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There's some grumbling over in the conundrum thread that you can't actually make any money with traders. Quite rightly, too. The trader entry is worded so that you can sell 5 units of trade goods on arriving in a settlement, and then have to move on to the next one. You need a lot of modifiers just to break even, and that means diverting resources from other options, like combat prowess--but why give up combat prowess, knowing that you can get money by killing bandits, so that you can make less money and increase the odds of being killed by bandits in turn?
Trading is a trap as written, but there's an obvious fix. Trading is a perfectly viable option if you allow traders to sell cargo from another settlement every day the caravan remains in a settlement, with a limit of five traders working each day. So if you have 10 cargo units of trade goods, you could stay for two days, giving your five traders time to sell all of them.
I've been playing with the numbers for a while, and this actually works so well that I strongly suspect this is how it was intended to work in the first place. Take a look at some of these example caravans:
Sandru and the brothers drive as usual, while Ameiko cooks, Shalelu and two more PCs scout for food, and Koya fortune-tells. The other two PCs can do whatever, as it's not important for our purposes. (Ridiculously cheap PCs with Handle Animal could even fire the brothers).
Their consumption is effectively 4, since the scouts bring in two free provisions a day without consuming any. It's debatable how long it takes to go from town to town in Varisia, but I figure it averages four days; they'll play it safe in case they run into trouble, and take 3 stores, good for 7.5 days. Let's say they eat it all by the time they get to town (maybe to keep unrest down?), because it's a lot of trouble to estimate actual usage.
Instead of hiring traders, three of the PCs will switch to trading in town, along with Ameiko and Sandru, while two more PCs entertain for another +2 resolve. Shalelu keeps hunting and Koya keeps fortune-telling. Their consumption shoots up to an effective 12 on trading day, costing 6 gp in provisions every day they're trading.
They average 15.5 gp for each unit of goods, or 71.5 gp for a day's work. ([10.5 rolled, +4 ability, +4 hero, +2 circumstance, +5 feat, -10 COGS] x5 traders, -6 food).
But if they can sell 15 units of trade goods to sell over the course of three days, they'll earn 214.5 gp per town, and it won't affect their expenses very much. That's 798 gp in trade. They'll probably end up spending more in repairs due to the sacrifice in combat ability, but still, they're making coin for their effort.
With some actual investment, the PCs could try to sell in volume instead.
Effective consumption is thus 15 on the road and 23 while trading, so they'll take 13 stores (good for 8.7 days) and pay 11.5 gp a day to eat while in town. That leaves a whopping 45 capacity for trade goods. They're selling for 11.5 gp each, or 46 gp a day ([10.5 rolled, +2 ability, +4 hero, +5 circumstance, -10 COGS] x5 traders, -11.5 food).
But dumping 45 units of trade goods into a town over nine days will earn 414 gp a town. It'd take two months to reach and sell in all four towns, so paying the six drivers and five traders will cost 220 gp, and eating on the road is still 260 gp, since eating in town is included above.
That means the volume approach will produce 1176 gp. That sounds like a lot, but split five ways, it's really not. The PCs have invested a fair bit into a caravan that's still relatively vulnerable. They'll have to flee from everything (they can't even pick up treasure anyways), which is especially bad because this caravan has very little tolerance for unrest. A run of bad luck could forcing them to give away a lot of trade goods and eat into their margins significantly. In all, the reward matches the risk.
Besides, this caravan is driving down a road of diminishing returns.
Level the volume caravan to 10 (the presumed start of book four), giving it Merchant Mastery three times, Enhanced Caravan four times for a Morale of 6 and other scores of whatever, and Extra Caravan three times. We've added a Royal Carriage (+4 resolve), another three Supply Wagons, and four drivers.
Effective consumption is 24 on the road and 32 while trading. We'll take 35 stores (over two weeks of food) and pay 16 gp a day to eat while in town. That leaves 55 capacity for trade goods. They're selling for 34.5 gp each, or 156.5 gp a day ([10.5 rolled, +6 ability, +4 hero, +5 circumstance, +4 Carriage, +15 Mastery, -10 COGS] x5 traders, -16 food).
You get 156.5 gp for arrival. Monthly wages are 150 gp, and daily consumption costs 12 gp, so they need to hit about three towns a month to break even. At level 10, this is a TOTAL waste of effort. They'll probably never even pay off the extra wagons!
But if they can sell every last unit? After 11 days in town, they'll earn 1721.5 gp, minus some very nebulous expenses. If the towns are reasonably close to each other in Tian Xia you could make okayish amounts of money for their level, especially if we add allied NPCs and bags of holding. However, while your caravan could have guards and points in defense and such, it's still going to be underpowered against random encounters, which are no doubt both far scarier, and far more profitable. Also, you're wasting lots of time in or near the Jade Regent's territory, which might be bad in itself. And there's still no spare room for treasure. I doubt that the high level merchant caravan is still worth it, overall. We've nearly tapped all options to increase profits and there's still a few adventures left to go!
In Summary...
Does this interpretation of caravan trading feel right? Some will sputter "butbutbut market saturation!", but I'm convinced the system is better this way. It rewards the PCs for careful caravan design. It allows the PCs to run a very long supply caravan viably. It lets the PCs make money in a way other than killing monsters and taking their stuff. It prevents the PCs from resenting the caravan as as a drain on resources. It encourages the PCs to stick around in the towns they visit, creating roleplaying opportunities.
And even if you think the strategy starts off a bit too strong, it still gets weaker over time, encouraging the party to eventually even out their stats and balance short-term gains with long-term effectiveness. Really, the biggest problem I see with running it this way is that it's potentially a ton of rolls--in practice I'd just let the party take the average for every trader, as I've assumed in all my math.
Hopefully my math is correct. Or at least not monstrously wrong. I did a ridiculous amount after all. Let me know if you find any mistakes--or ways to significantly improve profits.
I'm agreeing with Chris but I think this is a great discussion. With the purchasing of trade goods, keep in mind the fundamental question: will it be fun? If your players are looking for a game that is fundamentally about adventure and heroic deeds, they may not be very interested spending 5 or 10 minutes making another set of knowledge rolls about what the next city needs in trade goods, where to find those in their current city, negotiating purchase prices, etc. At a certain point, simplicity is your friend because it lets you keep the game moving at a reasonable pace. On the other hand, you know your players best, so if they enjoy that kind of stuff... go for it.
I agree too, the point of the AP isn't to set up a trade empire. I just tossed that out for thought. I had intended my post to primarily be about how long they could sell in a settlement.
The number of days linked to size of the place? Yup, and I thought that was an interesting idea that makes logical sense. And, hey, we're on the boards to toss ideas around, so brainstorm away! I'm actually more worried about the combat and encounter mechanics than trade, but one should never underestimate a party's greed!
Greed - I'm used to players that pry out the dungeon fixings with a crowbar to pay for that fourth bag of holding (each). Mind you, there WAS a great scene where the party gifted an ancient wyrm with a 500 year old mummified cat, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
I would actually have liked a system of buying and selling goods that presumes everything isn't just "book price" everywhere. I'm not saying such a system deserves its own book, but players:
1) move around quite a bit, and
2) want to be rewarded for their efforts.
I applaud the ABILITY to make a profit with a caravan, but in general players shouldn't be looking at their profit margins and wondering why they're adventuring. (I actually caused a campaign end this way, when my wizard refused to be "hired" by the other PCs for a mere 7cp.)
All that said, I would applaud a map (and time-line) that showed the players that while a little more profit could be made by going route Y rather than X, that there were good reasons route X was chosen.
I can think of two good campaigns that centered around being traders rather than adventurers. At the baseline, know your players. If they're the kind that argued four hours (in character) to decide a party name, they'll probably appreciate world details like "supplies lumber" or "demands cloth, produces clothing".
I'm agreeing with Chris but I think this is a great discussion. With the purchasing of trade goods, keep in mind the fundamental question: will it be fun? If your players are looking for a game that is fundamentally about adventure and heroic deeds, they may not be very interested spending 5 or 10 minutes making another set of knowledge rolls about what the next city needs in trade goods, where to find those in their current city, negotiating purchase prices, etc. At a certain point, simplicity is your friend because it lets you keep the game moving at a reasonable pace. On the other hand, you know your players best, so if they enjoy that kind of stuff... go for it.
If the bureaucratic stuff is no longer per session than 10-20 minutes, I think my players would be okay. They spend much longer just planning for an RP encounter.
But the suggestions in this thread definitely sound nice. Without knowing how many stops there will be between towns, it is of course a bit difficult to calculate how things will go further into the journey. I imagine there won't be many towns on the Crown of the World.
I'm agreeing with Chris but I think this is a great discussion. With the purchasing of trade goods, keep in mind the fundamental question: will it be fun? If your players are looking for a game that is fundamentally about adventure and heroic deeds, they may not be very interested spending 5 or 10 minutes making another set of knowledge rolls about what the next city needs in trade goods, where to find those in their current city, negotiating purchase prices, etc. At a certain point, simplicity is your friend because it lets you keep the game moving at a reasonable pace. On the other hand, you know your players best, so if they enjoy that kind of stuff... go for it.If the bureaucratic stuff is no longer per session than 10-20 minutes, I think my players would be okay. They spend much longer just planning for an RP encounter.
But the suggestions in this thread definitely sound nice. Without knowing how many stops there will be between towns, it is of course a bit difficult to calculate how things will go further into the journey. I imagine there won't be many towns on the Crown of the World.
Linnorm and Crown of the world you WILL have a lot of consumption and little or no chance to sell trade goods. The focus here is getting Varisian (rare) goods to the markets in Minkai, where they are (one hopes) worth mint. This shouldn't be things like lumber or flour, but things like artwork, spices, clothing, and other "cultural" goods. (And I'm certain Paizo has provided other things to interest the PCs.)
The focus here is getting Varisian (rare) goods to the markets in Minkai, where they are (one hopes) worth mint. This shouldn't be things like lumber or flour, but things like artwork, spices, clothing, and other "cultural" goods. (And I'm certain Paizo has provided other things to interest the PCs.)
Aroo!? I thought the focus was getting a very specific something to Minkai in one piece, and it's not a trade good. (Trying to avoid spoilers.)
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The focus here is getting Varisian (rare) goods to the markets in Minkai, where they are (one hopes) worth mint. This shouldn't be things like lumber or flour, but things like artwork, spices, clothing, and other "cultural" goods. (And I'm certain Paizo has provided other things to interest the PCs.)Aroo!? I thought the focus was getting a very specific something to Minkai in one piece, and it's not a trade good. (Trying to avoid spoilers.)
Well, yeah. We're just trying to give the PCs an incentive to do it with a reverse silk caravan, rather than a train of roving murder wagons.
The number of days that they can sell could be tied to settlement size. This would encourage a caravan to stay on the move. It would also reflect how only smaller caravan would visit the hamlets and villages, there's no profit for the big ones.
Interesting idea. Adding a cap can only lower the value of trading, so we'd have to add something back. It could take a lot of fiddling to balance it without adding or changing any of the settlements on the way, but it might be worth it.
Purchasing, however, requires more thought. Ambiguous goods would be limited by settlement size, but if you start getting into tangibles like lumber, crops, livestock, etc. The smaller settlements could have a supply that's greater than what their size would suggest.
In practice it's unlikely to matter unless the purchase limit is lower than the sale limit, since the party will only be replacing their sold cargo. I'd ignore it, personally, and assume that the party can find enough of whatever the local trade goods are.
I would actually have liked a system of buying and selling goods that presumes everything isn't just "book price" everywhere.
I see the appeal in a fantasy star trader campaign where the party flits from town to town, buying low and sell high.
But Jade Regent isn't that campaign. It'd be great if we're adapting the caravan rules for broader use, but since there's only one route to Tian Xia, the party can't make any meaningful decisions. If you know what goods will make the most money in the next town, you buy that, and if you don't know, you guess.
Thus, the suitability of your product is best modelled by the die roll. A high roll at least partly means that you did your homework and are selling something in demand, while a low roll means you picked something stupid. Maybe because you ran out of good stuff to buy at the hamlet you were at last.
There are way too many rolls in the current system, but it's obvious some randomness is desirable. We could cut it back to only one roll per day, multiplied by five (or however many goods you're selling).
Linnorm and Crown of the world you WILL have a lot of consumption and little or no chance to sell trade goods. The focus here is getting Varisian (rare) goods to the markets in Minkai, where they are (one hopes) worth mint. This shouldn't be things like lumber or flour, but things like artwork, spices, clothing, and other "cultural" goods. (And I'm certain Paizo has provided other things to interest the PCs.)
All we need to model this is to grant a large bonus the first time the party trades with a settlement after crossing the Crown of the World. The bonus needs to make up for both the lost income while crossing the huge market vacuum, and the general difficulty of carrying several wagons of dead weight for an entire adventure. Otherwise you're just getting penalized for not building murder wagons. Here's hoping Paizo does it for us.
@Snowheart: Yes, yes. The SPECIFIC THING needs to get to Minkai, but it helps if the players feel that they're getting something accomplished, not just being dragged around in the wake of the NPCs.
@LeadPal: Don't forget the need to buy diamonds to raise those who fall dead while crossing the Crown of the World: gives "dead weight" new meaning.
I really like the idea of the difference in supply and demand of goods based on the size of the town, etc as presented. I need to work on how to implement that!
If I know my players, there's going to be at least one who sees the idea of the Caravans and thinks "Awesome! I'm going to run the best Caravan ever and be filthy rich!" And will then be greatly disapointed when they earn 20gp a city (especially when they reach higher levels and stop worrying about even trading cause its not worth the time or effort).
In an effort to make things a bit more exciting for them, I've fleshed out my own rules for the Caravan.
The idea is that the Caravan can be greatly profitible, but it can also be disasterous if not played correctly. Additionally, the concept is to allow a player to be able to "optimize" a character if they see fit to be a trader if they put ranks in the appropriate skills.
I'm hoping the community can give me some feedback and/or let me know how horribly broken they think this will be. The follow is what I'll be giving to my players (pre-edits):
Optional Trading Rules
The rules herein are intended to expand upon the rules presented in the Player’s Guide, and will incorporate the mechanics already devised for trading, that is:
•1 unit of Cargo Capaciy holds 1 unit of trade goods
•A caravan may have up to 5 traders
•A trader may trade one unit of trade goods each day they are in a particular town or are in contact with another Caravan.
•A Resolve check will still be made to determine the amount of profit an item is sold for; however, this will vary drastically when compared with the pre-established mechanics.
The Following changes have been made to the trading process:
Trade Good Quality
Each town or caravan may now buy and sell four different qualities of trade goods. Some towns (particularly larger ones) may have all qualities, while some (smaller towns and caravans) may not. Players may purchase Common, Uncommon, Rare or Exotic trade goods. For example (actual items and costs will vary town to town):
Common – wood – 10gp per trade unti
Uncommon – silver – 50gp per trade unit
Rare – Obsidian – 100gp per trade unit
Exotic – Jade – 1000gp per trade unit
Players canp play it safe, conserving funds while purchasing common items, or they can risk their funds purchasing increasingly uncommon items.
Beware: Profit increases dramatically as you purhase more rare items, but so does the difficulty in finding a trustworthy seller (i.e. not fakes) and an intersted buyer. As well, your ability to accurately appraise said items will become increasingly difficult depending upon the items rarity.
Trade Skills
Players can become successful traders by allocating skills points into areas that will benefit them in trade.
Appraise: Check made to appraise the value of the goods being purchased. Used to avoid buying fakes, or overpaying on a particular trade good. See Finding a Seller for more info on overpaying.
Diplomacy: May be used to find a Seller or Buyer. Also used to determine the Demand/Surplus of a given town/caravan.
Knowledge: Local: Used to find a Seller of Buyer
Bluff: Adjust the Buyer/Seller’s Resolve – made against opposing trader’s Appraise skill
Profession:Merchant: May be added to one trade roll per day.
Steps to Buying an item
1. Determine the Demand/Surplus in a given town
Towns may have a desire ofr a given item type or they may have a particular surplus of a given type. These attributes modify both how readily a player is able to find a buyer/seller for an item type, as well as the Resolve the towns traders have to buy/sell a given item.
For example: If Wolf’s Ear desires Rare goods and has a surplus of commoon goods, it will be easier to find sellers for common goods and traders will have less resolve to sell them at a higher price (as they likley have compeition in trying to do so). Likewise, it will be harder to find sellers of rare goods and the traders will have a higher resolve to hold onto these items as they’re greater desired in the town. A shrewd caravan trader would sell his rare goods in Wolf’s Ear where he’d more easily find a willing buyer who would be willing to pay top dollar for his goods, and he would replace the now vacant cargo space in his caravan by purchasing common goods, which are plentiful and relatively inexpensive in Wolf’s Ear.
Once per day, at any town, or when meeting with another caravan on the road, player’s may make a Diplomacy check to determine the Demand/Surplus of the town they’re in or any town those they are in contact with may know about. The difficulty to learn information about towns increases the farther away they are (as does the unreliability of the information). Some areas may have no information about a given town at all. This roll may be modified by making bribes, buying drinks, etc as per normal diplomacy rules.
2. Find a Seller
A Diplomacy or Knowledge:Local check is required to find a merchant selling a particular quality of trade good. It becomes increasingly difficul to find more uncommon items, especially as the cost of these items increases.
(The DC for these checks may be as low as 5 or 10 or as high as 40-50 depending on the item and its value – there may be alternative methods to finding particularly rare or exotic items depending on the NPCs the players interact with and the manner in which they do so).
Player’s can find items even if they lack the skill to do so, simply by pure blind luck, although failing to find an item provides them with a chance to to find a seller of a fake trade good. Forgeries are increasingly common with rare or exotic items.
Meet or beat DC: Trade Good found
Failure: 50% likely to have found trade good
Failure by more than 5: 30% likely to have found trade good
Failure by more than 10: 10% likley to have found trade good
Failure by more than 15: 0% likley to have found trade good
Failure to find a seller:
Common goods – 5% likley to have found a seller of a fake
Uncommon goods – 10%
Rare goods – 15%
Exotic goods – 20%
3. Appraise the item
Having found an particular trade good, players must then determine the value of the items by making an appraise check. Some seller’s, particularly in towns where an item is in demand may attempt to sell an item for more than its relative worth. Additionally, Appraise checks are made to determine that an item is genuine and not a forgery.
Meet or beat DC: Know true worth
Failure: Know worth within 20%
Failure by more than 5: Wildly inaccurate/unsure as to value
4. Demand your Price
After appraising the items value, Player’s may attempt to make a Bluff check versus the opposing trader’s appraisal of the item to alter the trader’s resolve in selling the item.
Failure by more than 15: +3 to seller’s resolve
Failure by more than 10: +2 to seller’s resolve
Failure by more than 5: +1 to seller’s resolve
Failure: No change
Meet of beat opposed check: -1 to seller’s resolve
Beat check by more than 5: -2 to seller’s resolve
Beat check by more than 10: -3 to seller’s resolve
Beat check by more than 15: -4 to seller’s resolve
5.Player haggles with the Seller to purchase the trade good
Player and the opposed trader (seller) make opposed Resolve checks
Failure by more than 15: 20% increase in price
Failure by more than 10: 10% increase in price
Failure by more than 5: +5% increase in price
Failure: No change – purchase at seller’s asking price
Meet of beat opposed check: 5% reduction in price
Beat check by more than 5: 10% reduction in price
Beat check by more than 10: 15% reduction in price
Beat check by more than 15: 20% reduction in price
Selling Trade Goods
1. Determine Demand/Surplus in a given town
See above.
2. Find a Buyer
Player’s make a Diplomacy or Knowledge: Local check to find Buyer. As above.
On a failure to find a Buyer there is a chance player’s will instead find a thug or group or thugs attempting to hustle them rather than on honest merchant. This chance increases based on the rarity of the trade goods being sold.
Common: 5%
Uncommon: 10%
Rare: 15%
Exotic: 20%
Depending on the location these may play out as regular combat or caravan combat.
3. Set your price
Player attempts to modify the Buyer’s ability to accurately appraise the trade goods with a Bluff check. Bluff check is made against opposing trader’s Appraise check to modify the Buyer’s Resolve.
See above Demand your Price.
4. Haggle over selling price
Player and opposed trader (Buyer) make opposed Resolve checks to determine the price at which the Buyer purhcases the trade goods.
Failure by more than 15: 50% loss from purchased price
Failure by more than 10: 25% loss
Failure by more than 5: 10% loss
Failure: Break even, sold for purchase price
Meet or Beat check: 25% profit from purchased price
Beat check by more than 5: 50% profit
Beat check by more than 10: 75% profit
Beat check by more than 15: 100% profit
As one can see. There exists an ability to make tremedous profit (several thousand gold per town) for a well trained (and lucky) merchant; however, there also exists the potential for tremendous loss if one is not careful or is simply unlucky.
Dice Rolls
While I always think its more fun when players roll the dice themselves, given the nature of expanded mechanics all rolls will be made in secret. We may decide to trade via forum out of session or during session depending on how much we want to actually role play the caravan “mini-game.”