What is the most effective means of business?

[DementedFellow]

Since I couldn't find sources that address logistic concerns, I googled it. I say this because it will simply seem like I am pulling numbers out of thin air. I did look it up, but I am open to other sources or even if it is sourced in some obscure book.

Let's take Jimmy James the commoner. He's level 1 and a Human. He needs to make a living. The average starting wealth he gets is 12.5 gp, which is what we will start him with. Jimmy James wants to be a dairy farmer. Let's give him 4 ranks in Handle Animal and a skill focus. Let's also give him Profession (dairy farmer) and a skill focus there too. Now Jimmy James needs to buy things. Let's start with a cow. The srd lists a cow being worth 10 gold. It is a sizable investment, but a necessary one. Let's also snag a bucket, which goes for 5 silver. We are down to 2 gold now.

Cows on average can push out 54 lbs of milk a day. Weirdly enough milk isn't listed anywhere. But cheese is! Cheese is 2 silver for half a pound. It takes 10 pounds of cow milk to make 1 pound of cheese. Extrapolating this out gives us a rough estimation that a pound of milk is roughly equal to 4 copper pieces. This isn't too unheard of, as ale is 4 copper for a cup.

Let's say that Jimmy James sells his milk (50 lb) each day. This comes out to 2 gold daily or 14 gold a week. Comparing this number to what he would get from taking ten on a profession check, he gets 8 gold and 5 silver a week.

So I have some questions

1) Is there something that I'm missing? This model sells a low-price commodity daily with a great amount of yield. And it even pays for itself within a week's time. He could even afford a new cow!

2) Is the profession check supposed to be a quick and easy way of doing this calculation?

3) Would it be possible to do a profession check along with doing the math for the commodity pricing?

4) What are your thoughts on this?

[Fyermind]

The profession check simulates a net profit after startup costs of doing your job.

[Deophaun]

Cheese is 2 silver for half a pound. It takes 10 pounds of cow milk to make 1 pound of cheese. Extrapolating this out gives us a rough estimation that a pound of milk is roughly equal to 4 copper pieces. This isn't too unheard of, as ale is 4 copper for a cup.
Actually, at this point you're probably into Craft (Cheese), which would mean that it takes 1/3rd the value of the raw material to make the product. So, a pint of milk would be worth 1.33 copper, not 4.

[Tvtyrant]

1. He still needs a milk barn, feed for the cow, land, a house, food, and clean water.
2. He is going to lose at least 1/10 of that in taxes. Probably more like 50% (church, lord, king.)
3. He will eventually have a family, and they will end up absorbing even more resources out of point 1.

[unseenmage]

I think the DMG2 has rules for starting/maintaining businesses, with very little optimization they far outstrip the Profession/Craft/Perform skills. 2,000gp per month I think was the total one of my players rattled off.

My apologies for not having more concrete info on the matter, it was the player who did the mathing and then we never used that character.

Edit: Just checked and it's in DMG2 under 'Running a Business' on page 280.

[DementedFellow]

Actually, at this point you're probably into Craft (Cheese), which would mean that it takes 1/3rd the value of the raw material to make the product. So, a pint of milk would be worth 1.33 copper, not 4.

Smart figuring.

This hurts the weekly output - putting it roughly at 4 gold, 6 gold and 5 copper.

What I'm taking from all this is that profession is superior thanks to this new math.

[Chronos]

Wait, so someone is actually literally optimizing "Craft: Cheese"? I love it!

That said, though, if you want to go into detail on how a commoner makes a living on a farm, D&D is probably not the right game for you.

[Slipperychicken]

if you want to go into detail on how a commoner makes a living on a farm, D&D is probably not the right game for you.

Yeah, if you really need a fantasy RPG with an economic/political model that stays consistent and rational from pauper to prince, I'd suggest ACKS (Adventurer Conqueror King System). I heard that the creator (Autarch) uses 27 interlocking spreadsheets to model the game's economics and demographics.


But no fantasy RPG I've heard of will go into this level of detail about a common farmer's daily life. Maybe you should take a break and play one of those farm simulators like animal crossing or harvest moon

[Kudaku]

Pathfinder has a fairly extensive 'downtime' system which among other things provides a comprehensive system for buying/building and managing your own business. Those rules can be found for free here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/downtime#TOC-Run-a-Business).

[Razanir]

Alas, it wouldn't involve Craft (cheese), or Kraft cheese for that matter, but there's always the ladder trick. You build ladders for 1 cp. (5cp/3, rounded down) Then you break them into component 10-ft poles and sell each pole for 2 sp. You can make 39 cp per ladder.

Now let's assume Chris Commoner is level 3, has Skill Focus (Craft(woodwork)), and has above average Int (13). 6+3+1, he has a +10 bonus. Let's also assume he rolls a 10 and that the DC is also 10. 20*10 = 200. That's 40 times the cost in cp, so he can build 40 ladders per day. Throw in a liquid market, and he makes 1560 cp/day. Yes, he has 15gp, 6sp in disposable income EVERY DAY. He, the missus, and up to 29 kids can all have good meals at the inn every day for the rest of their lives.

[Slipperychicken]

You build ladders for 1 cp. (5cp/3, rounded down) Then you break them into component 10-ft poles and sell each pole for 2 sp.

When was the last time you saw a ladder made of poles? The side bits are always long rectangular blocks. You'd have to take the side bits to a poleturner (which costs cash money) before they would be poles.


EDIT:
But if you really want to annihilate the downtime economy, use a caster. Before you even get into super-cheese like Wall of Salt, that is. Use the Spellcasting and Services table (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell) to determine how much money a spellcaster can get by just making an honest living. You could probably assume there are costs of doing business like 10% in taxes, bribes, and fees, but it's still ridiculous.

A level 1 Wizard with 12 Int and CL1 can sell two 1st level spells (2x10=20), and 3 cantrips (3x5=15) a day. That gives him 35 gold every day.

With 11 Int (the bare minimum to cast 1st level spells. One 1st level + three cantrips), he can net 25 gold a day. That's right, he can make his average starting gold in 3 days of honest work.

[Razanir]

Oh, and if we're discussing economies, I propose the adoption of a more efficient notation of money. Instead of X gp Y sp Z cp, you can use XgYZ or YsZ. So that 15 gp 6 sp of disposable income from my ladder example would be 15g6, or the individual ladder income would be 3s9.

[faircoin]

With 11 Int (the bare minimum to cast 1st level spells. One 1st level + three cantrips), he can net 25 gold a day. That's right, he can make his average starting gold in 3 days of honest work.

I love the part where D&D makes sense. :smalltongue:

[Slipperychicken]

Oh, and if we're discussing economies, I propose the adoption of a more efficient notation of money. Instead of X gp Y sp Z cp, you can use XgYZ or YsZ. So that 15 gp 6 sp of disposable income from my ladder example would be 15g6, or the individual ladder income would be 3s9.

I always just note it in terms of gold pieces. It's as though gold pieces are dollars, silvers are dimes (1 silver = 0.10 gold), and coppers are pennies (1 copper = 0.01 gold). It's a familiar format, just with a different currency.

For example: 3 gold, 1 silver, and 4 copper is 3.14gp

5 copper could be 0.05gp

8 silver and 1 gold would be 1.80gp

[Flickerdart]

A level 1 Wizard with 12 Int and CL1 can sell two 1st level spells (2x10=20), and 3 cantrips (3x5=15) a day. That gives him 35 gold every day.

With 11 Int (the bare minimum to cast 1st level spells. One 1st level + three cantrips), he can net 25 gold a day. That's right, he can make his average starting gold in 3 days of honest work.
This assumes that the wizard's known spells are in demand by people who can afford them. An area with wealthier customers is also going to have more wizards competing for those customers, so it's absolutely not guaranteed that every wizard will be able to sell every single one of his spell slots every day. I can't see anyone at all paying a whole 5gp for any cantrip, either.

[Razanir]

I always just note it in terms of gold pieces. It's as though gold pieces are dollars, silvers are dimes (1 silver = 0.10 gold), and coppers are pennies (1 copper = 0.01 gold). It's a familiar format, just with a different currency.

For example: 3 gold, 1 silver, and 4 copper is 3.14gp

5 copper could be 0.05gp

8 silver and 1 gold would be 1.80gp

I guess that works too... (Oh who am I kidding? I also do that)

[Slipperychicken]

This assumes that the wizard's known spells are in demand by people who can afford them. An area with wealthier customers is also going to have more wizards competing for those customers, so it's absolutely not guaranteed that every wizard will be able to sell every single one of his spell slots every day. I can't see anyone at all paying a whole 5gp for any cantrip, either.

You could say the same thing for anyone with a Profession skill for a service job, or even Performance. No one questions the demand for bodyguards, barristers, hookers, or even items (i.e. that 400 ten-foot poles a day guy upthread) either; it's assumed people will buy as much as you make for the standard price.


EDIT: It would help, though, if someone had a way to roll for demand, which I guess would modify Profession checks and how many items you could sell at a time. Although that would be annoying for PCs trying to find buyers for all their dungeon-garbage.

[Flickerdart]

You could say the same thing for anyone with a Profession skill for a service job, or even Performance. No one questions the demand for bodyguards, barristers, hookers, or even items (i.e. that 400 ten-foot poles a day guy upthread) either; it's assumed people will buy as much as you make for the standard price.


EDIT: It would help, though, if someone had a way to roll for demand, which I guess would modify Profession checks and how many items you could sell at a time. Although that would be annoying for PCs trying to find buyers for all their dungeon-garbage.
The Profession calculations don't work the same way at all - you put the check in, and you get the money out. Selling your spells, however, is not a mechanic. Buying spells is. Nothing in the rules says that anyone at all will want to buy your spells, or any spells, and assuming that they will is obviously going to give you weird results.

[Slipperychicken]

Nothing in the rules says that anyone at all will want to buy your spells, or any spells, and assuming that they will is obviously going to give you weird results.

Nothing in the rules says that anyone will buy the 10,000gp jewel-laden mask ripped out of a sarcophagus either, but that doesn't stop most gaming groups from assuming it can be liquidated easier than a used gameboy cartridge.

[Segev]

Note that those sell for half value, typically.

[asnys]

I can't see anyone at all paying a whole 5gp for any cantrip, either.

Ice for a party in a desert climate, determining if this magic sword they've got really is magical (but they can't afford an Identify), making minor repairs. Not saying it'd be common, but I can see it happening occasionally.

[Segev]

5 gp for one hour of Prestidigitation to entertain a rich kid's birthday party?

[Deophaun]

Nothing in the rules says that anyone will buy the 10,000gp jewel-laden mask ripped out of a sarcophagus either.
Actually, the rules say that such a thing is a trade good, and so just as good as coinage.

[Phelix-Mu]

Just a note to the OP's initial setup. In many early domestication settings, dairy cows didn't always produce milk unless you had several of them. Pretty sure the cow needs to be regularly mated until quite recently in order to produce a steady supply of milk. Could be wrong, though.

In any case, cows can be an extremely non-optimal investment from real-world farming perspective. They require fairly high-energy foodstuffs to produce good yield, and their only sellable product is milk and meat. Sheep, llamas, goats, all tend to be more economically sustainable. Not sure if the rules reflect this.

Furthermore, no prospective farmer should start with just one animal.

Finally, I am a fan of trying to make both ends of the game (both the hi-op and low-op ends) be at least moderately consistent. If numbers need to be changed, so be it. The bigger issue, though, is that magic proliferation and hijinks should eventually cause the level of society to advance past the faux medieval level (barring the gods or some similarly high-powered force holding back society's progress). The level of synergy and infinite wealth via magic is pretty inconsistent with the overall economics of the game, even if such magical resources are fairly restricted.

[Petrocorus]

To continue with wizard business. Once at level 7, a normal generalist wizard with an Int of 14 has one 4th level per day. A spell which can be Summon Monster IV. There comes the Lantern Archon Continual Flame trick and the wizard can have 7 Everburning Torches with a single spell. If we assume he can sell them all, that's 770 gp of profit, without any real production costs.

[Kudaku]

Interestingly Lantern Archons can be summoned with SM III in Pathfinder, so you could actually pull this off at level 5 in PF.

Of course the holy grail of economy cheese is Fabricate + Blood Money.

[Skysaber]

Cows on average can push out 54 lbs of milk a day.

That sounds like modern milk yields, which are 4-5 times what a medieval cow would give (less optimized nutrition, no growth treatments, hormones, immunizations, etc. I forget all what goes into it nowadays. It's been a while since Cattle Science classes and having to castrate a bull).

Anyway, modern dairy breeds alone are at least twice as productive as their medieval counterparts even without all of the extra tricks - And that's when they are producing milk. We do that more or less year round now. Back then? three to six months out of the year, and the calf ate most of that. You'd get half of her production at most.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

Alas, it wouldn't involve Craft (cheese), or Kraft cheese for that matter, but there's always the ladder trick. You build ladders for 1 cp. (5cp/3, rounded down) Then you break them into component 10-ft poles and sell each pole for 2 sp. You can make 39 cp per ladder.

You do know the 10ft long staff has a cost of 0gp and getting two of them is cheaper than buying or making a ladder.

[Petrocorus]

Interestingly Lantern Archons can be summoned with SM III in Pathfinder, so you could actually pull this off at level 5 in PF.

Of course the holy grail of economy cheese is Fabricate + Blood Money.

Blood Money is from PF? I don't find it on DnD Tools.

There is another money cheese at high level, Dweomerkeeper / Heir of Siberys + True Creation.

[DMVerdandi]

I would gain just enough to be able to afford an eternal wand of create food and water, and boost my profession(Cook) stat. Use it to create ingredients, higher more commoners eventually with leadership, and open up Jimmy James Heroes sandwich shop. It's 100% free of animal harm, tastes good due to our preperational skillz, and is ready very quickly.

Acquire money, Acquire more wandz, hire staff, Have Telepath/thrallherd as regional manager, and his thralls will be supervisors. Profit.:smallcool:

[Deophaun]

To continue with wizard business. Once at level 7, a normal generalist wizard with an Int of 14 has one 4th level per day. A spell which can be Summon Monster IV. There comes the Lantern Archon Continual Flame trick and the wizard can have 7 Everburning Torches with a single spell. If we assume he can sell them all, that's 770 gp of profit, without any real production costs.
You are, of course, assuming that he casts Summon Monster IV just before he intends to sell the "everburning" torches; assuming that the people he is selling them to have no idea how summoned monsters and their effects work; assuming that he has a good escape plan for when the Archon disappears and the continual flame spell goes with it; and assuming that he can reach the next town to do this again before his reputation catches up with him.

Too many assumptions for my taste, and too much effort.

[Petrocorus]

You are, of course, assuming that he casts Summon Monster IV just before he intends to sell the "everburning" torches; assuming that the people he is selling them to have no idea how summoned monsters and their effects work; assuming that he has a good escape plan for when the Archon disappears and the continual flame spell goes with it; and assuming that he can reach the next town to do this again before his reputation catches up with him.

Too many assumptions for my taste, and too much effort.

Actually, i don't find the rule that says it disappear with the Archon.

[Lightlawbliss]

Actually, i don't find the rule that says it disappear with the Archon.

Same here. logic says the spell would remain (the caster only teleported).

[Slipperychicken]

Actually, i don't find the rule that says it disappear with the Archon.

Here you go. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#summoning) A summoned creature's spells vanish along with it.


Summoning
A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from, but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again.

When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have, and it refuses to cast any spells that would cost it XP, or to use any spell-like abilities that would cost XP if they were spells.

It's obviously a game balance thing; they probably didn't want people cheesing out with permanent/long-duration spells.

[Petrocorus]

Here you go. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#summoning) A summoned creature's spells vanish along with it.

Thanks



It's obviously a game balance thing; they probably didn't want people cheesing out with permanent/long-duration spells.

Well, i guess. But it's not like if there were other ways to do it. Some obvious PrC, notably.

[Kudaku]

Blood Money is from PF? I don't find it on DnD Tools.

There is another money cheese at high level, Dweomerkeeper / Heir of Siberys + True Creation.

Blood Money (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blood-money) is indeed from pathfinder. It allows you to trade strength damage for valuable material components - handy when you're using spells like Stoneskin. Kind of sort of broken if you're using spells like Fabricate (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/fabricate) :smalltongue:

It should be noted that (I believe) SKR has specifically stated this should not work, but to the best of my knowledge it's not been errataed and RAW it would work. Of course, the avalanche of books being catapulted at you from the GM should serve as some incentive not to do this :smalltongue:

[DementedFellow]

New question time:

Let's say we have a cleric who wants to benefit his community. What undead are able to be in the sunlight, are able to plow land and take initiative?

I know it might seem creepy, but all with a band of loyal undead, he won't have to worry with feeding them or even paying them.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

New question time:

Let's say we have a cleric who wants to benefit his community. What undead are able to be in the sunlight, are able to plow land and take initiative?

I know it might seem creepy, but all with a band of loyal undead, he won't have to worry with feeding them or even paying them.

Most Undead can survive in sunlight, like skeletons and Zombies.

[DementedFellow]

But those need to have very simple instructions.

I suspect that you would have them watering the crops to the point of flooding them.

We need some smart undead. My immediate thought was vampires, but they don't cotton to sunshine.

[Zanos]

New question time:

Let's say we have a cleric who wants to benefit his community. What undead are able to be in the sunlight, are able to plow land and take initiative?

I know it might seem creepy, but all with a band of loyal undead, he won't have to worry with feeding them or even paying them.
Yeah, but what's the upkeep cost of shooing off adventurers?

[DementedFellow]

Yeah, but what's the upkeep cost of shooing off adventurers?

The threat of causing a town/city to lose its food supply?
The fact that behind every enthralled undead, there is a more powerful necromancer?

[crazyhedgewizrd]

But those need to have very simple instructions.

I suspect that you would have them watering the crops to the point of flooding them.

We need some smart undead. My immediate thought was vampires, but they don't cotton to sunshine.

6th level cleric spell called awaken undead, that would give smarter undead. It's in the deathbound domain list, also it's a 7th level wizard spell.

[Menzath]

Selling your spells, however, is not a mechanic.

Spell: The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spell-
caster to cast a spell for you. This cost assumes that you can go to the
spellcaster and have the spell cast at his or her convenience
(generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to
prepare the spell in question). If you want to bring the spellcaster
somewhere to cast a spell, such as into a dungeon to cast knock on a
secret door that you can’t open, you need to negotiate with him or
her, and the default answer is no.
The cost given is for a spell with no cost for a material component
or focus component and no XP cost. If the spell includes a material
component, add the cost of that component to the cost of the spell.
If the spell has a focus component (other than a divine focus), add
1/10 the cost of that focus to the cost of the spell. If the spell has an
XP cost, add 5 gp per XP lost. For instance, to get a 9th-level cleric to
cast commune for you, you need to pay 450 gp for a 5th-level spell at
caster level 9th, plus 500 gp for the 100 XP loss that the caster suf-
fers, plus 25 gp for the holy water, for a total of 975 gp.
Furthermore, if a spell has dangerous consequences (such as
contact other plane), the spellcaster will certainly require proof that
you can and will pay for dealing with any such consequences (that
is, assuming that the spellcaster even agrees to cast such a spell,
which isn’t certain). In the case of spells that transport the caster and
characters over a distance (such as teleport), you will likely have to
pay for two castings of the spell, even if you aren’t returning with
the caster.
In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of suffi-
cient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small
town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a
spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-
level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for
5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells.
Even a metropolis isn’t guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to
cast 9th-level spells, so seeking out such a caster may become an
adventure itself. (The Dungeon Master’s Guide has more information
on settlement sizes and demographics.)
Because you must get an actual spellcaster to cast a spell for you
and can’t rely on a neutral broker, money is not always sufficient to
get a spell cast. If the spellcaster is opposed to you on religious,
moral, or political grounds, you may not be able to get the spell you
want for any price. The DM always sets the final price of any
spellcasting you want to purchase.

Well I think the "rules" for selling your services would be a reverse gather information check, seeing as how you are selling your self. And the smaller the town the more of a monopoly you have and can consequently control pricing(though still within reason maybe). And I don't know about most people but when have casters besides clerics been willing to use spell slots to NOT A: kill things B: Craft things C: Save their own skin D: help in personal/party research/locating.
mm I may be able to count that on one hand. and even then it was still a round about way to achieve one of the aforementioned.

[Slipperychicken]

[SPOILER]And I don't know about most people but when have casters besides clerics been willing to use spell slots to

[raises hand]

I would, given a downtime day (i.e. no dungeon crawls, no quests), the protection of my fellow PCs, and the fact I'm getting paid cash money for doing it.

[Flickerdart]

*snip*
Those are rules for buying spells and assume that the PCs referencing those rules already need a spell bought. There are no rules for selling your own spells that would govern things like their demand.

[Petrocorus]

New question time:

Let's say we have a cleric who wants to benefit his community. What undead are able to be in the sunlight, are able to plow land and take initiative?

I know it might seem creepy, but all with a band of loyal undead, he won't have to worry with feeding them or even paying them.

I don't know the exact rules, but you could look for the Deathless type in Eberron. They are like Undead, but not evil and generally autonomous.

[Venom3053000]

step one: be a commoner

step two: be chicken infested

step three: buy spell component pouch

step four: draw an item from a spell component pouch or drop an item

step five: PROFIT! :smallbiggrin:

[Skysaber]

New question time:

Let's say we have a cleric who wants to benefit his community. What undead are able to be in the sunlight, are able to plow land and take initiative?

I know it might seem creepy, but all with a band of loyal undead, he won't have to worry with feeding them or even paying them.

The potential economic benefits to having a stable of low-level undead handy for a medieval community is freaking insane! Just think of them as very basic humanoid robots and you'll get some ideas.

Jobs about town?

Postal service. Give skeletons instructions to go about certain routes checking mail boxes along it, collect any outgoing mail found, bring it back to office for sorting, while making any deliveries as needed. You can charge for this service via stamps if you want, but don't have to.

And it brings new meaning to the motto "neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night will stay us in our appointed rounds."

Any similar delivery jobs, like milkman, coal or ice delivery (necessary before cheap refrigeration) could also be done by skelies.

Street sweeper is also an ideal job for skeletons. I forget the exact figures on how long the section of street referenced, but a certain short segment of street in London (I want to say a it was just a couple of blocks, but could have been up to one or two miles) had 20 TONS of horse crap dropped on it PER DAY! All of that had to be removed, and skeletons are ideal for the job, just give them a shovel and a bucket and a place to empty the bucket (probably to carts that will take that stuff out to the fields - medieval lords actually taxed the animal droppings on their estates, ie, all of it went to their fields no matter whose the animal was. Fertilizer was important to farming communities).

And, ironically, those dung carts could be both drawn and directed by skeletal horses. The intelligence of the former beast doesn't matter to the skeleton it now is, they can all accept commands equally.

Garbage collector works almost the same as street sweeper or mailman. "Go along this route, checking any waste receptacles along the way, collect the contents and bring it back to this point" where it switches over to the next stage of handling.

Lamplighter could even be done this way, although everburning torches are probably installed already.

Ratcatcher, sewer workers, chimney sweep, just think of any basic job that people in general don't want to do but doesn't require much in the way of intelligence, and you could fill that with skeletons. There are some jobs a simple Crawling Claw would be freaking ideal at - like unstopping sewer drains.

Heck, half of bureaucracy is making sure the right papers get routed to the right desks, and mail-skeletons could handle that.

And while I personally think this crosses a line from "friendly" to "unfriendly" use of undead, you could have them serve as your bill collectors. "Go around and collect this many coins from these people, or bring them here to explain why."

Field and forest has no less use for undead.

You know what every farming village depends on? Crops. You know that half the forest also wants to eat those crops? Yes, you do. Keeping rabbits, deer and other animals out of the fields is full time 24/7 work. And despite everything they can do, peasants can never quite do enough of it. So Scarecrow is the first job of any farm-skeleton. "You see any animals in this field, either chase them out or kill them."

For that matter, wolves want to eat your pigs, sheep, goats and other food animals you want to live off of. So those could do with a 24/7 guard as well as the fields would - and your shepherd skeletons could be instructed to keep those livestock out of the fields so the other skeletons don't kill them.

Somewhat ironically, a skeleton raised with a scythe in its bony hands, while something of an iconic image, also has great practical value as a reaping machine - and I don't mean souls. I mean the backbreaking, time-critical work of getting those fields of grain cut after they are ripe but before rains start to spoil them and rot the food you want to eat all winter. During harvest every able body turned out to help, no one was exempt, from the lord in his manor to the village priest or the fishmonger's wife who was sick in bed. Everybody turned out for it, because once those rains hit everything left in the field was lost, and waste of food like that often meant starvation.

But! It just so happens your reaping skeletons never get tired, never take breaks, never sleep or eat meals or care all that much about whether it is noon or the middle of the night, just step-cut, step-cut like a machine, never growing tired or wearing out.

Harvest skeletons could also include ones to bear the backbreaking labor of gathering in all those sheaves the reaping skeletons just cut. And all the same rules apply, they never get tired of all of that bending and stooping, don't complain over all the loads they've had to carry, and can carry on work whether it is day or night.

Then the same things apply when it is time to thresh all of that grain, or sift it, or grind it. Or pluck cabbages or other vegetables when it is time for those to be harvested.

And they'll chase off birds when you've just strewn fresh seed for the next crop, and those hungry birds want to come eat it - leaving your children to cry from the hunger they'd suffer once those birds destroy much of your crop - if Mr. Skeleton hadn't been there!

Children were historically used to chase rabbits out of fields or scare the birds away, but with the attention spans of kids the results were imperfect to say the least. And the distraction of a quick swim in the brook or a shiny butterfly could lead to animal damage that left the family near starvation.

Or, sometimes across that line.

Luckily skeletons don't get distracted from their instructions very easily.

Ditch digging, road maintenance, hauling brick for construction, any job that even hints 'unskilled labor' and you can have hordes of unintelligent undead do it with only minor direction.

And sometimes those directions can be "follow this man's orders until sundown, then return to me."

Working a bellows for the village blacksmith, plucking fruit from out of trees, the uses for an extra set of hands on a farm are nearly limitless, and we haven't even discussed what they could do in a mining operation! Hauling out stone, wielding picks, etc.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

The potential economic ... wielding picks, etc.

If i was a Lord of a town i would want my peasants doing all that work, so that they don't have time to think of anything better.

[unseenmage]

The potential economic benefits to having a stable of low-level undead handy for a medieval community is freaking insane! Just think of them as very basic humanoid robots and you'll get some ideas.

Jobs about town?

Postal service. Give skeletons instructions to go about certain routes checking mail boxes along it, collect any outgoing mail found, bring it back to office for sorting, while making any deliveries as needed. You can charge for this service via stamps if you want, but don't have to.

And it brings new meaning to the motto "neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night will stay us in our appointed rounds."

Any similar delivery jobs, like milkman, coal or ice delivery (necessary before cheap refrigeration) could also be done by skelies.

Street sweeper is also an ideal job for skeletons. I forget the exact figures on how long the section of street referenced, but a certain short segment of street in London (I want to say a it was just a couple of blocks, but could have been up to one or two miles) had 20 TONS of horse crap dropped on it PER DAY! All of that had to be removed, and skeletons are ideal for the job, just give them a shovel and a bucket and a place to empty the bucket (probably to carts that will take that stuff out to the fields - medieval lords actually taxed the animal droppings on their estates, ie, all of it went to their fields no matter whose the animal was. Fertilizer was important to farming communities).

And, ironically, those dung carts could be both drawn and directed by skeletal horses. The intelligence of the former beast doesn't matter to the skeleton it now is, they can all accept commands equally.

Garbage collector works almost the same as street sweeper or mailman. "Go along this route, checking any waste receptacles along the way, collect the contents and bring it back to this point" where it switches over to the next stage of handling.

Lamplighter could even be done this way, although everburning torches are probably installed already.

Ratcatcher, sewer workers, chimney sweep, just think of any basic job that people in general don't want to do but doesn't require much in the way of intelligence, and you could fill that with skeletons. There are some jobs a simple Crawling Claw would be freaking ideal at - like unstopping sewer drains.

Heck, half of bureaucracy is making sure the right papers get routed to the right desks, and mail-skeletons could handle that.

And while I personally think this crosses a line from "friendly" to "unfriendly" use of undead, you could have them serve as your bill collectors. "Go around and collect this many coins from these people, or bring them here to explain why."

Field and forest has no less use for undead.

You know what every farming village depends on? Crops. You know that half the forest also wants to eat those crops? Yes, you do. Keeping rabbits, deer and other animals out of the fields is full time 24/7 work. And despite everything they can do, peasants can never quite do enough of it. So Scarecrow is the first job of any farm-skeleton. "You see any animals in this field, either chase them out or kill them."

For that matter, wolves want to eat your pigs, sheep, goats and other food animals you want to live off of. So those could do with a 24/7 guard as well as the fields would - and your shepherd skeletons could be instructed to keep those livestock out of the fields so the other skeletons don't kill them.

Somewhat ironically, a skeleton raised with a scythe in its bony hands, while something of an iconic image, also has great practical value as a reaping machine - and I don't mean souls. I mean the backbreaking, time-critical work of getting those fields of grain cut after they are ripe but before rains start to spoil them and rot the food you want to eat all winter. During harvest every able body turned out to help, no one was exempt, from the lord in his manor to the village priest or the fishmonger's wife who was sick in bed. Everybody turned out for it, because once those rains hit everything left in the field was lost, and waste of food like that often meant starvation.

But! It just so happens your reaping skeletons never get tired, never take breaks, never sleep or eat meals or care all that much about whether it is noon or the middle of the night, just step-cut, step-cut like a machine, never growing tired or wearing out.

Harvest skeletons could also include ones to bear the backbreaking labor of gathering in all those sheaves the reaping skeletons just cut. And all the same rules apply, they never get tired of all of that bending and stooping, don't complain over all the loads they've had to carry, and can carry on work whether it is day or night.

Then the same things apply when it is time to thresh all of that grain, or sift it, or grind it. Or pluck cabbages or other vegetables when it is time for those to be harvested.

And they'll chase off birds when you've just strewn fresh seed for the next crop, and those hungry birds want to come eat it - leaving your children to cry from the hunger they'd suffer once those birds destroy much of your crop - if Mr. Skeleton hadn't been there!

Children were historically used to chase rabbits out of fields or scare the birds away, but with the attention spans of kids the results were imperfect to say the least. And the distraction of a quick swim in the brook or a shiny butterfly could lead to animal damage that left the family near starvation.

Or, sometimes across that line.

Luckily skeletons don't get distracted from their instructions very easily.

Ditch digging, road maintenance, hauling brick for construction, any job that even hints 'unskilled labor' and you can have hordes of unintelligent undead do it with only minor direction.

And sometimes those directions can be "follow this man's orders until sundown, then return to me."

Working a bellows for the village blacksmith, plucking fruit from out of trees, the uses for an extra set of hands on a farm are nearly limitless, and we haven't even discussed what they could do in a mining operation! Hauling out stone, wielding picks, etc.

While I (heartily!) agree, I feel it should be pointed out that there are only (to my knowledge) two references by RAW as to what gain there is from employing unintelligent, tireless labor force. And they are somewhat negligible.

Stronghold Builder's Guide page 10 under "Free and Unusual Labor" and Page 90 under "Making It Pay".
Making It Pay doesn't specifically call out tireless employees but as the goal is to invest and make a profit one could classify profiting off of the dead as an Income Source.

Basically whatever your town is "worth" by the SBG determines how much potential profit the undead are worth to them.

[Segev]

If i was a Lord of a town i would want my peasants doing all that work, so that they don't have time to think of anything better.

And many tyrants would agree with you, which is why freer societies are typically wealthier overall: they waste fewer resources on trying to keep everybody else down so the top's relative wealth is higher.

The real trick is keeping them occupied with useful work done efficiently, and keeping them happy enough in their lot in life (often by making sure they have opportunity to seek greater things) that "public service" of governance sounds more like thankless drudgery than a fabulous way to wealth and power.

[Flickerdart]

A source of unlimited cheap labour is only economically beneficial if it frees up the peasants to take on more complex jobs. If it doesn't, then it actually reduces the amount of money and goods going around and damages the economy of the village.

[Skysaber]

While I (heartily!) agree, I feel it should be pointed out that there are only (to my knowledge) two references by RAW as to what gain there is from employing unintelligent, tireless labor force. And they are somewhat negligible.

If we want to strip it down to strict economic terms (something the game is weak on to begin with, and weaker still in almost unexplored territory like this one) we could still say, with some degree of certainty, that all of these tasks could very easily amount to a huge number of Aid Another checks.

Skeletons have a non-ability for Int, which the MM tells us has an ability mod of +0. They also have a 10 Wis, which also works out to +0. Since Aid Another requires a 10 or higher, on average half of these checks would succeed.

Well, if you've got a single item of Animate Dead once per day to pass around, then every person in your kingdom could eventually have four 1HD skeletons at their command. If all of those are making their Aid Another checks, and half succeed, that's +4 to anything your peasants do. So they are growing more crops, mining more ore, weaving more cloth, whatever.

Since each peasant is likely to be a level one commoner, they probably only had 4 ranks in whatever skill they make their living off of to begin with, so that is a HUGE advantage!

And since all living things are more or less restricted to eight hours of work per day in anything the game allows them to do, it would be pretty simple to account for the skeletons being tireless by saying "You know, staying up all of the night to keep rabbits out of the crops DOES add material advantage to the farm" - as do most other tasks listed, and allow the skelies to make three Aid Another checks (one per eight hour shift per day), and shoot that up to a whopping +12 to each peasant's Craft or Profession check.

Suddenly your kingdom has gone from the very brink of starvation to an economic powerhouse.

And it all requires less winking at the rules than some of the basic, plain vanilla cheese that gets accepted for character builds around here every day.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

The real trick is keeping them occupied with useful work done efficiently, and keeping them happy enough in their lot in life (often by making sure they have opportunity to seek greater things) that "public service" of governance sounds more like thankless drudgery than a fabulous way to wealth and power.

The real trick is to make the people believe they are happy and useful when they are doing the crappiest jobs, if they think you care about them and give them some type of reward for their hard service, they well remain happy and work hard at their crappy job for a long time.

[Hytheter]

Yep, filling all jobs with undead sure sounds like a good way to incite riots from now-jobless commoners.

Seriously, every skeleton you set to a job displaces a real person. Its cheaper for you, but it financially cripples the everyman. Sure, skilled workers and tradesmen might not be threatened by mindless undead, but simpler tasks would normally be the domain of cheaply paid peasants.

[Pinkie Pyro]

The whole "unskilled laboring undead" thing would work much better if they worked for the government, and the government took care of all of it's citizens NEEDS, but not wants. That leaves any peasant to train and take up whatever proffesion it wants, without having to worry about food, shelter, ECT.

[Slipperychicken]

Yep, filling all jobs with undead sure sounds like a good way to incite riots from now-jobless commoners.

Seriously, every skeleton you set to a job displaces a real person. Its cheaper for you, but it financially cripples the everyman. Sure, skilled workers and tradesmen might not be threatened by mindless undead, but simpler tasks would normally be the domain of cheaply paid peasants.

You can make it work by somehow employing your unskilled peasants; whether by training them for new service sector/manufacturing jobs or straight-up paying them to work for the state (army, services, commoner railguns, etc). You can put them on anything which zombies aren't smart enough for.

[Segev]

Heck, put the peasants in a supervisory role over the mindless undead. The suggestion of an item of Animate Dead to make them actually the masters of their own quartet is probably the best way, but even just ordering the undead to obey the peasant supervisor would allow for the peasant to work about 2-4x the amount of field space as before, and with less strain. If he does even half the physical work he used to while directing the skeleton workers, he can probably push it to 3-5x his normal production level. Just the ability to plow and harvest that much more land would be enormous, and the peasants are still working.

There's always work to do if you don't get in the way of it being done.

[Hytheter]

You can make it work by somehow employing your unskilled peasants; whether by training them for new service sector/manufacturing jobs or straight-up paying them to work for the state (army, services, commoner railguns, etc). You can put them on anything which zombies aren't smart enough for.

Army? So you're going to fill menial jobs with undead and then send real, living, breathing people onto the battlefield, where they could be killed?
That seems backwards to me.

I guess the other options could work, but only for as long as you have as many jobs as commoners. Think: Unemployment is an issue in modern society. What happens if you start replacing large portions of the workforce with simple robots? Do we just create new jobs out of nowhere? Why aren't we doing that now?
It's easy to say they'd just get other jobs, but you'd expect many of those positions to be filled already, before introducing the undead labourers.

[Segev]

Eh, this is going to veer into actual politico-economic theory far too quickly.

Suffice it to say that the arguments of nobody having jobs would mean we should never have invented the automated factory.

Where people are free to work for a living and keep most of what they produce for themselves, there will ALWAYS be work, as somebody will always be making a new business to serve the more-wealthy populace (now "more wealthy" because food and other items are less scarse and cost less, so they don't have to struggle just to scrape together enough to survive).

Hence my example of peasants supervising the undead workers. It puts minds where you need them and expands the peasants' ability to produce.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

Army? So you're going to fill menial jobs with undead and then send real, living, breathing people onto the battlefield, where they could be killed?
That seems backwards to me.

Not really, as more jobs get taken by undead workers, the usefulness of the living became less, the best way to get rid of the now useless peasants is to send them to die, and the best way to do is in the service of making your country bigger and better.

If we want to go back onto topic, the best business model for player characters, is the trapping and releasing monsters near towns to extort money from the people.

[Slipperychicken]

Not really, as more jobs get taken by undead workers, the usefulness of the living became less, the best way to get rid of the now useless peasants is to send them to die, and the best way to do is in the service of making your country bigger and better.


Zombies/skeletons can't be skilled laborers because they're mindless, so the living can always fill that role. Besides, there are sure to be jobs in maintaining and commanding the undead because they can't think on their own.

As for army stuff, you want your soldiers to have minds so they can perform complex maneuvers, have relevant feats and skills (mindless creatures lack both), and adjust on the fly if needed. And you need people to give orders to your undead units on the squad/platoon levels.