"merchant" type of PC


Advice

Scarab Sages

A friend of mine is wanting to make a merchant /crafter type of character to play in a pf home game, but not quite sure on where he should start/ what class he should begin with.

does anyone have an ideas that could help him?

Scarab Sages

Urban Ranger, Rogue, or Archaeologist Bard. Class doesn't really matter, just something with a lot of skill points. He could even take levels in the expert NPC class.

Take ranks in Appraise, Bluff, Sense Motive, Profession(Merchant), Craft(whatever he wants to focus in), and Knowledge (whatever complements his craft/merchant goods. Local, History, and Nobility is probably most appropriate.)


Access to certain spells such as identify, read magic, detect magic, arcane mark, comprehend languages, tongues, glibness, detect lies...

Some of these can e acquired roundabout ways, such as taking an elf with the envoy racial trait, then picking a magic trait for another cantrip ability, then maybe rogue talent magic, or just playing a bard.


And the ultimate campaign is now your new best friend.

Scarab Sages

cool, ty guys, I'll pass this along to him. :)


I too was going to say it sounds like a case of the NPC Class Expert. Of course, any class that will have a lot of skill points will do.

A wizard would honestly work best in a likely because they will have high amount of skill points and the magical abilities to identify, price, create, etc, etc, etc magic items and wheel and deal them effectively to anyone.

Scarab Sages

And of course, Alchemist is the best class for Alchemy.


A cleric with the Trade sub-domain plus Artifice/Charm/Luck, a high Appraise skill, and a god of Trade would be a great choice.

Charisma will be high. Diplomacy is a class skill.

And you have the combined zeal of a salesman and a preacher. Nobody will stop you from making profits!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Are you planning on ADVENTURING with the character? Or are you setting him up for Papers and Paychecks?

Any adventurer can run a buisness by investing a few points in a profession skill. Beyond that, you need to be more specific about what you are aiming for.


LazarX wrote:

Are you planning on ADVENTURING with the character? Or are you setting him up for Papers and Paychecks?

Any adventurer can run a buisness by investing a few points in a profession skill. Beyond that, you need to be more specific about what you are aiming for.

That's basically what I was wondering, too. If the PC is going to be playing some kind of business minigame while the rest of the players sit around twiddling their thumbs, he should make sure everyone is on board with what he intends to do.


Rogue (skill monkey) - with points put in appraise, diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, some profession/craft stuff, etc.

We have a PC in my current group doing the exact same thing. The 'merchant' aspect is the driving factor for adventuring (a business dedicated to the acquisition of hard to find items)

Scarab Sages

he's going to be a traveling, adventuring merchant


I can't agree more with LazarX and hogarth... That being said you want a high CHA and WIS for as many person skills you can get.


Claxon wrote:

I too was going to say it sounds like a case of the NPC Class Expert. Of course, any class that will have a lot of skill points will do.

A wizard would honestly work best in a likely because they will have high amount of skill points and the magical abilities to identify, price, create, etc, etc, etc magic items and wheel and deal them effectively to anyone.

I am actually going to say Magus, but for the same reasons and more. They start out with 4+Int skill points rather than the wizard's 2+Int, so that might make up any difference in intelligence and end up with more skills. They also are casters that use Int as their casting stat, so that means that they might have enough skill points to compete with rogues and bards. It also means a nice bonus on their crafting checks. They also have access to spells, which could be used in crafting.

There is actually an archetype for magus called the soul forger built around crafting armor, weapons, and shields and greatly reduces the time spent producing items (1/10 for the mundane masterwork part, 1/2 for the enchanting). Not sure if that archetype is really the best overall for fighting, but it has a ton of flavor. And even if you do not take it, I still find the idea of a swordsmith that uses his own weapons as almost mystical, and adding magical might to both acts just enhances that.


I recommend Bard, especially if he is less than scrupulous. Great spells, relevant skills, can craft magic items. Perfect class for this.

I also recommend the human alternate feature that trades in your one bonus feat for multiple skill focus feats.


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I think it would make for a very fun character, or even adventuring party, to go with this concept.

Instead of sometimes being in a town when the caravan/carnival comes through - you can be the caravan!

It flips lots of things on their head. Instead of taking that job guarding a merchant convoy, you are the guard. Instead of travelling with a caravan along the road for more safety - you will be picking up interesting characters in your travels. They will come in and out of your story like guest stars, sometimes being exactly what they seem and sometimes on the run from a pack of bad guys.

Bandit encounters make much more sense. Why would a back of bandits attack 5 heavily armed people with nothing but the packs on their backs? They know adventurers exist and tend to look exactly like this. But if there is a wagon packed with goods the risk is suddenly worth the reward.

With the whole party participating you have even more options. The Bard and Mage can put on magic shows. Monk or rogue? Acrobatics show.

Now you have a very legitimate reason to be wandering all over the world. And if you arrive in a town where there is some injustice - have hero will travel!

Scarab Sages

sorry for the slow response guys, he's at work, so he'll text his responses to me to put up.

all i know, is that he was thinking of being a merchanty, adventurer, who can at the very least craft wondrous items, and possibly sell them as the group travels from village to village (town, city, etc), but also be able to hold his own when it comes to combat.
he's not sure of what class would be the best for this type of thing.

Scarab Sages

and he (usually ) leans towards caster types of classes.


Rogues have the skill points - and you can take master craftsman feat (assuming non-caster) although 'wondrous' items might be harder


nekoyami wrote:
and he (usually ) leans towards caster types of classes.

then i'd suggest bard (or a level of rogue to get the skill points)


I agree, class doesn't matter.

Believe it or not, I actually DID have a merchant character. I sold wine, but I neither harvested the grapes, nor fermented the wine. I simply purchased it from a well known and respected monastery (in a dangerous part of the wilderness) and transported it to the nearby cities to sell to innkeepers. I was a sorcerer (high charisma class), with some ranks in Profession (Teamster) to drive the wagons, and Diplomacy (to negotiate price).

Many merchants don't actually make/grow what they are selling. Many merchants in a medieval setting just buy-transport-sell their products. Look to the Silk Road, Hanseatic League, or the British East India company for real world examples.


Kiutsune bard or sorcerer with the racial bonus to preferred class.


Jason Rice wrote:

I agree, class doesn't matter.

Class doesn't matter but it might help (here is why I think)

A wizard gets 2 skill ranks and his class skills are appraise, craft, fly, knowledge, linguistics, profession and spellcraft.

I think skills like diplomacy, bluff, and sense motive would be useful to a merchant; so spending a level on rogue to get that +3 to those skills (plus the skill point bonanza) might be a fair trade.

I think if a PC were 'only' a merchant, he's most likely a rogue. I agree that any class could be a merchant.


I have a Wizard who has basically turned the party's cart into a traveling shop. As such, he's pumped tens of thousands into producing magical gear to sell. After he buys a licence in a region I let him well stuff at near full price, and so part of the side game is seeing what he can actually sell since he has to go through the trouble of hunting down buyers for anything over 1K in gp.

The rest of the party is okay with it on account of the money it makes, the freedom traveling anywhere provides, and the agency they have since they can help sell wares. All in all, Merchants work fairly well imo, not hindering adventuring too much and giving some interesting fluff to a traditionally mundane activity.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

I get a vibe of Dragon Quest "merchant" class from this concept.

We could start from skills and work backward:
Who gets Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Profession, and Sense Motive?

Bard and Rogue get all of them.
Cleric, Inquisitor, and Sorcerer also do well. You could use a trait to pick up the skill or two missing.

Cleric or Inquisitor of a god of commerce/trade would be a good spellcaster type. Bard with oratory(flavored as a sales pitch) is a decent possibility as well.

Infernal Bloodline sorcerer gets Diplomacy. If the player wants "sinister" overtones to "making a deal."

Shadow Lodge

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Craft Lawrence from Spice & Wolf is springing to mind. Though he didn't actually make the stuff, just go town to town buying and selling. I guess Rogue/Bard?


I hope his GM is either a simulationist or a narrativist who wants to do the story 'Rise of a Merchant Prince'. Assuming one of those is true, and the other players are on board, I'd suggest a rogue as your merchant prince. Plenty of skill points and rogues are already frequently used as a party 'face' anyway. In games that I run, rogues get very significant bonuses to transnational intelligence operations and trade and moderate bonuses to leadership, administration, and rulership (fighters get the reverse, being excellent at leadership, admin, and rulership and fairly good at intelligence and trade). This is a big fraction of the way I balance 'narrative power' between martials and casters.


The 3.5 tabletop campaign we just finished I played a character as a merchant. It's just background flavor really. Her classes were fighter, rogue, & dread commando prestige class. Her background was that her parents were a human merchant ship captain and a tiefling rogue and she had been employed first as a liaison between the Merchants' Guild and Thieves' Guild, then trained as part of a covert team to protect Merchant Guild interests from the depradations of the Thieves.

I played her as making a buck buying and selling whenever we weren't in combat.

You could use any classes I would think.

Scarab Sages

Democratus wrote:

I think it would make for a very fun character, or even adventuring party, to go with this concept.

Instead of sometimes being in a town when the caravan/carnival comes through - you can be the caravan!

It flips lots of things on their head. Instead of taking that job guarding a merchant convoy, you are the guard. Instead of travelling with a caravan along the road for more safety - you will be picking up interesting characters in your travels. They will come in and out of your story like guest stars, sometimes being exactly what they seem and sometimes on the run from a pack of bad guys.

Bandit encounters make much more sense. Why would a back of bandits attack 5 heavily armed people with nothing but the packs on their backs? They know adventurers exist and tend to look exactly like this. But if there is a wagon packed with goods the risk is suddenly worth the reward.

With the whole party participating you have even more options. The Bard and Mage can put on magic shows. Monk or rogue? Acrobatics show.

Now you have a very legitimate reason to be wandering all over the world. And if you arrive in a town where there is some injustice - have hero will travel!

he says he likes this idea, as well as looking in the Magus class, and he appreciates everyone's input on this ^^


FYI Magus gets 2+int rather than 4+int as someone said upthread.

Scarab Sages

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:
FYI Magus gets 2+int rather than 4+int as someone said upthread.

I'll mention it to him, but like i said, he's planning on looking into the class in general since he's got really no idea about it, besides it's basically a "fighting mage" type of class.

Dark Archive

Cleric of Abadar > Balanced Scales of Abadar maybe?


whoops, miss read the skill points. Still, it is an int based caster, gets a lot of the major arcane spells, has martial capabilities, and has an archetype that is literally designed around crafting. Plus, it has three bonus combat feats by level 17, so you could feel more open to taking crafting feats.

Grand Lodge

Like, the Merchant in Aladdin?

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