Morithias
2012-09-25, 12:36 PM
Okay, as anyone who has paid attention to my rambling in the "bad characters" thread, I am a stickler for economics and trade simulators. There's a reason that survey in my signature gave me the trader result.
My latest experiment has been as follows. Find the lowest possible level to run a business using the insanely broken DMG2 rules.
I decided to use the shop. The farm or service yes are easier and cheaper to run, but they are lower risk and bring in almost no money. Making a +1 check result on a shop is the same as making a +10 check on a farm.
The shop is a medium capital, low resource, high risk business. I am going to be using the "Travelling Merchant" concept for the character, and will be using the caravan to justify her being based in the wilderness.
According to table 6-3 in the DMG 2, a wilderness run medium capital business takes a -10 on profit checks and costs 2000 gp to start up. Table 6- says that a low resource business can be run out of a simple house (1000 gp) or a horse and carriage (500 gp, but takes a -2 on profit checks). We will be using the horse, since the starting gold for a level 3 character is 2700 gp. This leaves us with 200 gp leftover.
So far we just started the business. We have a -10 from wilderness, -2 from the horse and cart, this is not looking good. (total -12)
I will be using the "Master" class from Dragonlance book "War of the lance". Since we are at level 3 we will put 6 ranks in shopkeeper, appraise, and sense motive. We also pick the profession speciality for a +2 compendance bonus. (-10)
We turn to table 6-5. We have 5 ranks in both secondary for +1 (-9) we will put in more than 40 hours of work a week (+2) (-7), at level 2 in master we will take negotiator as our bonus feat this means we can take Business Savvy at level 3.
Business Savvy is a weird feat it gives you. "+2 bonus on all profit checks. In addition you get a +1 luck bonus on all attack rolls, saving throws, and CHECKS when resolving any business related events."
I personally consider making your profit check "business related" so instead of the +2 bonus in table 6-5, we will add +3. (-4).
Our business is low resource (+1) but high risk (-4) = (-7).
"A specialist in on staff."
Specialists are kinda weird. The first costs 10 gp, the second 30 gp, and so on. If they specialize in the primary skill you get +2 to your profit check, secondary skills get +1. The logical thing to do is to blow 250 gp (10,30,50,70,90) a month on 5 specialists to give us +10 to our profit check. Since a high risk business makes money in increments of 50, this in effect adds +5 to our check. (-2)
In addition to our synergy ranks, we obviously have 6 ranks in the primary skill, using the "elite" system for stats, we have +2 to wisdom. (+6). Hey we're above 0. What's our target DC? 25. Ouch. But we can take ten (+16), so we only need +10 more.
Skill focus is an obvious choice for a feat (+3) (+19). We will also buy a masterwork tool +2 for 50 gp, leaving us with 150 gp. (+21). We can take the "specialized" trait for another +1 at the cost of -2 to all other profession skills. (+22) For the final 3 we turn to Legacy of Blood from ravenloft, namely the "Greater skill focus" feat on page 91. For our final +3. (+25).
Now we're only breaking even, but don't forget that when you make your monthly profit checks it is on top of your weekly profession checks. For our only "knack" from the master class, we'll take "Loyal clientèle" which makes our profession checks bring in money equal to our weekly check rather than half. With our current mods (take 10, 6 ranks, 1 business savvy, 6 skill focus, 2 tool) we're bringing in 25 gp a week, or 100 gp a month.
Now we look at upgrades. For 1/4 your original capital investment you can "upgrade" a business, giving a permanent 1d4 bonus to the business's profit checks. This will cost us 500 gp. So in 20 weeks, or 5 months we invest. Which will bring in anywhere from 50 to 200 extra gold pieces a month. In 3 months we use this money to upgrade again and so on.
Okay before anyone says anything. Yes this is probably the most impractical thing ever invented. But I felt like sharing it here, cause well...might as well right?
My latest experiment has been as follows. Find the lowest possible level to run a business using the insanely broken DMG2 rules.
I decided to use the shop. The farm or service yes are easier and cheaper to run, but they are lower risk and bring in almost no money. Making a +1 check result on a shop is the same as making a +10 check on a farm.
The shop is a medium capital, low resource, high risk business. I am going to be using the "Travelling Merchant" concept for the character, and will be using the caravan to justify her being based in the wilderness.
According to table 6-3 in the DMG 2, a wilderness run medium capital business takes a -10 on profit checks and costs 2000 gp to start up. Table 6- says that a low resource business can be run out of a simple house (1000 gp) or a horse and carriage (500 gp, but takes a -2 on profit checks). We will be using the horse, since the starting gold for a level 3 character is 2700 gp. This leaves us with 200 gp leftover.
So far we just started the business. We have a -10 from wilderness, -2 from the horse and cart, this is not looking good. (total -12)
I will be using the "Master" class from Dragonlance book "War of the lance". Since we are at level 3 we will put 6 ranks in shopkeeper, appraise, and sense motive. We also pick the profession speciality for a +2 compendance bonus. (-10)
We turn to table 6-5. We have 5 ranks in both secondary for +1 (-9) we will put in more than 40 hours of work a week (+2) (-7), at level 2 in master we will take negotiator as our bonus feat this means we can take Business Savvy at level 3.
Business Savvy is a weird feat it gives you. "+2 bonus on all profit checks. In addition you get a +1 luck bonus on all attack rolls, saving throws, and CHECKS when resolving any business related events."
I personally consider making your profit check "business related" so instead of the +2 bonus in table 6-5, we will add +3. (-4).
Our business is low resource (+1) but high risk (-4) = (-7).
"A specialist in on staff."
Specialists are kinda weird. The first costs 10 gp, the second 30 gp, and so on. If they specialize in the primary skill you get +2 to your profit check, secondary skills get +1. The logical thing to do is to blow 250 gp (10,30,50,70,90) a month on 5 specialists to give us +10 to our profit check. Since a high risk business makes money in increments of 50, this in effect adds +5 to our check. (-2)
In addition to our synergy ranks, we obviously have 6 ranks in the primary skill, using the "elite" system for stats, we have +2 to wisdom. (+6). Hey we're above 0. What's our target DC? 25. Ouch. But we can take ten (+16), so we only need +10 more.
Skill focus is an obvious choice for a feat (+3) (+19). We will also buy a masterwork tool +2 for 50 gp, leaving us with 150 gp. (+21). We can take the "specialized" trait for another +1 at the cost of -2 to all other profession skills. (+22) For the final 3 we turn to Legacy of Blood from ravenloft, namely the "Greater skill focus" feat on page 91. For our final +3. (+25).
Now we're only breaking even, but don't forget that when you make your monthly profit checks it is on top of your weekly profession checks. For our only "knack" from the master class, we'll take "Loyal clientèle" which makes our profession checks bring in money equal to our weekly check rather than half. With our current mods (take 10, 6 ranks, 1 business savvy, 6 skill focus, 2 tool) we're bringing in 25 gp a week, or 100 gp a month.
Now we look at upgrades. For 1/4 your original capital investment you can "upgrade" a business, giving a permanent 1d4 bonus to the business's profit checks. This will cost us 500 gp. So in 20 weeks, or 5 months we invest. Which will bring in anywhere from 50 to 200 extra gold pieces a month. In 3 months we use this money to upgrade again and so on.
Okay before anyone says anything. Yes this is probably the most impractical thing ever invented. But I felt like sharing it here, cause well...might as well right?