Each day is divided into 4 6-hour periods, which can each be used to do varying things – Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Night. NPCs have schedules that they keep to, so they might be unavailable during a given time period.
During each day, a character needs to use at least one of these time periods to rest. However, AI can function for 4 days without requiring a rest period. Failure to meet this rest period requirement causes a character to move -1 persistent step on the condition track. Missing it subsequent times moves the character another step down, possibly to the point where they pass out and get rest without their desire to do so.
During each time period, you can take an action from the list below. Some actions require less than a full time period, others require more than a single time period.
Blackmail (3 Time Periods): You can spend 3 time periods to learn an incriminating secret about someone. To learn a secret about your target, you or a team must succeed at a Gather Information check with a DC equal to 10 + target’s character level + the target’s Charisma modifier. On a successful check, you can pay 10 of the predominant currency per challenge (not character) level of the target to learn the secret. You can reveal this secret at any time to gain a +5 circumstance bonus on a single Persuasion check made to intimidate your target. On a successful check, the target’s attitude remains friendly toward you for 1d6 days, rather than 1d6 × 10 minutes, then degrades by one category each day until the target’s attitude become hostile. Alternatively, you can reveal a secret while coercing your target (see below) to automatically succeed at your Persuasion check made to intimidate that target. Once a secret has been revealed, you can’t use it again.
Coerce (3 Time Periods): You can spend 3 time periods to browbeat a person or team with a successful Persuasion check made to intimidate (DC = 15 + target’s character level + target’s Wisdom modifier). If you succeed, you can coerce the foe to perform a downtime activity on your behalf, or no activity for the next 3 time periods. Whether you succeed or fail, the target’s attitude becomes unfriendly.
Craft Item (1 Time Period): You can spend a time period to perform 4 hours of work crafting an item, as per the rules listed in the Mechanics skill.
Establish Alibi (1 Time Period): You may spend 1 time period and make a DC15 Deception or Persuasion check. If you succeed, you establish an alibi that grants you a free reroll on any Deception checks to convince others you were uninvolved in a specific event in the past 48 hours or will happen within 24 hours. You may choose whether to use the result of the reroll or the result of the initial roll.
Extended Training Regimen (1 Time Period): You can spend 1 time period to undergo any training regimen you have access to. Unlike undergoing these normally (which takes an hour), spending a full time period to undergo the regimen causes the bonuses to last 4 times as long. If a training regiment provides temporary Hero Points, it instead provides four times the normal amount.
Improve Relationship (1 Time Period): You may take one time period to attempt to improve your relationship with another character via the Persuasion rules. Note that most NPCs have some form of job, and therefore will not be available at all times.
Learn Language (1 Time Period, Must be performed 40 times): Learning a language through this method requires an NPC of better than Indifferent attitude who speaks the language you are trying to learn and a language that you speak. You can learn a number of languages via this method equal to 1 plus your Intelligence modifier.
Promote Business/Self (1 Time Period): You may attempt to promote your business or your skills. This requires a DC50 Deception or Persuasion. Every time period you spend after the first allows you to try again at a +2 cumulative bonus to these checks for this purpose.
A successful attempt to promote grants you a +10 bonus on checks made to perform Skilled Labor for 7 days, and a permanent +1 cumulative reputation bonus to those checks after that (usable up to +10 reputation). The bonus is halved if your business has no physical location, but the reputation bonus is not.
Research Information (1 Time Period): You may attempt one Knowledge check about a subject matter for which you have failed prior by researching it for one time period; you may gain bonuses as appropriate based on the wealth (or squalor) of information available (GM’s discretion).
Shop [Black Market] (2 Time Periods, Must know where the local black market is): You take the twisting, secretive route down through winding cooridors, looping back on yourself, and giving the secret passwords to be allowed into the local black market.
Shop [Normal Market] (1 Time Period): You go shopping at legal outlets.
Skilled Labor (2 Time Periods): Select any Knowledge skill, Mechanics, Persuasion, Pilot, Profession, Treat Injury, or Use Computer; roll that skill twice and add the results together. You earn the sum of these results in the dominant local currency, or double the sum if you have Skill Focus in that skill.
Train Teamwork Tactics (1 Time Period, Must be performed 40 times): You may train yourself and others in a selected [Team] feat. Doing so requires the presence of all beneficiaries. After 40 time periods of training, you are treated as having the selected [Team] feat, but only when working with the character you trained together with. You must still meet all prerequisites of the [Team] feat you are taking. You may benefit from this training a maximum number of times equal to 1/2 your character level.