# Silly economics of DnD



## bramadan (Feb 14, 2002)

I know that I am probably the ony person in the world who is bothered by the things like this but...

Have you noticed that, in DnD world, average labourer needs to work 20 days (and not eat) in order to buy the empty barrel or a crowbar. That the daily wage will buy you a poor meals for the day (for one person) but not lodgings of any sort. 

Despite of that however, in a village *at any given time* amount of "ready cash" per capita exceedes what a trained craftsman earns in a month and in a large town excedes what a simmilar craftsman earns in a year. And that there is enough "ready cash" in an average small town at any given time to purchase a warship.

On a same count a city of 30000 (less then the size of medieval London and 1/3 of such places as Venice and Genua) has enough ready cash to hire mercenary army of 1.5 Milion men in the case of emergency, retain them for a year and still have enough left to finance the puchase of roughly 3000 warships.   

On a more every day scale 1st level NPC's gear (200gp) is of enough value to hire 20men+leader mercenary company and retain them for about two months. Alternative is however to purchace 50' of chain. 

On the topic of chain, a full suit of chain mail, (easily over 30.000 rings, work of over a month for master armourer with full shop of assistants) costs roughly as much as 50 feet of chain (250 rings, blacksmith's work of a couple of days).

And so on and so on. 
This sort of stuff makes building anything resembling a believable setting neigh impossible...


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## Trellian (Feb 14, 2002)

I've noticed.. a couple of the prices, and especially the wages for labourers and others are ridiculously low... adventurers must be some of the richest guys on the planet! 

Adventurers could easily hire a mercenary group consisting of 200+ men to help them out for the cost of 5 or 6 healing potions... ridiculous...


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## UnDfind (Feb 14, 2002)

*Hmmm...*

There's always going to be things that seem odd, but the reason for them may not be obvious.  Also remember that peasents and other commoners of the day mostly live in what we would call poverty today.  The available cash listed for places is cumulative, and would not be apparent unless every resident came together in one place and spilled all their cash and valuables into a pile.  They probably wouldn't do that to hire mercenaries, as they would still have to eat.

There are no labor-relieving machines or mass-production factories in most fantasy settings, which makes certain products (like chain) to be a commodity, equalling the price of other products or services that are easier to come by (IE mercenaries).  In truth, full suits of armor, chain mail, etc may very well be worth more than their entries, but characters require access to them.  

There is also the fact that in a place filled with orcs, goblins, and all other sorts of crazy beasties ready to feast on the common folk, there is a higher demand for weapons and armor.  There would be a higher percentage of blacksmiths ready to meet these demands, and unless they united in some form of guild, prices for these things would keep dropping as competition increased.  Chain, however, is not one of these necessities in soopah-high demand, so it's price stays at what the dealer can hawk it for.  Remember that the prices given in the PHB are simply a reference, and certain items may be an expensive rarity in some parts, but rather cheap in others.  

Take wine for instance.  Go to the place farthest from a nations' vinyards and you might find that decent wine is at least three times as expensive as the PHB listing (and good wine may be worth enough to purchase an army of mercs).  But if you go to the place where the vinyards and aging cellars are, you'll find that the common folk can afford to drink pretty decent wine with every meal.  It's supply and demand, and wise merchants play it as much as possible, always insuring that they make the most possible profit, but at a price reasonable enough to ensure you prefer them to the other dealers.

I added this aspect of the world to my games a long time ago, and was surprised at how many players loved it and tried their own hands at the market.  It's kind of fun to have a bunch of heroes who also run the trade routes on the side.  Makes for interesting adventures when their interests are threatened by events in another city.


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## bramadan (Feb 14, 2002)

*high demand != low prices*

My intersat in economy is purely amateurish but even I know that the demand does *Not* generate downwards pressure on prices either in long or short term. 
If a labour/skill intensive product is in high demand and there is no technology that can expedite its production pressure will be to increase prices not decrease them. Growth in supply will happend *only* when the prices are high enough that producing that product becomes more rational option for producer then other options. Under the curent pricing of chain and chainmail (just a conveniet example, PHB and DMG are full of simmilar nonsense) a smith has much greater motivation to forge chain then the mail. If the supply of chain thus outpaces the demand competition will drop the price untill labour investment is at least roughly equivalent to that of producing other products (in this case the mail). Prices in a handbook should be giving some sort of steady state equilibrium which they do not no matter what are the conditions on supply or demand. 

Also against the theory of demand=low price goes the actual historcal example of nothing else but chainmail. Despite the fact that it was an item much coveted by all (despite absence of goblins real middle ages were very violent period) it steadily remained monetary equivalent of today's luxury family home, because supply in terms of many months work of skilled armourer was low. 

Reason this bothers me is because as soon as PC's move a step beyond slaughtering monsters in dungeons and try to do something in the world arround them they are hit by economic nonsense that DM had to fix essentialy from the skratch.


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## nameless (Feb 14, 2002)

It is really ridiculous how little labor is valued compared to its products. For an example that actually happened in a game I played, our party (with way too much deus ex machina help) beat a dragon in its lair and used the (lower than usual amount, for a dragon) treasure to buy an entire country. We then paid off that countries' debts, and lowered taxes enough that all the citizens able to move to our new country would do so. To top it all off, we threw a huge festival to let everyone know how great our new country was. And we still had enough in the bank to finance the country for years without charging any taxes.

After getting a giant population with a huge agricultural base, we raised an army and conquered all the countries where the commoners originally hailed from. All of this financial power was lying in a cave guarded by an overgrown lizard. It's just not right.

-nameless


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## UnDfind (Feb 14, 2002)

*Oi*

Supply/Demand isn't quite as simple as that.  If there was only one manufacturer of a particular product in an area, then yes, he could charge whatever he wanted for it (of course he has to keep it low enough that people can still buy it).  But with multiple manufacturers/dealers, you've gotta realize that demand DOES result in a dropping of prices.  One merchant will find a way to cut prices just enough to make it lower than the guy across the street, and the other guy has to find a way to beat the new price or lose business.  This does result in a lower gain per product, but it is made up for in sheer volume sold.  Prices tend to be lower when competition is real (thus the laws against monopolies).  

As for the preference of a blacksmith forging a chain instead of chainmail, remember what was said about demand and availablility.  What if a blacksmith creates 100 lengths of chain, and then opens his doors to the public?  He'd set a lower price then competitors (but not by much) and would make a fortune, right?  Not necessarily.  The price for chain may be high because demand is actually low (strange concept, I know).  But if chain isn't in as high a demand as chainmail, it would be a far more rare product to be found.  That would mean that when you do find it, the one selling it can feel safe charging a higher price for it as you may not find it in too many other local shops (I'm not saying this is true for a chain, they tend to be common in cities and such). 

Another factor of price is the economic position of the common customer.  Let's say that the demand for chain comes mostly from nobility, masons/architects, and city officials (for things like prisons, buildings, etc).  Those all have far more means to draw upon than a commoner, thus increasing the price to what the dealer can get the customers to pay.  Remember that the price is a mixed (and usually convoluted) factor that includes cost, supply/demand, availability, general worth, target customer, and a whole lot more.  Most merchants and folks know most of this, but a lot of it happens naturally within the economic system.

The game prices may very well be skewed (I haven't really compared them with prices common to medieval days, and I probably never will), but the truth is that prices would actually change for every town you come across.  It says right in the PHB that the prices are only for reference and not set in stone.  I never charge the PHB price for anything.  I usually try to figure out how many fletchers would be in an area (things like nearby forests and the availability of good feathers could play a roll) before setting a price for arrows (usually made up on the fly, but it works), and then have the merchant ask a price well above what he's willing to settle on for them.  The haggling is fun, and it's a good way to get some use out of Sense Motive, Bluff, and Diplomacy.  Of course if I'm in a hurry to get to another scene, I'll be far more kind in my price setting.


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## mmadsen (Feb 14, 2002)

> It is really ridiculous how little labor is valued compared to its products.




Explain.



> For an example that actually happened in a game I played, our party (with way too much deus ex machina help) beat a dragon in its lair and used the (lower than usual amount, for a dragon) treasure to buy an entire country.




From whom?  And what on earth did they do with all that cash?



> We then paid off that countries' debts, and lowered taxes enough that all the citizens able to move to our new country would do so. To top it all off, we threw a huge festival to let everyone know how great our new country was. And we still had enough in the bank to finance the country for years without charging any taxes.




Countries' debts?  Was this a modern nation-state?  And what kind of tax scheme was the old regime running that you so easily reduced taxes enough to get a flood of immigrants?



> After getting a giant population with a huge agricultural base, we raised an army and conquered all the countries where the commoners originally hailed from. All of this financial power was lying in a cave guarded by an overgrown lizard. It's just not right.




If you didn't increase your land holdings, how did you increase your agricultural base?


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## mmadsen (Feb 14, 2002)

*Re: Oi*



> Supply/Demand isn't quite as simple as that.  If there was only one manufacturer of a particular product in an area, then yes, he could charge whatever he wanted for it (of course he has to keep it low enough that people can still buy it).  But with multiple manufacturers/dealers, you've gotta realize that demand DOES result in a dropping of prices.  One merchant will find a way to cut prices just enough to make it lower than the guy across the street, and the other guy has to find a way to beat the new price or lose business.  This does result in a lower gain per product, but it is made up for in sheer volume sold.  Prices tend to be lower when competition is real (thus the laws against monopolies).




You seem to have confused supply and demand.  More manufacturers would mean greater supply and an end to monopoly power.

More buyers would mean greater demand and an end to monopsony power.


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## Imperialus (Feb 14, 2002)

straps on his abestos greathelm +5 and hunkers down with a bucket to fight the inevitable flames that will result as soon as Kerins Dad gets here.

*edit* Speaking of, what happened to him?  Haven't seen him around much since the boards changed hands.


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## fakename (Feb 14, 2002)

nameless said:
			
		

> *It is really ridiculous how little labor is valued compared to its products.  *




You say that coming from a first-world perspective, where most of the population isn't living in poverty.

I lived in Saudi Arabia for a while, where all the base labor is done by people from third world contries (esp. pakistan and indonesia) who get paid bugger all.  A study was done into digging up roads, with an interesting result.

In most places, when the road is dug up for cables a piece of empty PVC pipe is placed in the ditch, so if more cables need to be added they don't need to dig up the road again.  They weren't doing this.

It turns out getting a crew of half a dozen men to dig up the road, lay the cable and fill the gap back in is LESS than the cost of the PVC pipe.


The same rich/poor dichotomy is visible in the D&D economy.  Remember that most of the people in the world are slowly starving to death because they are so poor, and it isn't as broken.


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## SableWyvern (Feb 14, 2002)

If the d&d worlds are swamped in poverty, who exactly hangs out in inns? The prices are exorbitant. I don't recall hearing about any campaigns were only the rich hung out at an inn. They're always full of locals.

A labourer (note: *Labourer*, not farmer) earns enough to provide himself one poor meal every two days (too bad if he has kids). Obviously, he feeds himself and family by thieving. So what happens when the local lord brings in a thousand-strong work force to build a castle or his mausoleum? They'll end up burning down his town.

Try to defend the system's intrinsic economy as you like, it doesn't work.

Personally, I just ignore the inconsistencies. It's D&D folks. It doesn't make sense. That's the nature of the game. HPs are crazy, economies don't work and adventurers get insanely rich and powerful.


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## Sammael99 (Feb 14, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *I know that I am probably the ony person in the world who is bothered by the things like this but...
> *




You're not actually. I'm very bothered about the fact that in awarding less than usual amounts of treasure, my PCs are still running around with upwards of 000's of gold in cash at Lvl 6... They're not big spenders, granted, and since there are very few if any magic items for sale in my campaign, they don't have much to spend the cash on.

I would sure love for someone to dig into the economics issue seriously and rework the various price lists and indicative amounts...


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## bramadan (Feb 14, 2002)

So poor that it takes them 20 days of work to buy an empty barell ?
Not even third world has so low product/labour value ratios and keep in mind that in third world price of "product" is greatly inflated by the 1st world know-how and technology that goes into it, which was not situation in middle ages.

As to the chain/mail discussion:
Assume arbitrary number of smiths. Assume PHB prices. They imply that *provided they can sell their goods* smiths who make chain earn something like at least 50 times hourly wage of ones that make mail. Assume however that the demand for mail is 100 times greater then that for chain and that therefore only 1% of smiths can sell it. What this does is force competition everybody tries to be in this 1% because it is just so lucrative; they undercut each other and price drops bit by bit untill it is no longer incredibly lucrative to pander to this market - that is until the return on investment (in terms of working hours) is same order of magnitude in both cases. Works exactly as you described but only when demand is low because when demand is high loosing business is not a big danger. This is why wages go up when unemployment is low and vice versa. 
I agree that in special cases a nieche item can command a high price due to its rarity but we are talking common chain here not handwowen angora earmuffs. Enough chain is used on daily basis that no matter how high demand for other items it is not ever going to be a nieche product. 

Writing about this stuff prompted me to take a look at the net and I found this realy cool site, check it out people:
http://home.mira.net/~tosh/text/general/medievalprices.htm


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## Numion (Feb 14, 2002)

nameless said:
			
		

> *It is really ridiculous how little labor is valued compared to its products. For an example that actually happened in a game I played, our party (with way too much deus ex machina help) beat a dragon in its lair and used the (lower than usual amount, for a dragon) treasure to buy an entire country. We then paid off that countries' debts, and lowered taxes enough that all the citizens able to move to our new country would do so. To top it all off, we threw a huge festival to let everyone know how great our new country was. And we still had enough in the bank to finance the country for years without charging any taxes.
> *




When all the nations were about to go to war over some lizards money in the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, I too was like 'Puh-leeze'. This is so unreal! [/sarcasm]


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## SableWyvern (Feb 14, 2002)

*Re: Re: Silly economics of DnD*



			
				Sammael99 said:
			
		

> *
> 
> You're not actually. I'm very bothered about the fact that in awarding less than usual amounts of treasure, my PCs are still running around with upwards of 000's of gold in cash at Lvl 6... They're not big spenders, granted, and since there are very few if any magic items for sale in my campaign, they don't have much to spend the cash on.
> 
> I would sure love for someone to dig into the economics issue seriously and rework the various price lists and indicative amounts... *




Rolemaster has a far more workable economic system. If you can get hold of it, _...And a 10 Foot Pole_ has some comprehensive equipment and price lists. Also, _GM Law_ not only includes a worthy discussion on medieval economies and their relationship to the RM monetary system, but a wealth of invaluable information for GMs of any system. Oh yeah, and it also includes wage-rates that mesh with the pricing system.

The system also greatly reduces the sheer volume of coins that are handed out (a rich party might have 1000gp between them).


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## SableWyvern (Feb 14, 2002)

Numion said:
			
		

> *
> 
> When all the nations were about to go to war over some lizards money in the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, I too was like 'Puh-leeze'. This is so unreal! [/sarcasm] *




Actually, those were relatively small, nearby nations, warring for the accumulated wealth of a fallen dwarven kingdom.


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## LostSoul (Feb 14, 2002)

SableWyvern said:
			
		

> *A labourer (note: Labourer, not farmer) earns enough to provide himself one poor meal every two days (too bad if he has kids). *




I would say that he lives with his wife, and if he's lucky, some children.  They pool thier production and hopefully they can feed themselves after the local lord takes his cut.

Note that the price of a "Poor Meal" is (I'd imagine) a meal sold at an inn or tavern, where you are paying for service, land, and protection of that inn.  Considering a chicken is worth 2 copper (page 96, Tabe 7-3: Trade Goods) I think he'd be able to feed himself just fine.

In my game I switched things around so that 1 silver piece was equal to the amount of food needed for one adult (male) to survive for two weeks.  The average person makes 30 silver a year.  In a family unit, surplus goes to taxes, land, and household goods.  All members of the village get together to build homes (which deteriorate every generation or so) so the cost of building a home is spread across the whole community.

In contrast to the average agricultural labourer, a local Baron in my campaign grosses about 120 thousand silver pieces a year.  (Most of that is in the form of goods and services - the cooper might come to the castle two days out of the week and work on the Baron's men's footwear; the farmer might deliver foodstuffs; the artist may have to perform at the Baron's whim.)  His forces cost him nearly 100 thousand silver a year; upkeep to his castle and the repayment of debt pretty much take care of the rest of it.


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## jasper (Feb 14, 2002)

From "The Great Household in Late Medieval England " by C. M. Woolgar

Table 2 page 16 Average daily cost  per person in the household

Name				gross income		average cost
				Of household		per person per day

Joan de valence 1296 -7 	414 pd			2 pennies
Tomas of Lancaster 1318-9	4,800 pd		4.5 pennies
Edward Plantagenet 1409-10	1,127			8.1 pennies
 Duke of York


This does not include the cost of feeding the person or clothing. It just their salaries.

Remember Chain is a construction or job tool.  Chain Mail is armour. Or to put another way chain is a laptop and Chain Mail is the yugo I drive to work. I need one but not the other however the top of line laptop will cost as much as my Yugo.


Why don't you post the new costs here?
Also an armour not smith will make chainmail. The smith will make chain and be a jack of all trades (maybe) in armour, sword making, etc.

The laborer will have a small garden worked by his family and him.
Feel free to post a new price list.
Also if your players are not spending money. Reduce the treasure hoards in the next monsters.


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## Tiefling (Feb 14, 2002)

What I find funny is that they say fifty gold pieces makes a pound of gold, and in the FRCS they say the average gold coin is 1 and 1/4 inches in diameter and 1/8 inches thick. With some simple calculations we can see that fifty of those equals approximately 7.66 cubic inches of gold.

Yeah. 7.66 cubic inches of gold weigh only a pound. Really!


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 14, 2002)

It is really my fault...

The original systems in D&D and AD&D were developed for the PC adventurer, done without reference to the economics of the various societies.

Of course the chaps redesigning 2E should have picked that up and solved the problem--done rather easily. I've mentioned it before, but in the LA game system I've fixed gold at $500 per o8unce, silver at $10, and copper at $1. Basically, wages and prices are assumed to be those comprable to the US in c. 2000, save for the special items listed on price lists--mainly swords, war horses and the like. Anyway, with relatively current standards to serve as a guide, managing wages and prices and wealth/treasure is pretty easy.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## Storminator (Feb 14, 2002)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Note that the price of a "Poor Meal" is (I'd imagine) a meal sold at an inn or tavern, where you are paying for service, land, and protection of that inn.  Considering a chicken is worth 2 copper (page 96, Tabe 7-3: Trade Goods) I think he'd be able to feed himself just fine.
> *




In a recent dungeon crawl we priced out rations needed at nearly 200 gp (lots of us, long time).

Instead we bought a cow, some goats, some chickens, and bags of flour and vegetables, and spent more like 50 gp. If you make your own meals you save a lot of money.

PS


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## BiggusGeekus (Feb 14, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *I know that I am probably the ony person in the world who is bothered by the things like this *




First, yeah, the prices bug me too.

And no, I don't think this kind of thing is stupid.  If we find flaw with the setting we should change it.  Saying "it's a fantasy game!" every five minutes makes for sloppy settings.  

If you ever really want a chuckle over game economics, try Shadowrun's "Tir Nan Og".  According to the book, 75% of the country's revenue is supposed to be generated by farming.  But when you look at the powerbrokers, you know how many of them have even a toehold in farming?  None.  It doesn't even get a casual mention or a footnote.  So 75% of Tir Nan Og's economy is up for grabs.  Oops.


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## drnuncheon (Feb 14, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *So poor that it takes them 20 days of work to buy an empty barell ?
> *




Barrels, especially watertight ones, require a significant amount of work by a well-trained craftsman called a cooper.  The barrel staves are sometimes aged for years and then have to be carefully shaped and fitted.

There is no reason to expect a dirt-poor starvation-wage laborer to be able to afford one easily.  Remember they don't have mass production, so making that single barrel has to pay the craftsman for not only materials but his time in making it.

So, yes, "so poor it takes them 20 days of work to buy an empty barrel."  That's probably pretty generous, in fact.

J


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## Simon Magalis (Feb 14, 2002)

*Simple Solution*

I too have been bothered by this inconsistency. Its the monsters like Goblins and Kobolds, who are not all that powerful, but are usually carrying 2d10 Gold (or something like that) that really gets me. Anyhow, I just keep the standard peasant pay at 1 silver per day and then I change the names of the coins that adventurers get in a session. If its normally called gold, I call it a silver piece. This does nothing to upset game balance since you are just changing the names of things, but it helps to shorten the gap between everyday folk and the PCs for those of us who want to do that. The complete coversion looks like this

If it is called Platinum, I call it Gold (plat doenst exist for coins)
       "      "    Gold   "      "        Silver
       "      "    Silver  "      "        Copper
       "      "    Copper      "         Electrum
       "      "    Electrum    "         Same (or why even bother)

99% of everything you run into will turn from gold into silver, which is how I think it should be anyway. The other conversions are rarely used and when they are its usually copper pieces from silver. I managed to make this sound complicated somehow. Sigh


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## EOL (Feb 14, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *It is really my fault...
> 
> The original systems in D&D and AD&D were developed for the PC adventurer, done without reference to the economics of the various societies.
> 
> ...




I assume that when you're designing a game the primary point is the subjects of the game the adventurers themselves and making things reasonabily logical and consistent for them, so I can completely understand that some things are going to be out of wack.  However, by the time we reached 3e you would have thought that it would be better than this.

As to the question of whether anyone else is bothered, back on Eric Noah's boards there was a HUGE discussion about this which seemed to devolve into the premise that every first level adventuring party would be dogpiled and mugged in every village they came to, because their wealth was hundreds of times greater than all the peasents put together.


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## Garmorn (Feb 14, 2002)

Of all the Fantasy RPG that I have used/seen Harn has the most accurate price list.  The author is a medivial historian and simply took the prices from England for the 3100 hundres.  They then did minor price changes to allow for the differences in resources and distances between trading centers.

If I could figure out how to convert the cost of D&D magic with out distorting things I would be using it my self.


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## Henry (Feb 14, 2002)

Quoth EOL:


> I assume that when you're designing a game the primary point is the subjects of the game the adventurers themselves and making things reasonabily logical and consistent for them, so I can completely understand that some things are going to be out of wack. However, by the time we reached 3e you would have thought that it would be better than this.




First of all, I have never assumed that the native populace had to pay the list prices in the PHB for goods - these are, after all, the prices that the "tourists" and the "nobles" (The PC's) have to pay. You see the same thing all over the world today. On the Old boards last year, one board member (former army member) posted his experiences in Australia and (I think) Indonesia - after he became friends with the locals, his prices dropped to half of what they used to be. So Bob the adventurer pays 1 sp for his meal, Pete the cobbler pays either 1 cp for his, or promises Joe the Tavernkeep a good pair of shoes in his business.

Second of all, I do agree the prices may need work, I don't believe they are unplayable. Most of my group doesn't really care what the average farmer's wage is - they just know it's poor.

quoth Simon Magelis:


> 99% of everything you run into will turn from gold into silver, which is how I think it should be anyway. The other conversions are rarely used and when they are its usually copper pieces from silver. I managed to make this sound complicated somehow. Sigh




No need to worry - you just devalued all currency listed to 10% of its normal value - easier way to describe it. However, isn't electrum an amalgam of gold and silver, and therefore worth more than copper? Your idea seems to have it worth less than copper.

quoth Storminator:


> Instead we bought a cow, some goats, some chickens, and bags of flour and vegetables, and spent more like 50 gp. If you make your own meals you save a lot of money.




I bet your DM had fun having you make a couple dozen Craft (Cooking) checks to prepare all that stuff.  Did you carry it in live, and butcher and make it on the spot, or did you cook it up and preserve it in town?


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## Vaxalon (Feb 14, 2002)

Well, a craft (cooking) check ought to be a DC 10 task, at worst, at least to produce palatable food.  Producing food that would keep for more than a day, such as jerky or waybread, might be DC 15.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Feb 14, 2002)

This topic never crossed my mind, and now that it has I realize I could care less how realistic the economy of Oerth may be.


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## nameless (Feb 14, 2002)

To clarify on the buying a country thing IMC.

The local ruler was bankrupt and had an army marching on him to reclaim his trade debt and raze as much of the kingdom as they needed to. Rather than die, he sold us his near-worthless (but large) country and we repaid the mercenary army, plus some extra for their trouble. Because of the despondent king, most of the peasantry had fled the country in search of better places. So we had lots of empty land with nobody to work it.

As the new rulers with world domination in mind, we had to raise an army. Our current population couldn't support one of any measurable size, so we first set about increasing population and agricultural base to get the raw materials for training an army. We eliminated taxes completely for the first year, which caused a massive influx. We then added comparatively lower taxes than other countries, and allowed farmers to farmstead empty land. All of this time, the treasury was dwindling, but the PC group would occasionally go out and open up some buried treasure to replenish it. Over the course of time, we made deals for large amounts of arms and armor to "defend" our nation (again, not my fault that the DM made poor decisions). Between the low taxes and ability to become landowners, peasants came in droves, and wealthy merchants followed. All of the formerly empty countryside became farms and towns.

Just for reference, our capital city began at a population of 1000 and increased to over 50,000 by the end of the campaign.


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## Henry (Feb 14, 2002)

Sounds like a fascinating campaign, Nameless.

I am interested in how your DM decided that events would progress.


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## Oracular Vision (Feb 14, 2002)

Well, I thought I had it here, but I can't find it, but on Eric's old site someone had made a very nice excel spreadsheet which would allow you to develop real supply and demand pricing.

By the way, guilds were enacted to eliminate price variations, among other things, so there WAS no supply and demand in operation in medieval times. Most villages were small and had a single smith, a single cooper, etc. Most people never travelled far enough from their homes to ever buy from a second town. The local economies were locked in and mostly free from competition. The occasional wandering merchant would bring things that were not locally made, and a few goods might be commonly available that had been ported in. If he tried to compete directly, that's why tarring and feathering were invented...

Read the Medieval Town and Village books, they have lots of juicy bits about financing. Whenever I get done creating a living jungle creature catalog, writing modules, and running my campaign, I might finish a "realistic" financial system...there has already been a lot of good work done on how the real ones operated. You have to figure in magic and the more dangerous world of 3rd Edition, and there you are.


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## Chimera (Feb 14, 2002)

I'm right in there with the doughy one.  IMC, I've set the Gold to Silver ratio at 40:1 (more historic, but a little harder to compute) and then 20:1 Silver to Copper.  Then I've reduced the prices of everything to roughly 40% of the PHB to reflect a stronger currency valuation, then restated everything into Silver "dollars" (to name the predominate local currency).

Some things are so clearly out of line that it's insane.  Take a Heavy Horse for one.  The standard heavy "draft" horse would be much cheaper - it has to be, or take a look at what it does to your economy.  4 heavy horses to haul your heavy wagon runs 800gps.  Factor in losses and horse replacement, and your shipping costs go through the roof.  Clearly, many items need to be examined and re-priced.

Or you have people going the other way, reducing the value of a GP to nearly $1, and having peasants somehow make 1500 gps per year in order to justify their economy.  

(Ok, even at book rates, assuming a Bushel of Barley costs 2 silver and weighs 40 pounds, that means that peasant grew 7500 bushels of Barley (plowing a good 300 acres by himself, I imagine), suffered no loss after harvest (whereas today in Russia, for example, crop losses run as high as 40-50%) and somehow managed to haul those 150 TONS of Barley to market all by his lonesome.  Yeah, I buy that!)

Restated for clarity:  Many items need to be repriced.

OTOH:  I see no problem with it taking 20 days of wages for a peasant to buy a barrel.  How much do those things cost today?  Then how long would it take your typical $1/day Chinese/Philipino/Whomever laborer to afford that?  I suspect that it would be much more than 20 days...


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## Al (Feb 14, 2002)

*Craft skills and peasant labour.*

Now what really bugs me is the disparity between the earnings listed under Craft skills and the earnings listed under the average peasant labour.  
Now, I think (don't have PHB on hand) that the check results for Craft/Profession is equal to the number of silver pieces earned per week.  
The peasant earnings listed under the DMG states that the average labourer earns 1 sp /day.

Now...if the Craft checks earnings are made to equal the peasant earnings per day, and assuming the peasant works six days a week, that means that the peasant has a check result of 6.  Which means, assuming that he is taking 10 he HAS NO SKILL POINTS IN HIS OCCUPATION AND ALL PEASANTS HAVE AN INT OF 3.  If the peasant works a seven day week, or the week in Craft skill is taken to be a working week, then that implies either 1 SKILL POINT and INT 3 or NO SKILL POINTS and INT 5.  What, we wonder, does the commoner spend his skill points on, then?  Listen?

However, taken the other way round, we will assume that the average peasant labourer has an Intelligence of 10, 4 skill points and Skill Focus in whatever he has chosen as his occupation.  Using the Craft skill rules, he earns (taking 10) 16 silver per week, more than double that listed.  And of course that's ONLY IF HE'S NOT MAKING ANYTHING.  If he actually decides to make something (which would be surprising *sarcasm*) then he earns significantly more.

The intricacies of labour-intensive work, complexities of manufacture and models of economic theory are fine when discussing relative barrel prices to labourer wages, but this example just proves that something is amiss.  Perhaps we should scale up the wages in the DMG to match the PHB craft earnings.


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## Ristamar (Feb 14, 2002)

SableWyvern said:
			
		

> *If the d&d worlds are swamped in poverty, who exactly hangs out in inns? The prices are exorbitant. I don't recall hearing about any campaigns were only the rich hung out at an inn. They're always full of locals.
> 
> A labourer (note: Labourer, not farmer) earns enough to provide himself one poor meal every two days (too bad if he has kids). Obviously, he feeds himself and family by thieving. So what happens when the local lord brings in a thousand-strong work force to build a castle or his mausoleum? They'll end up burning down his town.*




Actually, from what I heard long ago on the WotC boards, the earnings of the laborer are listed as to what he has AFTER taking care of the general cost of living for himself and his family through various means.

I could be mistaken, though...


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## kenjib (Feb 14, 2002)

Henry said:
			
		

> *First of all, I have never assumed that the native populace had to pay the list prices in the PHB for goods - these are, after all, the prices that the "tourists" and the "nobles" (The PC's) have to pay. You see the same thing all over the world today. On the Old boards last year, one board member (former army member) posted his experiences in Australia and (I think) Indonesia - after he became friends with the locals, his prices dropped to half of what they used to be. So Bob the adventurer pays 1 sp for his meal, Pete the cobbler pays either 1 cp for his, or promises Joe the Tavernkeep a good pair of shoes in his business.*




Does anyone know when hard currency replaced barter as the primary mode of economic transaction?


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## jdfrenzel (Feb 14, 2002)

Oracular Vision said:
			
		

> *Well, I thought I had it here, but I can't find it, but on Eric's old site someone had made a very nice excel spreadsheet which would allow you to develop real supply and demand pricing.*




You can find that spreadsheet at http://www.mattwarren.net/rpgconn_home.htm . Lots of detail, not for those with only a casual interest in the econocmics of their world.

I agree with Al, the Craft skill rules don't jive with the prices and the labor wages. Using INT 10, 4 Ranks in Craft, and Skill Focus as a generic worker (which I think is quite fair), our cooper can make a barrel every other day, at a cost to him of roughly 7sp. He makes 13sp profit for each one he sells, and he can make 15 a month. If he were kept busy (in a port city, for example), he'd pocket nearly 20gp per month, 7x more than his listed wage.

Generally, the pricing doesn't bother me too much, since it rarely has any real impact on the players. It does bother me when the PCs want to hire an NPC 1st-level warrior, whom they will pay 2sp per day, and expect him to have 900gp worth of equipment (the NPC gear value from the DMG). Sorry, but that's 12 YEARS SALARY for this guy. Likewise for those who get followers with the Leadership feat. Granted, there could be other circumstances, but that's a huge discrepency to make up.

Mostly economics are not a problem until PCs start having to retain commoners and soldiers. 

--- John


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## jasper (Feb 14, 2002)

kenjib said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Does anyone know when hard currency replaced barter as the primary mode of economic transaction? *




The Greeks had coins, the romans had coins.
England kings in the 900 had laws on minting coins and keeping the purity of coins. The viking's mint coins. So choose a period. 
Basically any time a city becomes a city state.
of course if any one what to quote and send me books on the subject. i will make the sacrifice and read them.


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## Arkham (Feb 14, 2002)

There was a beautiful piece posted on Usenet about
just over a year ago about 3e prices compared to
medieval england.

I think it may be useful to some of y'all...

Posted to Usenet by: Brett Evill 
Many thanks go to him for this article...


MONEY AND PRICES IN MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND AND IN D&D 3 

G'day 

I have just been comparing the prices in the 3E PHB with the historical prices of similar commodities in mediaeval England. The results are interesting, and I thought I would share them. 

First, a word about money. The most common coin in mediaeval England was a silver penny. This contained about 22.5 grains of fine silver (1/240 of a pound Tower weight), so there would be 311 to the pound avoirdupois. This means that the D&D silver piece is about six times as big as a mediaeval penny. And since the price of silver bullion listed on table 7-3 is 5 gp/pound it is clear that the silver piece is not debased. So the s.p. contains six times times as much silver as a mediaeval penny. 

But that does not mean that an s.p. is six times as valuable as a penny. As Adam Smith explains in book I chapter v. of 'The Wealth of Nations', the true measure of the cost of things is the amount of unskilled labour that a person would have to sell in order to buy them. Depending on how scarce silver is, that can be more or less silver. For instance, the wage of unskilled labour in England about AD 1200 was about a penny-farthing (1.25 pence) per day. But by about 1450 the wage was about fourpence-farthing to fourpence-halfpenny (4.25 to 4.5 pence) per day. The penny had not been debased or reduced in weight. But a great deal of silver had been mined, coined, and put into circulation in those two and a half centuries, while the population (and hence the supply of labour) had only increased by a modest amount. The real value of silver in Europe had declined by about a factor of 3.5, even before the Spanish discovered the silver mines of Argentina &c. 

Now, the price of unskilled labour in D&D is about 1 s.p. per day. So that means that 1 s.p. is worth 1.25 pence in the prices of AD 1200, or 4.25 pence in the prices of AD 1450. And since an s.p. weighs about six pennyweights and is fine silver, the price of silver in D&D is about five times the price of silver in Europe about AD 1200, or 1.4 times the price of silver in Europe about AD 1450. That is not unreasonable. Silver became even cheaper in Europe in the Renaissance. 

I happen to have prices available in an epoch of about AD 1200, and that is roughly the middle of the mediaeval period. So in the rest of this posting I am going to consider 1 s.p. as being 1.25 pence, 1 g.p. as 12.5 pence (about a shilling), and 1 c.p. as being worth half a farthing. You should be aware, however, that the price of weapons and armour fell compared to other prices during the mediaeval period, and by quite a lot. About AD 800 swords were twice as expensive, and about AD 1500 they were half as expensive, as in AD 1200, compared to food and labour. On the other hand, livestock, and especially horses, got a lot more expensive over the same time. On the other hand, they also got quite a lot bigger. 


Table 7-3 

• A chicken is cheap at a farthing. In England they cost halfpenny. 

• Cinnamon is about right at 12.5 pence per pound. In England it cost 10 pence per pound. 

• Copper is a little dear at 6.25 pence per pound. In England it cost 3.5 pence per pound. 

• A cow is about right at 125 pence. In England a cow typically cost 72 pence, or a good milker 120 pence. 

• Flour seems cheap at 0.25 pence pound. In England *wheat* tended to cost about 12 pence for 28 lb., or 0.5 pence per pound. And that had to be milled and boulted. 

• Ginger seems a little dear at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost about 12 pence per pound. 

• Pepper seems about right at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost 10-28 pence per pound. 

• Gold seems cheap at 625 pence per pound. In Europe it tended to cost about 4665 pence per pound. 

• Iron seems dear at 1.25 pence per pound. 

• Linen seems dear at 50 pence per square yard. In England it cost (at the cheapest quality) 5 pence for an ell {45 inches by a standard width (I think 56 inches) = 1.9 square yards}: about 2.6 pence per square yard. And it seems heavy at 1 lb per square yard: my linen bedsheets are only about 4 oz. per square yard. A pound of linen cloth should be only about 1 g.p. 

• An ox is a little dear at 187 pence. In England they cost about 108 pence. 

• A pig is about right at 37.5 pence. In England they cost about 24 pence in pig-breeding country, but about 36 pence in London. 

• Saffron seems cheap at only 187.5 pence per pound. In mediaeval times saffron was worth its weight in gold (about 4,500 pence per pound). And this was because its production is labour-intensive, not because of high transport costs, monopoly profits &c. 

• Salt seems expensive at 62.5 pence per pound. In England it was about 3 pence per bushel. 

• A sheep is a little dear at 25 pence. In sheep-raising parts of England they cost about 10 pence, in London about 17 pence. 

• As discussed previously, silver is rather cheap at 62.5 pence per pound. In England about AD 1200 it was 311 pence per pound. 

• Wheat is cheap at 0.125 pence per pound. In England it cost about 0.5 pence per pound. (The price was highly variable from year to year.) 

Table 7-4 

Unfortunately I have very little information about the prices of weapons in historical times. However: 

• A dagger seems expensive at 25 pence. The dagger with which Felton killed the Duke of Buckingham cost the equivalent of about 2 pence, or rather less. 

• A shortsword seems very expensive at 125 pence. A sword in England might be bought for as little as 6 pence (though that instance *was* second-hand). Now a D&D shortsword contains 3 lb of iron (twice as much as an English longsword), and according to Table 3-7 that is worth 3 s.p., or 5 pence. Add a generous 40 pence for a ton of coal. That leaves about 80 pence for labour. An armourer earns about 12.5 pence per day in D&D (6 pence per day in England). That suggests that it would take an armourer six and a half days to make a sword. Which is ridiculous. 

• A longbow is ridiculously expensive at 937.5 pence. In England they cost about 18 pence. 

• Arrows are expensive at 0.625 pence. In England they cost 0.125 pence. 

Table 7-5 

I am also short on information about the costs of armour in mediaeval times. And there are serious difficulties because plate armour was actually cheaper in real terms than mail. This is because plate did not appear until late, when the price of all metalwork had declined markedly. Plate wasn't available in AD 1200, but I have tried to work out what it would have cost if they had been able to make it, in line with the generally higher prices of metal goods in the early periods. 

• Leather armour seems a bit expensive at 125 pence. In England it cost about 60 pence. 

• Mail is a little expensive at 1,875 pence. in Europe it cost about 1,200 pence. 

• Half-plate is expensive at 7,500 pence. In Europe, when it became available, it cost the equivalent of about 1,640 pence. 

• Full plate is expensive at 18,750 pence. In Europe, when it became available, it cost the equivalent of about 2,000 pence. 

Table 7-7 

• A barrel might be dear at 25 pence. I have a price for one at 3 pence, but I'm not sure about its size. 

• A blanket seems cheap at 6.25 pence, and heavy at 3 lb. Blankets cost about 15 pence in England, but I don't have one in the house to weigh. 

• A glass bottle seems expensive at 25 pence. They were bad enough in England at 3 pence. 

• A bucket is about right at 6.25 pence. In England a bucket might be bought for 4 pence. 

• I weighed some candles: about ten to the pound. So a pound of candles in D&D would cost roughly a 1.25 pence. This is about right for tallow candles in the country. But tallow candles were more expensive in the cities. And *wax* candles (less smelly and less smoky) cost five times as much. 

• Chests are about right at 25 pence. In England a clothes-chest cost 24 pence. 

• An iron pot is an anachronism. And although it weighs ten pounds it is cheaper than ten pounds of iron. A brass cooking pot in England cost 12 pence. 

• Sealing wax is a bit expensive at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost 2 pence per pound. 

• Soap is probably about right at 6.25 pence per pound. 

• A spade seems expensive at 25 pence. In England they cost about 1.5 pence. 

• A spyglass is an anachonism. They weren't invented until the late sixteenth century. 12,500 pence is far too expensive. And 2x magnification is pathetic. 

• Clothing is generally too cheap. The artisan's outfit costs 12.5 pence. In England those clothes would have cost at least 22 pence. The royal outfit costs only 2,500 pence. King Louis IX of France spent 192,000 pence on a *single garment* (a surcoat). 

• Ale is dear at 2.5 pence per gallon. In England it cost 0.5 pence per gallon. 

• The banquet, at 125 pence per person, must be sumptuous. A meal at an inn for a gentleman, with drinks, cost 2 pence in England. 

• Bread is dear as 0.25 pence for half a pound. In England a 0.25-penny loaf was 24 oz. 

• Cheese is about right at 2.5 pence per pound. In England it cost about 2 pence per pound retail. 

• 2.5 pence is a high price to stay in a poor inn. In England beds for gentlemen in a rural inn cost about 0.5 pence per night, beds for servants 0.25 pence per night, and it cost 1.25 a night for a private parlour, including heat and light. In London inns were dearer: a penny a night in a common inn. Board and lodging at a school cost 24 pence per week (tuition was extra). 

• Meals are too dear at 1.25 to 6.25 per day. Provisions for a garrison cost about 2.25 pence per *week*, and a labourer had to live on 1.25 pence per day. 

• Wine is far too dear at 2.5 pence per pitcher (less than a gallon). In London it cost for 2 pence to 5 pence per gallon (depending on quality), retail. A tun (252 gallons) of fine Bordeaux cost only 480 pence. 

• A cart is expensive at 187.5 pence. In England they could be bought for as little as 24 pence: 48 if you wanted one reinforced with iron and suitable for long road trips. 

• Feed for a horse might be a bit cheap at 0.625 pence per day. In England it cost 5.25 pence per day to stable and feed a warhorse, and stabling can't cost that much more than beds for gentlemen. As a rule of thumb, horses cost 5 to 10 times as much to feed as men do. 

• Horses about right, especially given how the price of horseflesh varies with quality: 937.5 pence for a light horse (in England a hack (riding horse) cost about 300 pence); 5,000 pence for a heavy warhorse (in England a knight's charger could cost over 9,600 pence). 

• A wagon is rather dear at 437.5 pence. In England a dray might cost 120 pence. 

In summary, it seems that most adventure items are rather too expensive in D&D when compared to the cost of living. And since precious metals are not very valuable in the D&D world, it makes those chests of treasure economically disappointing.


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## Simon Magalis (Feb 14, 2002)

Not sure what electrum is made of actually, but I thought that I had seen it worth 10 copper. It doesn't really matter very much because, like I said in my original post, you will very rarely have to convert it. I think you should do one of two things, most people should just keep the system the way it is OR if it bothers you, do something very simple, like my system. Really, I'm not even doing anything... just changing the names of the coins which has an effect in the SETTING but not in the SYSTEM.


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## drnuncheon (Feb 14, 2002)

*Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.*



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *Now what really bugs me is the disparity between the earnings listed under Craft skills and the earnings listed under the average peasant labour.
> Now, I think (don't have PHB on hand) that the check results for Craft/Profession is equal to the number of silver pieces earned per week.
> The peasant earnings listed under the DMG states that the average labourer earns 1 sp /day.
> *





The problem with your analysis is that a cooper or any other craftsman is not a "laborer". The "laborer" that earns 1 sp/day is unskilled labor: digging ditches, carrying heavy things from point A to point B, that sort of thing.

Skilled craftsmen are considerably better off, as the Craft skill in the PHB indicates.

Edit: the SRD says " A skilled (but not exceptional) artisan can earn a gold piece a day" under equipment.

Under Craft it says "The character can practice a trade and make a decent living, earning about *half the check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. The character knows how to use the tools of the trade, how to perform the craft's daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.)

That fits: a skilled (but not exceptional) artisan is going to have +4 to his check and get a 14 on his roll, meaning 7 gp per week or 1/day.

J*


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## tarkin (Feb 14, 2002)

Actual Medieval Society worked pretty close to what they describe in D&D.


The basic idea was that untrained labor could not survive on wage offered.
In order to live, they had to accept serfdom.
With serfdom, they got a lot of free food (mostly provided at holidays etc.) at the expense of being a practical slave.

No one in taverns or inns, etc. should be serfs or common laborers.  If common Laborers drank, they drank moonshine, made by either themselves or their friends.

The absolute worst tavern should be populated by minimally skilled laborer/guild members (Dock Workers)


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## abri (Feb 14, 2002)

Chimera said:
			
		

> *
> 
> OTOH:  I see no problem with it taking 20 days of wages for a peasant to buy a barrel.  How much do those things cost today?  Then how long would it take your typical $1/day Chinese/Philipino/Whomever laborer to afford that?  I suspect that it would be much more than 20 days... *



That I can answer: a barrel of similar size than the one in the PHB, cost between $300-1000. The price depend a lot on the wood quality (oak, sherry-wood...) and on the quality of the barrel. Yes it is expensive, but remember that the wood has to be dried for years and that it takes time to manufacture one (and aren't many people left who can make nice barrels). 

I suggest reading some of Ars Magica 4ed books, one of the most realistic description of medieval ecomomic system (especially: Sons of Merlin sourcebook).
Most peasant in those times had enough money to feed themselves (bread, eggs, vegetables, and LOTS of vegetable soup) and drink a lot (about 4+ pints of beer a day). They were able to have some meat (ok, not very often): mostly salted/smoked pork, and a chicken about once a month...
And once a year when they slaughtered a pig they would have fresh meat.
Now that describe about 60% of peasants in 12th century England, 30% would be real poor, and 10% would be richer (there were a few case of non-noble but still incredibly rich farmer). 
Also, coins weren't used by peasants untill the development of towns: this created the oportunity for them to sell their surplus much more easily and thus develloped the use of coins. 
Before that taxes were paid in livestock/grains or even grains (some peasant could pay their taxes through the year, other paid once a year...)


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## BiggusGeekus (Feb 14, 2002)

Arkham,

Thanks for that Bret Evil article.  You just saved me a lot of work.


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## abri (Feb 14, 2002)

tarkin said:
			
		

> *Actual Medieval Society worked pretty close to what they describe in D&D.
> 
> 
> The basic idea was that untrained labor could not survive on wage offered.
> ...



Inn actually were only present in towns or villages on important commercial routes:eople just didn't travel much.
Tavern were in every single village, for a good reason: people mostly drank beer. The village leader's wife (in England) had the traditional role of making the beer from the barley,the villagers cultivated. The tavern was often just a few wooden table in the middle of the village were people would meet and drink (how the beer was distributed depends on the village)...
If you calculate how much a peasant can grow (from his standard 20-30 acres, plus small vegetable garden), you see that after giving 10% to the church, 5% to the mill-owner, 5% to his lord, eating and drinking for his whole familly, and paid for the rent of his land; then you see that after a year he has put about 20 Sp aside for eventual problems. If he owns the land, then he is making a lot more.


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## Dragonblade (Feb 14, 2002)

Some more food for thought:

1) The treasure tables are seriously out of whack when it comes to creatures like Great Wyrm dragons.  If we go by the standard stereotype of a dragon sleeping on a big pile of treasure then the treasure of a great wyrm red dragon, for example, should be in the MILLIONS of gold pieces!

2) And even if you go by standard D&D rules, any time an adventuring party comes back to civilization and starts flooding the economy with all their gold and treasure, there will be massive inflation.  It would play havoc with small economies and would probably send economic ripples through even the largest cities.


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## CRGreathouse (Feb 14, 2002)

Dragonblade said:
			
		

> *2) And even if you go by standard D&D rules, any time an adventuring party comes back to civilization and starts flooding the economy with all their gold and treasure, there will be massive inflation.  It would play havoc with small economies and would probably send economic ripples through even the largest cities. *




This is in the DMG, isn't it?


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## Imperialus (Feb 14, 2002)

I think one thing you are all missing here is labourers in the 14th century did not live happy lives.  They ate garbage, they lived in garbage, 6 out of 10 died before they were 10 years old, 40 was concidered venerable, and nearly a third of europes population was wiped out by fleas.  There was a reason that religion was such a powerful force back then.  People had to know that there was something better after they died.  

One other thing you should realize is that a lord was expected to provide food and shelter for his people.  Oftentimes they wouldn't and it would lead to mass starvations, but hey like I said before, life was cheep.


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 14, 2002)

Garmorn said:
			
		

> *Of all the Fantasy RPG that I have used/seen Harn has the most accurate price list.  The author is a medivial historian and simply took the prices from England for the 3100 hundres.  They then did minor price changes to allow for the differences in resources and distances between trading centers.
> 
> If I could figure out how to convert the cost of D&D magic with out distorting things I would be using it my self. *




Point of order:

Fantasy economics and societies don't match historical models where no working magic and active deities existed. of course.

Tailor the economics and monetary system the the fantasy world setting, don't try to graft something from history onto a make-believe world. eh?

Gary


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## LostSoul (Feb 14, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *Point of order:
> 
> Fantasy economics and societies don't match historical models where no working magic and active deities existed. of course.
> 
> ...




I do wonder, however, what the D&D world *should* look like if we assume the magic as presented in the books and a typical feudal economy.  Because I doubt the prices, as presented in the core books, take any magic at all into account.


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## Wippit Guud (Feb 15, 2002)

Ok, this chain vs chain mail thing, with respect to price, can really screw things up.




			
				bramadan said:
			
		

> *Assume arbitrary number of smiths. Assume PHB prices. They imply that *provided they can sell their goods* smiths who make chain earn something like at least 50 times hourly wage of ones that make mail. Assume however that the demand for mail is 100 times greater then that for chain and that therefore only 1% of smiths can sell it. What this does is force competition everybody tries to be in this 1% because it is just so lucrative; they undercut each other and price drops bit by bit untill it is no longer incredibly lucrative to pander to this market - that is until the return on investment (in terms of working hours) is same order of magnitude in both cases. Works exactly as you described but only when demand is low because when demand is high loosing business is not a big danger. *





So, in summary, the price of chain mail is low when compared to a chain, because so many smiths are trying to fit into so small a market.

OK.

If a PC is trying to craft his own chain mail, why would I base the craft rolls to create it on an economically-reduced price? Shouldn't it be based on the actual price of the chain mail? (which looks like it should be about 50% more than the listed price)


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## Chimera (Feb 15, 2002)

I tend to disagree.  Start with the 'real world' model, then make changes based on how (you think) magic would affect the system.


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## SableWyvern (Feb 15, 2002)

Ristamar said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Actually, from what I heard long ago on the WotC boards, the earnings of the laborer are listed as to what he has AFTER taking care of the general cost of living for himself and his family through various means.
> 
> I could be mistaken, though... *




If that's the case, then the information would be next to useless. The whole section is talking about PCs hiring NPCs - DMs and players need to know how much they need to spend, not how much of his wage the employee spends on ale and girls.


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 15, 2002)

Chimera said:
			
		

> *I tend to disagree.  Start with the 'real world' model, then make changes based on how (you think) magic would affect the system. *




I agree with you; that is the way to approach the problem. In a fantasy milieu it isn't necessary to have "perfect" resolution of the matter, but the economic and monetary systems should be logical within the paramaters of the world that is presented.

Prices and wages have posed a problem for FRPG systems since day one. Gamers being an independent lot we'll never have anything like general accord, but whatever system one likes should be relatively easy to understand and apply where the game doesn't address some question of prices, wages, whatever.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## jasper (Feb 15, 2002)

I have to agree with the col.

Use the book cost for adventurers who are pass through. Basically rip off the tourits.

When they settle down to build keeps start using the usenet article.

Adventurer can throw the economy off if the dm wants to get that detailed. However I too busy getting my villians in order to worry about it.

if you really what see how you can mess up adventurers do what I did. My group in Fort Ord Ca complete the Temple of Elemental Evil. They left the dead, the armour, and weapons. And gems on one throne. My Npc cleric hired townspeople to take a couple of wagons and clean up after the party.
Blew the next group mine when they hear rumors of the temple and visited Hommlet. When all the villagers have armour and two or more weapons, they don't take any thing off of smart mouth adventurers. In fact, they gave the cleric and one adventure the deed to the moathouse.

Of course I never play the adventure where the new owners found out the deed was worthless and the ruler's enforcers wanted to know why they were squatting on the king's fort.

D&D allows you to get as detail as you what. But to do so; you have to throw some of the standard charts out the window.  
I know one guy who had every important NPC coat of arms designed and half them were drawn out and painted.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 15, 2002)

Wippit Guud said:
			
		

> *If a PC is trying to craft his own chain mail, why would I base the craft rolls to create it on an economically-reduced price? Shouldn't it be based on the actual price of the chain mail? (which looks like it should be about 50% more than the listed price) *




Better yet, why would it be take longer to make an item out of gold (a soft, malleable, easy to work metal) than from iron (harder, more difficult to work)?  That's how the craft rules work.

They need some significant tinkering, in my view.


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## Ristamar (Feb 15, 2002)

SableWyvern said:
			
		

> *If that's the case, then the information would be next to useless. The whole section is talking about PCs hiring NPCs - DMs and players need to know how much they need to spend, not how much of his wage the employee spends on ale and girls. *




Well, you have to consider that a lot of employers may provide their employees with lodging and/or meals in addition to a standard wage.  Also, by 'various means' I wasn't trying to state that a labororer was paying for various costs, then blowing the rest at the local tavern.  It was more of an implication that they'll likely barter goods and services with others quite frequently and handle most needs/problems/repairs themselves rather than simply plopping down hard coin in order to get by from day to day.  In all likelihood, they probably try to spend as little of their earnings as humanly possible.

Anyway, I'm didn't really mean to say "this is what the designers intended."  I only wanted to point out that there are a myriad of ways to look at the information presented as plausible without having laborers and their families constantly dying from starvation on the streets, unless that's the kind of thing you're aiming for...


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## Numion (Feb 15, 2002)

Chimera said:
			
		

> *I tend to disagree.  Start with the 'real world' model, then make changes based on how (you think) magic would affect the system. *




Just add the effects of technology to medieval economics, and you have 21st century economic model?


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## Chimera (Feb 15, 2002)

Yes, if you supply centuries of change to the system.  That's why, as the Col said, we won't have a general accord of prices:  Because every world and campaign is different.  

IMCC, Human society is just starting to develop.  There is very little in the way of 'magic = technology' = changes to the system.  There's only *one* 17th level Wizard on the continent, and he's rather too busy staying alive and working his other projects to be involved in things as crass as "mercantilism".  There hasn't been this history of Wizards building magic devices to make ordinary life easier, so they just plain don't exist.  

Consequently, the pitch that is gathered from oil seeps in the hills is carried nearly 600 miles overland to the sea ports where it's needed is very expensive stuff by the time it gets there.  Of course, it's just that difficulty that is driving the production of riverboats and the development of towns on that same river, if only to cut transport costs of that one necessary commodity.  (well, and others too, but whatever)

However, in a vastly older world (such as my previous ccampaigns, set 4500-5000 years in the future of the current one), there's no doubt that some enterprising Wizard (or guild) would find a better way around that problem, driving down the price of pitch in the coastal sea ports.

Bottom Line:  Your Milage May Vary.  See World Owner's Manual for Details.


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## hellbender (Feb 15, 2002)

The system I have been using to figure economics in my games is based on series of articles that appeared in White Dwarf and collected in the Best of White Dwarf #3.
   The theory for basic economy is the 'ale standard', which breaks down an economy based on the price of a tankard of ale, which is always a simplistic and fairly accurate yardstick for calculating base economies and monetary scales.


hellbender


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 15, 2002)

Chimera said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Consequently, the pitch that is gathered from oil seeps in the hills is carried nearly 600 miles overland to the sea ports
> 
> *




Oh boy! My renegade ranger character rounds some woodcutters, starts cutting pines from the nearby forest, pitch pines, in fact. He fills barrels with it, and sells at 10% below current market value.

Now the mariners can use pine tar on their braids, not that smelly petroeum stuff, so thay gotta love it, right?

We'll also cut both pole lumber and boards, pitch-coating the former, setting the latter aside to dry.

Well bundle the larger bits of wood for kindling too.

How about that, a new prestige class, the Ranger-Lumberman! 

Gary


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## Andor (Feb 15, 2002)

Ale Standard, excellent, the dwarves will approve. 

As an aside I seem to recall reading that there was a time in medieval Dublin when ale was so cheap there was no unit of currency small enough. So when you went into a pub and plunked down a hay-penny you would get a talley stick, which they would notch to show how many beers you had bought, untill you had drunk enough to get your moneys worth.


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## BenBrown (Feb 15, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Oh boy! My renegade ranger character rounds some woodcutters, starts cutting pines from the nearby forest, pitch pines, in fact. He fills barrels with it, and sells at 10% below current market value.
> 
> ...





Does he take "trees" as a favored enemy?


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 15, 2002)

BenBrown said:
			
		

> *
> 
> 
> Does he take "trees" as a favored enemy? *




Sure! And likely half-orc union bosses.  How about a special Feat, Seduce Pretty Elf for when he gets really rich.  Ah, no, what am I thinking of, with enough gold from selling timber products, he'll have no trouble there. Just ptomise to plant a new forest of hardwoods, and...



Gary


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## Al (Feb 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.*



			
				drnuncheon said:
			
		

> *
> 
> 
> The problem with your analysis is that a cooper or any other craftsman is not a "laborer". The "laborer" that earns 1 sp/day is unskilled labor: digging ditches, carrying heavy things from point A to point B, that sort of thing.
> ...



*

That's incredible.  I thought it was the check result in silver pieces a week.  Half the check result in gold!  That makes the disparity even more absurd.

The typical human commoner has 10 int and is human.  Therefore, assuming he is first level, he has 12 skill points.
Now, honestly, what is this human commoner going to spend his skill points on?  Listen?  Wilderness Lore?  Spellcraft cross-class?  Not likely.  If he is a sensible peasant, he will take a Profession or Craft.  Leave others to galumph around the countryside slaying orcs, this peasant's going to earn a decent living.  So more than likely, he will spend AT LEAST 4 skill points on a Craft/Profession, and in all likelihood take AT LEAST one of his two feats on Skill Focus (what else is he going to take- improved initiative? *sarcasm*).  

Thus, the average commoner should be earning 8 gp a week (+4 base, +2 skill focus=+6, takes 10 equals check result 16, half that for gp earned per week) and that equals 11.4 sp per day, 11.4x as much as the DMG estimates.

Even if he has squandered his skill points and feats, since Craft can be performed untrained, his untrained check result will be 10, earning 5 gold pieces per week, just over 7 a day and hence just over 7x as much as listed.

In order to approach the listed earnings, he would have to have an Int of *3* and received a Curse (a la Bestow Curse) to give him a -4 to skill checks.  His check result, untrained, would be a 2, meaning 1gp a week, or 1.4 sp a day- still marginally more than listed in the DMG.

Edit: And before anyone says that the work for this many trained Craftsman is not availabe, this doesn't matter.  If every peasant is capable of earning this much, then basic labour market theory will state that at least this amount must be offered to encourage them to take 'unskilled' menial labour that would earn them the listed price.  Alternately, if there genuinely are too many skilled Craftsman, the glut of trained craftsman would force down the price of skilled labour, and the guidelines in the PHB would be contravened.  Furthermore, the shortage of unskilled labour would force the price of that up, to greater than the price listed in the DMG.  So which are you to believe on the subject of economics: the PHB or proven economic theory?*


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## Chimera (Feb 15, 2002)

Seduce Pretty Young Elf.  Yup, great idea for the elven woman if she's ambitious.  Just marry a few wealthy human husbands in succession.  Hey, what's a hundred years or more building wealth?  Anna Nicole Smith, eat your heart out.


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 15, 2002)

Chimera said:
			
		

> *Seduce Pretty Young Elf.  Yup, great idea for the elven woman if she's ambitious.  Just marry a few wealthy human husbands in succession.  Hey, what's a hundred years or more building wealth?  Anna Nicole Smith, eat your heart out. *




Oh boy!

That thought is worth expanding. Seems to me that elves with a bent towards acquisition of wealth, and dwarves for certain, would likely control vast sums of money because of their longevity.

Hmmm, not there's fodder for an adventure scenario or two 

Gary


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## drnuncheon (Feb 16, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.*



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *
> That's incredible.  I thought it was the check result in silver pieces a week.  Half the check result in gold!  That makes the disparity even more absurd.
> 
> The typical human commoner has 10 int and is human.  Therefore, assuming he is first level, he has 12 skill points.
> ...




Yep, that's why absolutely everyone in the real world is trained at something.  

And of course every person goes through a character creation process before springing into the world fully formed and adult, needing no justification for any skill they may choose.

Use a little sense. Not all commoners are going to be min-maxed for a profession.  They don't go to the Feat Shop and say "Gee, I think I'll take a Skill Focus in Underwater Basket Weaving" - they take what they are born with, whether that be toughness, good reflexes, the ability to run away really quickly (always handy) or, in some few cases, an aptitude for a particular skill.

Similarly, with skills they are going to be limited by their background.  If his father wasn't a bookbinder, then Joe Commoner isn't likely to be a bookbinder either.  Who's going to teach him?  Besides that, where's his clientele?  Who's going to go to Joe the Untrained Bookbinder to have their book bound when they can do it themelves just as well?

The rules for Profession and Craft are just abstractions.  Like anything else, they require a bit of common sense to be used.

J


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## Darklance (Feb 16, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *
> Writing about this stuff prompted me to take a look at the net and I found this realy cool site, check it out people:
> http://home.mira.net/~tosh/text/general/medievalprices.htm *




Thats a nice list but the price list uses a very un D&D currency system. I believe it is in  pence and that equals a Roman pound of silver. What is that in D&D Gold/Silver/Copper?


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## Dark Helmet (Feb 16, 2002)

Go to this site: www.hoboes.com/pub/Role-Playing/Fantasy/Real History and click on the first two files called Alternative Coinage and Adventuring Economics. It has a couple of saved posts on the rec.games.frp.dnd newsgroup on medieval currency values compared to dnd values.

I hope you guys can download them. I'm not sure if they work, my webtv browser can't retrieve them (probably in a zip file; I need to get a REAL computer one day. 

Hope you find it useful.


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## Chimera (Feb 16, 2002)

Ah yes, Hoboes.com.  Haven't been there in a while, but it's a fun site.


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## Humanophile (Feb 16, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.*



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *...*snips metagame musings**




Well, they don't minmax out because if they did, why would they chose to be commoners in the first place?  Little issue NPC's are supposed to be the people who don't make the most out of themselves.  Why do some people work at McDonalds when they could be doctors or movie stars?  Same issues.


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## Al (Feb 16, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.*



			
				drnuncheon said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Yep, that's why absolutely everyone in the real world is trained at something.
> 
> ...




Granted.  But the fact is that in the abstract metagaming world of DnD, the human commoner gets 12 skill points.  He has to spend them on something.  Chances are that he will more likely have them in Craft or Profession skills, even if he didn't go through the 'skill catalogue' and choose them.  It's just more likely that he will have them.
Similar with Skill Focus.  Again, he may not have chosen Skill Focus, but in the course of his life he will most probably end up with it.  In the medieval world, nearly everyone took a profession (small p) and worked at it until they were too old and frail to continue.  If you've been working 20 years at something, I'd say that justifies Skill Focus.  And there are far more hard-working everyday folk than gifted runners.  Or particularly tough people.  Or people with incredible reflexes.

As for Joe the Untrained Bookbinder, this is in my Edit.  Even if the skill point argument folds, the fact that the Craft skill is untrained means that most will still try their hand- the extra cash will be more than worth it.  With reference to markets, I assume you're talking supply and demand.  Using supply and demand analysis, you get a surplus in the market and the price plummets until only the trained can survive and make a living.  But people WILL ONLY LEAVE THIS OCCUPATION WHEN THEY NO LONGER EARN MORE THAN THEY WOULD OTHERWISE (or at least until the wage disparity is seriously toned down).
Think about it this way:
You are Joe the Peasant.
You can: a) Work as a labourer for 1sp a day
OR b) Work as an untrained Craftsman for 7ish sp a day.
Which will you choose?  Only when the price of untrained skilled labour becomes parallel with that of labourers will anyone actually go into the other profession.  If you can multiply your wage by a factor of SEVEN with no training simply by changing jobs, then most will (caveat: a few may continue with tradition etc. but since most peasants are struggling to eat (see pp.1-3 of this thread) most will switch).
The three solutions are:
1) Craft skills can't be used untrained (this hits the skill point problem)
2) Reduce Craft skill wages
3) Increase labourer wages

Humanophile: Big difference.  I'm talking untrained work here.  These guys are getting a guaranteed sevenfold increase in their wages with no training (according to PHB rules).  Burger flippers can't be doctors because they need training, and they don't get into medical school.


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## KarinsDad (Feb 16, 2002)

Imperialus said:
			
		

> *straps on his abestos greathelm +5 and hunkers down with a bucket to fight the inevitable flames that will result as soon as Kerins Dad gets here.
> 
> *edit* Speaking of, what happened to him?  Haven't seen him around much since the boards changed hands. *




I have been sticking around the Rules board, not the General one.

But, never fear. As soon as I read all of the posts on this thread, I'll jump in.


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## Storminator (Feb 16, 2002)

There's lots of talk of labor markets here, but D&D sort of assumes a lot of medieval economics, and free labor markets aren't among them.

Why doesn't Joe Peasant go into bookbinding? Because the bookbinders guild will break his knees, leaving him Joe the Beggar, pining for the day he could earn a silver.

Lots of guilds were based on not training others in their craft, not letting others sell goods made by that craft, and keeping prices high. If you fold those rules into the thinking, the disparity between unskilled labor and craftsmen is appropriate.

IMC, I have a pair of rogues posing as simple laborers. They had to take out a loan to buy basic equipment, and come payday, they will find they OWE money (want another loan? just to tide you over...) If this was their real lives instead of an adventure hook, they'd be well on their way to serfdom.

PS


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## LostSoul (Feb 16, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.*



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *You can: a) Work as a labourer for 1sp a day
> OR b) Work as an untrained Craftsman for 7ish sp a day. *




What are the chances that you've got the proper tools and materials to craft what people are willing to pay for?


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## KarinsDad (Feb 16, 2002)

I used to be bothered by this quite a bit.

But, although there are some items which are out of line with my expectations of what costs should be, they are few and far between.

My real problem lies with the wages that various hirelings get. So, I multiplied all wages by 5 in my game.

I use a 1 CP = $1 ratio and compare costs to real world equivalents (i.e. a horse is not a horse, it's a car or motorcycle since it provides transportation).

When NPC wages get multiplied by 5, the 1 SP guy only gets paid $50 a day (with my ratio). But, $50 a day makes a lot more sense to me than $10 a day.

This guy only makes $10K a year, but he is at the bottom of the totem pole and had better have roommates. 

The yearly equivalent wages then become:

$100,000 Alchemist
$15,000 Animal tender/groom
$50,000 Architect/engineer
$100,000 Barrister
$40,000 Clerk
$10,000 Cook
$40,000 Entertainer/performer
$10,000 Laborer
$60,000 Limner
$10,000 Maid
$30,000 Mason/craftsman
$20,000 Mercenary
$40,000 Mercenary horseman
$60,000 Mercenary Leader
$10,000 Porter
$200,000 Sage
$30,000 Scribe
$40,000 Smith
$30,000 Teamster
$20,000 Valet/lackey

Are these real accurate? Probably not. But, most of them are in the $20,000 to $40,000 wages that a lot of people make in the real world (in the U.S).

So, this makes sense for me and my players since all of us live in the U.S.

The day laborer is paid the worse, but at 5 SP per day, he can still go into a bar and afford an ale at 4 CP once or twice a day.

This has resolved most of my problems with it and at least made it such that your typical workers can afford to be seen in the tavern or inn without saying that item costs are 2 to 10 times greater for adventurers (i.e. they see the tourists coming syndrome where any smart adventurer would give a local a SP to go buy a backpack at 5 SP instead of the adventurer's 2 GP price). YMMV.


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## S'mon (Feb 16, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *It is really my fault...
> 
> Gary *




There he is!  Get him! Hit him with the chain!  

Having been alerted by this thread, I've just crossed out '30gp' beside the PHB '10' chain' entry and inserted '3 sp' instead.  Seems about right.


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## Crow (Feb 16, 2002)

nameless said:
			
		

> *
> After getting a giant population with a huge agricultural base, we raised an army and conquered all the countries where the commoners originally hailed from. All of this financial power was lying in a cave guarded by an overgrown lizard. It's just not right.
> 
> -nameless *




The thing that gets me is, where did all the hidden treasure in a dragons horde or dungeon basement come from? If it was put there for safekeeping, or storage, or whatever, why didn't the origionally owners do what the party does, and buy a country. To have a world where a signifigant portion of the economy involves killing things underground and coming back with valuable treasures, why are there even dungeons anymore?

Why didn't people realize long ago that protecting their ill gotten horde with some tunnels and monsters was a potentially stupid idea?

Why hasn't someone of high enough level just gone and cleaned out every single dungeon they can find? Why are their still dungeons suitible for 1st level partys when ther must be 1000s of low level parties running around boosting the economy?

It just is supposed to be fun, not neccessaraly make sense...


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## LostSoul (Feb 16, 2002)

I think the best way to simulate an economy is to figure out how much food costs are (per day, week, month, whatever) for your average adult.  Give your typical peasant (a farmer on a lord's land) a tiny bit more than this.  A typical craftsman (a cobbler or potter) may make a slight bit more than a peasant.  Lords make money off of thier peasants.

This way you don't have any middle-class.


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## S'mon (Feb 17, 2002)

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> *I used to be bothered by this quite a bit.
> 
> But, although there are some items which are out of line with my expectations of what costs should be, they are few and far between.
> 
> ...




You know, there is a reason why most of the rest of the world would like to move to the USA - HIGH WAGES! 
Even in most other 1st world countries (I'm British, living in London) the post-tax take-home pay is far less than in the USA for most people.  For most of the modern world, $10/day would be unimaginable riches.  On the economics you give, common labourers earning $20,000/year,  there's no way the D&D society would at all resemble the typical medieval-feudal model.


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## The Oracle (Feb 17, 2002)

Pertaining to unskilled laborers, the system was to apprentice out to someone who was trained, where you worked for free for a certain number of years, learning how to do the things the craftsman did, then when you were old enough, you could become a journeyman, and either draw wages, or travel to other places to learn more, or even set up your own shop where there was none. The guild's formulated rules and were set up for the benefit of the master craftsman (first), then the journymen. IF you were the poor son of a peasant, the only path to a better life was this route.

Apprentices made nothing, they were fed and housed. Journeyman made some money, but had a lot more expenses, havintg to buy their own sets of tools and places to work if they so chose, or to work for a master craftsman for whatever he would pay. The craftsman of course made the most, but he also had to face competition (if he did not have a guild), or obsolence as new ideas and methods became available.


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## KarinsDad (Feb 17, 2002)

S'mon said:
			
		

> *
> You know, there is a reason why most of the rest of the world would like to move to the USA - HIGH WAGES!
> Even in most other 1st world countries (I'm British, living in London) the post-tax take-home pay is far less than in the USA for most people.  For most of the modern world, $10/day would be unimaginable riches.  On the economics you give, common labourers earning $20,000/year,  there's no way the D&D society would at all resemble the typical medieval-feudal model. *




First off, my system has common laborers making $10,000 per year, not $20,000.

Secondly, the point is that it does not have to resemble the typical medieval-feudal model. Those ratios are supposedly already (inadequately) set up in the economics of DND. I do not change the ratio of hirelings or the ratio of goods, only the ratio of hirelings to goods.

What it has to do is allow a day laborer to go into a tavern and buy a drink. In other words, it has to have a reasonable pay scale to goods cost ratio.

The idea is to have it resemble something that your real world players can understand and not some pseudo-realistic (which it isn’t) representation of somebody’s bad idea of how economics should work.

If you live in London, you can equate 1 GP to about 50 pounds, a SP to 5 pounds, a CP to 5 pence, etc.

Do you really think that someone could live in London on 5 pounds a day or 1000 pounds a year? Before taxes? Would that make sense to your players?

On the other hand, do you think that 25 pounds a day (my 5 * hireling wage) or 5000 pounds a year is unlivable? Granted, it is a low wage, but it should be doable in your country (at least more doable than 1000 pounds a year).

To each their own. I prefer to make any adjustment simple and make it such that my players (who do live in the U.S.) can easily understand it.

Nobody really understands what 213 GP is all about without some form of conversion rate. It’s just a number.


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## Vaxalon (Feb 17, 2002)

Have you ever heard those third world statistics where Joe Peasant works in the fields and earns 'the equivalent' of three dollars a day?

Who in the world can feed themselves on $1000 a year?

Well, clearly, they do it somehow.

First of all, the families are larger.  With six or seven breadwinners in a household, instead of one or two, there's an economy of scale when it comes to things like food and shelter.

Second of all, they don't buy much more than flour and suchlike when it comes to food; a few chickens and a cow provide eggs and milk for what little protein their diets provide, and a kitchen garden provides vegetables.

I see no reason to give medieval peasants a modern income.


----------



## KarinsDad (Feb 17, 2002)

Vaxalon said:
			
		

> *Have you ever heard those third world statistics where Joe Peasant works in the fields and earns 'the equivalent' of three dollars a day?
> 
> Who in the world can feed themselves on $1000 a year?
> 
> ...




I’ve been in some of those countries and you can buy lunch for $1 or even less.

The reason they can survive there is because even on their low incomes, they can still afford the necessities.

But, the DND wage to goods cost ratio is so out of line that a peasant in a DND world could not survive. And, if the peasants do not survive, neither do their overlords.



			
				Vaxalon said:
			
		

> *
> First of all, the families are larger.  With six or seven breadwinners in a household, instead of one or two, there's an economy of scale when it comes to things like food and shelter.
> *




Which third world countries have you been to? Usually, the most number of breadwinners is one, the father. The mother spends most of her time taking care of the many children. Yes, there are a few years where the older children (8+) actually do some work, but typically, they only do this for 6 or 8 years before they often get married off (one less person to feed and clothe is a good thing there). And, yes, the mother also does some odd jobs. But, for the most part, the income from the rest of the family does not even equal that of the father. Fatherless families have to live with relatives or starve.



			
				Vaxalon said:
			
		

> *
> Second of all, they don't buy much more than flour and suchlike when it comes to food; a few chickens and a cow provide eggs and milk for what little protein their diets provide, and a kitchen garden provides vegetables.
> *




Here, I agree with you.



			
				Vaxalon said:
			
		

> *
> I see no reason to give medieval peasants a modern income. *




It’s not a matter of giving them a modern income. It’s a matter of giving them an income that allows them to modestly survive. It has nothing to do with what conversion system you use. You do not need a conversion system. I just have one so that my players will understand what a GP means.

It’s a matter of comparing the wages in DND with the goods costs in DND and determining that everyone and his brother would die in a month from starvation. Even allowing for the purchase of chickens (1/5th days work) and pigs (1 months work) and cows (over 3 months work), this assumes no taxation. Medieval taxation was about 50%.

So, a day laborer could bring home a chicken every day. But, what would he pay his rent with (cannot have a garden like you mentioned without a place to put it)? The remaining 3 coppers? How would he clothe his children, his wife, and himself? How could he afford to replace a tool that got broken. How could he afford the flour you were talking about?

The point is that due to the high prices of goods, he could not.

It has nothing to do with giving them a modern income and everything to do with giving them a survivable income based on the prices of goods in the system.

Do the math. It’s that simple.


----------



## Al (Feb 17, 2002)

*DnD v Real World Price Exchange*

Shoot me down in flames, but I did a brief sketch to work out the equivalent value of gold pieces in today's money:

Current Gold Price= $300/oz (I think)
The DMG states that 50 gold pieces weigh 1 lb.  Therefore each gold piece weighs roughly 1/4 oz, and is worth $75.
Which means that one silver piece=$7.50, and one copper is $0.75.  So KD's 1cp=$1 equivalence is quite good, if a bit generous.  And his 1cp=50p is almost exactly correct.

I'd agree with KD's fundamental point.  The peasant wages listed in the DMG are far too low, using either labour market analysis or just comparing it with the prices of everday goods.

A multiplication of 5 seems sensible- it provides the peasant with a living wage without making it ridiculously high, and compares well against the untrained Craft skills.

Going back to my argument,
LostSoul: Easily.  The typical peasant I believe starts with 2d4gp (ok this is metagaming but we have to for now).  Craft tools cost 5gp, so this isn't a problem.  If worst comes to worst, he could get a loan from the local lord (who were generally keen to encourage enterprise in most medieval/feudal lands: higher vassal wages means higher taxes).  Under standard rules, with his additional income he could pay off the loan with interest in under a fortnight.

Storminator: This image of the 'strongarm guild' is a popular misconception.  The guild of medieval times acted more as a meeting-place, a secure market, a place to discuss techniques and expertise and a medieval pseudo-social security system (e.g. looking after member's widows).  The 'strongarm guild' would not exist: for one, the local lord looked very disfavourably on private muscle (private armies in England were banned after the Norman Conquest- and that's for nobles, let alone guilds) and secondly, most guild members would not approve.  More realistically, the guild would take in and train apprentices who showed an interest and relative aptitude to the task, much as The Oracle layed out, although most people did not remain apprentices for long.  The free labour market may not have existed, but then it was far more flexible than you suggest, and with a wage disparity of sevenfold, most peasants would be exceedingly happy to go for apprenticeship, especially if the labourer wages are as pitiful as in the DMG.  As for the guild, it was usually keen to recruit new apprentices: more apprentices meant more influence for the guild, greater revenue and 'economies of scale' (in a medieval sense of the phrase).

And curiously enough, as a sort-of aside, one CN party member once tried asking an old black dragon why he needed to hoard his treasure and what he intended to do with it.  It attacked him before he managed to say 'you should invest it in long-term growth medium-risk corporate bonds'.


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## SableWyvern (Feb 17, 2002)

KarinsDad.

You know what I like about these boards?

Other people do your thinking for you.

Far to much work for me to look at the problems with the system presented (I saw the problem, but chose to ignore it)and spend enough time looking at it to find a simple solution.

Fortunately, you have a stupidly easy, workable system. Wages x 5. All is good.


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## KarinsDad (Feb 17, 2002)

SableWyvern said:
			
		

> *
> Fortunately, you have a stupidly easy, workable system. Wages x 5. All is good.  *




Thanks.


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## Col_Pladoh (Feb 17, 2002)

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> *I
> 
> I use a 1 CP = $1 ratio and compare costs to real world equivalents (i.e. a horse is not a horse, it's a car or motorcycle since it provides transportation).
> 
> *




There you have the basis for the system I currently use in the LA game.

Rather than multiplying wages as you suggest, use the minimum wahe paid now, multiply it by 2000 hours, and you'll have the bottom-end of the earnings scale, the working poor indeed. $100K income is about the line for the middle-middle class, and 250K is near the place where medial upper middle class income falls.

And S'mon, don't change that cost for chainmail! Armor of that sort is like KarinsDad suggested about horses. I have really high prices for armor, weapons, and horses (especially trained war horses) now because of metal and labor costs, the time and skill required in regards the former, the breeding and training for the latter. OF course one can buy a "used car" horse of a few grand, but that war horse is a Ferarri!

Cheerio,
Gary


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## KarinsDad (Feb 18, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *
> And S'mon, don't change that cost for chainmail! Armor of that sort is like KarinsDad suggested about horses. I have really high prices for armor, weapons, and horses (especially trained war horses) now because of metal and labor costs, the time and skill required in regards the former, the breeding and training for the latter. OF course one can buy a "used car" horse of a few grand, but that war horse is a Ferarri!
> 
> Cheerio,
> Gary *




Exactly! 

At $40,000, that heavy warhorse is a steal.

$100,000 for a simple house.
$500,000 for a grand house.
$50,000,000 for a castle (i.e. skyscrapper).

The exact equivalence is not important, just the ballpark so that people can understand what they are spending when they spend a GP.


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## KarinsDad (Feb 18, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *
> Rather than multiplying wages as you suggest, use the minimum wahe paid now, multiply it by 2000 hours, and you'll have the bottom-end of the earnings scale, the working poor indeed. $100K income is about the line for the middle-middle class, and 250K is near the place where medial upper middle class income falls.
> *




I multiply the wages because that is what is needed to get the wages and the item costs from the books in line with each other.

If I do it the way you suggest, I can come up with the bottom of the scale. 2000 hours * $6 (approximately) per hour = $12,000 per year.

Then, 1 SP per day * 240 working days (in our society) per year = 240 SP. 240 SP = $12,000 or 1 SP = $50.

So:

backpack $1000
simple house $500,000
grand house $2,500,000
longsword costs $7500
poor meal costs $50
common meal $150
good meal $250
poor inn per day $100
common inn per day $250
good inn per day $1000

This ratio between wages and goods is way out of line. But, if you multiply the wages by 5, it becomes 1200 SP = $12,000 or 1 SP = $10. So, the cost of goods then becomes affordable:

backpack $200
simple house $100,000
grand house $500,000
longsword costs $1500
poor meal costs $10
common meal $30
good meal $50
poor inn per day $20
common inn per day $50
good inn per day $200

These prices seem more in line with what a $12,000 per year minimum wage society could afford. The exact same ratio as what a 5 SP per day poor laborer in the game could afford if you multiply the wages by 5.

Simple. Easy. Extremely few changes. Close enough for government work and easy for players to understand. And, it solves the main problem of the hirelings not getting paid enough to afford the goods.


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## Vaxalon (Feb 18, 2002)

You're still using standards of wealth that are modern in nature.

Do the analysis using a preindustrial society like rural Mexico where the wage is more like $1000 a year.


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## LostSoul (Feb 18, 2002)

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> *So, a day laborer could bring home a chicken every day. But, what would he pay his rent with (cannot have a garden like you mentioned without a place to put it)? The remaining 3 coppers? How would he clothe his children, his wife, and himself? How could he afford to replace a tool that got broken. How could he afford the flour you were talking about?*




Do they really "pay" rent in the same sense that we do today?  I thought the deal was: serfdom for the rights to work the land.  Of course there are taxes, but if your taxes mean people can't afford to eat you're probably going to want to lower them (during peacetime, that is).

As far as houses go, I think the prices in the book are on the high side.  But if you consider that a community would probably band together to build a house, it becomes more affordable.  In the end it probably takes 333 gp and most of the community Taking 10 on Craft checks for a week or two.  I think a town of 500 (adults) could make three or four homes a year.

I guess I feel that if you can buy five chickens for yourself *each day*, you're making enough to feed yourself.


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## LostSoul (Feb 18, 2002)

I don't like equating gold or silver to real-word values.  That makes the assumption that the economy in the game world is close to our own modern, democratic, industrialized nation-states.


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## KarinsDad (Feb 18, 2002)

Vaxalon said:
			
		

> *You're still using standards of wealth that are modern in nature.
> 
> Do the analysis using a preindustrial society like rural Mexico where the wage is more like $1000 a year. *




Why bother?

Do you live in Mexico? Do your players? Will your players quickly understand the differences?

Everyone should do an analysis based on where they live since their players live there too.

If you live in England and 50 pounds per GP makes sense, then use it.

Why would you want to create a conversion system for a country that your players do not live in?


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## SableWyvern (Feb 18, 2002)

If I may put words into KarinsDad's mouth, the point with his system (certainly, the reason I have now adopted it) is not that it necessarily recreates a realistic Western medieval economy (or any other historical economy).

What it does do, however, is create an economic system that works on the level required for an average gamer not interested in deep socio-economic questions, and is easily understood by said gamers.

While it may or may not be realistically appropriate, any problems are not immediately apparent to someone ignorant of how real historical socio-economic systems work in minuatae.

The important factor is that the system has a balance in the eyes of the participants, and is not likely to cause problematic questions to arise (certainly fewer than the present system).

The system may not be satisfactory for players who take a more serious interest in realistically simulating a specific historical economy. For others, it does.


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## Bran Blackbyrd (Feb 18, 2002)

SableWyvern said:
			
		

> *The important factor is that the system has a balance in the eyes of the participants, and is not likely to cause problematic questions to arise (certainly fewer than the present system).
> 
> The system may not be satisfactory for players who take a more serious interest in realistically simulating a specific historical economy. For others, it does. *




That seems to be what he's trying to say, yes. Let's face it, D&D was never meant as an economic simulation. For some of us, tweaking the monetary system just enough so that it can be shoved back into the background where it belongs, is enough.


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## Conaill (Feb 19, 2002)

SO... all wages in the DMG times 5.

That's an easy enough change. What are some other _minimal_ changes we could make to the DnD economics to make them more realistic?

Anyone want to tackle the 1000gp/day magic item creation vs ~40gp/week mundane item creation?


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## SableWyvern (Feb 19, 2002)

Conaill said:
			
		

> *SO... all wages in the DMG times 5.
> 
> That's an easy enough change. What are some other minimal changes we could make to the DnD economics to make them more realistic?
> 
> Anyone want to tackle the 1000gp/day magic item creation vs ~40gp/week mundane item creation? *




Barter?

I'm sure the average high level mage would be much more interested in receiving items to the value of what he is creating, rather than cash. Maybe so much so that he won't even work for cash.

Of course, then you have a potential problem in that adventurers don't have anything to spend their horde of gold on. One possible solution there though, is to simply make widespread replacements of cash with items/goods (ie, PCs are more likely to find items than cash).

I once had a party sell a flaming sword to a rich landowner who paid with 60 head of cattle. He simply couldn't get his hands on the sort of cash involved in the deal.


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## Conaill (Feb 20, 2002)

bump


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## mmadsen (Feb 21, 2002)

> Anyone want to tackle the 1000gp/day magic item creation vs ~40gp/week mundane item creation?




Why is that a problem?  Want to tackle $60/hr software engineering vs. $6/hr computer assembly?


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## RangerWickett (Feb 22, 2002)

Hey, would somebody like to write a book about this?  Natural 20 Press is always looking for interesting submissions.


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## Rhialto (Feb 22, 2002)

Storminator said:
			
		

> *There's lots of talk of labor markets here, but D&D sort of assumes a lot of medieval economics, and free labor markets aren't among them.
> 
> Why doesn't Joe Peasant go into bookbinding? Because the bookbinders guild will break his knees, leaving him Joe the Beggar, pining for the day he could earn a silver.
> PS *




I've got a group who does just that in my campaign world--the United Crafts Guild.  A very official and legal group of limb-breakers, finger-snappers, and eye-gougers...


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## Vaxalon (Feb 22, 2002)

*Middle class wages, middle class values*

If you're willing to put in middle-class economics, are you also willing to put in the sociopolitical changes that a strong middle class caused (and are still causing) in the real world?

The appearance of a strong middle class in 12th century Flanders, Venice, and other trading powers of medieval europe had far-reaching effects.  The more widespread wealth also meant more widespread power, and the autocratic monarchies started to lose power to the trading guilds.  The gradual development of modern democracies can be traced directly to the growth of the middle class in Western culture.  Public literacy increases, and with it the creation of libraries, universities, and the printing press.

How do you reconcile a middle-class wage given to someone who doesn't have the political power to keep it?  Clearly, in any feudal society, it is in the interest of the lord to confiscate anything, whether it be money, magic, or weapon, that would give his serfs any measure of power.  So if you use some sense of "realism" to increase the wages across the board, then it would be unrealistic not to give them an across-the-board increase in power as well.


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## KarinsDad (Feb 22, 2002)

*Re: Middle class wages, middle class values*



			
				Vaxalon said:
			
		

> *
> How do you reconcile a middle-class wage given to someone who doesn't have the political power to keep it?  Clearly, in any feudal society, it is in the interest of the lord to confiscate anything, whether it be money, magic, or weapon, that would give his serfs any measure of power.  So if you use some sense of "realism" to increase the wages across the board, then it would be unrealistic not to give them an across-the-board increase in power as well. *




You are assuming that the increase in wages is meant to reflect a socio-economic power level. It is not. It is meant to reflect a correction of a mistake in the book.

If they would have multiplied the hireling wages by 5 in the first place, very few people would have had any problems with the economic system and we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Maybe there would be a few prophets out in the wilds shouting that hirelings are paid too much, but most people would probably consider them to be a fringe group because the ratio between goods and services would be at least understandable by the average person (unlike the core rules).


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## SableWyvern (Feb 22, 2002)

I am using the x5 wages for a simple reason.

It makes more sense to my players and I. Usually, we play in campaigns were the locals gather in inns for a beer, and the bulk of the population can afford a few luxuries. Despite the fact that farmers probably live with a predominantly subsistence lifestyle and barter for most goods, they have enough coins for the odd luxury purchase. The bulk of city dwellers are generally lower-middle class or better.

The prices in the PHB/DMG do not reflect this.

x5 wages fixes that problem.

Neither myself nor my players care about what effect this might have on the deeper socio-economic situation. The amount of research I would have to do to create a realistic socio-economic setting would be grossly excessive in relation to any benefits for the campaign.

Without that research, neither myself nor my players are aware of what those implications may really be. And ignorance is bliss. IOW, there is absolutely no reason, nor any real benefit, from such a realistic economic of social simulation.

If you believe that the system as written is historically accurate, and any change would destroy your suspension of disbelief, fair enough. We don't have that problem.

Due perhaps to our ignorance, a problem with SOD did exist with the system as written.


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## LostSoul (Feb 22, 2002)

Question about x5 wages:

In what form do they recieve thier payments?

I'd imagine a farmer who farms makes that x5 wage from what he sells - mainly, his crops.  Do the prices in the PHB reflect this?

I have no idea how many pounds of grain a farmer can farm in a year, day, week, month.


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## SableWyvern (Feb 22, 2002)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> *Question about x5 wages:
> 
> In what form do they recieve thier payments?
> 
> ...




I've got no idea. If I need to know how much money an NPC has, I'll pretty much give him whatever I think is appropriate. The whole wages thing really only has relevance to me if the PCs want to hire someone, or hire themselves out.


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## LostSoul (Feb 22, 2002)

SableWyvern said:
			
		

> *I've got no idea. If I need to know how much money an NPC has, I'll pretty much give him whatever I think is appropriate. The whole wages thing really only has relevance to me if the PCs want to hire someone, or hire themselves out. *




My point is that the prices of whatever is produced needs to reflect the increased wages.  Whether that is a drop or raise in the standard price, I don't know.


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## SableWyvern (Feb 22, 2002)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> *
> 
> My point is that the prices of whatever is produced needs to reflect the increased wages.  Whether that is a drop or raise in the standard price, I don't know. *




Just had a quick look, and confirmed my suspicions.

The wage list only covers those professions that actually receive a wage (rather than "self-employed" (for lack of a better word) types.

As I recall, this thread previously discussed the fact that in general, income derived directly from a craft skill or the like is significantly higher than the listed wages anyway.

If you want a more detailed investigation of the issue, you'll have to wait for someone more motivated than me. As I stated previously, I'm happy to just x5 and leave it at that - unless someone comes up with a significant flaw beyond realistic socio-political simulation etc...

Edit: based on the fact that the original thrust for change came from high prices vs low wages, I'd guess someone who's income was based on actual sale of goods (eg, your farmer) wouldn't be poorly off by comparison. (less well off, but not destitute - quite possibly better balanced against upper income workers).

Whatever, I'm too lazy to think this through any further.


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## Lord Vangarel (Feb 22, 2002)

This thread inspired me to look into how much money a peasant has under the 1sp/day wages assuming he gets food and accommodation free.

What is obvious is that the normal peasant cannot afford most of the equipment detailed in the PH. The peasant earns say 5sp a week, of this some will be payable in taxes, if the local lord charges 1sp per adult in taxes and our peasant has an average family then 2sp of his income will go in taxes leaving him 3sp per week of disposable income. Some of this will be spent so the peasant will only have say 50-100sp per year to spend on goods or 5-10gp. As far as I'm concerned this is fine, I don't want my peasants to be richer than this if you do fine, it doesn't break the game.

What all this leads to is questions as to how merchants then earn their money if the peasants are so poor. It makes some prices listed in the PH laughable. I'm now looking into how merchants earn their money. My goal is to try and prove whether the economy can be a working model. if the peasants are so poor who has enough money to pay the merchants? 

What should also be obvious is that starting money for characters is also massively high based on the current system. Also why do monsters have so much treasure?


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## Vaxalon (Feb 22, 2002)

A large merchant class requires a large middle class to sell to.  Merchants in a feudal economy are rare, and those that exist sell almost exclusively to the nobility.  The exception would be the "tinker" who doesn't sell nearly as much goods as he does his services fixing things.


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## S'mon (Feb 22, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *
> 
> 
> And S'mon, don't change that cost for chainmail! Armor of that sort is like KarinsDad suggested about horses. I have really high prices for armor, weapons, and horses (especially trained war horses) now because of metal and labor costs, the time and skill required in regards the former, the breeding and training for the latter. OF course one can buy a "used car" horse of a few grand, but that war horse is a Ferarri!
> ...





Gary, the 3E costs for chainmail (150 gp for full suit, 100 gp for shirt) are fine, although a bit higher than your 75gp cost in 1e (I prefer your 25 gp cost for riding horses to the 'modern' 75gp, but that's another topic).  I was referring to 3e's silly, ridiculous stated cost of 30gp for a simple _length_ of chain, 10 feet long!  As you can see, this is far too much.  Maybe 3sp is too little, but certainly no more than 1gp.

BTW in my campaign a labourer earns 1sp a day and can buy food for maybe 5 cp and cheap beer at 1cp/tankard.  If the weather is good he's in clover!


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## S'mon (Feb 22, 2002)

Lord Vangarel said:
			
		

> *This thread inspired me to look into how much money a peasant has under the 1sp/day wages assuming he gets food and accommodation free.
> 
> What is obvious is that the normal peasant cannot afford most of the equipment detailed in the PH. The peasant earns say 5sp a week, of this some will be payable in taxes, if the local lord charges 1sp per adult in taxes and our peasant has an average family then 2sp of his income will go in taxes leaving him 3sp per week of disposable income. Some of this will be spent so the peasant will only have say 50-100sp per year to spend on goods or 5-10gp. As far as I'm concerned this is fine, I don't want my peasants to be richer than this if you do fine, it doesn't break the game.
> 
> What all this leads to is questions as to how merchants then earn their money if the peasants are so poor. It makes some prices listed in the PH laughable. *





Peasants do not get 1sp/day.  Unskilled labourers are paid 1sp/day, there's a _big_ difference.  A peasant has land he farms.  In a medieval society no unskilled labourer could afford to maintain a family, which is why until modern times only 1/3 of the population ever married. 

1 sp is subsistence wage for a single individual.  A peasant family with 2 adults and 4 children probably generates around 4 sp/worth a day net, in food, clothes, tools etc, not money of course.  Maybe 5sp before tax, which works out as tax revenue of 1sp/family/day.


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## Lord Vangarel (Feb 25, 2002)

In my campaign I'm assuming that an unskilled labourer cannot live without some outside support so they form a large part of the lower class. Likewise peasants are in a similar position however these have land. They work the land and earn roughly 2sp per day per person, so a small farm with 4 unskilled labourers and 1 farmer earns 10sp per day of which 4sp is paid in wages earning the farmer (before costs and taxes) 6sp/day.

Virtually all unskilled labourer's require their lodgings and food to be provided although they could probably afford food if necessary so the labourer's above are living on or around the farm. 

In towns and cities the unskilled have a choice, work as a virtual slave (unskilled labour), turn to a life of crime, become an adventurer, or learn a profession probably by being an apprentice. Most unskilled labourer's cannot simply become craftsmen because they cannot afford the tools necessary so they are trapped within a select number of choices.


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## Conaill (Sep 18, 2002)

Just a little BUMP to resurrect this thread.

See also this more recent thread


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 18, 2002)

S,on, I was thinking more in terms of the LA game and a generic monetary system, not commenting on the 3E prices.

Elsewhere I have mentioned that I have a generic-type reference book with D20 data in it due out from Troll Lord Games late this year ot early next. this is germane here because I propose and give some details of a far better economy and greater wealth for the lower classes in a fantasy world because of active deities and use of magic. That also provides for wealthier middle and upper tiers, and gives the criminal class a lot more to steal

Cheerio,
Gary


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## jgbrowning (Sep 18, 2002)

*well*



			
				KarinsDad said:
			
		

> *I’ve been in some of those countries and you can buy lunch for $1 or even less.
> 
> The reason they can survive there is because even on their low incomes, they can still afford the necessities.
> 
> ...




well assuming the average income for a 3rd worlder was 1000$ thats less than is needed for 3 1$ meals a day.  

wage earner.. 1 sp a day...

he buys 
1 pound flour 2 cp.
1 chicken 2 cp.
some vegies.. 1cp.
and this (probably) is all the food he needs for two maybe three days.

he earns 60cp a week (day off) and spends 15cp a week on food, and has 45cp a week for others (clothing, shelter).

Also since you've been to the 3rd world you know that shelter doesn't mean owning your own house.  

joe b.

ps. this laborer is probably doing better financially than the peasant farmers.  He's probably hording what money he can to give to his family.


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## jasamcarl (Sep 19, 2002)

Let's get one thing straight. The hireling prices reflect the value of npc classes to adventurers. It's a balance issue, given that, if they were much higher, they wouldn't be used at all.

That being said, there are a number of ways the wage model in the DMG can be said to work. One is that very few individuals draw their full allotment of resources from a monetary economy. You could say that hirelings IN YOUR WORLD only work for short stints to compliment their lifestyle with luxerys available in a broader market, but tend to revert to barter and subsistence production. For the urban expert elite, speculation on state and patrician debt would be another source of non-production related income. There are a number of setting-specific ways to explain those prices.

Me? I don't care. My perspective is that the hirelings play no greater role than to serve my party, and i will not modify the balance of the game for my own personal gratification.


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## LostSoul (Sep 19, 2002)

Looking at this thread another couple of months later, I've come to the conclusion (realization?) that the PHB prices (and the DMG treasures) are meant for PCs and game balance.  Not for your typical farmer.

I don't think it's any big deal.

What I've done in my campaign was to set the income of a typical peasant per year, based on 1sp = 1 week's worth of food.  Then I scaled all costs to fit in with that.  I charge prices based on what I think work, and I award treasures with that in mind.

It took a long time for the PCs to get "rich" (finding treasure in coin hard to come by), but now that they are it isn't really a big deal.

Anyways.  I guess my view these days is that, if you don't feel like the PHB prices work for you, go with your gut instincts.  If the players feel like something's wrong, then you have a sit down (thanks Sopranos) and talk it out.


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## the Jester (Sep 19, 2002)

Pardon me if these points have already been raised; I just barely started reading this thread but thought I'd butt in nonetheless.

First off, keep in mind that most of the peasantry prolly feeds themselves not by buying a poor meal three times a day but by living off of their gardens, eggs laid by their chickens, etc, especially in rural areas.  Secondly, as to buying a kingdom with a dragon's  treasure- well, if you look in the dmg it has prices for some basic building types.  Unless said dragon was very wealthy, I find it hard to swallow that its horde will cover 1000 gp per simple house for the whole kingdom, not even getting into the cost of better buildings.

Now, are dnd economics realistic?  No.  In the 1e PH, one thing mentioned is that the prices are for a "gold rush" mentality area, where there's lots of new money pouring in from adventurers looting and whatnot.  Keep this in mind and it may feel slightly more palatible.

I once ran a campaign where the standard value of one gold piece was that it would feed a man for one year.  That made pcs not only really value their money, it also changed the cost of everything.  I gave out much less treasure, naturally, and had brass coins below a cp.  Fun times.


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## LostSoul (Sep 19, 2002)

the Jester said:
			
		

> *First off, keep in mind that most of the peasantry prolly feeds themselves not by buying a poor meal three times a day but by living off of their gardens, eggs laid by their chickens, etc, especially in rural areas.*




Yep.  Like I said before, being able to buy five chickens a day (who breeds these things?) doesn't make the unskilled labourer dirt poor.


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## Ace (Sep 19, 2002)

Storminator said:
			
		

> *There's lots of talk of labor markets here, but D&D sort of assumes a lot of medieval economics, and free labor markets aren't among them.
> 
> Why doesn't Joe Peasant go into bookbinding? Because the bookbinders guild will break his knees, leaving him Joe the Beggar, pining for the day he could earn a silver.
> 
> ...




I am not sure that normal economic ideas like you suggest would work in a D&D world. The disparity of power between say a High level commoner (Guild Master) and his Bully Boys and the mid level Rogue is pretty incredible. With a tiny amount of cunning a mid level rogue could kill every single living member of the book binders guild in a year. All of them. 

Never forget IRL people are quite vengefull. I don't know about you I would not mess with someone who just might be capable of what a D&D adventurer can do.

FREX in many parts of Africa people still believe in witches and are scared to death of hexes curses and the like. People kill suspected Witches. 
Yet magic (if its real at all) is very subtle and lmited.
Imagibe if you knew for sure magic was real

In a typical (say Greyhawk) D&D world magic is as real and sure a force as light or gravity. A beginer Sorcerer CHA12 (33% of the population is at this level or better) can Kill a normal person with a word a gesture (Magic Missle) create a shield as hard as plate (Shield spell) Fix objects (mending) and more. AT high level he can use a word and a gesture to Burn your guild hall to the ground, summon demons, animate the bodies of your fallen guildsman and worse.
In addition without magic of your own you have no way to find him among the crowd.

That doesn't even take into acount Clerics and Wizards.

While your world may very most D&D worlds are filled with powerfull mages and awesomely deadly adventurers

As far as this 

<IMC, I have a pair of rogues posing as simple laborers. They had to take out a loan to buy basic equipment, and come payday, they will find they OWE money (want another loan? just to tide you over...) If this was their real lives instead of an adventure hook, they'd be well on their way to serfdom. >

The old Company store routine wouldn't work very well against anyone but low level Rogue types. How would you enforce it? Who would be stupid enough to attack a mid level rogue-- Whoops you just took 1d4 (dagger) + LH Dagger 2 (1d4)  + 3d6 (Sneak) + 1 (Strength) or 16 points --- You were second level and only had 16 (Average rolls + toughness and con12) -- You are dead--
 So sad 
In the hands of a hidden Rogue thrown rocks do 1d3+1+3d6 or 143 Hitpoints, thats enough to kill a 1st level warrior (10- on average, Con12+ toughness) and hit likley hits on a +9 or better, so if you have chain shirt (so he doesn't out run you) and sheild for AC16 he hits you on a 7 or better from ambush. BEtween the two Rogues with luck they can kill 8 or 9 men than escape.

After that you either Higher a high level type (very expensive) Hire guards (so they don't come back and take you out) send more cannon fodder (and lose them) or forget the whole thing

Shoot even a lowly 3rd level Rogue can use a club for 3d6 (1d6+2d6 Sneak attack)and take out a level 1 Warrior with a single shot

Basically in a late medieval world you have different tiers of power, Call it King, Church Merchants with peasants at the Bottom. IN a D&D world you need to add in Mages (Bards, Wizards and Sorcerers) and Adventurer tiers as power brokers too. 

This will have profound effects on the distribution of wealth and power


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## Breakdaddy (Sep 19, 2002)

I find myself not caring in the least whether a farmers wage is economically feasible, as none of the PCs IMC are farmers. I also find that in 14 years of gaming, not one time has one of my PCs ever uttered a complaint about the monetary system in D&D. I'm glad because this analysis makes my head hurt


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## hong (Sep 19, 2002)

Ah, another thread on the pseudo-economics of D&D, which means it's time to drag out this Newmanworld classic again:


[repost]

From: Peter Newman (pnewman@gci.net)
Subject: Seven billion Chickens! 
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Date: 2001-08-22 01:35:28 PST 


According to the DMG a community with 30,000 adults will
have 7,500,000,000 chickens. [DMG p 137]

0.5 x the GP limit [100,000] x 0.1 x the population [30,000]
is the total value available. Thus at any given time the
metropolis will have 150,000,000 GP's worth of chickens
available. At 2 CP/chicken this will be 7.5 billion chickens.

Similarly this community will have 15 million cows, 15 billion
candles, 15 billion pounds of wheat (7.5 million tons), 
7.5 billion pounds of flour, 15 billion torches, 300 million 
pounds of soap, 7.5 billion loaves of bread, 1.5 billion flasks 
of oil, 1.5 billion peasants outfits, 750 million pounds of
cheese, and much much more

It will also have 3 billion arrows, 10 million longswords, 
10,000 suits of full plate armor, 1,000 keeps, 1,500 longships, 
3,000 grand houses, 15,000 simple houses, and 100 grand castles 
available.

These rules are very broken.


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## rounser (Sep 19, 2002)

How much XP for "overcoming an encounter" with a chicken?


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## S'mon (Sep 19, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *I know that I am probably the ony person in the world who is bothered by the things like this but...
> 
> Have you noticed that, in DnD world, average labourer needs to work 20 days (and not eat) in order to buy the empty barrel or a crowbar. That the daily wage will buy you a poor meals for the day (for one person) but not lodgings of any sort.
> 
> ...



#

The 'ready cash' number is ridiculous for larger settlements, agreed.  The problem is the multiplier by settlement type.  For small settlements it seems ok.  I suggest setting a fixed maximum x the population, eg 30gp (rather than eg the 50,000 gp x 1/10 population it suggests for a metropolis), so a city with pop 30,000 would have  900,000 gp in ready cash, and work from there.  I suggest the following, modified from DMG:

Settlement Type   Ready Cash (x total population)
Thorp                      2gp
Hamlet                    5gp
Village                    10gp
Small Town            12gp
Large Town           15gp
Small city               20gp
Large city              25gp
Metropolis             30gp

Seem plausible?  Probably different campaigns need different numbers - mine has lots of 100,000 to 1.2 million population cities, mostly full of non-magical commoners, and you can't go into a shop and buy 100,000gp magic items in any of them.  

IMC, 30gp x the largest metroplos, Imarr's, 1.2 million population gives 36 million gp in ready cash, which is a lot, but a lot more plausible than the 5000 x1.2 million gp, 6 BILLION gp, given by the DMG formula.


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## BeholderBurger (Sep 19, 2002)

Electrum is a compound of silver and gold which was actually used throughout history in coinage.

D&D is in my opinion very like modern day tourism. The adventurers are basicaly heavily armed backpackers wandering the earth to see the sights and hear the sounds of wonderous places and get themselves into some adventures.
Just like today the adventurers are super rich compared to the indigenous population and treat everything like it can be bought with there overvalued money. The average commoner is likely to harbour great jealousy and hatred of these middle class elitists and will spit in their soup or beer whenever possible but will also recognise the value the adventurers have to the local economy.
On the other hand if adventurers come into a village and spend super amounts of wealth cleaning out the local stores of equipment and provisions trhen they have inflated the prices of whats left (if any) putting the goods even further beyond the reach of normal people. This is liokely (eventuall) to lead to some sort of peasant revolutionary movement which no doubt will be cut down brutally by the local lord and his hired help (the adventurers)


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## Storm Raven (Sep 19, 2002)

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> *Which third world countries have you been to?*





Tanzania (2 years), Rwanda (about 6 weeks), Nigeria (3 years), Zaire (2 years, when it was still Zaire), Togo (2 years) and Benin (3 months). My observations of the local practices in those countries match up pretty well with Vaxalon's assumptions. Extended family living is pretty common, and when the extended family breaks down (like in large parts of Lagos), the populace lives in abject poverty and starves, as opposed to living in modest poverty.

For the most part, people live on what we would consider to be unlivable amounts of money, usually by pooling resources and self help (growing or scavenging food to supplement their resources). For example, in Zaire, a particular breed of caterpillar is eaten on a regular basis (it has a "season" where the caterpillar population all seem to be born and for about a month, the trees are covered with the buggers). Poor families fill buckets with these caterpillars and prepare them as food. Many of my Zairois friends said that some families live exclusively on caterpillars when they are "in season" in order to save money. I would suspect that a D&D economy would have similar "food scavenging" techniques.

[Edited for a grammar error]


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## BButler (Sep 19, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *So poor that it takes them 20 days of work to buy an empty barell ?
> *




Have you checked out the price of a good wooden barrel lately?  

Check it out: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/wine/barrels.asp 

Even in today's world, a good, watertight wooden barrel aint cheap.  Now imagine how long it would take to save up that much cash on the average Nike sweatshop wage . . .


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## Prince Atom (Sep 19, 2002)

> D&D is in my opinion very like modern day tourism. The adventurers are basicaly heavily armed backpackers wandering the earth to see the sights and hear the sounds of wonderous places and get themselves into some adventures.




So what you're saying is that adventurers are basically Australians with a homicidal bent?   

Seriously, I don't worry too much about the economics scale (we don't play so long we can afford to!), so when it comes time to buy things I let the party have them at the PHB prices.

When and if the PCs ever need hirelings and lackeys, I figure I'll give them Profession skills in whatever they need to know, and they all take 10 -- thus a 1st-level stonemason with Wis 12 would get a result of 15.  Of course, he's taking ten times as long as he could to get it right.  Only a master craftsman can whip something out and be better than an initiate who spent a lot of time on a comparable item.

Someone argued that it was unrealistic to have peasants maxed out in a skill, because peasants don't get to pick and choose like PCs.  I don't think so.  I think they ought to be maxed out in Profession and Craft, at the very least.

Besides, by the book, the only way to gain experience is to face and defeat (any way possible) a foe.  So, to be ridiculously simplistic, the only way to get better at what you do is premeditated homicide.  How many folks does a carpenter kill in his lifetime?

TWK


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 20, 2002)

*What we need, then...*

What we need, then, is a form of economics that take into account the following things:

The peasants classes' need to survive with enough food to keep a family (size depending) alive and relatively healthy.  (This is D&D guys, no players want to see starving peasants in a Lawful-Good kingdom...)

The merchant classes' ability to make a profit when dealing with others.  They need to sell goods to peasants, lords, other merchants, and adventurers.  The best way to do this is quality levels of the item.  Peasants buy the cheap, shoddy items.  Lords and adventurers buy the Masterwork items.  Not to mention that you KNOW that lords and adventurers are charged more for even the same item than a peasant.  Lords not only accept this practice in most cultures, but got insulted when only charged "common" prices.  Gods help the adventurer who lets on he found a horde of gold...  He may not even be able to afford a carrot!

The lord classes' (lord, king, whatever...) need to tax and profit from the ownership of the land the people live on.  How much does a lord tax?  What does he tax?  What is the penalty for not paying taxes?

The adventurers: A class to themselves.  How on earth do you build an economic system around people who kill monsters of legend and gather their hoards.  Let's see, four adventurers (level 10...) gather together and kill a dragon (cr12)...  They find a hoard of 10,000 GP (no magic, just gold)...
Now you have four people with 2,500 gp each...

Lets see how that compares with others (based on Brett Evill's statistics:
~ A king would make about 200,000 GP in a year (used silver x10)
~ A peasant would make about 40 GP in a year (same)

Hmnnn...  Consider 10 encounters of this level in a year (npc adventurers...  That would be 25,000 in a year income each, or about 10% of what the lord makes in a year.

Lets consider where a lord gets his money: Taxes.  To make his money he would have to have about 100,000 people in his domain at about 2 GP per head.  
If we figure he controls a 50 x 50 mile area, 2500 square miles, then he has a population density of about 40 people per square mile overall.  His city might contain 20,000 people, for about 1/5 of his total population.  Another city near the coast may have 10,000 people.  The rest (70,000) spread out in towns and farms.

Now add in what he charges the adventurers for "Adventurers licenses".  Since it is hard to tax a wandering adventurer, this is the best way I've found.  Adventurers would be fined if they are caught selling magic items, spending any noticeable amounts of gold (would vary from place to place), or "poaching".  The fine would vary according to location and how lucky the adventurers had been (see above dragon hoard).  Gods help the characters that try to fight the garrison sent to collect the fine;  They tend to use other fined adventurers.

Whew...  Gonna post this and relax a moment.  This is becoming work...


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## seasong (Sep 20, 2002)

This thread rocks!

The following is just some work I did a while back for a campaign in which politics and economy mattered more than most. The real-world accuracy is emphatically _not_ guaranteed. It was simply an attempt to make something that looked reasonable and worked reasonably well in the campaign.

A typical kingdom will have a population around 22,000. Most of that will be villages and serfs.

*The Serf*


$1 is a generic economic unit.
An hour's cheap manual labor has a net cost of $0.50. This is roughly what a serf makes (although a serf's lord does not actually PAY that amount, that is what the serf gets out of the land, after rent/tax is taken out of his work by the lord). A typical serf works six to twelve hours a day, depending on the season, with most of the "break" in the middle of the day.
A serf actually produces $1 to $2.50 per hour of work, depending on the soil, season and how good a year it is. All of that except $0.50 per hour goes to the serf's lord, and is then dispensed out into the lord's various costs (military, King's taxes, bridge repairs, personal wealth, etc.).
A serf averages about nine hours per day, and produces an average of $4,850 per year, of which he keeps $1,650 (the rest to the lord goeth). Of that $1,650, about $1,450 is "spent" feeding a family of four (a serf, his wife, two children). Any children beyond two must pay for themselves; this usually takes care of itself, as the older children help produce enough to feed themselves and possibly care for their younger siblings. The remaining $200, plus any excess from more productive children, goes into cloth, seeds, special occasions, equipment repairs and so on.
In all, a family of serfs puts about $3,400 + $50 per child past the second into the economy in the form of payment to their lord, purchased textiles, equipment, seeds, festivities and so on. The average serf family has three "extra" children.
An "average" kingdom will have about 14,000 serfs.

*The Middle Class*


The middle class thrive on the expenditures of the aristocracy, who need more than the simple productions of serfs. The middle class produce all the finer things in life, as well as many other specialized professional products such as stone masonry and weapons. Serfs also represent part of the middle class income, but not a large part.
Any specialized production skill is worth at least $1 per hour. Less than that, and a serf's less skilled life becomes comparatively appealing. Highly skilled crafts, such as weapon working or magic, are worth at least $5 per hour, or the kingdom will suffer a deficit in the craft. The less common the ability, the more these base values increase. Trade between kingdoms usually benefits because one kingdom has something "very common" like $5/hour metalsmiths and the other one has something "very common" like $5/hour textile makers.
A craftsman will typically spend four to eight hours per day at his craft, depending on the season and personal need. Over the course of a year, a craftsman should make $2,200 per $1/hour (highly skilled crafts will tend to make a net of $11,000 or more per year).
A craftsman normally lives at a higher costing lifestyle than a serf. They typically live in towns, eat better food (and may not even cook themselves), wear better clothers (and replace it more often) and so on. A family of four will normally cost about $1,800 per year at the lowest, poorest level and $8,000 per year at the more extravagent levels. A little of the excess goes into savings; the rest usually goes back into taxes.
An average kingdom will have about 2000 craftsmen of various levels, plus their families (usually with one or two children).

*The Aristocracy*


The lowest "caste" of non-knight aristocrat rules a comparatively small patch of land, usually covering a three to twenty villages. The poorest lord will have about fifty serf families who produce an average of $3,200 per year (for a total income of $160,000). The wealthiest of the lowest caste will typically take in five times that ($800,000 per year).
For every five to ten lower lords, there will be a higher lord who takes about 30% to 50% of their income. Average income per year for such an aristocrat will be about $1.2 million.
Above the higher lords, of course, will be the true aristocrat, the King, who will take about 30% to 50% of their income. A typical King might have ten to twenty higher lords, and will take in somewhere around $7.2 million per year.
A good average gross national production for such a kingdom is around $45 million.
Lords have families who do little towards actual production; maintaining these families usually costs a pretty penny.
About half of a lord's income typically goes to the middle class, to purchase things. Another eighth goes into maintaining the military. And the remainder goes into castles, luxury and family.

*The Soldier*


A kingdom of 22,000 will typically have about 2,000 soldiers. With a total national budget of $5 million put into the military (not counting castles), that works out to an expense of about $2,500 spent per year, per soldier, of which a chunk has to be put into arms, room & board, and various bits of general equipment (wagons, horses, etc.).
Feeding a soldier costs about $2.05 per day, or $750 per year. Room and board (other than food) ends up costing about $500 per year.
Miscellaneous expenses usually come out to about $800-900 per year.
The remaining $450 is the amount left for salary, arms and armor.


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## Cerubus Dark (Sep 20, 2002)

*Re: Simple Solution*



			
				Simon Magalis said:
			
		

> *I too have been bothered by this inconsistency. Its the monsters like Goblins and Kobolds, who are not all that powerful, but are usually carrying 2d10 Gold (or something like that) *




Keep in mind that is the total *value* of all the crap they carry with them.  The most of the time I let my players take the weapons as they are the most expensive things a kobold or goblin would carry.  Very rare would be the time they found a gem worth 3d6 gold.  And even then it would be on a shaman or other higher ranking person.


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## Storm Raven (Sep 20, 2002)

The Whiner Knight said:
			
		

> *When and if the PCs ever need hirelings and lackeys, I figure I'll give them Profession skills in whatever they need to know, and they all take 10 -- thus a 1st-level stonemason with Wis 12 would get a result of 15.  Of course, he's taking ten times as long as he could to get it right.*




Nitpick: Taking 10 doesn't take any longer than a normal skill check. Taking 20 takes 20 times as long, but a Take 10 effort takes the normal amount of time, it just can't be done under stressful conditions (unless you are a Rogue or similar class who took the special ability on this). Check the PHB for the specifics.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 20, 2002)

Just a quick note:

The feudal system was based on a mixture of military service, tax payment in goods and services as well as money. National armies were unknown in feudal states. The rules had only a small personal force, plus some small number of regulars to guard royal fortresses. The forces of nobles and knights, town and city levees, and peasants were called up in time of war. this gradually changed as cities developed and money become more common.

As I mentioned, Troll Lord Games in noe working on editing and layout for the D20 EVERYDAY LIFE ms. A lot of this, including income, taxation, etc. is covered therein. Those desiring to build a viable fantasy world setting should find it of considerable assistance.

In all the clergy is pretty well overlooked in this thread. It should be the single most inportant factor after the sovereign and nobles in the state. After all, the deities of a fantasy world are "real" and active. The ecclesiasts can use their powers to assist the "flock," and their presence would be like that of the clergy in the early medieval period--pervasive. These religious persons would be respected, influential, and active in all affairs on all levels of society.

Gary


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## jasper (Sep 20, 2002)

First recognized the prices that adventurers pay are not what charlie commoner paids. 
In the movie "if this tuesday it must be rome" , an american walks into a shoe shop and tries to buy hand made tan shoes. First a little verbage of what is tan aka black and white, then price.
The owner holds up a chalk board with $40 on in. Then the scene shifts to over the owner shoulder with $20 written on that side. Then the tourist leaves the owner opens a catalog pionts to a black and white pair of shoes "tan" with a price in the single digits.

Thanks for reminder of priest power and prescence Col P.

Now most commoners are not going down to the local McDonalds everday to eat. Also chickens reproduce and if they old enough to walk they old enough to do some work.

Copper was hardly every used alone for coinage.
Roman did do hot strikes on bronze, silver and gold
Most English coinage was a silver alloy, in fact, Good King Henry the 8th was nicknamed old copper nose near the end of his reign. This was because he reminted the groats (4 pennies) so the copper content shown through on the nose due to the most wear.

The peasants made their own beer hey I make my own beer It costs about 50 cents a bottle. Money, trade, barter, etc did go on.  it was not two sheep for wood. Also some bookkeeping was done read the Parson's Letters.

Some taxes ideas, 
shield tax, sword tax, beer tax, horse tax, lodging tax, tolls, tolls, and more tolls, 

If you really want to be mean, force your adventurers to go to a money changer boom lose 10 % or more especially on copper coins, and if you sticking with middle ages theme no one knows or cares that half the gp are from Good King Richard 3rd reign and you on now on Prince Humperdint.

Hong thanks for the 7.5 billion chickens article gee I didn't know every village had a replicator
 

But if anyone does get a great working economic system which includes the core books spells and monster please post it.


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## JacktheRabbit (Sep 20, 2002)

Little item to think about.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's before WW1 Britain was the single greatest power in the world.

This was both militarily and economically.

Yet at this same time a full 25% of the British population on the home isle did not make enough money to afford the minimum healthy requirement of food every year.

The wealth disparity was enormous. Much like it is in most DnD towns.


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## Wolfen Priest (Sep 20, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *As I mentioned, Troll Lord Games in noe working on editing and layout for the D20 EVERYDAY LIFE ms. A lot of this, including income, taxation, etc. is covered therein. Those desiring to build a viable fantasy world setting should find it of considerable assistance.
> 
> In all the clergy is pretty well overlooked in this thread. It should be the single most inportant factor after the sovereign and nobles in the state. After all, the deities of a fantasy world are "real" and active. The ecclesiasts can use their powers to assist the "flock," and their presence would be like that of the clergy in the early medieval period--pervasive. These religious persons would be respected, influential, and active in all affairs on all levels of society.
> 
> Gary *




I for one will be buying this product if it's even reasonably good.  It's clear to me from all these 'D&D economy' threads that the d20 market could sure use a well-thought-out product which incorporates fantasy elements, as well as an 'adventuring' economy, into the D&D game, rather than just historic data.


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## seasong (Sep 20, 2002)

Firstly, it is _sooo cooooool_ that you're on these boards .
(end fanboy mode)



			
				Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> In all the clergy is pretty well overlooked in this thread. It should be the single most inportant factor after the sovereign and nobles in the state.



 The Church of feudal Europe was practically an auxiliary government - no reason to treat it separately from the rest of the aristocrats. And economically, peasant/middle class coins which go to Church militias is no different from coins going to noble militias. Particularly since the militias were so fragmented already.

Political effects, of course, are an entirely different matter.







> After all, the deities of a fantasy world are "real" and active. The ecclesiasts can use their powers to assist the "flock," and their presence would be like that of the clergy in the early medieval period--pervasive. These religious persons would be respected, influential, and active in all affairs on all levels of society.



 Or rather, a clergy with real _powers_ would have the above effect.

A real _deity_ will have effects in accordance with that grave entity's will... which could easily mean a church with little or no economic influence at all. For example, if priests are required (as some religious monks were) to live only on charity and to possess no material things past a change of clothes and good shoes.

The "respected, influential, and active" could well be true, but does not indicate a corresponding impact on the economy.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 20, 2002)

Wolfen Priest said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I for one will be buying this product if it's even reasonably good.  It's clear to me from all these 'D&D economy' threads that the d20 market could sure use a well-thought-out product which incorporates fantasy elements, as well as an 'adventuring' economy, into the D&D game, rather than just historic data. *




Take a long look at it. I think it will be something that will serve as a useful, long-term reference work for all GMs who are building and maintaining campaign worlds with the usual cultural bases drawn from historical Europe.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## Wolfen Priest (Sep 20, 2002)

One thing I keep thinking is the relevance druids would play in a fantasy world's economy.  Casting spells to help bring in a better crop would certainly be the best way to help eliminate starvation.  Having an abundance of food would surely propel the economy above that of the real Medieval Europe.

Also, disease would scarcely be a problem, with clerics in every town.  I would imagine with such goings-on, the number of atheists would be next to zero, and piety would skyrocket.  I'd also bet wealthy individuals would be more than willing to zealously _give_ to their nearest temple in their desparate hopes of escaping the flames of the abyss.  If the church were truly good, it would disperse this money among the poor.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 20, 2002)

seasong said:
			
		

> *Firstly, it is sooo cooooool that you're on these boards .
> (end fanboy mode)*




Thanks, amigo. Rest assured I wouldn't be doing so if I wasn't having at least a little fun



> [B[The Church of feudal Europe was practically an auxiliary government - no reason to treat it separately from the rest of the aristocrats. And economically, peasant/middle class coins which go to Church militias is no different from coins going to noble militias. Particularly since the militias were so fragmented already.[/B]




Oops! Better rethink that. The tension and wars between church and state in medieval times was considerable and frequent. Both sought to rule the other.



> [B[Political effects, of course, are an entirely different matter. Or rather, a clergy with real _powers_ would have the above effect.
> 
> A real _deity_ will have effects in accordance with that grave entity's will... which could easily mean a church with little or no economic influence at all. For example, if priests are required (as some religious monks were) to live only on charity and to possess no material things past a change of clothes and good shoes.
> 
> The "respected, influential, and active" could well be true, but does not indicate a corresponding impact on the economy. [/B]




Were the model for the various deities of the various mythological and fantastical pantheons based on your assumptions as stated, I would have to agree in general. As they are not, I can freely say that the matter will most likely not resemble what you suggest, other that the fact that the priesthood exercising considerable powers of supernatural and readily observed sort will be most influential, for they are the voice of potent deities who might just send down some plague, a thunderbotl, or the like on the heads of the people who offend.

In all, the prevelence of clergy shoould be skin to the medieval model, their activities and role expanded because the deities of the fantasy world are manifold, manifest, and their ecclesiastical servants on the world exercise great power.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 20, 2002)

Wolfen Priest said:
			
		

> *One thing I keep thinking is the relevance druids would play in a fantasy world's economy.  Casting spells to help bring in a better crop would certainly be the best way to help eliminate starvation.  Having an abundance of food would surely propel the economy above that of the real Medieval Europe.
> 
> Also, disease would scarcely be a problem, with clerics in every town.  I would imagine with such goings-on, the number of atheists would be next to zero, and piety would skyrocket.  I'd also bet wealthy individuals would be more than willing to zealously give to their nearest temple in their desparate hopes of escaping the flames of the abyss.  If the church were truly good, it would disperse this money among the poor. *




Very much on target there! Don't limit your thinking to "druids," though. Most pantheons have deities concerned with the aspects you note, so all manner of clergy would be around in most societies seeing to the sorts of things you note. I cver this extensively in the EVERYDAY LIFE work mentioned earlier.

Fact is in reading medieval history as I do periodically I was struck rather suddenly with the realization that I had in previous times given short shrift to the role of the clergy. I expect many of the long-time gamers to questioon my new thinking rather vigorously, but I believe I can ably defent the new thinking--new to me, at least 

Cheers,
Gary


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## Storminator (Sep 20, 2002)

Ace said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I am not sure that normal economic ideas like you suggest would work in a D&D world. The disparity of power between say a High level commoner (Guild Master) and his Bully Boys and the mid level Rogue is pretty incredible. With a tiny amount of cunning a mid level rogue could kill every single living member of the book binders guild in a year. All of them.
> 
> ...




There's a couple of points I made that shouldn't be mixed. I talked about the bookbinders guild vs Joe Bookbinder as a general sort of model, then I talked about the rogues in my campaign.

Let us not make the assumption that the rogues are dealing with the bookbinding guild!

Think instead of mafia run labor union. Sure there are punk bullies to deal with, but don't forget the made men. If you cause too much trouble we refer the job to Guido and his boys and they draw up a contract. Suddenly those rogues are dealing with high level assassins. Not nearly as cool.

Then there's politics. Those workmen do important work for the city, so the union bosses have friends in high places. In fact, the mob has wrangled the position of tax collector in the neighborhood, so any problems can be dealt with by the city watch. And naturally, the mafia is a huge supporter of their church, so divine might is not far away.

On top of all that, what are the rogues looking to do? If they set up shop in competition, they'd have to confront the mafia head on. But they are currently infiltrating, so they need to play by the rules like everyone else. 

The company store model works on people that have no alternative means of support. I.e. they can't go get another job. Mid level rogues have lots of opportunity to get rich, and they don't really need to scratch out a living silver piece at a time. Like I said, this isn't the rogues' real life, it's just the start of the adventure.

But thanks for commenting! Been a long time since I put that up there; forgot all about it. 

Incidently, it's a PBeM (ie, slooooow) so those rogues still work for that mob, albiet in a more ... specialized ... capacity.  

PS


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## Al (Sep 20, 2002)

Storminator:

Again, there is little evidence outside urban myth than 'hardline' guilds existed.  They are not mentioned in any reliable historical medieval accounts of that period.  The existence of guilds was mainly to ensure quality of manufacture, to protect its members from disturbances and as a social gathering.  Like a 'pseudo-trade-union' (although of course in reality quite different).

Most of the manufacture in the medieval period was not done by the guilds, who did not resemble modern corporations (and certainly did not resemble the Mafia) but by small craftsmen, who trained apprentices to take over when they retired/died.  The reason why most peasants didn't become craftsmen was not because some guilds would go and break their legs (for one, the local lords and church would not tolerate this, and the power of merchant guilds compared to the authorities was insignificant in this period; in DnD, neither good nor lawful rulers will tolerate this behaviour).  Rather, it was due to the lack of suitable education.

Now, in DnD, *everyone* has some form of education.  These are represented by those handy things, skill points.  The average human peasant has 12 skill points.  Given the commoner skill list, it is highly likely than he will end up putting at least a few into Craft and/or Profession.  In turn, this will result in a respectable wage.

Other points:



> I'd also bet wealthy individuals would be more than willing to zealously give to their nearest temple in their desparate hopes of escaping the flames of the abyss




They did anyway in medieval times, in order to escape 'eternal damnation'.



> The Church of feudal Europe was practically an auxiliary government - no reason to treat it separately from the rest of the aristocrats




One thing people always overlook when comparing medieval Europe with DnD is that DnD is polytheistic.  Thus, with the exception of the domination of non-human races by their respective deities, it is unlikely that a single church will have nearly as much influence as the medieval Catholic Church.  A better model would be classical Greece, where the deities were certainly highly respected, but not insofar as each individual church was an auxiliary government.



> The wealth disparity was enormous. Much like it is in most DnD towns.




Demographic evidence suggests that wealth disparity was less in a pre-industrial society.  This is because nearly everyone was impoverished, rather than a middle-class/workers dichotomy.  Of course, your other salient point still holds.



> Peasants do not get 1sp/day. Unskilled labourers are paid 1sp/day, there's a _big_ difference. A peasant has land he farms. In a medieval society no unskilled labourer could afford to maintain a family, which is why until modern times only 1/3 of the population ever married.




Aside from numerous references to other professions earning 1sp per day (cook, maid, labourer, porter); the fact is that most people is most medieval societies did not own land.  Serfs would till the land for the lord, and get paid an amount for it.  As for the marriage anecdote, this is pure invention.  Cliometricians in the 1970s built a model of medieval society using church records and the like, and the marriage figure is nearly universal.  The fundamental reason is that marriage tended to increase prosperity, due to the double-wage effect: the Rowntree report on Victorian poverty corroborates this.  

Conclusion:

x5 wages


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## Nightchilde-2 (Sep 20, 2002)

bramadan said:
			
		

> *Have you noticed that, in DnD world, average labourer needs to work 20 days (and not eat) in order to buy the empty barrel or a crowbar. That the daily wage will buy you a poor meals for the day (for one person) but not lodgings of any sort.
> 
> *




It could be assumed that most people suppliment their income with farming, barter, performing services for others and so on to make up for not making "enough" money to eat.

It could also be assumed that the base wages for, say, a mercenary, is for the *average* mercenary (1st-level warrior, all ability scores at 10), probably with relatively poor equipment.  Something more than a commoner with a sharp, pointy stick is going to require more cash.

And, yes, adventurers are rich.  Insanely so.  I'm always fond of reminding my players when they buy a +1 sword that they've just spent 2,000 days' worth of wages for a commoner.

Who's even more rich than the adventurers?  The merchants!  While an adventurer may go out and blow 500 gold on a suit of armor and think nothing of it, the merchant may sell to 4 or 5 adventurers per day.   A merchant is quickly going to amass a fortune, without the risk of life and limb that an adventurer faces.

The money available in a town, like hit points, is pretty much an abstraction, the way I see it.   You have these merchants running around with more gold than the king, yeah, it's gonna be easy to find someone willing to pay you 4,000gp for your Staff of Big Weinerness.  But you may have trouble finding someone after that to pay you 50gp for your Silicon Bag of Charisma.  Again, we can make an assumption.  This time, that the merchants are the ones really handling all of that "free-floating" gold, possibly just a dozen or so.

Just MHO, YMMV, etc.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 20, 2002)

Point of Order:

Guilds and Companies certainly were powerful and enforced their will by the end of the medieval period and into the Renaissance. In a favtasy world they would be very powerful forces even if the society was basically of the medieval.

Historically, the Hansa League of merchants is an outstanding example of a guild's power. They defeated the English, fought many wars, and held many monopolies on various trade for decades.

Gary


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## jasper (Sep 20, 2002)

Don't forget the Templars and Hostipaliers two religious groups which held alot of power.

How ever once include multiple gods even if you only stick with just the ones in PHB imagine the Chaos.
It friday the 13 Orcus play day all the church going orcs slay an elf and deposit the head in the collection plate. 

Now I have notice that most of gods don't mention hades. So Greyhawk is more like Greece,Roman, or Viking, choose your patron but remember his family
Swear by thor but salute Odin.

Then start mixing the cultures, Greyhawk, Celtic, Viking and imagine the blood baths if your have different churches across from each other like here in the states with Baptists on the ne corner and latter day saints on s w corner.

I notice the religious conflicts are not fleshed out in the modules and fictions too much. I guess the authors don't want to recreate Ireland etc.


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## Wolfen Priest (Sep 20, 2002)

*Re: Re: Silly economics of DnD*



			
				Nightchilde-2 said:
			
		

> *It could be assumed that most people suppliment their income with farming, barter, performing services for others and so on to make up for not making "enough" money to eat.
> *




I'm not sure most people could supplement their income by farming, unless they own land; if they farm a noble's land, then they are basically working two jobs, thus earning (I would guess according to the DMG) 2 sp per day rather than one.  Same thing with "performing services for others."  We are basically talking about typical common people working 2 jobs to make ends meet.  That's all fine; but why isn't it brought up anywhere officially?  Methinks it's much easier to make the economy (IMO) more realistic by increasing the wages of basically everyone.

As far as bartering, I really don't think that's a viable way to earn a living (supplemental or otherwise) in a fantasy Medieval Europe (Medieval is capitalized, I thought) unless they have something like the equivalent of the NYSE in your campaign.

basically, my whole point is that, about 1 in 100 people are going to have an 18 in either Strength of Dexterity (actually 1 in 108 unless I'm missing something, which I may be ).  If you take into account people who have 17's or 16's, we are talking a lot more.  Technically, it wouldn't be very hard for someone to become a 'PC-classed' NPC, with those kinds of stats.  IOW, what makes the PC's so special?  Because they have real players?  I just don't think that's very realistic, personally.

So, if 'normal people' are making the kind of crap wages that they supposedly do, I would think a lot more people would be taking up adventuring than there are normally assumed to be, which of course would ruin the economy, or turn the land into a wartorn mess.

Are all PC's born into nobility?  They must be, or nearly so, to start out with the kind of 'starting wealth' that they have.


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## drnuncheon (Sep 20, 2002)

Al said:
			
		

> *Now, in DnD, *everyone* has some form of education.  These are represented by those handy things, skill points.  The average human peasant has 12 skill points.  Given the commoner skill list, it is highly likely than he will end up putting at least a few into Craft and/or Profession.
> *




I'm not sure you can make that jump, first of all - from 'everyone has 12 skill points' to 'everyone has education', I mean.

The average human peasant isn't going to be able to put skill points into most Crafts or Professions because the DM says "no, you don't have anyone to teach you that".

"Why can't I ask Joe the Blacksmith to teach me?"

"Because he's teaching his son, and he doesn't want competition."

So most people are going to practice the trade of their fathers, and the people who aren't lucky enough to get into that kind of apprenticeship for whatever reason have to spend their points elsewhere.

Remember, they don't get to optimize.  Opportunity is part of it too.



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Aside from numerous references to other professions earning 1sp per day (cook, maid, labourer, porter);
> *




Laborer, porter - what else would they mean by "unskilled labor"?  "You go over there, lift heavy thing, carry it over here."  Note that any profession that requires any degree of skill earns more.



			
				Wolfen Priest said:
			
		

> *
> basically, my whole point is that, about 1 in 100 people are going to have an 18 in either Strength of Dexterity (actually 1 in 108 unless I'm missing something, which I may be
> 
> *




That's assuming that the 3d6 method is how people really are distributed rather than a convenient way to make stats quickly.

But yeah, a commoner could have an 18 strength.  He'd be a real asset on the farm, or a great unskilled laborer.  Without someone to teach him how to fight, he's never going to even become a warrior, let alone a fighter.  Even if he had an 18 intelligence, the spellbook fairy isn't going to show up one day and say "Just look at your stats! You're optimized for being a wizard! Here you go!"

It's about opportunity just as much - if not more than - your raw talent.



			
				Wolfen Priest said:
			
		

> *
> 
> So, if 'normal people' are making the kind of crap wages that they supposedly do, I would think a lot more people would be taking up adventuring than there are normally assumed to be, which of course would ruin the economy, or turn the land into a wartorn mess.
> *




Most first level commoners don't do well on adventures. They tend to die off quickly.  The other first level commoners see this, and decide that their lives are better spent in abject poverty as opposed to 6 feet under.



			
				Wolfen Priest said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Are all PC's born into nobility?  They must be, or nearly so, to start out with the kind of 'starting wealth' that they have.
> *




If a PC is from a poor peasant family, I _will_ want to know how he got that shiny new greatsword and mail hauberk.  Heck, I'll want to know how they learned to be a fighter.  But then, I'm all in favor of, y'know, roleplaying and stuff.

Remember when I said it was about opportunity as much as talent?  That's what makes the PCs special.  They got the opportunity.  Why the PCs? Because 'Dirt Farming & Dunghills' won't sell books.  

(Fans of the PS2 game Harvest Moon, my apologies.)

J


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## Storminator (Sep 20, 2002)

Al said:
			
		

> *Storminator:
> 
> Most of the manufacture in the medieval period was not done by the guilds, who did not resemble modern corporations (and certainly did not resemble the Mafia)  *




Snipped a lot of the other points to focus on this one:

All references to the mafia style guild in my post specifically refer to the guild in my campaign, and the situation the PCs are in. Like I said in the previous post, lets not mix the general discussion with the specific examples.

My game is not a typical D&D game, for a variety of reasons (not medieval, not polytheistic, no wizards, etc). So don't go taking examples from my game and extrapolating them across the D&D universe.

PS


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## seasong (Sep 20, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> Oops! Better rethink that. The tension and wars between church and state in medieval times was considerable and frequent. Both sought to rule the other.



In no wise have I denied that (although I might point out that tension and wars between aristocrats of all stripes, not just clergical vs temporal, was considerable and frequent).

From the perspective of the economy, however, church and state behaved almost identically - both took economic force in, and both spent that economic force on much the same things (impressive architecture, militias, political exertions, decadence).

Again, I'm looking at this purely from an economic perspective. Politics were, _and I agree with you on this_, heavily influenced by who the specific factions were, and whether any given faction was believed to have God on their side.

_(and honestly, I'm not sure we're disagreeing - you seem to be talking more about politics than economic roles?)_


> Were the model for the various deities of the various mythological and fantastical pantheons based on your assumptions as stated, I would have to agree in general.



I made no assumptions, although I did give an example of one possible option which I felt you were ignoring. One which is present even in the medieval church! I suggested that the presence of real deities would _not necessarily_ result in "the same Church structure as without, only more powerful".

Also, while I feel that any deific reality would result in more _power_ among the priesthood (whatever form that priesthood takes), I don't think it would result in rich priests who fulfilled a different role than the aristocrat.







> As they are not, I can freely say that the matter will most likely not resemble what you suggest, other that the fact that the priesthood exercising considerable powers of supernatural and readily observed sort will be most influential, for they are the voice of potent deities who might just send down some plague, a thunderbotl, or the like on the heads of the people who offend.



Well, in the first part, I do not suggest that they would resemble any one thing - I suggested, instead, that no blanket statement would suffice if we are to assume real deities, unless we _first_ make a blanket statement about the exact nature of those deities.

And in the second part, a prevalance of plagues, thunderbolts and the like may result in a different _selection_ of aristocrats, but is not likely to change the economic meaning of the aristocrat...







> In all, the prevelence of clergy shoould be skin to the medieval model, their activities and role expanded because the deities of the fantasy world are manifold, manifest, and their ecclesiastical servants on the world exercise great power.



This assumes again that the deities merely enhance the current structure - that is, they provide priests power, but in no way require that the power be used in a way other than how the priests were using their already impressive social powers. I find a deity with such a completely hands-off managerial style about as believable as the human equivalent... which is to say it could happen, but it's not likely.

And, again, even if the assumption is true, it does not change my statements about economic roles.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 20, 2002)

seasong said:
			
		

> *
> 
> [vast snippage!]
> 
> *




to cut to the chase, I was speaking both economically and politically, but not referring to any model based on the medieval christain one, other than to use it as a reference point for the frequency of clerical personnel and their influence.

I concur that the common people would greatly benefit from the priesthood.

The ecclesiastics would, however, not have greater power in the political or economic afairs of state because of mutliple deities in a pantheon, and the annointing of the temporal rulers by the same deities that the priesthood serves--or more likely the chief deity of the pantheon in regard to the head of state. Thus, as with temporal rulers in history, the head of state would wield some spiritual authority on his own.

Anyway, take a look at my thesis on all this in the EVERYDAY LIFE work when it hits, and then have at me 

Cheerio,
Gary


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## Al (Sep 21, 2002)

> All references to the mafia style guild in my post specifically refer to the guild in my campaign, and the situation the PCs are in. Like I said in the previous post, lets not mix the general discussion with the specific examples.




Okay, sorry about that.



> The average human peasant isn't going to be able to put skill points into most Crafts or Professions because the DM says "no, you don't have anyone to teach you that".




Well...if he isn't going to put them into Craft or Profession skills, then what is he going to put them into?  Go through the peasant skill list.  Climb? No.  Handle Animal?  Perhaps, but then he'd get a job as a Groom.  Jump? Not likely.  Listen? Again, unlikely.  Ride? Highly unlikely considering price of horses vs. peasant wage.  Spot? Unlikely.  Swim? Historically no: most people in medieval period could not Swim.  Use Rope? Perhaps.  So unless he is an expert in Listening, Spotting and Use Ropes (in which case he'd probably be a scout or some such), then he's more likely than not to put skill points into Craft, Profession or Handle Animal, making him 'skilled'.



> Remember, they don't get to optimize. Opportunity is part of it too.




Granted, but then skill points should reflect opportunity.



> Note that any profession that requires any degree of skill earns more.




Clearly incorrect.  Cook requires Profession [Cook] (or at least, I'd hope so) and yet nets only 1 sp.



> Guilds and Companies certainly were powerful and enforced their will by the end of the medieval period and into the Renaissance




I'm certainly not attempting to refute that.  What I am trying to say is that 'strongarm guilds' did not exist: the type described as those who would break the arms of rivals.



> Even if he had an 18 intelligence, the spellbook fairy isn't going to show up one day and say "Just look at your stats! You're optimized for being a wizard! Here you go!"




Perhaps not.  But there are numerous opportunities.  For one, he would have so many skill points that he'd be nigh forced to put ranks into Craft or Profession, enhancing his chances of earning higher wages.  He may be co-opted into the church or another institute of learning.  He may win a scholarship to an institute of higher learning (most European countries had early institutes by the 13th/14th century).  Failing that, he has a respectable default value on skills.

That's one point overlooked: defaulting.  Assuming a six-day week, the average peasant labourer can increase his wage rate MORE THAN EIGHT TIMES simply by defaulting Craft skills.  And whilst the capital may be prohibitive in cost, he can always work for a large guild or company (since they seem to be oh-so-prevalent) as an apprentice labourer.  Even using 'improvised' tools he can increase his wage by between six and seven times.  That's my fundamental problem: the huge dichotomy between the Craft skill/Profession skill earnings and the listed wage rates.  Multiplying by five brings the latter into line with the former.


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## drnuncheon (Sep 21, 2002)

Al said:
			
		

> *
> Well...if he isn't going to put them into Craft or Profession skills, then what is he going to put them into?  Go through the peasant skill list.  Climb? No.  Handle Animal?  Perhaps, but then he'd get a job as a Groom.  Jump? Not likely.  Listen? Again, unlikely.  Ride? Highly unlikely considering price of horses vs. peasant wage.  Spot? Unlikely.  Swim? Historically no: most people in medieval period could not Swim.  Use Rope? Perhaps.  So unless he is an expert in Listening, Spotting and Use Ropes (in which case he'd probably be a scout or some such), then he's more likely than not to put skill points into Craft, Profession or Handle Animal, making him 'skilled'.
> *




Who says he has to put it into class skills?  The peasant doesn't get to minmax, remember?  Maybe he's got some Wilderness Lore - I bet a lot of peasants did.  Knowledge (local), unless he never leaves his house.  Intimidate, if he's a bully.  

And why not Climb or Listen or Spot?  And why does Handle Animal mean he'd get a job as a groom?  How many grooms do you think a settlement needs?  Again, opportunity.



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *
> Granted, but then skill points should reflect opportunity.
> *




That's pretty ridiculous. I know the Declaration _says_ "all men are created equal" but, really.  Why do you think everyone, especially in a medieval setting, is going to have equal opportunities?



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *
> Perhaps not.  But there are numerous opportunities.  For one, he would have so many skill points that he'd be nigh forced to put ranks into Craft or Profession, enhancing his chances of earning higher wages.  He may be co-opted into the church or another institute of learning.  He may win a scholarship to an institute of higher learning (most European countries had early institutes by the 13th/14th century).  Failing that, he has a respectable default value on skills.
> *




All of which means he's probably not a commoner, not an unskilled laborer, and not making 1 sp/day.  That doesn't mean that Joe Commoner without an 18 int should be making more money though!



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *
> That's one point overlooked: defaulting.  Assuming a six-day week, the average peasant labourer can increase his wage rate MORE THAN EIGHT TIMES simply by defaulting Craft skills.  And whilst the capital may be prohibitive in cost, he can always work for a large guild or company (since they seem to be oh-so-prevalent) as an apprentice labourer.*




What makes you think that anyone will pay money to go to Joe Default when they can go to someone with training?  When was the last time you hired a complete novice to perform a service for you or to make something for you?

What makes you think the guild will hire him as an apprentice, when the guild members have children and such of their own to fill the apprentice slots?

There are not an unlimited number of jobs, after all.

J


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## Al (Sep 21, 2002)

> Who says he has to put it into class skills? The peasant doesn't get to minmax, remember? Maybe he's got some Wilderness Lore - I bet a lot of peasants did. Knowledge (local), unless he never leaves his house. Intimidate, if he's a bully.




Wilderness Lore is not particularly likely as most peasants don't leave the home much.  Intimidate is not particularly likely.  He may, I concede, have a few cross-class ranks in Knowledge (local).  Remember, though, that class skills exist because those are the skills most associated with the character archetype: hence, the ones most frequently used by that character.



> That's pretty ridiculous. I know the Declaration says "all men are created equal" but, really. Why do you think everyone, especially in a medieval setting, is going to have equal opportunities?




I didn't.  I said that skill points reflect opportunity.  It is important not to blur the lines between the DnD peasant (who has skill points) and the medieval peasant (who is, by and large, unskilled).



> All of which means he's probably not a commoner, not an unskilled laborer, and not making 1 sp/day. That doesn't mean that Joe Commoner without an 18 int should be making more money though!




Fair point, but I was responded to your point that even characters of 18 int cannot/do not make much of life.  The rest of your argument is dealt with it my other points.



> What makes you think that anyone will pay money to go to Joe Default when they can go to someone with training? When was the last time you hired a complete novice to perform a service for you or to make something for you?




Fact is that they can charge one-quarter the price of the average craftsman, and still double their wage.  And I don't tend to go to novices because I can afford to hire professionals.  That's another big contradiction: on the pittance wage, how can the peasants afford to support the craftsmen in their respective jobs.  If a 'defaulter' charged one-quarter the price of a pro, then Joe Peasant, on his meagre 1 sp/day, is going to go to him irrespective of the quality dropping a tad.



> What makes you think the guild will hire him as an apprentice, when the guild members have children and such of their own to fill the apprentice slots?




True, but bearing in mind that the guild can hire him at quarter the price, it will probably be worth their while to have him in addition to their sons etc.



> There are not an unlimited number of jobs, after all.




In real life, no.  In DnD, yes: and highly lucrative ones if you have ranks in Craft or Profession.


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## darth (Sep 22, 2002)

I am wondering:

Who exactly wrote up the 3e wage system and price sheets, and what was the rationale used?  I rather suspect that less time and effort was put into it than is being put into it here.  (I love the PHB, but books do have deadlines.)  I think the current system works fairly well for dungeoncrawling, but like so much in the DnD world, it falls apart if you peer at it closely.

What makes THIS quirky thing different from, say, hitpoints, is that it's an easily replacable system.   It's just a list of costs.  There are many books available on the topic.  It's true that we won't have a good resource for determining the cost of magic, but remember:  The cost of magic is in comparison to product costs that don't make any sense anyway.  If your DM makes up his own new system, the odds are it won't make any LESS sense than the current 3e costs.

I have a question.  What are some good, easy-to-use-for-gaming pricelists out there?  I heard _..and a 10 foot pole_ mentioned.  Is it really any good?  Or perhaps gurps has some crackerjack things out there I don't know about.  Anyone have something I can bring to the gaming table on this?


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## Tarek (Sep 22, 2002)

*Serfdom*

Here's how serfdom worked:

Joe Peasant, having left his old village due to (whatever), decides to settle down and approaches a lord to farm some land in order to support himself. The lord gives him some land to farm, and says "you owe me x weeks of work every year on those lands that support me directly." Joe peasant agrees to this, because land = life and a secure future for his family.
Joe Peasant is now a serf. He cannot leave his village and lands without the lord's permission, he owes the lord labor, and his heirs after him are ALSO serfs. If he's particularily successful, he can "buy out" the requirement to work the lord's fields by hiring someone else to take his place.
The serf still owes some taxes in addition to the labor requirement, too, but it's much much better than starving to death.

If he wants to become a free man again, he must approach his lord, basically give up at least half his worldly goods (and the land that the lord granted), and hope that the lord finds this agreeable. Or he can try to run away and head for a "charter town," where the town charter states that "anyone, of good character, who lives and works there for a year and a day is a free man."

Further, if you were born a serf and not freed, even if you are a blacksmith or miller, you still owe the lord service, which basically means working for the lord with no compensation.

The Brother Cadfael series of mystery novels by Ellis Peters is a great source of information on how this stuff played out in history. Also, there's "Life in a Medieval Village" and related books by Charles and Francis Gies.

Tarek


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## Dragonblade (Sep 22, 2002)

Instead of everyone going through great pains to "explain" the wealth disparity and problems with the DMG standard of wealth, why don't we just acknowledge that its numbers are totally WRONG and work from there. 

A D&D world would be NOTHING like medieval Europe.  The introduction of magic has such and awesome and profound effect on everything that you have to throw away the entire medieval paradigm and rethink everything.

Why do people hold to this notion of peasants living in abject poverty or serfdom in a D&D world.  This would not happen except in a country ruled by the clerics of a tyrannical pantheon or something.

Just think of the profound effect that something as simple as magical lighting offers.  The everburning torch costs a wizard or sorcerer NOTHING to create and he can do it instantly.  Every home in the land would have 24 hour lighting.

And don't even bring up the tired excuse that the wizards wouldn't mass produce them.  The demand for such a product would be so incredibly high that some enterprising young mage would produce them.  By the barrel load, until they were so common or so many other wizards had joined the market, that it no longer became profitable for him to do so.

And now with 24 hour lighting, you have a 24 hour society that doesn't necessarily go to bed when the sun goes down.  You could double the economic activity of a town.

Furthermore, what lord wouldn't soon have his wizards or druids or whatever, creating spells or implements to improve agricultural production, etc.

Throw in a D&D church which can offer BETTER healthcare then we have in the 20th century and you have a huge population explosion!

Magical or magically enhanced industry would be everywhere.

Many of the prices in the D&D are totally out of whack with the logical economic reality of a world with magic and gods.  The true D&D world would look a lot like ours and would be totally different from medieval Europe.


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## Xeriar (Sep 22, 2002)

Dragonblade said:
			
		

> *
> Just think of the profound effect that something as simple as magical lighting offers.  The everburning torch costs a wizard or sorcerer NOTHING to create and he can do it instantly.  Every home in the land would have 24 hour lighting.
> *




Err, no, it doesn't cost nothing, it costs 50 gp worth of ruby dust.


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## Tarek (Sep 22, 2002)

*Error in assumptions*

Dragonblade, the key here is this:

A standard D&D fantasy world is still very much an agrarian society, NOT an industrial one.

The number of people who have the drive to become clerics is very small. Ditto Wizards, all of the other PC classes and the Adept class. Thus their skills are in high demand, which means that at best they save their abilities for emergencies and at worst they charge through the nose to cast spells.

This bears repeating: a standard D&D fantasy world is not an industrial society.

Simply being able to work during the night does not mean anything for the majority of the people. They already work from pre-dawn to dusk. Working at night just means they get less sleep. Being able to work "round the clock" is only a little bit more useful for craftsmen, but still, the effect of artificial lighting is minimal by itself; you need automation in order to take advantage of the extra time.

The real breakthrough that increased production came with automations like the printing press and the mechanical loom, and it wasn't until the invention of the combination harvester (VERY recent) that crop production ceased being a hand-labor affair.

(yes, this is a bit simplistic.)

Magic can do a lot of things, but it is no substitute for technology. Stop treating magic as a substitute for technology.

To create a "Harvester Golem", a wizard will spend a lot of money and a lot of experience, but no village will be able to afford one. Creating a mechanical device like a horse-drawn combination harvester would also be expensive, but it would be more affordable than any magical construct.

Tarek


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## S'mon (Sep 22, 2002)

I think we all have different ideas on what kind of societies and wealth levels we want in our game, I think arguments that X is the "right" level of wages etc are silly.  I know I start with the society I want, then tweak the prevalence of magic, cost of magic, wage levels etc to fit - I want a vaguely classical/medieval setting with high wealth disparities and relatively little magic, so that's what I implement.

I think the silliest argument though is to argue from the Commoner's skill list that eg they all have Profession (Farmer) or whatever therefore all Commoner's incomes MUST be determined by the PHB income formula, ie vastly higher than the DMG hireling costs.  Does anyone really think that every Profession & Craft gives the same income?  It's a simple abstraction for use _BY PCs_, nothing more.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Sep 22, 2002)

*Re: Error in assumptions*



			
				Tarek said:
			
		

> *Dragonblade, the key here is this:
> 
> A standard D&D fantasy world is still very much an agrarian society, NOT an industrial one.
> *




True, true... though I enjoy speculating what happens when a D&D fantasy society gets an "industrial" approach to magic...

What _would_ happen when magic was used on a massive scale to ensure harvests similar to what can be achieved today, for example?

(shameless plug)

What came out of my speculations can be seen in my homebrew setting, which you can access through the link in my signature.

(/shameless plug)


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 22, 2002)

The social structure of a fantasy world need not be absoutely parallel to any historical example.

The examples given are from the early medieval period in England, some later. Free cities with charters didn't appear until later. Those cities forced and paid the soverign to gain their charters.

Anyway, as the setting is fantasy, alter the social and economic structures to suit the game system and the campaign 

Gary


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## Jürgen Hubert (Sep 22, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *Anyway, as the setting is fantasy, alter the social and economic structures to suit the game system and the campaign
> *




Exactly. If you want, say, lots and lots of cities with hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people in them, you can do that with D&D, too...


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 22, 2002)

Jürgen Hubert said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Exactly. If you want, say, lots and lots of cities with hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people in them, you can do that with D&D, too...    *




Indeed, and you don't need to stray far from an historical model to have a mix of developed states and barbarian lands, with plenty of wild places in there too.

As I noted, I prefer to have the major states more on a Renaissance socio-economic model, with relatiely wealthy populations. This gives both much for the criminals to steal and a great reason for invasions by the "have nots".

With technology advanced to the point where sailing ships are relatively safe and swift, land transport that's past crude wagons, and even canals for passagners and shipping, the potential for different sorts of adventures is much greater.

Cheers,
Gary


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## Mobius (Sep 22, 2002)

> The social structure of a fantasy world need not be absoutely parallel to any historical example.




True enough, but the further you go from a historical example - our only closest reference to 'reality' - the harder it is to suspend disbelief and actually get into the game world to a significant degree.  Those of us with a high level of ability in 'suspending disbelief' could likely have a great time with a very, very unrealistic system.  I, unfortunately, am not one of those folks, and so I very nearly require a plausible social structure and economic system before I start having fun with a game world.

When I still played D&D on a regular basis (instead of semi-regularly like I do now), I had a four step process to get the economics back in line:

1. Reduce ready cash by an order of 100.  Coinage in medieval life was actually pretty rare and tended to be accumulated in the hands of the nobility.  It wasn't until the rise of the wool merchant middle class in England that most commoners had access to more than a few coins here and there.  The 90% of the population that lived in the manorial villages held almost all of their cash in kind, which led me to my next step.

2. Remembering the total wealth of the person before step 1.  I substituted wealth in kind.  Wealthy farmers had land, chickens, pigs, a croft that produced vegetables and fruit, an ox, a couple of cows, a larger cottage, multiple sets of clothing, etc.  Totaling this wealth made a successful farmer very comfortable indeed, but with almost no portable wealth other than the animals.  IMC, city folk were much poorer, with unskilled labourers simply not making it by without steady work.  They had more coinage, to be sure, but almost no food, did not own the roof over their heads, had one set of clothes, etc.

3. Reduce the number of magic practitioners.  Everyday magic makes it all but impossible to balance the economy.  IMC, most villages remembered stories about magic users, but most folks had never seen one with their own eyes and would likely have been very suspicious of one if they had - power is a very frightening thing to those without it.  There were magical guilds in the larger cities, but they might only hold a couple of dozen practitioners and only a small handful of masters.  Priests who could actually cast spells were really, really rare and were almost mythical in nature ... most priests couldn't work those kind of 'miracles' and were just commoners with a much better education.

4.  Use the guild system.  Guilds set prices and make the GM's work a zillion times easier by essentially limiting the price fluctuation of the most common goods.  It is much easier for a GM to decide a supply and demand price for the luxuries and rarities when needed rather than to have to do so with every commodity in the market.  Adjust down 10% for 'close to source', adjust up 10% for 'far from source' and adjust up 20% for 'really far from source' and the GM is essentially done as far as a commodity is concerned.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 22, 2002)

Correct to a point. What I should have stressed was MIXING historical models so as to arrive at a new one that took its various parts from existing historical models.

I totally agree that creating something out of whole cloth demands a great deal of ability on the part of the one who devises the setting, cultures and sociaties, and then ample exposition of that work so as to enable the player participants to relate to the imagined world so different from the ones they have become accostomed to from school studies.

That Jack Vance can manage such settings in his stories is one of the things that so endears his writing to me--his actual style being the principal other factor in his being my favorite author in the genres of F & SF

Ciao,
Gary


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## Jürgen Hubert (Sep 22, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> *
> As I noted, I prefer to have the major states more on a Renaissance socio-economic model, with relatiely wealthy populations. This gives both much for the criminals to steal and a great reason for invasions by the "have nots".
> 
> With technology advanced to the point where sailing ships are relatively safe and swift, land transport that's past crude wagons, and even canals for passagners and shipping, the potential for different sorts of adventures is much greater.
> *




Same here. In fact, in my campaign there exists a valid reason for rulers to want to have cities filled with as many people as possible: They can drain a small part (OK, some rulers draw a rather large part...) of the life energy of a city's inhabitants. This energy can then be used to cast really powerful spells (essentially epic spells - without the aid of epic spellcasters!) or create magic items.

The end result is that magic is used to ensure very large harvests to feed lots of people. The poor are then encouraged to move to the city - but there is less manual labor to do than there are poor people. The end result is that you have large cities with a large underclass - which is what I was aiming for.

(Incidentally, I crunched the numbers one day, and I think quadrupedal, oversized stone golems would be great for moving primitive trains around...)


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## drnuncheon (Sep 23, 2002)

Al said:
			
		

> *
> not all peasants have opportunities
> 
> I didn't.  I said that skill points reflect opportunity.  It is important not to blur the lines between the DnD peasant (who has skill points) and the medieval peasant (who is, by and large, unskilled).
> ...




Sure, whatever.  The people in your world can have fun going to the Skill-O-Matic vending machines.

You're starting from premises that don't make any sense - that your average peasant is going to magically bhe able to get Craft and Profession skills from nowhere, that there is an infinite amount of work for members of any particular Craft, and similar nonsense - and then you turn around and say "See? the system doesn't make sense!"

Garbage in, garbage out.

I don't mind if people say the economics of D&D is "broken", but at least do it based on the faults of the system, not the faults of your own assumptions.  For now, I don't feel like going around in circles anymore.

J


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## jester47 (Sep 23, 2002)

I think we need to take a different approach to economics.

Some thoughts about medieval economics:

We don't understand enough about how economic systems work to even understand our own.  Understanding an alien sytem that we are missing huge ammounts of information about is an even greater challenge.  Trying to comprehend an economy that is just as chaotic but has the unknown aspects of magic in it is most likely impossible to reconstruct with any sort of realism.  

So, instead of trying to revalue equipment prices to fit an inherintly flawed model, why dont we use a system of relative value instead?  That is rate each item on how it relates to everything else.   The standard is the gold piece. 

first use a $ to represent the relative value.  Each $ represents a magnitude of ten.  So if somthing costs 10-99gp it is $$, 100-999gp it is $$$.  For things valued in sp use -$ and things valued in cp use --$.  

Now every area has a "cost index."  This is a number determined by the DM that gives him a ballpark area to price somthing.  It can only range from 1.0 to 9.99~ The further away you get from the centers of production the higher the index gets. 

So here is an example using our friend the 10ft chain. (I have revalued it to 3gp)  

first we look at the chain...  its relative value is $.  
The local index is say 4.5.  So when a character goes to get a chain the local merchant asks 45 silver.  The player thinking that that might be too much haggles it down to 32 silver.

Another example, index is 2.3 (near a large city) and a player is looking to buy a suit of breast plate armor ($$$).  so the bidding starts at 2300 sp.  The player can haggle it to whatever price he wants.  If he was in a place far from civilisation, the index would indicate that the armor was worth more maybe 850.  So say he buys breastplate for 300 and travels to the far reaches of the world, there he retires and decides to lead a life of peace.  His armor is now worth twice as much as when he bought it. 

This system does two things, first it keeps costs relative.  Most of us would agree that a grappling hook and a chest are both in the 1-9.999 gp range.  And we would all agree that a masterwork blade could be sold for 999 gp or 100gp depending on where it was sold and who was selling it.  Second it lets us create the illusion of different economies and situations.  The poor village cant afford to buy five longswords for 250gp but they probably would go for 50gp.  Conversely a player is not going to buy a longsword for 99gp unless it is very unique (but not masterwork).  Then again he might if the salesman is really really good. 

Obviously it can be abused, but I think it works better than saying that an item is a set price everywhere you go.  

Aaron.


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## Dragonblade (Sep 23, 2002)

Ok, my bad about the ruby.  I don't use material components in my game so that completely slipped my mind.

However, a 21st level Epic wizard with the Ignore Material feat could create continual flame torches and it would cost them nothing!  There's a lot of profit to be arealized there for a wizard who doesn't mind spending a prt of his day cranking out magic torches that last forever.

And where does this notion come from that a D&D world would have an agrarian society?  There is no logical basis to support this premise.

Furthermore, assuming that the D&D world is agrarian, with most of the society at a medieval European level, there would be MORE of a drive for people to join the clergy or become wizards, not less.

To know the god you worship is not only real, but to be able to perform real magic from that god would be an incredible thing!  People would line up to join the church.

The same with mages.  What person wouldn't want to be able to fly or cast a fireball?  Or simply be attracted to the prestige and power that a wizard holds?

Again, the notion that wizards or clerics would be miserly with their power is unrealistic and illogical.  Sure some would try to maintain some sort of elitist position, but most would not.  It would not be economically feasible for them to do so.

To attract worshippers, the church would be forced to offer ready access to clerical magic and open the seminary to all who qualify.

Likewise, those wizards that created universities of magic would find their power and ability to conduct research would grow with their student body.  Likewise, the hermit mage would be rendered obsolete.  Unable to match the wealth, power, and spell knowledge of their colleagues who serve as faculty at such an institution, they would quickly disappear.


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## Corinth (Sep 23, 2002)

This doesn't jive with the reality of similiar situations as they happened in history.  Knowledge is power, and the spread of knowledge is the dilution of that power.  Nevermind that most of the people just can't take the chances required to learn to use magic, either because they can't be spared from the farms or because they don't have the Intellegence/Wisdom to make it worthwhile for the teachers to bother.  (And no, it's not worth it to train someone who can't do better than 0th or 1st level spells; 10 or 11 is what most folks have in those scores; they're better off on the farm working with their tools as they always have.)


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## Agback (Sep 23, 2002)

BeholderBurger said:
			
		

> *Electrum is a compound of silver and gold which was actually used throughout history in coinage.*




Not "throughout history".

Electrum is a naturally-occuring alloy of gold and silver in a variable ratio. The first coins known to history were minted out of electrum in the kingdom of Lydia in the sixth century BC. Electrum was quickly replaced as a mintage metal when efficient means of separating it into gold and silver were invented.

Regards,


Agback


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## Chrisling (Sep 23, 2002)

nameless said:
			
		

> *It is really ridiculous how little labor is valued compared to its products. For an example that actually happened in a game I played, our party (with way too much deus ex machina help) beat a dragon in its lair and used the (lower than usual amount, for a dragon) treasure to buy an entire country. We then paid off that countries' debts, and lowered taxes enough that all the citizens able to move to our new country would do so. To top it all off, we threw a huge festival to let everyone know how great our new country was. And we still had enough in the bank to finance the country for years without charging any taxes.
> *




This sort of thing <i>actually happens</i>, sorta.  Not with dragons, of course.  But for a loooooong time the Roman economy was propped up with Egyptian plunder, for instance, and after successful military campaigns it happened repeatedly that, y'know, the monarch would give a general tax amnesty for a period of time, with national celebrations, games and the like.  Nothing quite like, say, sacking Tyre or Damascus to give a monarch more money than even they can spend easily.


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## seasong (Sep 23, 2002)

Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> Anyway, take a look at my thesis on all this in the EVERYDAY LIFE work when it hits, and then have at me




Deal!


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## Storm Raven (Sep 23, 2002)

Dragonblade said:
			
		

> *Ok, my bad about the ruby.  I don't use material components in my game so that completely slipped my mind.*





Well, that _does_ change a lot of things. Many spells that are limited by cost will become much more attractive. Does everyone cas _stoneskin_ a lot in your game?



> *However, a 21st level Epic wizard with the Ignore Material feat could create continual flame torches and it would cost them nothing!  There's a lot of profit to be arealized there for a wizard who doesn't mind spending a prt of his day cranking out magic torches that last forever.*




(a) How many 21st level Wizards are there in a given campaign world? I'm guessing not many.

(b) Don't you think they have better things to do with their time than casting _continual flame_ on a regular basis? Especially since lower level casters can do it as well (albeit with a component cost that to an epic wizard is probably trivial)?


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 23, 2002)

seasong said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Deal!  *




Thanks, seasong

Any critical discussion is useful, especially when some of the material is relatively new and untested. The main thesis I suggest in the work is that the effect of the ecclesiastical communities in the developed states will be salubrious. Such states will in large measure be prosperous and the people well off in regards health and nutrition, even material possessions.

There are all the variables at play, of coure, as mitigated by the deities of the pantheon of a given state, and the acts of their material servants.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## Al (Sep 23, 2002)

> You're starting from premises that don't make any sense - that your average peasant is going to magically bhe able to get Craft and Profession skills from nowhere, that there is an infinite amount of work for members of any particular Craft, and similar nonsense - and then you turn around and say "See? the system doesn't make sense!"




No.  I'm starting from the premise of skill points.  Since there is obviously a misunderstanding, I'll attempt to clarify my position.

1. A peasant has, on average, 12 skill points.
2. He therefore has 12 skill points 'worth' of skills.
3. Given that he has to use the 12 skill points, we have to ask ourselves which it is most likely that he will have skill points in.  I have discussed the other possible skills that he would have them in, and it is fair to assume that he puts some skills into Craft and/or Profession.
4. Thus, he has Craft/Profession skills.

The problem is not in the assigning of the skill points, but in the assumption that there are skill points to assign.  I will freely admit that the average medieval peasant did not have 'skill points': an accurate model would give him far fewer than twelve (and make him illiterate, but that's another topic).  The problem is not the 'automagic' assignment of skills, but the 'automagic' having of skills (and literacy) which I believe to be inaccurate.

Of course, even if the peasant doesn't have Craft skills, then his default nets him more than five times his usual wage, even using improvised tools.  Why would he not therefore do this?

Though, if this still doesn't convince you, I hold to my unassailable point that even 'skilled' professions do not get their dues in the DMG.  The cook earns 1 sp, and since Profession [Cook] can't be used untrained, it is the minimum that (s)he has one skill point in it.  Given a seven-day week (most likely for cooks) and taking the Profession earnings guide, the only way to vaguely reconcile the two would mean she has an average check result of between 1 and 2.  Unless the typical cook has a Wisdom of 1 and is furthered cursed with a -4 to skills, taking 10 will yield more than a check result of 2.

I know that the PHB figures are 'guidelines' to PCs, but is it really right/accurate that PCs should earn manifold that of an NPC for exactly the same job.  Of course not.  However, since the equipment lists are presumably made in mind to the low DMG wages, the better way of reconciling the two may be to divide the Craft/Profession earnings by five.  Or times the DMG wages by five, if you prefer.  But clearly at the current the two are irreconcilable.


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## Mobius (Sep 23, 2002)

> Correct to a point. What I should have stressed was MIXING historical models so as to arrive at a new one that took its various parts from existing historical models.




If I was to give advice to a new GM, I would almost suggest that they avoid mixing historical models too much.  The reason I say this is that the economic aspect of a historical society cannot be 'cut out' of its setting without losing something in the bargain.  The Renaissance, for example, had a strong middle class, transfer notes between moneylenders, trading guilds, prosperous city states, many explorers, etc.  Those financial aspects of society came from the mind set of the day - the world was ripe for the picking and the powerful principle of money as a concept (rather than as coinage) had arisen.

This mindset didn't exist in the Medieval world because of the hazards of travel and the collection of power and physical money in the hands of the nobility and clergy.  Money was wealth, to be sure, but wealth was also physical goods other than coinage to most people - primarily land.  The idea of a piece of paper *representing* wealth would have been all but ludicrous, especially in the early Medieval period.  And yet, this idea is the foundation of all the merchant princes from Venice to Milan ...

If you start mixing and matching throughout history, you end up with an economic system no longer rooted in the culture ... which is one of my goals as a GM.  I admit that one could craft a believeable system out of cobbled bits from history, but I would think it would be much harder than just adopting one wholesale and making minor changes for the magical component.



> That Jack Vance can manage such settings in his stories is one of the things that so endears his writing to me--his actual style being the principal other factor in his being my favorite author in the genres of F & SF




I like him, too.  I put him in with a handful of writers that just 'get it', meaning that they understand that all aspects of culture interact and blend.  He, like the rest of my top five (George R. Martin, JRRT, Gene Wolfe, Kim Stanley Robinson), gives little hints here and there that imply that his societies are dynamic and yet ageless.  One can see *why* things have arisen as they have in his world.


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## Mobius (Sep 23, 2002)

Sorry, dual post.


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## jgbrowning (Sep 23, 2002)

Mobius said:
			
		

> *This mindset didn't exist in the Medieval world because of the hazards of travel and the collection of power and physical money in the hands of the nobility and clergy.  Money was wealth, to be sure, but wealth was also physical goods other than coinage to most people - primarily land.  The idea of a piece of paper *representing* wealth would have been all but ludicrous, especially in the early Medieval period.  And yet, this idea is the foundation of all the merchant princes from Venice to Milan ...
> *




I agree to a point. but the concept of a piece of "paper" representing money goes way way back.  cuniform slabs show basically, IOU's.  There wasn't really paper money as we think of paper money during the "merchant prince' time, it was just an extened series of IOU's.  And the reason that complex system of IOU's developed was the lack of specie to adaquately represent the massess of goods being traded, if i understand correctly.

medieval people understood the value of an IOU from someone who had wealth.  they just didnt NEED as many IOU's as those in the reinasance (oneday i'll see how that is really spelled ) needed.  but.. you probably know this allready and i dont disagree with your post, i guess im just clarifying a bit..

joe b.


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## Mobius (Sep 23, 2002)

I agree and I disagree.

One of money's jobs is accounting (I did $108 worth of work today, you owe me $20), but its other job is to facilitate trade by 'representing' goods and units of labour in perpetuity - and not just with the original transaction.  The cuniform tablets perform the first function of money, but don't perform the second.

I'll give you an example to illustrate what I mean:  

I sell wheat.  Joe sells camels.  Joe needs wheat now, but his camel herd won't be calving until the spring.  He writes an IOU on a tablet, signs it, and I hand over the wheat contingent upon getting 4 camels when the herd calves.  The tablet, in this case, has accounted for our transaction, noting it for later reference.

Now, I am fed up to the eyeballs with wheat - cream of wheat, wheatballs, wheat bread - so I want to buy some rye instead.  I go to Mary who sells rye and she laughs at me because I don't have any more wheat to trade with her.   I could try handing her my tablet showing that Joe owes me four camels, but that is simply a promise from Joe to give them to me and not a guarantee that he in fact will.  Mary, being astute, tells me to shove off until I have the camels.

The tablet, while accounting for physical wealth in a representative form, did not actually perform as *money*, if you get my drift.  I could not trade the tablet for goods, as it were.  

Money, though, you can trade for goods.  Honest to goodness money - without any intrinsic value of its own like a silver coin has - didn't really arise until the late medieval period when certain merchants had so much wealth that their 'promises to pay' were so well regarded they could be traded from one person to another without reduction, with only the last  person cashing it back in with the original merchants.


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## drnuncheon (Sep 24, 2002)

Al said:
			
		

> *
> 
> No.  I'm starting from the premise of skill points.  Since there is obviously a misunderstanding, I'll attempt to clarify my position.
> 
> ...




See, that's where you're falling down - at least IMO.  The peasant doesn't "put" or "use" them anywhere.  He doesn't get to choose "Oh, I think I'll get trained in Craft (pottery)".  Instead, he takes whatever life experiences he gets, and then where his skill points go are figured based on that.

So the peasant who has not had the opportunity to be trained in a craft or a profession does not get to put skill points in that craft or profession.



			
				Al said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Of course, even if the peasant doesn't have Craft skills, then his default nets him more than five times his usual wage, even using improvised tools.  Why would he not therefore do this?
> *




This is the other problem.  The 'make half your check result in gp per week' is a convenient abstraction.  Really, the craftsman should follow the more complex rules, paying for the raw materials (strike one for the moniless peasant) and then spending an appropriate amount of time making the item.  

Let's say Joe Unskilled wants to make an iron pot (5 sp).  First, he needs to spend a day and a half's wages for the raw materials (obviously, nobody's just going to give them to him.)  Then, he gets his improvised tools (-2 penalty).  He works for a week - he's got a 60% chance of not making any progress at all, and a 35% chance of actually ruining his raw materials. What's he going to live on until he gets lucky?

OK, maybe he's...er...making torches.  That's got to be a 'very simple' item, right?  So his average check of 8 times the DC of 5 means he makes 40 sp worth of torches in a week - assuming he can afford the raw materials, of course.  (Which he can't - that's two week's wages for him!).  Now he's got 400 torches - good for him.  Who's going to buy them?  What's the demand for torches?  If all the unskilled laborers are making torches, there's a glut, the bottom drops out of the market because nobody can sell enough torches to live.

Side note: he can't actually take 10 on his Craft rolls - at least, I don't think crafting an item you're not trained to craft is a "routine untrained skill check" given that jumping is OK, but disguise is not.

As a counterexample, take Joe Skilled, a blacksmith with Craft (smithing) +4.  He's going to be able to make 140 sp worth of iron pots in a week - 28 pots or 4/day. 93 sp of that is profit, or 9.3 gp per week - actually _better_ than the PHB rate!  Again, assuming that he sells them - I think we can assume that the difference between the PHB rate and the above figure is due to the fact that Joe probably doesn't have enough commissions to keep him busy 100% of the time.

So, you're right that there's a problem - the problem is in the abstracted "you get half your check result in gp" rule, and blindly applying it in all situations.  It's OK as an abstraction for people actually working in the profession, but it shouldn't be used for unskilled checks.

J
taking 10 on his reality check


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## Dragonblade (Sep 24, 2002)

Corinth said:
			
		

> *This doesn't jive with the reality of similiar situations as they happened in history.  Knowledge is power, and the spread of knowledge is the dilution of that power.  Nevermind that most of the people just can't take the chances required to learn to use magic, either because they can't be spared from the farms or because they don't have the Intellegence/Wisdom to make it worthwhile for the teachers to bother.  (And no, it's not worth it to train someone who can't do better than 0th or 1st level spells; 10 or 11 is what most folks have in those scores; they're better off on the farm working with their tools as they always have.) *




Excellent Corinth!  However, in the real world the church maintained power through controlling knowledge because knowledge was their enemy.  As long as the peasants believed the church spoke for god, they had power.  As soon as educated peasants began to question the so-called divine right of the church, then problems arose.

The wide spread dissemination of knowledge and learning is why organized religion is marginalized in wealthy industrialized nations and still powerful in poorer countries.  People question what they cannot see or touch.  But the poor need their faith because it gives them hope.  The wealthy can afford to be cynical.

Now, I'm not saying there is no God or anything.  I'm a devout Christian, I'm just analyzing this from a socio-political perspective.  As long as God chooses to keep his power largely absent from the mortal plane, the church gains power only through belief of the faithful.

Now, in a world where the power of God (or gods) is very much in evidence, then the church doesn't need to be in collusion with the nobility and doesn't need to keep the people ignorant.  In fact, now knowledge is their ally.  To spread their faith and demonstrate their power they can cast spells.  With a god taking a direct and divine hand in church affairs there will be no corruption and little political in-fighting.  At least in a good church.

Prosperity and knowledge is good for people and can be encouraged without the danger of people growing cynical or disbelieving in their god.  Especially when clerics of your god can raise the dead before your eyes!

And even though many peasants won't have the ability to become clerics, they will be valued as worshippers, and good gods especially will make sure their church cares for their flock.  There will be divine accountability for all clerics.

Likewise, magic is like every other scholarly pursuit.  In the Middle Ages there were many universities and scholars were held in high esteem and regard.   With magic that effect would be amplified even more considering the direct increase in power such knowledge would give you.

And like all scholarly pursuits, the study of magic is helped enormously when like minded individuals can pool their knowledge and resources to share their learning and spells.  Again, those mages of a cooperative mind-set would band together and share their knowledge.  They would form guilds and likely universities to attract more fellows.  And who better to perform tedious research for you than a team of aspiring magi undergrads?

I know many of you prefer to keep your games in a medieval background because it feels comfortable.  But when you really start to think about people and economics in a world with magic, the path it takes you down is quite fascinating.


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## SHARK (Sep 24, 2002)

Greetings!

Well, there are several thoughts that I have on this subject. Dragonblade makes some excellent points, of which I entirely agree! True, many people like to maintain the game world like a 12th century European analogue. That's fine, of course, and even fun. However, I don't think it is very consistent though, and on close consideration, numerous problems arise. Consider:

Point #1: Lets say you start the campaign with such a fixed, 12th-century European model, with Party A.

I would submit that somewhere in the campaign world, even in the larger society that Party A is familiar with, there would be a nobleman who would see the value of magic being applied to society in broader ways. It also follows that it wouldn't be extraordinary for such a nobleman to find a wizard or two, a cleric, and some wealthier merchants. 

The organization, production, and application of magic throughout society may not happen in that generation, or even the next. Certainly, though, the availability of lighting, wishes, permanency, disease-healing, healing, restoration, mending, cold/heat spells, fly, and on and on--the variety is endless--in and of itself would utterly change the much-cherished 12th-Century European model in so many huge ways, the environment would be radically and dramatically different.

Now, take that great vision of magic being applied throughout society, and run with it out through several generations. Think about the many huge ways such use of magic would effect society. Think about the effects three, four, five generations down the road.

And yet, in the same campaign world, five campaigns later, with Party E, the campaign world hasn't changed a bit. Everything is the same artificial 12th-Century European model.

Point #2: The application of magic in a variety of ways would certainly change the speed, quality, and modes of production in many if not all professions. Such productivity, would effect so many different things, like the following:

(1) Hot/Cold running water
(2) Sewage/waste removal
(3) 24-hour lighting
(4) Heating/Cooling
(5) Cold Storage
(6) Cooking enhancements
(7) Magical Travel Enhancements
(8) Magical Communications Enhancements
(9) Disease/Healing/Resurrection
(10) Wish/Building spells
(11) Enhanced Agriculture/Production
(12) Enhanced Animals

All of the above, just to start with, would change the productivity of society in nearly every way. The increased production would result in greater resources, greater wealth, and a changing of society's disposable time and wealth. These factors, in turn, would combine to create a driving force of magic, culture, and economics that, given even a few generations of dedication and passionate effort, would utterly change society.

For example, though 24-hour lighting, by itself, does not equal a full-scale industrial revolution--but it does equal the easy access to "electricity". The impact of easy and mass access to 24-hour lighting by everyone in society cannot be underestimated. It may not obviously have an immediate industrial effect, but it does mean, that for whoever can imagine and dream, and improve and use that lighting, that society is not restricted to the natural lighting and limitations of daylight. Many different societal nuances and enhancements can be imagined with just 24-hour lighting. That single factor alone can change the way society thinks, what it values, and how it spends its time.

Armourers, weaponsmiths, craftsmen of all types, can now work in three shifts. The same people aren't losing sleep--they can afford to hire more people, to increase production, and ship goods further away to meet growing demands in greater markets. This in turn, creates more wealth, becasue there are more skilled citizens making more money from professional skills. This in turn means that there is a greater degree of disposable income, which can in turn lead to new entertainments, 24-hour nightclubs, theaters, whatever, as new buisnesses arrise to meet the new demands of increasingly prosperous citizens, with more time and more discretionary income to spend. This in turn changes the nature of society even further, as people can also afford the time and wealth to become more educated and knowledgeable, which in turn adds to the societal force of change on a broad front.

Do you see? Unless the campaign world is forcibly kept in a fixed time-bubble, where progress is impossible, given ten generations from the beginnings of a decently professionalized and organized town, all of society would be dramatically different from the 12th-Century European Model.

The fact that these societies always seem to remain in 12th-Century mode, is thus inconsistent with the access and application of magic. Thinking through these concepts would change the society of the campaign in huge broad ways, that can be very interesting and fun to explore! Many people seem very hesitant to apply these concepts, even though that the availability of magic seems prima facie to utterly change things, and yet, because they are uncomfortable with such, they keep the same paradigm, regardless of how inconsistent--even with the stated magic levels--the campaign world would thus be.

Just some thoughts!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 24, 2002)

Shark,

You get my vote on this matter 

Gary


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 24, 2002)

*All right...  We basicly agree then...*

All right...  We basically agree then...

The standard "Dark Ages" model of economy does not work for the following reasons:

Magic:
   If you figure that 10% of the population can use magic of some kind (Wizards, Sorcerers, Priests, Psionics, and Adepts), then this instantly changes everything we know and love in the time period.  Even if you figure that half of this total number is first level, then every half left over is one level higher (1000 x 1st, 500 x 2nd, 250 x 3rd, 125 x 4th, etc...),  then you still have huge change in the way business works.
   Example:  A 1st level expert Armor Smith wants to make chain mail.  This takes a large number of man hours to do.  Now a first level Adept Armor Smith craft skill comes along with a 1st level spell:  Make Link.  It's only effect is to take a 1" piece of metal wire and bend it into a circle, then weld it shut.  Range of touch, duration 1 hour per level.  How much more chain mesh do you think the Adept can make than the Expert?  Uh huh...  A days worth of labor done in an hour, and he still has all day to work on other projects.  Mend is an easy one to figure out...
   And do you think the smith will sell this chain mail made in 1/5 the time at the same price as the Expert?  Nope!  That's just D&D fake economy for you.  He would sell it cheaper since he can sell MORE per month, and it took him less man hours!  Poor Expert, progress got him...  This is the beginning of magical tech advances.
  Now lets discuss the magic of HEALING!  Lets see...  All a healer ever has to do is get a person one their feet and out of danger (above 0 HP and disease free).  Since curing the disease also prevents its spread, plague would almost be impossible (it can happen, but it would take a nasty disease to do it...).  Even if you go with the fact that Childbirth can cause con damage to the mother, a restoration after birth can do wonders.  What church is not going to keep the children as health as possible, since they are its future!  Population boom!  Need more food!  And now the temple begins blessing the farms and cattle to increase the food supply.  Area gets stronger, people LOVE the church, and heretics get crisped by the locals without any church intervention!

MONSTERS:
   Lots of happy health people mean lots of health well fed monsters!  Admit it!  Monsters, if given the choice between a cow or the milkmaid, will choose the milkmaid every time!  Thats why they are monsters!  Thats why there are adventurers!  Monsters eat 100 milkmaids, heroes kill monster, hero's get milkmaids' purses for whatevery they were carrying?  Heros spend money on people.  Repeat....

Yes, I know it's way oversimplified and that you all already knew this, but the point is, the peasants are not going to be that poor in a D&D world unless they are being TAXED TO DEATH!  
<cough> or eaten <cough cough ...

All right.  Heckle me!


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## herald (Sep 24, 2002)

Everytime this topic comes up, it would seem that people tend to grab on to on part of the subject and run with it, and forget many other hurtles that might cause economic models for stagnate.

Most commercial D&D settings are seemed to be locked into a modified middle ages economic system for many centuries longer than our own world went through.

Why? Well, there are two answers. The funny one and the generic long drawn out one.

The first answer is simple. People like the idea of Medieval adventure, hence they expect it to resemble that model. Nevermind the fact that many people have a movie/reniassance/medieval fair concept of it.

The second answer is life in a fantasy world is much more difficult than our own.

1) Magical light is not going to bring any sort of real sort of industrilization if resources are not plentyful enough, and easy enough to get from where ever they come from to the center in which they are mass produced.

2) (In most settings that I know of) Clerics and Wizards aren't typical people. Very few of them exist in any areas, and people can't just make the choice of become one. Clerics have to have a calling from the gods and Wizards have to have the right talent that can't just be tought.

3) When you become a high level magic wielding individuals, chances are you are a mark from other individuals.  Your alignment doesn't matter. What does matter is simple. There are forces at play in the Universe that opposse your ethos (even if your Neutral) and are going to try and bring you down. Be it people or creatures you crossed on your way up the xp ladder, or a prime target for new adventuring party, or perhaps even a target for extradementional/divinie/profane creatures hoping to shift the ethos of the poeple in that area in a certain direction. You are just as much a target as the opponents that you fell.

4) Being a pesant isn't as cut and dry as many people think. I was in Russia recently and was in an actual "Peasant log cabin" The thought that went into the works was alot more indepth than you might think. But lets look more into western Europe from the time being.

a) Granted, a fuedal peasant, in other words, a serf, is going to very likely to be poor, and under educated, but have a very short life span. But if they were smart and lucky, they may buy there way out to freedom. Or, if they can't buy there way out, they may just bolt. Running while you are an endentured servant is risky, if you get caught, your going to get dragged back and beaten, or perhaps killed. (Maybe both). But if you can get to a city, and prove to someone there that you have some sort of talent, you might be able to make a living there, and at that point you are a freeman.

b) You could be a freeman and a farmer. Many families elevated themselves to some small power this way. But this meant that you controled some amount of land. Chances are that life is better for you than the serf.

Now lets take account what might happen in a "peasants" aka "Commoners" life in this fantasy world, with some real world examples.

1) A peasant might be pressed into service for a simple seige, or they might even be called into a crusade. (Multi-classing anyone). The peasant might pickup one or two levels in warrior, or worse they might die.

2) A peasant might be pressed into/conviced to assist building a religious building and/or fortress. Local peasants would brought into the construction on some days and still expected to farm thier lands. A real hard time, but it happened. Practicality insists that peasants are trained in atleast one or two more skills, if not more. Look to Reading and more advanced mathmatics getting more wide spread. (More multi-classing.) Then again, maybe wall will fall on them. Construction isn't always safe now, it sure wasn't then. Or maybe just the staggering work load will get them.

3) Your average peasant farmer has to endure drought, floods, winters, crop failure, insect infestations and many other problems, not to mention disease. Finding fresh, potable water can be a real chalenge. (Many people drank what was called "small beer" instead of water.) Plus you had to hope that your fellow local peasants were trustworthy and sane. You add to the fantasy aspect to that and you can add to you worries things like: ankhegs, bulettes, Orcs, undead, slavers, Necrmancers (Hey, those armies of zombies have to come from some were, this little hamlet looks as good an any place to start). This list can go on and on. The commoner doesn't have to defeat these, he just has to figure out a way to survive these threats. Don't be surprised if some of these learn hide, discern intent, the like to do it.

So we can look back at this and see that medieval society is built the peasants back. A back that is attached to a body that has the potential to learn a variety of things, and an even higher potential to die young.

If there are no throngs of people tring to make there way into the city, like the enclosurements that happened in England's history (A time that didn't fall until after Henry the VIII died) the beginings of industrilization of a civilization can't really get off the ground.

In order to bring a fantasy world like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms in to an industrial age, you would need to have a reniassance period, where nations start to centralize there governments. (Hard to do when you have high level characters about). And start building a strong middle class in most nations, (IMHO) including the nations that have been considered "evil". 

Until that happens, these worlds will end up in a bizarre economic model that would find most items prices in flux. Any mid-level character party can play havok with a economy by happering one industry or city.


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 24, 2002)

*More of the same...*

Actually, Herald, I think we do understand that.  The problem is, only your first reason (we want it that way) makes any differance.  As I said,  The money/people model you are speaking of cannot survive in a world of high magic where someone, somewhere can cast 9th level spells.

Let me give an example.  A 5th level wizard spell, Wall of Iron, costs 50 GP to make a wall that is a huge number of tons of pig iron (I say this since it seems fairly easy to break through 3 inches of it.)  Once smelted down into steel, this is worth much more than the original 50 GP!  This is not an error, but a statement of economy.  Who would not purchase wizard iron at a cost the fraction of what it would cost to mine, move, and smelt it?  Saying a wizard would not use it that way is not silly, It's STUPID!  Of course he will do this!  Spell research cost money, Ink costs money,  food costs money!!!  Can you actually picture a poor, destitute mage of high level?  Uh huh...

But what about mass production?  Well, you can't mass produce magic items, but you can make a magic item that mass produces a normal item!  

A wizard of means (he's rich guys...) has a brother in the city who is an armorer.  He asks, if you can make a Wall of Iron, then why can't you make a Breastplate with a spell.  Huh...  Well, after about 3 moths of research, he makes a new magic item.  5 times per day, over a period of about an hour, it makes a basic breastplate out of steel and spits it out a slot.  It needs some coal to keep the fires hot (elemental fire it too dangerous), and some ore loaded in the top (wall of iron built in costs too much).  It does not use charges, and cannot be moved very easy (several tons weight).  Bound to it is a happy little Azer (sp?) that hammers out the breastplate to the right shape for the new owner.  The Azer has been well paid, and only appears to hammer the breastplate to the needed size, so is free do what it wants the rest of the time...

Over time, it makes back the mony spent to make it in the first place, just by freeing the smiths hands...

OMG!!!  Mass production.  What can stop it!

Lots of angry armor smiths coming for blood...  

You see, if a improvment is good for everybody (improved agriculture) then no one complains.  But if it is only good for some and bad for others, the others pick up thier hammers and break the improvment, along with the some...

It's in american history guys...  As well as the rest of the world.

The problem is, you can never put the Azer back in the bottle...  

Class dismissed!

PS:  The first one of you who says a wizard would not do this gets smacked with a fish!  It only takes one!  And there is always a Tesla waiting for his chance at history...


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## herald (Sep 24, 2002)

Except on problem teach. 

I'm the armorer on the other side of town and I look into see just how you do such a thing, then I take that information to another spell caster and he says, "Wow, thats a dumb idea, with dispel magic, I can make that guys armor disappear. 

Well the armorer feels that hes going to fall behind meny wise and he then turns around and sells that information to the rogues guild. Soon rogues are following customers around till they can get they into a comprimising position and zap them with a wand of dispel magic. Now you have a very angry customer and merchant with a bad reputation. Heavans forbid that this happens to a noble, you can be sure no matter how powerful you are, your going to have alot of explaining to do.

So back to the drawing board teach, you haven't got a form of mass production that will work.


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 24, 2002)

Herald, I understand your idea.  Used it myself in 2nd edition.

You are wrong.  

First, even if it was made from a Wall of Iron spell,  IT CANNOT BE DISPELLED.  It's and instant spell, like healing, and has zero residual magic to dispel.  

Second, even if you play it that it can be, please read the item description.  It says it takes base materials and makes it into an item.  Think "mend"...  There is nothing to dispel here either.

Course you could dispel the machine,  But it's hard, and if the local guard caught you at it, you might be looking at foure stone walls and bars... (think theft of time... etc...)

Try again Herald, I WANT an argument to stop this.  Because I like a non-industrial base too.

PS.  Like I said, this would have worked in 2nd and 1st edition, and god did I use it as a player!  HOYA!


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## jasper (Sep 24, 2002)

Shark -theatre was around since Greeks and geeks. Good Ideas I will try to run with it.

M1972- links were generally riveted not welded but good spell. Keep 1 st level, duration of 10 minutes and up to 1 Pd of object. Not using D&D figurers but a shirt weight in between 18 to 22 PDS. So the spell would take 20 castings or 20 days for the 1-st level adept. Humm. Maybe have Make Link 2 – x each a higher-level spell for more material.
Or to go with the touch equals link 1-hour duration. Figure 2 seconds to grab the wire, start in the weave and hit with magic (60 seconds / 2) * 60 minutes equals 1,800 links. I will be nice and say a shirt is 18,000 links so that is 10 spells and 10 days for our magic fingered mailer. Still need a Make Link 2 with a two-hour or greater duration. At sixteenth (16) level the smith can get fabricate and make a shirt a day.  Does not look too good for lusty young smith. 

I use the breakdown in DMG for cities. Year 1 is where the city obtains the distribution. 
Hartsford base 5000 adults
1st level
Commers	4098
Warriors	 225
Experts	 125
Aristocrats	  25
Adepts		  32  16 2(nd) 8 (4th) 4 (8th) 2(16th) 
Let use the adepts as base for clerics, druids, wizards and sorcerers. Assume half go up 1 level per year with no causalities. 
The hills near by have good precious metal and precious stones mines.
The gods are among us and are happy. All the divine casters must cast some spells to promote the welfare of city and the god. It a one god town to ignore those minor alignment and crusades. Use the cleric spell chart as a base
Arcana casters must cast 1 spell per day for the public good except for those who drain xp. For every 500 xp cost caster is immune from public service for a week. 
All material cost paid by city. 
Year 1
800 levels able to cast zero level spells
186 people are able to cast at least one first level divine spells per day.
90 people are able to cast more one first level divine spells per day. 276 spells available today
42 people are able to cast at least one second level divine spells per day. 42 second level spells available today. 
18 people are able to cast at least one third and one fourth level spell per day. 18 3 rd and 18 4 th spells are able today.
6 people are able to cast one spell each  5 to 8 th level.
0 ninth levels available.

400 gallons of water and 400 pds of food can be purified. So call it 400 able to eat and drink clean food.
Or the 4 arcana casters can spend 500 xp each and 4 wells can be Permanency with Purify Food and Drink 
Remove disease is third level so at least 18 people are safe from the black plague. Create food and water is third level so 18*3 = 54 people get Mres per day.

So Shark and M1972 are going on the correct path. You may end up with a lot multiclass npcs. Some due to various experiences and others would cross train if they could not get higher level spells. But think how easily it is mess up public works with permanency on them. Joe Blow adventure taking his +1 hammer to the well oops. 

So the modern type civilization is possible with some forethought, strong rulers, and willing subjects. But release a pack of middle level adventurers into the town and the damage would be high


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## herald (Sep 24, 2002)

I haven't found anything in the spell desription to back up what your saying, nor have found anything in the current faq about that. 

Mend and heal are different because thier actions not objects. 

Not to mention that your concept still falls flat because while you might be able to mass produce, you more than likely don't have a demand. At least a demand that would be able to meet the cost of what your doing.

Where your spell falls down is simple. Your making a refined object out of nothing. There are no spells that really do that. even still, lets move on with that idea. first, its going to be a higher spell 5th level. Were talking about 7th or 8th. And your component cost is going to he higher.

Now let's look into some other real world problems.

Lets suppose you start cranking out breastplates just as quick as they put out rapiers in the reniassance. Pretty soon people start using this false bravado and to cause trouble, and before you know it, you could find the your product outlawed.

Not to mention that the miners guild and armorer guild are going to have a real problem. Before long, they do anything to destroy your reputation, and petition to have you device destroyed or taken away. Perhaps they will even get chuches involved in going after you. Or maybe something worse will happen, the device will be stolen or confiscated by a individual who has other uses for it. (queue evil music here)

Here is the thing that you have to remember. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It's true in laws of science as well as human nature.  Not everytime someone tries to implement a revolutionary idea has it work. There have to be many other factors that allow it to exploit its full potential.


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## SHARK (Sep 24, 2002)

Greetings!

Hey there Gary! I'm glad you like my ideas! I think that trying to "force" the 12th-Century European model, no matter how cherished, seems contrived after a short period of time, and flies in the face of the diverse powers of magic, and of human--and non-human!--desire for progress and change. All such creatures and races that have access to arcane and divine magic cannot really be seen as "static". 

For example, we all know how prolific and powerful the various spell-lists are, and how useful they are to adventurers and in all forms of combat--I simply reject the streroetype that Wizards are all isolated, selfish, bitter hermits, and that the various clerics and druids throughout the area have no problem in using their magic to help the all-important adventerers, but somehow, using magic to make lasting, dramatic changes to society on a broad scale is simply beyond them, you know?

Indeed, making magic items, technology, and deploying such magical power to effect the changes I listed may not be as flashy as defeating a dragon, or hordes of demons, but in the long-term, are such achievements any less glorious?

King: "Well, wizard, what have you done lately to earn my financial and political support for all of these years?"

Wizard: "Well, sire, I have not defeated any dragons, or hordes of demons, but I have initiated a comprehensive program that in twenty years time will have every city and town in your kingdom lit 24 hours a day, have running water, efficient sewage removal, and countless other improvements that will enhance everyone's lives--whether they be humble farmer, merchant, or wealthy noble. In cooperation with several larger churches, the majority of the population will be wealthier, have more discretionary time and income, be happier, more productive, and live longer, healthier, happier lives. These changes will gradually combine to make you and your descendents fabulously wealthy, and the whole kingdom will be greatly advanced. Your reign will go down in history as the greatest rule to bring such glorious and beautiful changes to the whole society, that you will forever be remembered with love, admiration, and respect. In addition, for the kingdoms and peoples that live in ignorance and darkness, your kingdom will be the envy of all of your neighbors. As the knowledge and skills spread, our neighbors will become advanced and more successful, and be better able to participate even more fully with our own great magics, scholarship, and advanced economy. The more our neighbors adopt our ways, the more productive they will become, and the more wealthy and productive we will become as well.

These are the things that I have done in service to you sire, and the righteous kingdom that is your domain!"

It makes me think of how shallow and petty the streotypical wizard or cleric is often portrayed. These powerful people are all focused on fireballs and Greater Disjunctions, by do they nor have families? Do they not have children and grandchildren? Do they not have desires to change the grinding poverty, disease, and struggles of everyday people, that are all--to one degree or another, important to them?

A corrollary is, if magic can make fireballs and wishes, but it can't make running water, increased lifespans, make work easier, and increase the joy of life in so many smaller, simple ways, what good is it? 

It seems incongrious to me that magic would be used always for adventurers, and all kinds of esoteric "research" for bigger and flashier spells, but somehow, many mundane improvements that would make huge differences in millions of peoples' lives is somehow so easily overlooked, ignored, and discounted, by people who have very real abilities to make such huge differences. 

Even if you say this wizard is a hermit, and that one, and this cleric doesn't care, fine. But all of them? That doesn't strike me as very realistic, in considering human nature, and progress. Magic would be used for a thousand different purposes, not merely for combat artillery, or for the priviledged use of adventurers. Indeed, the application of magic on a broad scale throughout society can be seen to be in the long run, far more important and profitable than any particular adventuering group. The needs of an entire society calls out for the use of magic in so many ways that are far more interesting than what adventurers would seek to use it for. It is this incongrious notion that doesn't really take into consideration the enormous scope for change and improvement that magic being applied throughout society can really effect.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 24, 2002)

*Herald, you are not even trying...*

Herald, you are not even trying...

Please READ the posts and then argue.  As of this moment, you seem to be trolling for a fight.  Please give more useful arguments.  

To prevent confusion, here are the complete listings of the spells involved.  Please note the bolded portions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wall of Iron

Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect: Iron wall whose area is up to one 5-ft. square/level (see text)
Duration: *Instantaneous* 
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: No

The character causes a flat, vertical iron wall to spring into being. This wall can be used to seal off a passage or close a breach, for the wall inserts itself into any surrounding nonliving material if its area is sufficient to do so. The wall cannot be conjured so that it occupies the same space as a creature or another object. It must always be a flat plane, though the character can shape its edges to fit the available space.

The wall of iron is 1 inch thick per four caster levels. The character can double the wall’s area by halving its thickness. Each 5-foot square of the wall has 30 hit points per inch of thickness. Creatures can hit the wall automatically, but it is so hard that the first 10 points of damage from each blow are ignored. (For example, a blow of 17 points of damage deals only 7 to the wall.) A section of wall whose hit points drop to 0 is breached. If a creature tries to break through the wall with a single attack, the DC for the Strength check is 25 + 2 per inch of thickness.

If the character desires, the wall can be created vertically resting on a flat surface but not attached to the surface so that it can be tipped over to fall on and crush creatures beneath it. The wall is 50% likely to tip in either direction if left unpushed. Creatures can push the wall in one direction rather than letting it fall randomly. A creature must succeed at a Strength check (DC 40) to push the wall over. Creatures with room to flee the falling wall may do so by making successful Reflex saves. Large and smaller creatures who fail take 10d6 points of damage. The wall cannot crush Huge and larger creatures. 

Like any iron wall, this wall is subject to rust, perforation, and other natural phenomena.

Fabricate

Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: See text
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: Up to 10 cu. ft./level (see text)
Duration: *Instantaneous*
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

The character converts material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If the character works with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.

The character must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship (jewelry, swords, glass, crystal, etc.).

Casting requires 1 full round per 10 cubic feet (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell.



Dispel Magic

Abjuration
Level: Brd 3, Clr 3, Drd 4, Magic 3, Pal 3, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Target or Area: One spellcaster, creature, or object; or 30-ft.-radius burst
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

The character can use dispel magic to end ongoing spells that have been cast on a creature or object, to temporarily suppress the magical abilities of a magic item, to end ongoing spells (or at least their effects) within an area, or to counter another spellcaster’s spell. A dispelled spell ends as if its duration had expired. Some spells, as detailed in their descriptions, can’t be defeated by dispel magic. Dispel magic can dispel (but not counter) the ongoing effects of supernatural abilities as well as spells. Dispel magic affects spell-like effects just as it affects spells.

*Note: The effects of spells with instantaneous duration can’t be dispelled, because the magic effect is already over before the dispel magic can take effect.*

The character choose to use dispel magic in one of three ways: a targeted dispel, an area dispel, or a counterspell:

Targeted Dispel: One object, creature, or spell is the target of the spell. The character makes a dispel check against the spell or against each ongoing spell currently in effect on the object or creature. A dispel check is 1d20 +1 per caster level (maximum +10) against a DC of 11 + the spell’s caster level.

If the spellcaster targets an object or creature who is the effect of an ongoing spell (such as a monster summoned by monster summoning), she makes a dispel check to end the spell that conjured the object or creature.

If the object that the character targets is a magic item, the character makes a dispel check against the item’s caster level. If the character succeeds, all the item’s magical properties are suppressed for 1d4 rounds, after which the item recovers on its own. A suppressed item becomes nonmagical for the duration of the effect. An interdimensional interface (such as a bag of holding) is temporarily closed. Remember that a magic item’s physical properties are unchanged: A suppressed magic sword is still a sword (a masterwork sword, in fact). Artifacts and creatures of demigod or higher status are unaffected by mortal magic such as this.

The character automatically succeeds at the dispel check against any spell that the character cast.

Area Dispel: The spell affects everything within a 30-foot radius.

For each creature who is the target of one or more spells, the character makes a dispel check against the spell with the highest caster level. If that fails, the character makes dispel checks against progressively weaker spells until the character dispels one spell (which discharges the dispel so far as that target is concerned) or fail all the character's checks. The creature’s magic items are not affected.

For each object that is the target of one or more spells, the character makes dispel checks as with creatures. Magic items are not affected by area dispels.

For each ongoing area or effect spell centered within the dispel magic’s area, the character makes a dispel check to dispel the spell.

For each ongoing spell whose area overlaps that of the dispel, the character makes a dispel check to end the effect, but only within the area of the dispel magic.

If an object or creature who is the effect of an ongoing spell, such as a monster summoned by monster summoning, is in the area, the character makes a dispel check to end the spell that conjured the object or creature (returning it whence it came) in addition to attempting to dispel spells targeting the creature or object.

The character may choose to automatically succeed at dispel checks against any spell that the character cast.

Counterspell: The spell targets a spellcaster and is cast as a counterspell. Unlike a true counterspell, however, dispel magic may not work. The character must make a dispel check to counter the other spellcaster’s spell.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will not argue these facts any further.  Herald, please research your information.  In other words:  RTFM.



Mr. Oberon


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## Al (Sep 24, 2002)

> So, you're right that there's a problem - the problem is in the abstracted "you get half your check result in gp" rule, and blindly applying it in all situations. It's OK as an abstraction for people actually working in the profession, but it shouldn't be used for unskilled checks.




Agreed, more or less; but I see the thread has moved on, so we'll leave it amicably here.

Now onto the other point, of magic changing society.  I don't believe it would necessarily.

1. *Overestimation of Casters* 



> If you figure that 10% of the population can use magic of some kind (Wizards, Sorcerers, Priests, Psionics, and Adepts)




Well, this is a false starting point.  Taking the DMG's advice that only one-tenth of the population lives in settlements larger than villages, we shall take the village.  With a community modifier of -1, we can calculate the following: 3.5 clerics, 3.5 druids, 3.5 adepts, 1.75 sorcerers and 1.75 wizards; no paladins or rangers of spellcasting level.  So, in a village of 650, only 14 people can cast spells; this is a fair compromise as the proportion will rise in larger settlements and fall in smaller settlements.  This is a mere 2%.



> Even if you figure that half of this total number is first level, then every half left over is one level higher (1000 x 1st, 500 x 2nd, 250 x 3rd, 125 x 4th, etc...),




Again, this does not correspond to the DMG standards, whereby a high level character generates twice as many of half his level, not his level-1.



> Adepts 32 16 2(nd) 8 (4th) 4 (8th) 2(16th)




Wrong way round.  You start at the top then halve; so the highest level adept is (average roll) level 6/7.  Which means 2 level 3 adepts and the rest level 1.  This is turn means that only one person can cast 2nd level spells in the adept community.  Extend it to other spellcasters, and on average you get one caster of 4th level spells, 3 of 3rd level spells and a few more 2nd level spellcasters.  Nowhere near your professed totals.

2. *Lack of Organisation* 

The assumption made here are that the caster goes all-out 'for the good of society'.  Whilst this may be true of good-aligned clerical orders, this is far from true of the general population of spellcasters.  They are not going to train for years in order to set around all day acting as water purifiers; at least, not in the quantity and at the price that has been asserted here.

The notion cited that they would be coerced into doing so is even more ludicrous: if the local ruler tries to coerce them, he may at best face unrest and at worst face an outright spellcaster-led revolution.  Not to mention the fact that the notions of a permanent standing army and of a powerful central government are alien to the feudal period (both evolved in c. 15th century).

3. *Social Issues* 

A few months ago I posted a satirical thread which detailed how one could bring about an Industrial Revolution by having all the high-level spellcasters in the world manufacture Murlynd's Spoons.  This would solve all food problems, release the general populace from agriculture, and cause an Industrial Revolution overnight.  Whilst from a rational, 21st century economic standpoint this is not only sensible but lucrative (as the wizard could make a fortune charging a pittance for their Murlynd's Meals with little running costs) it is clearly incredible.  No one here, I hope, would suggest that this is what high-level spellcasters would do.

That's part of the problem.  Everyone here is assuming modern socioeconomic thinking.  In order to have an Industrial Revolution, there must be certain factors which are not present in the feudal set-up.
The concept of mass production
An effective banking sector
Some ideas of modern capitalist thinking
The availability of technology at cheap prices, available to the masses
None of these are necessarily inherent to the 'magic revolution'.  Even the last point on the list is precluded by the generally held conception that, even if the wizard were to 'market' his powers, it would probably be to the wealthy few, not the impoverished multitude.

All in all, magic cannot make an industrial revolution alone.  It may aid in that end, but until the correct social circumstances are met, I see little chance of magic on its own bringing a world out of the medieval era.


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 24, 2002)

Hi Shark!

Well, yes, there would certainly be some considerable advances in technology and lifestyle, standard of living because of magic.

I believe regular magic, limited as it it in its able practitioners, would be something that the upper class would mainly enjoy the benefits of. The rest would have only marginal gain--although as you point out running water and sanitation in communities of any size is not really marginal at all.

The clerical magical applications would be very broad and general, from top to bottom, with the upper tier getting the really large benefits, of course.

As I have stated several times, the ecclesiastical community would be as large as it was in the early middle ages, and those prieste, priestesses, friars, monks, and nuns would all be using varying drgrees of clerical magic power to assist the people. This would affect weather, crops, food production, health, and so forth.

With more agricultural wealth comes the capacity to exploit other natrual resounces,  the need for trade, transportation, and foreign commerce. From that develop all sorts of associated industries as well as a growing market for imports, luxury goods too.

This line of thinking is set forth in the EVERYDAY LIFE book that I've just sent in to Troll Lord Games. Not wanting to rehash my work there, I'll let it go with that.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 24, 2002)

*Hi Al!*

Hi Al!

Actually, the number of magic using people does not have as much an impact on this as you would think.  Also, keep in mind differing worlds have differing percentages of magic in thier world.  I was only giving an example from my worlds.  Please excuse the lack of information I gave.

*Quote: "The assumption made here are that the caster goes all-out 'for the good of society'. "* 

No, It does not.  It never had anything to do with the good of the people.  It has to do with a wizard who wants to crank out 5 breastplates per day as a constant source of income.  He gives it to someone (as powerful people tend to do...  Elvis cars anyone?), and he begins to profit from it.  Or the mage has someone manage it for a wage.  You get the idea.

*Quote: "The notion cited that they would be coerced into doing so is even more ludicrous." * 

Where did I quote this?  Or is it someone else?

*Quote:
-------------------------------------
The concept of mass production

An effective banking sector

Some ideas of modern capitalist thinking

The availability of technology at cheap prices, available to the masses
----------------------------------------
* 

Your argument says we could have never developed one ourselves, since you seem to be saying that they cannot develop one?  Also keep in mind another issue:  Just because we developed our way (history) does not mean they have to follow the exact same model of development.  We did not have living gods and humans weilding magic.  Still, all humans tend toward progress as the norm.  

Quote: *All in all, magic cannot make an industrial revolution alone. It may aid in that end, but until the correct social circumstances are met, I see little chance of magic on its own bringing a world out of the medieval era.* 

I agree and more.  Magic will NEVER bring advancement of technology.  PEOPLE do this.  Magic is just a set of natural laws of the world.  Atomic energy is possible and good (please, no fights over this...  It's off the topic.) but can only be made by very powerful groups with very special knowledge.  They still happened, even with human nature.



Mr. Oberon,
"God, I love a good argument!"


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## herald (Sep 24, 2002)

mroberon1972 


Yor arguement is still flawed. Your not trying. The magic you are quoting doesn't work this way. 

Dispel aside. Your magical item is BROKEN!!!!!

Wonderous items do not work this way. Period. Most DMs would laugh you out the door.

Do your research my friend and you will find that your magic Item doesn't come close to any other magical item in the DMG.

Even the everful purse, that will give you 20 GP a day if you leave 1 gp in it overnight, is a minor artifact, and cannot be made by a moral, epic or otherwise. 

Epic Level Handbook.

I Just read some parts of Tome and Blood again. They advised this simple test for creating magical items. 

You need to go back and do your homework again.


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

*Herald...*

Herald...  I am a gamemaster.  I have been one for over 15 years.

So far, you have only half read each of my posts, when finally this is hammered home, you just rant:

*
Dispel aside. Your magical item is BROKEN!!!!!

Wonderous items do not work this way. Period. Most DMs would laugh you out the door.

Do your research my friend and you will find that your magic Item doesn't come close to any other magical item in the DMG.
* 

Lots of items do not come close to others...  Are they broken?  How is it broken?  Quit ranting and talk to me DARNIT!

And for the final time:  READ THE DOGGON ITEM (Note bolded area):

A wizard of means (he's rich guys...) has a brother in the city who is an armorer. He asks, if you can make a Wall of Iron, then why can't you make a Breastplate with a spell. Huh... Well, after about 3 moths of research, he makes a new magic item. 5 times per day, over a period of about an hour, it makes a basic breastplate out of steel and spits it out a slot. *It needs some coal to keep the fires hot (elemental fire it too dangerous), and some ore loaded in the top (wall of iron built in costs too much). * It does not use charges, and cannot be moved very easy (several tons weight). Bound to it is a happy little Azer (sp?) that hammers out the breastplate to the right shape for the new owner. The Azer has been well paid, and only appears to hammer the breastplate to the needed size, so is free do what it wants the rest of the time...

Now read this spell description (Note bolded area):

Fabricate

Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: See text
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: Up to 10 cu. ft./level (see text)
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

*The character converts material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If the character works with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.* 

The character must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship (jewelry, swords, glass, crystal, etc.).

Casting requires 1 full round per 10 cubic feet (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell.



Please, will someone else tell me what is wrong with this item?  Or do I need to build it with the DM's guide to prove it?

Mr. Oberon


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## Al (Sep 25, 2002)

mroberon1972:



> Actually, the number of magic using people does not have as much an impact on this as you would think. Also, keep in mind differing worlds have differing percentages of magic in thier world. I was only giving an example from my worlds. Please excuse the lack of information I gave.




That's okay.  I understand that different campaign worlds have different levels of magic (indeed, my campaign worlds tend to have above-average levels of magic-users), but I tend to argue using standards when on the boards.  It stops silly arguments about the exact numbers (though, of course, part of my argument is about exact numbers...hohum  )



> No, It does not. It never had anything to do with the good of the people. It has to do with a wizard who wants to crank out 5 breastplates per day as a constant source of income. He gives it to someone (as powerful people tend to do... Elvis cars anyone?), and he begins to profit from it. Or the mage has someone manage it for a wage. You get the idea.




Well, I believe some else suggested this, not you.  However, on the other hand, in order to crank out the breastplates, he'll need to be at level 11 or so.  This means that such a caster is unavailable to any settlement short of a large city: in essence, they are very rare!  Furthermore, a mage of this level can probably find himself employed far more lucratively: either creating *magical* items (which are distributed to a very narrow section of the population) or by casting other spells (e.g. charging nobles for teleports).



> Where did I quote this? Or is it someone else?




Don't worry, it's not you...


> Arcana casters must cast 1 spell per day for the public good except for those who drain xp



  (jasper).



> Your argument says we could have never developed one ourselves, since you seem to be saying that they cannot develop one? Also keep in mind another issue: Just because we developed our way (history) does not mean they have to follow the exact same model of development. We did not have living gods and humans weilding magic. Still, all humans tend toward progress as the norm.




Not at all!  What I am saying, however, is that many of the factors that are required for an 'industrial' revolution are not in place in a standard medieval DnD setting.  Most of the factors mentioned evolved in the 16th-18th centuries.  Of course a DnD world could become industrial, but not given the standard parameters in the near 'future'.  As for alternative development, this is an interesting theory.  Unfortunately, we only have our own histories to look back on, and only our own theories to work with, and at current, the consensus amongst economic historians in that these factors are required.  Of course, they haven't commissioned studies on the effects of magic... 



> I agree and more. Magic will NEVER bring advancement of technology. PEOPLE do this. Magic is just a set of natural laws of the world. Atomic energy is possible and good (please, no fights over this... It's off the topic.) but can only be made by very powerful groups with very special knowledge. They still happened, even with human nature.




A very astute point.



> "God, I love a good argument!"




Don't we all  ?

herald:
Though I disagree with mroberon's arguments, yours are flawed moreso.  My disagreement with Mr O is not that it is impossible, but that it is an inaccurate portrayal of attitudes and reactions at that time, in the same way my Murlynd's Spoon Revolution was flawed (and deliberately so).

Simply put, mroberon is using the Wall of Iron spell (which has Instantaneous duration) to create a big mass of iron, then using the Fabricate spell (also Instantaneous) to make things out of that iron.  There is no logical reason why this is not possible; rather that 'couldn't', it is a case of 'wouldn't'.  Hope this clarifies things for you...I know these threads can get heated, and I'm hoping that hearing this from someone broadly agreeing with your standpoint allows you to accept his (perfectly viable) example.

Edit: Dammit, oberon, why do you post before me and invalidate my points whilst I'm still typing them!

Well, rather than re-type, I'll just say that such an item (the breastplate-manufacturer) could exist, but the prohibitive cost of producing such an item (not to mention employing an outsider) probably makes it not worthwhile; and of course, in those three months, the aforesaid wizard can be employed lucratively in activities described above.


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## Corinth (Sep 25, 2002)

I think that some of you fail to account for the opposition that will come from any attempts to change from a feudal economy to an industrial one.  Politics alone will thwart many attempts, and then there's the influence of the divine--which may not like this--that revolutionaries may reckon with.  This idea that magic must force a D&D setting away from the feudal default is far and away from a sure thing.


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## SHARK (Sep 25, 2002)

Greetings!

Ok, this is a paradigm that I don't understand.

There are wizards and clerics in the campaign world that have the magical power to dramatically change all of society for the better, but somehow, they refuse to do so because they want to keep the whole society--including their mundane relatives and friends, and everyone that they live near and interact with--trapped in disease-ridden, oppressive, grinding poverty of a 12th-Century European model--even though they have the power and skills to change it?

Ok, that makes sense. Really, that seems to fly directly in the face of creatures' desire to profit, and make general progress.

Again, 12th-Century Euro[ean model+Magic does not equal the same rough, impoverished 12th-Century European model that so many seem ardently opposed to changing, despite the power and logic of doing so. Hmmm...

Furthermore, the application of magic throughout society does not necessarily equal an "industrial revolution" but it does mean that any such society with magic available will look dramatically different from the standard 12th-Century European model, that so many people seem to love.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK


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## herald (Sep 25, 2002)

Corinth


Your right on the money on that one. Another thing to take into consideration is the simple fact that advanced economics needs some degree of power sharing. Other individuals need to know that they are going to have autonomy to make money. If there is no Magna Carta type system of rights, I just don't think that any advanced form of economy can exist.


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## herald (Sep 25, 2002)

*Though I disagree with mroberon's arguments, yours are flawed moreso. My disagreement with Mr O is not that it is impossible, but that it is an inaccurate portrayal of attitudes and reactions at that time, in the same way my Murlynd's Spoon Revolution was flawed (and deliberately so).* 

I'm sure I'm missing something here, could you elaborate?

Fabricate and Wall of Iron examples are flawed. 

Fabricate doesn't change the state of an object from one sort of solid to another form of solid. It will alow you to shape said object, but that's it. 

Therefor newer spell types would have to be used to do something like it. And I stand by my point of that the creation of such an item breaks the spirit of magic item creation rules.


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

*Hullo again Al...*

Hullo again Al...

Actually, you missed it too.  It does not use Wall of Iron.  While it could, it just takes iron ore poured in the top and makes breatplates using the Fabricate spell.  Basicly, it is a factory in a box.  It never makes something out of nothing...

The Item creation rules in the DM's Guide are on page 242.

As follows a rundown of the item cost:

Spell effect:  
Fabricate (50 gp) with command word (x1800) =  90,000 gp
5 charges per day = divide by 1 (no effect)
Add cost of material = done each time used...

total cost: 90,000 gp per breastplate maker (+ 10% material cost)

Profit per breastplate (200gp - 20gp) = 180 per plate...

5 plates per day, 100 days, pays for itself in less than a year.
(don't bother me about market flooding.  Just cut it to one per day or week and cut the cost accordingly.  Same time to pay for itself...  Less cost directly relates to less production)

If I really wanted to be nasty, It could have been full plate, sold at half price!!!

Finally, Al...  Remember:  Say that no one will ever do something, and they will prove to a liar every time.  Every invention WE have is due to someone breaking the basic rules of human nature.  Without them, you would not have the computer sitting in front of you right now.

Also remember, I am NOT saying magic items should EVER be mass produced.  Just that magic items can mass produce magic items...

Mr. Oberon
"What was the topic again?"


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

herald said:
			
		

> *Corinth
> 
> 
> Your right on the money on that one. Another thing to take into consideration is the simple fact that advanced economics needs some degree of power sharing. Other individuals need to know that they are going to have autonomy to make money. If there is no Magna Carta type system of rights, I just don't think that any advanced form of economy can exist. *




Now that I can agree with myself!  

Keep in mind even the Magna Carta only lasts as long as the ruler who obeys it...


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## Mobius (Sep 25, 2002)

> But all of them? That doesn't strike me as very realistic, in considering human nature, and progress.




The D&D magic system is inherently unrealistic (to say nothing about fantasy gaming in general).  Your predicted world likely would arise as a result of D&D style magic, but it most certainly wouldn't arise as a result of 'magic' as a more generic force to be manipulated.

1. Can a caster ever 'fail' at casting a spell in D&D?  

Nope.  Spells that fail cause problems, injury and even death.  The number of volunteers to light the city or to provide running water would go down enormously when there is some measure of personal risk for the caster.  Provide light to some peasant?  I have more important things to do than to risk my neck for a mere gutter rat.  

2. Where does the iron from a Wall of Iron come from?

Limitless resources are unrealistic.  In D&D magic, it isn't unrealistic to create a 100 zillion iron walls with no effect on the current stores of iron in the ground. 

3. Is a Wall of Iron cast by Zakhar the Illustrious, High Mage of Danzir the same as a Wall of Iron cast by Jeremy Barnswallow, hedge mage of a halfling community?

Yep.  Very unrealistic that spells the world over are exactly the same in effect.  

So, I think you can see my point.  When every Wall of Iron is exactly the same, does not draw on any limited resources, can be cast without failure, it is pretty easy to see that traditional ironworkers would be quickly out of work.

Nothing could be farther from 'realistic' though.

My second point is more philosophical.  You are a 20th century man inundated with mass production, technology and weaned on values such as individuality, progress and innovation.  When you see magic, you see a force to be manipulated - you turn magic into technology.  If an indigenous culture 'discovered' magic, they would come up with some very different uses than you would conceive of because their cultural values do not match ours, or are even diametrically opposed.

In other words, do not suppose that 'human nature' is the same from one culture to another with regards to progress.


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

Mobius said:
			
		

> *In other words, do not suppose that 'human nature' is the same from one culture to another with regards to progress. *




Actually, I use the human nature that seem the most common in human history.  Laziness!  

Least work for most gain seems to have always been the human way...

Sadly,
Mr. Oberon


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## drnuncheon (Sep 25, 2002)

*Re: Herald...*



			
				mroberon1972 said:
			
		

> *The character converts material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication.
> 
> 
> Please, will someone else tell me what is wrong with this item?  Or do I need to build it with the DM's guide to prove it?
> *



*

What is wrong with the item is that - assuming you're using wall of iron as your source - you get breastplates made out of crummy iron instead of breastplates made out of good steel.

If you're just loading ore in the top, then you're not even getting breastplates made of crummy iron, you're getting breastplates made of iron ore.

Now, if you made one that you loaded high-quality steel into, you might be on to something.  The mage who made this would almost certainly need to be a smith, since the fabricate spell requires a Craft roll to make the finished product turn out right.

Also, 20 gp is not the proper raw material cost - the cost should be 1/3 of the finished product or 66 gp, 6 sp, 6 cp each.  I'm not sure where you got 10% instead of 1/3.

The one thing I find telling is this statement, though: "don't bother me about market flooding.  Just cut it to one per day or week and cut the cost accordingly."  That's very important, because if there's not enough magically produced breastplates to flood the market and drive the price down, then there's not enough magically produced breastplates to have a significant effect on the economy - and that means that overall, things will stay the same.  One guy with a Magic Breastplate-O-Matic is not going to change the face of armorsmithing across the world - it's only when the change becomes widespread that it's going to have a significant impact.

J*


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## Chroma (Sep 25, 2002)

SHARK said:
			
		

> *There are wizards and clerics in the campaign world that have the magical power to dramatically change all of society for the better, but somehow, they refuse to do so because they want to keep the whole society--including their mundane relatives and friends, and everyone that they live near and interact with--trapped in disease-ridden, oppressive, grinding poverty of a 12th-Century European model--even though they have the power and skills to change it?*




I've always wanted to quote SHARK!  

The thing is, there are also wizards and clerics (and worse!)in the campaign world that have the magical power to dramatically change all of society for the *worse*!  The followers of the gods of chaos (the bad kind), disease, suffering and all the other ills that man struggle against are an active and divinely empowered force that, generally, runs counter to the ideas of life improvement and material progress, and they've got the power to do something about it.  Magically lit cities and purified water sources become the primary targets of the gods of darkness and disease.  How does this play into economic modelling?  

In the real world there is nothing actively impeding the forward march of progress, but there certainly could be in a fantasy world, and that's certainly something that needs to be considered.  Heck, the current economic system could be some kind of cold war between the forces of progress and entropy!

Any thoughts?


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

*drnuncheon...*

Thanks for the update, the description is a little sketchy on the Fabricate spell.  I always took it that it could refine base materials.  Looking at it, perhaps your right...  For a 5th level spell I might argue that is fairly pathetic, but that is not the issue.

All right, as it stands, you will need to insert good steel into the machine.  Even then it reduces the time for armor cunstruction when it COULD take raw steel and make Full Plate.  Then you really start getting an effect...

About the base material cost, I was looking at some other information.  Sorry about that...  You are correct about 1/3.  But keep in mind, this only delays profit, not stop it.


Quote:
*"The one thing I find telling is this statement, though: "don't bother me about market flooding. Just cut it to one per day or week and cut the cost accordingly." That's very important, because if there's not enough magically produced breastplates to flood the market and drive the price down, then there's not enough magically produced breastplates to have a significant effect on the economy - and that means that overall, things will stay the same. One guy with a Magic Breastplate-O-Matic is not going to change the face of armorsmithing across the world - it's only when the change becomes widespread that it's going to have a significant impact."*

Now this is a good argument!  All right, you are right.  To do this he would have to cut profit down, and keep production up.  The idea would have to spread also, over generations.  Since a magic item tends not to break down unless broken, you could get a slow buildup of special magic items for this kind of work...

Mr. Oberon


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

Chroma said:
			
		

> *
> Heck, the current economic system could be some kind of cold war between the forces of progress and entropy!
> *




Ohhhh.....  I like this guy!  He thinks BIG!  He just gave us a new theme for a world!

Mr. Oberon


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## Col_Pladoh (Sep 25, 2002)

Perhaps I am misreading things here, but it seems to me that a lot of the argument against a world setting that reflects the potential for logical magical effects on the societies is based on that the game rules won't facilitate.

Why allow the game system to cripple the campaign world? Alter the game rules to such extent as is necessary to produce the world that seems logical to you, and yields a setting you like best for the players PCs to adventure in.

As most of the magic concerned with society isn't likely to be the same used by characters in their derring-do, build additional material for the socio-economic magic that would enable the advances suggested. Those are logical in my view.

Again, I stress that clerics in a fantasy society with active deities would be many and critical to the operation of the sociaty. just as was the case in actual medieval history.

Cheerio,
Gary


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## LostSoul (Sep 25, 2002)

I think that, if you want to maintain a 12th Century European feel but are bothered by the logical effects of magic on society, you come up with some reason why progress has been stalled.  In my campaign, the forces of *Evil!* want to make sure that society does not experience that kind of growth.  Evil loves misery.  

This has become a key point in my campaign.


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## S'mon (Sep 25, 2002)

I think some people are arguing that you _can't_ have a medieval-type society given the prevalence of magic in standard D&D, because some wizards & clerics are bound to use their magical powers in such a way as to change the nature of the society, creating mass saniutation, industrial production et al.  I think this argument is completely wrong, as much as it would be wrong to say that a medieval society is the _only_ way to play D&D in.  Why is it wrong?  Some reasons:

1.  Medieval-type society is not in fact a natural step along a continuum from primitive to modern.  Rather, in our world it came about because of the _destruction_ of a much more civilised society: it is a post-apocalypse phenomenon.  

2.Medieval society was one in which almost all of the effort of those in power - the rulers - went towards military power: knights, castles, heavy warhorses.  Compare this with the Roman empire, which for most of its history had tiny armies and vast public works including functioning sewers, clean water delivery systems, bath houses etc. 

3.The result of this is that the level of medieval battlefield/military technology is in fact MUCH HIGHER than the general technological level, and the D&D spells reflect this extremely well.  If the society you're reflecting in your game is both civilised and reasonably high-magic, I reckon there should be as many non-military uses for magic as military ones.  But for the medieval paradigm, it's the ability to kill things that matters.

As an example, my campaign has run for about 400 years game time, 16 years real-time.  In that time the general technology level of the primary world, Ea, has progressed roughly from 1100AD to 1500AD, although a looming dark age may put an end to the nascent renaissance.  Extrapolating Ea's history back in time from before the start of the campaign, there's roughly a 1:1 gameworld year/historical year correlation in tech level - 1000 years ago tech level was ca 100 AD, 2000 years ago 900 BC, and so on.  In the 16 years/400 game-years I've run Ea, I've never seen any PC make a significant positive technological impact on  the world - the only major impact was in fact a negative one, the PC god Thrin, god of knightly combat, altered the world's physical-factor to prevent the use of gunpowder and similar chemical technology, thus preserving the preeminence of the armoured knights he loves.  And that's a Lawful Good PC!  The less good-inclined ones are more inclined to just go around trashing everything.  Hardly out of character for the medieval mindset, either.

Now, it IS possible to use magic to start an industrial revolution, given a kindly GM.  But this is a function of mindset, not the nature of magic.  Mark Twain covered this very well over a hundred years ago when he wrote "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".


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## S'mon (Sep 25, 2002)

As far as spells go, in 1e/2e Walls of conjured/invoked Iron, Stone etc could explicitly be dispelled by Dispel Magic, just as summoned creatures can be.  AFAIK that's still the case in 3e - that's how I'll run it, anyway, should it come up.  Given the complexity of a suit of full plate armour, I'd expect it would take at least a Limited Wish to create such a thing from nothing.  You can use Fabricate to create your breastplates if you already have the high-quality non-magical steel and a 9th level Wizard with a very good Armoursmith Craft skill.  That isn't going to destroy your game's medieval  society, though.


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## mroberon1972 (Sep 25, 2002)

S'mon said:
			
		

> *Given the complexity of a suit of full plate armour, I'd expect it would take at least a Limited Wish to create such a thing from nothing.*




A limited wish?  Ouch...  I figure a limited wish should be just a wee bit more powerful than this...  Perhaps 2-4 suits of armor.  But I digress...


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## S'mon (Sep 25, 2002)

mroberon1972 said:
			
		

> *
> 
> A limited wish?  Ouch...  I figure a limited wish should be just a wee bit more powerful than this...  Perhaps 2-4 suits of armor.  But I digress... *




You can adjudicate it according to whatever the gp-value limit is for limited wish - I see there isn't one given in 3e, but the 300 XP cost implies a 1500 gp limit on the standard 5:1 XP:cost ratio, implying a standard suit of full plate is at the limit for this spell.


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## Dinkeldog (Sep 26, 2002)

LostSoul said:
			
		

> *I think that, if you want to maintain a 12th Century European feel but are bothered by the logical effects of magic on society, you come up with some reason why progress has been stalled.  In my campaign, the forces of Evil! want to make sure that society does not experience that kind of growth.  Evil loves misery.
> 
> This has become a key point in my campaign. *




Actually, that's just about exactly what stalled us in the real world.


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## jasper (Sep 26, 2002)

Ok Al, Mass production. In the late 1400’s in Italy and Germany, armour was been mass-produced in piece meal. In the 1400 or 1500 one doctor was charged by the guild for selling helms under cost of the guild. He was buying some pieces and assembling them.
What does a banking sector have to do with mass production? Explain please.
Explain Modern Capitalist thinking?
Cheap technology. What technology? Cheaper cloth due to looms and guilds/merchants paying by piece.  Every burning torches for 100 gp. More food due three field crop rotation and improved horse harness. 
Magic will help a industrial revolution but that start when 1820?


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## Sarellion (Sep 26, 2002)

I think two factors against progress would be :

1.Greed
2.Fear
3.Other Point of View

The Powers that be would probably destroy the beginnings of such benevolent actions if it would destroy their power base. The introduction of cheap breastplates would allow it to equip everyone with it. The power of the knight on battlefield was partly because of his armor. Craftsmen who build in the old ways would either adopt it or destroy it out of fear to lose their own trade. Does everyone accept this idea or will he differ? Perhaps he is unsure if he can do it and people often don't like changing their ways. 
Every big idea had to face opposition especially from powerful people and people set in their ways and their view of the world.
Many people were burned because they were accused to use witchcaft. They were feared because people believed they had magical powers. In D&D one 5th level mage can create havoc slinging one fireball in the crowd on market day. Even people not hit by it would be harmed as panic kicks in.
In higher levels mages can destroy villages and armies, gate in demons and what else. 

How would the average commoner feel or the fighters of the realm? Probably mages would be hunted or they have to police themselves. Come on if magic was available in the real world, ppl would fear magic wielding terrorists.

Elminster and other guys have an important position to fill. Mystra shows that evildoers can be countered and there is protection for the normal guys.  

At least clerics would be accepted. But these guys have to appease their deities and if the deity does not like the magetech revolution it is quickly over with it.

Probably magic would change the world in some ways but I 
don't see a magic industrialization just because magic is abundant. 

IMC the wizards have founded self policing guilds and hunt mages who transgressed. Healing magic improves living conditions (but not Cure Disease, only available at the high ranks)and in some cities sewage treatment is based on magic. The peasants profit from druids and clerics using plant growth spells and they are a little bit richer than normal. Most people are content with their lot. They are poor but not starving. The overall level is more like a little bit renaissance with lot of medieval elements and this will not change soon. 

The gods don't support radical change, already seen high industrialized worlds going down in their own waste, no thanks, thinks the god of life and nature, keep it sylvan, work with your own hands and have a good day.


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## Al (Sep 26, 2002)

jasper said:
			
		

> *Ok Al, Mass production. In the late 1400’s in Italy and Germany, armour was been mass-produced in piece meal. In the 1400 or 1500 one doctor was charged by the guild for selling helms under cost of the guild. He was buying some pieces and assembling them.
> What does a banking sector have to do with mass production? Explain please.
> Explain Modern Capitalist thinking?
> Cheap technology. What technology? Cheaper cloth due to looms and guilds/merchants paying by piece.  Every burning torches for 100 gp. More food due three field crop rotation and improved horse harness.
> Magic will help a industrial revolution but that start when 1820? *




With regard to mass production: 1. Breastplates are military items; industrialisation occurs when mass production is applied to civilian products.  2. It was in the late 1400s, not the 12th century.  3. It could not be on the same scale as the true 'Industrial Revolution'

As for the banking sector, it is required to allow the easy transfer of money, and to allow private individuals to borrow money, hence 'creating' far more wealth than there really is in the economy (credit ratios etc.) and enabling large-scale funding to go ahead.  You *could* have it all funded by the rich aristocracy, but historically, this was generally unheard of.

With respect to 'modern capitalist theory', read Adam Smith.  I can't post Wealth of Nations on a messageboard.

Cheap technology: mass production of textiles was first around in the 18th century.  Three field crop rotation was also typical of eras later than DnD, as were horse harnesses.  With respect for everburning torches, this is not really cheap: at 100gp, this is the cost of 10,000 ordinary torches!


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