The D&D economy is an abstraction, and has never held up to real math that is supposed to support a real economy. You would have to do a complete overhaul of the pricing of a lot of things, but it is not really worth the trouble. Everyone that I have seen start try online has walked away, and accepted it for what it is.
Why is the remote village of X so prosperous?
Because for years they have been murdering first level adventurers in their sleep and taking their stuff..
You're right the economy doesnt work..and any attempt to reset it is doomed to failure
A halfway decent pistol will run you $500 minimum. A good rifle can be $1000 easily. Either of these amounts could feed a family for a month or two.
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Actually I love the economics - its the setting that's the Problem - 'Points of Light' implys a setting where communities function in isolation of each other with little activity outside the urban centre - This is unsustainable and unrealistic.
Any Community wishing to function in isolation must be self sustaining. That means it needs to produce all the agricultural, mineral, fuel, and building materials that it needs.
Adventurers equipment are not available in isolated communities that dont make them (and will be a high priced commodity when they do).
COPPER, SILVER, GOLD, AND PLATINUM
These are mined materials. The minimum cost of mining is 1 ounce of gold per ton of rock. That means that a 10' x 10' x 10' volume of stone which weighs 76 tons needs a minimum of 76 ounces of gold (or 7.6 ounces of Platinum, 760 ounces of silver, or 7600 ounces of copper) embeded in it.
One pound equals sixteen ounces.
One Pound equals fifty coins.
five mine workers mine and process one thousand cubic feet of material per month.
1000 cubic feet of mine material produces a minimum of:
475lb copper = 23,750cp
47.5lb silver = 2,375sp
4.75lb gold = 237.5gp
So if you have a Village with 1000gp - it came from a mine work of around 40-50 feet deep.
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FIREWOOD NEEDS
Every Peasant needs 10,000lb firewood per year. Light Forest represents 20,000lb firewood per acre - with a sustainable regrowth cycle of 50 years.
20lb firewood = 1cp
1 acre of light forest = 1,000cp of firewood
It takes one worker to chop down and process an acre of light forest. So a Village of 1000 people requires 10,000,000lb firewood every year. This is 0.78125 square miles (500 acres) of light forest - per year. Over fifty years sustainable regrowth thats 39.0625 square miles (basically a 2-3 mile radius of light forest).
ANNUAL COST OF FIREWOOD PER PEASANT (PATHFINDER) = 5gp
This isnt really realistic because in an Urban centre where someone had to chop down and process the Wood, and Someone had to cart it to town, you must add half the daily wage of the Woodsman (a Woodsman can chop down and process a single acre of light forest per day), and the cost of shipping by carts (or worse riverboat).
Woodsman (trained hireling) = 3sp/day (1.5sp / peasant's firewood need)
1,120lb/cart load = 9 cart loads
feed for mules (per day) x 9 mules (each pulling a cart) = 45cp/day
9 Cart Drivers (Trained hirelings) = 27sp/day of travel
extra@Cost = 73.5sp (7.35gp)
Firewood costs 12.35gp per unit-population per year So market value in Pathfinder is less that half its real cost...
An unskilled hireling on 1sp per day will spend 1/2 of his annual wage on firewood each year. Thats before the cost of Food. So this guy cant afford to live in cities where he must buy firewood. He must live outside the walls in the shanty town - where he can harvest his own firewood. He cant really afford any children or other non producing dependants.
A Skilled hireling on 3sp per day has an annual income of 78gp so he can afford to live in a city where he buys his firewood and food. he spends about 1/6th his annual wage on firewood.
The adventurers do not live in a vaccuum.
General adventuring will damage clothes and armour. It will also cost in food, water and ale.
You could apply a general expenses rule such as 20gp*level*week, to cover costs.
This money will go back into the community and give a temporary boost to the economy, much like when towns have a yearly festival/sporting event.
Since adventurers do spend alot of money, this will attract bandits/thieves to the area (short term problem) and if the economy is boosted enough it will attract large scale conquerers, be they monster or power mad demihumans.
Yellowdingo is right in that unless a community trades, is must be totally self sufficient, which is unrealistic.
A town may have a mine, river for fishing and grain for the mill, but trade these goods with another town for lumber or cotton. As soon as any of these resources are threatened (and thus taxes not going towards the regional ruler) then adventurers are called in. What I am saying is adventurers are not just called in to save lives, but to keep the economy and current rulership afloat.
First, this game is not about economics or a simulation of a civilization. It is about hero's taking the world by storm and killing things for their stuff. So the rules focus in way more detail on the action of combat then on any type of simulation.
So with all that said, you also have to realize that in the real world people have houses, cars, and STUFF. Adventures only have what they carry on their back and sleep on the ground most of the time.
If you figure out the value of a place to live, a job, and all the stuff they have such as beds, cows, pigs, plates, etc it does add up a bit and they can maintain that lifestyle for generations.
Adventures always need more or they will starve or continue to sleep on the ground.
There are several ways it can be explained, that are prefectly rational.
A friend of mine got a porche on the day he got his driver's license. This makes no sense given the general wealth of the average family in this country- but nevertheless.. he had one.
My first vehicle was second hand, if not third. I didn't pay nearly what he did for it.
This doesn't mean he didn't get it, or that you can rationalize the wealth of the country based on the fact that he started out with a much, *much* more expensive car than I did. it just means.. some folks start out with little and others with much.
You could also argue that any given PC was more driven to find the gear he needed to do what he wanted to do. Maybe he didn't buy the gear- maybe it was handed down. Maybe he pried it off the still-warm corpse of his dearly beloved (or direly hated) relative who he is now going out into the world to avenge. (or right the wrongs of, or see that the evil he started is ended, or whatever).
Maybe he scrimped and saved and made friends with passing caravan guards and the old soldiers/guards of the village such that when he came of age they gave him a few old odds and ends. An old suit of leather armor one guy didn't need anymore, a short sword that had seen better years from another- etc.
And you might have Bob the Fancypants who's dad went out and bought him a shiny new breast plate sword and shield so his son- who was insisting on going out into the world- didn't have second hand crap.
The fact is- for most PC's they didn't wake up, shake the piggy bank, and go out to buy a bunch of stuff. Much like our real world folk- they have things that may be outof their means because of family, friends, or just.. some things last awhile.
Or maybe they woke up and robbed someone and ran.. who says a 1st level PC has to have been *given* anything? :)
We *still* have swords and armors that were made literally back in the dark ages. Not so unrealistic to imagine they'd survive the relatively short period of one generation to the next to be handed down.
None of that is meant to be sarcastic or snarky.. just- another way of looking at it.
-S
FIREWOOD NEEDS
Every Peasant needs 10,000lb firewood per year. Light Forest represents 20,000lb firewood per acre - with a sustainable regrowth cycle of 50 years.
20lb firewood = 1cp
1 acre of light forest = 1,000cp of firewoodIt takes one worker to chop down and process an acre of light forest. So a Village of 1000 people requires 10,000,000lb firewood every year. This is 0.78125 square miles (500 acres) of light forest - per year. Over fifty years sustainable regrowth thats 39.0625 square miles (basically a 2-3 mile radius of light forest).
ANNUAL COST OF FIREWOOD PER PEASANT (PATHFINDER) = 5gp
This isnt really realistic because in an Urban centre where someone had to chop down and process the Wood, and Someone had to cart it to town, you must add half the daily wage of the Woodsman (a Woodsman can chop down and process a single acre of light forest per day), and the cost of shipping by carts (or worse riverboat).
Woodsman (trained hireling) = 3sp/day (1.5sp / peasant's firewood need)
1,120lb/cart load = 9 cart loads
feed for mules (per day) x 9 mules (each pulling a cart) = 45cp/day
9 Cart Drivers (Trained hirelings) = 27sp/day of travel
extra@Cost = 73.5sp (7.35gp)Firewood costs 12.35gp per unit-population per year So market value in Pathfinder is less that half its real cost...
An unskilled hireling on 1sp per day will spend 1/2 of his annual wage on firewood each year. Thats before the cost of Food. So this guy cant afford to live in cities where he must buy firewood. He must live outside the walls in the shanty town - where he can harvest his own firewood. He cant really afford any children or other non producing dependants.
A Skilled hireling on 3sp per day has an annual income of 78gp so he can afford to live in a city where he buys his firewood and food. he spends about 1/6th his annual wage on firewood.
So is this assuming that every peasant lives in her or her own house or each has an individual fireplace, rather than the family of 4 or 6 or 8 or whatever sharing one house with one or maybe two fireplaces in that house?
Here, I always though it represented the common folk fleecing the idiot adventurers for everything they could...
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Sure, a fantasy game necessarily involves some suspension of disbelief, but I don't see why it's NECESSARY to have the cost everyday items be so out-of-skew with the cost of adventuring items. And if it's possible to have some degree of "realism", why not have it? For me it increases my enjoyment of the system.
And alas, we have this table from Pathfinder Core Rulebook...
Destitute (0 gp/month): The PC is homeless and lives in the wilderness or on the streets. A destitute character must track every purchase, and may need to resort to Survival checks or theft to feed himself.
Poor (3 gp/month): The PC lives in common rooms of taverns, with his parents, or in some other communal situation—this is the lifestyle of most untrained laborers and commoners. He need not track purchases of meals or taxes that cost 1 sp or less.
Average (10 gp/month): The PC lives in his own apartment, small house, or similar location—this is the lifestyle of most trained or skilled experts or warriors. He can secure any nonmagical item worth 1 gp or less from his home in 1d10 minutes, and need not track purchases of common meals or taxes that cost 1 gp or less.
Wealthy (100 gp/month): The PC has a sizable home or a nice suite of rooms in a fine inn. He can secure any nonmagical item worth 5 gp or less from his belongings in his home in 1d10 minutes, and need only track purchases of meals or taxes in excess of 10 gp.
Extravagant (1,000 gp/month): The PC lives in a mansion, castle, or other extravagant home—he might even own the building in question. This is the lifestyle of most aristocrats. He can secure any nonmagical item worth 25 gp or less from his belongings in his home in 1d10 minutes. He need only track purchases of meals or taxes in excess of 100 gp.
A halfway decent pistol will run you $500 minimum. A good rifle can be $1000 easily. Either of these amounts could feed a family for a month or two.
+1
My thoughts on it are this (I'm just brainstorming).
Scenario #1: Magic items are the big ticket items in the economy, without them trade would focus more on commodities.
If magic was rare, magic would rarely if ever be traded for gold. Magic items could only be found in treasure troves (rarely) and/or given as rewards by Kings or powerful individuals (they would be the only ones who could afford to have them created), or perhaps as a hidden heirloom. Even the ability (feats) to create magic items would be extremely rare, because so few magic items would be created every year (lack of resources and wealth).
This would be a low magic campaign and it has to be handled carefully by DMs (because of the APL/CR system that assumes you have a certain amount of items by level X).
Scenario #2: The assumption behind most Pathfinder campaigns is that magic isn't rare, wealth is plentiful (just not for commoners), and it's relatively easy to make magic items.
If there is wealth in the community, magic items can be created if needed and bought/sold as a commodity (maybe like buying a new car). PF does well with these core assumptions.
If we challenge the core assumption that there isn't a lot of wealth in the community, either:
a) There aren't that many magic items in existence and it's hard to create magic items because of the cost involved (making magic rare, therefore we have scenario #1); or
b) There are plenty of magic items in existence, therefore magic is cheaper that it's currently listed (maybe by 75% or more), and probably very affordable if the PCs have a good business or nobility income.
Under assumption #2b, this also means that there are too many cash rewards in APs. For model #2b, wealth in coin would be more rare, reduced by maybe 90%. In monster treasure troves you'd rarely find coin because most people don't have a lot of coin, their money would be tied in items, and very few would carry many coins they have on them.
I don't really even want to think about the economics of how communities with different levels of wealth and/or magic interact.
It would be an interesting experiment for sure to reduce the cost of magic items by 75%+ and the amount of coin found by 90%. Mostly we'd only be changing the scale of interactions. In the 75%/90% reduction example, magic items would rule the economy, which means you could probably reduce magic item cost by 90% to be realistic.
So yes, you could scale everything down, and I have no idea how scaling all rewards down by 90% would affect the game (besides making a lot of paperwork for you), but it would definitely increase the importance of mundane items and even food in your campaign.
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So is this assuming that every peasant lives in her or her own house or each has an individual fireplace, rather than the...
No. The Basic 10,000lb wood per peasant comes from the UN Use figures. They seem pretty adamant that its per individual. So adding more family menbers gets you multiples of 10,000lb - and its not fireplace - its cooking fires - brick chimneys imply wealth anyway and give a exponential shift of wood v. use. But then wealthy people are likely to use up any 'reserve' to keep the house warm all the time.
The standard average of 10,000lb firewood per peasant per year suits us fine.
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First, this game is not about economics or a simulation of a civilization. It is about hero's taking the world by storm and killing things for their stuff. So the rules focus in way more detail on the action of combat then on any type of simulation.
So with all that said, you also have to realize that in the real world people have houses, cars, and STUFF. Adventures only have what they carry on their back and sleep on the ground most of the time.
If you figure out the value of a place to live, a job, and all the stuff they have such as beds, cows, pigs, plates, etc it does add up a bit and they can maintain that lifestyle for generations.
Adventures always need more or they will starve or continue to sleep on the ground.
Except that for 'Good' characters - if you correctly play them - it is not about killing people and taking their stuff - its about building things - and gathering the wealth needed through means that is not evil - to do that building - that way at the end of the day the village where your family lives has a fifty foot high stone wall encompassing it and its monster liberated forest and farmlands so that the people who live there can do so without fear - and your PC gets rewards beyond a few coin they took off a body because in they want power and wealth.
If a Village does not have the resources to make a crossbow, why do you think there is the resources for a crossbow to exist - let alone be available to your PCs? Basically helping build empires means that your PCs set in place the wealth needed to one day build Speljammers.
And you create change in the setting as a consequence. The Village of Hupney can grow to become the Town of Hupney.