I'm planning on starting a new campaign and my players tend toward getting involved in starting their own holdings may it be a trading company or attempting to carve out their own kingdom. Does anyone recommend any 3.5 or even 3.0 books that support this? From browsing around I've noticed...Cry Havoc.... Fields of Blood... Empire... Strongholds and Dynasties. Any body have any personal experience they can relate in respect to how these rules played out in campaigns? Most of these books look centered around domain building but I was also looking for something leaning toward the rules for running a merchant based game also. Something akin to Dune Trader for Dark Sun or if I remember correctly the Gazetteer for Darokin had rules for incomes earned through caravans. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.
I haven't used it yet in my campaign, but the Dungeon Master's Guide II has a section on PC run businesses.
Check out THIS THREAD.
I figured I might as well link to Dingo's stuff before he gets in here and clogs up this thread with his Copy/Paste fetish.
Rez
Whoa...is yellow dingo a secret agent for the census bureau and the puppet master behind the publishers group that puts out the Farmer's Almanac. Thats a pretty in depth treatment to get me started. Hopefully dingo will make an apperance I'm curious about the "original D&D (mystaran) economic rules he mentions and their source. Geesh, he even mentioned ergot in the rye! I appreciate the info and I'll check out the other recommended books. Thanks.
My PCs run a trading company with 2 ships. We use opposed Diplomacy checks between buyer and seller, and use the difference between the 2 as a percentage advantage for the winner.
For example, if something normally costs 1000 gp, and the buyer beats the seller's Diplomacy check by 10, they can buy it for 900gp, but it still has an actual value of 1000gp.
Then when they sell the 1000 gp goods, they make another opposed Diplomacy check with the new buyer. If the seller got a 35 Diplomacy check, and the buyer got a 20, the seller would then sell the 1000 gp goods for 1150 gp. That's a 250 gp profit.
We just use abstract "trade goods" because we tried using actual trade goods from the PH, and it was WAY too complicated and ate up 3/4 of the night. Not fun.
We also only use the Diplomacy rules for trade goods only, not for magic items or adventurer's equipment; we found it made the non-Charismatic PCs feel like they were being ripped off, or they always had to pester a Charismatic PC to do their buying and selling for them.
The PCs have a half-elven beguiler 15 with max ranks in Diplomacy, synergy bonuses from Bluff, Knowledge nobility, and Sense Motive, the half elven bonus, a Cloak of Charisma +6, and a Circlet of Persuasion (+3 to Cha based skills). I think her Diplomacy modifier is +33, and that's without the Bard aiding another and/or Inspiring Competence.
So they're rich.
Check out THIS THREAD.
I figured I might as well link to Dingo's stuff before he gets in here and clogs up this thread with his Copy/Paste fetish.
Rez
Where did he go?
Well, the bard is a half-drow, so he's more sly than that.
Also, I think he might use Perform (buffoonery), so it might just be witty remarks.
Actually, they haven't really tried to use Aid Another or other buffs like that....maybe they should!