the Dwarf's page

JohnHawkins has it right based on my information as well.

Gun decks on a frigate tended to have low ceilings so they presented less of a target to the enemy. Thus the 7'4" for the USS Constitution measuring from the bottom of the planking to the bottom of the planking would lose a few inches for the planking and more for the beams making it comfortable only for short people like myself (net 5'-6' for the most part.

Looking at gun carriages they were maybe triple the outside diameter or the gun (based on diagrams from https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-lis t-alphabetically/c/the-constitution-gun-deck.html
For spacing, looking at a side view of the USS Constitution it appears to have a gun port roughly every 10 feet, so even cannon would likely take up 10'x10' if not more space on a deck.

When you look at how some game systems determine tonnage via 5' squares a ton becomes 5'x5'x5' cube of space. How many people can you sleep in a 5'x5'x5' space? About four on hammocks, possibly 6, but 4 would be more comfortable. Four gives you 18"-24" width space for each man (with 1'-2' extra space between) and 24" clearance between men above and the ceiling, whereas 6 men per is either 18" shoulders touching or as above but only 18" between men, or about 9"-12" clearance between men laying flat and no ability to lay on one's side or turn over. Wherever possible men would string hammocks, even above the guns, especially if you can fit more men between the guns and others over them.

My solution was to seriously change the numbers on farmland, gardens, and greenhouses, increasing the size of the first two, and decreasing the cost and bonus on all three. My stats:

Farmland: Earnings gp or Goods +1

Cost: 1 Goods, 1 Labor (40 gp); Time 4 days; Size 250–500 squares (~.25 acre)

OK, let me try this again.

It was determined around the mid 1800's that it took about 250-300 hours to get a (grain) crop from about 5 acres of land, including all the plowing, planting, harvesting, etc. That was using a plow, scythe, etc, before threshing machines and other mechanical devices were introduced. This puts a fairly good number to estimate the amount of labor and why if you have a 30 acre virgate (aka, supposedly the amount of land needed to feed one PERSON, at least during the earliest medieval period) you often needed extra help as that is 1500-1800 hours per year and at 260-312 work days per year (aka, no weekends or no Sundays respectively) that comes to 1 hr per 5acres or 6 hours per day per virgate .. at 40 acres it becomes 8 hour days .. and that assumes you can work every season of the year instead of having to take 3 months off and not messing with crops after they are sown so more like 12 hours/day. If you want to talk medieval serfs with copyholds who owed 3 days per week to the Lord of the Manor it gets even more complicated.

Now then, using your numbers, let us talk yields.
Wheat goes for 1cp/pound so at +1 yield that is 11sp/week for taking 10 or 110# of wheat, per week. In reality you get only 1 wheat harvest per year so 52x that mean a totally incompetent farmer is harvesting 5500# of wheat per quarter acre (or 22000#/acre .. yeah, 11 tons). Since wheat weighs 60#/bushel that is 91-92 bushels per quarter acre or almost 367 bushels per acre. Um, no, still WAY too high (aka55gp/year from a 1/4 acre of land). No, the reality is you planted 2-2.5 bushels per acre and the gross yield was about 7-15 bushels per acre after putting in 5-8 weeks of labor (depending how you count of week of labor .. 60hrs or 40hrs) over the course of the year.

The reason 99% of the population was directly involved in agriculture is that it took that many to do the work to feed the rest. If we take it with a grain of salt that all the other room yields are correct (they are not, so maybe a pound of salt?, but can be made to work and most are closer if cp rather than sp per week) then we seriously need to toss out gardens & farmland entirely as they do not work even scaled down by a factor of 10. Yields of 5500# of wheat per year is the best you would expect on about a 120 acre Hide of the best soil with a druid or cleric with Plant Sphere casting a spell to increase crop yields by 33%. Make farmland per Hide and your numbers come closer :)

Satchmo wrote:

compound interest

One of our GMs researched medieval banking. They charged you interest to hold your money for you. The great convenience was depositing $ in one city and drawing on it in another. They also got paid when they loaned money, just like now. The Templars let the King have too much on account and he turned them out.

Which is fine if you are running a medieval game that involves the Roman Catholic Church during times when there was a ban on Catholics charging usury (the ban was based on the reported "incident in the temple").

Thing is, what you stated was not the case: a) for non-Catholics, b)in earlier periods, nor c) in later periods. Most cultures allowed usury and we have reports from the the time of the Roman Empire through the medieval period of people charging interest on loans (aka, usury), and them being despised for it (and other reasons) and being killed, driven out, or forced to live in ghettos.

The GM in question apparently did not do enough research or did not explain in context the section of medieval banking he was talking about. The subject is much more complicated, but is only a religious taboo. If you want a good example of the ban on usury in action during the historic period check out Medici on Netflix :)

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I think this could be "an important topic" about a real loophole and I think plugging it would be wise. Some people just don't quite understand what the fuss is all about, but my calculations, based on a character with even 1 rank in the skill and a net +0 in the profession could, due to the +10 bonus currently added to Farmland, "take 10" and net 2gp per day per unit of Farmland and thus, if owned even one acre of land, net just over 12,700gp per year. Thralls & serfs don't own the land but a yeoman (free farmer) does and the thought of farmers having to build underground vaults to hide their wealth strikes me as beyond all reason.

Now then, basing a "grain farmer" on the Pig Farmer, and giving him skill focus in Profession: Farmer yields at least a +8 to skill roll, but I will use the additional +1 used below ..

But we are not talking the average blacksmith. We are talking the average farmer which is a level 2 Commoner who has an about +9 modifier (Lets be kind and add a +1 Trait mod for the sake of rounding. I tend to give NPCs a single trait anyway).

Thats a 2 GP every day he works. Assuming hes lazy and works only 5 days a week.

No, you are forgetting to "take 10" which, added to the +10 and skill bonus, yield 2gp 9sp PER DAY. I am skill shaking my head at planting and harvesting every day, but to continue ..

Thats 10 GP a week. 40 a month. 480 a year. - 100 GP a year for 3 poor meals a day, thats 380 GP to spend on leftovers.

Buying a single farmland would require 15 goods and labor. Thats about 300 GP.

1,058gp 5sp, and assuming a farmer, wife, and 2 kids, that could take u 438gp .. it could be more but after a certain age (likely age 6 or 8) the kids would be earning 1sp/day as "unskilled laborers" so could be assumed to "skate for free" ;)

Now we earn a extra 1 GP per day. Thats 15 a week. 60 a Month. 720 a year. - the 100 fee thats 620 (Add the extra 80 and thats 700). OK then now we can buy TWO extra farmland.

Thats 5 GP a Day. 25 a Week. 100 a month. 1,200 a year.

See how the ball rolls?

So, then follow the remarks below, then realize that a unit of farmland in Pathfinder is only 1/20th to 1/40th of an acre, so an "average" freeholder with 32 acres of land would, even if working only 30ac, be netting 600k-1.26 million gold pieces per year. Yup, that be broken.

So, how to fix it? Rig the system so the average freehold farmer only makes 450gp/year on X acres of land. I use "X" because depending on the era and yields, a single person could live on as little as an acre of land (3#'s of food per day, half for seed/etc, puts needed wheat yield at about 30-40bu/ac) and put garden yields on the same level (croft & toft, aka ALL farm houses come with a garden, but though yields may be as high or higher products are not usually as marketable (aka, not trade goods thus half price, etc, so 80% is about right, otherwise entirely consumed by family).

One way is to just state that Farmland only "produces" when the crop on it produces (aka, once per year) and although requires Labor to prep it 2-3 times in the year only the week (or so) of harvest counts towards yield. Thus one acre is 20-40 units of farmland and with a +8 (+9) for skill one week yields 392-784gp of yields. That is still over 650bu/ac, but it is a start ;)
If you limit it to just one day then, to get that "magic" 450gp/person given 1/20th of an acre the farmer would need about 7.76 acres under cultivation .. people with knowledge of 2-field rotation probably just realized that means 16ac of land with half fallow if 1/20th of an acre or half that if 1/40th and that puts it much closer to actual medieval yields.

The other way is to "rig" the system such that the farmer has to "take 20" to earn net a few silver, aka the Earnings per unit of Farmland is say -25 rather than +10 thus a Farmer with +8 in Profession: Farmer would earn 3sp/20days per unit of Farmland (54sp/year) and thus only 216gp/year per acre (at 40 square per Farmland) and need at least 2-4 cares of land minimum to survive.

So, there you have it, the problem and a couple potential solutions :)

(aka, "keep the peasants hungry")

Probably increase all the numbers of acres needed by a bit if you assess taxes on top of that or, in the case of the -25 to roll, taxes are included.

One last point, most copyholders (serfs & villeins, aka, not-entirely-free peasants) owed a half-week labor per week to the lord of the manor. This is not an issue with the case of limiting yields to one week per year but is an issue if a negative modifier is applied, so consider dropping the negative to say -15 to -20 but stick them with 3 days per week for the Lord of the Manor, and on average 1 day per week on holy days so even though able to earn more still only making 3-6sp/21 days (aka, 1sp/week), if you wish to be that cruel.