What is your Profession? (Also Craft)

[The Viscount]

I always think of Craft and Profession as skills that are...just kind of there. Theoretically available for classes if they want to spend some downtime making money, or qualifying for a few classes. As such I never really think about who has these skills and who doesn't. I had seen one or two classes without one, but I had assumed that it was a goof. However, lack of one or the other is more common than I thought. As follows are a list of classes missing one or the other.


Barbarian lacks profession, I guess because professions are too civilized.
Fighter lacks profession, for reasons I cannot fathom.
Aristocrat lacks both, presumably because they find jobs vulgar.
Warrior also lacks both, because they had to make sure it was worse than fighter
Beguiler lacks craft, which I had initially taken to be a joke about how it's all about illusion and enchantment.
Dragon Shaman lacks profession, which seems like it might be an oversight due to its weird modular list.
Duskblade lacks profession, perhaps a nod to its fighter ancestors.
Knight lacks both, I guess because they hated Knight that much.
Battle Dancer lacks both, but the class as a whole lacks many things.
Jester lacks both, which is odd since it's basically store brand bard, and bard has both.
Mountebank also lacks both, but its list is essentially rogue with skills missing at random, so why not these, too?
Truenamer lacks profession (poor editing with Truenamer, shocking I know)
Crusader lacks profession, I guess they just crusade 24/7.
Warblade also lacks profession, but Swordsage has it, so it's not like they forgot it existed. Perhaps those writers remembered and these didn't.
Dragonfire Adept lacks profession, I guess so they can be like their dragon heroes and just sit on gold
Marshal lacks both, and it's the only one in the book to do so, so I guess they just hate it.
Noble from Dragonlance also lacks both, presumably following in the footsteps of Aristocrat.
Ninja lacks profession, because like the other two it's kind of knockoff rogue
Scout lacks profession cause they just chopped off half the Rogue skills I guess.
Spellthief lacks profession because it has to balance those caster skills somehow
Samurai lacks profession because when you were learning in apprenticeship, they were studying the blade.


Commoner flexes on these classes by having both craft and profession, which I just love.

Compiling helped me notice the odd trend that none of the 4 classes in PBHII have both craft and profession. It's not that they all missed one because the writers forgot one existed. I can't think of any explanation, but there has to be one, surely.

Not particularly surprising that 3 of the 7 Dragon Compendium classes are lacking, since it's pulled from the magazine, which doesn't always have the same consistency as the books. I'm almost surprised it wasn't all of them.

All 3 of the classes from Complete Adventurer lack profession, and I feel confident without any other evidence that this is because the writers forgot.

A surprisingly long list of classes are missing one or both. Beguiler is unique in missing craft, a few miss both, and profession is by far more common to not have. I can't really see any pattern in classes that don't have it, but it seems too common for me to be able to say "they just forgot a lot" especially considering that it's a prerequisite for classes from time to time. It can't just be forgetfulness, right? Right?

[heavyfuel]

Beguiler lacks craft, which I had initially taken to be a joke about how it's all about illusion and enchantment.
Knight lacks both, I guess because they hated Knight that much.
Marshal lacks both, and it's the only one in the book to do so, so I guess they just hate it.


These honestly took me by surprise. I thought every player class had access to Craft. I blame the lack of Craft on the ones that aren't from the more traditional books (like Battle Dancer) on the writers

[Zaq]

I have a quip in my new-and-improved guide [very WIP, not yet released] about how truenamers lack Profession because they have no marketable skills and no one wants to hire them.

[The Viscount]

Beguiler being the only class to miss craft alone makes me feel like it's intentional, though I know the reverse is more likely.
I just can't see a uniting pattern with the classes that lack profession. There's mundane and magical, core and splat, early and late run.

[Saintheart]

Fighter lacks profession, for reasons I cannot fathom.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIr8u0j08gU

[ShurikVch]

Everybody who're lacking Profession, but have Craft, are able to use Craft instead Profession for everything but prerequisites and skill synergies: spend time and materials, get money.

[The Viscount]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIr8u0j08gU
Congratulations, you've spotted the joke I made in my title. On the subject, how on earth is that guy a blacksmith?


Everybody who're lacking Profession, but have Craft, are able to use Craft instead Profession for everything but prerequisites and skill synergies: spend time and materials, get money.

Is it really that common to use Craft skills to make money? I mean it certainly is a net positive, but it's such small amounts compared to the regular adventuring it's kind of just a drop in the bucket. Also Craft simply makes items, and you may very well have a DM that says you must wait till you get to market to sell them. When you sell items you sell them for half price, so that cuts into your profits. The fact that you can't use them for prerequisites is pretty big considering the default state is having both of these skills.

[Duke of Urrel]

When you sell items you sell them for half price, so that cuts into your profits.

I disagree.

The rule (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#sellingLoot) that "n general, a character can sell something for half its listed price" appears under the heading "Selling Loot." If you make something yourself, it isn't "loot"; it's a brand-new item that you have every right to sell for its market price.

Local sales tax may apply, of course, at the discretion of the dungeon master. (When I'm the dungeon master, I consider sales taxes to be included in the [I]guild dues that you pay as the member of a guild.) But I have always interpreted the half-price rule as applicable only to actual loot, that is, to stuff that you've plundered from somewhere and that may be of questionable age and quality.

[The Viscount]

The sales taxes you mentioned would still cut into profits though as compared to Profession, no?
I'm interested in what you mean by sales taxes included in guild dues. When I think of sales tax I think of something paid by the consumer, and I think of guild dues as something paid by the producer to the guild. How do those interact in your campaigns?
On the subject of guild dues, I think about that as something that is paid by a member to retrieve the training and/or to receive guild benefits. In D&D where becoming skilled in Craft is a simple matter of investing the ranks, why would that matter? Can players in your campaigns only earn ranks in craft by working under someone else? Or do guilds just have enforcers to prevent the wares of dilettantes from being sold?

[Duke of Urrel]

The sales taxes you mentioned would still cut into profits though as compared to Profession, no?
I'm interested in what you mean by sales taxes included in guild dues. When I think of sales tax I think of something paid by the consumer, and I think of guild dues as something paid by the producer to the guild. How do those interact in your campaigns?
On the subject of guild dues, I think about that as something that is paid by a member to retrieve the training and/or to receive guild benefits. In D&D where becoming skilled in Craft is a simple matter of investing the ranks, why would that matter? Can players in your campaigns only earn ranks in craft by working under someone else? Or do guilds just have enforcers to prevent the wares of dilettantes from being sold?

Sales taxes are paid by the consumer – but this doesn't happen when PCs buy new weapons, does it? So I assume (for simplicity's sake) that sales tax is always already included in the market prices that appear in the PLAYER'S HANDBOOK. The seller has already added the sales tax to the market price as a mark-up. So it really is the seller who has to pay the sales tax, but the cost of the sales tax is passed on to the consumer.

Guilds and their rules are really up to the dungeon master, just as taxes are. However, when I'm the dungeon master, I don't allow anybody to make money using any Craft or Profession skill unless they either belong to a guild or have their own workshop to work in. (This involves buying a building to use as a workshop and also paying property tax on that building. Some professions, such as farmer, don't require a workshop but do require land, which of course is also taxed.) Also, I impose a 15% tax on your earnings when you use either Craft skill or Profession skill to earn money. I impose the guild dues that increase with character level only on players who sell crafted items. If you don't sell crafted items, I assume that guild dues are always five gold pieces per month and no higher. This gets you room and board and a workshop to work in, because the dues include the cost of workshop rental. Belonging to a guild also enables you to employ apprentices who take the Aid Another action and improve your skill check when you create an item. The apprentices also divide up the time that it takes you to create an item, so that for example a suit of full plate mail takes you a lot less time to complete.

So there are definite benefits to belonging to a guild – in the world that I run as a dungeon master. Of course, traditionally, guilds did operate monopolies. I assume that if you try to do free-lancing outside of a guild, you break the law and may be prosecuted, fined, pilloried, or imprisoned. The guilds, wherever they operate, have the protection of the law – and in return for this protection, they enforce the imposition of sales taxes, which is the price that the guilds pay to the government for the government's enforcement of the guilds' privileges.

There's also a windfall tax that I impose even on foreign coins. This is also 15%, but it includes the moneychanger's fee, which would be 10% by itself. So there is no avoiding taxes – unless you want to risk getting in trouble with the law.

Of course, most of this stuff is all house ruling on my part (though I believe my rule that you can sell brand-new, self-crafted items at their full market price is an acceptable interpretation of the rules). The guild dues part of my house rules is based on stuff that I've read in the DUNGEON MASTER'S GUIDE and the DUNGEON MASTER'S GUIDE II.

[Psyren]

Out of curiosity I checked these for the Pathfinder core classes. All of them have both except Barbarians (no Profession, as above.) This means that Fighters now have Profession, presumably because somebody at Paizo remembered that Professions like (Soldier) and (Guard) exist.

Too lazy to go through all the non-core classes but I'll note that the PF Ninja and Knight Cavalier have both as well.