I was fleshing out a hasty Cleric character I made last night and started playing around with professions because Cleric's get it as a class skill, it is effected by Wisdom and it is a minor way to earn money. So I was thinking Character classes get to use this skill once a week to earn some money. So it is a off and on basis in between adventuring sort of like a part time job. However, I then thought well what about the NPC experts? They are generally not going out to adventure but they do get levels which is probably do to enough time spent in what they do. Which to me makes sense because how else are they going to earn XP, killing Cats? So if PC's can earn some money a week based on their skills rolls where half of the result is what they earn that week but they are doing this part time so this leaves other professions open to do during the week as well.
Now of course I thought it would also have to be related because running all over town doing stuff is a big pain in the butt. Which brings us to the master Chef. Cooking, baking, and brewing are closely related enough to work with one career and that would be the Master Chef.
This master chef would need 3 Masterwork tools for each profession. Would need one Class level for heroic stats so the Chef can max out Wisdom. Take the feat catch-off-guard so he can use anything from the kitchen as a weapon. Cast iron frying pans make great heavy maces.
Master Chef, 1 Cleric/ 1 Expert ( After 2 years of experience)
Race: Human
Age: 23
Wisdom: 17
Major Career Skills:
Profession "Cook" :Class Skill +3, Rank 2, Wis Mod +3, MW tool +2= 9
Profession "Baker" :Class Skill +3, Rank 2, Wis Mod +3, MW tool +2= 9
Profession "Brewer" :Class Skill +3, Rank 2, Wis Mod +3, MW tool +2= 9
Total Average Earnings a week = 27gp
Total Average Earnings a Month= 108gp
Total Average Earnings a Year = 1296gp
Master Chef, 1 Cleric/ 5 Expert ( After 6 years of experience)
Race: Cleric
Age: 27
Wisdom: 18
Major Career Skills:
Profession "Cook" :Class Skill +3, Rank 6, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 15
Profession "Baker" :Class Skill +3, Rank 6, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 15
Profession "Brewer" :Class Skill +3, Rank 6, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 15
Total Average Earnings a week = 36gp
Total Average Earnings a Month= 144gp
Total Average Earnings a Year = 1728gp
Master Chef, 1 Cleric/ 10 Expert ( After 11 years of experience)
Race: Cleric
Age: 32
Wisdom: 18
Major Career Skills:
Profession "Cook" :Class Skill +3, Rank 11, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 20
Profession "Baker" :Class Skill +3, Rank 11, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 20
Profession "Brewer" :Class Skill +3, Rank 11, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 20
Total Average Earnings a week = 45gp
Total Average Earnings a Month= 180gp
Total Average Earnings a Year = 2160gp
Master Chef, 1 Cleric/ 15 Expert ( After 16 years of experience)
Race: Cleric
Age: 37
Wisdom: 19
Major Career Skills:
Profession "Cook" :Class Skill +3, Rank 16, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 25
Profession "Baker" :Class Skill +3, Rank 16, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 25
Profession "Brewer" :Class Skill +3, Rank 16, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 25
Total Average Earnings a week = 51gp
Total Average Earnings a Month= 204gp
Total Average Earnings a Year = 2448gp
Master Chef, 1 Cleric/ 20 Expert ( After 21 years of experience)
Race: Cleric
Age: 42
Wisdom: 19
Major Career Skills:
Profession "Cook" :Class Skill +3, Rank 21, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 30
Profession "Baker" :Class Skill +3, Rank 21, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 30
Profession "Brewer" :Class Skill +3, Rank 21, Wis Mod +4, MW tool +2= 30
Total Average Earnings a week = 75gp
Total Average Earnings a Month= 300gp
Total Average Earnings a Year = 3600gp
Approximate Total Earning Over 21 years of being a Chef= Around 40500 gp
I knocked off about 25% unexpected things.
Now this is just from his cooking for other people. If he opened his own restaurant he would make even more because all the upper class twits would want to go there because of his epic cooking skills.
While it is true that Adventures make more than this when they reach this level and before they grow old this is more of a sure thing and you are less likely to die. Well at least if you didn’t poison some royalty from a bad roll. =)
My next Rogue is going to rob the houses of Master Chefs.
The profession rules assume you work doing that for a week not work part time the way i understand them. Its a down time thing not a roll made the week you spend making raids on the goblin caves could be wrong though.
i'd use monk instead of cleric, just for flavor
That would be neat but I am going by the rules for NPC's and to get the high Wis for a human you need to have a divine class for epic stats. Although it depends if you conciser a Monk to be divine in some way. Having a dip in that is not a bad thing though.
The profession rules assume you work doing that for a week not work part time the way i understand them. Its a down time thing not a roll made the week you spend making raids on the goblin caves could be wrong though.
Well I am going off the RAW for the skill and it says each week of dedicated work and then you can make the roll, but how do you interpret what is considered dedicated. The simple answer would be that depends on the profession.
Cooking and Baking can both come from one single job and you can do both at the same time and still be dedicated to both. I know because I can do that at home. Not a big deal. Being a Brewer doesn't require constant attention because it is a fermenting process so while the brew is brewing you can be cooking. So you can do all three jobs at the same time each week although you would be putting in hefty hours, but then again there was no such thing as "weekends" where you got time off.
For adventures, the way that I look at it is that while in town you pick up part time work here or there with your profession and then at the end of the week you roll. But, you are not there the entire time, so it is not like you are working full time and thus you can still make the roll. the fact that you are rolling for how much you made means it is also about the product of your success. So with that in mind a GM could in fact say will you get a high DC because you didn't show up to often if you were to busy with adventuring.
Edit: I did some grammar editing plus additional thoughts.
This is like a more ridiculous version of the DPR Olympics. I like it.
To wit: Bacon costs more than a pig does. You can get multiple pieces of bacon from one pig. See where this is going?
I would say same as a craft check so 8 hours a day over a period of seven days. Its not a bad system but then remember that the pc's have access to this given downtime.
This is like a more ridiculous version of the DPR Olympics. I like it.
To wit: Bacon costs more than a pig does. You can get multiple pieces of bacon from one pig. See where this is going?
Cure Light Wounds would really cut down on your overhead.
I could see a rather ridiculous yet awesome villain coming out of this.
The Iron Shirt Chef, level 1 monk/level 1 cleric/level 20 expert.
Why no Skill Focus feats? That's a quick +3/+6 boost to all three skills. Going for total cheese, you could probably have custom-made magic items to bolster your skills as well.
Funny you should say this. I actually had a player special order an apron of cooking and he paid 10,000gp for it (+10 bonus) just for the role-playing aspect of it. He cooked the tastiest dragon chops.
Ultimate Magic now has low-level spells that allow you to "grow flesh" on bones.
A cleric 1/expert X only ever need buy one pig in order to sell his infinite bacon. :D
Back in the day (like 2E), I always carried cooking supplies around with me because of their general usefulness in other ways. As mentioned, frying pan makes for an excellent improv weapon, pepper to induce sneeze attacks, flour for finding invisible things, etc.
But now with this knowledge, one of my future characters will absolutely have to take this path. It's not a ton of money, but I will never be the broke one.
And who doesn't want delicious, infinite bacon!