Some fun fantastical finance | Dragons Gate

tkul
Death Knight
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Posts: 406

Some fun fantastical finance Jan 12, 2015 8:50:41 GMT -7

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Post by tkul on Jan 12, 2015 8:50:41 GMT -7

So I was running some numbers just to get a scope how much money is a lot of money in a world like Dragon's Gate and figured it'd be fun to share. I'm going to break down how much money your standard Joe or mildly successful merchant could earn in the course of a year.

Standard Joe -
Assuming your average citizen is a commoner 1, working 5 days a week with one rank in his profession skill he would make -
15GP a day
75GP a week
300GP a month
1800GP a year (Assuming they take each 1 week festival every season off of work, 2100GP a year if not)

these numbers are calculated based on 10+1(profession skill)+1(wisdom modifier)+3(class skill) for 15 profession check.
The average family in this type of setting would probably be dual income for a grand total of 4200GP a year on average.

If the adults take skill focus on their chosen profession, which would denote they're probably a supervisor or something of the sort, the numbers increase to
18GP a day
90GP a week
360GP a month
2160GP a year (Assuming they take each 1 week festival every season off of work, 2520GP a year if not)
Again assuming a dual income this would be between 3960GP a year and 5040GP a year for the family's income.
These numbers are calculated based on 10+1(profession skill)+1(wisdom modifier)+3(class skill)+3(skill focus) for 18 profession check.

Looking at your average merchant as an expert 2 you'd want to assume that they have skill focus in their given profession and that their shop acts as a masterwork tool for profession granting a further +2 modifier. Because they have a store, and possibly employees I'll calculate a 7 day work week, subtracting 36GP a week for the extra body to man the shop on the weekends.
21GP a day
105GP a week
420GP a month
2520GP a yeah (Assuming they close for the festivals, 2940 if they remain open)
If this is also a dual income family, this puts the family's income anywhere between 3960GP and 5880GP a year
These numbers are calculated as 10+2(profession skill)+1(wisdom)+3(class skill)+3(skill focus)+2(tools) for 21 profession check.

This is all calculated without the benefit of the downtime rules buildings and teams. From these numbers your average commoner could easily afford a basic spell casting once or twice a year, or a serious spell casting by spending their savings. After a few years of savings all commoners could afford a basic magic item to help with their profession of choice which will snowball their potential earnings.

All in all its just some math to help me and hopefully some of you get a feel for where people fall within in the wealth hierarchy of the world.

So... how much experience do I get for the bard?

Akuma
Players

Posts: 14

Some fun fantastical finance Jan 13, 2015 15:24:16 GMT -7

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Post by Akuma on Jan 13, 2015 15:24:16 GMT -7

Oh fun.

So you can now drive that up or down depending upon some factors.

The average joe you've described is actually a skilled laborer, he has a profession that he has trained in. But actully when dealing with the economic times of a medevil age the majoirty of workers are not described as skilled. I happened to be reading about castle construction and it has some interesting numbers I think we can apply here.

So a building like a castle is a huge project, you need at least a thousand people to even start. So then our question becomes how many of those people have crafts, or skills. On the project I was reading about the numbers went like this: 400 masons, 200 quarrymen, 30 smiths, carpenters (Sadly no number was given). So in this project we have around 700 skilled laborious who I think we can safely put under your standard joe chart. However the project then lists: 2000 less skilled workmen. These numbers are for pure labor and doing the work that just requires effort rather then skill.

Only 26% of the projects work force is considered to be skilled. Therefore I would actully suggest your average joe is not so average, and is better described as a skilled laborer. Most likely living in the city itself since they can clearly afford it. Your actul average person is likely not to actually have any ranks in a skill, or even has a +1 wisdom. So there effective profession skill is 0.

So going by your table the unskilled commoner earns:

10gp a day
50gp A week
200gp a month
1200gp a year

Now all things considered that's pretty good if you can earn that much for what is essentially doing a job you can just about do. But one thing to remember is that the 'wage' gap between the poor and the rich, more so in the medieval times then any other time, is hugely disproportionate. So if we want to simulate that there is a mean thing we can do.

Force the wage down. The reason we can get away with this is because there's no end to the amount of low skilled workers out there, the vast majority of the city will be unskilled workers you can hire and fire at the tip of a hat. By checking against the base rules for food and lodging we can get an idea of what unskilled labor will actually pay.

On those costs it cites the average as being 10gp a month, but for our purposes we can scale that up to a day to match our own downtime rules. So the living costs of our average joy eat about 70% of their income (Food and lodging etc), and that grants them a pretty comfortable lifestyle. The poor lodging and food costs on the other hand is 3gp a month, so again lets scale that to a day.

Looking at that, effectively we can get away with cutting the wage of unskilled workers by half, and then if we take account of their running costs their earnings start to look like this:

2gp a day
10gp A week
40gp a month
240gp a year

Now were looking actually destitute. If your lucky and your partner works also then a poor family could earn about 480gp a year. They are not going to get any spell casting any time soon, not without pooling their entire wealth into it.

Now it can be argued that the running costs shouldn't be per day, but if money is flowing in these large numbers costs would inevitably go up as well. Rook is probably quite rich in comparsion to other places, so it might be fair to say that a poor wage in rook would maybe be actually quite rich in other regions- and you know what that means! I'm working myself to death to send this gold off to my family in another nation, so no saving money for me.

This is a very good reason why you might want to try your hand at adventuring. You could die, but the money is astronomical in comparison.

Last Edit: Jan 13, 2015 15:26:22 GMT -7 by Akuma

tkul
Death Knight
Banned

Posts: 406

Some fun fantastical finance Jan 13, 2015 17:58:46 GMT -7 darthsawyer likes this

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Post by tkul on Jan 13, 2015 17:58:46 GMT -7

I think it would be rarer for a person to not have a profession in a medieval setting since people generally learned the profession of their parents from the time they could get around on their own, and most tasks were manpower intensive. While it may only take 5-10 people to frame a house today, it would have taken a couple of dozen to do it with hand tools, raising a barn was generally the work of an entire village. Though I suppose it is fair to assume a person isn't necessarily able to work in the profession that they trained in, I didn't really model all possible aspects.

As to cost of living, people in pathfinder are generally assumed to have the basic necessities of life, thats why adventurers aren't charged daily for food intake or lodging unless they're doing something out of the ordinary. People in these settings wouldn't be staying at Inns, eating at taverns, and wenching in taprooms. They'd be bartering and low level baseline trading for foodstuffs with various random purchases that would require actual exchange of money. The cost of living options are for adventurers who are in strange places without a family home and without the assistance of the community to survive.

So... how much experience do I get for the bard?

Akuma
Players

Posts: 14

Some fun fantastical finance Jan 14, 2015 0:39:01 GMT -7

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Post by Akuma on Jan 14, 2015 0:39:01 GMT -7

While most people will take on the job and skills of their parents, this becomes more complex in a city where there are less jobs and too many people. Rook has two slums that are bursting with various people, due to the cities prosperity and the displacement people have had to deal with in the past the city has had a massive amount of immigration. It's quite likely that even if you had a skill, due to the sheer population either your pay is cut or your simply not wanted. All of this of course is to follow Dragons Gate aim of a low magic setting, while we've got a fair number of PC's crafting magic items all over the place, for your normal person that lifestyle is out of reach at all times.

On costs, there is actually a table for living costs, for homes etc rather then stays in an inn (It's under Adventuring Gear for whatever reason). In a rich city like Rook the majority of peoples money will be going into rent, and debt repayment. Both of which would be much higher then the average stated by the rules (Cause this isn't an economic simulator).