Adventurers making money with profession

[Dave Turner]

The earlier post about finding out what your player's expectations are about such a profession can not be stressed enough. If you want to run an adventure game and keep the play balance with minimal effort then you have to weed out player get-rich-quick schemes to gain disproportionate wealth and magic items vs. their level. "I'll be a merchant so I can afford Level 10 Magic equipment on my Level 2 character and then power-level," is something that comes up from time to time in gaming groups.

They may crop up under the guys of "logical world simulations" and "the D&D Economy is stupid," arguments but they are still present the same basic problem: "I want to be an exception to game balance."

Players decorating their backgrounds and adventures with world-building and immersion is awesome. Players trying to get one over on the rest of the table in the name of "good simulation" isn't so awesome.

- Marty Lund

A thousand times, yes.

 

[keterys]

Haven't read the whole thread, but how about 'Every level he sells stuff, getting a treasure parcel or two worth of stuff' and then just subtract those parcels from the ones you hand out.

You can fluctuate how good the parcel is based on roll, skill level, how good the weather is, or what dinner you had. Doesn't really matter, as long as everyone is having fun and you can't just say 'Oh, and I'm a merchant' to secure extra treasure for your party.

 

[77IM]

I have a player who plans to make an exotic weapon merchant in a campaign I'm planning.

How would you handle such a thing in your 4.0 chronicle with the new rules?

I would use my Background Skills house rule: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=232141

Yes, it's a house rule, but I tried to keep it succinct, broadly useful, and very similar to the existing rules.

-- 77IM

 

[Otterscrubber]

Well I assume that he's doing it because he finds it entertaining, assume that the rest of the party isn't a problem because they're amused by it as well (they love immersion).

Now, 4th edition philosophy is that things should be fun. However, while this is fun it is not supported. In fact it seems to go against the spirit if not the rule of parcels and the sell at 20% rule.

So I'm wondering what other people are doing in their game with this kind of situation.

We just roleplay it out, with the DM handing out monetary units to fit the campaign. We had a lvl 23 rogue in our party who decided he wanted to take over the local gambling and whore houses in our main city. He role-played it out, got it even though the money from that was nothing compared to what he could get if he decided to steal the jewels from rich folks around town or try to find treasure from some powerful creature on another plane. But he had a lot of fun doing it while my character ran off and did a side mission or two on his own.

I think if you're looking for hard and fast rules on how much item "x" should be worth or what profession "x" can expect to earn in a year will yield only frustration. Economics are far too complicated to replicate realistically in this game, or pretty much any game. I mean, there are many people who would say we don't even truly understand real economics. Anyways, play it out if that amuses you, but if I were the DM I would imply a complicated system was in place, but just assign finances as fit the campaign needs. Might sound cheesy to some but it worked great for us.

 

[VannATLC]

Microeconomics and edition wars aside, the important question is this:

What does the player expect to get out of having an exotic weapons merchant?

If it's just background info and he doesn't expect anything more, then you can file it under the "duly noted" category and get back to the game. Occasionally he finds a cool weapon or gets to make a sale.

If he wants to craft his own unique weapons, then you'll have to come up with some sort of crafting rules (probably based on 3.5 or a variant) or tell him he's SOL.

If he wants to make extra money, either do as suggested above and count it as part of the party's wealth advancement, or give him a attribute roll (say, Wis or Chr) to make a few gold per week, as the 3.5 Profession rules.

If he wants to use this as motivation for a treasure hunter, Indiana Jones type character, then give him lots of exotic locations with legendary (but level-approriate) weapons full of traps, undead, hostile natives, and the like.

That's about every variation I can think of. No matter what the case, the easiest thing to do is to ask him before the game what he has in mind.

I'm quoting this because it is the only good answer so far.

From the phrasing of your initial question and subsequent replies, you're (and this player) aren't overly interested in economic systems and their failures.

So follow Byron's suggestion.

DarkRose50 - You've nicely highlighted why an economic system event remotely modelling reality is simply too complicate to place into a DND framework (Or any serious PnP based RPG).

You can abstract it to the same level of DND Combat, in which case it falls apart, as there are only a handful of valid endstates for combat, but multitudes for an economic system.

 

[Byronic]

I would use my Background Skills house rule: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=232141

Yes, it's a house rule, but I tried to keep it succinct, broadly useful, and very similar to the existing rules.

-- 77IM

Unfortunately the link doesn't seem to work with me, must have something to do with the new forum (I just got a nice greeting as a notice on that topic). I'm currently giving my players two free trained skills, as long as they don't copy anything covered by the skills we already have and don't have anything to do with combat. Is your rule similar?

I must say the face of one of my player just shined up when I told him that rule. He was quite happy that he had a stat for his profession, which really made it all worth while.

I'm quoting this because it is the only good answer so far.

From the phrasing of your initial question and subsequent replies, you're (and this player) aren't overly interested in economic systems and their failures.

So follow Byron's suggestion.

DarkRose50 - You've nicely highlighted why an economic system event remotely modelling reality is simply too complicate to place into a DND framework (Or any serious PnP based RPG).

You can abstract it to the same level of DND Combat, in which case it falls apart, as there are only a handful of valid endstates for combat, but multitudes for an economic system.

Funny enough, my player has now decided to be an ex-weapon merchant, which makes the point moot. However, this thread has not been a loss since not only did I enjoy the humour but I also got some good recommendations (one of which led to me borrowing a DMG II) so my campaign just grew in a new direction. I mean if I can guess my players a bit they will certainly give me ample opportunity to use some of this stuff.