Kerse Downtime

To let your level 1 party take advantage of Kerse without stalling campaign momentum, give them roughly 10 to 14 days of downtime.

That is enough time for meaningful retraining, crafting, formula acquisition, spell study, shopping, and Earn Income without turning the Kerse visit into a month-long intermission.

Suggested Time Budget: 10–14 Days

• Retraining — usually 7 days
• Retraining a feat or ordinary skill choice generally takes about 1 week.
• Larger character choices can take considerably longer and might require specialized instruction.
• A character who is retraining can't perform another downtime activity at the same time.

• Crafting — 4+ days per project
• Standard PF2e Crafting normally requires an initial period of work before the Crafting check.
• Having an appropriate formula can reduce the startup time.
• After the initial Crafting period, the crafter can either pay the remaining cost and finish the item or continue working additional days to reduce that remaining cost using the normal Crafting/Earn Income progression.
• At level 1, the monetary savings from extra days are fairly small, so Crafting is most useful when the PCs want access to unusual items, custom equipment, batches of consumables, or simply want to make their own gear.

• Formula Acquisition — hours, not days
• Buying common formulas is straightforward in Kerse.
• Copying a formula into a formula book takes 1 hour per formula.
• The Brass Formula Exchange can therefore support several formula purchases or copying sessions in a single afternoon.

• Learn a Spell — usually hours
• Learning a spell takes 1 hour per spell rank, assuming the PC can find a teacher or suitable magical writing.
• The Concordance of Seven Lamps makes this substantially easier than it would be in a smaller settlement.

• Shopping — about 1 day
• Dedicated shopping normally takes 1 day of downtime.
• In Kerse, that can include locating specialized merchants, selling treasure, purchasing formulas, finding reagents, and arranging commissions.

• Earn Income — any remaining days
• Characters who aren't retraining or crafting can use spare downtime to Earn Income.
• Kerse should offer a much wider variety of jobs than Old Macridi, particularly for Crafting, Lore, Performance, Medicine, and specialized professional skills.

A Good 10-Day Kerse Stay

Day 1 Shopping, formula purchases, reagent acquisition, spell tutors, commissions, and city errands.

Days 2–8 Characters choose their major downtime project: - retrain a feat or skill option, - Craft equipment or consumables, - work on a research or professional project, - or Earn Income.

Days 9–10 Finish Crafting projects, copy additional formulas, Learn Spells, Earn Income, or handle personal scenes and contacts.

A 14-Day Stay

Two weeks gives the party enough room for a substantial project without feeling rushed.

A character might: - complete a week of retraining and spend the remaining week shopping or earning income; - devote most of the period to one or more Crafting projects; - spend several days acquiring formulas, researching unusual items, and arranging commissions; - or simply work and establish contacts in Kerse.

Level 1 Crafting Note

For Doku and Skye, Kerse is valuable less because Crafting dramatically reduces prices and more because it gives them access to things they couldn't easily do in Old Macridi:

• professional workshops,
• alchemical laboratories,
• raw materials,
• common formulas,
• possible access to uncommon formulas,
• specialist instructors,
• custom commissions,
• and a market large enough to support serious downtime projects.

If an ordinary common item is sitting on a shelf and they can afford it, buying it is usually faster. Crafting becomes much more interesting when access, customization, rarity, or personal investment matters.