Greetings, Pathfinders!
My players have built up a roster of characters and have become fascinated with the idea of having a seagoing vessel for shipping and/or piracy. And, they have the gold to buy one.
In looking at Ultimate Campaign, I see the rules for downtime for various businesses, but I'm not seeing anything that looks like it directly relates to a ship. Some of the pieces appear to be there, but I'm still learning those rules.
Is Ultimate Campaign the best place to look for the rules on running a business with a sea going vessel? Especially, income and expenses?
If not, where else should I look?
I'm not sure where to look at for specific rules, but maybe adjust the prices of trade good depending on location? letting them buy in cheaper locations and ship them somewhere else and sell them for more?
I ran a pirate campaign, and I tried to make rules for trade and such, and it got oddly complex and time consuming. We eventually just made it a single Diplomacy check to represent haggling, and their profits increased by 1% for each pip over a DC 20 check. So if they got a 30 Diplomacy check, they made a 10% profit. So if they bought 10000 gp of "trade goods," they made 11000 gp.
This was for 3.5, and the party had a half-elf beguiler, so she was able to get consistent 40s on Diplo checks.
D&D/PF is for fun adventuring, not tedious economic minutiae, so handwaving the details lead to more fun adventuring.
This seems more like an advice question than a rules one. Flagging for move.
The Alternate Profession rules from PFUnchained cover starting and owning/operating a business. Doing it with a ship as a base of operations could work.
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You need the Minrothad Guilds gazetteer. It has a trade system that is simple and fun.
Check out the map starting on pdf page 99 to see how it works. Different cities have +/- bonuses to sales or purchases of certain products (supply/demand). There is a section in the main book that explains it. Make a roll, add your personal bonuses, add your city factors. Profit (hopefully).
You could look at the caravan rules in Jade Regent. As a sideline to the travel, the players are able to manage a caravan and trade as they go.
You could also reference the ship costs and upgrades from Skulls and Shackles to replace the wagon costs and upgrades from Jade Regent, and the rest should work out pretty well.
It actually sounds fun to me.
Thanks, everyone. That gives me some ideas on where to look for the relevant rules.
And, thank you, Dark Midian. Your probably right about it being advice rather than rules. Not so much asking how the rules work as asking where to find the appropriate rules.
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...This is not the shipping thread I was expecting...