Farming in 3.5E?

[Leicontis]

I have an upcoming campaign that will be noticeably influenced by farming (the PCs will be part of a remote colony). Are there any resources for figuring out stuff like how long it takes the colonists to set up new fields, how long the crops take to come in, how many farmers are required on how much land to produce how much food, etc.? Does anybody have any experience with handling farming in a campaign? There's so much I have to figure out on this, any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Zaq]

I don't have the book open, but I think the closest you're going to get would be the business rules in the DMG2. They're byzantine, rarely useful (either a waste of time or overoptimized into insanity), and work really poorly for NPCs (not that they work well for PCs either), but they do exist.

Other than that, 3.5 doesn't handle things like this very well at all. Profession checks are a joke, but they're about all you have aside from the aforementioned DMG2. I would say wing it, bring in some druidic magic to make things a little smoother, or just narrate over it.

If you do find a way to make this interesting, fun, and simple, I'd like to hear it.

[Townopolis]

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval_farming1.htm

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval_farming.htm

This is the kind of thing that you really shouldn't try to find or use game rules for. That's silly. You don't need an official D&D supplement to explain medieval agriculture to you, just a book on medieval agriculture (or, as in the case of the first link, a non-system article on figuring out medieval demographics for your game--a happy medium).

[Tsotha-lanti]

If you're really interested in this sort of thing, there's also Fief, the ebook by Lisa J. Steele, which covers medieval life in many respects, and is specifically written with the gamer in mind. It's excellent.

[Olo Demonsbane]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105620) is a thread that I started about the uselessness of the DMG2 for farming.

This system only works for retired high level adventurers.

[Iku Rex]

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (http://www.xrpshop.citymax.com/catalog/item/3906392/6232094.htm) by Expeditious Retreat Press has a lot of what the OP is asking for.

[Starscream]

Yeah, looking up the circumstances of Real-World farming is probably your best bet if you want to make it work realistically.

If, however, you want to explore how farming works in a fantasy setting where a small amount of magic might be available even to NPCs, check out the Gleaner NPC class. It's in the Gaming section of this site, and basically is to a druid what an Adept is to a Cleric and a Magewright is to a Wizard.

You get some simple, low-level spells that do things like sow seeds and make it drizzle. Nothing overwhelming, but you can easily imagine that a fantasy farming community would give their right arms for access to such magic.

Edit:
All the spells work with actual druids as well, you you don't need actual levels in an NPC class to take advantage of the material.

[Leicontis]

The demographics page is a definite help, and one of the other pages gives me an idea of how long it should take from planting to harvest.

Things I have so far:
-Amount of land required to support the settlement
-Time from planting seed until harvest

Things I still need:
-How many people are needed to work the farm to actually produce enough food for the settlement
-How much seed is required for a given area
-How much storage space will have to be built to hold the harvest
-How long it will take to prepare virgin (but arable) land for planting
-How many tools are needed
-How many livestock are needed

If it helps, I'm looking at an overall size of 100-150 people, most of whom will be farmers and/or generic laborers. They are arriving at the colony site by a long boat trip (hence the need to figure out how much of various supplies they need). The PCs themselves won't be doing the farming, so I don't need day-to-day details, but the success or failure of the colony's crops will be very important to them.

[TheThan]

This is even more reason for me to get off my back end and finish one of those projects I started a long time ago.
I call it Plainscape- perils of the boring planes (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0211.html)

[Townopolis]

Using the SV ratings from the demographics page, I made up a hypothetical group of 6,000 people and calculated how many people of each profession there would be in the group. The total number of professionals came out to ~10% of the population (including nobles and clergy). This suggests that a good 90% of the population will be working in agriculture in some way. A seriously high number, but I'm not finding it all that unbelievable.

A druid or gleaner who could help them out could reduce that percentage, but I can't say by how much.

[edit]: This doesn't factor in other forms of labour (mining, forestry, etc) or any military personnel. These could reduce the percentage further, but I wouldn't expect by more than 10%. However, I'm no expert, so that number could be way off.

If you want an easy number. Have a gleaner or three be part of the expedition and say that, with magical assistance and all, ~75% of the population is working in agriculture.

[TheStranger]

Things I still need:
-How many people are needed to work the farm to actually produce enough food for the settlementI think (if it's the one i'm thinking of) the link to the medieval demographics page has information on how many farmers it takes to support a given number of non-farmers (nobility, soldiers, etc.), along with specialist citizens in a town of a given size. Assume that everybody else is farming.

-How much seed is required for a given areaDepends what you're planting. Try www.johnnyseeds.com - they have seeding rates for their products (as would any other online seller of seeds). I can't think that's changed too much in the past 1000 years or so (maybe a little, but it should be in the ballpark).

-How much storage space will have to be built to hold the harvestGood question - a little bit of online research should be able to provide modern yield/acre for various crops. If you cut that in half, you'll probably be somewhere in the ballpark of what you'd get with medieval farming techniques. After that, it's just a matter of unit conversion. Alternately, figure out what you'll need to feed all your colonists for a year.

-How long it will take to prepare virgin (but arable) land for plantingThat really depends on what the virgin land is like. A dense forest will be pretty labor-intensive - a lot of time will go into cutting down trees and pulling stumps, and you'll need plenty of draft animals (you'd probably need them to plow anyway). If the soil is rocky, plan some extra time for removing rocks (and making picturesque stone walls). Preparing a prairie is a little easier, but you might need to irrigate if there isn't enough rainfall for trees to grow. If you're cutting down trees, be sure to figure out what you're doing with the timber. Obviously, you'll want building materials and firewood, but you might have some left as a trade good. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any great resources on how long it takes to clear forestland with horses and oxen, but I'd guess you wouldn't get much in the way of crops until your second year, because you'd spend most of your first summer cutting trees. You might get a few small patches cleared early enough to get a harvest, but everybody's going to be looking at starvation rations the first winter.

-How many tools are neededAre you viewing this as a communal effort? If not, each family should have everything they need to work their land. Even if it's a communal effort, the number of tools needed might be the same - you have the same number of workers.

-How many livestock are neededYou'll want both working animals (horses and/or oxen) and food animals. You'll probably also want some cows for milk. Since you don't have much in the way of pasture yet, you'll need a lot of feed - horses eat way more than people do. For that reason, I'd figure on a minimal amount of livestock at first - just one or two teams of horses or oxen in the colony, working where they're needed. In terms of food animals, it's much more efficient to live off eggs/milk than to raise animals for meat. If the colony has any ongoing contact with the country of origin, I'd suggest starting off with minimal livestock (just a few chickens or something), but having future ships bring more once the land is cleared to support them.

I'll footnote everything I've said with the disclaimer that I have no idea what I'm talking about, and if anybody else disagrees with me, they're probably right. If I were running a game in a colony, I'd handwave everything and worry more about the feel of the setting than hard numbers.

[LibraryOgre]

I think your best bet is to look at history... how have previous cultures done in developing an agricultural base during colonization? You might also try S.M. Stirling's books "Dies the Fire" and "Island in the Sea of Time", which deal with setting up after major, world-changing events (in one case, most technology higher than simple machines ceases functioning; in the second, a modern society is thrown back in time).

Then, once you have the non-magic background, see how the various spells would improve the situation.

[Riffington]

Just remember, the more people you have farming, the bigger an impact any change in fertility has.

Suppose you have 90% of your population working in farming (and that 80% of a person's lifespan is spent doing productive labor). That means that every productive person produces enough food to feed on average 1.4 people. Now, let us suppose that we increase productivity by a mere 25% (sounds kinda lame for a druid, even for an NPC druid.) That means each productive person feeds on average 1.75 people. That means that only 70% of people need to do farming, so there are three times as many non-farmers. You can field thrice the army, have thrice the scholars, etc. This minor productivity improvement ends up making an enormous demographic difference. If the increase in doctors/priests gives a mere 5 year increase in lifespan, that could quadruple instead of tripling the number of all these nonfarmers.

[lsfreak]

Preparing a prairie is a little easier, but you might need to irrigate if there isn't enough rainfall for trees to grow.

As someone who's worked with prairies, I'd like to emphasis the "little" easier. Midwest prairies, at least, are solid roots the first 4 inches or so and a nightmare to try and plow through by hand. And a good number of plants still grow up from the roots after multiple sprays with herbicide followed by tilling 10 inches down. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Switchgrass_roots.jpg/800px-Switchgrass_roots.jpg
That's a a good example of what you'd be dealing with when you're tilling prairie soil - the green part of the grass in that picture is between 6 and 8 feet tall.

EDIT: And the grasses in prairies don't like you plowing them either. Porcupine grass seeds can punch through thin spots in shoes, and ripgut and cutgrass weren't given those nicknames for fun.

[Leicontis]

Okay, I've got some numbers for the amount of seed required for a given area of farmland, how long different crops will take to grow, and how much food they'll produce. Between grains, legumes, greens, and vegetables, it looks like on average (if all the crops are grown in equal portions) the fields will yield about 6400 pounds of food per acre at harvest, which works out to 17.5 pounds per day averaged over the year. Now I need to figure out how many people I can feed with that. Any ballpark ideas? The crops I'm looking at are oats, barley, wheat, peas (grown in with the oats), carrots, turnips, and spinach. Some of it would have to be diverted to feed livestock and/or beasts of burden, but how much depends upon where the PCs set up and how much forage their animals can find.

[TheThan]

Have you thought about livestock production, aside from meat livestock also provides leather for clothing and shoes, the fat is used for greasing machines and I think soap. There is also milk production, wool and other sorts of products that don’t require actually killing the animals.

[Ravens_cry]

I recommend goats, geese, and pigs. Geese for eggs and feathers and meat, goats for meat, wool, leather and milk, pigs for meat and leather and bristles. Between them, goats and pigs will eat just about anything, and with the goats keeping the grass from growing too long, the geese pretty much can live on that. Plus, they are relatively small animals and readily transportable.

[The Tygre]

Ha! Even I laughed at myself when I downloaded the D&D book of Businesses and Investments, but I sure showed me! I don't know how much real help this will be to you, but it's a good start for the business aspect of the farm.

Netbook of Businesses and Investments 1.0 Apr.01 - 48k http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/byzantium/55/investments.htm

Originally from Blue Troll's Netbooks.

[imperialspectre]

The DMG2 guidelines for running businesses and such are a great example of failing economics forever (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailEconomicsForever). For potentially-better results when it comes to planning a relatively-believable business in D&D, you might look here (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=28551#28551). YMMV.

[Leicontis]

Monetary factors are pretty much going to be non-existent for this campaign, as the colony will be on an island over 1000 miles from the nearest safe port.

[Killer Angel]

I have an upcoming campaign that will be noticeably influenced by farming (the PCs will be part of a remote colony).

No no no! Don't do it! stop the madness!
You live in a world where magic can resolve any problem (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109791)!


oh, wait... this would take away all the fun? :smalltongue:

[Riffington]

Monetary factors are pretty much going to be non-existent for this campaign, as the colony will be on an island over 1000 miles from the nearest safe port.

That just makes your economy smaller, more vulnerable, and less stable. If anything, it therefore makes monetary factors more important.

[Leicontis]

That just makes your economy smaller, more vulnerable, and less stable. If anything, it therefore makes monetary factors more important.
They won't be able to trade regularly with anyone outside the colony, and the colony itself is small enough that they can't afford to not share tools and supplies. What's left to trade for, and with whom?

[newbDM]

Thanks for making this thread OP. I wish more people enjoyed such things in their cup of D&D.


In the first campaign I ran there was a bit of farming going on. The PC/player ended up doing quite well, and inadvertently throwing a ranch into the kingdom's economy by making their dwarf clan/town self-sufficient, when I had built it around them mining the mineral riches of the kingdom and trading it for other goods (damn cheap goblin labor!).

Anyway, I figured out a somewhat simple way of determining the production of farmers and workers. First thing I did was randomly generate the population size and classes of the settlement using the DMG. I then used the prices for a day's meal from the PHB's equipment section (found HERE (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#foodDrinkAndLodging)) as the bases for how much it costs to feed a single person for a day, and for how well (Poor, Common, or Good meals). I then allowed the PC/player to assign as many commoners (or other classes if he wished) to attempt Profession: (Farming) checks for a week's worth of time. The total net gain was how much coin worth of crops the farmers had created, which the PC was free to ration as liked.

I planned on eventually on tying the moral and fertility of the dwarf clan to what level of meal quality the PC kept them on, but sadly the campaign collapsed.

[Ravens_cry]

They won't be able to trade regularly with anyone outside the colony, and the colony itself is small enough that they can't afford to not share tools and supplies. What's left to trade for, and with whom?
The people who funded the colony of course. Who owned the ships that took you over and provided the capital for the investment? This could be a government or it could a trading firm. They are going to want some return on their investment. Exotics furs would likely be a good trade good, as could raw materials like lumber. If your only a small colony, your definitely going to be needing things from the homeland. If you don't have a blacksmith, your going to need replacment tools, and even if you do, you already have some kind of mining operation, your going to need ingots to make up for lost and new items, like nails and knives. A basic barrel is the work of skilled craftsmen.

[Riffington]

They won't be able to trade regularly with anyone outside the colony, and the colony itself is small enough that they can't afford to not share tools and supplies. What's left to trade for, and with whom?

If the colony contains more than one person, the multiple colonists will trade and form an economy. Who cleans the well? Who gets which ear of corn? Who gets to live closest to the ocean? How hard should I work in plowing? How much spinach should be grown? These decisions must be made, and so there will be market forces, and trade, and (inevitably) some form or other of money. That form may be metal, political favors, sexual favors, whatever - but it will exist. Because it is so small, it will have certain efficiencies and certain inefficiencies. But there will be some form of money and economy - even if you are socialist; even if you only have two people. The only exception is if you are an ant hive.

[Yahzi]

This suggests that a good 90% of the population will be working in agriculture in some way. A seriously high number, but I'm not finding it all that unbelievable.
Completely believable - Vikings were 95% agricultural.

Medieval societies require at least 75% of their people to be growing food. Plant Growth reduces that to 50% at best.

I go on about this in somewhat more detail in my campaign guide for my world. Because I run that kind of game. :smallbiggrin:

[Thoughtbot360]

The demographics page is a definite help, and one of the other pages gives me an idea of how long it should take from planting to harvest.

Things I have so far:
-Amount of land required to support the settlement
-Time from planting seed until harvest

Things I still need:
-How many people are needed to work the farm to actually produce enough food for the settlement
-How much seed is required for a given area
-How much storage space will have to be built to hold the harvest
-How long it will take to prepare virgin (but arable) land for planting
-How many tools are needed
-How many livestock are needed

If it helps, I'm looking at an overall size of 100-150 people, most of whom will be farmers and/or generic laborers. They are arriving at the colony site by a long boat trip (hence the need to figure out how much of various supplies they need). The PCs themselves won't be doing the farming, so I don't need day-to-day details, but the success or failure of the colony's crops will be very important to them.


It depends on the food you're trying to plant. Now, people do plant various things, but every pre-industrial culture generally depends on one big foodstuff that produce a lot of excess food to support the nonfarmer population.

In other words, everything starts with grain (http://http://mu.ranter.net/design-theory/food-basis/everything-starts-with-grain). (yes, this article won't address specific numbers, but it will give you some ideas.)

[Ovaltine Patrol]

When it comes to something like this, the preferred method is to roll dice and make stuff up. If the characters have relevant skills, items, or did something to improve the general situation add coolness points to the roll. If they're using subpar equipment or did something to make the general situation worse, give the roll a fail penalty.

For a more serious answer, check out the victory point system in Heroes of Battle and/or Red Hand of Doom and apply agriculture type stuff instead of war stuff:

PCs have 5 or more ranks in Profession (Farmer) +1 VP
PCs equip villagers with masterwork tools +2 VP
PCs use magic to improve the weather +3 VP
PCs sow the field with salt -5 VP

VP >4: Good harvest, the village can sell the surplus for money.
VP =4: Adequate harvest, the village won't starve this winter and can plant anew next season.
VP <4: Crap harvest, good job breaking it heroes.

That's a simplistic version, but hopefully you get the idea.