Fantasy World Economics

[painandgreed]

FWE 11

Did you account for the fact that craftwork involves a substantial initial investment of capital for tools, continual supply costs, and some nasty variances in the market?

I'm not saying these are insurmountable difficulties by any means just that they do give profession some comparative advantages. Particularly in cultures where certain kinds of property ownership will likely be difficult to attain or guarantee. You're likely to see lots of women and second sons who emphasize profession, for instance.

Also, likely, there will be heavy controls and competition in crafting, particularly in a medieval setting.

5 GP isn’t that much to overcome if you can get some work. Even at –2 for no tools, and untrained craftsman could make 4 GP per week according to the RAW working a craft. Much more than the 1 SP a day he is supposed to be happy with. So, we need to either change the mechanics so he is not making that much money or explain it as a matter of social laws or customs. Certainly, guilds controlling the main crafts are a valid and historical explanation for keeping such people out and making such crafts desirable positions.

I mean sure, you can make spoons but technically that just nets you the item not the value.

Profession, on the other hand, nets you the value straight off.

Professionals, as it were, are also likely to be more mobile and probably have to work fewer hours in the course of their day. Though they are bound for a week where a crafter measures labor in terms of days.

Though that last benefit is going to depend on a number of factors.

The big question for me is how will crafting small items frequently match up to crafting higher DC items that take more time?

What's the optimum product to make, per the PHB, and what would be the optimum pattern of manufacture for a small shop worker?

Will certain items be very likely to be produced versus others? And if so should that effect the market value and availability of the product per the PHB?

Yes, but just as we did not want to figure out how much of what crops are planted and figure out their relative values and demand, we do not want to have to figure out the demands for various crafts nor who has those crafts. We also don’t want to have to worry about what professions are in demand and if people can get jobs or who has such professions. We assume that anybody with a craft or profession can perform such in accordance with the RAW without actually worrying who has what skills. Nor do we want to worry about what items are being manufactured. We leave that to the GP Limit according to community size, as I don’t think we really want to deal with a medieval economic sim for a game. Crafts use the same rules for netting the value straight off and are also bound in a matter of week. The RAW states under Crafts:” You can practice your trade and make a decent living earning about half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work.” Since crafts are a class skill for commoners, then why don’t they all have a craft or just use it untrained for a better living than 1 SP a day?

I think there are two problems here. The first being the mechanics of crafts, which I discuss my proposed solution to earlier. (Hrrm. I’m already altering rules. I didn’t really want to start doing that till finished but I have no idea where this string of thought is going next really. One thing just leads to another. Anyway, I’ll try not to base anything later on my new rules or if I do, state that and provide both the RAW example followed by the example of how it plays out using new rules I put forth.) The second, I think, is the commoner class itself, which makes up the majority of our people in our kingdom. So let’s look at the commoner class.

Where to start? Ok, according to pg. 139 of the DMG, you roll 4d4 and add the Community Modifier for the community size and that gives you the highest level of commoner in that community. Well, it doesn’t take much to realize that for our large city, we have almost a 50/50 chance of an epic level commoner running around. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a fan of the common class and have suffered scorn because I’ve suggested that they should be getting levels at all and might not all be 1st level throughout the kingdom. Still, the 4d4 seems a little high. I thought perhaps they meant to roll a d4 four times, but checking the hamlet break down they provide for a “typical hamlet of two hundred people” I see that they have a 3rd level commoner (as the barkeep) and no others above 1st. Given that the community modifier for a hamlet is –2, there is no way they could get 3rd level by subtracting 2 from 4. They must have rolled a 5 on 4d4 to come up with their 3rd level commoner. Not very typical IMHO. By their system, on the average, each typical hamlet would have an 8th level commoner in it.

Anyway, the way it works out for our kingdom is as follows: 1 20th level, 1 19th level, 1 18th level, 1 13th level, 16 10th level, 44 9th level, 150 8th level, 331 7th level, 120 5th level, 962 4th level, 240 3rd level, 2404 2nd level, and over 170,000 1st level commoners. The 2nd level is so high because I’ve decided to round up 3’s just like they show 5’s being rounded up. Half of 5 is 3. Half of 3 is 2. This way there isn’t a gap for 2nd levels all the time and evens out the curve a little.

We might as well do the other NPC classes while we’re at it. With warriors we come up with 1 15th level, 1 14th level, 1 13th level, 4 8th level, 2 7th level, 12 5th level, 51 4th level, 174 3rd level, 778 2nd level, and 11,050 1st level warriors. It’s close to what we see for fighters with 2d4 versus 1d8. Experts come out with 1 17th level, 1 16th level, 1 15th level, 1 10th level, 2 9th level, 4 8th level, 12 7the level, 42 6th level, 160 5th level, 357 4th level, 404 3rd level, 1497 2nd level, 8734 1st level. Aristocrats are as frequent as wizards but with an additional 950 1st levels. Adepts are in there with clerics and bards except with an additional 950 1st level. Interesting that there are more adepts than there are clerics in the world.

Assuming that a 20th level commoner or expert maxes out their skill in craft or profession, how much are they making per week? Also give them Skill Focus for a total of +25. Take 10 and the result is 35 for a weekly earning of 17.5. That’s 910 a year for doing their trade. That’s about what one could expect from a CR 3 encounter. So why would these people even be out practicing their trade? They’d probably be out taking care of small challenges that would make them more money with little risk of death. If they’re doing that, wouldn’t they simply multi-class with a PC class? I mean, there’s only so many times that a farmer can defend his farm from orcs and other wandering monsters before he simply decides to learn how to use some armor and weapons and multi-class into fighter. For experts, seems they’d be picking up levels in cleric or wizard to make magic versions of their crafts. We could assume they do. That’s easy enough. Given the increase in levels the way we did for fighters, we can figure that the commoner is gaining levels quicker than the fighter. If that’s the case he’s probably doing pretty well for money. Sure, it’s possible for encounters to not have a treasure value, but if a commoner is constantly faced with encounters anyway, then it would only be a matter of time before he decides that it’d be better to go face some that do. Probably by only 2nd or 3rd level they’re looking at picking up other classes.

Of course, a vast majority of people never do this. They’re sitting at home doing nothing and staying at 1st level. Only about 2% of commoners ever do anything with their lives. However, it looks like those few have a meteoric rise surpassing even the most daring fighters or rogues in the country. The only people who come close to matching the achievement of the advancing commoners are the experts.

Meanwhile, all commoners can take a craft or profession and theoretically go into business for themselves barring social restraints. So where are all these untrained laborers that work for 1 SP per day? The Aristocrat can’t take a Craft or Profession but one assumes, that being an aristocrat, they don’t need a job to maintain solvency. The only NPC class that would have to take unskilled position paying one tenth of what they could be making would be the warrior. So it seems that all the unskilled laborers in the kingdom would be 0 level kids and warriors. Of course, being a warrior has it’s own skills that show up in Table 4-1, DMG p.105, which reflect this. This would probably cause a rise in demand for such laborers and result in a raise in wages for such. There could be other excuses such as a lack of land. Since most commoners are farmers, only a few people might own the land, resources, or ability to manufacture and thus hire out others to work it for them and only pay 1SP day. This would give a large amount of people out there with the skills to make money but aren’t allowed to for some reason. Seems like there would be a large amount of discontent among the population. Certainly not uncommon historically. Of course, if we take a farming professional and equate this to our sample peasant with 20 acres of land, we do come out with about 7 GP per week for a years work but see that this is not above and beyond taxes, tithes and such. So even a skilled peasant with land is not making much more than twice what our unskilled laborer is making. Still, twice as much is quite a lot and perhaps the difference between starvation or not. We could justify the current skill sets and incomes but take into account that most people are not making all they could and it is social and economic factors besides skill that decide how much a person makes. PCs probably can’t make their full half skill check in GP because of taxes and such, not to mention dues to guilds and other such costs. After all, if PCs could simply walk into a town and make 7 GP per week, why can’t the people that live there. Assuming the same set of skills is available to them if you assume they, or their children could take any skill they wanted.

 

[painandgreed]

There's another factor in here you're missing. Some trades (whether craft or profession) require advanced learning. Hence the term 'learned trades'. any bloody fool like me can take a hammer and chisel and try to make a rectangular block of stone to set against another stone and slap some mud and straw in the cracks. However, without the advanced training in math, to make precise measurements (or at least better than eyeball measurements), I'm going to have a lot of 'almost the same size, but not quite' blocks, and that leads to castles in ruin, easier to seige/break into, and other manner of problems in that castle.

<snip some stuff>

To take it even a step further, I've broken it into 'ranks' as we have in the real world. Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, Grand Master. Different name ranks for different skill ranks. Since we're talking commoners (or experts here), I've kept it simple: 0-4 Apprentice, 5-9 Journeyman, 10-19 Master, 20+ Grandmaster.

Remember, I’m assuming that NPCs operate by the same rules of experience and advancement as the PCs. Advanced training requires more ranks which require more levels. To get any substantial increase in ranks requires lots of levels due to “Class Skill Max Ranks” as per Table 3-2, PH p.22. If they’re getting these levels from someplace, what challenges are they overcoming to do so? If they’re simply doing their jobs and rising so high, then why aren’t other classes dropping their professions to take up what the commoners are doing? Treasure/income generated by such challenges should be equivalent to those performed by adventurers. As well as use of materials and dangers, otherwise they’d be different level of challenge. Yes, building stuff of various degrees of difficulty is required and thus will require more ranks or a higher bonus.

What could be happening is that one commoner (or expert) ends up with a better bonus than others. He gains in reputation and therefore gets more and tougher jobs which results in more experience and more pay. Thus there is a commoner with an 18 Int who learns his craft and picks up skill focus bonus. His total bonus (including ranks) is +11 so he can hit a DC 20 by taking 10. With helpers and masterwork tools he can make 25. If he has a synergy bonus for certain tasks, say by having ranks in math, then he could make it higher. His high Int basically gives him four levels on the other commoners, which cuts out the vast majority of people in his field. Because of being better than everybody around, he gets more work and gets more done. He therefore gets more XP and becomes higher level, feeding his ranks and giving him more work and XP. Other excuses for such advancement could be family connections, access to resources or plain luck. Perhaps there is a fashion trend that a craftsman happens to have a synergy bonus with due to other skills. He’s now better and can get more work and thus gets better allowing him to hold that edge once the trend dies down.

How can commoners make XP from practicing their trades without acting as a draw for PCs? We could give out XP by figuring their rate of production in GP and comparing Table 3-3, Treasure Values per Encounter, DMG p. 51. On the average, gaining money is going to have an equal challenge no matter how it’s done, otherwise everybody would go off to do it easy way. Making money the old fashioned way of practicing a trade has less risk but takes much more time and effort. Mugging a CR 1 encounter in an alley and taking their stuff takes a few seconds while raising a 300 GP crop takes most of the year but we can assume the CR for both can be treated as equal. This basically comes up with the old 1GP = 1XP conversion from old D&D. Of course, this isn’t for treasure after the battle, but this is the battle itself. Assuming that raising such a crop is a shared enterprise between four people, his family or other farmers, our average farmer is gaining 65 XP a year. Which means that he gets to go to 2nd level in 15 years. An average expert or craftsman who is constantly busy should be getting 364 XP a year for advancement up to 2nd level in 2.7 years or so. This doesn’t include masterwork tools or helpers but it also doesn’t take into account time off, so I figure everything equals out. Considering that the number of 2nd levels is almost half that of our 1st levels, we’re either suffering around a 20%/year death rate among most our experts or they’re not at full capacity for work year round. Anyway, I don’t think 364 XP per year will tempt our PCs to quit adventuring (but may be tempting enough for a DM to give out as a reward for down time).

Our prodigal craftsman with the 18 Int, saying he’s at full workload is going to be making 650 GP worth of stuff a year and therefore gaining 650 XP a year. He goes up to second level in about a year and half and in three is 3rd level, about the time that his less skilled neighbor would be reaching 2nd with full work load (which he’s not getting because there is a better craftsman in town). Still, our 19th level craftsman would still only be making 1014 GP a year using this system with helpers and masterwork tools. Which means that it will take him 19 years to reach 20th level. Not good for any race except for an elf.

If we take your idea of different ‘name ranks’ with some ideas I had for feats, we might have a solution. Basically a series of feats that require the Skill Focus feat as a requirement. We’ll call these Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, and Grand Master as you’ve stated earlier. Apprentice requires Skill Focus in a Craft or Profession and 3rd class level to take. Each higher level has a prerequisite of the one below it. Each feat gives an additional unnamed +5 bonus for that craft or profession. Then our 19th level expert gained the Grandmaster feat at 16th level and has a total income of almost 30 GP per week and is making 1534 XP per year, which is still going to take 12 years to go to 20th level. We still haven’t found a solution and may have created another problem. If we’re going to allow such feats to experts and commoners, can we allow such feats to PCs? Would it unbalance the game to let a PC have an additional +5 or +10 in a Craft or Profession? I don’t think the money is a problem, but what about using said skills. They may make stuff with them but even if a wizard took such in Alchemy, they’d be giving up the ability to make other magic items. A fighter who tool such feats in Profession (sailor) for a nautical campaign would be able to perform heroic acts on the high seas in commanding a ship but would suffer in the fighting ability. I really don’t think it would matter so long as you limited them to Crafts and Professions.

Then we have the situation that a 19th level expert probably can’t get experience from normal work as he’d need at least a CR 12 to get any experience. The 19th level expert or even commoner will be also doing near heroic things. The 19th level commoner with Profession(sailor) will probably have worked his way up through the ranks, be captain of a chip and sailing it through the hardest voyages. Perhaps ferrying adventurers to remote parts of the world. The stonemason would be creating the largest and most impressive castles. The craftsmen will be creating items of unparalleled beauty and value. If everybody is pushing their skill limits we can expect that the average DC of the work done by a 19th level commoner or expert would be close to 55 with the above feats, or 35 as per RAW. Could be that pursuing work at high a DC would be considered a high CR.

Let’s say that working a craft or profession for a week is a 1/10(DC-20) CR, allowing for fractional CR XP. This would allow those who work without stop to go up a level in a little over two years if they put a feat into Skill Focus and got more bonus either through assistants, masterwork tools, or an Int bonus. Your average commoner without a high Int or masterwork tools and assistants would rarely be able to work at that challenging of a level and rarely go up in level. A highly Int commoner with advantages such as masterwork tools could work up to 20th level in 50 years or so if he was constantly working at the best of his ability. But what about the PC who takes some downtime? An 18 Int 4th level wizard with max ranks skill focus in Alchemy decides to spend four weeks working while others are training. Working at a 24 DC that would be four CR 2/5 encounters putting him 480 XP for his troubles. A little unbalancing and enough reason for PCs to drop adventuring for regular work at least part of the time. We could make it so that it only counts as a CR if they are working for somebody else, but the PC might still be willing to do such. We could say that it only counts as a CR if they roll rather than take 10, effectively halving his successes and netting the wizard 240 XP for a month’s work. If we take away fractional CRs and say that such a work level must be maintained for 10 weeks to count as a CR. It still allows for commoners to take up such effort but puts PCs in a bind as they might not be able to spend two an half months doing such things at a time.

 

[Iron Sheep]

So how do we explain the treasure glut that occurs if the world follows the guidelines of the DMG? I mean, normally four friends get together and hunt down a dangerous baby dragon that's been trying to gather a hoard. Somehow this CR 1 dragon has 300 gp worth of stuff. The four friends are very rich if they win, but some of them might die.

So instead, three villages gather eight strong men and women, a mage who can shoot magic missile, and the three town clerics, and they go and fight the dragon. Suddenly each person has made 25 gold pieces, more than they would otherwise make in a year.

Where do the monsters get the treasure? Why aren't they already dead from having hundreds of people hunt them down and take their stuff?

One thing which doesn't seem to have been discussed regarding the economics of low-level adventuring is that it has comparatively high start-up costs. Setting aside the training that a typical 1st level adventurer has compared to a typical peasant and the time and effort required to attain that, a typical adventuring party (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard/Sorcerer) starts with an average total wealth of roughly 375 gp (working from the starting gold chart). So a group of adventurers who take on the CR 1 dragon are basically paying off their initial investment (and that doesn't include training). Its only with repeated encounters that the money starts to come in, but the risk gets higher too. You might get lucky the first time, but your luck is likely to run out.

D&D combat has the (somewhat unrealistic) flavour that you are far more likely to survive combat if you are in a larger group. At low level you are unlikely to die outright in any combat, but instead be left unconscious and bleeding to death. As long as your group wins and the cleric is still up, or someone has a healing potion, you will survive; and even if the cleric is down you still have a roughly 40% chance of stabilising naturally from -5 hp. But practically, a healer of some sort is required if you are going to do anything more than one fight and then run away.

So a group of peasants who go adventuring without the village priest or druid with them is very likely to suffer fatalities in a CR 1 encounter. And as other people have pointed out, the village priest or druid may be the difference between the crops prospering or failing in a given year. The village as a whole may be very reluctant to allow their best warriors and their healer go out on an adventure which might bring in what one of the group might earn in a year of farming, where the flip side is that if the healer dies the village may starve that winter.

Factor in that a group of peasants will not likely have the spare cash to buy good equipment---its one thing to take on a dragon or a couple of orcs when wearing scale mail and wielding a greatsword; its another matter if you are untrained in fighting, maybe have padded or leather armour available, and perhaps a rusty old sword, or more likely a quarterstaff or dagger---plus the uncertainty and possibility that you may be biting off more than you can chew---is that a CR 2 wyrmling white dragon, or a CR 4 wyrmling red dragon with 60hp and a 2d10 breath weapon? is it 2 orcs or 20 orcs?---and all of a sudden adventuring doesn't look like it may be so common.

The conclusions? Adventurers are probably not peasants and most peasants don't have the resources to make the risks of adventuring worth the return. Adventurers, no matter what their origins, have been lifted above the peasant class by apprenticeship, training, and access to equipment of some quality.

Corran

 

[Iron Sheep]

So my last post got me thinking about just what the risks of dragon hunting for peasants are like.

Just for fun, lets imagine a group of 8 warriors with the non-elite array of abilities Str 13, Dex 11, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 9 (the best peasant fighters that a village can muster) in leather and with shortswords (which they have weapon focus in) against a wyrmling white dragon. So the warriors are basically +0 Init, 5 hp, AC 12, +3 melee for 1d6+1 and with a Ref save of +0; the dragon has +4 Init, 22 hp, AC 14, bite +5 (1d6) and 2 claws +0 (1d3) and a breath which does 1d6 cold (DC 12), feats are Improved Init and Improved Natural Attack (bite). And let's assume that they have it cornered, since it will be significantly more deadly if it can strafe.

In the first round, a warrior has a 25% chance of beating the dragon's initiative, so 2 of them go before the dragon. They have to roll an 11 to hit the dragon, so that's a 50% chance to hit, so on average one of them hits, doing 4.5 points of damage and leaving it with 17.5 hp.

The dragon steps back and breathes, catching half the group in its breath. The warriors need to roll 12 to make the save, which is a 45% chance. So on average 2.675 damage each (=3.5*0.55+1.667*0.45), so let's assume 2 take 4 points, and 2 take 1 point. On average, none of them are out of the fight.

All the warriors get to attack before the next action the dragon gets, so they do an average of 18 points, which means that the dragon is dying at this point, but only just (-0.5 hp, on average).

If the dragon survived to make a melee attack, it would hit with its bite 70% of the time for 3.5 damage, and with its claws 45% of the time for 2 damage for 4.25 points of damage. Given that the dragon will most likely attack the wounded opponents, it should be enough to reduce one of them to negative hit points. Since it is tiny, it takes an attack of opportunity for doing this, taking another 2.25 points of damage, so it may get taken out before it gets to make the attack (and more likely it would try to flee in this situation).

So a group of 8 warriors are likely to survive a typical fight with a wyrmling white dragon. However, it doesn't take much to go the dragon's way for the fight to be a lot more deadly for the warriors. If the dragon rolls a 5 or a 6 for its breath weapon then the warriors who fail their save are effectively out of the fight (we'll assume that warriors with 0 hp try to save themselves rather than continue fighting). If the wyrmling can choose the battleground so that the warriors are grouped together, and it is aware of the warrior's approach so that it has surprise, that effectively means that there is a 1/3 chance that on average 4 of the warriors are out of the fight before their first action, and the rest have taken 2 or 3 points of damage.

That dramatically tilts the advantage to the dragon, as an average of 1 warrior will beat it's initiative and it will only suffer an average of 2.25 points of damage from the remaining warrior's attacks before its next attack. The dragon has a 1 in 4 chance of being able to breathe again this round, and if it does, with the warriors still largely clustered together, the fight is likely to be over: the breath will take out those warriors that fail their save 75% of the time, and take out everyone 1/3 of the time. Even if only those who fail their saves die, the dragon will probably mop up the 2 survivors (who will only have 1 or 2 hp left) without too much difficulty. So if the dragon knows you are coming and you are fighting on its home turf, then you have about a 6% chance of the dragon breathing twice and taking out most of the warriors before most of the warriors get to act.

Assuming the dragon doesn't get to breathe again, the bite will take out a remaining warrior 52.5% (=0.7*(0.5*5/6 + 0.5*4/6)) of the time, while the claw attacks have a 22.5% chance each of removing a remaining warrior. Since it is tiny, it takes an attack of opportunity for doing this, taking another 2.25 points of damage. The dragon will almost certainly take out at least one warrior. So let's assume that there are 3 warriors left standing after the dragon's second attack, and for sake of argument all get to close and attack before the dragon's next attack. This will do on average about 7 points of damage (possibly a bit more if flanking it taken into account), so the dragon is most likely still only down about 12 points.

This will mean that the dragon will most likely survive to make a 3rd attack, which may even be another breath weapon attack (although it is unlikely to be able to get all of the remaining warriors with the breath, it can probably get 2 of them). This has a good chance of being deadly for 1 or 2 of the warriors, so we can probably assume that if the dragon gets to breathe a second time at this point there are only 1 or 2 warriors left standing, and again at this point the dragon will probably survive long enough to kill them even if it doesn't get to breathe again. If the dragon doesn't get to breathe this round, then it will most likely take out another warrior with bite and claw and be down an average of 14 hp.

At this point, things are getting touch and go for the dragon to survive. There are 2 warriors left, so the dragon will take on average about 4.5 damage, so it will probably survive to attack once more.

If it can breathe again, then it has a good chance of taking out 1 of the remaining warriors, and may be able to take out both. The most likely outcome is that there will be just one badly wounded warrior left at this point, and the dragon has a good chance of winning (although it's not certain). If the dragon can't breathe this round, then it will be able to next round, so its best strategy is probably to use its superior speed to get out of melee and line up so it can both of the remaining warriors with its breath weapon next round. Even if the warriors win from this position, there is a good chance that several of them will bleed to death rather than stabilize.

So if the dragon gets the drop on the warriors then it has (very roughly) maybe a 25%-30% chance of total victory. In the other 70-75% of cases, the warriors win with maybe a couple of people downed, maybe 1 dead if they are unlucky. Not good for the dragon, but also a significantly risky proposition for our peasant adventurers.

If the dragon has more of a tactical advantage (say a series of caverns connected by long passages or climbs, where it can continually drop back and ambush with its breath weapon and avoid melee combat and ranged weapon fire), then the risks go up significantly for the warriors. Of course, if the warriors can surround the dragon in the open and are trained and armed with bows, then the dragon is in deep trouble.

And the reward? Triple a CR 2 treasure, or 1800 gp on average. That's 225 gp each on average, or a bit less than a year's income for a peasant. And 150 xp each. The downside? the loss of future earnings from 8 of your best young people. Roughly speaking, if the life expectancy of a typical young villager is more than about 4 years, the village will be worse off if it sends out its youngsters on dragon hunting missions. Possibly worth the risk if you are desperate enough (war, famine, plague, extreme poverty) or if the dragon is causing your village direct damage (eating livestock and killing people).

So there is probably a fair bit of social pressure being exerted to stop your typical group of villagers going adventuring.

 

[Stormrunner]

Assuming that a 20th level commoner or expert maxes out their skill in craft or profession, how much are they making per week? Also give them Skill Focus for a total of +25. Take 10 and the result is 35 for a weekly earning of 17.5.

Skill Focus for one skill gives +3, so that would be a +26. Actually, remember that even a commoner gets the once-per-four-levels stat boost, so at 20th level our mega-commoner has at least a 15 in the appropriate stat (if you assume he started with all 10's), or an 18 if you assume the "non-elite array" of 13-12-11-10-9-8. So that's a +28 to +30, for a weekly earning of 19-20.

Plus as a 20th level NPC he can afford a stat-boosting item of at least +2, maybe +4 if he's willing to invest heavily (and why wouldn't he? he doesn't need magic weapons and armor, and the item directly boosts his primary source of income).

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Heh this sounds a lot like the idea of Elites in Aberrant, where countries just hire a few elites to fight for them. Cuts down on loss of life of your populace and ends up being cheaper. I would assume it would mean larger unemployment tho *grin* That is always one of the reasons they would have armies. Keep people employed to keep them from being poor and resorting to thievery.

The Elite model doesn't really work for most fantasy games, for several reasons.

First, it's boring, and you don't get any XP sitting around the castle waiting for something to happen. The money might be okay, for now, but unless you go out and do something, you're not going to get any better at what you do.

Second, there's no freedom. As an adventurer, you can pretty much go do what you want, within limits of what your companions want to do, and what local ordinances allow. Run out on the Duke, and you won't want to go back there anytime soon.

Third, you still need an army. Yes, a 12th-level fighter can, more than likely, hack his way through a line of 2nd- and 3rd-level warriors with no real issue. However, he can only be in one place at a time. So, while your hero is beating the living tar out of the enemy's left flank, the rest of his army is marching into your town and starting the plundering and looting process. At the very least, you need somebody who can man watches, stand on parapets, occupy castles, and the like. And, well, suddenly there goes your cost savings.

Fourth, you can't do anything with them anyway. How embarassing would it be if your party of 12th-level adventurers were off attacking an enemy outpost, and it turns out your enemy's party decides that Your Gate is Down and strolls into your throne room to discuss the matter of your sucession? Suddenly, you have to keep them around to make sure you're safe, and then how useful are they?

Fifth, what's to prevent them from deciding they want to take over? After all, your castle's comfortable, you have a nice revenue stream, and why shouldn't they tap into that?

In other words, you're not going to replace your army with a party of adventurers. They might make a nice adjunct at times, and it's certainly worth cultivating ties so they might just come to help out if you ask nicely, but you'll still need guardsmen.

Brad

 

[Mynex]

Remember, I’m assuming that NPCs operate by the same rules of experience and advancement as the PCs. Advanced training requires more ranks which require more levels. To get any substantial increase in ranks requires lots of levels due to “Class Skill Max Ranks” as per Table 3-2, PH p.22. If they’re getting these levels from someplace, what challenges are they overcoming to do so? If they’re simply doing their jobs and rising so high, then why aren’t other classes dropping their professions to take up what the commoners are doing? Treasure/income generated by such challenges should be equivalent to those performed by adventurers. As well as use of materials and dangers, otherwise they’d be different level of challenge. Yes, building stuff of various degrees of difficulty is required and thus will require more ranks or a higher bonus.

>snips lots of words<

Lots of good thoughts. Simple solution (above and beyond the feats bit, which I already have - but it's nice to get confirmation, thanks! ).

DC = CR for building things.

This allows you the ability to 'award' XP's for 'tougher fights' (And if you've ever built _anything_ it's a fight... "*mutters* Stupid piece of wood, why can't you be straight instead of 1/3 in shorter on that side" *grin*) and cut down XP's for 'simpler fights'.

Couple things to consider with this;
1. "help bonus to hit a DC" - normally this is a '1 person can add +2 to help you accomplish X" - Which still applies, but expand this to a 'group of helpers' with synergy bonus style help. i.e. - skill ranks 1-4 = +1 bonus, 5-9 = +2, etc... So I have a Grandmaster (figure 18 int/wis) +4 base bonus, he's level 16, so max skill is 20 + 4 = 24. Spiffy. So now I have 3 groups that are 'helping him with a project, Group 1 = Masters (14 ave skill rank = +3 bonus), Group 2 = Masters (16 ave skill rank = +4 bonus), and group 3 Grandmasters = 20 ave skill rank = +5 bonus).

Per the rules, you can only have "1 assist" in getting a bonus to DC, so expanding the rules to encompass what we're discussing, the "lead Grandmaster" chooses the group 3 (Grandmasters) for the +5 bonus... so he starts with a base 29 to his total DC - if he 'takes 10' (and we need to break into a discussion over this - taking 10 is BS for building something that requires groups of people to do. ) his starting base is 39... so he can range from a 40 to a 59 target DC.

2. "Groups" - as I've defined them, a 'group' of helpers is 5-20 (5d4 to randomnly determine if you like. ). Any less than 5 and it's not a group any more than 20 and you start getting into 'too many cooks' syndrome... There's also a guideline to how many 'helpers' a particular rank is allowed - for simplicities sake (HA! Like we're being simple here. ) I equate it as 1 bought rank = 1 helper.

This is nice and tidy, as it allows the low level craftsman to take on apprentices/helpers/whatever... If I'm a fletcher in the middle of nowehere, and I have bought 2 ranks in fletching, then I can take on 2 helpers... My stat bonus (if any) just means that I have an intuitive feel for the craft.

This also gives us a base to work from to calculate out how much per week I'm paying in expenses for these helpers. Remeber, a lot of times there was a fee that a parent had to pay a tradesman to take on an apprentice - this was done to offset the costs associated with getting someone set up in a craft and tools (Food/lodging was usually part of the deal for the master to have his slave labor, er, apprentice on hand at all times).

Painandgreed - this is an excellent conversation. You've already helped me refine some of my writings for my book. Drop me a private email and I'll happily give you a line in the credits (and pick your brain some more. ).

 

[painandgreed]

The conclusions? Adventurers are probably not peasants and most peasants don't have the resources to make the risks of adventuring worth the return. Adventurers, no matter what their origins, have been lifted above the peasant class by apprenticeship, training, and access to equipment of some quality.

I agree. While there might be a case for special PCs or NPCs who were but became what they are through shear determination or effort may be the case, most probably came into their classes due to benefit of their family.With the old UA, people used to make fun of the Social Standing tables saying that 1% of the population wasn't noblity and royalty, to which I'd reply, "but 1% of adventurers are."

Skill Focus for one skill gives +3, so that would be a +26.

Ya, I remembered that right before my last post. Forgot totally about stat increases. Still not used to 3.x rules. I also haven't gone into economic effects of magic items yet such as stat increasing items for craftsmen and professionals or magical artisan tools. it's in the back of my mind currently. Eventually it'll come out.

The Elite model doesn't really work for most fantasy games, for several reasons.

First, it's boring, and you don't get any XP sitting around the castle waiting for something to happen. The money might be okay, for now, but unless you go out and do something, you're not going to get any better at what you do.

Second, there's no freedom. <SNIP>

Third, you still need an army. <SNIP>

Fourth, you can't do anything with them anyway. <SNIP>

Fifth, what's to prevent them from deciding they want to take over?

Good points and I agree for the most part.

First, anybody paying a band of adventurers what they'll want will damn sure use them. I doubt if they'll be sitting around but more likely out doing stuff. IMC, the life of a noble in all but the most stable lands is a constant military campaign with constant raids, fueds, wandering monsters, and minor skrimishes. If nothing else there's the time honored habit of fighting for somebody else as an excuse to raid, fued, and fight. the adventurers get a letter from the king saying that they act as his agents in attacking the other country and in return the king gets half of the money. The payback is that the PCs have a place to go spend that money, run to if they get into trouble, or treated as a captured noble if caught rather than killed outright.

I think that 2, 4, and 5 are true for most adventurers but not nessisarily for NPCs. King, god, and country are strong motivators for most people of the age. In a world where the possibility of gods geting angry with you for overthrowing their chosen or oathbreaking is an demonstratable fact may still keep even adventurers in their place.

Third, yes, an army will still be needed. You can't send your epic level party of adventurers to every little town to make sure they pay their tribute. Still, I think the place of such elite units will be a common factor in strategy and tactics of such a world. Less soldiers or commoners with weapons might be needed and more highly trained troops. Add in wizards casting some decent leveled spells and it changes the battle field quite a bit. Five low level wizards with wands of fireballs could drastically change a battle field with large amounts of troops in tight formations. All in all, it's probalby a topic that deserves its own thread.

DC = CR for building things.

I think I would only allow such a thing for when a die was actually rolled instead of taking 10. If you're taking 10 in such a thing as a profession or craft, you're simply redoing what you already know. Economic pressure being what it is, most commoners won't take that chance with getting a bad harvest. Only the bold, well off, or talented would take such chances and be able to push the envelope of what they know.

I think I figured in helpers into some of my calculations. One thing I'd think about, is that even if more helpers might not give any more bonus, they could probably be used to cut down on the time it takes. You teach one a simple task, such as the fletcher having them split the feathers, varnishing arrow shafts, or sharpening the heads. It doesn't help the master really turn out any better products but it allows him to turn out more because it frees him of the tedious work. He comes back later and inspects what is done, prehaps rejecting what is not up to his standards. Meanwhile the actual helper is there with him actually acting as an aditional set of hands while he works.

Some other professions may require a minimum number of helpers even if they don't add a bonus. e.g. as per the Arms and Equipment guide, only the pilot needs have Profession (Sailor) but he still needs a larger crew to follow orders to actually control the ship. Certain larger forges and foundries might require additional people to pump the bellows. They aren't actually "helping" as they wouldn't add a bonus but trying to do the work without them would be difficult.

 

[Iron Sheep]

I agree. While there might be a case for special PCs or NPCs who were but became what they are through shear determination or effort may be the case, most probably came into their classes due to benefit of their family.With the old UA, people used to make fun of the Social Standing tables saying that 1% of the population wasn't noblity and royalty, to which I'd reply, "but 1% of adventurers are."

Although I agree with the main thrust of this, there probably is room for the "master finding the gifted peasant apprentice" trope. Having an elite array or better in a particular order occurs in less than 1 in 1000, so even allowing for some variation in the less important stats finding an apprentice worth training for a particular class may take some searching. Particularly for classes like paladins and monks which need multiple good stats to be effective.

In a kingdom of 200000 there are probably only a few hundred people who have ideal stats for a particular adventuring class and of these only a handful will be the right age for apprenticeship. Potential masters may have to search numerous villages to find an apprentice who has the right talent level to be an adventurer. Of course they may take on other apprentices (in fact they would have to for there to be thousands of characters in each adventuring class in the kingdom), but it seems fair to assume that just to sustain the numbers, peasant children will have to be selected to be apprenticed to adventuring classes with some regularity.

Of course, just exactly how many depends on how heredity and upbringing affects ability scores. Children of adventurers are probably more likely to be adventurers, for example. But still, every little village probably has a story about "how a wizard came to the village one day and apprenticed the smith's daughter" or something similar.

So the D&D population/economic rules seem to imply at least some amount of meritocratic rise to wealth. Peasants may not be able to dream about raising their lot, but they can probably dream that their son or daughter may one day be a powerful and rich adventurer. And it even happens on rare occasion.

Corran

 

[painandgreed]

Means of Production

The raw material cost for making a set of chainmail is 50 GP. It took miners, and smelters to make that raw iron. If we assume that everything was made at the same sight we have iron ore and wood made into charcoal. Assuming around equal worths of both and the typical 1/3 cost to product worth for D&D economics, you have 16.66 GP of material, 8.33 GP of ore plus 8.33 GP worth of wood. It took two peasants a little over a week’s time to mine enough ore and chop down enough wood to come up with the materials for the foundry worker to make that 50GP worth of iron.

I’d say working a foundry would actually be a craft since you’re making something rather than just gathering other material. Let’s say this is a typical item being a DC of 10. The foundry worker is 1st level and has four ranks and will take 10 like in most our examples. He takes the wood and ore and makes 14 GP worth of iron a week. That’s 140 pounds of the stuff. To make the full 50GP worth, 500 pounds, he’ll need three and a half weeks.

Now the iron ingots head down the street to the armorsmith. A suit of chainmail doesn’t quite need all 50 pounds of iron as some is made from cloth and leather. However, we’ll ignore that for now because I have no idea what the ratio to iron to other materials should be. Anyway, our armor smith hammers out the iron into wire and then rings and makes some gauntlets as well as the lining so it doesn’t chaff. Let’s say our armorsmith is an expert with skill focus in his trade for a total modifier of 7. His check is 17 after taking 10, which is good because he needs a 15. He manages to pound out the chainmail in about eight weeks.

So, according to the rules, we have one armor smith working continuously to sell a chainmail suit for 150GP. 100 GP is profit which goes to the armorsmith. He’s making about 2 GP per day off this chainmail suit. 50 GP went to the foundry worker, of which 33 GP is profit. He’s making about 5 SP per day if the armor smith is his only customer. He could be making about a gold and a half a day if he is constantly working.

The 16.66 GP for materials for the iron gets split up between the two peasants. They’re making 14 CP per day if the foundry worker is their only customer. They can push this to a GP if they have constant work which falls in line with the normal rules for a profession.

Of course, what is more likely is that one person owns the mining and lumber rights to an area and hires the others to do work. He pays the woodcutter and miner 1 SP per day for their work as needed and perhaps pays the foundry worker 2SP per day. So he’s out 6.66 GP in wages for the iron which he charges 50GP. Of course, also out of that comes equipment cost, taxes to the lord for mining and lumber rights, and any other incurred costs such as transportation.


Shipping and Handling

Just how much does it cost to ship things across the country? Our armorsmith makes his chain mail, a merchant buys it and he carries it across the land to sell in another place. How much does the merchant have to increase the price to break even?

Our first example will be by wagon. According to the Arms and Equipment guide, a wagon is 35 GP, requires two horses, moves 35’, and can carry 2 tons (4000#). Two heavy horses will cost a total of 400 GP and we’ll assume that all the gear needed for them to pull the wagon is incurred with the wagon. He’ll hire a driver, 1 SP/day and have to feed the horses, 1 SP/day. Both costs are year round. We’ll assume that our merchant is always carrying a full wagon of trade goods and that travel takes up half of the year (180 days). We’ll also assume that due to aging of the horses and wear and tear on the wagon, everything must be replaced every 5 years, incurring a 20% charge of the initial set up fee to pay off the wagon and horses.

1/5 of 435 is 87 GP. Add 36 GP for the year to pay the driver and another 36 GP per year to feed the horses. We come out with 159 GP, which we’ll call 180 GP to round things off and soak up things like tolls. Assuming quick sale once to the new location, then he needs to make 1 GP extra per day of travel. With a full wagon, that means a 1 CP charge per day for every 40# of trade goods above and beyond whatever the merchant needs to add to make a living off of as a merchant. So our chainmail increases in value a minimum of 1CP for every 28 miles it travels along good and safe road from the spot that it was made at. So, our chainmail moved 12 days away is going to increase in value 12 CP for a cost of 150.12 GP.

Keep in mind that this is the optimum price. If the merchant can’t maintain a full load on the wagon or has to hire guards for the journey, costs go up. If the point of sale is through rougher terrain, then it takes long and the price again goes up. Assuming an average of half a wagon load through harsher terrain, the price of shipping could quadruple.

Our next example is a ship. Again, according to the Arms and Equipment guide, a ship costs 10,000 GP, has a crew of 20, and can carry 150 tons. Assuming that 17 of the crew are untrained sailors for 1 SP /day, that three are professionals incurring a cost of 1GP per day, and that there is also a 20% charge to repair or pay off the cost of the equipment, we end up with a cost of about 10 GP/day to sail a ship. Given 180 days of travel and constant travel under a decent wind, it comes to 1CP/day for every 150# of merchandise. With constant travel with a good wind, they can make 48 miles per day. Again, this is best possible case, and would not take into account bad winds or cost of guards that might easily raise the price by several multiples.