Taking Out A Loan?

[AvatarVecna]

I'm looking for rules on borrowing money and paying back later with interest. So far, what I've found is in the Dragonmarked eberron book, which specifies that you can borrow up to 100 gp from a given Dragonmarked House at a time (or 100 gp/level from Kundarak), at various interest rates. This is kinda...lame? Like, cross-referencing with the "start a business" rules, even if you take out a loan from every house, you can't even make a solid down payment on the cheapest starting business unless you're a good ways into epic, at which point you can probably front all the money yourself and don't need pathetic little loans like this.

Are there rules elsewhere for borrowing even more money?

[Telonius]

Faustian Pacts come to mind - Fiendish Codex 2 (page 23). Not sure if there are any options that don't involve a soul as collateral.

[BaronDoctor]

These sorts of things are what I call "Adventure Hooks".

"Noble Patron is looking for people who will do a certain thing for money but hasn't found takers." "So-and-so is willing to loan you the money but wants you to help him do <a thing you don't really want to do>."

[Elves]

I don't think this is something you rely on the game rules for. Seeking loans for an adventuring expedition makes a lot of sense, but it's a risky investment. And the sums players want are likely to be large. Time period may also be a barrier as investment banks only took off in the 1600s. The easiest thing is probably to get a particular noble to back their expedition.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm looking for rules on borrowing money and paying back later with interest. So far, what I've found is in the Dragonmarked eberron book, which specifies that you can borrow up to 100 gp from a given Dragonmarked House at a time (or 100 gp/level from Kundarak), at various interest rates. This is kinda...lame? Like, cross-referencing with the "start a business" rules, even if you take out a loan from every house, you can't even make a solid down payment on the cheapest starting business unless you're a good ways into epic, at which point you can probably front all the money yourself and don't need pathetic little loans like this.

Are there rules elsewhere for borrowing even more money?

Loan interest is based on perceived risk and market availability. In some markets the bank won't offer a loan unless a larger then the loan object is collateral, but then offer very low interest rates as they can't really lose.

So in Magic Mart Land tm I would think magic items would be the loan guarantee. "Put your old +1 up as loan collateral and you can borrow somewhat less money, but at a low interest rate."

[RNightstalker]

DMGII mentions the burghers, which will probably be what you're looking for, but there aren't any hard and fast rules mentioned.

[Zaile]

The reason should be the main factor in determining the rules and terms of any loan, or if anyone would even make it at all.

Why would a money-lender lend anything to a party taking on an ancient red dragon with a low chance of survival? What are you trying to borrow money for? Magic items? A keep? A business? Form a guild? Finance a honeymoon?

Larger loans should be based on the safety of the investment and the ability to pay it back, such as starting a farm or business; or made to kings/lords wanting to build new forts, castles, etc. You could also look at the Iron Bank of Bravos from Game of Thrones. Pretty good example of what a medieval bank could look like, especially in wartime when they were playing both sides.

[AvatarVecna]

I'd like to clarify that this isn't a post asking people for their thoughts on how a loan mechanic might function in the game if you were to homebrew/houserule one, this is a post asking if anybody is aware of existing explicitly rules for actually taking out loans besides the ones I found in that eberron book. Faustian Pacts is kinda along the right lines, although "soul as collateral" is definitely gonna make some people balk. There's references in DMG (or...was it DMG 2?) to moneylenders being able to make loans in general, so it's not a 100% medieval set-up that doesn't deal with loans, but that reference didn't provide any solid loan mechanics so I kept looking.

[RNightstalker]

I'd like to clarify that this isn't a post asking people for their thoughts on how a loan mechanic might function in the game if you were to homebrew/houserule one, this is a post asking if anybody is aware of existing explicitly rules for actually taking out loans besides the ones I found in that eberron book. Faustian Pacts is kinda along the right lines, although "soul as collateral" is definitely gonna make some people balk. There's references in DMG (or...was it DMG 2?) to moneylenders being able to make loans in general, so it's not a 100% medieval set-up that doesn't deal with loans, but that reference didn't provide any solid loan mechanics so I kept looking.

Actually found some of those mechanics: DMGII p129, p225.

[Saintheart]

The reason should be the main factor in determining the rules and terms of any loan, or if anyone would even make it at all.

Why would a money-lender lend anything to a party taking on an ancient red dragon with a low chance of survival? What are you trying to borrow money for? Magic items? A keep? A business? Form a guild? Finance a honeymoon?

Larger loans should be based on the safety of the investment and the ability to pay it back, such as starting a farm or business; or made to kings/lords wanting to build new forts, castles, etc. You could also look at the Iron Bank of Bravos from Game of Thrones. Pretty good example of what a medieval bank could look like, especially in wartime when they were playing both sides.

This brings about a fascinating bit of speculation (no pun intended) on what the loan business might look like in a world where PC adventurers are (notionally) common and loaded like Scrooge McDuck in comparison to the average commoner or even the average aristocrat. I mean, staying in a good quality inn for a night costs you the towering price of 2 gp, which is chicken scratchings for adventurers, and yet the poor old peasant is going to work for days or weeks just for that.

Just imagine the actuarial tables. Given the average adventurer's wealth by level, you might well conclude that the adventurer certainly has capacity to pay back the loan, but the interest rate would have to be significant to reflect the risk. And even that might depend on the profession, the party mage is going to get a rubbish interest rate on the loan since the odds are good that he'll survive any encounter if he has a couple of meatshields and an interdimensional reading link to this forum, i.e. the risk the lender takes is low :D

Same deal for those who have demonstrably been adventuring for a long time; even allowing for the fact they're encountering more and more dangerous opponents, they have more options to kill those things threatening them and accordingly the interest rates on their loans are lower.

Heck, an enterprising red dragon might actually found an investment bank based on itself, its treasure hoard establishes wonderful establishment collateral for the loans to set it up. Albeit - as with a lot of banks in personal experience :D - it's a lot harder to make a withdrawal than it is a deposit.

[shaikujin]

I sorta remember there were loans (either in equipment or gp) available from some of the Affiliations in DMG2 and PHB2. Can't remember if there were interests involved.

[Zaile]

This brings about a fascinating bit of speculation (no pun intended) on what the loan business might look like in a world where PC adventurers are (notionally) common and loaded like Scrooge McDuck in comparison to the average commoner or even the average aristocrat. I mean, staying in a good quality inn for a night costs you the towering price of 2 gp, which is chicken scratchings for adventurers, and yet the poor old peasant is going to work for days or weeks just for that.

Just imagine the actuarial tables. Given the average adventurer's wealth by level, you might well conclude that the adventurer certainly has capacity to pay back the loan, but the interest rate would have to be significant to reflect the risk. And even that might depend on the profession, the party mage is going to get a rubbish interest rate on the loan since the odds are good that he'll survive any encounter if he has a couple of meatshields and an interdimensional reading link to this forum, i.e. the risk the lender takes is low :D

Same deal for those who have demonstrably been adventuring for a long time; even allowing for the fact they're encountering more and more dangerous opponents, they have more options to kill those things threatening them and accordingly the interest rates on their loans are lower.

Heck, an enterprising red dragon might actually found an investment bank based on itself, its treasure hoard establishes wonderful establishment collateral for the loans to set it up. Albeit - as with a lot of banks in personal experience :D - it's a lot harder to make a withdrawal than it is a deposit.

This is a very interesting point. You could definitely say "adventuring" is the D&D equivalent of starting your own business. WBL gives you enough money to buy a keep or very large plots of farmland and multiple houses at very early levels. I really like using adventuring guilds that gather jobs and send adventurer's out. They seem like the most logical way this kind of an economy would evolve.

The quest would defiantly play a factor in what, if any, loan would be made. Taking out bandits or a horde of goblins/gnolls/orcs vs. going after giants or a colossal red dragon are very different risk wise.

I could see using a CR vs Party level (PL), increasing the interest rates and getting dibs on any equipment left if the adventurer's fail. Like a base 5-10% rate for CR = PL and adding 2-5% per CR above PL.

[denthor]

Plot hooks are good.

Local thieves guild would definitely give loans. 100% interest per month. Even if you only kept it for an hour to bet on a horse race you owe 100% interest for the month or a favor see plot hook.

Why do you want loans in your game?

[gijoemike]

This brings about a fascinating bit of speculation (no pun intended) on what the loan business might look like in a world where PC adventurers are (notionally) common and loaded like Scrooge McDuck in comparison to the average commoner or even the average aristocrat. I mean, staying in a good quality inn for a night costs you the towering price of 2 gp, which is chicken scratchings for adventurers, and yet the poor old peasant is going to work for days or weeks just for that.

Just imagine the actuarial tables. Given the average adventurer's wealth by level, you might well conclude that the adventurer certainly has capacity to pay back the loan, but the interest rate would have to be significant to reflect the risk. And even that might depend on the profession, the party mage is going to get a rubbish interest rate on the loan since the odds are good that he'll survive any encounter if he has a couple of meatshields and an interdimensional reading link to this forum, i.e. the risk the lender takes is low :D

Same deal for those who have demonstrably been adventuring for a long time; even allowing for the fact they're encountering more and more dangerous opponents, they have more options to kill those things threatening them and accordingly the interest rates on their loans are lower.

Heck, an enterprising red dragon might actually found an investment bank based on itself, its treasure hoard establishes wonderful establishment collateral for the loans to set it up. Albeit - as with a lot of banks in personal experience :D - it's a lot harder to make a withdrawal than it is a deposit.

Just a reminder to everyone, only untrained servants and assistants who do not have a rank in the profession skill earn 1 silver a day taking 20 days to get to the point where they could have stayed in nice inn.

A peasant knows they are a peasant and should have at least 1 rank in a profession skill. Given a level 1 10 int/10 wis peasant putting just 3 ranks (not even max!) in a profession skill will allow them to obtain a 4 on a natural 1. That means 2 gp a week as the worst they could do. So 4 times a week they could stay in the inn. And that is for a bottom of the barrel skill level peasant at level 1 and not even max ranks.

If they took skill focus ( profession ) and then took a 10, they would have a result of 16 or 8 gp per week. And that is average for a barely trained young farmer, farrier, bar keeper, clerk. If we take it to max ranks, +2 attribute, and level 2 we have 20 or 10 gp per week on average or a whopping 15 gp on a natural 20 if they roll resulting in them staying in the inn every single night and have gold left over. And that is at level 2.


The average low born poor person in D&D is not nearly a poor as people make it out to be.

[AvatarVecna]

Plot hooks are good.

Local thieves guild would definitely give loans. 100% interest per month. Even if you only kept it for an hour to bet on a horse race you owe 100% interest for the month or a favor see plot hook.

Why do you want loans in your game?

While the conversation about potential plothooks is interesting, it's also not the kind of advice I made the thread for. I'm not an uncreative boor who can't imagine how banking would work in medieval D&D world, or how magic items alter how collateral works - I'm looking for existing rules that can be pointed to on a page for theorycrafting purposes, like "regardless of your DM, this is something that is, generally speaking, offered as a service".


Just a reminder to everyone, only untrained servants and assistants who do not have a rank in the profession skill earn 1 silver a day taking 20 days to get to the point where they could have stayed in nice inn.

A peasant knows they are a peasant and should have at least 1 rank in a profession skill. Given a level 1 10 int/10 wis peasant putting just 3 ranks (not even max!) in a profession skill will allow them to obtain a 4 on a natural 1. That means 2 gp a week as the worst they could do. So 4 times a week they could stay in the inn. And that is for a bottom of the barrel skill level peasant at level 1 and not even max ranks.

If they took skill focus ( profession ) and then took a 10, they would have a result of 16 or 8 gp per week. And that is average for a barely trained young farmer, farrier, bar keeper, clerk. If we take it to max ranks, +2 attribute, and level 2 we have 20 or 10 gp per week on average or a whopping 15 gp on a natural 20 if they roll resulting in them staying in the inn every single night and have gold left over. And that is at level 2.


The average low born poor person in D&D is not nearly a poor as people make it out to be.

At least by default in 3.5, any given settlement is going to have something approaching 90% of the adult population be Commoner 1s. And it's worth keeping in mind that there's 1-4 children per 10 adults; thus, given ~100 adults, ~90 of them will be commoners, and there will be 10-40 children, 9-36 of whom are commoner children. By default, NPCs operate on a 3d6 method for attributes, and while some commoners will luck into an 18, an equal number will "luck" into a 3. Since it's about 50/50 whether you'll be smart/dumb or wise/foolish, let's call it 25% commoners who could do Craft or Profession, 25% who could do Craft, 25% who could do Profession, and 25% who aren't really good at either. Additionally, all but the first group also have at least one mental stat that is shall we say "underperforming", and they aren't necessarily making "optimal" build decisions.

All of this is to say that a Commoner 2 with full ranks, Skill Focus, and an attribute bonus isn't exactly "the average low born poor person" by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, even a Commoner 1 with a single bare rank and nothing else is making 1-10.5 (avg 5.75) gp per week. That being said, that's just the money made - there's expenses for food and shelter to be considered. There's the possibility of supporting a family to consider, tools that need to be purchased or repaired, shelter repairs if they've got a family home, that sort of thing. While the average commoner isn't as poor as people tend to think (profit of ~300 gp/year), there's never a single point where they're necessarily going to have a lot of money at once, or have it in particularly big denominations.

Tipping a gold piece (a common thing I see in games/discussions) isn't going to be life-changing treasure for them (the dumb reaction I usually see), it's still usually significant - if you've got a 5-person adventuring party and you got meals at the pub, that's ~30 sp cost, and 1gp is a ~30% tip. It's not "make a scene" big, but tipping ~30% regardless of the actual service quality isn't insignificant by any stretch. It's noticeable. Of course, with a banquet costing 10 gp per person, and fine wine costing 10 gp per bottle, it might well be that tipping 1 gp is sometimes insultingly low - especially given that for such quality, you're probably being hosted by somebody particularly fancy. Now that 5-man bill is maybe 100 gp, and comparable generosity would be 30 gp instead of 1.

[Vaern]

I don't know of any RAW ways, but it might be more practical to have a set amount that must be paid back than running up interest over time. Say you borrow 200 gp, then you're obligated to pay back 300 gp at some point later on regardless of how long it takes. An adventure can pull the characters away from the city where they borrowed the money for any amount of time ranging from days to years, and since the players really don't have any control over how much time they're being forced to sink into just traveling it might be unfair to punish them for it. Besides that, a DM might have an idea of the scope of an adventure's timeline (ie, a couple of weeks, a few months, etc.) but might not want to put in the effort of tracking exactly how much time has passed for the purpose of calculating interest.
The character or organization that the PCs borrowed money from might still send collectors after them if they're taking too long about paying back the debt, of course. Particularly after they've returned from an adventure and the character(s) in question hear that they have been back in town for a while without going out of their way to make a payment towards their debt.

[Calthropstu]

There are no raw loan rules near as I can tell. It would break the game pretty hard to have "yay I get a loan for 50k at lvl 1, buy a scroll of wish, wish for a ring of 3 wishes fully charged..."

[JNAProductions]

There are no raw loan rules near as I can tell. It would break the game pretty hard to have "yay I get a loan for 50k at lvl 1, buy a scroll of wish, wish for a ring of 3 wishes fully charged..."

That breaks the game no matter what level you do it at.

[Calthropstu]

That breaks the game no matter what level you do it at.

True enough, but you get the gist. Even a few thousand to buy a bunch of 3rd level spell scrolls would be game breaking at lvl 1. "I fireball the bandit encampment a dozen times, slaughtering over 50 bandits. Oh look, I'm lvl 4 now and can repay that loan..."

[Endarire]

I'm pretty sure 3.x's authors realized that letting players take out monetary loans was a bad idea balance-wise since it was likely free power.

As an aside, the PC RPG Might and Magic: World of Xeen lets you use a party (and if you do this you'll usually use the default party) to put a buncha money in the bank to accumulate interest, then use a replacement party after the first party is close to dying of old age so they have lots of legit, easy money. This is the in-game inheritance trick.

[AvatarVecna]

There are no raw loan rules near as I can tell. It would break the game pretty hard to have "yay I get a loan for 50k at lvl 1, buy a scroll of wish, wish for a ring of 3 wishes fully charged..."

There's already been a few that get mentioned in-thread. Nothing quite that serious though, if only because 50k is a lot more substantial a fortune by normal person standards than most PCs think it is.

[Rebel7284]

I have always wondered if there is a RAW way of making a level 1 character with Golden Dancing Pegleg Graft to get early entry to enter Jaunter at level 2. 55K is pretty steep for a level 1 character. Looking at this thread, it looks like the usual Martial Monk abuse or Lycanthrapy are easier to pull off.

[Psyren]

There's already been a few that get mentioned in-thread. Nothing quite that serious though, if only because 50k is a lot more substantial a fortune by normal person standards than most PCs think it is.

A more accurate statement then would be, "there are no RAW loan rules for the kinds of sums that would matter a bugbear's left bollock to an adventuring party. This is reasonable since adventurers are an insanely risky investment for most wealthy institutions, on top of that level of wealth having a lot of potential to alter if not break the game if it's available up front. Therefore the correct approach is for the GM to devise and tailor such a system to their campaign's needs, and for the players to access such sums through a combination of roleplay, proven reputation, and services rendered to the debtors in question."

With that said, PF has some loan rules that are tied in with their downtime and kingdom-building systems. The idea being that these funds are being loaned not merely to purchase powerful equipment, but to invest into a settlement of some kind that can be the source of continued income and plot hooks.

[AvatarVecna]

A more accurate statement then would be, "there are no RAW loan rules for the kinds of sums that would matter a bugbear's left bollock to an adventuring party. This is reasonable since adventurers are an insanely risky investment for most wealthy institutions, on top of that level of wealth having a lot of potential to alter if not break the game if it's available up front. Therefore the correct approach is for the GM to devise and tailor such a system to their campaign's needs, and for the players to access such sums through a combination of roleplay, proven reputation, and services rendered to the debtors in question."

With that said, PF has some loan rules that are tied in with their downtime and kingdom-building systems. The idea being that these funds are being loaned not merely to purchase powerful equipment, but to invest into a settlement of some kind that can be the source of continued income and plot hooks.

The rules that have been mentioned in this thread allow for:

1a) A guild loan up to 5000 gp, with 10% interest compounded monthly, no check required

1b) A guild loan of 5100+ gp, with 25% interest compounded seasonally*, which requires a Diplomacy check of DC 10, +1 per +100 gp being loaned.

(*: The text says "seasonally" but also "every 4 months", and that's not what seasonally means I'm pretty sure. Plus even if it's 25% every three months, that's still better than 10% every month, so it's still a better rate unless there's something weird and unstated going on how loans work.)

2) A guild loan for a guild member of 5 x Level, 50 x Level, or 500 x Level gp, due back within a month, requiring Diplomacy check of DC 15/20/25 respectively.

Is that ever going to be a substantial amount for a high-level character? No, not unless they're cheesing it pretty hard. But for a low-level character? 5000 gp is an awful lot of money to essentially get for free. And while 5500 is due back at the end of the month, that's long enough to get several levels worth of XP and loot under your belt, provided you live. And that's without needing a check. Skill optimization isn't exactly treading new ground. Bard 2 without much too much effort can get ~7000 gp (~250% WBL). A similar Bard 10 can look at a pair of loans for ~12700 gp (~25% WBL). The WBL percentage is going down for sure, but it's still a substantial amount that you're getting without touching on collateral, and you're in town so it's not unreasonable to head to an item shop with it.

Sure, by the time you're a ways into epic, even if you've got +200 diplomacy or something, that's essentially a 25000 gp loan - that's barely worth mentioning even for a 20th lvl character. But I think saying that such loans are so tiny that they'll never matter for an adventurer isn't correct.

[Psyren]

Completely immaterial, no, but worth the kludging and clunky bookkeeping (seasonal interest, really?) relative to just... killing stuff and looting their treasure as normal, for me that's an emphatic no. But if you're going in determined to use a loan system and the only question is which existing one you're starting from... sure, whatever, go nuts.

[sreservoir]

At least by default in 3.5, any given settlement is going to have something approaching 90% of the adult population be Commoner 1s. And it's worth keeping in mind that there's 1-4 children per 10 adults; thus, given ~100 adults, ~90 of them will be commoners, and there will be 10-40 children, 9-36 of whom are commoner children. By default, NPCs operate on a 3d6 method for attributes, and while some commoners will luck into an 18, an equal number will "luck" into a 3. Since it's about 50/50 whether you'll be smart/dumb or wise/foolish, let's call it 25% commoners who could do Craft or Profession, 25% who could do Craft, 25% who could do Profession, and 25% who aren't really good at either. Additionally, all but the first group also have at least one mental stat that is shall we say "underperforming", and they aren't necessarily making "optimal" build decisions.

Keep in mind, even if you have 3 Int 3 Wis, so long as you have 1 rank of training you'd be earning 3.5 gp/week (~5 sp/day) taking 10, well ahead of the untrained laborer's 1 sp/day. And Craft isn't even trained only (though I guess the parenthetical is a specific exception). I'd totally expect it to be a sort of common knowledge among NPCs that for most people, learning a trade or profession and practicing it for a stable income by far preferable to doing untrained labor in something you weren't trained in or begging (i.e. untrained Perform), even if you're a bottom half-percentile dunce. (Although actually, even the bottom half percentile has at least a 6 in either Int or Wis.)

Of course, this doesn't rule out commoners who, due to circumstances, are prevented from practicing what they're trained in! It probably shouldn't be the norm, though.

(As an aside, rolling Craft to work on creating mundane items whose DC you can meet by taking 10 is more efficient that earning the money using the same Craft skill as long as you have no less than a +0 modifier, and crafting a DC 10 item is close to on par with earning at +4. The takeaway, I guess, is that it's pretty reasonable for commoners to craft most of their "typical" items of no particular complexity at home, and even [/i]prefer[/i] to trade their specialty crafts with acquaintances with different specialties.)

[Fizban]

Considering that any loan of significant value ought to involve some sort of collateral, one could interpret a use of the Merchantile Background feat as a loan. You sell an item you don't need right now for 75% of of its value, and then buy it back later for 75% of its value, with a 1/month limit on the second part (or at 100% so you're taking a 25% loss).

There's no guarantee the item will still be there when you want to buy it back, but there's no guarantee about much of anything when it comes to buying and selling items, so asking or negotiating a price for them to hold onto it for X amount of time is no more or less reasonable than the DM saying anything you sell is immediately and irrevocably lost to some other adventurer. And what things are you going to use that money for besides magic items, that will lead to a cash inflow sufficient to repay it, anyway?

No one seems to have brought up PHB2 affiliations, which have borrowing on several of their final affiliation benefits- one lets you borrow 30,000 in cash to repay within 1 year, the next an 18,000gp weapon or armor, another allows up to three 750gp scrolls per month (that you must replace), yet another allows borrowing a 10,000gp non-charged wondrous item for up to 1 week, and the example on the table in the creation section says up to 15,000, or 30,000 if the affiliation's scale is 10+. Dungeonscape has a guild that loans a non-charged wondrous item up to 15,000gp (further specifying that it must be from the DMG), and the most lenient allows borowing up to four items at a combined value of 30,000gp or less- this time stating they come from other members, and if destroyed or lost you must pay for them and your affiliation score drops.

Of course, all of these require an affiliation score of 30 or higher, which means jumping through a bunch of hoops and prerequisites that will prevent many characters (or characters in many campaigns) from meeting them, and essentially form a set of rules for building up (and losing) the trust/credit rating/etc required for someone to actually consider loaning you anything.


Is that ever going to be a substantial amount for a high-level character? No. . .
You used the standard demographics rules earlier. A lender can't lend money they don't have, and last I calculated, high level NPCs have roughly 1/3 of the individual wealth high level PCs do (which is still roughly 3x a single encounter's worth of treasure). In order to let a high level character take out a loan, the DM must first invent an institution capable of backing that loan, let alone willing to actually do so. Hence why it is exceedingly unlikely any such rules will exist without being tied to a particular setting or some sort of guild rules.

The PHB2 system essentially works by drawing a big fat line where PCs are allowed to dump cash but never extract it, except via controlled loans that the DM must agree on as part of designing/allowing the affiliaton. And it runs on an exponential scale where the usual visible "value" of the affiliation's capital if you bought it directly is based on 1,000gp*scale^2, much like the magic item formulas- but again, the PCs can never actually extract that value. And that's still a lie, since growing an affiliation from nothing requires time that cannot be skipped, and an organization disbanded may or may not be able to reform at its previous scale with or without an injection of cash (the rules make no statement)- so even the visible value that the PC would pay to increase capital does not necessarily reflect the value of those assets that grew over months and years. Or in short- it's an abstract system that can only be interacted with in certain ways mostly out of the players' control, exactly as an economic system should be, but in that abstraction and later publishing was turned into a series of char-op freebies instead of being used to build campaign settings :smallmad:

The "institution" of being able to sell magic items in any sufficiently large city is the most broad and base assumption, so I expect "loans" powered by Merchantile Background and a big item you don't actually care about are the only seriously scaling (and setting-agnostic) solution you'll get.

[sreservoir]

so I expect "loans" powered by Merchantile Background and a big item you don't actually care about are the only seriously scaling (and setting-agnostic) solution you'll get.

Mercantile Background is, of course, a totally setting-agnostic 1st-level-only FR regional feat.

[Fizban]

Mercantile Background is, of course, a totally setting-agnostic 1st-level-only FR regional feat.
I would mega-facepalm, but I think I'll downgrade that to an "Eh, you know perfectly well what I meant."

Buying and selling magic items exists by default in all settings that don't explicitly remove it. Merchantile Background may be from an FR book and list a specific region, but picking a region comes with absolutely zero strings attached and are usually ignored for all practical purposes- and with nearly all regional feats being 1st level only IIRC, the 1st level only requirement already makes them more exclusive to each other than the regional restriction. It requires no creation or acknowledgement of any major organizations whatsoever in the campaign, just the character being allowed to take the feat, which interfaces with magic item shopping however you were already allowing it.

Whereas a feature tied to a specific House in Eberron, is tied to a specific house in Eberron (with that one not only invoking one house, but multiple, because one is better than the others so to mimic it you must have multiple with one better than the others), and all other lending mechanics based on guilds require guilds that are present with whatever amount of guild mechanics are in that book.

[jenniferdehner9]

Considering that any loan of significant value ought to involve some sort of collateral, one could interpret a use of the Merchantile Background feat as a loan. You sell an item you don't need right now for 75% of of its value, and then buy it back later for 75% of its value, with a 1/month limit on the second part (or at 100% so you're taking a 25% loss).

There's no guarantee the item will still be there when you want to buy it back, but there's no guarantee about much of anything when it comes to buying and selling items, so asking or negotiating a price for them to hold onto it for X amount of time is no more or less reasonable than the DM saying anything you sell is immediately and irrevocably lost to some other adventurer. And what things are you going to use that money for besides magic items, that will lead to a cash inflow sufficient to repay it, anyway?

No one seems to have brought up PHB2 affiliations, which have borrowing on several of their final affiliation benefits- one lets you borrow 30,000 in cash to repay within 1 year, the next an 18,000gp weapon or armor, another allows up to three 750gp scrolls per month (that you must replace), yet another allows borrowing a 10,000gp non-charged wondrous item for up to 1 week, and the example on the table in the creation section says up to 15,000, or 30,000 if the affiliation's scale is 10+. Dungeonscape has a guild that loans a non-charged wondrous item up to 15,000gp (further specifying that it must be from the DMG), and the most lenient allows borowing up to four items at a combined value of 30,000gp or less- this time stating they come from other members, and if destroyed or lost you must pay for them and your affiliation score drops.

Of course, all of these require an affiliation score of 30 or higher, which means jumping through a bunch of hoops and prerequisites that will prevent many characters (or characters in many campaigns) from meeting them, and essentially form a set of rules for building up (and losing) the trust/credit rating/etc required for someone to actually consider loaning you anything.


You used the standard demographics rules earlier. A lender can't lend money they don't have, and last I calculated, high level NPCs have roughly 1/3 of the individual wealth high level PCs do (which is still roughly 3x a single encounter's worth of treasure). In order to let a high level character take out a loan, the DM must first invent an institution capable of backing that loan, let alone willing to actually do so. Hence why it is exceedingly unlikely any such rules will exist without being tied to a particular setting or some sort of guild rules.

The PHB2 system essentially works by drawing a big fat line where PCs are allowed to dump cash but never extract it, except via controlled loans that the DM must agree on as part of designing/allowing the affiliaton. And it runs on an exponential scale where the usual visible "value" of the affiliation's capital if you bought it directly is based on 1,000gp*scale^2, much like the magic item formulas- but again, the PCs can never actually extract that value. And that's still a lie, since growing an affiliation from nothing requires time that cannot be skipped, and an organization disbanded may or may not be able to reform at its previous scale with or without an injection of cash (the rules make no statement)- so even the visible value that the PC would pay to increase capital does not necessarily reflect the value of those assets that grew over months and years. Or in short- it's an abstract system that can only be interacted with in certain ways mostly out of the players' control, exactly as an economic system should be, but in that abstraction and later publishing was turned into a series of char-op freebies instead of being used to build campaign settings :smallmad:

The "institution" of being able to sell magic items in any sufficiently large city is the most broad and base assumption, so I expect "loans" powered by Merchantile Background and a big item you don't actually care about are the only seriously scaling (and setting-agnostic) solution you'll get.

Thank you for the information.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: the interest on Necromancy is streeeeeeep.