Economy

[OakwoodDM]

I don't know whether this counts as 4e Rules, stirctly speaking, since the rule books don't even pretend to cover this but I have some questions from one of my players that I'm struggling to answer.

As a bit of background, the character in question is trying to raise an army to retake his home town which was taken by hordes of undead a decade ago.

He wants to know:

1) How much does a farmer earn per month?
2) How much does a miner earn per month?
3) How big an order of weapons would be required for a bulk discount?

Those three are the ones I think the board can help with. His other questions are more to do with campaign style and personal preference.

I figured for the first 2, given that a decent twin room in the inn in the sample town in the DMG costs 5sp per night, maybe 1gp per month for a farmer and 1gp, 5sp for a miner. But that's real finger in the air stuff.

As for the third question, I'm not 100% certain whether bulk buy discounts even make sense in a fantasy world with individual effort required to produce each item.

So, any ideas?

 

[BeauNiddle]

Farmers have busy seasons and quiet seasons. Spring is taken with planting, Autumn / Fall is harvesting, Winter is repairing the farmstead and trying to stay warm. [Rough approximations for Europe level lattitudes - nearer the equator you can get in two harvests a year so things change]

If you want to hire a lot of farmers / farm hands in summer it would probably be a lot cheaper than at other points in the year.

 

[Kzach]

This is basically impossible to answer.

It depends on so many factors that you'd have to list all of them before anyone could even make a highly inaccurate guess.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume a standard medieval (1,000-1,300 AD) setting based on Europe. In which case, farmers are either Freemen or Serfs. Both do not earn a wage at all. They rent or occupy land owned by a lord and pay taxes in the form of a cut of the harvests.

Whatever is left over, they trade for raw materials that they need at local markets. Rarely do they ever have any coin on them whatsoever. If they do, it would be a very small amount from selling their excess harvests.

So, your answer, is zero.

Miners is even harder to answer because more often than not, nobody in their right mind would go down a mine. It's essentially a death-sentence. Hence slaves and the desperate being the only ones to go down and so they tend to only get paid in food and board rather than any real wage.

So really, again, your answer is zero.

Coins were basically only of use to those in cities who did not directly work in a trade or profession that supplied them with basic foodstuffs. And even then, a lot of trade was done through bartering in preference to coin.

Coins only really became popular when cities began to boom and international trade became common-place. Primarily because it made trading easier. It was kind of hard to trade someone ten pigs for their silk, since the silk-trader would have to then cart back ten pigs to his homeland.

So, in answer to your question, what you should do, is ignore history altogether. Balance the amounts with how much currency you have in your campaign and charge accordingly. Better to keep it balanced this way so you don't end up trying to fit a square peg into a round hole

 

[Saeviomagy]

The answers are whatever you want them to be.

If you don't want to have to run economics simulations, then just tell him to pay the prices in the book.

 

[Cang]

In most fantasy settings, there is no "back then". Yes it is based on a english medieval base, but after that it looses that back then. The world has a timeline (no matter what d&d setting you look at) vastly larger then our own. The world is stuffed with magic of everykind and monsters.

I say this so you don't have your mind trapped in a back then mindset when looking at setting. The pay of your average man depends on how the land you are at is set up. It would also depend what type of boss you want to be. They could be slaves working for nothing, they could be indentured servants working for room and board and maybe a bit of coin to stay clothed and feed. They could be free citizens working for a company, perhaps making a salary wage like a farm hand would or a proportion wage in that you make from what you put out. Then again you might be a free land owner who has a small plot of land that gets money from the harvest (so it would depend on how much you produce, how good is the harvest, if you could find buyers, and if you do some other odd jobs to supplement your coin intake). If you want to be fair with the payment, look in the book for cost of basic supplies, cheap food and living expense, and perhaps a little more for ale or whatever. Like i said, depends on how your workforce is set up.

 

[Syrsuro]

I don't know whether this counts as 4e Rules, stirctly speaking, since the rule books don't even pretend to cover this but I have some questions from one of my players that I'm struggling to answer.

As a bit of background, the character in question is trying to raise an army to retake his home town which was taken by hordes of undead a decade ago.

He wants to know:

1) How much does a farmer earn per month?
2) How much does a miner earn per month?
3) How big an order of weapons would be required for a bulk discount?

Those three are the ones I think the board can help with. His other questions are more to do with campaign style and personal preference.

I figured for the first 2, given that a decent twin room in the inn in the sample town in the DMG costs 5sp per night, maybe 1gp per month for a farmer and 1gp, 5sp for a miner. But that's real finger in the air stuff.

As for the third question, I'm not 100% certain whether bulk buy discounts even make sense in a fantasy world with individual effort required to produce each item.

So, any ideas?

What ever you want it to be, whatever you want it to be, whatever you want it to be.

But to take the questions a bit more seriously...

What a farmer makes a month is a pittance compared to the cost of a good sword. Farmers' can't afford swords.
What a miner earns a month is a pittance compared to the cost of a good sword. Miners can't afford swords. (Where do you think the lyrics "You load 16 tons, and whaddya get? Another day older and deeper in debt." comes from?)

Farmers and Miners aren't able to finance an army. They are barely able to feed themselves and their family (and when times are tough or taxes are high can't even do that). What finances an army is someone (usually the king or government) taking the food from their fields, taking the metal from the mines and then getting someone else make the armor (and paying that person a pittance as well).

And finally, the idea of a bulk discount is out of place as well. Unless you have factories with assemblyline production and supermarkets dealing with massive surplus inventory there is no such thing as a bulk discount.

In fact, you will probably run into the oppposite situation: Fulfilling a massive order requires obtaining larger quantities of already limited supplies and requires pissing off others who may also wish to buy the same product and thus it makes more sense to charge MORE per item for large orders than it does to give a discount. You aren't buying stuff gathering dust in a warehouse, you are placing a rush order for items that are handmade to order. Unless you are willing to wait a few years for those arms.


The idea of bulk discount depends on their being surplus production. I find it unlikely that your world really has surplus production of anything, much less arms and armor.


Regardless:

As a DM you need to decide: "Is this something I want this player to be able to do." If the answer is yes, then you decide "How difficult do I want it to be and what hoops do I want him to jump through to accomplish this."

That will give you your answer far better than the most accurate and complete knowledge of midieval economics ever will.

Carl

 

[Nail]

Farmers and Miners aren't able to finance an army.

I'm *guessing* the OP meant: "How much to hire a bunch of Farmers and Miners?"

Just a guess. If the OP meant "The PC is a miner, and wants to buy himself an army...." ...well, I've got no help fer th' guy.....

 

[Parlan]

Also, if all the farmers are out killing undead, who is tending the fields? Will there be enough food for the population to last through the winter?

That said, it could be a really cool adventure: a massive peasant army all fired up to take the kingdom back from the undead.


Months of planning to buy weapons and armor, food and other supplies for the siege. The fighter training squads of troops in group tactics and basic weapons use. Cool speeches by the Warlord/Cleric to fire up the populace.

Pick a reasonable sounding number, and go with it!

 

[Syrsuro]

I'm *guessing* the OP meant: "How much to hire a bunch of Farmers and Miners?"

Well, if that is the case the question really is:

"How much would I have to pay a farmer to get him to stop working, let his family starve, and go let himself be impaled on the end of a professional soldier's spear."

In which case the answer is: "You ain't got enough money." Any deal would have to either make them rich enough that they never have to work again or enough to provide for their famiilies if they die.

Of course, while you may find it difficult to hire the farmers out of the field, if you can convince them that your enemy is their enemy and that the risk of doing nothing outweighs the risk of fighting, perhaps you can inspire them to leave the fields and fight without paying them anything.

But its probably going to have to be a personal appeal and simply tossing money at them isn't likely to work (imho).

On the other hand, you might be able to hire some miners that way. Mining is miserable and, more importanly, dangerous work (why do you think so many countries used slaves or prisoners for the job). Miners know that they have a really good chance of dying in the mines anyway (although its still not as likely as dying on the battlefield), so an offer to make more money in a campaign than they would earn in the mines in a year might tempt some of them into risking their lives. Essentially, it would have to be a good enough offer to let them escape the mines. This is why promises of property in the conquered lands were so effective: Land ownership was beyond the reach of the average laborer and was the first step into self sufficiency.

Carl

 

[Kzach]

In fact, you will probably run into the oppposite situation: Fulfilling a massive order requires obtaining larger quantities of already limited supplies and requires pissing off others who may also wish to buy the same product and thus it makes more sense to charge MORE per item for large orders than it does to give a discount. You aren't buying stuff gathering dust in a warehouse, you are placing a rush order for items that are handmade to order. Unless you are willing to wait a few years for those arms.

Yeup, this is a very important thing to consider.

It takes a team of smiths under the leadership of a master smith roughly two years to make a suit of plate mail.

TWO YEARS!

A chain hauberk takes about one year.

Weapons are quicker to make, only taking a few days for a crappy iron sword. But anything of quality will take about a month and a skilled smith with possibly a crew of apprentices.

Therefore, your peasants will be decked in leather or padded armour, probably made by themselves, and will more than likely be wielding their farm implements.

To properly deck out and train an army will take a massive amount of resources that, quite frankly, only a kingdom can really commit to. And they don't pay their peasants to fight for them, they point a sword and push them forward.

Also, if all the farmers are out killing undead, who is tending the fields? Will there be enough food for the population to last through the winter?

Actually, traditionally, farmers had a lot of spare time on their hands. As long as they kept things repaired and in order, they basically only had a couple of months a year when they were working full days.