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Riffington
2008-11-27, 04:13 PM
There seem to be enough complaints from the warfare people to justify a new thread (despite the obvious fact that you can't really understand war without understanding its economic underpinnings).

So, it seems like you can have a few different approaches to D&D economic stratification.
1. Gritty Middle-ages. Around 1400, the population of Europe was roughly 50 million - take that as a starting point (if you want a more British flavor, lower it further: the population in England+Wales would only have been 2 million). An average life expectancy might be 35. A peasant only makes a small surplus over what he needs to live, as evidenced by the fact that ~15% of people can be something other than farmer.

Basically, every bit of surplus production a farmer makes goes towards supporting nonfarmers; some of their production would go back to the farmers (in prayers, carpentry, etc) and the remainder would go towards crafting armors, churches, etc.

2. Conquest-based economics. So perhaps your peasants aren't super efficient. But many of your elites go into war- and bring back slaves or booty. You can build the pyramids if you continually conquer new countries and use slaves effectively. Remember that this only shuffles around wealth. It does not change the total wealth created in the world.

3. Adventurers. Now, WBL is not a means of creating wealth. All it means is "if your characters have more gold than WBL, then you need to give them higher-CR monsters than you otherwise would. If they have less gold than WBL, then you need to give them lower-CR monsters."
Additionally, adventurers get their money from somewhere. Bank-robbers do not increase a modern nation's GDP; they merely reallocate money from productive people to themselves. They actually reduce a nation's productivity.
However, many adventurer-class characters are highly productive. A farmer that receives rain is much more productive than one who does not. If clerics lower the mortality rate, then farmers have much longer productive years. If dragonskin is a valuable substance, then monster slaying does create some small amount of wealth.

4. Non-gritty peasants. Let's say that clerics have raised the life expectancy to 50. Peasants have the opportunity to obtain some formal education in farming, giving them 3 ranks of Profession (Farmer). This increases their productivity dramatically, which allows them to send their kids to agricultural school as well. This means two things:
1. Each peasant produces more. By extension, each city-dweller may also be more educated and more productive.
2. There are far more non-peasants.
These factors are multiplicative. For every extra person a peasant can feed, there is a significant increase in the total income a kingdom produces.


None of this explains some of the insane economics involved in, say, locksmithing.

Terraoblivion
2008-11-27, 04:23 PM
You do know that the low life expectancy of the middle ages was mostly a product of infant mortality, right? A peasant who lived beyond the first couple of years would be likely to remain productive into his sixties. The idea that a forty-year old would be the village elder is a fairly peculiar myth that has grown up in the twentieth century and doesn't actually relate to what knowledge we have about medieval demographics.

Pie Guy
2008-11-27, 04:28 PM
Yeah, if you lived past five, you were good.

Recaiden
2008-11-27, 04:38 PM
Econommicon (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=9483527&postcount=5) Most of the things in here are better than the standard DnD economics, although it assumes some things. Like, DnD being in the middle ages is a myth.

KnightDisciple
2008-11-27, 04:42 PM
Why do ranks in Profession (Farmer) require formal schooling?

Morty
2008-11-27, 04:46 PM
Even in most generic "Medieval Knights and Wizards" settings it can be assumed that due to clerical care, infant mortality rate is lower and average lifespan is higher than in medieval Europe.

Recaiden
2008-11-27, 04:51 PM
The mortality rate is lower, so there will be more production, but trying to apply DnD rules to economics will break down.

Kemper Boyd
2008-11-27, 04:52 PM
It might be worthwhile to substitute silver for gold to get at least some semblance of rationality into a D&D economy.

Also, D&D underprices swords by a significant margin. There was a reason why they were prestigious objects and that was their cost in addition to their utility value.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-27, 04:55 PM
Econommicon (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=9483527&postcount=5) Most of the things in here are better than the standard DnD economics, although it assumes some things. Like, DnD being in the middle ages is a myth.
There's also a few other things in there that are not based in D&D 3.5 - in 3.5, magic item creation by way of Wish is only limited to available XP - and in the case of an Efreeti, as the Wish is a spell-like ability, no XP is required - so no cap (similar for the Teleport limit - it's 50 pounds in 3.5, not 30). Likewise, even WITH the 15,000 gp limit on magic items created that way, and a 30-pound limit on the carrying capacity of a Balor, a simple Type I bag of Holding can carry 250 pounds of stuff - which means that Balor CAN transport very large chunks of change. There's other such issues with the article.

Regardless, though, it's Dungeons&Dragons, not Attorneys&Accountants, Bankers&Businessmen, or Clerks&Counters - the game wasn't really designed with a sensible economy in the first place, so what it ended up with is a shadow of an economy that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Oslecamo
2008-11-27, 05:18 PM
Regardless, though, it's Dungeons&Dragons, not Attorneys&Accountants, Bankers&Businessmen, or Clerks&Counters - the game wasn't really designed with a sensible economy in the first place, so what it ended up with is a shadow of an economy that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

I think this is the main point. Players are suposed to get money as quest rewards, loot, stealing and some magic tricks, not trying to start a business.

Econimocon honestly isnt' any better at it than regular D&D. Just use summon monster and gating effects, collect the monsters souls for free, and voila, infinite change of whatever you want.

EDIT:Also, altough there are clerics, there are much nastier monsters in D&D.

In the real world middle ages a big city people are relatively safe from the wilderness, but in D&D monsters of all kind can raze down cities from day to night.

Thant
2008-11-27, 05:39 PM
Also, altough there are clerics, there are much nastier monsters in D&D.

In the real world middle ages a big city people are relatively safe from the wilderness, but in D&D monsters of all kind can raze down cities from day to night.

If that was the case then the D&D civilization would be overruned by all kinds of monsters and would inevitably lose to creeps with our without the pcs. Magic, be it arcane or divine, is a great addition to the society - a single spell can mend the damage that makind (in our reality) needs years to repair.

Riffington
2008-11-27, 06:35 PM
Why do ranks in Profession (Farmer) require formal schooling?

Nothing requires formal schooling. Certain people are capable of becoming astounding students of English literature using only a library - never attending a University class. Others self-teach mathematics, even inventing fields of calculus. There are very competent farmers who learned everything from their fathers.

But formal schooling raises the average level of knowledge. If you send 1000 kids to school, their mean productivity will rise. Some of them would be better off never going... but the overall productivity of a society increases with more formal education.

Oslecamo
2008-11-27, 06:44 PM
If that was the case then the D&D civilization would be overruned all kinds of monsters and would inevitably lose to creeps with our without the pcs. Magic, be it arcane or divine, is a great addition to the society - a single spell can mend the damage that makind (in our reality) needs years to repair.

Well, and the D&D civilization is indeed overrun by all kinds of monsters. You step out of a city and you risk bein attacked by ogres/ghouls/whatever. good monsters and asdventurers make their best to protect civilization, but it's an harsh life anyway

How many ruins of ancient empire and abandoned dungeons are out there again after all?

Magic can solve troubles, but it isn't cheap, because only casters can create it, and mr wizard/cleric aren't surely gonna help Joe Commoner for free.

After all, even today, we have plenty of people dying of problems with easy solutions because they can't afford to pay the solutions.

elliott20
2008-11-27, 11:31 PM
D&D RAW also completely and utterly ignores economic principles. for a start, it stats that ALL skills and professions make the SAME amount of money. We all know that this is patently not true, yet according to RAW, a ditch digger who has 4 ranks in ditch digging will make the same amount as an accountant with 4 ranks in accounting.

It also assumes that money is worth a static amount. That is, one gold piece will ALWAYS be worth 100 candles, regardless. This assumption means that there is no inflation, which also means there is no supply and demand. Or rather, they simply didn't take it into account.

another problem is that D&D has set price for production costs. Or rather, in accounting terms, costs of goods sold (ah yes, good ol' COGS). But this only applies to magic items. (incidentally, always valued at 50%) it is not supplied for other items like say, a house or a meal.

and has anyone actually tried to figure out the life of someone who makes, say 7 gold pieces a week? (the average amount for someone with 4 skill ranks in a profession along with skill focus) it's really not much.

so yeah, trying to quantify economics in D&D will result in a pretty ridiculous market economy. Not to mention we haven't even factored in the effects of magic yet.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-27, 11:42 PM
and has anyone actually tried to figure out the life of someone who makes, say 7 gold pieces a week? (the average amount for someone with 4 skill ranks in a profession along with skill focus) it's really not much. 7 gold pieces per week = 1 gp per day. Assuming, for the moment, that he doesn't have a hut somewhere, just from the PHB, we can get...

1) Common Inn Stay (5 sp/night)
2) Common meals (3 sp/day)

That's.... "a place on a raised, heated floor, the use of a blanket and a pillow" and "bread, chicken stew, carrots, and watered-down ale or wine"

With 2 sp/day to spare.

If the poor guy has a hut (free lodging), then he can purchase good meals (5 sp/day), and have 5 sp/day left over.

If he's got a wife who can cook, clean, and maintain everything (Craft: Food, possibly Craft(Hut)... or no ranks and just takes 10 on a DC 10 task), then all he has to purchase is the actual materials - which are 1/3rd the cost of the base items. He's buying for two, but he's also paying less than half price - which means that 1 gp/day gets him good meals, again with a little left over.

Hal
2008-11-27, 11:53 PM
7 gold pieces per week = 1 gp per day. Assuming, for the moment, that he doesn't have a hut somewhere, just from the PHB, we can get...

1) Common Inn Stay (5 sp/night)
2) Common meals (3 sp/day)

That's.... "a place on a raised, heated floor, the use of a blanket and a pillow" and "bread, chicken stew, carrots, and watered-down ale or wine"

With 2 sp/day to spare.

If the poor guy has a hut (free lodging), then he can purchase good meals (5 sp/day), and have 5 sp/day left over.

If he's got a wife who can cook, clean, and maintain everything (Craft: Food, possibly Craft(Hut)... or no ranks and just takes 10 on a DC 10 task), then all he has to purchase is the actual materials - which are 1/3rd the cost of the base items. He's buying for two, but he's also paying less than half price - which means that 1 gp/day gets him good meals, again with a little left over.

This is why my first D&D game was such a terrible experience. Our DM starved us of cash and expected us to "make a living" in the time we weren't adventuring. (Since we met every other weekend, our character would have to survive 2 weeks of upkeep between sessions).

In any case, your wealthiest individuals are going to be magic users with Craft Wonderous Item. Yeah, making magic weapons and armor is profitable, but not everyone is in the army or is an adventurer. The common man is going to be buying "mundane" magical items when he can.

elliott20
2008-11-28, 12:03 AM
well, yeah, the average commoner can survive off of 7 gp a week, but I still don't think it's necessarily a good life. Of course, we're not talking about good life, we're just talking about making it a feasible income, so Jack's point is well taken.

the wealthiest man in the world might not be a mage though. Why? because while he would make 100% profit on every product he sold, there might not be ANY demand for his wares. Just by pricing alone, MOST characters will not be able to afford it. At least, not without spending 2-3 years saving money.

Having said that, the first guy who can buy himself a wand of "create food and water" with infinite castings is going to be a very rich man indeed.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-28, 01:30 AM
well, yeah, the average commoner can survive off of 7 gp a week, but I still don't think it's necessarily a good life. Of course, we're not talking about good life, we're just talking about making it a feasible income, so Jack's point is well taken. If he's got a hut (maintained by his wife for cheap) and three kids, and his wife has Craft(Food) (to create meals), his 1 gp/day is sufficient to get the materials for Good meals for all four of them (8.3333... silver pieces), and still have a small amount left over to save up for other things that happen to come up (clothing, tools, materials to repair the hut, an occasional casting of Cure Light Wounds from the local cleric, whatever).

If having Good meals, a wife, and three kids is not a "good life" for a Commoner, then what is?



the wealthiest man in the world might not be a mage though. Why? because while he would make 100% profit on every product he sold, there might not be ANY demand for his wares. Just by pricing alone, MOST characters will not be able to afford it. At least, not without spending 2-3 years saving money.

Wall of Iron. Sure, it's got a 50 gp material component, but Iron is listed as a trade good, valued at 1 sp/pound. Look up the density of iron sometime, then work out how much volume a Wall of Iron actually has, even at minimum caster level. It gets absurd (to the point where you can actually hire a mage to cast it, pay the mage the listed spellcasting services fees with the trade-good iron, and STILL make a profit).

As it's a trade good, it's usable as cash by the book - which means there doesn't need to be a market for it as such.



Having said that, the first guy who can buy himself a wand of "create food and water" with infinite castings is going to be a very rich man indeed.
Check the rules for magic traps. A periodic Create Food and Water trap is, while not exactly cheap, surprisingly inexpensive for the number of people it can feed. A Cleric-5 with Craft Wondrous Item can make "traps" that provide large quantities of food (Create Food and Water, set on "periodic"), and negate the need for lodging (Endure Elements, touch trigger) without too much trouble.

Likewise, Boots of the Winterlands and a Ring of Sustenance will seriously cut down on a peasant's expenses... if he can scrounge up the ~4k or so to pay for them initially.

elliott20
2008-11-28, 01:38 AM
the thing is though, we need to take into consideration what happens after a while with spells like creation. for one thing, raw materials WILL become virtually useless short of the price you would pay for someone to cast it.

to me, magic is essentially the equivalent of new technology in how it effects markets. It can change markets forever, but you can't really dodge around and beat the market for long.

this is why magic needs to applied AFTER you've established a baseline non-magical economy, and then as you add more and more advance magic, the model becomes more and more sophisticated.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-28, 02:40 AM
the thing is though, we need to take into consideration what happens after a while with spells like creation. for one thing, raw materials WILL become virtually useless short of the price you would pay for someone to cast it.

Well... Major and Minor creation have a flaw: The stuff they make vanishes after a little while.


to me, magic is essentially the equivalent of new technology in how it effects markets. It can change markets forever, but you can't really dodge around and beat the market for long.

this is why magic needs to applied AFTER you've established a baseline non-magical economy, and then as you add more and more advance magic, the model becomes more and more sophisticated.
Not necessarily.

The Greeks had a working steam engine (proof of concept level, mostly - it worked, but was very, very inefficient, even for steam engines). They never pursued the technology, though - they had no reason to, as they had slaves to do all the grunt-work.

Give the Wizards and Clerics (and those few individuals who order them about) a comparable mindset, and you don't need to worry about the impact of magic on the economy.

Rimx
2008-11-28, 02:52 AM
his 1 gp/day is sufficient to get the materials for Good meals for all four of them (8.3333... silver pieces), and still have a small amount left over to save up for other things that happen to come up (clothing, tools, materials to repair the hut, an occasional casting of Cure Light Wounds from the local cleric, whatever).


He has to pay taxes, which are at least 2-3sp for every gp earned and rent for his hut.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-28, 02:59 AM
He has to pay taxes, which are at least 2-3sp for every gp earned and rent for his hut.
So he drops from "good" meals to "common" meals for the cost savings.

But then, taxes and hut-rent are not exactly listed in official materials - which means they're DM whimsey, and have exactly the effect on the economy that the DM says they have. Alternately, taxes are included as part of the process of making the money in the first place. How much is abstracted into the skill check?

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-11-28, 03:11 AM
Please... economics in D&D are a complete and utter farce. It's a controlled economy to the point where prices for buying and selling are set in stone. Just as in the case of the USSR, this causes no end of problems for anyone trying to run a proper economy.

Need I mention the Wall of Iron infinite wealth trick? By all rights, it should supersaturate the iron market to the point where an entire wall would cost the same as the material cost plus living expenses for the wizard in question. Yet, by the rules, the price of iron remains constant, and the demand unwavering. You can literally run every city out of money with this one spell in a matter of days. And yet this still will have no ultimate impact on the economy at large, even though no one has any money anymore (and modern econcomic concepts and lending practices certainly haven't been invented to give rise to the dispution that most corporations run at 'making no money' constantly to avoid taxes when in fact they're making money hand over fist)

Zen Master
2008-11-28, 03:42 AM
Even in most generic "Medieval Knights and Wizards" settings it can be assumed that due to clerical care, infant mortality rate is lower and average lifespan is higher than in medieval Europe.

I heartily disagree. Clerics cost gold, of which the dear peasants have ... none.

Also, clerics have class levels, and a factor in all this that hasn't been touched upon at all yet is the percentage of the population likely to have class levels.

I'd say no more than 5%, tops. On top of that, only 1% or less will be clerics, and most of those will be in the employ of a church, noble or the king himself, none of which have any great interest in promoting the welfare of the common dirtfarmer.

Further still, lets assume half my 5% are in fact of the other few alignments - the bad guys. Now, the bad guys will to nothing at all for the poor dirtfarmers, and all of the 5% - good and bad - will be too busy scheming against each other to do anything about than stuff, even if they had the inclination.

No - by my scope, the farmers remain poor. Mostly though, because I want them to.

elliott20
2008-11-28, 04:00 AM
Well... Major and Minor creation have a flaw: The stuff they make vanishes after a little while.

Not necessarily.

The Greeks had a working steam engine (proof of concept level, mostly - it worked, but was very, very inefficient, even for steam engines). They never pursued the technology, though - they had no reason to, as they had slaves to do all the grunt-work.

Give the Wizards and Clerics (and those few individuals who order them about) a comparable mindset, and you don't need to worry about the impact of magic on the economy.
But this is not the same problem with D&D 3x magic. 3.5 magic is reliable, easy, and probably even more efficient than any existing technology we have. (Sure, you'll still have human inefficiencies, but that's a different topic all together.)

I mean, c'mon, why wait hire a servant to carrying things and do grunt work when your unseen servant can do the same thing just as easily and without having to be fed, clothed, or sheltered? Let's put it this way, while the Greeks had a rough proof of concept for the steam engine that was highly inefficient, at some point in human history, we DID come up with a steam engine that was efficient enough to warrant it's wide spread usage. That is what magic will do to society, like it or not. Now, if I were to make magic something that was less reliable, more costly, and just in general more time consuming to use, then yes, that idea would work. But it can't be done via 3x rules.


Please... economics in D&D are a complete and utter farce. It's a controlled economy to the point where prices for buying and selling are set in stone. Just as in the case of the USSR, this causes no end of problems for anyone trying to run a proper economy.
that's precisely what I thought.

the only way that d&d numbers can be considered in anyway usable to construct an economy is that if you assume that the prices in D&D are not in fact fixed over time, but rather a snap shot of a single instance in time. So, one gold piece doesn't ALWAYS buy you 100 candles, it's just a convenient coincidence, is all! By next week, who knows what candles will cost!

if we look at it this way, it alleviates some problems and we can pretty much logic our way to it's conclusion as to what wall of iron will do.

Dervag
2008-11-28, 04:49 AM
Even in most generic "Medieval Knights and Wizards" settings it can be assumed that due to clerical care, infant mortality rate is lower and average lifespan is higher than in medieval Europe.On the other hand, there's also more random violence. In medieval Europe, the only really serious risk of violent death came from armed men. Most of the armed men were part of a well-integrated social structure (feudalism), and there were other structures (the Church) to keep them in check.

In the stereotypical fantasy setting, there's more danger from orcs and ogres and various monsters too tough for ordinary armed men to fight. If the local hero population isn't up to the task of keeping the area clear of monsters, the adult mortality rate will go through the roof.
______________


Wall of Iron. Sure, it's got a 50 gp material component, but Iron is listed as a trade good, valued at 1 sp/pound. Look up the density of iron sometime, then work out how much volume a Wall of Iron actually has, even at minimum caster level. It gets absurd (to the point where you can actually hire a mage to cast it, pay the mage the listed spellcasting services fees with the trade-good iron, and STILL make a profit).

As it's a trade good, it's usable as cash by the book - which means there doesn't need to be a market for it as such.There's a way to houserule that defeats that exploit.

When you summon a creature and reduce it to zero HP, all parts of it vanish. Thus, you can't summon a cow and kill it to make hamburgers for your adventuring party, because the meat vanishes when you kill the cow.

If you houserule that the same principle applies to "summoned" or "conjured" objects, then you can't break up the magical Wall of Iron to make horseshoes any more than you can break up the magically summoned Dire Cow to make hamburgers.
_____________


Not necessarily.

The Greeks had a working steam engine (proof of concept level, mostly - it worked, but was very, very inefficient, even for steam engines). They never pursued the technology, though - they had no reason to, as they had slaves to do all the grunt-work.

Give the Wizards and Clerics (and those few individuals who order them about) a comparable mindset, and you don't need to worry about the impact of magic on the economy.There's a little more to it than that.

The Greeks couldn't have built the kinds of steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution because their metalworking technology wasn't up to it; they didn't have the tools to make the tools to mass produce tight-fitting pistons and high precision gearing and so forth.

And while it's true that they had slaves to do the grunt work, it's also true that the kinds of labor they needed were things a steam engine wouldn't be as useful for. In real life, the first steam engines were stationary units to power things like pumps and industrial machinery. The ancient Greeks didn't have nearly as much of that. It was the medieval inventions of wind and watermills that really got the ball rolling, because once facilities like that existed, the concept of industrial machinery powered by something other than muscles was born.

Which is why Heron's steam engine wasn't used for anything but opening temple doors mysteriously.

The key here is that once something pops up that a new technology (steam or magic) can do better than the old one (slaves), the new stuff takes over quickly. However, the conditions have to be right for that to happen.

Fizban
2008-11-28, 04:52 AM
I heartily disagree. Clerics cost gold, of which the dear peasants have ... none.

Also, clerics have class levels, and a factor in all this that hasn't been touched upon at all yet is the percentage of the population likely to have class levels.

I'd say no more than 5%, tops. On top of that, only 1% or less will be clerics, and most of those will be in the employ of a church, noble or the king himself, none of which have any great interest in promoting the welfare of the common dirtfarmer.

Further still, lets assume half my 5% are in fact of the other few alignments - the bad guys. Now, the bad guys will to nothing at all for the poor dirtfarmers, and all of the 5% - good and bad - will be too busy scheming against each other to do anything about than stuff, even if they had the inclination.

No - by my scope, the farmers remain poor. Mostly though, because I want them to.

Well, checking the DMG, it looks like there's about a 50% chance each of having at least one cleric or druid in a thorp, and the chances in larger towns just go up from there. Assuming they're a decent person, they'd at least hire themselves out as a midwife. Sure, hiring a midwife would be expensive, having babies is an expensive thing: that's one of the expenditures you save up for. So, in a population of up to 80 people, you've got odds that at least one person can cast cantrip divine spells (cure minor wounds: stop bleeding, etc) and have heal as a class skill. Even an evil person has no reason to refuse a side job for payment, and neutral and good people have morals that would likely suggest they would help if asked. Larger towns will have fewer per person, but they could likely be called upon if a common midwife expected trouble.

There should be plenty enough adepts if the PC classed individuals are unavailable: 0.5% of the NPCs are adepts, so you're guarenteed at least one once you get much past 200 people.

Also, I'm gonna throw in the possibility that: maybe not every spellcaster charges the full 10gp/level/spell? The cost of a 1st level hireling is much below that, and some people are actually nice and might help for free. I'd expect clerics of good to help out in such non-combat situations where their talents are sorely needed, as doing nothing puts innocent people in unnecessary danger. Neutral and evil clerics, again, have no intrinsic reason to refuse a job for money (which any intelligent soon-to-be parent will have saved), even if they're not a nice person in the scheme of things. PCs, who usually are hired to go into life threatening situations, never charge for the price of every spell they are likely to cast over the adventure. Heck, I could see a group of PC's pulling it off randomly as they stroll into town: they may not have ranks in profession [midwife], but they've got spells and other abilities they could use to pump their modifier high enough to outdo the local if they put their minds to it.

Riffington
2008-11-28, 06:45 AM
He has to pay taxes, which are at least 2-3sp for every gp earned and rent for his hut.

It's not quite fair to use ancient incomes and modern tax rates. 10% is as high as a tax could get.

Manga Shoggoth
2008-11-28, 07:03 AM
D&D RAW also completely and utterly ignores economic principles. for a start, it stats that ALL skills and professions make the SAME amount of money. We all know that this is patently not true, yet according to RAW, a ditch digger who has 4 ranks in ditch digging will make the same amount as an accountant with 4 ranks in accounting.

It also assumes that money is worth a static amount. That is, one gold piece will ALWAYS be worth 100 candles, regardless. This assumption means that there is no inflation, which also means there is no supply and demand. Or rather, they simply didn't take it into account.

(snip)

so yeah, trying to quantify economics in D&D will result in a pretty ridiculous market economy. Not to mention we haven't even factored in the effects of magic yet.

In my 1e DMG they actually comment that the player has a fixed gold standard (something impossible in the time periods that DnD was losely based on), and that they were not attempting to simulate an economy. After all, there was enough to do in creating a world without adding that sort of complexity.

bosssmiley
2008-11-28, 08:25 AM
IIRC Greyhawk used to have price multipliers in the Gazeteer entries. They changed prices from the PHB default for areas that were afflicted by scarcity and/or glut. You'd get something like:


Rel Astra
Price Multiplier: 100%, {local speciality} 90%

or, for an area under immediate threat of war:


Nyrond
Price Multiplier: 150% (200% for weapons and armour)

I imagine it would be easy enough to include this in a homebrew setting if you wanted to add a quick and simple element of Dungeons & Derivatives. It also adds a little local colour, the impression that the world has variation, and that you don't just go to a price-standardised Adventurer's Wal*Mart for your kit.

The Dorf Fortress crafting skill (http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Item_quality) and item price (http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Item_value) system might be of interest in this respect too. It has more granularity than the D&D normal > masterwork > magic system, but is probably a bit too number-crunchy for those of us with "Money is used to get ale and wenches (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=csHTqMG7zUo); all else is sheer lunacy!" tastes. :smallamused:

PS: the D&D economic system by the RAW makes Adam Smith rise from his grave screaming in agonised rage. WOTC staffers fail Econ 101 FOREVER! :smallbiggrin:

Zen Master
2008-11-28, 08:29 AM
Well, checking the DMG, it looks like there's about a 50% chance each of having at least one cleric or druid in a thorp, and the chances in larger towns just go up from there. Assuming they're a decent person, they'd at least hire themselves out as a midwife. Sure, hiring a midwife would be expensive, having babies is an expensive thing: that's one of the expenditures you save up for. So, in a population of up to 80 people, you've got odds that at least one person can cast cantrip divine spells (cure minor wounds: stop bleeding, etc) and have heal as a class skill. Even an evil person has no reason to refuse a side job for payment, and neutral and good people have morals that would likely suggest they would help if asked. Larger towns will have fewer per person, but they could likely be called upon if a common midwife expected trouble.

There should be plenty enough adepts if the PC classed individuals are unavailable: 0.5% of the NPCs are adepts, so you're guarenteed at least one once you get much past 200 people.

Also, I'm gonna throw in the possibility that: maybe not every spellcaster charges the full 10gp/level/spell? The cost of a 1st level hireling is much below that, and some people are actually nice and might help for free. I'd expect clerics of good to help out in such non-combat situations where their talents are sorely needed, as doing nothing puts innocent people in unnecessary danger. Neutral and evil clerics, again, have no intrinsic reason to refuse a job for money (which any intelligent soon-to-be parent will have saved), even if they're not a nice person in the scheme of things. PCs, who usually are hired to go into life threatening situations, never charge for the price of every spell they are likely to cast over the adventure. Heck, I could see a group of PC's pulling it off randomly as they stroll into town: they may not have ranks in profession [midwife], but they've got spells and other abilities they could use to pump their modifier high enough to outdo the local if they put their minds to it.

If you go by the numbers and rules, you *may* be able to able to argue that spellcasting aid is available to those who can pay. You can also randomly postulate that someone might be kind enough to work for free - I don't see a lot of that happening anywhere at all, but it's possible.

However, supposing I accept that part, you've got a world where child mortality might drop .... supposing there were no other factors pulling in the other direction. Sure, you may get a bit of magical assistance, but you may also get a lot of magical trouble the real-world middle ages didn't have to contend with.

Basically, I don't think you have much of an argument. I'll concede the possibility of magical healing *might* even out the risk of the entire village being wiped out by vampires, orks, dragons or elves (wicked, wicked elves!).

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 10:52 AM
RAW an unskilled commoner (a person who has never done that kind of work before in their life) earns 1 SP per day. That is 7 SP per week. One hunk of meat per week, 1 hunk of cheese per week, and 1 loaf of bread per day costs 5.4 SP per week. Leaving 1.6 SP left over for other expenses (like lodging). And if he has a tent, bedroll, and winter blanket he doesn't need to pay for lodging.

That is the poorest of the poor. The person with no skills at all.

Now a skilled commoner is something like the following:
Level 1 commoner with 10's in all attributes (maybe a flaw) who has Toughness and Skill Focus in his chosen profession has 8 skill points to spend. Looking at the commoner skill list 4 points in their chosen profession/craft isn't unreasonable. And maybe 2 points each in related crafts or professions. That is +7 on the check.

If he take's 10 he earns 8.5 GP per week or 442 GP per year. Even a person without skill focus and with only 1 rank in their chosen profession earns 5.5 GP per week or 286 GP per year.

And a commoner can live a very good life on 442 GP per year. Now they might not be paid in GP but in goods that are of equal value.

And if you have a population of 1 million productive workers (who odds are at least have 1 point in their chosen profession) you are looking at a GDP of 286,000,000 GP. And if you tax the people 2 GP per month (24 GP per year) you take in 24 million GP per year in taxes. And that's just from the peasants. The nobles and the tariffs can easily triple that.

Even with all of the inefficiencies inherent in the tax system and with most of your taxes being collected in various forms of goods you are still looking at sufficient money to take significant action in regards to your military.

elliott20
2008-11-28, 11:10 AM
we're not saying that the money is not enough to do anything. we're saying that the infrastructure that is proposed in your typical tippyverse would require a very long term build up. and the number you get would not be as significant as 24 million gp. nobles? chances are, their taxes are being paid BY the peasants. Tariffs? yeah, it can bring in some income, but it's real effect is more of a deterrant to protect national industries than as an actual income generator. So, I doubt it would triple it or even double it or hell, I doubt it would have any real significant impact.

Heliomance
2008-11-28, 11:16 AM
What is meant by a tippyverse? I've seen the word thrown around, and I have no idea what it means.

Vexxation
2008-11-28, 11:18 AM
What is meant by a tippyverse? I've seen the word thrown around, and I have no idea what it means.

A universe wherein the Tippy God-Wizard reigns supreme.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 11:35 AM
[QUOTE=elliott20;5377019]we're not saying that the money is not enough to do anything. we're saying that the infrastructure that is proposed in your typical tippyverse would require a very long term build up./QUOTE]

The infrastructure is easy to build. A single wizard can do it without any trouble.

The problems arise after the infrastructure is in place and the people are acclimated to it. Boredom set's in, which isn't good.

Vexxation
2008-11-28, 11:39 AM
The infrastructure is easy to build. A single wizard can do it without any trouble.

The problems arise after the infrastructure is in place and the people are acclimated to it. Boredom set's in, which isn't good.

Would not a solution be to merely use the wizard as a sort of backup? In the case of a famine, the Create Food traps are dragged out, but put back when the new season begins. By limiting the amount of magic they have access to and only using it when it's absolutely necessary, you can create a more working society. The infrastructure can be shaped around the use of wizards, but just because you can make life easier of these peasants doesn't mean you should.

Yahzi
2008-11-28, 11:47 AM
You can also randomly postulate that someone might be kind enough to work for free - I don't see a lot of that happening anywhere at all, but it's possible.
Clerics are going to heal the followers of their gods for free. That's what they do. That price chart? That's only for unbelievers, rich people, or adventurers.

Remove Disease is the single biggest departure from Real Life. Consider: in D&D, Alexander the Great doesn't die from a mosquito bite. The infant mortality rate drops through the floor.

Second is the Cure Minor Wounds cantrip. The king's wife never, ever dies in childbirth. In fact, nobody does.

Third is Plant Growth. Using medieval technology, a minimum of 3/4 of your population must be producing food just to make sure every one eats, and that's not leaving any room for error (in RL, it went as high as 95% for Vikings, etc.). Plant Growth lets you reduce that to 1/2.

Mend, Polish, Clean, and Separate allow superior technological production, and those are cantrips. A few smiths will be granted class levels, and their extra skill points will allow them to make things no RL smithery could. (Like all those stupidly complex mechanical traps!)

All in all, you have to work very hard to make a D&D society look medieval. I'm trying to do that right now in my game, and I think it's working.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 11:50 AM
Would not a solution be to merely use the wizard as a sort of backup? In the case of a famine, the Create Food traps are dragged out, but put back when the new season begins. By limiting the amount of magic they have access to and only using it when it's absolutely necessary, you can create a more working society. The infrastructure can be shaped around the use of wizards, but just because you can make life easier of these peasants doesn't mean you should.

Because that fails to account for the reasons that the society forms. You end up with the entire population in cities because they can be defended. You can't defend farm land or large amounts of territory in D&D. The rules just don't support it. So you end up with the people going to the cities for defense. Which means that you have to come up with another way too feed them. Magic can solve the problem. The fact that the people don't go cut down trees or mine (because of all the monsters and bandits) means that you need another way to come up with the raw materials. And so you get factories (fabrication traps).

What really stops stagnation is the people who won't go along. They have an outlet in leaving the cities and going into the wilderness. Every once in a while the form a new city and bring new blood into the mix. Likewise, every once in a while an established city falls (either to another city in a war, a natural disaster, whatever) and you end up with millions of people with no idea how to survive dropped into the wilderness and who maybe know that the next closest city is 700 miles to the west. Since the land can't support them they spread out and eventually most die off but again a new influx of population and ideas is formed. And no one has any interest in helping these people. The wizards and casters with the ability to help can already save themselves or are already dead and now just go and live in another city. No one wants to support another few million people in their city.

Riffington
2008-11-28, 02:37 PM
D&D RAW also completely and utterly ignores economic principles. for a start, it stats that ALL skills and professions make the SAME amount of money. We all know that this is patently not true, yet according to RAW, a ditch digger who has 4 ranks in ditch digging will make the same amount as an accountant with 4 ranks in accounting.


D&D economics has a lot of flaws, but this one is a bit unfair.
A ditch digger will likely be unskilled. An expert ditch-digger probably has one rank. In contrast, 2 ranks in Accounting is likely insufficient to get certified.

Tippy's examples of Commoners with 4 ranks in their chosen profession, along with a Skill Focus Feat are part of his very special kind of world. A more typical medieval commoner would have 1-2 ranks in farming. In a gritty world, that peasant might go to a shrine of Pelor for healing, where the priest is a Lev 1 expert with 3 ranks in heal.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 02:49 PM
Tippy's examples of Commoners with 4 ranks in their chosen profession, along with a Skill Focus Feat are part of his very special kind of world. A more typical medieval commoner would have 1-2 ranks in farming. In a gritty world, that peasant might go to a shrine of Pelor for healing, where the priest is a Lev 1 expert with 3 ranks in heal.

Not really. Pick a field of study and imagine working in it from birth until you die. Apprentice ships often started at 7 or 8 and went to 16 or 18. 8 years of continuous study in a profession. Or you are a farmer who has been working the fields along side his parents sense he was about 5.

Profession: Farmer with 1 rank is the minimum for a farmer peasant and that's 286 GP per year. Assume that they only produce food. And that they are producing the base materials for common meals (1/3rd of the price). That's 1 day's worth of meals per SP produced. Or 2,860 meals. Or in other words a single farmer with 1 rank can produce enough food for 7.8 people.

If you have 2 kids as helpers each using Aid Another then on average you will gain an extra 2 on your profession check each day. Or an additional 52 GP per year. Otherwise known as an extra 520 meals. Meaning that the farmer is now producing enough food for 9.2 people.

EDIT:
And if you go with poor meals instead of common meals you can triple those figures. So a single farmer can feed 23.4 people and with someone else using aid another that increases to 27.6 people.

If you change to good meals instead then the numbers are 4.7 people and 5.5 people respectively.

Throw in a plant growth to increase all of those numbers by 1/3.

hamishspence
2008-11-28, 03:25 PM
while its not clear whether this applies to farmers, in cities, most experts, rogues, warriors, fighters don't have the elite array, but the non-elite one.

A person with 4 ranks, skill focus, and elite array is a specialist, and an exceptional one- DMG2.

A person with 13 instead of 15 in the stat they use for their skill, is a typical hireling- Arms and Equipment Guide. they do tend to have the 4 ranks, Skill Focus, and some are commoners, but they tend to be more than just general laborers.

Riffington
2008-11-28, 03:29 PM
Pick a field of study and imagine working in it from birth until you die. Apprentice ships often started at 7 or 8 and went to 16 or 18. 8 years of continuous study in a profession. Or you are a farmer who has been working the fields along side his parents sense he was about 5.


Yeah, but just working doesn't necessarily increase your skills. Certain people keep learning as long as they live. Most learn until they can get by at their job, and then they stagnate. Look at waiters. There exist some spectacular ones (waiterrant describes a few), but there also exist plenty of waiters/waitresses whose skills you could surpass in a month. Some of those have spent decades at their job.

An apprenticeship may have started at 7, but you swept the floor, helped with menial tasks, and in return were slowly taught a trade. The formal teaching would be very helpful if your master was both competent and benevolent... there is no guarantee of that, however.

As to the food math, that works great in a world with high skills and specialization of labor. In a grittier world, he spends a lot of his day on untrained repair of his roof, his shirt, and his plow. Depending on how rich you want to make the nation, you can easily gloss over those and allow the nation to be 15% farmers, 85% specialists. If you want 80% of the population to be farmers, you instead have to assume that a farmer can feed 1.25 people. Just depends how advanced a world you want.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 03:40 PM
Even slashing the numbers in half a single farmer can keep 11.7 people fed (it's poor meals but they are fed).

hamishspence
2008-11-28, 03:43 PM
yes- but do non-farmers really mostly live on poor meals. And are most farmers people with Profession Farming, or unskilled laborers, working for the professional farmers?

Maybe its just me, but I got the impression that a lot of people in D&D setting were at Subsistance level of cost of living, and earning subsistance level wages- 2gp a month cost of living, 3gp a month earnings.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 03:49 PM
yes- but do non-farmers really mostly live on poor meals. And are most farmers people with Profession Farming, or unskilled laborers, working for the professional farmers?

Historically they were professional farmers. And no, figure common meals for most people. But then you don't figure that they are only productive half of the time.

And if you just go with 1 rank and Skill Focus then you are looking at a single farmer supporting 10 people with common meals. 5 people if you assume that he only works half the time. If you assume a real professional farmer who is focused on farming with 4 ranks and Skill Focus then he can support 24.2 people with common meals. 12.1 if only half productive. 27 people if he has an aid another helper.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-28, 03:54 PM
There's a way to houserule that defeats that exploit.

When you summon a creature and reduce it to zero HP, all parts of it vanish. Thus, you can't summon a cow and kill it to make hamburgers for your adventuring party, because the meat vanishes when you kill the cow.

If you houserule that the same principle applies to "summoned" or "conjured" objects, then you can't break up the magical Wall of Iron to make horseshoes any more than you can break up the magically summoned Dire Cow to make hamburgers.

Yes, but that requires a house-rule to make the economy (such as it is) stable, rather than simply dictating NPC behavior.



There's a little more to it than that.

Always is. But then, we've also located what appears to be the remains of such things as electric batteries in the pyramids, and several other things that for one reason or another, never took off.


The Greeks couldn't have built the kinds of steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution because their metalworking technology wasn't up to it; they didn't have the tools to make the tools to mass produce tight-fitting pistons and high precision gearing and so forth.

And while it's true that they had slaves to do the grunt work, it's also true that the kinds of labor they needed were things a steam engine wouldn't be as useful for. In real life, the first steam engines were stationary units to power things like pumps and industrial machinery. The ancient Greeks didn't have nearly as much of that. It was the medieval inventions of wind and watermills that really got the ball rolling, because once facilities like that existed, the concept of industrial machinery powered by something other than muscles was born.

Which is why Heron's steam engine wasn't used for anything but opening temple doors mysteriously.

The key here is that once something pops up that a new technology (steam or magic) can do better than the old one (slaves), the new stuff takes over quickly. However, the conditions have to be right for that to happen.
Right. And if the conceptual conditions aren't "right" for magic taking over most tasks, then it won't (consider the difference in initial investment between having peasants farm food, and creating an Create Food and Water "trap" that can be used at whim - you can set a bunch of peasants farming quite easily, as they've already got all their tools, lands all over the place; additionally, a peasant farm can be set up with no more "tech access" than 1st level peasants; for the trap, you first have to spend several thousand golds and several hundred xp points to Craft a single Create Food and Water Trap - it won't hit "break even" for a fair length of time, if you're using it to feed peasants, unless you have a LOT of peasants to feed, and they don't try more traditional methods of nourishment).


But this is not the same problem with D&D 3x magic. 3.5 magic is reliable, easy, and probably even more efficient than any existing technology we have. (Sure, you'll still have human inefficiencies, but that's a different topic all together.)

I mean, c'mon, why wait hire a servant to carrying things and do grunt work when your unseen servant can do the same thing just as easily and without having to be fed, clothed, or sheltered? Let's put it this way, while the Greeks had a rough proof of concept for the steam engine that was highly inefficient, at some point in human history, we DID come up with a steam engine that was efficient enough to warrant it's wide spread usage. That is what magic will do to society, like it or not. Now, if I were to make magic something that was less reliable, more costly, and just in general more time consuming to use, then yes, that idea would work. But it can't be done via 3x rules.
In the example of the Unseen Servant?
Well, first:
1) If you can cast it yourself, it's basically free - so for the Wizard, sure... unless he's low-level (1-4, give or take) and can't run it continuously, or if he's got a reason to use quite a few low-level spells on other stuff. The Non-Cloistered Cleric, the Druid, the Sorcerer? They're all Full-Casters that don't have access to it. Likewise, the nobles, experts, and other NPC's can't do it themselves.
2) If you have to hire a casting of Unseen Servant, it's 10 gp per hour (not that you can, mind, as the range is based on the current location of the caster, and it dissipates if it goes outside that range). An untrained Hireling (oddly) runs 1 sp per day; if you have to pay for the hirelings food and lodging, which I presume you do considering he could make some 5 sp/day taking 10 on Craft with no ranks, puts this up to 9 sp/day if you give him a Common inn stay and Common meals. For the cost of an hour of an Unseen Servant, you can get a REAL servant for 10 or 11 days, and keep him reasonably well fed.
3) By Guidelines, a Continuous item of Unseen Servant would market at 2,000 gp (slotted); or 1,800 gp as at-will Command-word. In either case, you're looking at some 2,000 days (five or six years) of your real servant before the Unseen one becomes cost-effective (and that's keeping the servant at an inn, rather than holing him up in your house). Additionally, the real servant can do a lot of things the unseen servant can't - handle basic decisions, do stuff when you're not in the room, kill mice (on a lucky Spot&Shot), eventually anticipate orders, and so on.
4) The real servant can be killed, but whoever does that doesn't get much of a reward out of it in most cases, and you can replace the real servant fairly quickly at no real additional costs - while the Unseen Servant widget can be stolen, and whoever gets it can then resell it for somewhere between 900 and 2000 gp (depending) - you'll need to buy a whole new one for 1800 or 2000 gp.

There's actually quite a few reasons for a noble to go with a human servant, rather than a magical Unseen Servant - at least initially. One the use of magic for such things becomes a widespread thing, the unseen servant will work out (at which point, actual human servants will be all the rage...). The trick is getting it that way, which could take a long, long time.

Zen Master
2008-11-28, 07:04 PM
Clerics are going to heal the followers of their gods for free. That's what they do. That price chart? That's only for unbelievers, rich people, or adventurers.

That is opinion. You're entitled to it - but don't try to pass it off as fact. In the real world? You didn't even get forgiveness for your sins for free - much less 'spellcasting' (like marriage for instance).

Oslecamo
2008-11-28, 07:55 PM
Historically they were professional farmers. And no, figure common meals for most people. But then you don't figure that they are only productive half of the time.

And if you just go with 1 rank and Skill Focus then you are looking at a single farmer supporting 10 people with common meals. 5 people if you assume that he only works half the time. If you assume a real professional farmer who is focused on farming with 4 ranks and Skill Focus then he can support 24.2 people with common meals. 12.1 if only half productive. 27 people if he has an aid another helper.

But then there's natural(and unatural) sickness, and there's the ocasional orc raid that stops him from going to work for a few days, and there are the holydays everybody parties, and visiting some distant relatives, and then there's the noble who demands him to do some unpaid job, and much other reasons that will mean the farmer can't work every day of the year.

And the family still needs to eat, so the liquid income is actually much less than that, since the extra money he makes each day will be used to cover up for the days he doesn't work.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 08:10 PM
Sure, but let's take a 5 person farmer family with 3 kids (say 2 sons and a daughter) and mom and dad.

Dad and the 2 sons work in the fields. They average 19 GP worth of crops grown per week. In 26 weeks (half the year) they will bring in 494 GP worth of crops. Now mom has help from her daughter and produces 5 good meals per day. That's 8.33 SP per day too feed the family. Or 304.166 GP per year. Or 189.834 GP extra per year. Which is enough to provide common meals for 5.2 other people. Or enough to support a whole other 5 person family.

Oslecamo
2008-11-28, 08:28 PM
You're however forgeting that they're infants, and thus their ability scores will be lower than normal, meaning they will actually have trouble making those DC10 checks for aid another.

Not to mention every competent father will want to pay their sons a good education if they're able, so if they start geting surplus money, they won't hoard it, but send their sons to wizard/fighter/cleric school, puting back their own income. But assuring their children will have better lifes than themselves. The results will take decades to reap however.

Or spend it in booze or other diversions, wich is actually very realistic. One of the main reasons why people have lack of money in all ages it's because they spend it in a lot of uncessecary things.

Your spartan family only exists in the books. A real family would use the extra money to buy extra luxuries or trying to improve their own living conditions that won't increase their income in the short-medium run. A better house, better clothes, better education, ect, ect.

And then some other people just are lazy and will work just what they need to survive.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-28, 08:40 PM
You misunderstand. The family doesn't produce gold. They produce food. Which they trade or sell for the goods that they want. They have about 190 "GP" per year to spend on sending one of the kids to school, or new items, or whatever.

Collin152
2008-11-28, 08:42 PM
You misunderstand. The family doesn't produce gold. They produce food. Which they trade or sell for the goods that they want. They have about 190 "GP" per year to spend on sending one of the kids to school, or new items, or whatever.

Gold farmers!
Genius!
I'll get the boys in R&D on that at once.

Does it make that much of a differance, though, what the medium of exchange is?

Dervag
2008-11-28, 08:45 PM
As to the food math, that works great in a world with high skills and specialization of labor. In a grittier world, he spends a lot of his day on untrained repair of his roof, his shirt, and his plow.This is a big part of the problem with real life subsistence farming- when everyone is a subsistence farmer, an enormous amount of labor gets wasted because of market failures. Overall, it's a stupid waste of time to have every person patch their own roof (or let the roofs leak and catch cold in the winter). But if the community doesn't have enough surplus wealth to support a dedicated roofer, that's what happens. And because that reduces the productivity of the community, the community stays poor.
______________


Yes, but that requires a house-rule to make the economy (such as it is) stable, rather than simply dictating NPC behavior.True. Of course, I think it's a reasonable house rule because it creates philosophical consistency. The uniform rule is that magically conjured objects vanish when destroyed.


Right. And if the conceptual conditions aren't "right" for magic taking over most tasks, then it won't (consider the difference in initial investment between having peasants farm food, and creating an Create Food and Water "trap" that can be used at whim - you can set a bunch of peasants farming quite easily, as they've already got all their tools, lands all over the place; additionally, a peasant farm can be set up with no more "tech access" than 1st level peasants; for the trap, you first have to spend several thousand golds and several hundred xp points to Craft a single Create Food and Water Trap - it won't hit "break even" for a fair length of time, if you're using it to feed peasants, unless you have a LOT of peasants to feed, and they don't try more traditional methods of nourishment).There are some exceptions. For instance, it might well make sense to commission one of those traps (or get a squad of priests to do the same job) if you're working on a big project. Historically, things like pyramids and cathedrals took many decades to build because the labor force had to keep going back to the fields every spring.

But those are religious projects. Surely the clergy would be willing to provide magically created food for the workforce building its own temple? Once something like that exists, it sets a precedent and more people will want one, or want to buy an existing one off its owners. So there's a route for magic food creation to enter the economy, analogous to the way the need for better pumps opened up a path for steam engines.

However, that would take a while.

Oslecamo
2008-11-28, 09:22 PM
You misunderstand. The family doesn't produce gold. They produce food. Which they trade or sell for the goods that they want. They have about 190 "GP" per year to spend on sending one of the kids to school, or new items, or whatever.

Why spend just 190 GP? Why don't try to trick/briber the tax collector so you get more goods/money for yourself? People have been trying to evade taxes for most of history as far as I remember

Heck, one could argue that the richest people are the ones who better avoid taxes. The top head of the government for example(who'll probably waste a good deal of the taxes money in useless projects, booze, statues/temples of himself and women).

elliott20
2008-11-28, 10:35 PM
D&D economics has a lot of flaws, but this one is a bit unfair.
A ditch digger will likely be unskilled. An expert ditch-digger probably has one rank. In contrast, 2 ranks in Accounting is likely insufficient to get certified.

Tippy's examples of Commoners with 4 ranks in their chosen profession, along with a Skill Focus Feat are part of his very special kind of world. A more typical medieval commoner would have 1-2 ranks in farming. In a gritty world, that peasant might go to a shrine of Pelor for healing, where the priest is a Lev 1 expert with 3 ranks in heal.

well, you're talking about what is reasonable and by all accounts, this would be the better ruling. That's why I say RAW is just not sufficient. You would need to do a lot of revisions to make world make sense.

to be fair, magic is going to effect the way people live, and in very dramatic ways. But honestly, it's not an over night thing that people keep talking about, nor you can you reasonably expect the development to necessarily bein the direction we have predicted. the best you can really do is just seperate the areas of improvement, and try to map out how the social conscience pushes each area.

but the ability to build the infrastructure, like it or not, *IS* going to take time and money. I mean, not even our current day society has a 100% tax collection rate. (Heck, here in Indonesia, I don't think they even have a 50% tax collection rate)

to do so effectively, you need to build infrastructure. not in the sense that you need physical buildings, but you need a network and institutions to support your efforts. and that, believe it or not, could take a lot mroe resources than the buildings themselves.

Dervag
2008-11-28, 11:08 PM
Yeah.

For example, many medieval-type societies practiced "tax farming." In this system, the job of tax collection is handled by private individuals, who are supposed to provide the ruler with a certain amount of money. Their profit margin comes from squeezing more money from the peasants than they have to give to the king.

This system has some advantages for the ruler. It doesn't require a large bureaucracy, for one. And if the tax receipts are short, you always know where to send the guy with a stick whose job is to collect the rest of your money. So it's a reliable source of income for the royal treasury, and one that you can place in the hands of a small group of picked people you can trust.

But it has huge disadvantages for society as a whole. The tax farmer has every incentive to squeeze as much wealth out of the population as he can. The problem with that is that a population which is very poor because all its surplus wealth gets taxed off will wind up with a collapsing economy. The laborers, businessmen, and peasants can't afford improvements to their places of work, and the only people who are getting rich are the ones the tax farmer is spending his ill-gotten gains on.

That kind of thing can really knock a hole in the theoretical 200-million-GP GDP of a D&D nation.
___________

If you the ruler don't know or don't care that tax farming is bad for society as a whole, it can sound like a great idea. There are a lot of similar problems in most societies with a medieval economy. There will be systems of government or finance that make it difficult for large sums of money to flow around the economy. And there will be systems that impede the flow of wealth to the places where it does the most good.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-29, 12:02 AM
True. Of course, I think it's a reasonable house rule because it creates philosophical consistency. The uniform rule is that magically conjured objects vanish when destroyed.

Oh, it's a reasonable house-rule, all right - but it causes some side-effects. For instance, the HP of a Wall of Iron is based on small sections - suddenly the entire wall vanishes if you apply damage to a small section - making it much less useful for it's intended use of combat control (ditto for Wall of Stone).

A Wizard's guild that has reason to keep people from "breaking" the economy in this way, however, makes for a much more interesting storyline if someone tries it (whether it's the party Wizard, or someone else that the party is hired to stop).


There are some exceptions. For instance, it might well make sense to commission one of those traps (or get a squad of priests to do the same job) if you're working on a big project. Historically, things like pyramids and cathedrals took many decades to build because the labor force had to keep going back to the fields every spring.

But those are religious projects. Surely the clergy would be willing to provide magically created food for the workforce building its own temple?
Not necessarily. After all, it's not an real offering if you're paid for it.

Once something like that exists, it sets a precedent and more people will want one, or want to buy an existing one off its owners. So there's a route for magic food creation to enter the economy, analogous to the way the need for better pumps opened up a path for steam engines.

However, that would take a while.
Could happen. Of course, there could also be a reason why it doesn't. Consider what happens if the D&D deities have an actual need for worshipers. If suddenly the people's every need is fulfilled with little or no work, they stop feeling a need to look beyond themselves and their walls... attendance at church drops, the D&D deities have fewer followers. That one "trap" that provides for the city now becomes a drain on the one who lent power to it's creation (granted the cleric the spells). If the D&D deities know this, they just might take steps to prevent it from happening (prevent their clerics from making such an item, send minions to destroy such items when they somehow occur, whatever).

Again - just changing some NPC's motivations and actions, and suddenly it's a non-issue.

Dervag
2008-11-29, 12:18 AM
Oh, it's a reasonable house-rule, all right - but it causes some side-effects. For instance, the HP of a Wall of Iron is based on small sections - suddenly the entire wall vanishes if you apply damage to a small section - making it much less useful for it's intended use of combat control (ditto for Wall of Stone).You're right. I'd have to do it on a section-by-section basis. Break this section down to 0 HP and its iron vanishes, but the rest of the wall remains.

You still wouldn't be able to make horseshoes out of the wall, though.


A Wizard's guild that has reason to keep people from "breaking" the economy in this way, however, makes for a much more interesting storyline if someone tries it (whether it's the party Wizard, or someone else that the party is hired to stop).You're right. Also, a wizards' guild, along with an apprenticeship system, helps to keep the world from being deluged in spellcasters.

If apprenticeships are normally long, then a wizard only trains a few apprentices in their lifetime. Some of them simply don't have the talent or the ambition to become extremely powerful. So there won't be that many superpowerful wizards around.


Not necessarily. After all, it's not an real offering if you're paid for it.True. But on the other hand, the individual laborers can make a much greater offering of sweat if they don't have to worry about their children starving while they're working on the giant temple. I don't think that's inherently a bad idea.


Could happen. Of course, there could also be a reason why it doesn't. Consider what happens if the D&D deities have an actual need for worshipers. If suddenly the people's every need is fulfilled with little or no work, they stop feeling a need to look beyond themselves and their walls... attendance at church drops, the D&D deities have fewer followers. That one "trap" that provides for the city now becomes a drain on the one who lent power to it's creation (granted the cleric the spells). If the D&D deities know this, they just might take steps to prevent it from happening (prevent their clerics from making such an item, send minions to destroy such items when they somehow occur, whatever).

Again - just changing some NPC's motivations and actions, and suddenly it's a non-issue.Hmm. The reasoning is a bit questionable in my opinion, but it works as a plot.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-29, 12:37 AM
You're right. I'd have to do it on a section-by-section basis. Break this section down to 0 HP and its iron vanishes, but the rest of the wall remains.

You still wouldn't be able to make horseshoes out of the wall, though.

Which would prevent that particular loophole without much difficulty just fine.


You're right. Also, a wizards' guild, along with an apprenticeship system, helps to keep the world from being deluged in spellcasters.

If apprenticeships are normally long, then a wizard only trains a few apprentices in their lifetime. Some of them simply don't have the talent or the ambition to become extremely powerful. So there won't be that many superpowerful wizards around.

Another way of doing it, yes. Have to watch those crazy Sorcerers, though... can't trust them to follow guild rules, as they don't go through the guild to learn their magic...


True. But on the other hand, the individual laborers can make a much greater offering of sweat if they don't have to worry about their children starving while they're working on the giant temple. I don't think that's inherently a bad idea.
Not in and of itself, no. Long term, it has some very nasty side-effects on the world if it's permitted to get out of hand (what happens when all the farmers suddenly can't sell their crops, as everyone eats at the temple? HOW MANY people are suddenly out of jobs? Is there enough work in other areas to get them employed sufficiently that they can afford rent/taxes?). A Wise group (as Clerics tend to be) would generally avoid that.


Hmm. The reasoning is a bit questionable in my opinion, but it works as a plot.And, as it's a group storytelling game, what works as a plot takes priority, no?

Goldwing
2008-11-29, 02:52 AM
Lets us not forget, it is entirely possible that the upper class and the head of government (King, Emporer, Our Dear Leader, whatever....) don't want the peasants to become less poor or more educated and whatnot. Once the peasant farmers start having more money, then they usually have some extra time/resources to send little Timmy to school. Timmy then learns how to read well, and maybe he gets his hands on some...seditious books, shall we say. Little Timmy grows up and thinks dangerous thoughts, and perhaps begins to spread this reading and ideas throughout the village, or the entire kingdom! Maybe little Timmy founds a treasonous little group who spreads these ideas farther, and actually organizes those peasants and artisans and bakers and sorcerers and, and...whatnot...and this group actually has the gall the overthrow their deity-given Leader! Perhaps once this happens, the neighboring kingdoms/empires/whatevers get just a little bit uneasy. Rather, the heads of their respective governments get uneasy. They enact vicious, pennybleeding decrees which lead to the decimation of the peasant population of those countries due to starvation and executions for tax evasion. All because the head of that first government didn't have the grace to squeeze every diety-forsaken copper possible from little Timmys' parents! For shame...for shame...:smallmad:

Zen Master
2008-11-29, 04:30 AM
Sure, but let's take a 5 person farmer family with 3 kids (say 2 sons and a daughter) and mom and dad.

Dad and the 2 sons work in the fields. They average 19 GP worth of crops grown per week. In 26 weeks (half the year) they will bring in 494 GP worth of crops. Now mom has help from her daughter and produces 5 good meals per day. That's 8.33 SP per day too feed the family. Or 304.166 GP per year. Or 189.834 GP extra per year. Which is enough to provide common meals for 5.2 other people. Or enough to support a whole other 5 person family.

Yes. How you use the rules is remarkable. You get to that result because you want to. And that's fine, as I've already stated.

You ignore the need of food, tools, draft animals, feed, rent (they are bonded peasants after all), and you get the number of people working wrong. See, here's what:

The poor, bonded dirtfarmers do not have enough land to require the work of 5. Mommy, daddy and one son work on the small, hopeless patch the family rents from their liege. The other kids are a burden until they are ole enough to be sent off to serve.

And that's pretty much it. Barring revolution or the slow, slow spread of new ideas in uneducated societies, they stay in abject powerty for the entirety of their lives, and leave only their misery for their children to inherit.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:13 AM
the rules for running a profitable business, including farming, are in DMG2. and the profit made is calculated per month, not per day, and tends to be much, much lower. (and there are risks of losses, too, and start-up costs.

the profession results in PHB are for adventurers, as an abstraction.

Direct conversion of money earned into food, as an estimate of how much a farmer can produce leads to overestimations- its much harder for a D&D businessman of any kind to earn a profit than the PHB makes it look.

also, aid another- checks don't stack, according to DMG2.
Power of Faerun expands these business rules a little further.

xanaphia
2008-11-29, 06:17 AM
I think of it this way:

Lv 1 Commoner: 70%
Lv 1-2 Classed: 20%
Lv 3-4 Classed: 9%
Lv 5-6: 0.9%
Lv 7-8: 0.09%

and so on. This can also be said as the following: 1 in 10 people are third level or higher, one in 100 are 5th level or higher. One in 1000 are 7th level or higher and so on. This is way more high powered than a standard campaign, but I prefer the game this way. It makes the game happier and brighter.

To go with that, for classed characters:
18% are clerics
16% are fighters
14% are rouges
10% are barbarians
8% are wizards
8% are bards
6% are druids
6% are rangers
4% are sorcerers
4% are paladins
2% are monks

Also, a trap of Create Food and Water by a level 5 caster costs 2500gp +200 XP. It makes enough food to feed 15 humans for 24 hours. I'm not sure how often it does this, but if it did it once a day, that would eternally feed 15 humans.

So if 1% of people are lv 5 or higher, and 18% of them are clerics, then in a country of 10,000 people, there are 16 level 5-6 clerics, and 2 level 7-8 clerics. Divide it to get 8 level 5 clerics, 8 level 6 clerics, 1 level 7 cleric, and one level 8 cleric. If they all use their XP so they are one level lower, then that's 32,000 + 40,000 + 6,000 + 7,000 = 85,000 XP.

The level 5 clerics make 15 foods. They use 200 xp. That's 160 traps, and 2400 foods.

Level 6: 18 foods. Costs 240xp. 166 traps, 2,988 foods.

Level 7: 21 foods. Costs 280xp. 21 traps, 441 foods.

Level 8: 24 foods. Costs 320xp. 21 traps, 504 foods.

So in total, all the 5th level or higher clerics in the kingdom can go down one level each and they make traps which feed 6,333 people for a day every time they are activated. That's two thirds of the population fed, requiring no effort from anyone. Of course, if the other clerics then band together and just use Create Food and Water every day, then it would be easy to feed everyone.

Yes, this would cause upheaval in the society, but that's a lot better than poverty. To start with, after two generations of clerics, then no-one ever needs to eat.

The basic way that societies progress is through changing the balance of the different industries. Primary industry is farming, secondary industry is manufacture and blacksmithing, tertiary industry are services, and quaternary industry is the industry about money, like investment banks. In a medieval society, 98% of the adult society needs to be in primary industry to survive. The reason that doctors, philosophers, inventors, and democracies exist is because in a modern society, not everyone has to spend their whole life farming. The USA can basically feed itself, but only a small percentage of its people are farmers. This means, also, that it makes less sense to be violent and destructive: it makes a lot more sense to become a terrorist if you don't have a job, house, and family.

So this society would become, very quickly, a modern society. The population would boom, with more people available to discover medicine. The uneducated would become builders and such, until their children replaced them and were educated. Paradise for all! Utopia!

Disclaimer: I have made a number of assumptions in this. More people are classed. The clerics are happy to make these traps. I probably screwed up my maths somewhere. No liability is to be held for brain implosion following reading. Thank you.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 10:02 AM
Yes. How you use the rules is remarkable. You get to that result because you want to. And that's fine, as I've already stated.

You ignore the need of food, tools, draft animals, feed, rent (they are bonded peasants after all), and you get the number of people working wrong. See, here's what:

The poor, bonded dirtfarmers do not have enough land to require the work of 5. Mommy, daddy and one son work on the small, hopeless patch the family rents from their liege. The other kids are a burden until they are ole enough to be sent off to serve.

And that's pretty much it. Barring revolution or the slow, slow spread of new ideas in uneducated societies, they stay in abject powerty for the entirety of their lives, and leave only their misery for their children to inherit.

If you want to run it like that go ahead. But it's not what the rules support. And you seem to consistently miss the point that the farmer has 190 GP (about) in trade goods to buy all those tools and other needed items.


Direct conversion of money earned into food, as an estimate of how much a farmer can produce leads to overestimations- its much harder for a D&D businessman of any kind to earn a profit than the PHB makes it look.
Agreed. I halved the numbers and they still come out quite far ahead. And how do you define profits? That farmer might produce 190 GP worth of extra food, but he trades it for a new cow, some new farm implements, to repair his house, taxes, etc. His disposable income could easily be maybe 20 GP per year.


also, aid another- checks don't stack, according to DMG2.
Power of Faerun expands these business rules a little further.
I never said that they stacked. I said that 2 untrained people will each roll a 10 or better half the time. Meaning that on average you will always get the Aid Another bonus.

Ramidel
2008-11-29, 10:02 AM
If you want a detailed look at stuff like magitech economies, you should take a gander at Exalted. They go into that stuff to show just what you can get when a Solar Exalted introduces even minor magical assistance (like an assured good crop and superior organizational talent) into the mix.

In particular, they go into great depth about the cleric/worship issue; namely, people pray and give offerings to the local theological authority (god, Exalt, what have you), and that theological authority ensures good harvests and other divine services. The Create Food trap could be similar: prayer and burnt offerings given in exchange for created food. (However, this radically de-medievalizes the economy!)
---
Other than this, if you want a somewhat realistic economy, see Harn: D&D's classed characters will rapidly get to the point where they need to be lords. It takes the surplus of an entire village to support one mid-level Fighter (horse, weapons and armor), and even he will be skating on the edge trying to get enough money to keep his armor from rusting.

Note that, as a rule, the European economy from 500-1400 AD (a bit longer in Eastern Europe, shorter in the Mediterranean basin) was an extreme aberration in that nearly all growth was sucked away by war, famine and pestilence. D&D economies are more Romanesque or colonial Spanish-style; actual growth is stagnating because the economy is built on sponging up tribute and plunder, but the cities themselves are not -being- plundered en masse.

elliott20
2008-11-29, 10:06 AM
the thing is though, in D&D there are enough ways to improve production and the likes through magic that if a government or ruling body of individuals are truly enterprising enough, have enough resources at their disposal, they can in essence start an economic revolution that would forever change the landscape of the D&D world. It's not an EASY task, to be sure, but it can happen.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 10:13 AM
the thing is though, in D&D there are enough ways to improve production and the likes through magic that if a government or ruling body of individuals are truly enterprising enough, have enough resources at their disposal, they can in essence start an economic revolution that would forever change the landscape of the D&D world. It's not an EASY task, to be sure, but it can happen.

It's not massively difficult either. The hardest step is someone coming up with the idea of doing it. Seriously, a single wizard can do most of it. He set's up the teleportation circles and uses them to undercut the shipping and caravan markets, making a truly outrageous profit. And from there the rest will follow eventually. How long it takes depends on lots of variables but it will happen.

And even quicker would be a wizard who works with a nation and decides to conquer the world. He set's up the teleportation network and takes a ton of cities in a few days.

elliott20
2008-11-29, 10:17 AM
actually, it is that hard. because you're still assuming that this wizard is working without anyone wanting to stop him, or that he's the ONLY wizard, or that other wizards of his caliber are perfectly logical beings who will go along with his scheme, or that such infrastructures, after being set up, do not require some level of management.

there are a lot of logistical issues that could crop up before his plan can come to fruition. For every step that he must take, that is one more potential place where complications can arose.

So, yes, it can be done. But I would be surprised if it were really THAT easy.

Ramidel
2008-11-29, 10:21 AM
Thing is, there should be a reason that this hasn't already happened, or else you need to rethink the economy from first principles.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 10:21 AM
That's the thing. Once the idea has been thought up and becomes public knowledge it will be implemented. The benefits are simply too massive for it not too be.

And someone stopping the wizard requires that they know what the wizard plans on doing

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 10:23 AM
Thing is, there should be a reason that this hasn't already happened, or else you need to rethink the economy from first principles.

Of course you do. That's the point. The closest any official setting comes to actually accounting for magic and its effects on the economy is Eberron. And it doesn't even really go far enough.

Ramidel
2008-11-29, 10:31 AM
I once more pimp Exalted's setting material for ideas to mine. The economy of the First Age looks a lot like a model for a realistic Netherese economy. (Well, as realistic as Netheril gets, anyway. ^_^)

Deme
2008-11-29, 10:56 AM
This has bothered me since the start of this thread.



3. Adventurers. Now, WBL is not a means of creating wealth. All it means is "if your characters have more gold than WBL, then you need to give them higher-CR monsters than you otherwise would. If they have less gold than WBL, then you need to give them lower-CR monsters."
Additionally, adventurers get their money from somewhere. Bank-robbers do not increase a modern nation's GDP; they merely reallocate money from productive people to themselves. They actually reduce a nation's productivity.
However, many adventurer-class characters are highly productive. A farmer that receives rain is much more productive than one who does not. If clerics lower the mortality rate, then farmers have much longer productive years. If dragonskin is a valuable substance, then monster slaying does create some small amount of wealth.

That only applies for adventurers who are paid directly by other citizens for their services, or who (and I could debate with this a bit, but I'll let it slide right now) take money from Orcs who just raided a village or something, thus only redistributing wealth.

But what about adventures -- and adventurerers -- primarily involved in ruin-delving? The money, items, ect, in your average ruin/abandoned castle/ancient sunken city was produced by productive citizens, yes, but very long ago, and having been taken out of the economy since that point. At which point, adventuring becomes akin to gold mining, the collection of hidden/lost wealth....Which, through the adventurers' purchases, winds its way through the economy.

Adventurers probably cause some inflation if they're going about things that way, if there are enough of them, or they're high enough level...

Oslecamo
2008-11-29, 11:24 AM
That's the thing. Once the idea has been thought up and becomes public knowledge it will be implemented. The benefits are simply too massive for it not too be.

And someone stopping the wizard requires that they know what the wizard plans on doing

You're forgeting to take in acount people's stupidity. You're being far too optimistic if you think that if an idea is a good idea, people will follow it. This rarely happens. Specially because most people prefer to get a big benefit for themselves than a small benefit for the greater good.

Our world could be a much better place with the knowledge and resources we have available.

Instead:
-People eat untill they die of excess of food out of their own will.
-People consum substances that damage themselves knowingly.
-People waste rivers of money in shopisticated hobbies and diversions.
-People kill each other in more and more sophisticated ways.
-Science developmets get stalled for everything and anything.

So the people don't need to know what the wizard is doing to try to stop him. They'll try to stop him anyway just because he's trying to do something.

And even if the wizard subdues that oposition, then one day he will wake up and discover the people in Tippyland are killing each other with his wondrous inventions. His utopic society has become something that would make the WH40K universe look like an angelic paradise.

You give people power, and people will try to abuse that power.

Neithan
2008-11-29, 11:26 AM
Reminds me of Star Trek, when Quark visits the Earth of the 1940's (though I really hate time-travel episodes):

"They irradiate their planet and poison their bodies? You can sell anything to these people!" :D

Oslecamo
2008-11-29, 11:29 AM
Precisely.

People don't want to do what's more benefeicial for them.

They want to do what's feels good for them.

So Tippyland would never work because it assumes everybody is a cold minded being focused only in aiding the greater good, completely ignoring individuality.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 11:43 AM
No, it doesn't assume anything about human nature. Their isn't any idealism going on at all.

And you are assuming that teleportation networks are a good thing. They aren't good or evil but they do destabilize the current system. The point is that the benefits are enough that every nation with a chance to will use them. Militarily the advantages are just too big to not use them. Even just using them to remove supply lines will save you a ton of money, the teleportation circles are cheaper, faster, safer, and longer ranged than the ships or caravans.

The most important facets of military victory are strategic speed and logistics. Teleportation Circles provide the ultimate in both. You stand no chance of defeating a military that can teleport around the world and has no supply lines. Even if you have 10 times the number of troops and every one is 10 times as effective. You are faced with defending every inch of territory at all times because I can move my entire military to any weak point in an instant.

Riffington
2008-11-29, 11:47 AM
That only applies for adventurers who are paid directly by other citizens for their services, or who (and I could debate with this a bit, but I'll let it slide right now) take money from Orcs who just raided a village or something, thus only redistributing wealth.

I was simplifying by counting orcs as being persons on the continent. Obviously, an individual country can become rich by plundering another country. Your nation can become rich taking goods that orcs produced. But the overall wealth of the continent is reduced by war.



But what about adventures -- and adventurerers -- primarily involved in ruin-delving?


This is fair as far as it goes. Any ancient swords, demon-crafted wands, etc are new parts of the economy (gold is weird became it's an exchange medium but it's also useful for crafting magic items), so an exploration of ancient ruins does create wealth.
However, whether this is a major source of wealth depends on your campaign. Are the hills festooned with crypts in which mummies guard long-buried rubies? If your continent is full of this kind of "natural resource", are adventurers fighting over the excavation rights? Do you need to buy a permit to fight vampires? If ruins contain a lot of your wealth, it seriously weirds the economics.

Oslecamo
2008-11-29, 12:00 PM
The most important facets of military victory are strategic speed and logistics. Teleportation Circles provide the ultimate in both. You stand no chance of defeating a military that can teleport around the world and has no supply lines. Even if you have 10 times the number of troops and every one is 10 times as effective. You are faced with defending every inch of territory at all times because I can move my entire military to any weak point in an instant.

Actually, teleportation circles are pathetic for 9th level spells.

While you were wasting your time building those, I was using my time creating new planes of existence, wich will provide me with a lot of extra resources.

They don't need to be defended at all since only I know about them, so nobody else can enter them.

Then when I have ten times as much troops and each of them are ten times as strong as yours, I simply divide them in groups and attack several parts of your empire at once.

Your troops may teleport instantly. But they can still be only in one place at a time.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 12:08 PM
I can produce thousands of teleportation circles and make them permanent in a single day.

And yes, if you are allowed to get away with arcane genesis then the outcome is different. Just like if you are allowed to use epic magic.

Dervag
2008-11-29, 12:18 PM
That's the thing. Once the idea has been thought up and becomes public knowledge it will be implemented. The benefits are simply too massive for it not too be.

And someone stopping the wizard requires that they know what the wizard plans on doingOr someone powerful enough to dispel his Teleportation Circles after they're built.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 12:43 PM
Or someone powerful enough to dispel his Teleportation Circles after they're built.

They can be replaced very easily. The total investment required to make an arbitrarily large teleportation circle network is 8,825 gp.

Zen Master
2008-11-29, 01:16 PM
If you want to run it like that go ahead. But it's not what the rules support. And you seem to consistently miss the point that the farmer has 190 GP (about) in trade goods to buy all those tools and other needed items.

Yea - lets get into a shouting match of who fails to understand the arguments of the other.

Look - Tippy. I understand everything you say and do. I just do not agree with you.

You use the rules. You do not, however, play by them. You pick and chose from what supports the point you want to make, and run with that. Well fine.

I don't use the rules at all. Everything I say is based on opinion - how I think things should be in order to achieve the best conditions for a fun game.

I'm done with this discussion.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 01:26 PM
Yea - lets get into a shouting match of who fails to understand the arguments of the other.
Fails to understand? You fail to understand that the RAW does not support your position. I understand your position, I just disagree that it is a reasonable interpretation of the RAW. If you want to ignore the RAW you are, of course, free to do so. But you don't have any right to use your houserules as a basis for any kind of discussion about the economic situation in D&D.


Look - Tippy. I understand everything you say and do. I just do not agree with you.
You disagree with my take on the RAW?


You use the rules. You do not, however, play by them. You pick and chose from what supports the point you want to make, and run with that. Well fine.
No, I take the RAW and throw out all preconceptions about what the setting should be like. If X is the RAW then the effects of that on society are Y. If Y doesn't mesh with a dark age's game then tough. So long as Y is fun and let's you adventure and do all of those traditional D&D things then I have no problem with it. And the RAW does support all of the traditional quests and even the traditional environment. Even with all of it's brokenness and massive magical trap use.


I don't use the rules at all. Everything I say is based on opinion - how I think things should be in order to achieve the best conditions for a fun game.
Then you have no place in this or any other discussion that doesn't specifically ask for houserules. To debate or even discuss a topic you must have common ground. The RAW is that common ground in D&D discussions. If you can't accept that then you won't ever contribute to a dicussion about the rules or their effects.


I'm done with this discussion.
Good.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 01:29 PM
"RAW is common ground" not always- for many it is a baseline, which must be chucked out when it conflicts with the will of the DM, and enjoyable running of the game. Even WOTC does not print any 0DC epic spells, maybe because, in their setting, the assumption is made that they do not exist.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 01:37 PM
"RAW is common ground" not always- for many it is a baseline, which must be chucked out when it conflicts with the will of the DM, and enjoyable running of the game. Even WOTC does not print any 0DC epic spells, maybe because, in their setting, the assumption is made that they do not exist.

He said that he doesn't use the rules. There is no common ground in that case. And we aren't dealing with epic magic.

As for the enjoyability of running the game, the setting should have little to do with that ideally.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 01:43 PM
Maybe later rules override earlier ones- DMG2 is more accurate on business than PHB? or, one might remember, "Most Commoners have ranks in Profession" might be incorrect- how many are "unskilled laborers"?

while Arms and Equipment guide is 3.0, it does state, explicitly, that differnt professions can earn a different Daily Wage. Same could apply to farmer- Daily wage might not correlate to "food enough to feed X number of people" After all, a saffron farmer might earn a lot- but not feed many people at all.

ChaosDefender24
2008-11-29, 01:51 PM
We are all ignoring the effects of Flesh to Salt on the D&D economy...

Salt a few cows, profit, buy the decanter of endless water and the infinite food items from the MIC for your entire village. Then they can all stop farming, take levels in artificer, and become a thriving merchant economy...

Collin152
2008-11-29, 01:57 PM
"RAW is common ground" not always- for many it is a baseline, which must be chucked out when it conflicts with the will of the DM, and enjoyable running of the game. Even WOTC does not print any 0DC epic spells, maybe because, in their setting, the assumption is made that they do not exist.

...Yes. That's what it means for it to be a baseline.
We can't exactly account for every little housrule of every DM in existance, can we?
The only thing thats universal, or at least stands a good chance of being universal, are the rules as written.
Tippy, furthermore, is discussing this specifically by RAW, and arguing with him by any other means is a little fallacitical (is that a word?).

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 02:12 PM
In which case, I can point out that the Profession rules reprinted in 3.5 from the 3.0 PHB (check to see if there are any differences) conflict with later-written info.

All professions are not equal and NPCs usually earn less than PCs: See Arms and Equipment Guide. So, using the Take 10 result for a PC will not give you the same result.

and where farming is on profession list for wages? DMG2: profit- Low.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 02:13 PM
Core rules take precedence, which means the PHB 2 rules are optional when compared to the PHB rules.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 02:16 PM
DMG2 and Arms and Equipment Guide, in this case. Maybe the point is- profession check GP results are only for PCs- they canot be taken as evidence that NPC Commoners produce that value of food per day.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 02:19 PM
The same rules should apply to NPCs, otherwise you get rogues at level 1 with hide in plane sight, casting acid arrows for 9d6 sneak attack. NPCs follow the same rules as PCs, save for DM messing with things.

Collin152
2008-11-29, 02:20 PM
DMG2 and Arms and Equipment Guide, in this case. Maybe the point is- profession check GP results are only for PCs- they canot be taken as evidence that NPC Commoners produce that value of food per day.

So, your defence against "core rules take precedent, noncore are optional rules" is to refrence more noncore material?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 02:21 PM
That usually is what he says, but it is educational from my point of view, so I try not to discourage it.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 02:21 PM
same rules for everything else, but for profit and food production? its clear that in arms and Equipment guide NPCs don't follw same rules- different profession checks net different wages- so why exactly must RAW be considered valid for both PCs and NPCs, when there are WoTC books that show it is not?

i was pointing out that I never quoted PHB2, only DMG2. And we are talking about how much NPCs earn/produce, not how much PCs do.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 02:27 PM
The PHB takes precedence in this case, unless no situation can arise where the PHB will not be contradicted.

They have ranks in profession farmer. This is what makes him a farmer.

PHB has specific rules for farmers, PC or NPC.

I have an in game character, with 25 ranks in profession farmer (making him an epic farmer.) He makes as much per day as a guy with epic proffession scribe, every day. When he was lower levels, he made as much as the scribe, pre epic.

Unless your rule states that PC farmers make more than NPC farmers (of the same talent), PHB rules must take precedence, as clearly, my profession check earns me the same amount as the other profession check, via the PHB core rules.

Since it doesn't, PHB takes precedence.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 02:29 PM
I've never entirely gotten this "Core always overrides supplement" principle. If both are published by WOTC, why is one automatically invalid?

for core answer- check DMG Hireling table, and Rules Compendium (also core) updated table- different professions, both use Profession check- different wages, and all wages well below what you would predict for a player.

Collin152
2008-11-29, 02:29 PM
same rules for everything else, but for profit and food production? its clear that in arms and Equipment guide NPCs don't follw same rules- different profession checks net different wages- so why exactly must RAW be considered valid for both PCs and NPCs, when there are WoTC books that show it is not?

i was pointing out that I never quoted PHB2, only DMG2. And we are talking about how much NPCs earn/produce, not how much PCs do.

Sidebar, you're not confusing RAW with Core, are you?
Because if the books say the rules are differant for NPCs, that is RAW. Just not Core, and therefore optional.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 02:30 PM
DMG- RAW for NPCs making profession checks- daily wage listed is much lower than that for PCs, and also varies- from 1 sp to much more.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 02:36 PM
I've never entirely gotten this "Core always overrides supplement" principle. If both are published by WOTC, why is one automatically invalid?

It's because the core rules are exactly that. The rules of the game. Other rules are suppliments. Supplimental rules cannot contradict the actual rules of the game.


for core answer- check DMG Hireling table, and Rules Compendium (also core) updated table- different professions, both use Profession check- different wages, and all wages well below what you would predict for a player.


many such hirelings require significantly higher pay.

While that is true, rationally, a wisdom 1 (minimum amount), 1 rank hireling earns 3 GP in a week on average. About 4 silver pieces a day, which is close. The PHB lists the cheapest a service can possible get with training, and that's the cheapest it can get.

Riffington
2008-11-29, 02:46 PM
No, I take the RAW and throw out all preconceptions about what the setting should be like. If X is the RAW then the effects of that on society are Y. If Y doesn't mesh with a dark age's game then tough. So long as Y is fun and let's you adventure and do all of those traditional D&D things then I have no problem with it.


Fundamentally, I agree with Tippy. It is a worthwhile endeavor to understand the ramifications of the rules you use. If we use the ramifications of the PHB, we can see that ~10% of the population should be farmers; fewer if we can abuse the traps rules*. Roads should not even exist if anyone is high enough level to start creating teleportation circles. Etc.
Now, it is true that Tippy can't go far enough in understanding all the ramifications of the world. He's only one person, after all.



Then you have no place in this or any other discussion that doesn't specifically ask for houserules. To debate or even discuss a topic you must have common ground. The RAW is that common ground in D&D discussions. If you can't accept that then you won't ever contribute to a dicussion about the rules or their effects.


Now, that's unfair. There are multiple areas of common ground:
RAW, RAI, the conventions of fantasy gaming, Mythic Europe, etc. Unless the topic specifically requests RAW-only, you can't really blame someone for bringing in things other than RAW.

Incidentally, does 3.5 actually include Farming as a Profession that generates food? I personally kinda like it because I want Farmers to rely on Wisdom. But Professions are fields that earn a wage, not fields that produce a product. Profession:Farmer wouldn't produce any food - just income if one can find clients. Obviously, craft food would really be cooking, not farming. So do the rules actually state whether farmers produce food (and how much)?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 02:59 PM
Technically, you can have equivalent wealth from profession checks, where you have something worth a certain amount that is desired by enough people to count as cash. It's like in feudal Japan, where they paid people in rice.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 03:22 PM
I'm not sure about 3.5, but in 4th, DMG 2, PHB 2, MM2, etc are Core.

are you saying, for example, that they aren't in 3.5. A player can say of a feat in MM3: Its not a core book so invalid?

Collin152
2008-11-29, 03:24 PM
I'm not sure about 3.5, but in 4th, DMG 2, PHB 2, MM2, etc are Core.

are you saying, for example, that they aren't in 3.5. A player can say of a feat in MM3: Its not a core book so invalid?

3.5 Core = DMG, PHB, MM

If it isn't Core, it isn't reasonably certain to be valid.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 03:39 PM
and Rules Compendium, and much of Expanded Psionics Handbook, codified in SRD.

its a bit hard to get Wis 1, since no 1st level NPC can have it- it uses base human for them. And as I said- NPC without PC class are assumed to have 13 in their primary stat.

Also, there is the variance in amount earned, depending on the profession, in DMG.

Collin152
2008-11-29, 03:43 PM
and Rules Compendium, and much of Expanded Psionics Handbook, codified in SRD.


No.
Rules Compendium is not Core. Expanded Psionics Handbook may be in the SRD, but it is not Core.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 03:45 PM
it actually explicitly states in Rules Compendium tht it overrides earlier versions of same rules.

so, SRD-only content is not core then?

Collin152
2008-11-29, 03:58 PM
it actually explicitly states in Rules Compendium tht it overrides earlier versions of same rules.

so, SRD-only content is not core then?

But, that statement within the Rules Compendium only applies if the Rules Compendium is valid.
Since it isn't Core, it isn't necessarily valid.
Therefore, that statement is useless in this argument.

Also: I don't know what you mean by SRD-only content.
Core is DMG, PHB, and MM.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:00 PM
and where, precisely, on WOTC are we told that Core are the only "valid" sources and they override everything else?

Collin152
2008-11-29, 04:01 PM
and where, precisely, on WOTC are we told that Core are the only "valid" sources and they override everything else?

I never said they were the only valid sources.
Only that anything else isn't necessarily valid.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:03 PM
"supplemental rules cannot contradict the actual rules of the game"

Not you, but it is being said.

Collin152
2008-11-29, 04:04 PM
"supplemental rules cannot contradict the actual rules of the game"

Not you, but it is being said.

But I diddn't say it.
So why use it in defense of my arguments?

Zen Master
2008-11-29, 04:06 PM
Good.

Oh please. That I realize trying to communicate with you is futile does in no way at all entail that you've somehow won.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:07 PM
is more the logical point- why would a supplement be published, if it is invalid immediately on publishing? If it covers something in more detail (business) why are we required to use the less detailed version?

I am wondering what the reasoning behind "Only Consider Core" is- since Tippy didn't explicitly state this in his first posts in this thread.

Collin152
2008-11-29, 04:11 PM
is more the logical point- why would a supplement be published, if it is invalid immediately on publishing? If it covers something in more detail (business) why are we required to use the less detailed version?

I am wondering what the reasoning behind "Only Consider Core" is- since Tippy didn't explicitly state this in his first posts in this thread.

Core is the only thing we can be reasonably certain that any particular person is using.
It is, as has been before stated, a baseline.
Basing arguments on anything but this baseline is therefore flawed, as the argument is thus innaplicable to anyone who does not use the books it is based on.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 04:14 PM
"supplemental rules cannot contradict the actual rules of the game"

Not you, but it is being said.

It's because supplements are just that. Supplemental rules, and as such are entirely optional. The core rules are not suppliments, and are not optional (they are listed as required to play the game). You can choose to replace them with rules from supplements, but that is due to choice, not due to new rules overriding old.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:14 PM
like I said though- even DMG requires massive twisting out of shape to justify wages in the 4 Sp range- and scribes earn even less. And it is, after all, a profession.

hence the "PHB rules are for players- DMG shows rules for NPCs and Earning are different"

Riffington
2008-11-29, 04:18 PM
is more the logical point- why would a supplement be published, if it is invalid immediately on publishing? If it covers something in more detail (business) why are we required to use the less detailed version?


Nobody requires you to use (or refrain from using) any particular material. Whether that material is Core, WotC supplement, 3rd-party, or homebrew.

Collin happens not to like some of the supplements you like.

Incidentally, I still haven't seen a Core rule stating farmers can produce grain (or describing how much they'd produce). It just makes more sense if you assume they can.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:21 PM
same principle can apply to fluff- if i mention things like aboleths being immortal, from LoM, and am told "doesn't say that in MM, therefore they aren't" whats my answer?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 04:23 PM
You don't get to answer, the DM does. The DM, if he chooses to include LoM, will say Aboleths are immortal. If he is playing a core only game, they are possibly immortal because they don't have an age range anyway.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:26 PM
Neither does every other non-PC monster in the MM.

Collin152
2008-11-29, 04:27 PM
Neither does every other non-PC monster in the MM.

Your point being?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 04:27 PM
I know. Age range for all of them is up to the DM entirely. There is no RAW for their age ranges.

Edit: Of those monsters.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:30 PM
point is- as a DM, in the absence of clear info, or contradicting info within core (NPC scribe earnings compared to PC scribe earnings) there is a point where logic kicks in.

if fellow DM says: "RAW: all monsters are immortal because no age range is listed" I say "in your world, but not necessarily in WOTCs."

Similarly- if someone were to say "Beholders can't wear boots, LOM lists items slots they have" I'm inclined to take their word for it instead of saying "It doesn't say that in DMG or MM, therefore they can"

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 04:35 PM
However, the rules for the amounts of money that a commoner can make in a week with profession whatever is clearly laid out in the core rules. The other rules are optional.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:37 PM
even the wages listed in DMG?

and "profit-made" does not equate to "Quantity of food growable" Simple geography may forbid it- based on assumption that, say, its corn being grown.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:43 PM
Strictly speaking, the rules for Upkeep are Variant rules, so Officially Optional.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 04:47 PM
Wages listed in the DMG are minimums, not necessarily typical or possible. They also don't state whether or not they have ranks in profession, meaning it may actually be too high. It's also stated explicitly, that you have to add costs of needed expenditure (food alone being about 3 sp per day) to these amounts, and it is only this low for long term retention. Short term retention is 3 times the amount.

As for too many growers, that's a problem that the system simply can't handle. Neither do supplements.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 04:53 PM
yes- sometimes RAW has to take a back seat to "whatever won't make the DM and Players eyes bug out.

hence the suggestion that a farmer who is earning 8 GP a day (averaged out over whole year, remember a lot of crops get picked once a year) is growing something ridiculously profitable like saffron.

after all, rules don't explicitly state that what farmer is growing is highly nutritious.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 04:58 PM
Actually, highly competent farmers historically made higher yields per square foot, which in turn allowed for more advanced civilizations. Mayans for instance had fewer farmers to other workers due to advanced agricultural techniques. It shouldn't make the setting too peculiar if you can triple a fields yields with the same number of farmers, by making them better paid/more competent.

Some people prefer a dark ages feel, some prefer a rennaisance feel, and that will distort what life as a commoner is like. Rennaisance follows the RAW a bit more closely. It's fairly easy to make money in a D&D setting. Dark ages where people wallow in muck all day is less likely unless the entire populace is completely unmotivated, in which case the motivated kingdom uses their tax money to take them over.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:04 PM
maybe- but what is upper limit of amount of food a single person can produce per year, based on late Renaissance food production methods of various kinds?

Farmers might have a "plot" at bottom of garden, but grow huge single crops. and different farmers, different crops. Sum the total- how many people Should a single 1st level Commoner farmer be able to support on a year's crop?

For the moment, skip over Create Food spells.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:09 PM
A group of people did a thought experiment related to this, and had a group of archeological students grow crops (ranks 0, high int, moderate wis) using ancient techniques, and got a crop yield sufficient to feed 10 people for a full year, which was about 3 times the number of people needed to grow the crops. They grew a fairly wide variety of crops. Mind you, experienced farmers could have likely done better. Using plows pulled by oxen and other such equipment, you could probably feed 3 people per farmer, for twice as many in the city as you have in the countryside. Note this is an older method than what was used in the rennaisance, so take from that what you will.

The problem was, to keep up production they had to work on soil quality during the off seasons.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:09 PM
also- farmers may be rich- high level commoners, with hosts of unskilled laborers- in some settings. Slave farms, for example, fit Thay, and maybe other places (Mordor)

Depends what kind of place you are using in your D&D game.

edit:
3 times the number of people needed to grow the crops
Each farmer can support 3 people

I'm guessing that second one should say "and himself as well" otherwise the two statements are the same.

and 4 times food needed to keep a person alive doesn't fit with Tippy's examples- 20 odd times.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:15 PM
Compare grad students with no ranks in farming, with farmers with ranks in farming.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:18 PM
you argued the better version, with pro farmers was "Each farmer can feed 3 people per farmer"

Not a lot.

Neithan
2008-11-29, 05:23 PM
I think that's a lot. That means 2/3 of the populce don't have to work on the fields. 9 farmers can feed 10 people seems much more probable to me.

Todays crops are highly advanced breeds which have a huge outcome of seeds harvested compared to seeds planted. The seeds available hundreds of years ago produced plants with much lower seed output, so you needed to plant and harvest much more of them. I think the ratio has improved by a factor of 10 or so.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:25 PM
what was the distribution of population on farms to population in towns/cities historically? And what is it in D&D- is there a formula in DMG that shows roughly how many rural settlements there are, which enables you, using averages, to work out what percentage of population by definition cannot be farmers?

Neithan
2008-11-29, 05:29 PM
The DMG says "about 1/10 to 1/15 of the people live in cities (small town with 2,000 people or larger)". The rest lives in rural communities, where you may have a smith, miller, healer, and a hand full of of full time officials and militia men. But I guess 90% of the rural people work the fields or breed livestock.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:33 PM
Commoners, in short.

I'm guessing proportion that raise livestock can't be high- livestock aren't as land-efficient. And most people didn't eat much meat- maybe rabbit?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:35 PM
I think that's a lot. That means 2/3 of the populce don't have to work on the fields. 9 farmers can feed 10 people seems much more probable to me.

Todays crops are highly advanced breeds which have a huge outcome of seeds harvested compared to seeds planted. The seeds available hundreds of years ago produced plants with much lower seed output, so you needed to plant and harvest much more of them. I think the ratio has improved by a factor of 10 or so.

It was an ancient societies study. They grew old corn, beans and nuts. Our current techniques aren't much better per square foot than some of the ancient cultures. It's only 10x better than our old slash and burn methods, where 1/4 of the fields were laying fallow at any given time.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:38 PM
if efficiency is 10 plus times better than historical, as Tippy suggests, would it break verisimilitude, or would it make more sense to say that, profitable as the crops of some NPC farmers may be, they don't amount to much actual Food?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:39 PM
Depends on geography. Places like India have tons of people, little arable land, but incredible spice harvests. Places like China have tons of arable land, even more people, but all they grow is rice.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 05:43 PM
What time period? The Dark ages were massively inefficient in Europe. Roman farm's were upwards of twice as productive per acre as their dark age counterparts. Chinese farms were likewise much more productive. To the point that both the Chinese and the Romans could support an incredible amount of people not farming. Ancient China had numerous cities of upwards of a million people. And those are just the large cities. They had large standing armies which don't produce food as well.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:43 PM
so, would saying that the RAW doesn't automatically support the notion that most commoners are farmers and can support 20 people a commoner, be a reasonable statement?

sure, they could support an incredible number- but 20 times the farming population?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:45 PM
Considering we're 10x more efficient, and one modern farmer feeds 2000...

Neithan
2008-11-29, 05:47 PM
There's a difference between subsidience farming and export farming. For every person who does not grow his own food, there have to be others who sell him their surplus for whatever product or service he provides. You can have massive cities where nobody grows food, but there always has to be another place more or less nearby where they grow enough to feed themselves and the city people. Either there a huge numbers of farmers who all produce a little bit more than they need, or there are a little less many farmers, who produce the same amount, but make quite some nice profits per head.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:47 PM
machines do the work that would take thousands of laborers to do. how many people does a combine-harvester equal?

Neithan
2008-11-29, 05:48 PM
Hm... At least 30 to 40 I would guess. :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 05:49 PM
and if we use oxen instead- still need people to grow crops to feed them in winter. No such thing as a free lunch.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:50 PM
You don't have to harvest as quickly as the harvester, you just need to get it harvested before the winter rolls in. So for practical purposes, not as many people as you would think.

Neithan
2008-11-29, 05:52 PM
I say the exact numbers are free to the gms interpretation about the agricultural technology of the setting in question.
I go with the 10% people in cities and 90% of rural people on the fields guideline for my setting. But for example in Eberron, you could have completely different numbers.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 05:54 PM
so, would saying that the RAW doesn't automatically support the notion that most commoners are farmers and can support 20 people a commoner, be a reasonable statement?

No. The RAW supports 1 farmer keeping his family and 20 other people fed. That doesn't mean that you can get away with doing that. That was using common or even poor fair.

If you have an optimally skilled farmer with helpers capable of of consistently providing the aid another bonus so that you can get a result of 19 on the check every week then you are only producing enough food to provide good meals for 16 people. If you go with moderately skilled (no skill focus) then it's 13.7 people. Remove the helper and go with only 2 ranks and you are down to 10 people. Throw in the farmer having 4 other family members to support and you are already at 50% of the population required to produce food. Figure 65-75% too be safe. Cut the growing season in half and it gets even worse.

In an ideal situation you can have 1 farmer with an Aid Another helper supporting 81.42 people on Poor Meals for everybody. It's not reasonable but it's doable.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:55 PM
A hamlet that the farmers frequint usually has a church, a smith, 3 official types, merchants and every other type of craftsman. It's considered rural since it will only have about 100 people. On the other hand, there will likely only be 10-20 farms surrounding each thorpe, with about 100 people farming on average. Even if it's 90% rural, I'd guess that only 45% or less are farmers. Even in a low efficiency setting.

Ravens_cry
2008-11-29, 05:58 PM
Technically a hamlet means a village with orchards, rather then fields.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 05:59 PM
Yeah, but for some reason, they have different population levels given as well.

Neithan
2008-11-29, 06:00 PM
For this purpose, I consider the owner of the farm, his wife, his parents, all the servants and every childen age 3 and up to be farmers.
"People who work on a farm and take part in food production".

Coming to 20 "people" per 1 "farmer" is quite high, but still reasonable.

Technically a hamlet means a village with orchards, rather then fields.
Don't try to bring professional or scientific terms into D&D-Discussions. :smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 06:01 PM
actually, RAW says a Commoner can Earn Enough to keep 80 people fed. This is not the same as saying he can Produce That Much Food.

Neithan
2008-11-29, 06:02 PM
Actually, RAW says a lot of nonsense.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:02 PM
You can choose the currency you are paid in. Farmers typically get "paid" in food, which they sell for money. The only alternative is craft crops, but that only increases profits, not decreases.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 06:04 PM
where does it say that?

There are "trade goods" the DM can choose to pay you in, but not the same thing.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:06 PM
It simply doesn't adress the method of payment at all. Equivalent goods are a form of payment directly analogous to the amount paid. So unless you want to see farmers plowing crops and getting gold coins directly for doing so, they are likely getting their pay in crops, which they sell.

The alternative is, they can't actually produce food using profession, and we have to resort to using the craft skill. (otherwise food doesn't exist)

This would be DC 10 x check for check GP worth of crops per week, with an initial cost of 1/3 the cost of the crops value. People with more talent would craft more difficult crops and gain exponentially more money.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 06:10 PM
D&D isn't really designed to simulate market economy anyway.

and like I said- some crops will indeed gain exponentially more money- and feed very few- spices.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:12 PM
Actually, some grains that are more nourishing than others are more difficult to grow than others, while simultaneously being more nourishing, or are more difficult to grow but produce higher yields. More difficult does not always mean more less product by the pound. Just more money produced by the hour.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 06:17 PM
or "luxury crops" Apples which are super-tasty and worth a lot of money. But can you feed a whole population with them?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:19 PM
Apples? Those are a good example of a good thing to grow. Pigs love eating apples, so surplus of spotted or poor ones can go to the pigs, apples are high in vitamins and calories, carry clean water in them, and are full of fibre.

Other similar crops like oranges, melons, squashes, etc. are all healthy and nourishing. You'd need to take the bad ones and feed it to pigs though, rather limiting your meat options.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 06:21 PM
true, but an earning of Much Money from growing and selling apples, might not relate to Feeding Many People.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:24 PM
Ironically, you can get fairly fat off of a single source of protien and 8 apples per day. People getting all their daily calories from apples and bacon is actually feasible, albiet unhealthy.

hamishspence
2008-11-29, 06:28 PM
problem is- can't get them till end of growing season, and preserved goods only last so long- some food can be preserved for months, but not all.

though you could take the common-sense approach and say that much of the food "per day" is actually coming out of storage, and at end of growing season, stores get topped up again.

DMG2 represents this with "start up costs" you pay a big chunk before you start to earn anything.

and when making it realistic- farming- you couldn't start benefiting from all those Profession checks until end of first growing season, when you get all that money at once (if your broker is good)

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:39 PM
With profession, you have to change things to make it fit, or assume you sell apple jam most of the year, pies in the winter, and fresh apples in the fall (and cider year round.) Craft is superior from a realism point of view. You make a craft: crops check for something of value equal to DC 15 x check result x weeks to harvest then collect all the money at once. Assuming you sell a single apple for 2 cp, you have 29 250 apples. You can feed a lot of people with those apples. After this, you have to make apple products, and depending on cost, you either have more product (cider) or less product that you can charge for more (jam). And the cycle continues.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 06:49 PM
The other thing to realize is that 20 people supported per farmer isn't massively unreasonable.

The replacement rate for a first world, post industrial nation like the us is 2.025 children per women. That means to keep the population constant every women must have that many children in her life. Replacement level back in the dark ages was far higher. 4 kids per family isn't unreasonable.

So you have Farmer Bob feeding his wife and 4 kids plus his father and say his wife's mother. That is already 8 out of the 20 people he is providing food for. Now the craftsmen in the village need to be supported. And there families. Figure another 2 people per farmer and you are at 1/2 of the people he can support. Figure that he is also providing food for one of the local nobles servants and you are at 11/20. So right there you are down to 1 farmer supporting 9 city dwellers. Throw in the clergy and the other people that he needs to support in his local area and he is only feeding 2 or so city dwellers, if that.

A farmer being able to feed 20 people and only 10% of the population being able to live in the city are not mutually exclusive statements.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 06:58 PM
Me, I'm starting to like craft as the means of doing this. A loaf of bread costs 2 cp for 1/2 pound, meaning you can get about 1 pound of wheat for 2 cp. A growing season for wheat is late spring to mid fall, for a total growing period of about 30 weeks. At DC 10 with a check of +19, you can grow 28 500 pounds of wheat every year per farmer. That translates to 57 000 loaves of bread every year. That's enough to feed 156 people a single full sized half pound loaf of bread every day for a year.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 07:02 PM
Remember, you only need 1/3rd of the value of the finished product. So each loaf of bred requires growing .66 CP worth of wheat.

Yahzi
2008-11-29, 07:40 PM
That is opinion. You're entitled to it - but don't try to pass it off as fact. In the real world? You didn't even get forgiveness for your sins for free - much less 'spellcasting' (like marriage for instance).
Yes, let me correct that: clerics of good gods will heal their followers for free.

:smallbiggrin:

Yahzi
2008-11-29, 07:41 PM
The other thing to realize is that 20 people supported per farmer isn't massively unreasonable.
Using medieval technology it's a bit much. 10 is more like it, assuming you count his 5 family members as part of the farming effort, and assuming Plant Growth.

I'll post the numbers later - I worked them all out once before.

Oslecamo
2008-11-29, 07:51 PM
Remember, you only need 1/3rd of the value of the finished product. So each loaf of bred requires growing .66 CP worth of wheat.

However, failed checks risk you destroyng the raw materials, so it will end up costing more than 1/3, and taking more time, since the family needs to work in advance or risk passing hunger if they fail several checks in a row.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 07:53 PM
Take 10 for crying out loud!

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 07:56 PM
However, failed checks risk you destroyng the raw materials, so it will end up costing more than 1/3, and taking more time, since the family needs to work in advance or risk passing hunger if they fail several checks in a row.

If bread is a very simple item then the DC is only 5. No failure risk. If it's a typical item then it's 10. And you only loose the materials if you fail by 5 or more. So if you can manage a +6 on the check you will never waste material. And masterwork artisans tools (55 GP) along with +7 (4 ranks, 3 skill focus) means you automatically succeed.

Jack_Simth
2008-11-29, 07:58 PM
Me, I'm starting to like craft as the means of doing this. A loaf of bread costs 2 cp for 1/2 pound, meaning you can get about 1 pound of wheat for 2 cp. A growing season for wheat is late spring to mid fall, for a total growing period of about 30 weeks. At DC 10 with a check of +19, you can grow 28 500 pounds of wheat every year per farmer. That translates to 57 000 loaves of bread every year. That's enough to feed 156 people a single full sized half pound loaf of bread every day for a year.
Don't forget materials!

When using Craft to make stuff, you need 1/3rd the cost in base materials.

Now, with Wheat (and similar plants), I'm perfectly willing to say "yeah, you need some wheat" as the base materials. Cut that down by 1/3rd. But afterwards, triple it, because Tippy has a point.

Seems like Wheat is a very nice staple...

Where are you getting the +19 modifier, though?

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 08:01 PM
It's Tippy's number, based off of 4 ranks, skill focus, and an assist.

Oslecamo
2008-11-29, 08:02 PM
If bread is a very simple item then the DC is only 5. No failure risk. If it's a typical item then it's 10. And you only loose the materials if you fail by 5 or more. So if you can manage a +6 on the check you will never waste material. And masterwork artisans tools (55 GP) along with +7 (4 ranks, 3 skill focus) means you automatically succeed.

Fine. But if Joe farmer is using the PC rules for crafting, then Joe farmer must also acept the rest of the PC rules for his way of life.

Aka random ecounter tables.

Rolls

Aaah, young green dragon. I think Joe farmer won't be able to go back home today.

Now what about you making a campaign with all those ideas so we can try it first hand? Nothing like some pratical experience for testing.

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 08:03 PM
I think he meant 19 on the check.

+4 from ranks
+3 from Skill Focus
+2 from Aid Another or masterwork Artisans Tools

Take 10 on the check for a 19. Throw in both Aid Another and the tools for 21. Which let's you always succeed on making complex or superior items.

Yukitsu
2008-11-29, 08:05 PM
"I craft complex carbs."

:smallsmile:

Emperor Tippy
2008-11-29, 08:07 PM
Now what about you making a campaign with all those ideas so we can try it first hand? Nothing like some pratical experience for testing.

Maybe eventually. It's already quite throughly tested with my RL group but I don't really like running games over PbP.

elliott20
2008-11-30, 01:16 AM
so apparently, D&D RAW has far rosier picture of common farmer's ability to produce food than reality does.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 05:48 AM
it makes a lot of assumptions- the PHB was written for players, not NPCs.

there is also efficiency- lots of people in the loop.

Farmer produces wheat: 1 CP per pound
Miller grinds wheat to flour: 2 CP per pound
Baker converts flour into bread: 4 CP per pound.

DMG2 clarifies the D&D economy a bit- explaining that most rural commoners are serfs- have to work weekly on their lord's fields, as part of the "rent"
And then they grow their own crops to sell- and get taxed on that.
And then they grow their own food in their garden for them and family.

Thats why DMG has a "Self Sufficient" upkeep table- its needed. And why there is a "common laborer" wage- because a lot of the work a 1st level commoner will be doing is as a common laborer- for no pay.

The 1 silver piece a day comes from the spare farming earnings- after tax, after all that time working for no pay, and after time spent growing food to eat as well.

elliott20
2008-11-30, 07:40 AM
see, this is why we have such a hard time talking about economics in D&D, we can't even agree on the baseline economic situation of your average guy. Sure, the PC skills rules tell you exactly how much you earn every week you work but that's just a wage, and nothing more. add to that is the problem of economic principals running in direct contradiction to the RAW.

that is why Acromos and Tippy cannot agree on anything, because while tippy is as pro-RAW as you get, Acromos is talking about issues that are brought up from empircal studies.

the real difference stems not from a preconception of how medieval life should be, but the outcomes of these allegedly random events. D&D has clearly defined laws that extract precise outcomes. (or at least, expected averages that are fairly reliable over a long course of time) In real life, not one thing in economics except for it's principles can be nailed down. food does not cost the same from day to day, labor prices do not cost the same from day to day. Something as commoditized as magic would CERTAINLY not stay stagnant either.

Let's not forget the various pitfalls that the road to implementation can lead. While Tippy has a clear plan of action as to how to introduce millions of teleporters, it fails to take into account the context that he's doing it to. there are a million and one reasons why something like this could not work in real life. But without any context, it's all falls flat as it will just seem like a DM fiat. the problem is... ANY obstacle placed before this WOULD be a DM fiat. Murphy's Law would basically be one gigantic DM fiat.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 07:58 AM
thats why we say Farming RAW says only: You earn this much money. It says nothing about "You produce this much product"

and there are beef, dairy, sheep, etc farms, or mixed ones. Assuming that all farmers produce food in same quantities is an unwarranted assumption.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 11:51 AM
This is why I stated farming should be craft, not proffession. Craft: crops gives you a specific yield. Less if it's a costly product, more if it's a cheap product.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 12:44 PM
both craft and Professsion earn at a much faster rate than you would expect for a serf.

DMG says setting is medievalistic, DMG2 confirms this, with details on how most of the commoners in rural areas are serfs, who spend a lot of time working for their lord- as part of "rent" for being allowed to farm at all.

The profession rules assume you are working full time- but serfs don't- they spend some time growing food to feed family, some time working on lord's lands, some time growing food for profit, a hefty chunk of which is taxed by their lord.

which is why there is a Subsistance level of upkeep- because "common laborers" live on this.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 12:48 PM
That is a poor system, however, because individuals with proper skills would be better suited for fixing up the castle etc. It winds up being cheaper too. Pretty much the only people to get serfs to labour both in the fields and in the keep were dark ages Europeans, and they weren't exactly representative of all of Europe during the entire medieval period. Most eras, labourers were chosen based on talent to a certain degree.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 12:52 PM
maybe, the question is- in the context of D&D- are most places feudal, with serfs? Sure- its a poor system, but is it The System?

in some places, it might be slaves that make up much of the population. Thay, for example.

if you ask the DM- what upkeep will one of the 70% of the population that is a 1st level Commoner be on- in a generic D&D universe- is "self-sufficient" generally the right answer?

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 12:57 PM
Not unless he can forge plow shares and raise barns by himself. Even in those times when people ate only what they grew, then sold the rest, they weren't self sufficient.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 01:02 PM
the term is not entirely direct- it points out that even raising your own food, there are expenses. It's not "Independant" but just "expenses are very very low" And it's only really justifiable when profit-margin is also very low- the laborer earnings, in short.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 01:05 PM
Assuming a perfect grain harvest, a farmer pays 1/6th his yearly yield to get a new yield into the ground next year IRL. Modern farmers, 1/8, but they have to buy seed. This can represent the 1/3 product initial cost for craft, as 1/3 is a more likely amount needed. Given that, he has a 2/3 profit margin, which is actually nicely shoved into the game system.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 01:07 PM
I prefer the 1/3 margin for a Laborer (3 gp per month, 2 GP expenses per month.) It accounts for all that time Working for Lord for no pay, plus taxes on the stuff you are not growing to feed yourself.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 01:12 PM
That assumes unskill labour, however. Again, indicative of the dark ages, but not representative of other nations at the same time period, or even going further into history. China for instance had a much more efficient farming system during the same time period, because farmers were people who could farm effectively.

Yahzi
2008-11-30, 01:14 PM
Here's what I wrote up for my game:


Food

A classic medieval economy requires 75% of the population to be farmers.
The phrase “40 acres and a mule” is based in fact. One man, with a mule and a plow, can plow and harvest 20 acres of crops a year. The other 20 acres are allowed to lie fallow, so that crops are alternated at least every other year. The fallow fields will still produce weeds, grass, and hay, which will feed the mule.

The 20 acres of wheat, corn, or oats will produce about 4 tons of grain. A man requires a minimum of 1000 lbs of grain per year. That is a barely adequate diet: a little over two pounds of porridge a day. Converting it into wheat and bread yields a similar equation.

The final result is that one farm family can produce enough food to sustain five adult men. If you assume small children eat half as much as an adult, the farm’s profits can support one other family - just barely.

That means at least half your people have to be growing food, just so no one starves. And that leaves no excess production to store against famine, or to feed to animals to make luxuries like meat, milk, cheese, wool, or leather.
But if ¾ of your society lives in terrible conditions, the other ¼ can afford to rise above subsistence. Which explains the sharp divide between peasant and freeman.

Technology is slow to change this equation. While hand-powered threshing machines are five times more efficient than the classic pitchfork and a strong wind, they cost a lot more to buy. A wheeled plow allows a man to plow five times as much ground – but he still needs as many hands to harvest it. So during harvest season, a wheeled society transforms into 100% agricultural. But it can only do this if it has a strong social structure. Social technology – farmers being assured of a labor force, and the laborers being assured of fair pay and not losing their status as artisans – is more important than mechanical technology.

Of course it requires an advanced society to be able to invest in farm machinery and technology in the first place. And how does a society advance? By having the technology to produce extra food... You can see how this vicious wheel is hard to climb up, but very, very easy to fall down.
Poorly organized societies with low technology (like the Vikings) were as much as 95% agricultural. Well-regulated and highly structured societies with the best in medieval technology still cannot get under 60% agricultural. The only technological invention that changes this is the engine – tractors and combines allow one man to do the work of one hundred. Which is why our modern society is only 1-2% agricultural, and yet we eat like gourmands.

(follow-up below)

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 01:18 PM
just how good were the rice farms of China? Most D&D settings aren't like that over wide areas.

and what earnings would you expect a Chinese farmer to have- wouldn't he be living in serf-type conditions under a tyrannical regime that takes hefty amount of his food as tax?

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 01:23 PM
They make almost nothing. Government taxes them to nothing (which is what Tippy wanted to do in his argument for sake of the army). However, I do know that a typical village could get up to 2 harvests per year (Some rice strains that the Chinese found were a two harvest grain.) from a series of fields, they don't let them lie fallow (they actually actively fertilize the ground) and produced enough that cities holding upwards of a million people could be supported by about a 100 mile radius of farms. They were much more efficient farmers than we are today. They technically still are, in terms of yield per square foot.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 01:27 PM
point, but generally, D&D is set in western areas where rice doesn't grow well.

Now running an Oriental Adventures, or Kara-Tur campaign- could work- lower proportion of rural regions to urban, and of Commoners to Experts, but that is hardly the norm.

and was the population significantly less than 60% agricultural in this sort of region?

100 mile radius, compared to a city 10 miles odd in diameter- how densely populated was rural region?

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 01:31 PM
It depended on the era and ruler and environment. I know Beijing had a comparable number of people living in its walls to the number of people that supported it with food during war times, but they may have been at a reduced agricultural output at the time. Other more rural areas where farmers kept more of their yields, probably more farmers were required.

To be fair, Greko-Roman farmers and shepherds were also drastically more efficient than most European farmers. Basically the medievil crop rotation system is categorically the worst system for growing crops known to man, except slash and burn.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 01:36 PM
but is D&D system medieval, Greco-Roman, or Other? every book which expands description of law, government, etc has tended toward mostly feudal, maybe with large empire in some region of world.

and even DMG tends to describe the generic commoner as a peasant.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 01:44 PM
Faerun and Eberron, which are the two settings that have taken up the more dominant role in 4th ed were less feudal in the traditional sense, and a touch more renaissance, and have a few more in the cities compared to the farms (Eberron more so). Greyhawk which is the standard for 3.5 was fairly feudal, but the setting didn't take the abilities of individuals into account in the functioning of society at all. Also, there are significantly larger amounts of cultural exchanges between enviro junkies and men (elves and men) meaning at least some half elves would have removed the need for fallow fields.

Kemper Boyd
2008-11-30, 01:50 PM
A medieval serf in western Europe actually paid less taxes than most people pay today. Feudalism wasn't a tyrannical system at its core.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 01:51 PM
I got impression Faerun was a hybrid- many periods, many levels of tech- Unther/Mulhorand- Egyptian, Dalelands/Cormyr: Medieval, Sword Coast/Waterdeep- Renaissance, etc. The printing press is relatively new (mentioned in Realms of Valor) the galleon and galeass also (Masquerades: Harper book), smokepowder, and so on.

biggest difference is social- lower classes are more "free" than medieval equivalent.

FRCS goes into more detail.

taxwise, I was thinking more the rice farmer. But how much tax did peasant pay in labor and food, rather than in money?

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 02:00 PM
Fuedal Lords, a very old Play by post game, went with each peasant growing 1.5 units of food and eating 1 unit, so peasants outnumbered townsmen plus knights 2 to one. (families of all 3 were skipped)

having 66% of the population be food producers, while a crude ballpark figure, is not that different from the estimates given earlier.

Yahzi
2008-11-30, 02:08 PM
Following up on my post:

The PHB lists wheat as a trade good at 1 cp per pound. That yields 8,000 cp per year for a farm. Half of that goes to the landlord as sharecrpping taxes. That leaves (using a 400 year day to make things simple), 1 sp per day - the wage of a laborer. It makes sense that a farmer can make this much money.

(We'll have to ignore the "gp/day" rule for all professions, since that directly violates the amounts stated in the DMG for any number of professions. Also, it's just stupid to think that PCs can wander into town and pick up odd jobs anyway. Medieval labor economies were not that liquid.)

If you live off a 2 lb. loaf of bread a day (not impossible; the Russians did it throughout WWII), you can feed a family of 5 for 10 cp a day. Of course, the farmer is actually going to do better than that, since his wife will plant a garden, chickens will be fed with the left-over straw, and so on. So the farmers can - in a good year - eat without starvation, and even have a few pennies left over to save up for things they can't make themselves (like plows).

The two problems this leaves us are: 1) the price of meals in the PHB (but I've always said that the Price Table is for adventurers only: ordinary people buy things for much less. For instance, service in an inn is something rare and extraordinary, and only rich travelers use those services), and 2) the vast taxes that flow into the land-lord's hands (40 gp a year per peasant, or 8 gp a year per capita, assuming 5-person families).

So let's calculate how much land a Knight needs to survive. He's going to be paying at least 1/2 the book price for meals for himself and his family. He has to feed his horses (and he needs 2, one to ride and one to war with), and they eat 2% of their weight a day in hay (and hay costs 1/4 as much as grain). He has to maintain his armor (assume 1/10 the cost of his gear). And we'll work with a 400 day year, for simplicity's sake.

Yearly expenses: 4,780 gp
Food (good meals made at home) - 2,000 gp
Horse feed (a light and a heavy horse) - 50 gp
Equipment maintenance (10% of 800 gp = Half-plate, etc) - 80 gp
Keep maintenance (1%) - 1,500 gp
Clothing (2 outfits a year each) - 750 gp
Drinking money (1 gp a day) - 400

As typical for a medieval family, food is almost half the budget. This is the single greatest difference between then and now: the percentage of income spent on food.

Assuming no cheating on taxes, our Knight needs 120 peasant families to support him, which is 7.5 sq miles of farmland, meaning a heavily-farmed, densely occupied fief about 3 miles by 3 miles.

That means 1 1st level Knight for every 600+ people.

So the D&D economics actually work out OK, ignoring a few odd and oversimplified rules, and accepting an actual medieval world - which is far grimmer and poorer than most players or DMs are willing to accept.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 02:10 PM
I got impression Faerun was a hybrid- many periods, many levels of tech- Unther/Mulhorand- Egyptian, Dalelands/Cormyr: Medieval, Sword Coast/Waterdeep- Renaissance, etc. The printing press is relatively new (mentioned in Realms of Valor) the galleon and galeass also (Masquerades: Harper book), smokepowder, and so on.

This is true. It's hard to say which city you would use as representative of the setting. I tend to use Waterdeep as the setting standard.


biggest difference is social- lower classes are more "free" than medieval equivalent.

FRCS goes into more detail.

taxwise, I was thinking more the rice farmer. But how much tax did peasant pay in labor and food, rather than in money?

I don't know for sure about taxes in China, but I know the magistrate in Japan taxed people in rice, because it was considered a currency to the city. So the answer is they taxed money, which is food. My assumption is they taxed food from the peasants in China, and used that to field armies, and to allow for government projects.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 02:12 PM
I default to The Dales- and not the core ones but the minor, out-of-the-way ones- probably because that was where my introduction to AD&D begun, in 2nd ed.

Freedale was the sample one. though I see Cormyr as a little more classical- King, peasants, forests/marshes with dangerous monsters, check.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 02:18 PM
Yes. Cormyr and Dale lands would have less agricultural output per farmer when compared to around waterdeep or the Egyptian style cities. In fact, those two probably have the settings lowest output considering the land quality and populace.

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 02:20 PM
Calimshan? the place is a desert. Maybe it might have some agricultural land, but its not exactly a good place to grow stuff. Or the huge regions of the Shaar or the Ride, where nomadic horsemen roam.

FRCS: Waterdeep Nation has population of 1.34 million, waterdeep city, 132000. 9 people needed to support 1.

familywise- cityfolk are as likely to have them as countryfolk, but since there are so much less of them, maybe the 9-1 but is slight overestimate. Still. 90% of population of region are rural.

Yukitsu
2008-11-30, 02:47 PM
Yes, but one would only expect a smaller percentage of the rural folk to be farmers. 60% of the total populace would be an at most figure, but the number of traders and craftsmen in each village would likely be considerable.

Especially considering using a 40 hectare per farmer standard, waterdeep nation only has enough farmland to employ about 15, 000 farmers.

As for the desert, they have to employ more advanced agricultural techniques. If they aren't efficient in growing, they will die.

Dervag
2008-11-30, 03:46 PM
Here's what I wrote up for my game:


Food

A classic medieval economy requires 75% of the population to be farmers.
The phrase “40 acres and a mule” is based in fact. One man, with a mule and a plow, can plow and harvest 20 acres of crops a year. The other 20 acres are allowed to lie fallow, so that crops are alternated at least every other year. The fallow fields will still produce weeds, grass, and hay, which will feed the mule....


The final result is that one farm family can produce enough food to sustain five adult men. If you assume small children eat half as much as an adult, the farm’s profits can support one other family - just barely.It's worse than that. In most places, the average farmer doesn't have 40 acres and a mule. This was the kind of thing that farmers got promised for being the first pioneers into land that was currently going unused. They could "stake out" (as in actually put stakes in the ground to mark) a large territory, as big as they could plow.

In a real medieval setting, things get more crowded. Once that farmland has been settled for a few generation there are a lot of farmers around. Farmers tend to cluster together for mutual protection if there are any dangerous barbarians around. The result is that the family farm plots shrink to about the minimum size needed to grow enough food to keep the farming family alive.

The farmers will revolt rather than let any more of their land get taken away, because in a bad year all they can depend on is the yield from their own farms. But the nobles won't let them keep much more land, because land controlled by the nobles directly profits the nobles, and the nobles have enough armor and swords and things to force the peasants to obey.

For this purpose it doesn't matter who the nobles are; they can be magicians or clerics or anyone who has an interest in the taxes collected off of land.
_________

Of course, the nobles' land is still producing grain, because they can force the peasants to work those fields.


So during harvest season, a wheeled society transforms into 100% agricultural. But it can only do this if it has a strong social structure. Social technology – farmers being assured of a labor force, and the laborers being assured of fair pay and not losing their status as artisans – is more important than mechanical technology.Oh, yeah. Absolutely.


Well-regulated and highly structured societies with the best in medieval technology still cannot get under 60% agricultural. The only technological invention that changes this is the engine – tractors and combines allow one man to do the work of one hundred. Which is why our modern society is only 1-2% agricultural, and yet we eat like gourmands.Of course, magic can really help here. Druids and rangers have a third level spell, Plant Growth, that affects about 500 acres of cropland. It increases the productivity of the cropland by "one third above normal," allowing those 500 acres to do the work of... um, 667 acres. The extra production is pure surplus from the point of view of the farming society, and it improves the 60% agricultural percentage to something more like 50%.

If you can convince the druids and rangers to bless your fields, of course. If you don't, and if your civilization has gotten used to getting those blessings, then you're going to have a famine. So that can be a bit of a problem.

Asheram
2008-11-30, 04:27 PM
Now, all talk is about farming. I'm more interested in the fishingwaters around the areas.
I'm reminded of the old farmhands contracts in my country that basicly, up till the 1870-1900, contained a clause that stated that they should not be required to eat salmon more than three days a week, due to it being so abundant in the rivers.

Just curious if the waters are "still" that populated in the D&D universe

Ofcourse, this is not true for all areas, but still. It's a viable source of food for a starving farmers family.

Zen Master
2008-11-30, 05:47 PM
Now, all talk is about farming. I'm more interested in the fishingwaters around the areas.
I'm reminded of the old farmhands contracts in my country that basicly, up till the 1870-1900, contained a clause that stated that they should not be required to eat salmon more than three days a week, due to it being so abundant in the rivers.

Just curious if the waters are "still" that populated in the D&D universe

Ofcourse, this is not true for all areas, but still. It's a viable source of food for a starving farmers family.

Asheram, eh? Do you by any chance play a tank on Moonglade?

Dervag
2008-11-30, 05:49 PM
Now, all talk is about farming. I'm more interested in the fishingwaters around the areas.
I'm reminded of the old farmhands contracts in my country that basicly, up till the 1870-1900, contained a clause that stated that they should not be required to eat salmon more than three days a week, due to it being so abundant in the rivers.

Just curious if the waters are "still" that populated in the D&D universe

Ofcourse, this is not true for all areas, but still. It's a viable source of food for a starving farmers family.They should be, in a medieval setting. Medieval population densities can't destroy a fishery the way moderns can.

Of course, all sorts of things can create ecological disasters in D&D, so fisheries may get knocked out by other means.

Asheram
2008-11-30, 05:50 PM
Asheram, eh? Do you by any chance play a tank on Moonglade?

The very same.

I just Do hope now that we've met under peaceful circumstances. :smalleek:

hamishspence
2008-11-30, 05:53 PM
yes- i'm not sure if dragnets and other technology are likely to lead to overfishing.

On the other hand- pre-20th century sea fishing could be pretty intensive, as could whaling. And sealing.

Could a population with "typical" D&D tech and numbers, overfish?

We do know that large animals, of any kind, can quite easily be overhunted, even with Stone age tech.

Kemper Boyd
2008-11-30, 07:01 PM
The farmers will revolt rather than let any more of their land get taken away, because in a bad year all they can depend on is the yield from their own farms. But the nobles won't let them keep much more land, because land controlled by the nobles directly profits the nobles, and the nobles have enough armor and swords and things to force the peasants to obey.

What the peasants can however do is to go away. This is something that frequently happened in feudal societies, since the nobles never have absolute control over the the peasant.

Yahzi
2008-11-30, 08:23 PM
Druids and rangers have a third level spell, Plant Growth
Clerics get it through the Plant domain... at the same time they get Remove Disease. :smallsmile:

A town without a 5th level cleric is a classic medieval town; dirty, poor, sick, corrupt, and on the edge of famine all the time. Toss in one dude (or dudette) with Plant Growth, Remove Disease, Zone of Truth, Continual Light, Detect Alignment, and Cure Minor Wounds, and suddenly everything changes. Suddenly the typical D&D town - where people sit around drinking ale and listening to bards every night - becomes possible.

But it's no longer a medieval town. Nobody dies in childbirth, there are no plagues, murder mysteries are solved as soon as the ruling power wants them solved, and the priest can make an objective determination of whether or not the ruler is fit to rule.

The problem isn't so much the rules as the modules, which insist on basing adventures around things that a 3rd level divination spell could resolve.



What the peasants can however do is to go away. This is something that frequently happened in feudal societies, since the nobles never have absolute control over the the peasant.
No. A thousand times no. Peasants that "go away" either go to another lord's lands - which are exactly the same - or they go to the Wild, in which case they are immediately eaten by monsters.

The only reason they aren't eaten by monsters in the first place is because the lord, who is high level, keeps the monsters away. When the lords not only have more weapons than you, but are also responsible for your continued existence, that is absolute control.

elliott20
2008-11-30, 09:29 PM
yahzi, now that model I think feels more inline with what I'm talking about here. Not necessarily the numbers, but methodology. We need to understand how much of each goods is being produced first. Then, we need to know the monetary worth of these goods. Once that is done, we need to figure out the cost of doing business from various things like distribution, management, to overhead. We don't need a nitty gritty, just a general ball park figure. From there, we add the net income together to get an aggregate and tax that.

That would be our government budget.

Dervag
2008-11-30, 10:40 PM
yes- i'm not sure if dragnets and other technology are likely to lead to overfishing.

On the other hand- pre-20th century sea fishing could be pretty intensive, as could whaling. And sealing.

Could a population with "typical" D&D tech and numbers, overfish?

We do know that large animals, of any kind, can quite easily be overhunted, even with Stone age tech.Oh, it can happen, but it's a lot easier to overhunt land animals. They're easier to stalk and kill, and their territories are smaller and easier for humans to cover. If Captain Ahab had been hunting the Great White Elephant, Moby **** would have been a short story.

Once you get back before the Industrial Revolution with its steamships, canning factories, and explosive harpoons, it gets a lot harder to overfish a fishery into depletion. And I do mean harder; it's a lot of work.

It happened sometimes, as with the Steller Sea Cow, but not on anything like the scale possible with industrial technology.


What the peasants can however do is to go away. This is something that frequently happened in feudal societies, since the nobles never have absolute control over the the peasant.You're right, but that only helps so much, especially if all the other nobles do more or less the same thing for more or less the same reasons.

elliott20
2008-11-30, 10:45 PM
I like how the D word got censored.

Dervag
2008-12-01, 01:15 AM
I like how the D word got censored.Oops. Didn't notice that.

So much for great works of American literature.

Yukitsu
2008-12-01, 01:16 AM
From now on, I dub thee Moby Genitalia.

Yahzi
2008-12-01, 01:35 AM
From there, we add the net income together to get an aggregate and tax that would be our government budget.
Well, only if it makes the game more fun. :smallbiggrin:

Remember that my figures are GNP; the actual government budget will be a lot smaller, for a variety of reasons: corruption, cheating, and just plain inefficiency. Also, there will be some social programs: alms for the poor, maintaining roads and dams, etc. Essentially the lord can't consume everything; his craftsman class is going to require a lot of luxuries or they won't work very hard.

What I've come up with is 2 gp per person in a serf economy which is only 10 gp out of the alleged 40 sharecropping I calculated above, a perfectly reasonable discount of 75%. More than that makes the government budget absurd, unless you're trying to model Orcs or other militaristic societies and you want a society in which 1/2 the people are professional soldiers. I mean, at the rate that adventurers kill them, they do need to make soldiers really fast. :smallbiggrin:

elliott20
2008-12-01, 01:57 AM
hey, at least now we can seriously start thinking about steps to go tippyverse now.

Zen Master
2008-12-01, 02:04 AM
The very same.

I just Do hope now that we've met under peaceful circumstances. :smalleek:

Well - dunno about peaceful. We've tanked Karazhan together many times. I'm Skagtooth :)

elliott20
2008-12-01, 02:12 AM
Well - dunno about peaceful. We've tanked Karazhan together many times. I'm Skagtooth :)

For a second there, I thought that said "Sagtooth", to which I thought, "he must be using that name to be ironic"

DrakebloodIV
2008-12-01, 02:17 AM
Once you get back before the Industrial Revolution with its steamships, canning factories, and explosive harpoons, it gets a lot harder to overfish a fishery into depletion. And I do mean harder; it's a lot of work.

But a mage can make imitations of those items. Perminant Haste or something on the boat, create Canning Golem :smalltongue: and meteor swarm enchanted on the harpoon.

elliott20
2008-12-01, 02:19 AM
But a mage can make imitations of those items. Perminant Haste or something on the boat, create Canning Golem :smalltongue: and meteor swarm enchanted on the harpoon.

also see, the biggest waste of XP since... well... ever. :smalltongue: might as well just meteor swarm the water itself and get all the damn sushi in one go.

hamishspence
2008-12-01, 08:39 AM
Right whales were approaching extinction in late 18th, early 19th century- in days of sailing whalers. That's why they focussed more on sperm whales in the first place.

though it does require some industrial level and a Lot of hunters.

Triaxx
2008-12-01, 09:45 AM
True, but with a flying wizard scouting for pods, you're making a much shorter turn around time.