D&D Commoners Make Plenty of Money

[Bullet06320]

originally posted on WOTC boards by Edymnion on 0ct 11, 2006
http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-archive/threads/1084091

If you have been on these boards long enough, you have seen (if not made) posts that decry the D&D economy as being "broken" because the poor, poor commoners could never afford anything because they only make 1 silver a day, and everything is just so terribly expensive, etc etc etc, right? The only problem is that it just isn't true. The commoners make more than enough money to get by on, and even make enough money to save it for expensive purchases. The following article will focus on the misconceptions of how the rules work, and will show an example of a "standard" commoner family, how much money said family makes in a week, and how much money they use in a week.

But, before we get into that, the linch pin in the "it’s broken!" argument is that commoners only make 1 sp a day. In the majority of cases, I argue that this is not true. The 1 sp a day salary is for completely unskilled, clueless laborers. The ditch diggers or migrant day laborer types. This is not what the majority of commoners will be. Let’s look at the Commoner entry in the DMG, paying special attention to their skillpoints. They get 2 skillpoints per level, with the standard x4 at level 1. Now look at their class skills, and you'll notice that they have both Craft and Profession. On top of this, like any other class, they get a feat at first level. For the purposes of this article, the commoners in question will be assumed to have 8 skillpoints and 1 feat to spend. Obviously, humans will have 9 points and 2 feats, but I'm going to work it as a generic so that it applies to everyone. We can assume the humans spend their extra point and feat on personal things that don't contribute to their overall ability to survive day to day life (like a rank or two in Knowledge [Local]).

Now then, let us assume that the typical commoner family consists of 5 individuals; a mother, a father, a teenage son, a child daughter, and a baby.

Joe Commoner lives in a small village, and has a small farm out by the woods. He built the main house himself, with help from his father as a youth when he was old enough to move out on his own. They used wood harvested from the nearby forest, and did the work themselves, meaning the house was essentially free. Joe learned how to farm from his father, and has been a farmer for as long as he can remember. Mechanically, Joe is in his mid 30's, and is a 2nd level commoner. He's not as fit as he was in his younger days, but he's a little wiser. We will still assume that he has a +0 modifier to all of his stats though.

Jill Commoner is Joe's wife. She helps her husband with the farming by working in the fields part of the day, and also does the cooking, cleaning, and mending of clothes, as well as watching after the children. Mechanically, she is a first level commoner, also with +0 mods to all of her stats.

Billy Commoner is Joe's oldest child, a 15 year old boy that grew up much the same as Joe did, and will soon be old enough to start his own family, but for now is still helping dad around the family farm. Billy is a first level commoner with +0 stat mods.

Susy Commoner is the middle child, and helps her mother with the household chores. Susy is a 0th level commoner, and has only 2 skillpoints.

Baby Commoner is a baby, and gurgles a lot, but is too young to provide any meaningful contribution to the family's financial situation.

---

As a D&D character, Joe has maxxed out his ranks in Profession (Farmer), and has also taken Skill Focus (Farming), for a total of +8 to his skill checks. He also has 3 ranks in Craft (Woodworking), and 2 ranks in Knowledge (Local).

Jill Commoner has 2 ranks in Profession (Farmer), 2 ranks in Profession (Cook), 2 ranks in Craft (Clothing), and 2 ranks in Heal (for all the family's normal ailments).

Billy Commoner has 3 ranks in Profession (Farmer) that he learned from his father, Martial Weapon Proficiency (longbow), 2 ranks in Survival (he uses his bow to go hunting in the nearby woods), 2 ranks in Craft (woodworking), and 1 rank in Knowledge (Local).

Susy Commoner is too young to do much, but has 1 rank in both Profession (Cooking) and Craft (Clothing).

---

Joe Commoner takes 10 on his Profession (Farmer) check, for a total of 18. Jill and Billy both use Aid Other to help Joe with his check. Jill has a 60% chance of getting her Aid Other to succeed, while Billy has a 65% chance of succeeding. We'll be a bit conservative and say that, on average, one of them succeeds in giving Joe +2 to his checks, for a total of 20. Since you earn half your check in gold per week, this means the family has a weekly income of 10 gp, which is substantially better than the 21 sp (or 2.1 gp) they would have gotten as unskilled labor. The other skill ranks for the other family members do not factor into weekly income, and serve only to round them out and allow them to do things like carve their own wooden bowls, make their own clothes, etc.

---

We will assume that Joe, Jill, and Billy each eat the equivalent of 1 common meal and 2 poor meals per day (5 sp per day, each), and that Susy eats the equivalent of 2 poor meals per day (2 sp per day), and that the baby does not eat enough to be worth factoring into this.

That means they eat, on average, 1.7 gp of food per day, as a family, for a total of 11.9 gp worth of food per week. Whoops, that’s too much, as they only make 10 gp a week, right? Wrong, that’s the price for if you are buying your meals from someone else. Jill and Susy both have Profession (Cook) and make their own meals out of what they grow on the farm, plus whatever meat Billy brings home from when he goes hunting, meaning they are crafting their own meals, which means they pay half price, or 5.95 gp per week for food. Let’s also assume that once per week Joe heads down to the village tavern for a mug of ale with the neighbors for 4 coppers, which brings it up to 5.99 gp per week.

So, the Commoner family is making 10 gp per week, on average, consuming 6 gp a week in food. That leaves 4 gp per week that can be spent on things like raw cloth for sewing clothes out of, assorted metal tools and implements from the blacksmith, or just squirreled away for a rainy day.

We'll assume there are 50 weeks a year (with a total of two weeks off for holidays and the like), that means our Commoner family can save upwards of 200 gp per year for luxuries, or the gods forbid, healing potions for injuries or sicknesses that are too severe for Jill to handle with her Heal skill.

Even without Aid Other, Joe would have a Take 10 check of 18 with his farming, meaning they would only lose out on 1 gp per week, which would still let him feed his family the same food, provide the same living conditions, and still be able to put away upwards of 150 gp per year, probably more because that would free Billy up to go hunting and gathering in the forest more often, meaning the weekly food bill would go down as well.

And, with that much money available per year, it is not a stretch of the imagination in any way to think that Joe could hire some help to expand his farm, upgrade his house, buy better equipment, and potentially get the equivalent of masterwork farming tools for another +2 to his checks so he can make even more money.

---

Now, in closing, it should be said that the idea of them having this much money does not necessarily mean they actually ever see that much actual coin. Joe and his family are capable of outputting 10 gp worth of produce per week, and consuming 6 gp worth of goods per week. It is almost guaranteed that most of the food money is actually coming out of what they grow (so they grow 10 gp worth of food, then turn around and eat 6 gp worth of it every week), and that anything else they get from others in the village is in the form of barter (2 bags of potatoes for that new hoe, for example).

So, while this commoner family may not have much money, they are in no way destitute, and are quite capable of living very comfortable lives, without the need to overall the entire D&D economy just to make it more "realistic" for them.

[Saintheart]

Cute and cool, and I recognise it's a save from the WOTC forums, but the part that possibly isn't taken into account amongst all that is security.

Banditry is rife, whether of the legal or illegal kind. Most commoners are invariably under the "protection" of a local lord, who will doubtless be extracting "taxes" or his "levy" for making sure their home isn't burned down by his men rampaging, lawless freebooters. Joe Commoner could go after hirelings, perhaps, or even get a group of his friends to put in together for a few level 3 or level 4 adventurers, maybe, Seven Samurai style, but there isn't really the cash potential to keep a bunch of adventurers hanging around Greenish Gables when they can easily access WBL and get themselves utterly loaded in a short space of time by killing a few ugly things in a dungeon and going on to save the world on the off-season. Sooner or later, the lord wins. Joe Commoner isn't going to be able to keep much of his fairly-gotten gains, he'll be back to 1 sp per week or something in no time. :smallbiggrin:

Even living out in the wilderness and away from lords doesn't help Joe Commoner. The wandering monster chance kicks in, and invariably has an EL well above Joe Commoner's CL.

[Selion]

I have not idea of how feudal economy works, but 1 sp/day is even too much! 1sp/day means 3 gp/months, which are 30 g of gold. At the actual prices it means 900 euros/months, which is pretty much for a commoner, who is supposed to be almost a servant.

So... how much adventurers earn? At 1st level the starting gear is around 100-200gp, which are 30000/60000 euros. Pretty much what it means to sell your house and go roaming trough the world in search of adventures.

A raise dead spells is around 1,5 millions of euros, according to this change, that's why good clerics don't resurrect random people.

It sounds pretty balanced to me.

[noob]

You completely forget skill training rules it costs 50 gp per week with one person very knowledgeable in the domain to get one skill point so they had to win 200 GP and spend four weeks in training before getting four in that skill also feats costs two weeks of training.

[Jormengand]

You completely forget skill training rules it costs 50 gp per week with one person very knowledgeable in the domain to get one skill point so they had to win 200 GP and spend four weeks in training before getting four in that skill also feats costs two weeks of training.

Isn't that an optional variant rule? Or at least I don't actually remember anyone ever using it.

[noob]

it is an optional rule but the spirit is that you simply does not becomes a master with four ranks in a skill without hard training with rich masters asking for tons of gold. The adventurers do that simply because they have so much strength they can already create an universe in one action at level 1 so learning spontaneously skills is not so much ridiculous for them.

[Jormengand]

they can already create an universe in one action at level 1

Genesis is a 9th-level spell which takes 1 week to cast. They can create a universe in 33600 actions at level 17, and the universe takes a couple of days shy of half a year to reach its full size. This takes the caster 5000 XP, which is equivalent to 1667 souls.

More to the point, I don't see why a fighter who would probably lose in a fight to that family of commoners if they came at him with morningstars (though it would be close), even though he's literally called a fighter, should be so much better at learning skills than them when the fighter class is precisely no better at learning skills than the commoner class.

Also applying a variant rule to NPCs and not PCs with the sole purpose of preventing the game functioning as intended is weird and wrong and you shouldn't do it.

[saxavarius]

I have not idea of how feudal economy works, but 1 sp/day is even too much! 1sp/day means 3 gp/months, which are 30 g of gold. At the actual prices it means 900 euros/months, which is pretty much for a commoner, who is supposed to be almost a servant.

So... how much adventurers earn? At 1st level the starting gear is around 100-200gp, which are 30000/60000 euros. Pretty much what it means to sell your house and go roaming trough the world in search of adventures.

A raise dead spells is around 1,5 millions of euros, according to this change, that's why good clerics don't resurrect random people.

It sounds pretty balanced to me.

So the first part of your rebuttal is the use of current day conversions for gold in the real world instead of remembering that D&D gold is an abstraction for PCs to buy things. Put shortly that idea is wrong; long version is that the "value" of gold is arbitrarily dependent upon the economic system of the D&D universe, existing inside a vacuum with no real world correlation.

The feudal system is complex so I'll just focus on the bottom tier of it, the Serfs (peasants like the family in the example) work the land as farmers or ply their trade. Taxes are collected in the form of either coin of the realm or goods such as food or trade materials. If the Lord's residence is near the village then he may employ the craftsmen for goods (i.e. the blacksmith makes horseshoes for the Lord's horse) or even as servants. In return for the taxes and other services it is the Lord's responsibility to protect the villagers from brigands, raids, etc.

[qube]

Interesting read :thumps up:

Though, I'm not convinced Billy would have martial proficiency bow.
I think it would make more sense if Billy looked like a younger version of his father, (as he post likely will have to follow in his fathers footsteps). Plus, wouldn't hunting be illigal poaching? Likewise, I don't think Joe would have maxed out Profession (Farmer). Maxing out something is what players do. For commoners, it feels ... artificial. I presume a rank in Knowledge (Nature) or craft (farming tools).

... but that wouldn't alter the number too much...

Banditry is rife, whether of the legal or illegal kind. Most commoners are invariably under the "protection" of a local lord, who will doubtless be extracting "taxes" or his "levy" for making sure their home isn't burned down by his men rampaging, lawless freebooters.
...
Joe Commoner isn't going to be able to keep much of his fairly-gotten gains, he'll be back to 1 sp per week or something in no time. :smallbiggrin:
I dunno. One could rule that servs pay a tithe to their lord.
(which, by definition, is 10% of their earnings, or 1 gp per week, dropping their income to 3 gp per week)

One could also assume they donate a tithe to the church of Ehlonna(?), dropping their net income to 2gp a week ... but then a DM could consider giving the family a +2 bonus on their checks to farm the land


This drops their income to ~100 gp per year which still seems reasonbly good

[StreamOfTheSky]

it is an optional rule but the spirit is that you simply does not becomes a master with four ranks in a skill without hard training with rich masters asking for tons of gold. The adventurers do that simply because they have so much strength they can already create an universe in one action at level 1 so learning spontaneously skills is not so much ridiculous for them.

No, it's just a really stupid rule that's thankfully optional and not used by pretty much everyone.
Any training in a skill can be assumed to be self-taught, or learned from a master in exchange for an apprenticeship. Because...that's how trades were actually learned.

[Honest Tiefling]

1) Hunting may not be available everywhere. Poaching was common in certain regions, but did come with heavy penalties.

2) Nuclear families are kinda recent. They'd probably have extended family either within the domicile itself or town. Also, number of children is quite small for this era, but we could just assume local priests cut down on child mortality.

3) The heck did this family get land!?!?! They wouldn't own the land, and people who own forests probably don't want people to settle on their land. This is assuming a feudal structure, I admit. They'd probably be squatting on the forest, which might be doable but does come with risks.

4) Farming in forests is often a really bad idea. The cost of the house would have to incorporate the cost of clearing the land, but that would provide free wood.

5) Costs of feeding animals for eggs/meat/milk/etc. is not accounted for. They would provide necessary fertilizer as well.

Overall, I find it interesting and see the time invested into it. It does solve some issues, but do wonder how this family gets around the whole criminal activity business. I could just be nitpicky, but I don't think you could just set up a house anywhere you liked in many cases. In some cases, but you might be so remote as to need other skills.

[Aleolus]

I like the premise of this, but I do find several flaws in their logic. They mention taxes and equates them to a tithe to their lord, but that is an optimistic estimate at best. A fair and good lord may well only ask for 10%, but most lords back then were quite greedy and didn't care in the slightest for the common people, so taxes may be as high as 60%. I would use 30% as a nice midway point, myself.

Then the hunting issue people have mentioned. There are two possibilities here: Either the kid is poaching, which runs the risk of potentially very steep penalties if he gets caught, or he is travelling far enough out that he is no longer on the lords land, which has an entirely different set of dangers, and actually has him on track to becoming an archery focused Warrior, as opposed to continuing as a commoner

[Darth Ultron]

I have not idea of how feudal economy works,

Is there some reason it must be a feudal economy? There are other ways.

D&D is a bit vague on how a commoner gains a level. Most XP in D&D only come from killing monsters and vaguely ''overcoming problems''. Though we can figure Commoner Bob will gain a level or so a year for the first couple levels and then 3-5 years for the higher levels. So Commoner Bob at 30 would be more like 8th level.


As for hunting, keep in mind the generic D&D world is a bit more like ''Colonial America'' then "Dark Ages Europe''. Take a map of any D&D world and you have a lot of unclaimed wilderness. The world is not a bunch of tiny plots of land owned by a couple rich folks. D&D has a world with vast stretches of wilderness and only small pockets of civilization.

Also it is possible to hunt in an 'urban' area for lots of politically incorrect animals....

[StreamOfTheSky]

It's interesting. A masterwork tool would generally cost 50 gp and effectively pay for itself after a year, so presumably they'd save up for that as best they can.
Maybe not an option for all professions, like farmer, but then again...you'd think a farmer would be able to get a lot of his family's food (which seems to be the commoner's biggest expense) off excess production of his own farm, to cut down on those costs. Though that's a unique benefit to being a farmer (and probably why it was such a popular profession).
Not sure where they get the initial money for tools or that hunting bow (side note: unless you have rapid shot or a str bonus, why pay more gp and a feat for a bow when a crossbow is just as good?), or time (spent not earning the money they need to subsist week to week) to build the home. But then again, the premise assume a rather small family by historical standards and it's more likely there are more children AND multiple generations are living under the same roof, so maybe that offsets things.

I am wondering, though. It seems like when you add in all the other possible expenses like tithe / land tax, possibilities of sickness or bandits costing you some weeks of profit... that their margins are still just too slim to be safe. What if profession and craft gave you your check result in gp per week, instead of half the check result? That'd surely be enough to make the commoner family financially secure, and I'm not sure if it'd break anything else in the process. Did 3E just mess up how much weekly pay should be?

[SinsI]

Open page 199 of the DMG and read entry on Charged items and One-time use items in a One-shot Adventure.

Or just take a look at the prices of traps - who in their right mind would spend much more on traps to guard his treasure vault than the total treasure in that vault?

Prices in D&D exist only for players, not for in-game world inhabitants, so it makes no sense trying to argue about commoners using oversimplified rules to make a living.

Who said 1 SP is not enough for him to afford everything he and his family needs?

Relevant OOTS http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html

[Flickerdart]

As for hunting, keep in mind the generic D&D world is a bit more like ''Colonial America'' then "Dark Ages Europe''. Take a map of any D&D world and you have a lot of unclaimed wilderness. The world is not a bunch of tiny plots of land owned by a couple rich folks. D&D has a world with vast stretches of wilderness and only small pockets of civilization.

Yeah - but the peasant farmer is going to live in that civilization. He's not going to travel more than an hour or two away from his home for hunting.

[Selion]

So the first part of your rebuttal is the use of current day conversions for gold in the real world instead of remembering that D&D gold is an abstraction for PCs to buy things. Put shortly that idea is wrong; long version is that the "value" of gold is arbitrarily dependent upon the economic system of the D&D universe, existing inside a vacuum with no real world correlation.



Rebuttal? I don't want to prove anything :)
Just, using the gold value as a very rough meter, I say that the distribution of wealth in the fiction of d&d is not radically different from what we see in the real world.
Adventurers of level 1th are common people with extraordinary abilities that put everything they have in the lane to be heroes (10 years of earnings for a commoner).
The wealth/level they gain is coherent with the kind of adventures they are supposed to face: for example at level 10th-12th they will be likely involved in the politic of a country: a dozen of millions of euros (40000 gold pieces) would be a reasonable wealth for people involved in such affairs in our world, the fantasy world doesn't differ too much.

I know that gold price depends on many things, not only on the rarity of the metal.
By the way, in our world in 1400 a rough estimation of the quantity of gold in the world is a tenth of the gold that has been mined till today; incidentally the population of the world was also roughly a tenth of the population today. The density gold/humans has the same value today it had in 15th century.

[qube]

I like the premise of this, but I do find several flaws in their logic. They mention taxes and equates them to a tithe to their lord, but that is an optimistic estimate at best. A fair and good lord may well only ask for 10%, but most lords back then were quite greedy and didn't care in the slightest for the common people, so taxes may be as high as 60%. I would use 30% as a nice midway point, myself.While I understand the reasoning that they wouldn't do it from the kindness of their hard - they would do it because otherwise, it hurts their bottom line ...

In the game logic, considering eating takes about half their income, a lord who taxes his serfs at 60% quickly finds himself without serfs (at best, they died from malnutrition, at worst, he get s overthrown for someone who does get economics ...)

In real life, from what I gather (http://www.medievalists.net/2015/07/16/how-much-taxes-did-a-medieval-peasant-pay-the-numbers-from-sweden/), taxes would be between 2% & 15%

[Coidzor]

You completely forget skill training rules it costs 50 gp per week with one person very knowledgeable in the domain to get one skill point so they had to win 200 GP and spend four weeks in training before getting four in that skill also feats costs two weeks of training.

I have literally never heard of this rule before. Where is it?


I have not idea of how feudal economy works, but 1 sp/day is even too much! 1sp/day means 3 gp/months, which are 30 g of gold. At the actual prices it means 900 euros/months, which is pretty much for a commoner, who is supposed to be almost a servant.

So... how much adventurers earn? At 1st level the starting gear is around 100-200gp, which are 30000/60000 euros. Pretty much what it means to sell your house and go roaming trough the world in search of adventures.

A raise dead spells is around 1,5 millions of euros, according to this change, that's why good clerics don't resurrect random people.

It sounds pretty balanced to me.

You just committed the cardinal sin of D&D economics. Trying to convert into real world currency.

You oughtn't'a did that.

[SangoProduction]

5) Costs of feeding animals for eggs/meat/milk/etc. is not accounted for. They would provide necessary fertilizer as well.

All costs for a profession is assumed to be covered by the check. This is why you don't need to explicitly buy raw materials when you use Craft to make money.

[Vaz]

Hmmm, there's quite a bit in Cityscape which refers to how much the average wage is. This gives a net wage, which is commonly what the person recieves after tax.

Armourers, Locksmiths and Weaponsmiths are among the highest paid; 4d4gp gives you an average of 10gp a week, or 520gp a year for an "average" city, while particular prosperous cities add a further 2.5gp/week for 650gp/year, while poor swing down to 390gp/year. Of course, this is dependent on average die rolls, and a poor year of sales in a weak economy leads to "only" 156gp, while an excessively good year in a wealthy city nets the smith a tidy 1040gp/year after tax.

A basic smithy costs 500gp, with fancy ones available at 2000gp.

For a basic smithy to run, it needs the services of a smith; an Expert 1, with a relevant craft skill of +7, but for this purpose, we'll take anyone with a relevant skill modifier of that; after all, an Expert is likely to have all 3 of the usual relevant skills, while a Commoner would only need one to be capable of doing the job. Using the NPC array, we can expect a maximum modifier of 13 in Intelligence, unless the character is aged or a Grey Elf. While the concept of being a smith doesn't require having strength, it's likely that they'll have a higher strength, and ones which are Grey Elf or Aged will suffer a penalty in strength. In regard to the rest of the stat array, as an NPC, Wisdom and Charisma may be useful in regards to haggling for raw materials and making sure they aren't getting rinsed, so at least a non-negative score in that is needed there, while Constitution helps with regards to the amount of water needed (1 gallon per 24 hours+Con Score; a Con 10 Character can go 34 hours without needing water before becoming dehydrated, for example). This is not a problem with regards to a normal workman, especially a smith, who you'd have thought would have access to water. But a quality craftsman would have Skill Focus (Craft [X]), 12-13 Int, and at least 3 ranks in the relevant skill; this gets the available modifier to be considered capable of working in a smithy.

Anyone under that ability would be considered an apprentice, learning from the master (covered by the retraining rules, as you transfer the skills of a teenager, the cross class ranks in swim, jump and climb etc) until the time is appropriate. Using the skill and feat retraining rules, (I'm not including the Apprentice/Mentor rules from DMG2, there are a lot of PC dynamics which complicates things), assuming that the apprentices only ability is not to have an Intelligence of lower than 10, it would take 4 weeks to get the skill ranks retrained, and 2 weeks for the feat to be retrained. While 6 weeks is quite a quick time to turn someone from a lazy teenager into a full blown capable smith, that's an abstract of the game, and also "designed" in mind with PC's and getting them up and running with a suggested down time, with it taking ~6 months for a 20th level PC to go from 0 to 23 ranks). So, with 6 weeks of training, and 150gp "owed" to the Mentor in addition to the cost of the raw materials which the apprentice uses to create items worth selling (I'm assuming the GP costs associated with retraining include that spoiled material), plus the master take, if we say 10%, you're looking at 165gp for the Mentor; A Longsword at 15gp and 4lb is a common sale to a local lord; At 4lb of Iron needed per Longsword, the cost scales with it, as 1lb of Iron is 1sp; so 4sp of iron per Longsword. With a DC15 to make the Longsword, taking 10 from the moment you can make a +5 to the check (Week 4 of the apprenticeship, 2 skill ranks and skill focus retrain on an Int 10-11 apprentice), this means that from week, you can make one Longsword per week. You have another 2 weeks of your apprenticeship to go, but your employer to stop you running off and running your own business (theoretically) might not train you until you pay back what you owe, and then provide in advance.

So, from Week 4 onwards, you'd need to find 165gp+Raw Materials; 11 Longswords needs 44sp of iron, while 12 Longswords provide 180gp in return for 48sp of Iron; in other words, a net bonus of 25gp 2sp for the Blacksmith. That profit goes on top of the 520gp net average earned by the Blacksmith; technically, the money is the apprentices, but as the money goes through the Blacksmith's front, it will be in the blacksmiths pocket until he gives it the apprentice. The apprentice will need to find food and drink; a pound of food is needed every 3 days before starvation kicks in, and a gallon of water every 34 hours (in a games like way; we'd assume that over the course of those 34 hours, minus 8 hours of sleep, we'd be left with the need for a gallon of water.

Needing somewhere to stay, assuming that the Blacksmith's floor isn't an option is 2sp/day at a poor inn. There isn't a statement regarding the size of meals, but we have costs of particular items, with 1/2lb of Bread, Cheese or Meat costing 2cp, 1sp or 3sp/day. With 1lb/3days needed to stave off starvation, then for the 16 weeks, you'd need 38lbs of food. To have a varied diet, with a 1:1:1 mix of all three, you'd need 13lbs of bread, 13lbs of cheese and 12lb of meat; in other words 26cp, 13sp and 36sp respectively; a total of 5gp 0sp 6cp to eat, or just over 4cp a day. 2/sp a day at a poor inn is 224sp, or 22gp 4sp. There still isn't a price for water; this is something that without lots of adepts (a Wis 12+ Adept 1 can produce 10 gallons of water/day, i.e ~14 other people), but we'll assume it to be 1cp, for a further 1gp 1sp 2cp for the duration of that apprenticeship, while 1 tankard of beer is 4cp; to do that once a night, because he's sleeping in an inn, it's a further 448cp, or 4gp 4sp 8cp.

For the apprentice to be able to learn their craft and have a reasonable life, or *living wage*, they have to take home 33gp 0sp 6cp for 16 weeks, when even having fulfilled the terms of their apprenticeship in the quickest time, the raw profit on their longswords sold still leaves them 8gp 2cp short of what's owed. Another week puts the cost up to 35gp 1sp 3cp~, but they can make another Longsword in that time, and that once more puts them in the black with regards to their employer.

They are now considered a Blacksmith, and can produce items for the shop, earning themselves a full wage after 17 weeks; so after 4 months of work, without any entertainment other than a single pint of ale/night, assuming that they've been given the remainder of the proceeds from their longswords, they have around 9gp to spend. They are now a qualified blacksmith, and can operate in any smithy.

Now, looking in Cityscape after the maths and not wanting to re do the maths, getting a tenement building costs 1d4gp/month to rent; so we'll stick with that; an average of 10gp for the duration of the apprenticeship is cheaper than an inn, but they are "warrenlike". An above shop apartment or a cottage on the outskirt is 25gp a month to rent, or 100gp for the apprenticeship. In regards to the tenement being a good deal cheaper, whether there are cooking facilities is questionable, the walks to and from work are possibly dangerous, as are the other residents.

This, on his net salary of 520gp, he's going to need 300gp to go on rent for his cottage/above shop flat. Assuming he can afford the rent for this, he has to find food (he can afford to eat better, so does so) and drink, plus entertainment. If 2 poor meals is 4cp, and he was spending just under that on a mixed diet of cheese bread and meat with water, then 1 of each kind of meal per day, or 9sp/day; or ~33gp year. That leaves us with 335gp per year in expenses. If we say a further ~1gp/week on other unforeseen necessities, and call it a nice round 390gp/year we're left with 130gp to spend.

Presuming he has no other dependents, and isn't interested in setting fire to his money, he has a couple of options.

Either a) save up for 4 years and get his own basic blacksmith @500gp, b) save up for 21 years to buy the apartment he's renting right out @2500gp or c) the same again on an average shop. A poor shop would be 3 years work.

Now, none of this really includes for Profession or Craft skills at all, which is a bit annoying, and of course, with all 3 wanting to be an option (even a fancy forge, for the additional +2 to checks on top of the +2 for masterwork tools) for the discerning skilled tradesman, on top of presumably wanting to start a family, things can get a bit rough, which is where the banks come in; with around 7000gp in loans to pay for (the fancy forge included), at 130gp/year, assuming a 10% basic easy maths interest rate far outstrips what he can offer. From the banks point of view, this is either burning money, or going to provide them with an easy asset, depending on how self serving the loan providers are.

The fancy apartment being rented isn't a necessity. For 2 years work, he could buy his own tenement room, which frees up 300gp in rent. This now gives him 430gp/month in rent, of which he can pick up a 10% loan on a fancy smithy with a basic shop for 2250gp, which he'd pay back within about 12 years. By this stage, we have our Blacksmith with his fancy shop.

As an aside, how that 520gp a year is earned means that on a 20% tax rate (based on current, and Cityscape), and a 10% voluntary tithe (for ease of previous calculations, this tithe is removed before tax, which is a little generous), a Blacksmith needs to earn ~750gp a year, or in otherwords, every single longsword he makes needs to be sold. Depending on the nature of the blacksmith, it's unlikely that there will be a need for 50 Longswords year in, year out, however. Far more mundane things like Very simple or Typical items he can churn out, but they're rarely going to be worth the same amount of money.

[Darth Ultron]

Yeah - but the peasant farmer is going to live in that civilization. He's not going to travel more than an hour or two away from his home for hunting.

Farms, by there nature are on the edges of civilization. You might even say a lot of a typical D&D world is ''borderland'' or ''country''. So your average commoner does live only an hour from true little touched and unclaimed wilderness(again more like 16th century America then 11th century England.)

[Yogibear41]

About a 95% chance the land the farmer works doesn't belong to him, i'd wager at a bare minimum he gives 50% of his yield to the land owner if not more. Then come the taxes, which is easily another 20% if not more. Then lets say he has to use 10% of his profits for the upkeep of his tools, also likely another major underestimate. So at the end of the day maybe the commoner takes home 20% of what he actually earns, and that is a very generous estimate.

[Yogibear41]

Farms, by there nature are on the edges of civilization. You might even say a lot of a typical D&D world is ''borderland'' or ''country''. So your average commoner does live only an hour from true little touched and unclaimed wilderness(again more like 16th century America then 11th century England.)


That is not necessarily true. For the most part it depends on the nature and location of said town/village/city, but I won't really go into that too much. As far as hunting though, you can likely spend 30 minutes or less walking from any given point of civilization and hit a patch of woods where you can kill something to eat. In this time period people are very dependent on fire and to have a fire you have to have something that will burn: wood. People planted and/or maintained a certain amount of trees nearby civilizations in order to supply the steady amount of wood they needed to cook as well as for warmth and light. If for instance though wood was not readily available in the area, the town/village etc would likely be built on either the coast, or on a river downstream of a large supply so said materials could be shipped or floated down to them with relative ease.

You should also keep in mind that in a world full of monsters the people on the edges of civilization will have to have some sort of defense mechanism in times of trouble. Granted casualties are going to pretty much happen no matter what you do. Its not exactly going to be like the little house on the prairie where 4 low level commoners are living on their own hundreds of miles from anyone else. They would be dead within a month, if not less.

What is do-able though is say a group of player characters goes out into the uncharted wilderness and sets up a fortified village/keep nearby a river or the coast that they traveled in on so supplies could be delivered. Then sometime after a defensible position is maintained, commoners begin to come in on boats and such and begin to fan out into the surrounding region by the fortified keep to farm and hunt and such. That way if something bad happened they could retreat back to the keep until the issue was solved, and over time you could repeat this process expanding further into the unknown, building keeps and roads connecting them say every 20 miles or so as Hubs of Defense and letting the commoners fill out the surrounding areas in between them.

[Vaz]

In a world full of monsters, there is very little that is different from todays early land. Why are certain monsters going to go looking for people to attack? What reason is there for a Great Wyrm Red Dragon to burn down a farmstead and kill the farmer. Evil doesn't mean stupid, even if the people are living on the slopes of a volcano to get the benefits of the fertile ground, said Dragon is unlikely to randomly kill people unless it was very young and threatened.

It might steal the odd bit of livestock, and perhaps get a few bandits to help get money from the populace, but I'm not sure what benefits a devil gets from killing little house on the prairie.

Some spare silver pieces? At best would it not go for protection racketeering, their soul to protect from the summoned minor demons who set fire to some of the livelihood.

Things like Mindflayers, what benefits do they get out of slaughtering commoners?

There are threads about what threat does an NPC army unassisted by PC's pose to a Dragon? None, is the answer, for the most part. The tarrasque too.

A particularly animalistic monster, like the Tarrasque might just do whatever it fanvies, but it just eats anything it wants. It is godzilla, there is nothing the majority of people can do to prevent it, until the Artificer, demigod warrior, master transmogrifist, and grafted kensai with his magical throwing shield turn up with their assassin ninjas to save the day.

There may well be plot points like McGuffins or multiverse conquering hordes like the Necromongers, but for the most part, the habitants get by in symbiosis; don't go X because here be fae etc. Everywhere else is just going to be typical interaction with races changed; whether it is orc bandits, dwarf trade caravans, human knights and elvish ambassadors.

A vampire doesn't care about commoners, unless those commomers give him a leg up where he needs to be, or to be a blood bank. But when he can dominate foes with a glance, would he not benefit from keeping them alive? Why would he create terrible Vampires out of commoners? Why not wait until something powerful, like the city watch commander, or a thane or anything similar.

[Flickerdart]

Why are certain monsters going to go looking for people to attack?
Shadows, wights, and similar undead have a supernatural hunger. Unlike wild animals, they have no fear, nor are they deterred by things like fences.


A vampire doesn't care about commoners, unless those commomers give him a leg up where he needs to be, or to be a blood bank. But when he can dominate foes with a glance, would he not benefit from keeping them alive? Why would he create terrible Vampires out of commoners? Why not wait until something powerful, like the city watch commander, or a thane or anything similar.
Vampire spawn is the same regardless of the source creature. A vampire intending to capture and enslave someone important would be well advised to create some disposable minions out of commoners, and simply release them once they are no longer useful.

[Honest Tiefling]

There is also the point that most people don't really want their slaves/serfs to have economical power. Before the black death, there were oodles of serfs lying around the place, so population apparently wasn't much of an issue. There were also strict laws about wandering off and people with pointy bits to stop that. DnD assumes a vaguely medieval European setting, but I cannot for the life of me think of many cultures at that point or before that didn't have massive amounts of serfs or slaves. I know there must be some, so I want to know how they kept the population doing what they are supposed to.

[Segev]

Historically, going above 10% taxes (on the gross) in feudal societies meant you were the sort of tyrannical noble that was hated, reviled, and gleefully replaced when the peasantry had the slightest chance of doing so.

This is precisely because of the kind of analysis done here: peasants can support their families on about 60-70% of what they make, and still have some time for those holidays and for incidental repairs and maintenance to their tools, homes, and even to save up for the occasional medical treatment or midwife. Get to 15% taxes, and that starts becoming a lot harder to save for. Get to 20%, and one bad year means total destitution, rather than merely a hard winter.

I will point out, mechanically, however, that the family would be better off with Billy and Jill both taking 10 on their own Profession(Farming) checks. That would yield 9 gp/week from Joe, 6 gp/week from Jill, and 6.5 gp/week from Billy. While the Aid Another action may make narrative sense, there's no real benefit to it, since it takes the same amount of time to perform and yields such spectacularly sub-par results.

And since billy can get a 12 in survival by taking 10, he literally can provide for himself and one other family member (let's say it's little Suzy, just to be conservative) completely. That's about 2.4 gp/week more, in terms of savings on goods not consumed from the farming.

They could easily hire some (militant) hirelings with the extra cash, and be minor landlords in their own right.

[Flickerdart]

I will point out, mechanically, however, that the family would be better off with Billy and Jill both taking 10 on their own Profession(Farming) checks. That would yield 9 gp/week from Joe, 6 gp/week from Jill, and 6.5 gp/week from Billy. While the Aid Another action may make narrative sense, there's no real benefit to it, since it takes the same amount of time to perform and yields such spectacularly sub-par results.
Actually, that's a really good point - since Profession is extremely abstracted and only represents profits, who's to say that a) Aid Another is narratively appropriate, and b) the costs of doing business such as rent and taxes aren't already subsumed into this value?

[Segev]

Actually, that's a really good point - since Profession is extremely abstracted and only represents profits, who's to say that a) Aid Another is narratively appropriate, and b) the costs of doing business such as rent and taxes aren't already subsumed into this value?

I could see the argument for rent, but not really for taxes. Taxes in a medieval setting tended to be collected only from those who lived in areas permanently; if you were itinerant, you could evade them...kind of. This is why so many towns and cities collect entry fees; it was an early form of tarriff to combat the tendency to not be around at tax-collecting time and keep local businesses and labor competitive with itinerant varieties.

From a mechanical perspective, then, taxes or "city entry" fees would come out of your profession-profits.


From a "rent" standpoint, you can make the argument, however, that owning your own land is, for instance, the Masterwork Tool of farming. Which really means that typically, you rent land for about 1 gp/week if you're renting the farmland you're working. (+2 to the check from a masterwork tool translates straight to an extra gp/week.)

[Killer Angel]

About a 95% chance the land the farmer works doesn't belong to him, i'd wager at a bare minimum he gives 50% of his yield to the land owner if not more. Then come the taxes, which is easily another 20% if not more. Then lets say he has to use 10% of his profits for the upkeep of his tools, also likely another major underestimate. So at the end of the day maybe the commoner takes home 20% of what he actually earns, and that is a very generous estimate.

At this point, Robin Hood enters in the equation.

[Honest Tiefling]

At this point, Robin Hood enters in the equation.

Who was often depicted as a lord himself. Which explains his class levels, gear and skill.

[Yogibear41]

In a world full of monsters, there is very little that is different from todays early land. Why are certain monsters going to go looking for people to attack? What reason is there for a Great Wyrm Red Dragon to burn down a farmstead and kill the farmer. Evil doesn't mean stupid, even if the people are living on the slopes of a volcano to get the benefits of the fertile ground, said Dragon is unlikely to randomly kill people unless it was very young and threatened.

It might steal the odd bit of livestock, and perhaps get a few bandits to help get money from the populace, but I'm not sure what benefits a devil gets from killing little house on the prairie.

Some spare silver pieces? At best would it not go for protection racketeering, their soul to protect from the summoned minor demons who set fire to some of the livelihood.

Things like Mindflayers, what benefits do they get out of slaughtering commoners?

There are threads about what threat does an NPC army unassisted by PC's pose to a Dragon? None, is the answer, for the most part. The tarrasque too.

A particularly animalistic monster, like the Tarrasque might just do whatever it fanvies, but it just eats anything it wants. It is godzilla, there is nothing the majority of people can do to prevent it, until the Artificer, demigod warrior, master transmogrifist, and grafted kensai with his magical throwing shield turn up with their assassin ninjas to save the day.

There may well be plot points like McGuffins or multiverse conquering hordes like the Necromongers, but for the most part, the habitants get by in symbiosis; don't go X because here be fae etc. Everywhere else is just going to be typical interaction with races changed; whether it is orc bandits, dwarf trade caravans, human knights and elvish ambassadors.

A vampire doesn't care about commoners, unless those commomers give him a leg up where he needs to be, or to be a blood bank. But when he can dominate foes with a glance, would he not benefit from keeping them alive? Why would he create terrible Vampires out of commoners? Why not wait until something powerful, like the city watch commander, or a thane or anything similar.



Red Dragons are a bad example of your point as they are both arrogant and actively get enjoyment in causing pain and suffering, so yes it is likely he would fly down and kill the farmer just for the fun of it.

A mindflayer would eat a commoners brain just as fast as it would eat a high level npcs brain.

The problem with all of your points are that monsters don't need to get anything tangible out of killing people, they do it for the fun of it. What benefit do people get out of drinking alcohol, eating ice cream, or any other things. Mostly they do it because they enjoy it.

[Coidzor]

They could easily hire some (militant) hirelings with the extra cash, and be minor landlords in their own right.

So sort of like a Saxon family of freeman farmers in Dark Age Britain?

[Darth Ultron]

You should also keep in mind that in a world full of monsters the people on the edges of civilization will have to have some sort of defense mechanism in times of trouble. Granted casualties are going to pretty much happen no matter what you do. Its not exactly going to be like the little house on the prairie where 4 low level commoners are living on their own hundreds of miles from anyone else. They would be dead within a month, if not less.

The default D&D assumes a safe world with few monsters. Civilized areas have a ''buffer zone'' of miles where there are few monsters or other super natural dangers. It is only once you go past that is where you encounter the true wild wilderness.

[Flickerdart]

I could see the argument for rent, but not really for taxes. Taxes in a medieval setting tended to be collected only from those who lived in areas permanently; if you were itinerant, you could evade them...kind of.
Surely being good at dodging taxes would factor into your Profession check.

[mujadaddy]

In real life, from what I gather, taxes would be between 2% & 15%

Ummmm, the linked article references 2%-15% of the full value of the farm, not of the income or even output of the farm. FYI.

[Gildedragon]

While I understand the reasoning that they wouldn't do it from the kindness of their hard - they would do it because otherwise, it hurts their bottom line ...

In the game logic, considering eating takes about half their income, a lord who taxes his serfs at 60% quickly finds himself without serfs (at best, they died from malnutrition, at worst, he get s overthrown for someone who does get economics ...)


Or you know... By paladins. A 60% tax on serfs in a fantasy land is very... Hextory

[Ruethgar]

If we are going to discuss taxes, tithes and commoner wealth in the context of D&D, we should first compile the rules on the subject within the game itself.
We need to start, of course, with what do they start with? The answer is in the DMG, 900g for a level one Commoner unless it is a PC. What do they spend it on is the next question. Let's assume the OP family of 4 scenario. The baby can sleep with someone else and we'll duplex one iteration of Servant's Quarters with a Basic Common Area on either side. So a home is total 1400g, but they only need to pay for half of it so 700g. Let's assume that the adults are the only ones with WBL and give them a 10% dicount to represent doing a lot of the work themselves and other random Stronghold price adjustment factors, including farmland, so we have 630g for the home leaving us with 1170g to buy whatever else they need, let's use the Basic Storage cost for just a bit of open land and a couple for actual storage, let's say 4 total leaving 270 starting gold for clothing, gear, and miscellaneous purchases.

Let's give them four masterwork tools for well rounded coverage and let's assume no flaws or traits and Skill Focus on at least one of them. I am going to assume that they have their skill points spread out to be more well rounded in their abilities rather than optimized for their purpose and give Mr. Skill Focus a 2 and the others each 1 rank. They have the low array as NPC classes so probably no bonus from Wis or Int. This is where you run into a cultural snag. Who works? Childcare is entirely reasonable, weather it is a profession or more like the old adage of 'it takes a village.' But let's assume not and that the mother stays home, cooking, cleaning, and doing other housework while the father and teen work. So that results in an average of 30 profession or 15 gold.

Let's say the government is above the norm at 33.33% taxes(norm is 10% to 20% max 50% according to Cityscape). With tithe that brings us to 9 gold per week. Costs 2.8g per week to make everyone common meals, leaving 6g 2s on all other expenses. Let's assume plant and heard farmer, grazing animals shouldn't need much in the way of expenses, but lets tack on a high Sharn rent for grazing rights at another 1g/week and the farm needs 5cp/day for a beast of burden to pull the plow and round that up so we aren't counting pennies to 4sp/week. Awfully bleak at 4g 8s left for weekly repairs and savings. If we do the OP ting and just Aid Other, let's give him an extra skill point for average 20 profession or 10g. Lower taxes to 30% for quick calculation and we have 6.3g leaving us with 2g 1s which should still be plenty for repairs, savings, and misc expenses.

[Windcaller]

First of all, sorry about the necromancy.

I was reading T1-The Village of Hommlet recently, and the book lists all the resident families, and every one of these entries has a stash of their life savings. The stashes of the 10 farmer families ranges from 3,65gp (23 on map) to 785gp (1 on map). I'm counting neither the leader of the militia (a retired Fighter) or the elder (having so much silverware means you're no commoner).

That said, even if AD&D 1E currency and economy is a bit different from 3.0/3.5, historically, in the D&D game, we know that even modest farmers save money.

27 - Walled Manor House (residence of the village elder): 15,278GP (928GP in coins, 14,350GP in jewelry and silverware)
2 - Modest Farmhouse and Barn (residence of the captain of the militia): 1,537GP (237GP in coins, 1300GP in silverware)
1 - Prosperous Farm Cottage and Large Barn: 785GP (285GP in coins, plus a 500GP gem)
5 - Prosperous Farmhouse: 590GP (240GP in coins, plus 150GP in gems)
12 - Average Farm Building: 186GP (36GP in coins and a gold ring worth 150GP)
4 - Well-Kept Farm: 118.05GP (in coins)
19 - Modest Cottage (residence of Black Jay): 36.05GP (in coins)
25 - Large Barn and Connected Home: 9.165GP (in coins)
23 - Cottage and Small Barn: 3.65GP (in coins)
21 - Cottage and Large Barn: 3.045GP (in coins)

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Commoners cannot typically raise the dead.