Economics & Small Urban Settings

[taliesin15]

Lately I've been fleshing out a continent that I've been using as a mainstay in my campaigns--mainly working on a large kingdom, and bordering wilderness/populated regions. I use primarily 3.0, but have noticed something that is a problem with both 3.0 and 3.5 (not enough on 4.0 is available yet to judge).

Let's take your average Thorp--I generated one and it came up with an adult population of 44. 17 Commoners, one 3rd level, the rest 1st. 3 Experts, one 3rd level, the other 1st. One 3rd lvl Bard, 2 1st; one 1st lvl Cleric. One 4th lvl Ranger, 2 2nd, 4 1st lvl. One 2nd lvl Rogue, 2 1st lvl. Using the "NPC Gear Value" chart, I figure the Thorp's total wealth is 41,100 gold pieces (assuming the wealth of the non adults is negligible).

Note this is "Gear Value," so I'm not sure if that includes livestock, probably doesn't mean value of land or houses.

In any case, it wouldn't take, I would imagine, a very high level party to knock off the average Thorp, and what a juicy score. Make sure you have a Wizard with a few Tenser's Floating Disks memorized, maybe a Ranger to wipe out the party's tracks, and here one would have a great "business model" for an adventuring party mainly or evil persuasion.

Anyway, it does point to something I think is maybe a problem with the recent versions of D&D. At least in the 1st edition, Gygax makes it clear that most of the farmers and such working the land are less than 1st level serfs who certainly don't have 900 gp in gear. Thoughts?

 

[Roger]

It's probably on the high side for serfs (Commoners), yes.

For everyone else, a fair amount of that wealth probably consists of the real estate itself (which is not really portable), buildings (also not all that portable), and other such things.

For some people it may represent the value of their own selves, if they were sold into slavery.

For sacking and pillaging purposes, I'd be inclined to use that formula which gives the 'ready cash on hand' for a settlement -- maybe double it to represent non-coin wealth that someone can still pick up and run away with.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[taliesin15]

Yeah, Roger, I thought of all that, and in fact, I've designed in a scenario in my campaign where there's an Evil party of NPC adventurers discreetly knocking of Thorps (soon they'll start doing Hamlets), and making it look like the Slavers did it (as most of these places are close enough to the Slaver Kingdom).

But the caveat here is I don't see how land, houses, or value as a slave (can't imagine a 1st lvl Commoner going for more than the price of a horse) fits into the category of "NPC Gear Value." If the category reads something like "Total NPC Net Worth" and/or the DMG specifies that 900 gp for a first level NPC Commoner, Fighter, Expert, Rogue, etc. includes all the property they own, then that's another story.

Now, there's another major problem, that is of the "GP Limit" for urban centers. For a Thorp (population 20-80) the DMG says 40gp. But if 20-80 people have the "NPC Gear Value" of 900 gp and up, and the total "NPC Gear Value" of the 44 adult population Thorp is 41,100 gp, it seems like something's out of whack.

 

[Wilbur]

I always assumed NPC gear value was intended for NPC's that the PC's conflict with. Another mechanism that ensures that the PC's earn what they "should" earn per level.

Or to coin the 4E term (don't have a DMG yet so I don't know if its in the DMG), a component of that level's treasure packet.

 

[Treebore]

Its for their "gear". Its just that a farmers gear is much different than an adventurers.

The farmers gear is his shovels, his plow, his harnesses, his wagon, his dishes, his utensils, his tool boxes, his plow horses, his guard dogs, his barn, his branding irons, etc....

Very little of it is in actual easy to carry and spend gold, etc...

His dish set might be of fine bone (china) and worth 10 GP. His silver wear may actually be made of silver and worth 10 gold. He may have a really nicely done knife with nice inlay, etc... worth 15 GP. They may have a very nice holy symbol hanging on their wall that is gold plated silver worth 25 gold.

that is the kind of stuff "looters" take. They don't bother with the tools, storage trunks, all the livestock, etc... So instead of getting 41,000 gold out of the community they may get only a few hundred gold worth of stuff they are willing to carry off. Maybe a few thousand gold, but certainly not 41,000 gold.

Unless they want to go through the trouble of setting up a "Used Wagons, Plows, Tools, and Oddities" store and sell the stuff.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I wouldn't use the NPC Gear Value as a gauge of how much value can be extracted from a village or thorp. For the major NPC types, sure - sheriffs, captains of guards, etc. I'd cut it down severely for the great majority of people.

 

[Treebore]

GP Limit, if I recall correctly, refers to the most expensive item in the books that a PC may be able to find in a thorpe. So your not going to find warhorses, plate mail, etc.. in a thorpe, but you may find clothing, tools, simpler weapons and armors, but nothing over 40 GP is likely, unless the DM decides otherwise.

So there is no direct relation between over all community wealth and "GP Limit".

 

[taliesin15]

I always assumed NPC gear value was intended for NPC's that the PC's conflict with. Another mechanism that ensures that the PC's earn what they "should" earn per level.

my reading of it is now much value there is to the gear of each NPC in question--you kill 4 1st level NPCs, they should have 900 gp of gear (one would assume this is an average value) each, thus, 3600 gp roughly.

In any case, there's no distinction I can see in the DMG as to NPC's the PC's conflict with or not--this seems to be a suggested average value of all NPCs in the milieu, whether Commoner, Ranger, Aristocrat or Monk. I see the logic in having a 1st lvl Monk or Commoner having much less in many cases than 900 gp, but then you'd have to balance that out with NPC Aristocrats or Paladins or Wizards with a lot more value to their gear

 

[Rel]

I guess I'd always thought of that NPC Wealth By Level table as only applying to adventuring NPC's. I have had many an NPC who is a (relatively) low level Aristocrat or Merchant (i.e. Expert) who has had WAY more wealth than that. So I'd naturally have no compunctions about the average peasant having way less than that.

 

[taliesin15]

Its for their "gear". Its just that a farmers gear is much different than an adventurers.
The farmers gear is his shovels, his plow, his harnesses, his wagon, his dishes, his utensils, his tool boxes, his plow horses, his guard dogs, his barn, his branding irons, etc....
Very little of it is in actual easy to carry and spend gold, etc...
His dish set might be of fine bone (china) and worth 10 GP. His silver wear may actually be made of silver and worth 10 gold. He may have a really nicely done knife with nice inlay, etc... worth 15 GP. They may have a very nice holy symbol hanging on their wall that is gold plated silver worth 25 gold.
that is the kind of stuff "looters" take. They don't bother with the tools, storage trunks, all the livestock, etc... So instead of getting 41,000 gold out of the community they may get only a few hundred gold worth of stuff they are willing to carry off. Maybe a few thousand gold, but certainly not 41,000 gold.
Unless they want to go through the trouble of setting up a "Used Wagons, Plows, Tools, and Oddities" store and sell the stuff.

I'm not so sure on several levels. One, you're right, a lot of the stuff 1st level Commoners have in terms of Gear consists of farming tools (or other tools of their trade), small bits of jewelry and so forth, but realistically, how many tools does a medieval (or in my campaign's case, Dark Ages era) farmer typically own? 900 gp worth? Seriously...personal effects such as dishes, furnishings, etc. I can't imagine totalling more than 50 gp--his or her mugs and plates must be made of wood and pewter, stuff that costs a silver piece each. Most of the furniture they built themselves, beds typically for commoners were rickety, the cushioning typically being hay and the like. The crude huts are thatched over top. Probably the most expensive piece of a equipment a common farmer owned was either a plow or a cart.

As to being able to sell these things, I don't see how that is a problem--if its a commodity of any value more than a silver piece, there must be a market for it. For what its worth, the Neutral Evil NPC party I've created (the one knocking off Thorps) is posing as two petty merchants with their four mercenary guards.

Even if much of the goods held by 1st lvl Commoners (91% of any urban adult population according to the DMG) isn't worth taking, every Thorp I've randomly generated has at least 6 non 1st lvl Commoners, and one would imagine these sorts would have items such as swords and armor to take. I'm skeptical about your rationalization here, and still see that there's some serious problems with the "NPC Gear Value" and "GP Limit" in urban settings. And, frankly, I have other issues with economics in most D&D milieus, but we'll leave Macroeconomic issues for another thread.