, all I'm doing is spending downtime to upgrade my lifestyle to comfortable, right? If I also spend some of my downtime training, I pay the Poor rate?
#2 Pauper Aug 22, 2014 10:48:21	From the Basic Rules (p.54):   "The expenses and lifestyles described in this chapter assume that you are spending your time between adventures in town.... Some characters, though, might prefer to spend their time away from civilization...."   I could see an interpretation where your 'lifestyle' represents an urban lifestyle, and that spending downtime in the wildnerness wouldn't count toward improving that. You'd be living a comfortable lifestyle where you have the ability to hunt, forage, and the like, but you don't have enough coin to manage anything but a poor lifestyle while in a town, city, or village. This interpretation would support your thought that, while training (in town), you'd pay the Poor lifestyle rate despite having the ability to live a Comfortable lifestyle in the wilderness.   However...from the ALPG (p.6):   "If you spend 30 downtime days maintaining a higher lifestyle than your current lifestyle, your lifestyle changes to that new lifestyle."   There's no real mechanic in the Lifestyle rules (other than the Self-Sufficiency sidebar) that distinguishes between 'town' and 'wilderness', and it could be argued that hunting would allow you to collect pelts, smoked meats, and other trade goods that would be worth money in civilized society. In that sense, spending 30 days in Self-Sufficiency, by the rule in the ALPG (note that it says maintaining a lifestyle, which is exactly what you are doing with Self-Sufficiency: "Maintaining this kind of lifestyle doesn't require you to spend any coin..."), would upgrade you to a Comfortable lifestyle -- which would then require you to pay the Comfortable lifestyle costs while training in town (unless you deliberately choose to pay less and thus change your lifestyle again after another 30 days).   In a home game, either interpretation would work equally well. In AL, though, I'm guessing the latter interpretation (30 days of Self-Sufficiency while trained in Survival upgrades you to a Comfortable lifestyle) is the one we'd use.   (Note, this isn't even the 'weirdest' way to maintain a lifestyle -- if you're proficient in Performance, you can maintain a Wealthy lifestyle (BR, p.68), suggesting all proficient performers in Fifth Edition are rockstars.)   -- Pauper
#3 shivafang Aug 22, 2014 10:58:01	The outlander staring at a default of 'poor' was really, really stupid.  They have the survival skill so they should default to 'comfortable.'   Pauper is 100% right.  Do 30 days worth of downtime (it doesn't matter which one) and don't pay for lifestyle.  You will be treated as having 'comfortable' lifestyle and then your default will change to 'comfortable' after 30 days of spent downtime.  That's what my outlander  is doing.
#4 Kalani Aug 27, 2014 23:57:59	Pauper wrote:
#5 Blade2718 Aug 28, 2014 7:41:36	The challenge is that I also want to get training in thieves tools. I'm trying to use my self-sufficiency to offset the cost of spending time amongst the "corrpuption of civilization".
(Reply to #4) Pauper	Kalani wrote: