Collecting Taxes (Kingdom Building)

Collect Taxes: Attempt an Economy check, divide the result by 3 (round down), and add a number of BP to your Treasury equal to the result.

Is this particular economy check compared to the Control DC, or do you just ignore that number and divide your result by 3? If the former, what happens if you don't beat it?

As I understand it, you either collect the entire roll as taxes (div 3), or none of it.

I played around with it for a few hours, the income was enough to continuously roll out small buildings and gradually expand the kingdom, or to save up for bigger buildings.

I couldn't find where it clearly states it, but in the example:

"Looking ahead to the Income Phase, Jessica realizes that an average roll for her Economy check would be a failure (10 on the 1d20 + 52 Economy – 4 Unrest = 58, less than the Control DC of 60), which means there's a good chance the kingdom won't generate any BP this turn."

It is clear you need to make your control DC before you can divide. Also, natural 1 is always a failure.

Economy check = Economy check roll (you can take 10). divide that by 3. You completely ignore the Control DC.

You don't ignore the Control DC entirely - you still need to make the roll, as shown in the example - but if you succeed you don't subtract the Control DC from the tax income.

Well, that answers my question.

Next question: Can you really take 10 on it? What about loyalty and stability checks?

I'm posting from my phone at the moment so I can't provide a link, but the write-up on kingdom checks specifically calls out that you can't take 10 or 20 on control checks.

I was somewhat less than impressed with how taxation edicts affect kingdom income - I much prefer the alternate tax edicts laid out in Ultimate Rulership.

As others have pointed out, it is possible to fail the Economy check and obtain no taxes.

As for taking 10...

Kingdom Check: A kingdom has three attributes: Economy, Loyalty, and Stability. Your kingdom's initial scores in each of these attributes is 0, plus modifiers for kingdom alignment, bonuses provided by the leaders, and any other modifiers. Many kingdom actions and events require you to attempt a kingdom check, either using your Economy, Loyalty, or Stability attribute (1d20 + the appropriate attribute + other modifiers). You cannot take 10 or take 20 on a kingdom check. Kingdom checks automatically fail on a natural 1 and automatically succeed on a natural 20.

Seems pretty clear to me.

I think the general tendency in PF rules is that if a roll always fails on a 1, you can't Take 10 on it.

It's not an explicit rule, but it seems to be true in all cases I can come up with.

@Chemlak
Thanks for finding that quote!

@Raving
Basically it goes: Roll a D20 + your economy modifier against the control DC. You may not take 10 on this check.

If that check succeeds, you take the result, divide by three, and round down if necessary. That number is your income in BP for that month.

If that check fails, you earn zero BP that month.

You can issue taxation edicts which will influence your economy modifier, but these do not directly affect the number of BP you get. Personally I find this a little frustrating since the difference between no taxes (+0 on economy checks) and overwhelming taxes (+4 on economy checks) quickly becomes irrelevant when your economy modifier quickly goes up in the double and eventually even triple digits.

Has this been officially clarified anywhere? Because I am pretty confident that you DON'T have to beat the control DC.

• The actual rule quite plainly does not say this. It would not have been difficult or awkward for it to do so.
  
• In fact, there was a line giving such a restriction in the original version of these rules, in Kingmaker. It was taken out in UC. I would assume, absent specific evidence to the contrary, that this didn't happen by accident.
  
• The example for the Income Phase doesn't mention it either, even though it would clearly be relevant.
  
• The only place that says or even implies anything about comparing this check to the control DC is the example for the Edict Phase. I think it's pretty obvious that the actual wording of the rule that covers a given situation is a higher authority on how that situation works than any example, let alone an example listed under a different rule.
  

I conclude that the Edict Phase example is in error, and that you don't have to beat the control DC.

The thing is; ALL kingdom checks are compared to the Control DC. It is possible for the crown's men to fail at collecting taxs at all, and overwhelming size, civil unrest, and inept economics can all lead to that 0 revenue. It makes sense that if you need to beat the DC.

That being said; in my Kingdoms minigame that I'm playing with my friends, all of us have economy so high from Foundry + Multiple mines that our economies are all 10 points OVER our Control DC. So, we only fail on ones. It's just incentive to emphasize a strong economy score.

You do need to beat the control DC. One of the developers designers confirmed this when Ultimate Campaign was first released.

I remember this since I had the exact same line of thought as Jeffh above. The phrasing of the income check could probably have been a little more clear.

Edit: Here's the post.

I believe the correct expression for a successful Kingdom Check should be equal to or greater than the Control DC.

(For those who get dubious about rolling exactly the DC.)

You do need to beat the control DC. One of the developers designers confirmed this when Ultimate Campaign was first released.

I remember this since I had the exact same line of thought as Jeffh above. The phrasing of the income check could probably have been a little more clear.

Edit: Here's the post.

That's... actually not very clear in this particular case. The text Sean quoted only says "unless otherwise stated". The rule doesn't say anything about "if you succeed..." or otherwise suggest success or failure matter in the usual sense. Instead it gives a totally different mechanic for evaluating the results, one that's unusual but not unprecedented (cf jumping distance). I'd say it states otherwise.

The reply he gives is specifically in response to "does income checks have a DC?" - read the preceding posts. If it was meant to mean that the Income checks always succeed, he'd likely say so.

That said, if you feel it's a problem you can always start a FAQ thread on the question. :)

Unless otherwise stated, the DC of a kingdom check is the Control DC.

Now find me the rule about taxation that says the DC is not the Control DC.

Also:

Looking ahead to the Income phase, Jessica realizes that an average roll for her Economy check would be a failure (10 on the 1d20 + 52 Economy — 4 Unrest = 58, less than the Control DC of 60), which means there's a good chance the kingdom won't generate any BP this turn.

This is the argument: "well, even though the rules say that the DC is the Control DC, and that the rules elsewhere have to explicitly call out when the DC is not the control DC, and even though the examples in the rules text explicitly point out that you can fail the Economy check and therefore not earn any income, and that the taxation phase does not explicitly state that the Control DC is not the DC of the Economy check for taxation, because it doesn't say you have to succeed you can't fail and will always earn income with at least a +2 Economy bonus."

Doesn't wash, I'm afraid.

Edit: Also, it says "attempt an Economy check..." What happens when the attempt fails?

This is the argument: "well, even though the rules say that the DC is the Control DC, and that the rules elsewhere have to explicitly call out when the DC is not the control DC, and even though the examples in the rules text explicitly point out that you can fail the Economy check and therefore not earn any income, and that the taxation phase does not explicitly state that the Control DC is not the DC of the Economy check for taxation, because it doesn't say you have to succeed you can't fail and will always earn income with at least a +2 Economy bonus."

Doesn't wash, I'm afraid.

No, the argument is very clearly laid out above, with bullet points and everything. Responses to what I actually said are welcome; dishonest caricatures of it, much less so.

Edit: Also, it says "attempt an Economy check..." What happens when the attempt fails?

What indeed? You're quite right, this is totally unclear from the rule as written. How you think that fact supports your side and not mine, however, I'm honestly not seeing.

The reply he gives is specifically in response to "does income checks have a DC?" - read the preceding posts. If it was meant to mean that the Income checks always succeed, he'd likely say so.

That said, if you feel it's a problem you can always start a FAQ thread on the question. :)

I understand that, but he doesn't give enough context to make it clear that he fully understood the question. The question isn't just "the DC is unclear, what is it?" (which appears to be the question he answered); it's "it's unclear whether the concepts of success, failure, and DC even apply here, in fact there are pretty strong indications that they don't". I'm not sure from his response that Sean was clear on the distinction.

If you think this is still unclear then you should hit the FAQ button at the top here and/or make a new thread outlining the problem and your reasoning. I suspect the topic may have a hard time getting enough hits to make it to the top of the FAQ list since most people seem to think it's pretty cut and dry, but it's worth a shot!

You could also try to send Sean a Private Message and ask him to elaborate on the post - if you decide to do this, it'd be great if you posted any replies you receive here!

I agree with Kudaku (and I consider saying that my earlier post was a dishonest caricature to be a bit rude, but I suppose my post was a bit sarcastic, so sorry for that).

If Sean's not in a responsive mood, you might also try Jason Nelson, since he did the initial design on the UCam rules.

You are quite correct that the information specifically regarding the consequences of failure were removed (I imagine to save space), but the example in the Edict phase was added and covers the situation: it is a little disingenuous to say "the removal of text supports my position, but the added text which says the opposite is an error".

As it stands right now, I'm trying to think of any other check in the entirety of the Pathfinder rules which a) has a defined DC (this one does), and b) provides a non-null result for failing to meet the DC. I don't think there are any, particularly since the definition of DC requires equalling or exceeding the DC for the action to be successful. Maybe jump checks, I guess.

I'm going to try my final question with a bit of added text: what happens when a check (to collect taxes) fails to meet the DC (to collect taxes)? Please consider that by the definition of DC, collecting taxes was not successful. There are two possible answers:

1) Being unsuccessful at collecting taxes means that no taxes were collected.
2) Being unsuccessful at collecting taxes means that taxes were collected as normal.

Your basic premise that this check has a DC in the usual sense is precisely what I'm denying. (And this is the fourth time I've said either that exact thing or something that pretty clearly implies it!) The rule lays out an alternative mechanic, which at least to me, seems sufficient to invoke the "unless otherwise stated" in the rule you're leaning on.

IF the rule is meant to work the way you say, I don't see why the wording would have been changed from one that clearly says that, to one that doesn't and can easily be read as saying the opposite. It's not like that change was made by some random force of nature. This is something a reasonably intelligent human being put some non-zero amount of effort into doing. It happened for a reason. The most plausible reason is an intentional, functional change.

("To save space" is an absurd explanation for a change that would at most cut one line of text, and a fairly crucial one, in a 200+ page book FULL of needlessly verbose descriptions and absurdly overcomplicated subsystems that would be much more obvious candidates for such a cut.)

I don't see how a mere example trumps this, especially an example of a different rule. If the example was meant to clarify this rule, then that's where it would be. Possibly, the example was written with the old rule in mind and at whatever point it got changed, the example got overlooked precisely because it's listed under a different rule. {shrug} seems at least as plausible as any other explanation. There's pretty clearly been some kind of editorial mistake somewhere, no matter which side you come down on.

To invoke the "unless otherwise stated" portion of the rule on kingdom check DCs, the rule would have to state that there is a different (or complete lack of a) DC. In other words, the difference in DC needs to be stated.

Is an Economy check a kingdom check? Yes.
Is there a statement that the DC is not the Control DC? No.
Does this mean that the DC is "otherwise stated"? No.
Therefore the DC of a kingdom check in this case is the Control DC.

You can throw "implied" out as much as you wish. I have verifiable proof that it is not stated to be anything other than the Control DC in the rules text.

Prove me wrong. Show me where it says, without doubt or implication, that the Control DC for this particular Economy check does not follow the rules for Kingdom check DCs, and I will happily concede the point.

I know this thread is pretty old but I was looking into this also until I found the following:

Taxation Edicts

Setting the tax level determines how much revenue you
collect from taxes in the Income phase. Higher taxes
increase your kingdom’s Economy (making it easier for
you to succeed at Economy checks to generate revenue) but
make your citizens unhappy (reducing Loyalty).

That pretty much proves that you need to succeed an economy check to get revenue

Thanks, UG! That's an awesome quote.

I think the general tendency in PF rules is that if a roll always fails on a 1, you can't Take 10 on it.

It's not an explicit rule, but it seems to be true in all cases I can come up with.

Cant Take 20, but can take 10. On a roll that fails automatically on a 1.

Kingdom Check: A kingdom has three attributes: Economy, Loyalty, and Stability. Your kingdom's initial scores in each of these attributes is 0, plus modifiers for kingdom alignment, bonuses provided by the leaders, and any other modifiers. Many kingdom actions and events require you to attempt a kingdom check, either using your Economy, Loyalty, or Stability attribute (1d20 + the appropriate attribute + other modifiers). You cannot take 10 or take 20 on a kingdom check. Kingdom checks automatically fail on a natural 1 and automatically succeed on a natural 20.