Commoners are richer than you think. Pathfinder edition

[Elderand]

Disclaimer: for ease of calculation, months will be assumed to be 30 days long with 8 days worth of weekend.

So I was reading ultimate campaign over the last few days and something occurred to me, peasant in pathfinder actually make a rather nice amount of money.

Let's assume Joe below average farmer. 1st level commoner with one rank in profession (farming)
Surely this person won't be making a ton of money.

Well, by taking ten on his profession check, Joe can make 7gp per week. 28 gp a month. Does that allow Joe to live a comfortable life? Yes actually, an average lifestyle is 10gp/month, leaving Joe with 18gp a month of extra money.
In a year Joe makes 336 gp, spend 120 gp on living expenses and is left with 216 gp per year on average that he can spend on other things.

But wait ! What if Joe isn't just a farmhand, but an honest to goodness farmer? With a farm, a family consisting of Mary-anne, his wife, Joejr his eldest son, Suzie Q his eldest daughter and LBS (Little Ball of Snot) his baby son ?

Things get interesting here. If we look at Ultimate campaign we can see the following.
You gain 1/10 of your check result per day when making a profession check, If you work in a building you own, you get a +10 on the check and the building itself also provide bonuses.

If we look at an average farm it consist of: 1 animal pen, 1 bedroom, 1 farmland, 1 garden, 1 kitchen, 1 lavatory and 1 sitting room for a total value of 2090 gp

As an asside Farmanhand Joe would have after 10 years make enough money to buy a farm outright. But seeing as he isn't entirely stupid he can, by working with the community, get the farm built for half that price. I'm going to say even if he builds it it still take him ten years of saving up, the lower cost offset by punctual extraordinary expenses like getting a remove disease spell or taxes or somesuch.

Back to the farm: I posit that the garden, kitchen, and bedroom are not used to produce capital of any sort and are simply there for the family own use. That leave us with the animal pen and farmland to give us a bonus on our check. This gives us a bonus of +18.

Farmer Joe now make his check with a total bonus of +32 and takes 10 on the check. earning him, per day 4gp and 2sp. Or 21 gp per week. 84 gp per month or 1008 gp per year.
This is only the revenue for the family. The rest of the family doesn't get to make their own separate check as, to be conservative, we'll consider them being part of the employees needed to run the farm and the reason we get the bonuses from the rooms in the first place.

So how much does the family have after expenses? Interestingly, if we assume that the family is part of the workforce of the rooms then we don't have to take into account anyone's but Joe and LBS living expenses (LBS since he doesn't work). So 20gp a month and if we assume a 10% of the farm value taxe per year (209gp) the family makes a profit of 779 gp per year.

If instead of assuming everyone is part of the room bonus but they each make their own check we double the money made (3 extra people making profession check at +4 bonus for an earning of 1 gp, 4sp per person for a total extra of 4gp, 2sp per day)
The family earns 2016 gp, we now count everyone's expenses (50 gp lifestyle, 209gp taxes) we get an average profit of 1757 gp per year.

So depending on calculation and ignoring extraordinary expenses a family of 1st level farmer makes a profit of between 779 and 1757 gp per year on average. More than enough to pay for even emergency spellcasting of remove disease for everyone, once per year. Even the lowest possible estimate could cover that.

But what about unskilled workers. Well they make 1sp per day, if they work everyday, never taking a day off they can earn just enough for the poor lifestyle.

Note: profession is a class skill for every classes except for Barbarian (normal and unchained) and bloodrager

Conclusion: even with the minimal investment of a single rank in profession anyone can make enough of a living, working 5 days a week to afford an average lifestyle and anyone but barbarian and variant (with zero bonus) can earn enough to afford an average lifestyle and afford a remove disease being cast on them once a year.

[Scots Dragon]

Well most fantasy settings are explicitly pre-capitalist (capitalism as we know it is only about two to three hundred years old), so the artificial system in place to keep the workers too poor to start their own self-management isn't exactly in place yet, thus...

[Tohsaka Rin]

Question.

What does God need with a starship?

No, sorry. I meant to say 'how does a farmer make money each week?' Farming takes time to actually produce anything. Without crop to sell, you're not actually possessing any stock to exchange for other goods and services.

This isn't an unreasonable question, I think. At best, you're being a laborer. If this is the case... Who's paying for the labor? Where are they getting the money to pay you?

This is pretty different from say, a blacksmith, or a fletcher. Or a carpenter, or a shipwright. Even an underwater basket weaver is still able to make something worth selling inside of a week.

[Florian]

Chicken, eggs, dairy products.... Farming is a lot more then just tending the fields.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Chicken, eggs, dairy products.... Farming is a lot more then just tending the fields.

And you have to sink money into upkeep. Food, care, and shelter for the livestock. For every benefit, there's a downside, or a hidden cost.

And aside from all of this... Where is all the gold coming from? Who is paying Mister Below-Average all this wealth? (I expect farmer Joe's mother kept her maiden name when she married Average Sr.)

If Mister Below-Average was a PC, I can understand him gaining all this wealth so easily. "I make my farming check for this week, taking 10. I'm going to spend half the money buying another flock of chickens, and paying Tim's character to build me another coop for them."

[EisenKreutzer]

Question.

What does God need with a starship?

No, sorry. I meant to say 'how does a farmer make money each week?' Farming takes time to actually produce anything. Without crop to sell, you're not actually possessing any stock to exchange for other goods and services.

This isn't an unreasonable question, I think. At best, you're being a laborer. If this is the case... Who's paying for the labor? Where are they getting the money to pay you?

This is pretty different from say, a blacksmith, or a fletcher. Or a carpenter, or a shipwright. Even an underwater basket weaver is still able to make something worth selling inside of a week.

Well, a medieval farmer wouldn't just grow one crop, harvested at one time. They would rotate crops to make sure the earth was still good for growing. These differen crops would be harvested at different times. Granted, sometimes the fields would be fallow, but even then there are cows and goats to milk, butter to churn and pigs to slaughter.
Between harvesting and preparing different crops, milking and slaughtering animals and making products from the produce, there would be plenty of goods produced each month to provide income.

[Potato_Priest]

Well, a medieval farmer wouldn't just grow one crop, harvested at one time. They would rotate crops to make sure the earth was still good for growing. These differen crops would be harvested at different times. Granted, sometimes the fields would be fallow, but even then there are cows and goats to milk, butter to churn and pigs to slaughter.
Between harvesting and preparing different crops, milking and slaughtering animals and making products from the produce, there would be plenty of goods produced each month to provide income.

This guy's got it.

Modern farming operations grow a variety of different crops not just for the crop rotation benefits, but also so that they can maintain money flow throughout the year. However, they still won't be making (or spending) much money in the winter months.

My experience: a summer as a farmhand on a small farm in Alaska.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

This guy's got it.

Modern farming operations grow a variety of different crops not just for the crop rotation benefits, but also so that they can maintain money flow throughout the year. However, they still won't be making (or spending) much money in the winter months.

My experience: a summer as a farmhand on a small farm in Alaska.

The one thing you aren't taking into consideration is that the farmhand is probably paying taxes through the nose for using the lord's land in a feudalist system.

I would guess the rate is MUCH higher than 10%.

[Tohsaka Rin]

I think you guys are glossing over the part where the farmer is making 7 gp a week. This is a-


Let's assume Joe below average farmer. 1st level commoner with one rank in profession (farming)

How is it that the entire kingdom, and every village around isn't bankrupt from paying all these plain, regular, one of the mill 1st level commoners EACH 7gp a week?

NINJA EDIT - A jillion percent taxes. Well, there you go. That I can believe.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

And even then, a significant portion of those taxes would be lost to bandits and roaming monsters, waiting for adventurers to liberate them.

[Tohsaka Rin]

So then, by all this logic, the basic premise of 'commoners being richer than you think' is sound in theory, if calculated in a vacuum, and realistically false.

Now, a WIZARD employing a ton of commoners in his personal demiplane, using magic to meet their basic needs, and selling the goods to kingdoms in as many planes as he could reach with very little expense? A wizard can easily make the theoretical vacuum practical reality.

...And then replace all the fleshy commoners with golems as the wealth rolls in.:smallbiggrin:

[EisenKreutzer]

I think you guys are glossing over the part where the farmer is making 7 gp a week. This is a-



How is it that the entire kingdom, and every village around isn't bankrupt from paying all these plain, regular, one of the mill 1st level commoners EACH 7gp a week?

NINJA EDIT - A jillion percent taxes. Well, there you go. That I can believe.
The super wealthy farmer assumes that the commoner has the luxury of saving up his earnings.
He has to pay for food, clothes, medical expenses and any unforeseen expenses for his entire family of 4.
He also has to keep and maintain his farm and his equipment.

And if this is a medieval setting, he only gets to keep 10% of his earnings for himself, the rest goes to his lord.
Even if the world is not feudal, he likely leases his lands and needs to pay the landlord a sum of money monthly, quarterly or annually.

[Florian]

And you have to sink money into upkeep. Food, care, and shelter for the livestock. For every benefit, there's a downside, or a hidden cost.

And aside from all of this... Where is all the gold coming from? Who is paying Mister Below-Average all this wealth? (I expect farmer Joe's mother kept her maiden name when she married Average Sr.)

If Mister Below-Average was a PC, I can understand him gaining all this wealth so easily. "I make my farming check for this week, taking 10. I'm going to spend half the money buying another flock of chickens, and paying Tim's character to build me another coop for them."

Well, sir, that is a huge cartload of natural all-ox manure fertilizer you carted in there!

The Downtime/Kingdom rules all look pretty rosy in peacetime. Wait till a war breaks out or a major disaster happens, then it gets grim pretty quick.

[Zanos]

And you have to sink money into upkeep. Food, care, and shelter for the livestock. For every benefit, there's a downside, or a hidden cost.
It's profession, not craft. Any costs are baked into your profit check.

And yes having your farm burnt down by bandits is going to make you poor. Who knew!

[Elderand]

If you think those rules are bad......

Commoners are richer than you think: Pathfinder unchained edition.

Farmhand Joe is back, but instead of faffing about with rooms and capital and downtime rules and all that he'll use the much simpler alternate profession rules from pathfinder unchained.

Not having much capital to his name to start with, Farmhand Joe start life as a meager mobile farmhand...you know...seasonal worker or somesuch.
Farmhand Joe is level 1, has just 1 rank in profession (farming) and so creating his very entreprenorial mobile business as a farmhand cost him 1 gp.

Farmhand Joe works on his own and does his monthly check. It's not clear that he can take ten or not, but we'll just average the roll out to ten anyway.
So farmhand Joe check comes up a 14. As a mobile business, we multiply this by 5 and now farmhand Joe made a monthly profit of 60gp!
After living expenses and his 10% taxes, farmhand joe is left with 44 gp a month of pure profit.

Barring any complications within three months Farmhand Joe now has enough to instead buy a small farm and have 32 gp left over ! He also found 2 employees.
His new check result, accounting for labor force modifier is now 12. But now he multiply his check by ten to check his profit ! So now he makes 120 gp per month ! Or a profit of 98 gp per month.

Again, assuming no catastrophe, within ten months of buying the farm he can now afford a bigger farm !
Now he has 5 employees, makes his check at -5 for a result of 9. But he multiply that by 100 to see how much he earns. Now farmhand joe business get him 900 gp a month. Or a pure profit of 710, farmer joe has upgraded his living standards from 10 gp a month to 100 a month. Luxury, because why the hell not ?

Within 7 more months, Farmer joe can upgrade his business again to a large one. Check made at -10, for a total of 4. Multiply by 1000 and now farmhand joe makes 4000 gp a month !

The cost for the employee and materials and upkeep is taken into account already so all that is pure profit.
Congratulation farmhand Joe. On average, in less than two years you went from a farmhand who had trouble scrounging a gp together to start your work to a guy who can live the extravagant lifestyle costing thousand of gp a month.

see the rules from ultimate campaign might seem bad, but they allowed one family to make enough money to live an average lifestyle and have a little security. The rules from unchained turn a guy with 1 rank in profession in a guy living like a king in 2 years time.

For those rules you really need that 90% tax rate just to keep thing even remotely stable. the ones from ultimate campaign were stable at only 10% tax rate.

[Elderand]

Actually, missed on one rule about hiring assistant. farmhand Joe can't go from mobile to small business before he reaches level 2 and put a second rank into his profession.

So instead of going into small business, farmhand joe now need between 4 and 6 months. Depending on when exactly he get his second level.

And now that he has done that he earn 130 gp a month. 107 after expenses.

He needs 20 months to get to medium business were he now earns 1000 gp a month. 800 after expenses

13 months later, large business earning him 5000 gp a month. 3500 after expenses.

So instead of doing it in a little less than two years, he does it in 3 and a half.

I doubt most peoples 5 years plan have them go from employee at a fast food to billionaire. But that's exactly what these rules allow.
Point stand, you need to jack up taxes so high it become unreasonable.

[Fizban]

I was annoyed enough by, well just about everything in the first set of rules but particularly the ridiculously tiny "farm" size given, but that second set takes the cake. The DMG2 business rules from 3.5 are super abusable, but at least they tether you to a specific location. A "mobile farmhand" with 1gp of tools magicing more money out of someone else's farm is golden.

Does Pathfinder have a Profession: Soldier/Mercenary/Bandit skill? Cause this is how you get roving bands of magically funded thugs.

[Lazymancer]

Well most fantasy settings are explicitly pre-capitalist (capitalism as we know it is only about two to three hundred years old), so the artificial system in place to keep the workers too poor to start their own self-management isn't exactly in place yet, thus...
IRL people had Feudalism to do that (the original meaning of Capitalism was that it was modern Feudalism): all land is owned by clergy/nobility. If not - there is a monopolist being a middle-man in the trading.

Also, the system is hardly artificial. Having factory cost more than a single worker can pay is a fact of life, not some conspiracy. You can either go Communist with workers cooperating into state-wide co-operative that owns everything, or you can go Liberal - and have private individuals own everything. You can't post-industrial with everyone owning a small shop that can produce everything.



How is it that the entire kingdom, and every village around isn't bankrupt from paying all these plain, regular, one of the mill 1st level commoners EACH 7gp a week?

NINJA EDIT - A jillion percent taxes. Well, there you go. That I can believe.
There is no need for taxes. It's pseudo-medieval system. Peasants simply pay rent for the land they don't own, just like they did in medieval times (or sell to the only guy they are allowed to sell to - or face "accidents"). And that eats all their profits.

[Tohsaka Rin]

If you think those rules are bad......

Commoners are richer than you think: Pathfinder unchained edition.

Farmhand Joe is back, (edited by quoter)with a vengence!

Well, I have to give it to you, you've just functionally discovered how to, by the rules, play Harvest Moon inside of Pathfinder.

This is going to make one group of people really happy.

[Florian]

Well, I have to give it to you, you've just functionally discovered how to, by the rules, play Harvest Moon inside of Pathfinder.

This is going to make one group of people really happy.

Well, Downtime rules, Teams and Investments are there so you can have something to fool around with. I generally tend to reserve 4K of my wealth for a decent Wizards Tower and some crafters....

[Elderand]

Well, Downtime rules, Teams and Investments are there so you can have something to fool around with. I generally tend to reserve 4K of my wealth for a decent Wizards Tower and some crafters....

The downtime rules are actually pretty good. call me crazy but having a family of farmers able to generate enough ressources to sustain themselves and be able to set some money aside for emergencies seems good to me.

The alternate profession rules for pathfinder unchained however are completely broken.

[Florian]

The downtime rules are actually pretty good. call me crazy but having a family of farmers able to generate enough ressources to sustain themselves and be able to set some money aside for emergencies seems good to me.

The alternate profession rules for pathfinder unchained however are completely broken.

PF Unchained is a set of alternative rules with their own logic. They´re neither core nor canon but something to think about and use for people that understand what the changes will entail.

[Almarck]

I wonder how much then dose a wizard education cost? I guess theoretically, they have to pay the cost of untraining a commoner character into a new class using the downtime rules. Of course.


Can the family afford to send one of their kids to school as an adventurer?

[Elderand]

I wonder how much then dose a wizard education cost? I guess theoretically, they have to pay the cost of untraining a commoner character into a new class using the downtime rules. Of course.


Can the family afford to send one of their kids to school as an adventurer?

Easily, going from NPC class to PC class only cost 30gp per npc class to change. And takes only 3 days.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

A problem with that retraining would be opportunity cost (yes, a wizard is completely better than a peasant, but the family may need that extra set of hands), as well as availability (a wizard needs to be willing to retrain your character).

[Coidzor]

A problem with that retraining would be opportunity cost (yes, a wizard is completely better than a peasant, but the family may need that extra set of hands), as well as availability (a wizard needs to be willing to retrain your character).

It's 3 days. Finding a Wizard willing to do it or materials to self-teach one's self are the real limiting factor

[Tohsaka Rin]

Easily, going from NPC class to PC class only cost 30gp per npc class to change. And takes only 3 days.

http://planetarbitrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/conan-title.jpg
"To tutor your student, see them educated, and hear the lamentation of their enemies... And in only three days, you too, can crush your enemies, for only 300 silver pieces. ACT. NOW."

[Florian]

I wonder how much then dose a wizard education cost? I guess theoretically, they have to pay the cost of untraining a commoner character into a new class using the downtime rules. Of course.


Can the family afford to send one of their kids to school as an adventurer?

Yes, and it makes a lot of sense, too. People used their kids as cheap labour and paid for apprenticeship when a farm couldn't support a family beyond a certain size but you wanted to keep a "spare" or two in reserve.

Keep in mind that the learning process itself is pretty quick and cheap, but doesn´t go deeper into what an apprenticeship contract might actually detail, like how long you´re now cheap labour for the Wizard who trained you.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

It's 3 days. Finding a Wizard willing to do it or materials to self-teach one's self are the real limiting factor

That's what I meant. The opportunity cost was "your son/daughter you sent to go wizarding is now an adventurer or otherwise isn't working on the farm". Though actually, if we want to look at less... short and inexpensive methods of becoming a wizard, we can take it that it takes whatever the age difference is (since wizards are among the classes with the oldest starting ages), and look at tuition for magic academies (which can range from 20 to 200 gp per semester).