Types of Downtime Activities
I've seen a few new game masters and players ask if there's some quick reference for the downtime activities players can do. There is not, these are scattered throughout the entire book. So I figured it might be useful to gather them all into one easily-referenced spot. Please let me know if I forgot anything!
Surge (page 149) is a pharmaceutical that can be used to fit more activities in a day, but exactly how you rule this varies from table to table. A common house rule I have seen is one dose of Surge shortens a weeklong activity by 1 day.
And always remember, you the GM can add new things for your players to do in downtime, and players could suggest to the GM if they want to do something. For example, the party rolled a one while trying to drive away from the scene of a crime and accidentally plowed through the side of a convenience store. They could spend downtime going to the store, apologizing, and offering to help rebuild. Another example, the exec gets told by their boss they have to attend an important work event and can bring a plus one if they want. Another example, the fixer has a contact call them and say they need help, and could you come over for the day to assist?
#Core Book Role Agnostic. Anyone can do these
-
Healing: Page 222. You heal your Body stat in hit points per day of rest. Cryotank healing and antibiotics increase how much you heal and can all stack. What exactly you are allowed to do without invalidating the healing is up to interpretation. For instance, I have heard some GMs allow you to get surgery and still heal that day, but my tables do not allow that. You'd need a separate day to heal.
-
Repairing: Page 140. Any role can repair, but the DVs are steep enough chances are unless it's a vehicle, only techs will be able to beat those DVs. Length of time is determined by the price category of the thing being repaired, except vehicles which have separate repair rules. On failure, it takes half the time before you can try again but the item is still repairable. Page 149 has length of time and repair DV for each price category. Page 385 has which price category word corresponds to each monetary price. There are a handful of items outside the core book that have a monetary price and price category that do not match.
-
Hustling: Page 381. Spend one week and roll on the table of your role ability to see if you make money, and how much. Some tables interpret this as taking 5 days, others 7 days. If someone has multiclassed, which table you roll on is left up to interpretation.
-
Getting new chrome: Page 225. Takes 4 hours per installation or uninstallation. No need to heal or recover afterward.
-
Getting installed chrome upgraded: page 148. If you have a piece of cyberware in your body that you want to be upgraded, you would need to sit still in the tech's work space for the duration of the upgrade.
-
Critical injury treatment: Page 221. If you receive a critical injury, to get rid of it you must have it treated. Some can be done with paramedics or first aid which any role can do, but the ones that require surgery require a medtech. Most treatments take 4 hours, some take 1 minute.
-
Therapy: *Page 230. Recipient only, must be medtech to administer. Takes 7 days, always, regardless of success or failure.
#Core Book Role Specific
-
Tech: Page 148. Techs can spend time fabricating, upgrading, or inventing things. How long this takes is determined by the price category of the item though Invention follows different rules since it is a minimum of 1 week. For any tech players, I strongly recommend making your own table showing the monetary value, price category word, length of time, and DV. The core book doesn't have all this info in one spot, it's split between page 149 and page 385! On failure, any materials aren't consumed and it instead takes half the time.
-
Medtech: Page 149 (pharmaceuticals), page 221-225 (critical injury treatment, surgery), page 230 (therapy), page 353 (cryo). The things medtechs can do in downtime get deceptively complicated, with all materials being consumed regardless of success or failure, and some taking half the time on failure while others take the full time regardless of success or failure. Not every medtech will necessarily be able to do all of these depending on how they have allocated their medtech points between the three branches. Surgery: removing/installing cyberware takes 4 hours if successful, 2 hours and you break the cyberware if failed. Surgery or role-agnostic critical injury treatment: 4 hours if successful, also 4 hours if failed. Surgery for bodysculpting: 4 hours if successful, 2 hours if failed. Making pharma: 1 hour whether successful or unsuccessful. Amount produced is determined by your medtech point distribution. This is completely different from how techs make things. Therapy: 7 days if successful, 7 days if failed.
-
Media: Page 151. Passive Rumors don't cost downtime, but every week or so in game you would roll them behind the scenes. Having played medias, this is frequently forgotten by players and GMs so I figured it would be useful to put here even though it doesn't require spending downtime doing any particular thing. So for instance, a media spending a week healing or a week repairing would still receive passive rumors.
-
Fixer: Page 159. Technically, none of the fixer role abilities have any length of time specified, but it sounds like game masters frequently house rule lengths of time for sourcing and haggling or meeting with contacts, or night markets if the fixer is a high enough rank.
-
Nomad: Page 140. Technically this is role agnostic so anyone could do it, but vehicles need to be repaired if they are damaged. There is no time cost for sourcing and purchasing nomad upgrades for a vehicle, or acquiring vehicles and vehicle upgrades by leveling up. Despite using the word upgrade, these are a totally separate thing from the tech's Upgrade Expertise.
Some DLCs add more things to do in downtime which may or may not have a set duration. These are all completely optional. Feel free to pick and choose individual things you think would be fun or fitting in your game, or to not use any of them.
-
No Place Like Home: Some of thew headquarters upgrades add new things to do in downtime.
-
Did Someone Say Murder: Doesn't specifically add downtime activities, but adds a new hit-point-like resource called Focus that is recovered by resting.
Posted Oct 16, 2025, 2:42 AM UTC