Optimizing Profession?

[Legendxp]

Is there a thread somewhere that shows you how to get a lot of money from the profession skill? If not I thought we could start one.

According to SRD the average person makes 1/2 of their profession check in gold pieces per week. Skill Focus (Profession) gives us an extra 1gp per week. Any other ideas (Literally just thought of this, I have none).

[Legendxp]

The sad part is I'm actually being serious. What's the most amount of money you can get from this skill?

[Vhaidara]

I'd say Factotum/Exemplar with Leadership. Use the Exemplar share skill thing (you take a penalty, give all nearby allies a bonus = to half the penalty) to pump up your followers' checks while using Factotum to keep your check high.

Or just go Factotum with Leadership and have all of your followers aid you. +2 per follower.

[Valwyn]

You could try checking this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=276626).

You may also want to try the rules for businesses. I think in DMG II.

I think Guidance of the Avatar gives you a big bonus to your skill checks, but I might be wrong.

[ExcessiveFarce]

Both Craft and Profession have that same section on "1/2 check result per week in GP" and function similarly. While they're not the same skill, if I were DM I'd have profession scale the same way as craft does. It's not really a big deal, but if you examine the crafting mechanics you'll find that the "1/2 check result per week in GP" is really an approximation.

Your daily (or weekly) progress is Check Result * Item DC; note that you're allowed to add any multiple of 10 to the DC to craft faster. Therefore, optimally the DC would be exactly equal to your check result. If we disregard semi-random factors like having all your Leadership followers aid you (many of which will fail) and simply assume that you have a static modifier (always taking 10) to your profession result the calculations get easier.

From the above, we determine you're creating your check result squared, in silver pieces, worth of goods in a given weeks' (eight hours per day) work. Since when you go to sell it you'll receive only half that value (unless you somehow convince your DM to let you create trade goods) and the raw materials cost one-third that value, your profit margin is 1/6 that value. (Item value - 3/6 - 2/6 = 1/6)

The casual observer will note that a check result of 30 is the break even point in comparing the formula to the approximation in the skill description-- below a check result of 30 the approximation will be superior and above 30 the more accurate formula will yield a greater result.

As a bit of an aside, I think there are some craft skills that measure their check result in GP instead of SP, so that could be a real boon to your moneymaking. Of course, you can also work longer each day; if you're warforged or have a ring of sustenance or whatever it wouldn't be unreasonable to work sixteen hours per day instead of only eight.

As a final addendum, while profession is more interesting than perform, you need a really good check result to exceed what you could earn with a similar check result using the perform skill. Of course, perform is dependent on many external factors like the city size and can also explicitly earn you the attentions of extraplanar beings, so profession and craft are more consistent and less likely to get you in trouble.

[Kennisiou]

Factotum and Exemplar are both really good for profession, but not the most important part. A one level marshal dip to gain charisma to profession checks (and other wisdom based checks) in an aura around yourself is probably going to be one of the best things you can do. Optimize wisdom and cha to get a solid +10 or so to your profession at level one no sweat (4 ranks, ~3 wis, ~3 cha). Skill focus: (profession) is a good one to nab as well, since it's an investment you can make early for a substantial early benefit to your skill checks and then retrain out of later if it stops being relevant.

If you want to continue grabbing levels in optimizing profession afterwards then straight factotum or maybe factotum to exemplar is your best bet. Every level of factotum is effectively +1 to your profession checks (since they're made over time you can easily expend inspiration points every time you need to make the check), so it's a question of whether exemplar's benefits at each level outdo this. Level one is an obvious yes, each level after is less useful, since bonus feats, and lend talent is often not going to be useful for you unless your friends also want to make profession checks (in which case marshal 1/factotum X/Exemplar X will be a stellar way to give your whole party great profession checks!)

Otherwise there's not a lot more you can do by RAW. Masterwork or magical tools of profession could be used, you could pump your wis and cha, see if anything in the apprentice feat from DMG II will help you, and otherwise see if any of the faerun regional feats apply bonuses to your chosen profession (and if any race that doesn't penalize wis or cha also gives profession bonuses) and try to stack bonuses with feats the best you can, if all you really want to do is get high profession rolls then between regional feats, skill focus, and potentially apprentice there's probably 3-4 feats you can take for a bonus on profession, and since skill focus and most regional feats give untyped bonuses everything should stack nicely.

Finally, if you really want to make profession better in a way that makes sense but is not accounted for in RAW, talk to your DM about the potential for skill synergies between various professions and skills. Knowledge: (nature) giving a bonus to Profession: (farmer) makes sense, as does Knowledge (architecture) to profession: (architect). While it's not likely to cut both ways, the idea of profession (sailer) giving a bonus on tumble, balance, and even jump checks made while sailing on a ship that's in rough waters (to negate some or all of the penalties), is a pretty good idea.