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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5595736" data-attributes="member: 52073">Holy triple post, Batman!I was objecting to the statement that "the levels of skill involved in porterage and subsistence farming were comparable"--certainly the level of physical effort involved in digging holes, picking plants, etc. is similar, but being a farmer is much more than just sticking seeds in the ground and pulling up what grows there.1) Malthusian theory ≠ "everyone is a subsistence farmer."  His theory simply states that the population's demand on resources will inevitably outstrip their ability to produce it.  That doesn't mean that on an individual level every farmer barely makes enough food to feed himself, it means that as time goes on Σ [total food output] < Σ [total food consumption] barring mitigating factors.2) Farmers aren't producing 10-15gp worth of food each week, they're producing 10-15gp equivalent of wealth each week.  That could mean he produced surplus food, or it could mean that the farmer fixes a broken fence that he'd otherwise have to pay someone to fix, or that adventurers sweep into town needing more supplies and he sells it at a markup, or whatever.I wouldn't say 1 sp is about $10; it's harder to nail down prices than that.  Take a look at the price of commodities today and compare to PHB prices.  A bushel of wheat goes for <a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat" target="_blank">about $319</a>, or 319/60 = $5.30 per pound; 1 pound of wheat in D&D is 1 cp.  Silver is going for <a href="http://silverprice.org/silver-price-per-ounce.html" target="_blank">about $36</a> per ounce, or 16*36 = $576 per pound; 1 pound of silver in D&D is 5 gp.  Goats can cost <a href="http://www.goats4h.com/Goat-costs.html" target="_blank">between $100 and $300</a>, so let's sat an average of $225; in D&D, a goat is 1 gp.  In one case, we have 1 sp = $53, in another case we have 1 sp = $57...and in a third we have 1 sp = $22.  Trying to equate D&D currency to real-world currency doesn't really work too well.And again, the Profession rules don't mean you actually gain that many gold pieces at the end of the week, any more than a PC actually gets Xd4 gold pieces to start his career.  When the subsistence farmer comes out with a net of $1-2, that's after he "buys" his meals, after he "buys" repairs to equipment, and so forth.  Unskilled laborers make 1 sp per day and a day's worth of poor meals is 1 sp, so any subsistence farmer who can eat enough to survive and still have even a dollar left over to put away for a rainy day is coming out ahead of the unskilled laborer in income.</blockquote>

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