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Message: <blockquote data-quote="anest1s" data-source="post: 5570891" data-attributes="member: 94230">Well, when you buy a +2 longsword you are sure it is a +2 longsword and not a +1 or a fake one, aren't you? This is because the shop that sells it has identified it...but how the shop identifies it? It goes to the mages guild and says to them hey, I want someone to identify my stuff. Now the mages guild isn't stupid. They want profit from that. This means they want every identify to be approved by them, casting out individual identifiers.So the mages guild say "We will identify this for you, and we will give you insurance that it is what it is. With this insurance, your customer will know this thing is not fake, because we, and not some random mage approved it."And the shop keepers...they have the option to either sell unidentified things, or pay the identify+some more for the insurance.Now, when you are a shop keeper, you still have to buy stuff. And guess what...most of the time you cant be sure the +2 longsword that adventure sells you is actually a +2 longsword, unless you identify it before. If one adventure makes you identify his magic item, and it isn't what he thinks it is...then you just lost a cartload of gp for identifying nothing. Then again, this is way better than buying randomly. And even if you can cast the spell yourself....guess what...it isn't mages guild approved.This means that an adventurer can't sell his loot at 100%. However he might be able to buy at 50%....with the risk of buying a cursed or a fake item. This makes sense, since the 50% isn't what a shopkeeper earns, but what is lost to make sure everything is ok.At the same time a shopkeeper can buy at 50%+identify or 100%. On both cases he will win some profit because he bought and sold it. In the first case he will win some more, for his trouble passing the item around and making the papers. If he tries to fake them and gets caught, then the mages guild will be after him. If he sells without papers, he will have to sell at 50%.At the end of the day, what he wins isn't 50% of the item, but his profession roll <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />However when you make your own items, even though you still have to pay something to the mages guild, you should win more. 60-75% looks ok...(if i recall correctly there was a feat like that in players guide to faerun, for selling things you make at 75%...?)Anyway, you want a stronghold, and everyone wants less math...just say that everything the shop wins goes back to expand the shop. This way it gets bigger and bigger. Then one day you trade it for that stronghold/and you will easily find willing crafters and spellcasters to follow you, if you have a name as a good employer.You can have shop-related quests (I hear thugs use to offer protection to shops, and what happens when employees start to disappear). Tell your DM to give half or less loot for quests like that, and instead add them to a pool along with the money the shop earns. This way you wont have to fight impossible encounters to match the extra gold, since the extra gold won't be free to be spend in gear. And when the pool has enough money, you just change it to a stronghold.Well to tell the truth, your best bet is to find a abadoned stronghold and claim it for your own, filling it with everything you want after that.</blockquote>

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