I have a player who built a Rogue, largely focused on his ability to obtain and make a profit on anything he gets his hands on. While I like the idea of a merchant in the group, we both want to develope that aspect of the character in detail. When he created his character, he took the following skills in the interest of becoming a good merchant; Craft: Jeweler, & Profession: Merchant. I've thumbed through my own books and also spent some time searching the web, but I havent found anything useful yet. As a result, I've started putting together some rules of my own, . . .
Here is what I've come up with so far:
Profession: Merchant
The following is a list of modifiers for Merchants. The result is the % (Money Wise) of your wares sold in a full day of selling.
+0 Huge City (+50,000 population)
-5 Large City (25,000-49,999 pop)
-10 Small City (5,000-24,999 pop)
-15 Town (1,000-4,999 pop)
-20 Village (100-999 pop)
-25 Settlement (20-99 pop)
-30 Homestead (1-19 pop)
Craft: Jeweler
The following is a list of modifiers for Jewelers. For the time being, this will cover cleaning/impriving existing items. If you ever want to start making your own items, let me know in advance so I can plan accordingly.
DC25 = +5,000GP gems/jewelry
DC20 = 1,000-4,999GP gems/jewelry
DC15 = 100-999GP gems/jewelry
DC10 = 1-99GP gems/jewelry
A successful roll will add 10% to the value you are trying to If you fail your roll, roll a second time. If the second roll succeeds, the gem/jewelry holds its original value. If the second roll also fails, the gem/jewelry is ruined and looses 50% of its value.
New Items:
Jeweler's Tools: 50GP
This set of tools contains all the tools needed to clean or repair gems and jewelry. Without these tools you must use improvised tools and take a -3 circumstance penalty on Craft: Jewelry checks. A Magnafying Glass is needed to make use of these tools.
Jeweler's Tools, Masterwork: 150GP
This set of tools contain additional tools, and tools of better quality which grant a +2 circumstance bonus on Craft: Jewelery checks. A Magnafying Flass is needed to make use of these tools.
Merchant's Clothes: 50GP
A custom tailored outfit. Often lined in fine furs, these outfits are almost always made in bright colors and have fine embroidery. Characters gain a +2 to Profession: Merchant checks when wearing these clothes.
Merchant's Pavillion: 250gp
A large tent designed to display a merchant's wares in comfort. It takes 120 minutes to assemble. This item grants both a +2 circumstance bonus to Profession: Merchant checks and a -2 circumstance penalty to characters making Slight of Hand checks against the Merchant.
Any and all constructive criticism and feedback would be welcome!
You might want to change that to Bard Class
Bards have better Charisma
Bards have better spells for trade or travel
Bards have better Knowledge checks, knowledge is power in trade.
Bards have songs that can influencer other reactions.
anyway just an idea.
Charm Person, Alarm, Comprehend languages, Tongues, Animal Messenger, Locate Object, Phantom steed, Tiny Hut, Legend Lore, Scrying, etc etc... of spells that could help a tradesman.
He wants to run a Merchant Rogue. He sees it as "Take from everyone, sell it for profit."
Once my stats were so bad, that I decided to play a merchant. Bought bulk trade goods, set up caravan routes etc. It was great fun...for the first 3 games. Then it became tedious. As hell.
Sure, let him do it, accomodate the caravan routes and guild meetings. Make sure he actually does the paperwork properly ie.
salt @ 2 sp a pound - Riddleport.
salt @ 8 sp a pound - Magnimar.
etc.
That's if he actually wants to play a Merchant. It's actually a lot of work that for the most part is not much fun.
Just give him/her an out when they get tired of it.
Once my stats were so bad, that I decided to play a merchant. Bought bulk trade goods, set up caravan routes etc. It was great fun...for the first 3 games. Then it became tedious. As hell.
Sure, let him do it, accomodate the caravan routes and guild meetings. Make sure he actually does the paperwork properly ie.
salt @ 2 sp a pound - Riddleport.
salt @ 8 sp a pound - Magnimar.etc.
That's if he actually wants to play a Merchant. It's actually a lot of work that for the most part is not much fun.
Just give him/her an out when they get tired of it.
Thats why I'm trying to make a simple system to cover most goods. It will give him the chance to persue his career in some detail while not over complicating things. The current plan is to use the above rules for most things, then make individual sales for more substantial items.
Anyone have any thoughts on the rules I've worked up for Merchants?
Honestly, I think the rules you have for huge cities versus small homesteads don't work because they assume no competition from fellow merchants in the huge cities and no demand from the small homesteads who may be highly interested because it's not often they have peddlers show up out in the middle of nowhere.
The trouble is, the crafting rules are already borked in the game, and the trading rules go atop that, especially since there are no rules set up for items being scarcer in one place than another, or even the fees reasonably added for items being brought in by ships and caravans.
Think of what a risky proposition shipping and caravan trading was in the real world and then add in the business expense of sea serpents and sand worms in a fantasy land. But since we want the tropes of Sinbad's voyages and caravan traders, we take a grain of salt large enough to brine our disbelief to death and make it so that somehow taking shipments of tea halfway across the world is still profitable, despite the fact that tea sells for the same price in Tian as in the rest of Golarion even though it doesn't grow there.
Which is a long way of saying is that it's a workable ruleset but it's plugged into a section of the game that's so badly broken that the only fix has simply been handwaving. NPC merchants somehow make a profit, otherwise there wouldn't be the merchant ships and trade caravans we want for story purposes.
Having a PC make his money that way? That's fine, but the only real solution is handwaving. Most rogues taken their stolen loot to the local fence and he gives them money. The merchant rogue sells it in a shop or to random passerby in the street. Same dif.
These are the same things me and my players have been discussing the last couple of days.
Part of the reason my player wants to have a merchant is because I am only allowing 50% of the original item cost when selling items. By becoming a merchant, he has the potential to sell items at full price.
The reasons for the modifiers the way they are is as much due to the ammount of money each area can bring to bear when buying new goods as it is due to the number of people around to purchase goods.
My players are talking about getting their hands on one or two wagons. One of these would belong to our Alchemist and would be used as a mobile lab. The second one would belong to our Rogue/Merchant as a way to transport goods. I'd be surprised if their "Caravan" became much larger than that.
We have already talked about using modifiers based on the kinds of goods vs demand. But that will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Our group is getting together this weekend, so we will be trying things out at that time. I'm sure there will be a lot of tweeking done as things progress, but my group seems to think these rules "Feel" right for what they want to do.
Thanks for the feedback! It gave me some good food-for-thought.
There's a portable alchemy lab in the new Pathfinder Adventurer's Armory. It's probably what the alchemist wants.
As for the rest, what I'm thinking you're wanting to do is import the old Mercantile Background feat from 3.5. It's in the Players Guide to Faerun and also in Dragon #315. Basically, it says you're from a merchant family so you're able to sell stuff at 75% of list price rather than 50% and you also get a little extra GP at character creation.
Of course, I will mention the obvious flaw with this feat is that you get one player with it in the group and everyone effectively gets it because the party just funnels their loot through merchant boy.
As an alternate, I'd suggest what I do in my games: 50% is the price you can get at the pawnbroker. So long as it's valuable, the pawnbroker will take it. If you want to get more than that, you need to look for a buyer yourself, which requires diplomacy checks to gather information and secret rolls by the DM to see if there's anyone in the market for such a thing.
You can also have fun stuff like when in one game I had, the pawnbrokers had a lucrative sideline as bookies taking bets on the dragonboat races. Unfortunately, the longshot bet won, and there was effectively a run on the banks as all the poor folk with their long-shot lottery tickets were wanting their cash now. This was the situation that a party with a lot of cash and not a lot of magic found themselves in, which the pawnbrokers unloading magic items at firesale prices, meaning to say, up to 50% off regular prices. The's weren't the blue chip items like luckstones that they had back orders for, but a lot of good stuff: a manual of golems, two of three ivory goats, lightly used wands of less useful spells, etc.
The idea is, let the economy actually be real.
The Alchemist in our group intends to pick up an Alchemists Kit as soon as he can afford it. The wagon he is talking about getting would be his "Home away from Home" and be where he would do most of his work.
I'll look into getting my hands on one of the sources for the Merchant Feat. It dosnt really sound like what we want to do, but it is the first I've heard of anything "Official" on the subject.
As for the rest of our characters funneling their goods through the Merchant, that was something we had already talked about and I decided it would be fine.
The above modifiers are just a baseline for most situations. I've been working a couple of pages of information about any of the cities my players may be visiting. I have a list of the different kinds of goods in those entires which should create a baseline for any situational modifiers based on local economy.
Thanks again for the feedback.
I've actually been tossing around the idea of an "adventuring merchant" for a couple of years. But I honestly don't know how to get it off the design room floor.
Concept:
I see the bard as a "people person" in that he can manipulate people. Conversely, I would like the merchant--or some much better class name--to be an "item person" in that he can manipulate things. So, Use Magic Device is an obvious class skill, and scroll use a must. Maybe he can identify magic items without resorting to magic...? I see him as being much more than a salesman (though he is) or a deal-finder (though he is that, too).
He might have the saves and BAB of a bard, and maybe a skill set similar to the rogue. I see him being able to jury-rig stuff quite well...maybe he doesn't really know how to disarm a trap, but he can figure something out with the stuff that's on hand. Kinda like MacGuyver...
He knows a whole lot of odd bits of things, too, like the bard. I realize he quickly begins to look like a bard/rogue multi-class, but I don't want him singing or playing instruments or being a "thief" particularly. He's a guy who can get things, fix things, knows stuff about things, and--yes--he can buy and sell things for a better deal.
Beyond the concept, though, I get stuck fast, because I can't seem to give it wings, as it were. What else can this guy do to make him a viable 20-lvl class?
There are already rules for making money with Profession (merchant) in the Core Rulebook....
I've actually been tossing around the idea of an "adventuring merchant" for a couple of years. But I honestly don't know how to get it off the design room floor.
Concept:
I see the bard as a "people person" in that he can manipulate people. Conversely, I would like the merchant--or some much better class name--to be an "item person" in that he can manipulate things. So, Use Magic Device is an obvious class skill, and scroll use a must. Maybe he can identify magic items without resorting to magic...? I see him as being much more than a salesman (though he is) or a deal-finder (though he is that, too).He might have the saves and BAB of a bard, and maybe a skill set similar to the rogue. I see him being able to jury-rig stuff quite well...maybe he doesn't really know how to disarm a trap, but he can figure something out with the stuff that's on hand. Kinda like MacGuyver...
He knows a whole lot of odd bits of things, too, like the bard. I realize he quickly begins to look like a bard/rogue multi-class, but I don't want him singing or playing instruments or being a "thief" particularly. He's a guy who can get things, fix things, knows stuff about things, and--yes--he can buy and sell things for a better deal.
Beyond the concept, though, I get stuck fast, because I can't seem to give it wings, as it were. What else can this guy do to make him a viable 20-lvl class?
What you're thinking about is what I'd call an Antiquarian. What the Archivist was in 3.5 for identifying monsters, I expect that this guy would be for items, including an overlap in being able to identify constructs since somebody obviously made these things, though one imagines he'd be a bit annoying in the dungeon telling you trivia about the sculptor who carved a particular caryatid column rather than what the relevant enchantments are. Similarly, I expect an Antiquarian would be the least favorite person of a number of liches because their phylacteries are historic curios that these guys would take notes on and trade with their friends the way wizards do with the names of dragons.
LICH: Hah! You fools! My staff was not my phylactery!
WIZARD: But all my arcane research said....
ANTIQUARIAN: Actually, his phylactery is a large emerald. He used to use it for the gem at the top of his staff, but wore it in a crown before that, and I note that there is a rather large emerald buckle on his spell component pouch....
If you wanted to give Antiquarians a bit more of a cache, let them also deal with curses, specifically curses on items, and even give them some means to repair them, at least for themselves. It could be kind of fun to have a character who manages to make a Periapt of Foul Rotting operate as a Periapt of Health while he's wearing it, because he does esoteric fussy stuff that gets it to work right for him, but for anyone else, it's still a horrible cursed item.
There was also an Eberron gnome prestige class that could use scrolls without using them up. Having someone who could get extra charges out of charged magic items would be reasonably good.
Good ideas, Kevin. And I think I like the proposed name, too. Already the class has "filled out" a bit in my head, but I don't want a prestige class, small niche character. I'm looking for a full 20-level class, if that's even possible.
Is it possible? Can a mercantile-based, curio dealing, antiquarian be playable (i.e. viable) as a 20-lvl adventurer? I tend to think he has to be a spellcaster with progressions like the bard just to stay meaningful at all levels. Or...he could just amass a backpack full of scrolls that never get used up...Spellcraft checks to cast them, etc.
I like the notion of overriding cursed items, though I doubt that ability would see much natural use. A DM would need to drop more cursed items into the game purposefully. Or...maybe he can "squeeze" more "juice" out of an item through all his esoteric fussiness. Maybe for him (only) a +1 weapon functions as +2 if his attack roll is high enough, or like you said, he gets a "freebie" every so often from a wand, or the fireball he gets from that wand tosses in an extra 1d6 once in a while.
Hmmm...does this make a viable character through 20 levels. I don't know.
You'll need to scavenge a lot of tricks from other classes to make it work, but it's entirely workable.
One thing I'd do is give them the Maester prestige class's identify item/legend lore ability that no one ever took because it was a suck of a level for any spellcasting class and pretty much made utterly pointless in Pathfinder by everyone being able to identify items just by Detect Magic, but giving them extra lore and history is a good idea even for brand new items, because then you'd have the Antiquarian excitedly cataloguing the first appearance of this new magic item and comparing it to historic precedents in terms of styling and enchantment.
The biggest ability to give them is the one the Pathfinder class and some halflings have, the "well prepared" feat or whatever it's called, which lets them pull non-magical items up to X GP value out of their pack with the handwaving that this is what they've been buying from the markets and such. I'd do the same with the Antiquarian, but make it apply to magic items too, but put a cap on the items of them being no more than the character's level for the spells they hold. The explanation I'd give for this would be half good shopping ability and half a quasi-supernatural "Make Whole" ability explained as the Antiquarian finding broken or otherwise disassembled magic items and eventually figuring out how to put these antiques back in working order.
I mean, people go out on epic quests for the Rod of Seven Parts. If you instead find "the wand of fireballs with 37 charges remaining but it's unfortunately broken into three parts and you only have two"? That would work for an Antiquarian. There are probably plenty of magic gloves missing their mate.
You could also give the Antiquarian a hefty bonus to locating desired magic items, both via Gather Information and via scrying if they manage to get a crystal ball.
They should of course have lots of UMD but I think it would be reasonable to give them the ability to activate charged items as if they were a caster of the appropriate class of their level. For example, a 7th level Antiquarian should be able to read a 7th level wizard scroll as well as a 7th level wizard and ditto with a clerical scroll, but magic items that only work in the hands of halfling nuns born on Tuesday would still require a UMD check to fake out.
Stuff like that would make "the guy with a bag of random magic items" a lot more interesting. I'm thinking you could also make it so that the Antiquarian's fortuitous magic items couldn't be resold by putting in something like calling them "Fragile Antiquities" meaning that the Antiquarian has repaired the broken wand of fireballs with library paste and twine, and while it will work just fine in the Antiquarian's hands, if the wizard or rogue grabs it and starts waving it around, it will fly to pieces before they can even get a fireball off. In other words, it would be like the alchemist's extracts, but with wands and wondrous items instead, shredded scrolls patched together with tape, etc.
Just spinning out some ideas here, but flavorwise, I think it would work, and adventuring wise, it has some possibilities.
Your problem is that the 50% rule is really there to deal with the abstraction of the simulation not punish the players. If you allow players to sell for full price you have to detail, taxes, labour costs, security concerns, theft, competition etc.... All of these things should be the typical limitations of caring about every penny. Somebody else deals with all that if you don't look too greedily at selling items etc...
If players can sell at 100% you also optimize all the party resources because there is no penalty for upgrading their gear and they can look to buy precisely what helps them the most. At 100% sale price the whole party sells any weird magic items in favour of items with the best mechanical advantage. Effectively every member of the party gets the benefit. There is no penalty for upgrading. Adventure hoards might as well be only gold pieces because it is ultimately liquid wealth.
I have played merchant characters and simply expected that the mechanical advantage I received from being a merchant was expressed in business perks not money. In the end I think that was more fun for the whole party. I didn't have to worry about trivia and the story progressed without my character becoming an item clearing house.
It is not reasonable to give them a simple percentage gain. Most players don't merchant in game time. It shouldn't be a simple carrot that says give me more money than the next guy.
If they want higher profits let them take bonuses on personal skills and give them the option to follow business ideas.
I could see them get a bonus on the availability of merchandise and\or magic items by knowing the right people to ask. I'd stop short of significantly changing the buy\sell price by a fixed amount. If I did allow price change I'd probably allow a skill check against a table of bonuses. You could use a challenged skill check like bluff or stealth (obviously not with those skills though).
Most adventurers handle more magic that 95% of the merchants in the game. A merchant class is not necessarily about magic at all.
You'd be better off to give them a rising pool of wealth that they can call on as a dividend for being rich\connected. The money can be used for lifestyle and story elements but not for magic weapons and mechanical advantage. There would be a percentage they could happily spend on the finer things and the expectation that they'd pay back most of what they borrowed before they were allowed to get more. I think some of the noble classes did this in 3.x publications.
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The 3d6 gp/day seems like extremely low earnings even rolling all 6's every single day all year long for a merchant. Optimally he/she would earn 126 gp per week. That means a merchant (even an adventuring one that would be selling magical items) only earns 6570 per year at best. That doesn't seem right to me. I think this was a "meh" attempt at the profession skills and earning money.