Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 1541511" data-attributes="member: 5724">From a designing perspective, I have several issues with the hireling section and charts. Basically, I think they're a hold-over from earlier editions that weren't updated for 3.0. Every NPC has skill points now, and if someone is actually a cook or a sailor for their livelyhood, I think an NPC will have those skills. Perhaps not at 1st level (the newbie, learning the ropes maybe), but by 2nd surely. Notice firstly, that they say that hirelings don't gain levels. IMHO, that's utterly bunk. That's completely counter to one of the basic concepts of 3E where any intelligent creature can gains levels. Also listed in the hireling tables are smiths, architect/engineers, and barristers (lawyers) who only earn 3sp, 5sp, and 1gp per day respectively. This as well puts me a bit off of using these numbers as they don't mesh with their respective skill requirements. To be an smith, architect/engineer, or barrister, one must put skill points into learning those trades. They aren't like being a maid or porter. They're not just something you pick up with a decent fluency in a short period of time.Also the hireling chart doesn't take into account any material/tools/weapons expenses for their profession. Ie. the smith doesn't actually own anything, it's all supplied by the hireling's master so these costs represent only the labor involved in the professions functioning.However, It does suggest that just hiring this individual for a day or two would double to triple their listed pay rates (probably to make up for that supplying all the materials aspect above). This would appear to be at least what a regular person would pay them for a service. For example, If I needed the smith to do a days work for me (say fixing a wagon part) I'm going to have to pay double or triple that amount at least (increasing his daily take to around 6-9sp). For the Craft(X) group that isn't far off of the craft check's 1/2 gp per check result per week result of around 5-6gp a week.I think the main problem is the designers using the modern distiction about what qualifies as a Profession or Craft, not so much what is expected wages. If we assume everyone (except the unskilled for a particular task) functions as a craft we still have the average sailor or cook earning as much money as a 1000gp house would cost in roughly 4 a years period, double of what the straight profession check suggested.If we follow your idea of reducing the cost of the house by 10, any creature with Craft (X) who practices their trade can buy a house every 20 weeks. (EDIT notice: I was off in my 2 weeks estimation in my earlier post, it should have been 10 weeks. My apologies.)I don't think, S'mon, that anyone denies the sillyness of the D&D pricing system. There are 3 basic reasons for this I think (there may be more, I'm tired and it's early):1. Gaming history: it's how things were done in the past.2. Grandfather systems: these old things weren't meshed with the new concepts3. Money only related to PCs. There is no need for any coherant valuation outside of the realm of PC interaction.I find it easier to, as opposed to lowering the base prices, just accept the (outside the very basic unskilled laborers) people are earning several gp a week under the D&D economic system and divorce that fact from what we know about history. As I said earlier, if you want to make a new pricing system that's cool. It customises your campaign and give more of the feel you want. However, MMS:WE works using D&D's expectation of income based upon skills and its belief that money is only important in relation to PCs.But as you've shown, there's internal inconsistancies about those common earnings. And the craft skill, well, lets just say there's all sorts of things wrong with that in the end as well. There's been a lot of threads about that.The goal of the MMS:WE building system surely can't be expected to fix the D&D monetary inconsistancies, can it? It's only purpose to use the D&D system to make a more medieval environment through adding cool innovative things like pricing based on sq. ft., carriage costs, and how magic effects building. At all places, when the choice was give on the rules or give on the medievalesque feel, the feel had to give. It's a d20 book, and aspires to be considered as nothing more than that. We think we did a bang up job in doing that, but it's not a history book and shouldn't ever be intended as such.And from a design perspective, the less the end results of MMS:WE's building system vary from the "cannon" of D&D costs for (the few) structures as published by WoTC, the better. That means it has a high level of compatablity with what the majority of players consider as D&D. This is a very good thing for a d20 product.joe b.</blockquote>

Verification