Silly economics of DnD

[Col_Pladoh]

Consequently, the pitch that is gathered from oil seeps in the hills is carried nearly 600 miles overland to the sea ports

Oh boy! My renegade ranger character rounds some woodcutters, starts cutting pines from the nearby forest, pitch pines, in fact. He fills barrels with it, and sells at 10% below current market value.

Now the mariners can use pine tar on their braids, not that smelly petroeum stuff, so thay gotta love it, right?

We'll also cut both pole lumber and boards, pitch-coating the former, setting the latter aside to dry.

Well bundle the larger bits of wood for kindling too.

How about that, a new prestige class, the Ranger-Lumberman!

Gary

 

[Andor]

Ale Standard, excellent, the dwarves will approve.

As an aside I seem to recall reading that there was a time in medieval Dublin when ale was so cheap there was no unit of currency small enough. So when you went into a pub and plunked down a hay-penny you would get a talley stick, which they would notch to show how many beers you had bought, untill you had drunk enough to get your moneys worth.

 

[BenBrown]

Oh boy! My renegade ranger character rounds some woodcutters, starts cutting pines from the nearby forest, pitch pines, in fact. He fills barrels with it, and sells at 10% below current market value.

Now the mariners can use pine tar on their braids, not that smelly petroeum stuff, so thay gotta love it, right?

We'll also cut both pole lumber and boards, pitch-coating the former, setting the latter aside to dry.

Well bundle the larger bits of wood for kindling too.

How about that, a new prestige class, the Ranger-Lumberman!

Gary

Does he take "trees" as a favored enemy?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Does he take "trees" as a favored enemy?

Sure! And likely half-orc union bosses. How about a special Feat, Seduce Pretty Elf for when he gets really rich. Ah, no, what am I thinking of, with enough gold from selling timber products, he'll have no trouble there. Just ptomise to plant a new forest of hardwoods, and...



Gary

 

[Al]

Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.

The problem with your analysis is that a cooper or any other craftsman is not a "laborer". The "laborer" that earns 1 sp/day is unskilled labor: digging ditches, carrying heavy things from point A to point B, that sort of thing.

Skilled craftsmen are considerably better off, as the Craft skill in the PHB indicates.

Edit: the SRD says " A skilled (but not exceptional) artisan can earn a gold piece a day" under equipment.

Under Craft it says "The character can practice a trade and make a decent living, earning about half the check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. The character knows how to use the tools of the trade, how to perform the craft's daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.)

That fits: a skilled (but not exceptional) artisan is going to have +4 to his check and get a 14 on his roll, meaning 7 gp per week or 1/day.

J

That's incredible. I thought it was the check result in silver pieces a week. Half the check result in gold! That makes the disparity even more absurd.

The typical human commoner has 10 int and is human. Therefore, assuming he is first level, he has 12 skill points.
Now, honestly, what is this human commoner going to spend his skill points on? Listen? Wilderness Lore? Spellcraft cross-class? Not likely. If he is a sensible peasant, he will take a Profession or Craft. Leave others to galumph around the countryside slaying orcs, this peasant's going to earn a decent living. So more than likely, he will spend AT LEAST 4 skill points on a Craft/Profession, and in all likelihood take AT LEAST one of his two feats on Skill Focus (what else is he going to take- improved initiative? *sarcasm*).

Thus, the average commoner should be earning 8 gp a week (+4 base, +2 skill focus=+6, takes 10 equals check result 16, half that for gp earned per week) and that equals 11.4 sp per day, 11.4x as much as the DMG estimates.

Even if he has squandered his skill points and feats, since Craft can be performed untrained, his untrained check result will be 10, earning 5 gold pieces per week, just over 7 a day and hence just over 7x as much as listed.

In order to approach the listed earnings, he would have to have an Int of *3* and received a Curse (a la Bestow Curse) to give him a -4 to skill checks. His check result, untrained, would be a 2, meaning 1gp a week, or 1.4 sp a day- still marginally more than listed in the DMG.

Edit: And before anyone says that the work for this many trained Craftsman is not availabe, this doesn't matter. If every peasant is capable of earning this much, then basic labour market theory will state that at least this amount must be offered to encourage them to take 'unskilled' menial labour that would earn them the listed price. Alternately, if there genuinely are too many skilled Craftsman, the glut of trained craftsman would force down the price of skilled labour, and the guidelines in the PHB would be contravened. Furthermore, the shortage of unskilled labour would force the price of that up, to greater than the price listed in the DMG. So which are you to believe on the subject of economics: the PHB or proven economic theory?

 

[Chimera]

Seduce Pretty Young Elf. Yup, great idea for the elven woman if she's ambitious. Just marry a few wealthy human husbands in succession. Hey, what's a hundred years or more building wealth? Anna Nicole Smith, eat your heart out.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Seduce Pretty Young Elf. Yup, great idea for the elven woman if she's ambitious. Just marry a few wealthy human husbands in succession. Hey, what's a hundred years or more building wealth? Anna Nicole Smith, eat your heart out.

Oh boy!

That thought is worth expanding. Seems to me that elves with a bent towards acquisition of wealth, and dwarves for certain, would likely control vast sums of money because of their longevity.

Hmmm, not there's fodder for an adventure scenario or two

Gary

 

[drnuncheon]

Re: Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.

That's incredible. I thought it was the check result in silver pieces a week. Half the check result in gold! That makes the disparity even more absurd.

The typical human commoner has 10 int and is human. Therefore, assuming he is first level, he has 12 skill points.
Now, honestly, what is this human commoner going to spend his skill points on? Listen? Wilderness Lore? Spellcraft cross-class? Not likely. If he is a sensible peasant, he will take a Profession or Craft.

Yep, that's why absolutely everyone in the real world is trained at something.

And of course every person goes through a character creation process before springing into the world fully formed and adult, needing no justification for any skill they may choose.

Use a little sense. Not all commoners are going to be min-maxed for a profession. They don't go to the Feat Shop and say "Gee, I think I'll take a Skill Focus in Underwater Basket Weaving" - they take what they are born with, whether that be toughness, good reflexes, the ability to run away really quickly (always handy) or, in some few cases, an aptitude for a particular skill.

Similarly, with skills they are going to be limited by their background. If his father wasn't a bookbinder, then Joe Commoner isn't likely to be a bookbinder either. Who's going to teach him? Besides that, where's his clientele? Who's going to go to Joe the Untrained Bookbinder to have their book bound when they can do it themelves just as well?

The rules for Profession and Craft are just abstractions. Like anything else, they require a bit of common sense to be used.

J

 

[Darklance]

Writing about this stuff prompted me to take a look at the net and I found this realy cool site, check it out people:
http://home.mira.net/~tosh/text/general/medievalprices.htm

Thats a nice list but the price list uses a very un D&D currency system. I believe it is in pence and that equals a Roman pound of silver. What is that in D&D Gold/Silver/Copper?

 

[Dark Helmet]

Go to this site: www.hoboes.com/pub/Role-Playing/Fantasy/Real History and click on the first two files called Alternative Coinage and Adventuring Economics. It has a couple of saved posts on the rec.games.frp.dnd newsgroup on medieval currency values compared to dnd values.

I hope you guys can download them. I'm not sure if they work, my webtv browser can't retrieve them (probably in a zip file; I need to get a REAL computer one day.

Hope you find it useful.