Merchant rules, mechanics, guidelines, etc....

My players have started to reach a level of wealth where their concerns are not only for food and drink. One of them has asked me about buying and running an Inn or some other business and using that to make profit or as a smokescreen for other activities.

My question is this. Does anyone know of any source material for merchants / businesses in the D20 world? Some information I'm looking for would be:

- how much would it cost to start or buy a shop/inn?
- what are the monthly expenses the pc would have to pc?
- how would you calculate profits?

I'm hoping there is some detailed info out there that includes everything from goods being sold to location to size of population etc... I've been looking for awhile but so far I can't find anything.

Thanks for any info.

Lol! You should be looking in other threads, as this has been discussed.

Short answer: no, there are no rules. (And that's a shame after more than 25 years of D&D.)

However, there are some decent guidelines back in Dragon #268 in an article called "Ill Gotten Gains" that give you some basic rules on what you are asking for above. It's back in the 2e era, but the rules are pretty much edition-less. They can be tweaked to give more details and make use of 3e skills.

Stronghold builders guide had a mechanic for income generating property. Basically you get a flat amount a percentage of money outlaid for construction. It might not be very role play intensive but if they want to build it and then have it in the background it might work.
-KCM