In chapter 2 of Ultimate Campaign, it looks like you can buy or build your own storefronts and inns, and give you an order of operations for a typical day of hanging out in town. The first step is building upkeeps, but the only upkeep costs I'm seeing are the daily stuff for your store Managers and the like. Am I missing something somewhere? I haven't read the thing cover-to-cover, yet, but I've looked for it in the chapter and must be missing it somewhere.
That's about it. In development there were a couple of specialized rooms that required upkeep, but they were either changed to not require it or removed entirely. Having that rule leaves the door open for later expansion with rooms that do require upkeep (and lets you know when to do it), but for now it's just about paying managers.
With Sean's clarification (call me another who was wondering), yes, it applies to rooms/buildings and teams/organisations equally. Cool.
Oh, awesome. Thanks for getting back to me.
The team side of this was where my curiosity lay. So after hiring and outfitting a squad of soldiers for a mercenary group, the day to day wages are abstracted into the profit checks? This makes sense with buildings and some money generating teams like spellcasters, crafstmen or theives, but what about guards and lackeys? They provide a service, but it really isn't a money generating one unless you aren't actually hiring guards but are instead hiring people that you rent out as guards.
Maybe I'm missing something; I realize the system is very abstract, but the lack of an upkeep (aka paycheck) on some of the teams seems very turbulent to verisimilitude.
Can anybody give me a suitable justification besides handwavium?
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The Black Bard, your comment just reminded me: yes, if you're using a team to generate income, the income that goes to your PC is after the workers get paid. In other words, what goes to your PCs is the profit, not the gross.
That's whether you're hiring out guards, or if the guards are increasing business because customers feel safe or because they're deterring theft.
(This is a little different than the answer I gave earlier about how the teams still have "day jobs," and that's because I haven't reread the Downtime rules front to back since it went to print back in December. :p)
Thank you for the reply, I'll dig through your posts regarding the mentioned day jobs. It still feels somewhat that unless a "non-productive" team is attached to a "productive" building/team, there still is an oddity in the lack of upkeep.
Hiring guards for a tavern, a bit odd, but patrons feel safer, the tavern generates more money during "panic" times like monster attacks or such, I can see that.
Hiring guards for your home base, which as defined under the buildings section the building itself doesn't get to make a profit check, means wouldn't the guards not make a check either? And if they aren't, how are they getting paid as the days roll by?
I'll leave it at that as I need to be out the door. I'll check other threads for ideas, but I won't keep pressing the issue here. Thanks again for a great book!
Having guards protect your own non-business property is one situation where the system seems to break down, that I noticed myself.
The guards would have to be paid wages and the one paying would be you. But as the rules are now, they are completely free.
One solution would be to go with the normal rules for hirelings.
Hireling, trained - 3 sp per day
Hireling, untrained - 1 sp per dayHireling, Trained: The amount given is the typical daily wage for mercenary warriors, masons, craftsmen, cooks, scribes, teamsters, and other trained hirelings. This value represents a minimum wage; many such hirelings require significantly higher pay.
Hireling, Untrained: The amount shown is the typical daily wage for laborers, maids, and other menial workers.
And I would use these rules for all your personal staff that is working not for profit. At these wages, you can maintain quite a large staff of servants and guards for a relatively low cost.
5 Guards = 15 sp/day = 45 gp/month5 Laborers = 5 sp/day = 15 gp/month
5 Lackeys = 15 sp/day = 45 gp/month
3 Craftspeople = 9 sp/day = 27 gp/month
That's 132 gp per month for a staff of 18. About one 2nd level scroll.
But if you assign a team of Guards to watch over your business, you don't have to pay out anything for those guards; you pay the cost to recruit them, and you decide whether or not that team earns income, but it doesn't say that you have to pay those guards out of your own pocket—if the team earns income, their wages are taken out before that income gets to you, and if the team doesn't earn income, nothing in the rules say you need to give money to them, it's hand-waved away (in effect, the net increase to the business's income from having the guards there to prevent theft and protect customers is exactly offset by the cost of paying the guards to be there).
Yes, I would also rule it that way.
IF they are working for your business.
If they just guard your home where no economical activity takes place except looting a dungeon once per month, it doesn't quite fit. While the rules are written to run a business, they also seem to cover simply building your own adventurer dream stronghold quite well. Except for this one case with the hired guards and servants to serve just you. And in that case the regular henchmen costs would apply, even if you occasionally send them out to work for profit or resources. On those days, the wages are automatically included in the profits or earning costs.
Crafting businesses, the income derived from the check is after the raw materials costs are paid for, or before?
Turin, I don't understand your question.
If you have your smiths create weapons and sell them on the open market, any raw material costs would already be included in the amount of money you get at the end of the day.
Turin, I don't understand your question.
Crafting normally has a materials cost, such as the alchemists' fire made an Alchemist building. The question is: do "Crafting Shops" (Alchemists, various smithies, etc) have to pay for raw materials or is this cost subsumed in the income that the building generates?
I think I can answer that one, Turin: the Earnings from a building is pure profit, after all deductions for wages, material costs, fees and any other deductions you'd care to mention (with the possible exception of taxes).
I think I can answer that one, Turin: the Earnings from a building is pure profit, after all deductions for wages, material costs, fees and any other deductions you'd care to mention (with the possible exception of taxes).
There are only two costs mentioned: upkeep [of which the UCa has none], and wages. Crafting normally per CRB rules has a material cost of 1/3rd the price.
If an alchemist's shop has 3 employees that generate 3 checks of 80 (+70 for the combined employee skill bonus and building bonus, then taking 10), the shop generates a gross revenue of 24 gp. Out of that 24 gp, 8 gp is the cost of the raw materials [per CRB rules for crafting] and another 9 gp are the alchemists' wages, leaving a profit of 7 gp per day.
If the intent is that the building's income subsumes the raw materials costs, then the 24 gp is reduced by the 9 gp for the daily wages, resulting in a per-day profit of 15 gp.
So which example is correct? :)
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I think I can answer that one, Turin: the Earnings from a building is pure profit, after all deductions for wages, material costs, fees and any other deductions you'd care to mention (with the possible exception of taxes).There are only two costs mentioned: upkeep [of which the UCa has none], and wages. Crafting normally per CRB rules has a material cost of 1/3rd the price.
If an alchemist's shop has 3 employees that generate 3 checks of 80 (+70 for the combined employee skill bonus and building bonus, then taking 10), the shop generates a gross revenue of 24 gp. Out of that 24 gp, 8 gp is the cost of the raw materials [per CRB rules for crafting] and another 9 gp are the alchemists' wages, leaving a profit of 7 gp per day.
If the intent is that the building's income subsumes the raw materials costs, then the 24 gp is reduced by the 9 gp for the daily wages, resulting in a per-day profit of 15 gp.
So which example is correct? :)
If, IF, I'm understanding what SKR and the downtime rules are meaning in this situation there is no material cost at all after you buy the initial building.
The way I'm understanding it is when you first buy the building it comes with a stockpile of everything you'll ever need to make anything it makes.
THEN when you make your check each day/week the result of that is how much you pocket AFTER paying your workers, replacing all used resources, paying taxes/bribes/fees/etc.
It's a REALLY abstracted way of looking at it but with enough granularity to let your players pay attention to the details instead of just the big picture.
I think I can answer that one, Turin: the Earnings from a building is pure profit, after all deductions for wages, material costs, fees and any other deductions you'd care to mention (with the possible exception of taxes).There are only two costs mentioned: upkeep [of which the UCa has none], and wages. Crafting normally per CRB rules has a material cost of 1/3rd the price.
If an alchemist's shop has 3 employees that generate 3 checks of 80 (+70 for the combined employee skill bonus and building bonus, then taking 10), the shop generates a gross revenue of 24 gp. Out of that 24 gp, 8 gp is the cost of the raw materials [per CRB rules for crafting] and another 9 gp are the alchemists' wages, leaving a profit of 7 gp per day.
If the intent is that the building's income subsumes the raw materials costs, then the 24 gp is reduced by the 9 gp for the daily wages, resulting in a per-day profit of 15 gp.
So which example is correct? :)
If, IF, I'm understanding what SKR and the downtime rules are meaning in this situation there is no material cost at all after you buy the initial building.
The way I'm understanding it is when you first buy the building it comes with a stockpile of everything you'll ever need to make anything it makes.
THEN when you make your check each day/week the result of that is how much you pocket AFTER paying your workers, replacing all used resources, paying taxes/bribes/fees/etc.It's a REALLY abstracted way of looking at it but with enough granularity to let your players pay attention to the details instead of just the big picture.
That's what I believe to be the case, but with the CRB precedent of materials costs, it seems prudent to address the concern ASAP. At least one of my players raised this concern as he perceives the lack of such costs as "broken" (as I understand him).
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That's what I believe to be the case, but with the CRB precedent of materials costs, it seems prudent to address the concern ASAP. At least one of my players raised this concern as he perceives the lack of such costs as "broken" (as I understand him).
It's an alternative system, if I'm following you. If you want to keep track of every item a PC is making & selling, you're going to utilize the Crafting rules. If the PC wants to run a smithy, but you don't want it to turn into a session of "Smithmaker, the RPG", you're going to use the Downtime Rules, where the money / day reflects the profit achieved from the running of the business (i.e. after various items are crafted & sold, you make X). Kind of like a mass combat abstraction versus adventurer-scale combat.
I believe you have it spot on, BPorter.
If you want to run a smithy, and spend a day making horseshoes, you can do one of the following:
1) Use the Craft skill rules, pay 1/3 of the price up-front, make skill checks, find out how many horseshoes you make, sell them, and note down the amount you sell them for (assuming your GM lets you sell you that day).
2) Roll an Earnings check on your smithy, divide the roll result by 10, and get your daily profit.
I would hope that in the long term, the daily profit numbers are about the same (our developers can crunch themselves some awesome numbers when they have to). Since progress on craft skills is based on a skill check, and profit from a building is based on the same skill check, I expect they're going to come out pretty darn close.
Sounds good to me. :)
BPorter is correct. :)
(There's another part of the book that talks about using a Magic Shop with your magic item crafting, and how the player can just use his character's stats to add to the income rolls for the Magic Shop to increases revenue, rather than crafting specific items and trying to sell them. It's the same principle for a smithy or any other crafting-based business.)
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BPorter is correct. :)
Thanks, Sean! Um, would you mind repeating that for my wife? The more she hears that from someone other than just me, the better. :)
Mmm hmm. :)
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BPorter is correct. :)
(There's another part of the book that talks about using a Magic Shop with your magic item crafting, and how the player can just use his character's stats to add to the income rolls for the Magic Shop to increases revenue, rather than crafting specific items and trying to sell them. It's the same principle for a smithy or any other crafting-based business.)
Thanks and that really does make sense... but it leaves one question open though.
How do you handle rooms with workers that DON'T generate income? Do those workers just not get paid?
Example: I am currently attempting to plot out a keep for a character who earned it in an adventure (Fangswood Keep by the way, AWESOME map and AMAZING module) who wants to hire a few employees (soldiers & staff mostly) for it. Since it's supposed to be a base of operations for the player (and whatever party members show up) there is no daily roll to generate income.
Does he just pay the initial cost and have permanent employees or do they need a daily wage?
I see two options for this:
1. You actually do roll to generate income for the room/organization and the results are then spent to pay the staff and the vassalage costs with anything left over going to upgrade the location.
(Messy and doesn't seem right)
1. Since they are Molthunes the workers are considered slaves and after the initial purchase there is no follow up cost and the keep is self-sufficient (Gardens and such) which includes feeding them. The soldiers are indentured servants doing their 5 year service for citizenship and are replaced as their terms of service expire or they die.
Makes sense but requires some RP justification to make the crunch work.
I'm okay with either but curious which one is closest to "correct".
The downtime system for rooms and teams assumes you're operating in a settlement, not a remote area. If you're not in a settlement, you'll need to look to the standard rules for hirelings.
I know you said you need an "official" answer, but C is correct.
Reason: capital comes in two flavours - earned, and what I call "possessed" (though owned is as good a term). Your buildings/organisations earn capital, which you must then pay for to possess it. The basic rule is that until you pay for it, you can't use it. Nothing in the Promote a Business downtime action suggests that the capital is free, it's just bonus earned capital. Which you then need to pay for.