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View Full Version : Discrepancies with NPC's and Profession



Gan The Grey
2010-03-28, 12:53 AM
Alright, according to the DMG, the average NPC earns no more than 1 SP per day, and generally this money is spent repairing tools and such. It would be safe to assume that many of these NPC belong to the Commoner class.

My problem is this. The Commoner class has Profession as a class skill. If you assume the non-elite array (as the monster manual claims the non-elite array is good for NPC classes), the average farmer would probably put his highest ability score (a 13) into his money-making stat - wisdom - giving him a +1 to all Profession checks. They would most likely throw 4 points in Profession and take Skill Focus(Profession), giving them a total of 8 points in Profession(Farmer).

According to the Profession skill;


You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work.

Assuming an average roll of 10, our farmer should make 9 gold or so per week (10 + 8 ranks in Profession / 2). 9 gold = 90 silver = 12 silver and 85 copper or so per day /= 1 silver per day. What kind of crack were they smoking when they wrote this? Or am I just crazy?

What are your thoughts on this? Should we assume 1 silver per day for the working man, or does the more specific math trump text?

absolmorph
2010-03-28, 01:07 AM
You're assuming optimization of a character completely unaware of the game mechanics.
It'd probably be 4 ranks, maybe Skill Focus. That cuts it down to 7 gold/week, or 10 silver/day. Not the same as what the DMG says, but closer.
Either way, NPCs aren't expected to abide precisely by the rules while off-screen; the Profession skill is meant for PC use, and they're usually supposed to be exceptional.

Gan The Grey
2010-03-28, 01:15 AM
You're assuming optimization of a character completely unaware of the game mechanics.
It'd probably be 4 ranks, maybe Skill Focus. That cuts it down to 7 gold/week, or 10 silver/day. Not the same as what the DMG says, but closer.
Either way, NPCs aren't expected to abide precisely by the rules while off-screen; the Profession skill is meant for PC use, and they're usually supposed to be exceptional.

Except that we are specifically talking NPC classes here, classes that the DM is supposed to use to stat out those farmers that PCs run into. Plus, I see no reason why these NPCs wouldn't take Skill Focus in their money maker, as the fight to provide food for themselves and family are going to be their most important drive in their lives, something they spend the most time on, something they focus on.

Even if they don't take Skill Focus, and only put one point in their Profession skill, that's still an average of 11 per week, equally 5 gold, or 50 silver a week, or about 8 silver a day.

Fortuna
2010-03-28, 01:20 AM
But if they put no ranks in it (no idea why, but they do) then, and only then, are they explicitly called out as earning 1 sp/day in the skill description.

Ergo, dirt farmers can't optimize, or optimize for adventuring and not dirt farming.

tyckspoon
2010-03-28, 01:22 AM
The most functional way to approach economics in D&D is to ignore the hell out of anything the books say about it. The system was not developed with that kind of simulation in mind- the GP does not, practically speaking, serve as an actual unit of money in the game. It functions as a means of keeping score for PCs.

That said, if you really want to reconcile the two, treat it this way- 1 SP/day is the approximate income of a subsistence farmer or what would be a modern day laborer, who does odd jobs that require little to no training. They make just enough to get by and might, if they carefully save and live frugally, eventually be able to buy 1 GP worth of something. 1/2 Profession check is the wages of a skilled tradesman selling his skills/crafts/whatever in a population center.

Really, the problem is in the idea of Profession (Farmer) or Profession (Ditch Digger/Crate Mover/Hired Body) as something people do to make money instead of what they default to if they don't have access to better training. You might note the silliness when you realize that making a Profession (Farmer) check does not in fact require you to own or operate a farm in any fashion- the rules for Professions are abstracted to the point where you could have Profession (Money For Nothing) and rolling it would indeed generate money from nothing.

Ozymandias9
2010-03-28, 01:23 AM
The general should trump when dealing with demographic issues; population and economies of societies in general. If you are building a specific character, then if they have those stats, they should be able to make such an income.

The issue is that most commoners aren't optimized. They don't get a choice as to what attribute gets what value (a good way to think of this is that initial stat distribution amounts to choosing what person out of a society you'll be playing rather than simulating a choice made by the character).

Most of those commoners won't necessarily have access to the knowledge to gain a profession-- many will just be being paid for using aid another.

Gan The Grey
2010-03-28, 01:25 AM
But if they put no ranks in it (no idea why, but they do) then, and only then, are they explicitly called out as earning 1 sp/day in the skill description.

Ergo, dirt farmers can't optimize, or optimize for adventuring and not dirt farming.

Holy crap, I just noticed that. What the heck do they put their points in? This doesn't make any sense. Are they just expected to not know anything about what they are doing? This....this makes no sense. Someone help make my universe right again.


Most of those commoners won't necessarily have access to the knowledge to gain a profession-- many will just be being paid for using aid another.

This. This makes sense. Most commoners help the commoners that know what they are doing and have training. These commoners might go from job to job, doing as they are told rather than really learning what they are doing. This works for me.

Andraste
2010-03-28, 01:31 AM
I'm pretty sure that the 1 sp per day is only for untrained workers.

Yeah, here it is.

Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.

absolmorph
2010-03-28, 01:33 AM
The most functional way to approach economics in D&D is to ignore the hell out of anything the books say about it. The system was not developed with that kind of simulation in mind- the GP does not, practically speaking, serve as an actual unit of money in the game. It functions as a means of keeping score for PCs.

That said, if you really want to reconcile the two, treat it this way- 1 SP/day is the approximate income of a subsistence farmer or what would be a modern day laborer, who does odd jobs that require little to no training. They make just enough to get by and might, if they carefully save and live frugally, eventually be able to buy 1 GP worth of something. 1/2 Profession check is the wages of a skilled tradesman selling his skills/crafts/whatever in a population center.

Really, the problem is in the idea of Profession (Farmer) or Profession (Ditch Digger/Crate Mover/Hired Body) as something people do to make money instead of what they default to if they don't have access to better training. You might note the silliness when you realize that making a Profession (Farmer) check does not in fact require you to own or operate a farm in any fashion- the rules for Professions are abstracted to the point where you could have Profession (Money For Nothing) and rolling it would indeed generate money from nothing.

I want to make a character who uses that as their profession, now.
Lets see, at level 20, using the elite array, that's.... 23 (ranks)+ 3 (Skill Focus) + 7 (Wis modifier), or 33+check, or an average check of 43. Which makes me 21 gp/week. If I use the Exemplar (I think that's it), that bumps it up to 53 and 26, respectively.

oxybe
2010-03-28, 02:16 AM
a trained laborer makes 3sp a day. 7 days in a week so 2gp, 1sp on a full week's worth of work

joe commoner: professional dirt farmer has 1 rank in profession (dirt farmer) since it's a "trained only" skill, 10 wis and let's say... endurance and die hard as his 1st level and human bonus feat. on an average roll of say... 11 to make it a round number, our farmer gets a 12 on his prof check. half of that is 6.

so on an average roll he should be making almost 3x the stated number. 2gp is what he would earn if he rolls a 3.

i think this just further proves that you sometimes need to apply the MST3K mantra at times when talking about D&D.

Friend Computer
2010-03-28, 03:22 AM
The general should trump when dealing with demographic issues; population and economies of societies in general. If you are building a specific character, then if they have those stats, they should be able to make such an income.

The issue is that most commoners aren't optimized. They don't get a choice as to what attribute gets what value (a good way to think of this is that initial stat distribution amounts to choosing what person out of a society you'll be playing rather than simulating a choice made by the character).

Most of those commoners won't necessarily have access to the knowledge to gain a profession-- many will just be being paid for using aid another.
This.
Now only are they not optimized, but they will not have the non-standard array. They will only have 10's and 11's across the board.

A first level commoner (peasant farmer) will likely have something like:
Craft (something): 1
Craft (something else): 1
Handle Animal: 4
cc. Knowledge (local): 1 (this is a really good dump for excess commoner skills)

Of course for a smith, or potter, or weaver, or whatever else, this would be different, with other skills in priority.

What people ignore, however, is the fact that half the week will be spent working for their Lord, and the other half of the week they work for themselves and what they produce is subject to taxes.

All of a sudden it doesn't look like they make that much money at all, does it?

EDIT:
Besides, I don't use NPC classes anyway, I instead use a catch-all NPC class:

Mundane
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: The Mundane can choose any three skills as class skills
Skill Points at 1st Level: (1 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 1 + Int modifier.

BAB: As Wiz
Saves: All bad

Class Features
The following is a class feature of the Mundane NPC class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Mundane is proficient with two weapons. She is not proficient with any other weapons, nor is she proficient with any type of armor or shields.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-03-28, 04:56 AM
What people ignore, however, is the fact that half the week will be spent working for their Lord, and the other half of the week they work for themselves and what they produce is subject to taxes.

I'd just like to point out here one problem with D&D economics as written--everyone assumes that while spellcasters are out slaying monsters and rolling in thousands of gp worth of magical items, most commoners are living in medieval Europe.

Quite frankly, I'd expect most common people to be making several silver or gold a week, even if they're not optimized for it. D&D commoners are not medieval serfs, they are not illiterate dirt farmers, they are not near-slaves working at another's pleasure...unless you specifically set up a lower-magic world. Going by the DMG demographics, even the most piss-poor backwards middle-of-nowhere hamlet probably has a level 1 adept in it, and most average-size villages will have a few priests and arcanists of varying classes between levels 1-5.

Even assuming a given town only has a single 1st level adept with absolutely no access to other magic whatsoever (which is a fairly extreme underestimate by the DMG demographic guidelines), the adept can help the peasants in the following ways:

Create water can partially compensate for short dry spells, making crops more productive.
Mending can repair things like yokes, reins, chains, sacks, barrels, etc. to save money for buying other things.
Purify food and drink can help with diseased meat, contaminated wells, etc. until the problem can be resolved.
Comprehend languages can allow a town to deal with more traders for a better variety of goods.
Endure elements can let peasants go out in too-hot or too-cold weather to e.g. head to the barn and warm up the cattle if a blizzard strikes unexpectedly.

Not much, granted, but tiny little bits like those can add up. And that's just a general "walk around helping random people" adept making a minor but noticeable difference; adding 2nd+ level adept spells, or including 1st-level or higher wizards or clerics, can expand the options, such that if a pair of sorcerers or a circle of druids decides to magically spruce up a town, you can get lots of improvement in a short time.

Under these conditions, farms would flourish, population would grow, commoners' possessions would be of better quality, leisure time would increase slightly, and towns would otherwise show progress towards a more Renaissance-era standard.

Friend Computer
2010-03-28, 06:10 AM
I prefer E6, and I don't use the RAW tables for NPC generation, and the way I determine such has been posted elsewhere on this site long ago. However, that much is irrelevent, and it is easy to show how D&D as 'medieval fantasy' is actually viable via RAW. However, your point about a single adept in the town is wrong. I will show how wrong by assuming instead a level 2 adept and 2 level 1 adepts:
Spells/day:
lv 0: 9
lv 1: 3
At such a low level, create water would be useful only in the creation of holy water, at 24 gallons a day, more if first level slots are used. Not much water, even if they focus all of their orisons on creat water. In practice, they are likely to prepare other spells as well: CmW is a likely candidate in their capacity of tending to the wellbeing of the flock. Purify food and drink would also be important in any situation where create water is, and would further diminish how many spells/day are devoted to that.
Bless, cure, and the detect/protect range of spells would probably be useful.
On average, however, one would need a village to have a second level adept (1d6-1 for adepts in a village). Thorps, assuming a population of 50, would likely have no spellcasters. A hamlet of 200 people is necessary before we can assume 3 level 1 adepts, but by that point we can also expect a lv1 druid and cleric bringing the total to 30 gallons a day, assuming only lv0 slots are used.

As for the wizards, anyone likely to get an education is going to be a noble, and so we can assume that pretty much all of the wizards are going to be part of the nobility, sorcerers can be pretty much anyone or specific families depending on if you go with the random magic or dragon ancestry explanation. Clerics, if they are trained, will be from the nobility, or just anyone if it is faith alone that powers them.

Knowing that D&D approximates to 'medieval Europe with magic' it is easy to see where everything slots in. While you can easily change it, it is silly to say the least, that feudalism is impossible or even unlikely under RAW.

The Dark Fiddler
2010-03-28, 07:07 AM
...you could have Profession (Money For Nothing) and rolling it would indeed generate money from nothing.

Hmm... what would the masterwork tool be? I must know for my next build... :smalltongue:

Eldariel
2010-03-28, 07:09 AM
Hmm... what would the masterwork tool be? I must know for my next build... :smalltongue:

Comfy chair?

Kobold-Bard
2010-03-28, 07:44 AM
You could also take Craft (Coin Minting). Triple your initial input of materials every week. That along with Prof (MfN) gives you one wealthy peasant.

Arakune
2010-03-28, 07:51 AM
I like K's take on it: NOBODY actually takes profession. They take the relevant skills (knowledge for sages, craft/appraise for artisians, bluff/sense motive/appraise for merchants, etc) and get a title of a certain profession. Unskilled labor is paid by hour without checks (maybe ability checks).

Riffington
2010-03-28, 10:38 AM
Just because someone would make more money by working harder/going back to school/etc doesn't mean they do.
There are plenty of people in the world who work at their job the minimum to avoid getting fired, who spend their evenings carousing or watching tv rather than practicing job skills, who have zero interest in quitting, going to school, and coming back at a higher salary/title.


Why should this change in D&D? Taking max ranks in a skill represents hard work and diligence. Taking Skill Focus represents either a natural talent or extraordinary focus. Most people don't have these on Earth, and they shouldn't in D&D.

awa
2010-03-28, 10:38 AM
you forgot the adventure tax oh know kobolds have stolen my baby i need to hire adventures to go save him..... again.

Flickerdart
2010-03-28, 10:46 AM
The peasants don't take Profession because they know that Profession is an unoptimized way of making money, of course. Every single peasant takes Toughness in the hopes that they'll make it big as a speedbump for a PC.

Emmerask
2010-03-28, 11:07 AM
My problem is this. The Commoner class has Profession as a class skill. If you assume the non-elite array (as the monster manual claims the non-elite array is good for NPC classes), the average farmer would probably put his highest ability score (a 13) into his money-making stat - wisdom - giving him a +1 to all Profession checks.


Normally you donīt put points into your stats, you are born with them (with pcs being the exception) or you train them but farmers more then likely would train strength not wisdom (hard work etc)^^
while there maybe farmers with 13 in wis there will be the same amount who have str 13



They would most likely throw 4 points in Profession and take Skill Focus(Profession), giving them a total of 8 points in Profession(Farmer).


Npcs donīt optimize they will have a few points in jump or swim and maybe even the odd farmer who learned a bit riding or handle animal some may even have a bit of knowledge in nature again npcs donīt put skillpoints into professions it is the sum of their knowledge they have acquired during their lifetime and more then likely they wonīt be a one trick pony like most pcs are in their skill selection ^^
While this means that they will have a few points in their respective profession most will not max it :smallwink:

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-28, 11:13 AM
Alright, according to the DMG, the average NPC earns no more than 1 SP per day, and generally this money is spent repairing tools and such. It would be safe to assume that many of these NPC belong to the Commoner class.

The DMG says UNTRAINED Laborer untrained,
so that would be commoners with no ranks in profession.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-03-28, 02:08 PM
At such a low level, create water would be useful only in the creation of holy water, at 24 gallons a day, more if first level slots are used. Not much water, even if they focus all of their orisons on creat water.

When I say short dry spell, I'm talking 4-5 days without rain, not a drought--you don't need much water to just keep crops going.


In practice, they are likely to prepare other spells as well: CmW is a likely candidate in their capacity of tending to the wellbeing of the flock. Purify food and drink would also be important in any situation where create water is, and would further diminish how many spells/day are devoted to that.
Bless, cure, and the detect/protect range of spells would probably be useful.

Note I didn't say those spells would be the ones the adepts would always prepare; I was showing what kinds of benefits an adept could provide to the community.


Knowing that D&D approximates to 'medieval Europe with magic' it is easy to see where everything slots in. While you can easily change it, it is silly to say the least, that feudalism is impossible or even unlikely under RAW.

Except it doesn't, really. AD&D was most definitely medieval Europe + magic, with its priests more explicitly based on European Christian traditions, magic items being rare and hard to create, magic-users and priests being exceptionally rare with no NPC stand-ins, and a bunch of other factors. 3e, however, with its built-in assumptions of an existing trade in magic items, spellcasters in almost every town, more powerful spellcasters, and several other factors has as its assumed setting one that is incompatible with the stereotypical medieval image, or at least one where you have to change significant portions of the rules to make medieval Europe make sense again under the system.

Frosty
2010-03-28, 02:35 PM
So basically the DMG is saying that the workers in Taco Bell earn the equivalent of 1 sp a day?

Godskook
2010-03-28, 02:44 PM
Plus, I see no reason why these NPCs wouldn't take Skill Focus in their money maker

This is an assumption on your part, and a bad one. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a job that they're good at. The rest, they do the job that's there to do. This is quite common in today's world, and there's no reason to assume that it was explicitly not common in D&D economy.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-03-28, 03:02 PM
So basically the DMG is saying that the workers in Taco Bell earn the equivalent of 1 sp a day?

Taco Bell workers wouldn't be unskilled laborers; those would be more like day laborers and sweatshop workers.

Riffington
2010-03-28, 03:04 PM
Taco Bell workers wouldn't be unskilled laborers

What don't I know about Taco Bell?
(other than the fact that they have minimum wage laws)?

oxybe
2010-03-28, 03:06 PM
This is an assumption on your part, and a bad one. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a job that they're good at. The rest, they do the job that's there to do. This is quite common in today's world, and there's no reason to assume that it was explicitly not common in D&D economy.
a few things about the D&D economy:

the profession skill doesn't take the actual job market into consideration and is only used as a blanket "you can make money" skill. 4 npcs, a profession (baker), profession (begger), profession (brain surgeon) & profession (burger flipper) each at rank 4 will all make an average of 7gp in a week's work.

this is why i believe faceless npcs should not be made using pc rules and we're all overthinking this.

PairO'Dice Lost
2010-03-28, 03:58 PM
What don't I know about Taco Bell?
(other than the fact that they have minimum wage laws)?

It's the minimum wage laws part. With Taco Bell, you get a minimum of training and a minimum wage. A truly unskilled laborer would get zero training and pennies a day. A Taco Bell worker would probably be the equivalent of someone with 1 rank in Profession--minimally skilled, but still has enough training and money to get by.

MickJay
2010-03-28, 04:14 PM
You can also assume that whatever wage they workers are earning goes above their immediate living expenses (food, shelter, clothing, taxes) and can be saved/spent on non-essential goods. It's not RAW, but makes a lot more sense (and helps to alleviate, if only a little, the huge discrepancy between adventurer and non-adventurer economies).

Doug Lampert
2010-03-28, 05:04 PM
But if they put no ranks in it (no idea why, but they do) then, and only then, are they explicitly called out as earning 1 sp/day in the skill description.

Ergo, dirt farmers can't optimize, or optimize for adventuring and not dirt farming.

But Craft pays at the EXACT SAME RATE, and can be used untrained.

Editted to add detail below:
With a 3 in Int and untrained craft taking ten, you get 3x the "untrained" laborer rate. You can't seriously tell me that there are lots of laborers out there LESS optimized to make money than the absolute minimum intelligence to be able to speak and no useful skills at all....

Yet allegedly there are people working for 1/3rd of what the rules clearly state an unreliable wandering adventurer can make highering on at a local craft shop.

Calimehter
2010-03-28, 10:27 PM
One method I've considered for justifying the discrepancy is to factor in guilds and guild membership requirements.

Under such a system, the "hireling" rates of pay described in the DMG are folks who have essentially no ranks in the guild at all - whether they be apprentices who are waiting their turn to get into the coveted higher ranks (and who may have just as many ranks in a moneymaking skill as a more tenured guild member) or just a bunch of unoptimized slobs who are muddling their way through the world. The "Craft/Profession/Perform check" rates of pay described in the DMG are for journeymen or other non-master guild members, who have moved up in the ranks and work in another's shop or have minor facilities of their own. Master Tradesmen and guildmasters can get at a third even-higher tier of pay by using the business-ownership rules and guild feats from DMG II.

In this system, PCs "get away" with the journeyman-level check because they are powerful adventurers that the guild doesn't normally want to mess with, or have built up contacts with the guild businesses in town, or some other DM handwaving reason that the guilds really aren't going to make a fuss about some random PC "breaking the system" for a few weeks of downtime between adventures. Everybody else, esp. long-term residents of a locale hoping to work their way up to a stable pay grade, plays by the rules, even if their skills "by RAW" allow them to make more money than the guild structure (currently) permits.

Its a setting specific sort of solution and still requires some handwaving, but it has some rules support (DMG II talks more about guilds and businesses).