Profit Checks and Reality

[Olo Demonsbane]

I was reading the buisness operation rules in the DMG2, and realized that they do not really make sense. Think about it this way:

A 2nd level commoner farmer, with max ranks in Profession (farmer), Handle Animal and Knowledge (nature), has 14 Wisdom. He works for over 6 hours a day, and lives in a rural area. He even got skill focus (Profession (farmer)). He gets this result with a profit check:

1d20+5(farmer ranks)+2(Wisdom)+3(Skill Focus)+1(5 or more ranks in secondary skills)+1(time spent)-4(rural area)+1(low risk)+1(low resource).

1d20+10. Then he subtracts 25 from the result, and multiplies this by 5 gold pieces. On average, each month he loses 25 gold pieces. He has to roll at least a 15 to break even.

How is this possible?

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I was reading the buisness operation rules in the DMG2, and realized that they do not really make sense. Think about it this way:

A 2nd level commoner farmer, with max ranks in Profession (farmer), Handle Animal and Knowledge (nature), has 14 Wisdom. He works for over 6 hours a day, and lives in a rural area. He even got skill focus (Profession (farmer)). He gets this result with a profit check:

1d20+5(farmer ranks)+2(Wisdom)+3(Skill Focus)+1(5 or more ranks in secondary skills)+1(time spent)-4(rural area)+1(low risk)+1(low resource).

1d20+10. Then he subtracts 25 from the result, and multiplies this by 5 gold pieces. On average, each month he loses 25 gold pieces. He has to roll at least a 15 to break even.

How is this possible?

Because the average farmer shouldn't have a business. He grows food, which is then taken from him by his king in exchange for a pittance. Profession:Farmer is a skill that explains how good he is at talking up his crop for a better pittance. Going into business for himself is highly risky and will leave his decendants in debt for generations, because the king hates any commoner with ideas above his station.

In other words, the skills break down at low levels.

Or it could be that the DMGII sucks. That's always my favorite explanation.

[Hawriel]

The biggest problem is that your farmer only works 6 hours a day.

[Alleine]

ah, but this is why peasants have such large families. Enough kids to roll 10s on their aid another check and soon you'll at least have enough of a bonus to not starve every week!

[Tempest Fennac]

A while back I started a thread asking about the best way to set up a trading company (that's the aim of a Phanaton Rogue who was was going to be playing as in an area where trade is dominated by humans). I think it was Bosssmilie who said something about the DMG 2's buisness rules being useless because of the most profitable buisness being a shack in the middle of nowhere. To be fair, the book is poor on the whole (the fact that it suggests that Disguise Self can be used on another person dispite the name sums it up).

[Tsotha-lanti]

The rules are absolutely awful. You make next to no money even with high skills (and there's a break-off point for hiring people to work for you where it stops increasing your profits and instead digs into them, which makes little enough sense), and only a very few specific types of business can ever be even remotely profitable.

[Myou]

The Dungeononmicon can help here. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthrea...27#post9483527

[Telonius]

I was reading the buisness operation rules in the DMG2, and realized that they do not really make sense. Think about it this way:

A 2nd level commoner farmer, with max ranks in Profession (farmer), Handle Animal and Knowledge (nature), has 14 Wisdom. He works for over 6 hours a day, and lives in a rural area. He even got skill focus (Profession (farmer)). He gets this result with a profit check:

1d20+5(farmer ranks)+2(Wisdom)+3(Skill Focus)+1(5 or more ranks in secondary skills)+1(time spent)-4(rural area)+1(low risk)+1(low resource).

1d20+10. Then he subtracts 25 from the result, and multiplies this by 5 gold pieces. On average, each month he loses 25 gold pieces. He has to roll at least a 15 to break even.

How is this possible?

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go,
I owe my soul to the company store.

Sounds about right for the average serf in a feudal society.

[Urthdigger]

"You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems."

From the SRD. Granted, I prefer Craft because it actually lets you do more with higher ranks in the skill, whereas as far as the SRD is concerned 1 rank in profession is as good as 100. Might be a tad simplistic for most tastes, but I think nobody's going to mind a player earning 10 or so gold a week if the character has the spare time, or even the 50+ possible by using craft to make expensive items.

[Person_Man]

Little known fact about pre-mercantile societies: 99% of the population lead subsistence lifestyles. They only earned enough money to have a shelter, eat, and occasionally barter for other necessary goods. There was almost no hope for accumulating wealth, because anything they didn't immediately consume would be taken by taxes, tithes, crime, or a attempting to provide for a ridiculous number of children. And greed in general is seen as sinful by Christianity (a fact that rich people often ignored), and Eastern caste societies were even more rigid about how much your station in life.

If an employer wanted something done quickly, the only way to speed it up was to get more people. Raising wages disintensivized most peasants, because once they passed the threshold for survival, they stopped working and went home.

So many peasants worked far less than we do today. Sad, really.

[Tsotha-lanti]

So many peasants worked far less than we do today. Sad, really.

W... what?

The majority of Finland still lived as rural farmers up to around the Second World War, and they sure as heck didn't work only 40 hours a week. You got up at dawn and went to bed at dusk, and you were lucky if you got enough of a harvest to feed anyone, what with the short growing season. In between, you had to work the fields, work the animals, repair tools, fix the houses, work for your landlord, and so on and so on. One cold snap and you were in for a local famine, and eating bark off trees (literally).

That's a subsistence lifestyle.

Never mind it doesn't even remotely relate to the business rules (also, most D&D societies, oddly enough, are not Christian). They aren't for peasants, they're for running a business.

[Mike_G]

W... what?

The majority of Finland still lived as rural farmers up to around the Second World War, and they sure as heck didn't work only 40 hours a week. You got up at dawn and went to bed at dusk, and you were lucky if you got enough of a harvest to feed anyone, what with the short growing season. In between, you had to work the fields, work the animals, repair tools, fix the houses, work for your landlord, and so on and so on. One cold snap and you were in for a local famine, and eating bark off trees (literally).

That's a subsistence lifestyle.

Never mind it doesn't even remotely relate to the business rules (also, most D&D societies, oddly enough, are not Christian). They aren't for peasants, they're for running a business.

Who works 40 hours a week?

I work 64.

Then I come home and help care for my 18 month old son.

[Radar]

RL aside, there was a decent thread about the same subject here somewhere already.

As was mantioned: one has to take into account aid from other family members. Also farmer uses some tools and maybe a mule/horse/ox - that has to count for something. And the time spent should be longer.

Still i don't understand, why one should subtract anything for the rural area? Is farming in a city center more profitable? The rules are somewhat weird here.

[lsfreak]

Most of it's already been said.
One thing, he's not running a business. Every grain of wheat or corn goes straight into the mouths of him, his family, or his lord. The rules for making money are non-applicable.

Taking that aside, 6 hours a day? Ty 10-14. Then, once dark comes around, a few more hours of working on something else by lamplight, whether it be something you need for the farm or something you can try to sell.

Finally, there should be between 2 and 4 others to help. If you're young enough that you don't have kids that can help, you're still living on your parent's plot of land. If you're old enough to have your own kids, they work the land as well.

But yes, the rules are weird, nonetheless.

[Mike_G]

Like much of 3.5, the rules are not useful in simulating every facet of an economy, but in simulating going on adventures and shanking monsters.

The money making rules, including Profession and Craft checks, are useful only for a quick and dirty resolution if the PC's say "Hey we're in and out of this town a lot. Let's set up a shipping business while we're here," or the bard wants to earn some money busking while the Wizard takes a few weeks to research spells. They do not hold up at all for running a business as a main goal. Seriously, by the RAW, cartographers and dung shovellers make the same money if they roll the same Profession check.

It's not Mergers and Mercantilism. Don't try to make it work for that.

[MickJay]

Taking that aside, 6 hours a day? Ty 10-14. Then, once dark comes around, a few more hours of working on something else by lamplight, whether it be something you need for the farm or something you can try to sell.

Not really, in most cases, the peasants wouldn't be able to afford any kind of light, except something saved for an emergency, or a makeshift torch. Oil would have been too expensive to burn for a few hours daily. Typically, women would be gathering what food was available in the forest, or crafting something during the day, unless they were needed for work in the field as well.

[Mike_G]

Not really, in most cases, the peasants wouldn't be able to afford any kind of light, except something saved for an emergency, or a makeshift torch. Oil would have been too expensive to burn for a few hours daily. Typically, women would be gathering what food was available in the forest, or crafting something during the day, unless they were needed for work in the field as well.

This is kind of a gross oversimplification. It all depends on what we mean when we say "commoner."

Late medieval Freemen, who might well be common laborers, would live far better than this. So would the Roman Pleb, the Nordic Karl, and even some serfs at least in good years.

Some 19th century sharecroppers in the US did live this poorly.

As far as workday, farming, which is the default we think of for peasants, has busy and slow times of year. Sure, the chickens still need to be fed but there's not much planting and weeding in January. Lots of time for storytelling, huddling in bed and producing the next generation of peasants.

Planting and harvest times, as well as livestock breeding and calving/lambing etc would be very busy times, but the agrarian peasant didn't face the soul and body destroying grind that the early coal miner or Industrial Revolution factory wage slave did.

As far as light, wax and tallow are byproducts of raising livestock, and the the average agrarian peasant would be likely to have at least the latter.

[lsfreak]

I supposed I don't really know, only growing stuff in small plots, but (depending entirely on the type of crop) weeding could be very time-consuming between planting and harvest. The crops the family grew for supplementing grains certainly would be, especially as a number of them are extremely picky about competition.

Yes, for light "lamplight" was a poor term. I was thinking more along the lines of candles or bison-dung fires.

[Demons_eye]

I was reading the buisness operation rules in the DMG2, and realized that they do not really make sense. Think about it this way:

A 2nd level commoner farmer, with max ranks in Profession (farmer), Handle Animal and Knowledge (nature), has 14 Wisdom. He works for over 6 hours a day, and lives in a rural area. He even got skill focus (Profession (farmer)). He gets this result with a profit check:

1d20+5(farmer ranks)+2(Wisdom)+3(Skill Focus)+1(5 or more ranks in secondary skills)+1(time spent)-4(rural area)+1(low risk)+1(low resource).

1d20+10. Then he subtracts 25 from the result, and multiplies this by 5 gold pieces. On average, each month he loses 25 gold pieces. He has to roll at least a 15 to break even.

How is this possible?

This but he works more hours takes the trait that he cant read for a +1 and he is older for the +2 to wisdom for another +1. I think you can take ten, also maybe there is a feat that gets you +2 profession and +2 some thing else (like sneaky). So like a 24 or a 26 role?

Edit: forgot aid another from possible kids so maybe 26 or 28
Edit:edit: have two of them and have them both take the tutor for a +2 Competence bonus

[nightwyrm]

Like much of 3.5, the rules are not useful in simulating every facet of an economy, but in simulating going on adventures and shanking monsters.

The money making rules, including Profession and Craft checks, are useful only for a quick and dirty resolution if the PC's say "Hey we're in and out of this town a lot. Let's set up a shipping business while we're here," or the bard wants to earn some money busking while the Wizard takes a few weeks to research spells. They do not hold up at all for running a business as a main goal. Seriously, by the RAW, cartographers and dung shovellers make the same money if they roll the same Profession check.

It's not Mergers and Mercantilism. Don't try to make it work for that.

Seriously, this. Most of the 3.5 rules that appears to try to simulate reality are in fact completely arbitrary. The rules are there for quick DM adjudication of PC actions. If you use them for world building, you get messed up results.

People have to realize that all the rules are written up by game designers, not people who specialize in economics or physics or whatever. You shouldn't expect the rules to reflect reality. Heck, even real world economists can't come up with the right rules to model real world economics. What hope does a non-expert game designer have?

[Hawriel]

Ok you want to know how a medieval economy works. At least how it pertaines to a medieval village. I recomend reading...

Life In A Medieval Village.
By Frances and Joseph Gies.

I read half. It was rather dry, like reading an accounting book at times. Then school started and I had to drop all non school reading. The Gieses examine a village in england and all of the peaple who live in it with all of the jobs that need doing to make it fungtion. Peaple get fed, produce good for sale and the lord is able to pay the tax to the king.

[Dixieboy]

the Nordic Karl,

The karl is a Servant at a the farm, a karl is traditionally young man who works at the farm in exchange for being fed and having a place to live. (And maybe some coin, but not a whole lot)

The Karl is not applicable here as he automatically gets what he needs from his employer, who is loosing 25 golds a month :P

[bosssmiley]

Seriously, this. Most of the 3.5 rules that appears to try to simulate reality are in fact completely arbitrary. The rules are there for quick DM adjudication of PC actions. If you use them for world building, you get messed up results.

"Math is hard" and "Playtest is boring" are no excuse for supposedly well-educated professionals writing bad and exploitable rules. If the rules are rubbish then they should be junked and workable rules hacked together.

Heck, even AD&D managed some semi-sane investment rules for Al-Qadim and Birthright (invest cash > make business check > possibly do adventure based on check result > reap profits/soak loss as %age of original investment > repeat), why couldn't 3E manage the same?

Even hobbyists can (and have) done better than the DMG2. the Tome Series economics rules were written by a couple of hobbyists with some basic understanding of economics, and - because it derives from the existing CR/reward system - the amount of profit garnered actually scales to the risk taken.

People have to realize that all the rules are written up by game designers, not people who specialize in economics or physics or whatever. You shouldn't expect the rules to reflect reality. Heck, even real world economists can't come up with the right rules to model real world economics. What hope does a non-expert game designer have?

As above: "Math is hard" and "Playtest is boring" are no excuse. Oh, and Adam Smith laughs at modern economists and their tiny manhoods still failing 200+ years after he established how markets actually work. HE LAUGHS!

[grautry]

Sorry for necroing an old thread but it was linked in another and I have something to say.

I think you guys missed something(I hope quoting this is kosher).

In fact, a character who is a business owner could make a profit check during a month while he simultaneously works for the business, earning gold each week with a Profession
or Craft check (such gold is considered part of the business’s overhead).

Running a business is the cherry on the top of profession checks.

Those checks are the way 90% of the population will earn their money - they'll take half their profession check in gold each week as SRD indicates. Your farmer(14 Wisdom, Skill Focus in his profession, 5 ranks in skill) will earn (2+3+5+d20)/2=10 gold on average each week. He won't be running a business. It's as simple as that and it actually works, the economy of profession checks makes for a quite reasonable(if incredibly simplified - why is it that every profession earns the same money?) economy.

The rare few who are skilled enough to run a really good business, have enough money to start and good conditions will make additional money on top of their weekly profession check. Your farmer unfortunately doesn't have favourable enough conditions to start a business.

And that's fine, he's an average piss-poor commoner. He's not supposed to be raking in tons of dough each month.

[Riffington]

Your farmer(14 Wisdom, Skill Focus in his profession, 5 ranks in skill) ...he's an average piss-poor commoner.

To be fair, this depends greatly on setting. Perhaps it works that way in yours.

In many settings, you've described Poor Richard. 5 skill ranks may be par for the course for a physician, whereas a farmer'd have 2 skill ranks (or maybe even be an Unskilled Laborer). Skill Focus applies to someone truly talented in his field, not to anyone "average".

[Roland St. Jude]

Sorry for necroing an old thread but it was linked in another and I have something to say...

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please follow the Forum Rules. Thread necromancy is prohibited.