Stipend for nobles, knights, and their aids...

[Arravis]

In my campaign, some of the characters will soon have the opportunity to be on a regular payroll. Some as knights, some as aids and advisors, etc. I understand that normally this is handled on a "per job" basis, but I like the idea of a basic salary, plus the "per job" thing being a bonus for hazardous work (adventuring). Anyway, I'm just seeing if anyone has ever done this in their campaigns, what stipends they've given out, etc... thanks guys!

-Arravis

 

[Rhun]

In staying with a medieval parallel, nobles and knights wouldn't exactly receive a payroll from the realm. They would receive their money from taxing their peasants. However, greater lords may give them land or titles as stipends, or bequeath them with valuable gifts, horses, or even money. This is how I run things in my homebrew setting.

Now, if the PCs were just a simple soldier serving a lord, they would likely receive some small pay, and perhaps other stipends based upon their performance. Perhaps they serve for the promise of land and titles at a later date even. It really all depends on how you want to handle these sort of things in your individual setting.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, I suppose it all depends on how *technical* and immersive you want to be in your camaign. Some questions for you, thus:

(1) Do you want something that is quick, easy, and useful?

Answer: If yes, then simply assign a weekly stipend of gold. Say, 5 GP/Character Level, per week. Obviously, depending on how developed your economy is, this figure can and should be tinkered with and adjusted, from say, 5GP/Level, 10GP/Level, 15GP/Level, 20GP/Level, and so on. For somewhat more powerful and exotic lifestyles, providing lots of opportunities, I would suggest somewhere in the 500-800 GP/week range. This provides the character with plenty of gold for traveling, bribes, occasional gambling, hosting feasts, banquets and parties, as well as ransoms, investments, buying a hot new warhorse for 2500 gold, impressing newly hired troops or hirelings, special commissions, and so on. It provides for all the basics, so the character must still go on adventures if they really want the *BIG* money!

(2) Do you want closer immersion and realism reflecting a more medieval, *rural* nobility?

Answer: Such *Rural* nobles tended to highly value gold and silver, of course, because while they could get it, and had some--it took a while for them to actually be able to get their hands on it. Why? Because their peasants supplied them with their taxes in the form of copper pennies, rabbits, lumber, bales of wool, eggs, chicken, elks, wolf furs, wagons of fish, cattle, lambs, pigs, raw ore, tools, crafted weapons, and clothing.

All of that had to be processed, and used, and what wasn't needed by the noble lord and his retainers with his own castle or estate, took time to package up, and take to larger markets in cities where through the process of trade and dealing, such goods could be turned into actual silver and gold coins, which would then be taken by caravan or other travel back to the noble lord, typically weeks or months later.

Thus, it can be relatively imagined that a rural noble would get *shipments* of silver and gold perhaps three or four times a year. Aside from these alotments of such coins, most of the time, most of his wealth was in the form of raw goods, animals, or services owed to him.

So, it depends on how you want to do it in the campaign.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Sigurd]

I think its very manageable to follow the medieval model.

Give them a manor to call their own, even adjoining manors around the same free town. Make them hire a seneschal to handle all the bits and pieces.

They can tax their dependents, fight in tourneys, try and sell things in town. Everything is possible and you can abstract it through the seneschal if you want.

The downside is you have some detail that is not immediately about adventuring.

The Upside is they have a reason to take an interest in a corner of your game world. They have loyalties and biases.


Sigurd

 

[Treebore]

Your DMG doesn't have this info?

 

[haakon1]

I'd give them a manor, and have the income set by "tradition" and irrelevant. The income is sufficient to pay the expenses of the manor -- keeping up the manor buildings, paying for the administrators and troops, paying taxes to higher ups, doing lavish entertaining for visiting dignitaries and fine living for the PCs. But there's no cash left over after all that . . . keeps it simple!

 

[Umbran]

I'm a fan of the Upkeep variant rule (3e DMG pg 142, 3.5e DMG pg 130).

In this form, I'd say the stipend is enough to give them upkeep of a certain level, commensurate to the role they're filling. If they want to live beyond those means, they'd have to pay extra for it.

 

[Bumbles]

The key here is to do whatever you and your players will enjoy. There are some groups that would enjoy the management aspects. There are others who will say "Screw this, I want to get back to hacking through dungeons" .

I would suggest, therefore, getting some input from your players as to what they want to do. If they just want it as a springboard to adventure, go with that. If they want to pick crops to plant, set tax rates, and dispense justice, that's fine too.

Of course, the latter is more work for you, so you may or may not want to do that.

In terms of existing rules, Birthright is the example of it in D&D, but there are other options too. You could even find a boardgame like Settlers of Cataan to try.

 

[Bluenose]

A knight with a single moderately wealthy manor isn't making much income from it, once expenses are paid. It could even lose money slightly, though that's unlikely unless the area is poor. In general I'd work on the assumption that the fief pays for itself and allows the player to have somewhere to retire to when not adventuring and live at a reasonably high standard. There may be enough spare coin left in the coffers to pay for a dowry for his daughter(s) and knight's gear for his son(s), assuming he doesn't spend recklessly. And he can probably rely on being able to replace a warhorse or a suit of non-magical armour every other year if he needs to.

There is an excellent book A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe which went into a lot more detail if you want it. Though it doesn't give much help on some of the alternative systems, where income comes in other forms - Pronoia in the Byzantine Empire, for example. But a fairly simple "feudal" system gives decent results.