Caravan - trading

[deeprlyeh]

Wherw is the information for buying and selling goods between destinations? Also how are provisions bought?

[Kaushal Avan Spellfire]

That information can be found in the Jade Regent Player's Guide (free to download here).

Provisions can pretty much be bought anywhere, as one cargo unit of stores (10 units of provisions) costs 5 gp, which is under the minimum purchase limit of any given settlement (subject to GM's discretion, of course).
As for buying and selling goods, you can purchase trade goods in any settlement, and sell them anywhere except for where you bought them. You can only sell one trade good per Trader in you caravan at any given settlement, and each trade good sells for an amount of gp equal to the Resolve check made to sell the good.
Trading in caravan travel doesn't really make a lot of money, though, and unless you have several traders you're not going to see much of a return. As I see it, trading is just a way to make provisions a little cheaper, as there's no way it can pay caravan wages by itself (which would be nice).

I hope this helps.

[deeprlyeh]

How do you buy trade goods, what are trade goods?

[deeprlyeh]

I was looking for the page where it listed the price of provisions. I found the block for the other stuff.

[Kaushal Avan Spellfire]

Sorry, I misunderstood your question, and should have been more clear. All pricing information can be found in the Caravan Equipment table on the upper left-hand corner of page 22 of the Jade Regent Player's Guide. You buy equipment for the caravan just like you buy any other equipment. My group tends to set money aside for the caravan in the form of a separate fund from which we pay wages and purchase supplies.

About Stores and provisions:

Jade Regent Player's Guide p.22 wrote:

Stores: A single cargo unit of stores equates to 10 units of provisions. See the Resting section under Caravan Encounters on page 25 for an explanation of how consumption and provisions work.

About Trade Goods:

Jade Regent Player's Guide p.22 wrote:

Trade Goods: A single cargo unit of trade goods consists of a combination of metals, spices, cloth, wood, salt, and such. Depending on a trader’s special Resolve check (see the entry for the trader job above), significant profit can be made selling trade goods to new cities the caravan visits along its route.

You buy trade goods just like you buy all other caravan equipment, but you cannot sell them in the settlement you bought them. To sell a unit of trade goods, you require a trader in your caravan. Traders, and how to sell trade goods, are explained on page 21 of the Jade Regent Player's Guide.

Jade Regent Player's Guide p.21 wrote:

A trader enables a caravan to conduct business transactions whenever the caravan is stationed at a

settlement. Upon arriving at a city, a trader allows a caravan to spend 1 cargo unit of trade goods (which must have been purchased in a different settlement than the current one) in order to make a special Resolve check. This Resolve check earns the caravan a number of gold
pieces equal to the result of the check. Up to five traders may attempt these Resolve checks (spending 1 cargo unit of trade goods per check) each time a caravan visits a new settlement.

Does that answer your question?

[Googleshng]

"This Resolve check earns the caravan a number of gold pieces equal to the result of the check."

Is there a typo there? If I understand it, if I have a resolve of 10, and 5 traders (costing me 50 GP a month), selling all my stuff will earn me a profit of anywhere from... 5-100 gold per town.

Assuming two weeks between stops (arbitrarily, I haven't looked into that yet) that would mean I would just barely break even rolling 10 consecutive 20s. And it's a stretch to assume a resolve of 10 to begin with. Is there a missing "x10" in there? "x100?"

Related question: Do the two NPC caravan drivers who are initially present require wages for their jobs, or are they just kinda life-long pals of Sandru? For that matter, do the 4 key NPCs need paying for caravan duties?

[hustonj]

The caravan rules as written make meaningful trading profits impossible. Unless there's going to be re-writing of these rules, I strongly recommend relegating the caravan to a story tool. Let Shandru (that's the NPC caravan master, right?) handle his business, and have the PCs acknowledge that Shandru's business is going to make their lives easier by providing a mobile base of operations, not as a financing tool.

I especially loved when the campaign rules had the caravan attacked by 4 trolls (random encounter) while we were like 3rd level PCs. The first thing we said, almost in unison, was "run away!" The GM couldn't find the part of the caravan combat rules that ALLOWED running away until after he had finished killing us and destroying every sign that the caravan had ever existed.

The caravan rules was a neat idea, but the implementation is so bad that the mechanics actually make it harder (or impossible) to actually go through the adventure path. Nope, I am not a fan.

Oh, and yes, Shandru's employees expect to be paid. Ameiko's friends don't have to be paid anymore than the PCs do.

[Maverick]

Wait, the PCs don't get paid? :(

[Jeff Wilder]

hustonj wrote:

The caravan rules as written make meaningful trading profits impossible.

This is true, barring magic like bags of holding. This was pretty obvious from the beginning to my players, so they didn't even try. They just stocked up on lots and lots of food.

I'm okay with it, really. I figure that Sandru is going, first and foremost, to help Ameiko, but that he figures that once they make Tian Xia, he may well be able to finagle a major profit on his return (by selling the caravan wagons and finding a different way home, laden with Tien exotica.) And hey ... let's not forget that he'll also be super-tight with the freakin' ruler of a rich nation.

(And, yes, the caravan rules are terrible. Clearly not playtested at all. I've almost entirely rewritten them at this point.)