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In a fit of boredom and time wasting I decided to calculate how much money you would make on day jobs over an 11 level career(on average).
I used a spreadsheet which calculated all the possible rolls for a given level of skill, summed them up, and divided by 20. Then this was multiplied by 3 to combine all the day job check values.
So to present the findings we'll do 4 cases:
A) Day job uses non class skill which has no stat modifier. Rank is equal to level. Expected day job value 467 GP or .43% of lvl 12 WBL.
B) Day job of class skill, no stat modifier, level = ranks. Career GP = 699, or .65% of WBL
C) Day job of class skill, with +2 stat (secondary stat). Career GP = 896 or .83% of WBL.
D) Optimized day jobber (for example a Bard with 18 chr to start, bumping that twice, adding +4 stat item, and skill focus perform): Career GP 1683 or 1.55% of WBL.
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Appreciate the extra information, but I doubt I will be doing much more calculation as I've proved the point to my satisfaction. Day Jobs, even in extreme cases are small change. It's OK for a bard to bother, but for most of the rest, it's not worth the time.
While the new high results might modify things a bit upwards, limitations of the spreadsheet limit me from incorporating them.
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The thing is the day job isn't about how much you make in a career... it's @ level 4 and you want that +1 Holy weapon, but because of your +1 mithral armor, you can't afford it.... the 50GP from a good day job allows you to get the item just before running a scenario with lots of evil subtype creatures.... it's worth it,because it also may save you the gold of a raise. Its not about amount, its about how quickly you get your next needed item.
(yes, that happened to me at level 6 I think - with the holy crossbow we had 2 people in the negatives, and everyone else in single digits, I went into the scenario @ 5 gp after having just gotten like 50gp on the day job roll.... my day job prevented a TPK)
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The thing is the day job isn't about how much you make in a career... it's @ level 4 and you want that +1 Holy weapon, but because of your +1 mithral armor, you can't afford it.... the 50GP from a good day job allows you to get the item just before running a scenario with lots of evil subtype creatures.... it's worth it,because it also may save you the gold of a raise. Its not about amount, its about how quickly you get your next needed item.
On the optimal day job case, expected value of a day job roll at 4th level is 21 GP.
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Appreciate the extra information, but I doubt I will be doing much more calculation as I've proved the point to my satisfaction. Day Jobs, even in extreme cases are small change. It's OK for a bard to bother, but for most of the rest, it's not worth the time.
While the new high results might modify things a bit upwards, limitations of the spreadsheet limit me from incorporating them.
it's interesting that you use "Value" in the thread title, as value is a very subjective thing. for me, a few points into a craft or profession (or even a point at every level) can be far more valuable in terms of my view of the character than the amount of cash it will net the character over their career or other areas where those skill points might have been spent.
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it's interesting that you use "Value" in the thread title, as value is a very subjective thing. for me, a few points into a craft or profession (or even a point at every level) can be far more valuable in terms of my view of the character than the amount of cash it will net the character over their career or other areas where those skill points might have been spent.Appreciate the extra information, but I doubt I will be doing much more calculation as I've proved the point to my satisfaction. Day Jobs, even in extreme cases are small change. It's OK for a bard to bother, but for most of the rest, it's not worth the time.
While the new high results might modify things a bit upwards, limitations of the spreadsheet limit me from incorporating them.
How you build your character has no bearing on the value of the day job mechanic. I have plenty of characters with either profession, craft, or some other skill which acts to define the character yet I never make day job rolls. I consider them a waste of time.
So would you not take the day job type skills if the mechanic were not present?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I played at the table with a half-orc inquisitor with a Day Job of barrister. That makes that caracter distinctive and cool.
I have a paladin with a Day Job of storyteller, passing along the hero-tales of his church, more for edification than entertainment. He donates the money from the Day Job to charities. It's important to me that he does something other than don warlike armor and charge into combat at the behest of his Venture Captain.
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Well heck, my highest level character is a delusional summoner who is a dressmaker(profession). She is convinced that her Eidolon is her daughter and uses her dressmaking to make clothes for her 'child'.
She's never rolled a day job roll.
Funny how the role playing doesn't need the mechanic.
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I used a spreadsheet which calculated all the possible rolls for a given level of skill, summed them up, and divided by 20. Then this was multiplied by 3 to combine all the day job check values.
Of course, you need to reqork it, now that you can Take 10 on Day Job rolls.
And now that non-spell (long-term) modifiers apply to the "roll".
Venture-Captain, Michigan—Mt. Pleasant
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So, you're not saying that putting ranks into craft/profession/perform is a waste, but you're saying taking 10 seconds at the end of a scenario to roll a die and get otherwise free gold is a waste of time? I can understand after say 5th-7th level that the day job is a drop in the bucket, but at first level my first four DJ rolls got me 50g each. That's a decent chunk of change at that level, and was definitely worth my time.
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I have a paladin with a Day Job of storyteller, passing along the hero-tales of his church, more for edification than entertainment.
Same here, actually. Alexander Damocles, the Holy Risen Librarian of Abadar, enjoys telling stories to anyone he can. After all, those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Glad to find another storyteller!
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You can get the Taldor Trait for another +5 bonus too :P
A trait that grants +5 to something? Wow, that is better than a feat. Which one is this (& how did I miss it :)?
I am a ring maker first, a dwarf second, and oh, because it helps the Empire, a Pathfinder also.
I dinnae max my day job roll (C in the above), and have an eido with craft skills maxed (even though he cannae aid), spent 55 gp on MW tools (netting me 5 more gold twice so far) and spent PP on a shop. Yeah tis more about the RP. :)
As he says this the dwarf runs his fingers through his beard making sure the ringed emeralds catch the light and your eye.
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You can get the Taldor Trait for another +5 bonus too :PA trait that grants +5 to something? Wow, that is better than a feat. Which one is this (& how did I miss it :)?
IIRC I ran across this one and its been changed ... dont quote me I'll do some more searching for it
Edit: - Found it
its the old v2.0 of the organized play rules
it has since been changed to this
with the avant garde theater scene of Oppara. Your
performance skills have been known to bring even the
toughest crowd to their feet. Choose one type of Perform
skill. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Perform checks of the
chosen type and this skill becomes a class skill for you
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So, you're not saying that putting ranks into craft/profession/perform is a waste, but you're saying taking 10 seconds at the end of a scenario to roll a die and get otherwise free gold is a waste of time? I can understand after say 5th-7th level that the day job is a drop in the bucket, but at first level my first four DJ rolls got me 50g each. That's a decent chunk of change at that level, and was definitely worth my time.
I've yet to see it take only 10 seconds, but of course YMMV.
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The thing is the day job isn't about how much you make in a career... it's @ level 4 and you want that +1 Holy weapon, but because of your +1 mithral armor, you can't afford it.... the 50GP from a good day job allows you to get the item just before running a scenario with lots of evil subtype creatures.... it's worth it,because it also may save you the gold of a raise. Its not about amount, its about how quickly you get your next needed item.On the optimal day job case, expected value of a day job roll at 4th level is 21 GP.
you missed the point of the post... the 'value' of that one day job roll was an item that prevented a TPK. So it saved 5 people lots of GP and gold for True Res... so that one day job role's "value" was 132,650 GP or 385 prestige points (or a combination thereof).
Considering the characters in question, they were not yet high enough to have the PP required, and my character did not have the gold. So it prevented at least one (most likly 5) perma-death.
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you missed the point of the post... the 'value' of that one day job roll was an item that prevented a TPK. So it saved 5 people lots of GP and gold for True Res... so that one day job role's "value" was 132,650 GP or 385 prestige points (or a combination thereof).
Considering the characters in question, they were not yet high enough to have the PP required, and my character did not have the gold. So it prevented at least one (most likly 5) perma-death.
Alternatively you could have played up one module or happened to have played a module worth more money. You even could have budgeted differently and afforded the item. Color me unimpressed.
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I used a spreadsheet which calculated all the possible rolls for a given level of skill, summed them up, and divided by 20. Then this was multiplied by 3 to combine all the day job check values.Of course, you need to reqork it, now that you can Take 10 on Day Job rolls.
And now that non-spell (long-term) modifiers apply to the "roll".
Ok, using take 10 for the base case (max skill ranks, +2 stat, no other bonuses), you lose a good bit of money.
For that case rolling (as said before) value is 896 GP.
Taking 10, value is 690.
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Yep, I did some napkin math back when the take 10 rule came out for day jobs, and due to the scaling amounts it averages in your favor to take the roll.average for take 10 = 10.0
average for roll d20 = 10.5or am I missing something?
What really makes it favorable is the scaling. The difference between rolling a 10 and a 15 is 5gp. The difference between 15 and 20 is 10gp. 20 and 25 is 30gp. So the difference in money when you roll high is really good, and not too bad when you roll low.
Example: I have a +5 to my day job.
Take 10 = 15 = 10gp
Roll a 1 = 6 = 1gp (9gp "lost")
Roll a 20 = 25 = 50gp (40gp "gained")
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lets say you're brutally maximizing youre day-job. Half-elf bard/oracle/summoner/sorc with Skill focus preform, 20 cha, masterwork instrument, trait +15 at level one.
By level 4, circlet of persuasion, 4 more skill ranks would get you to 22. At 5 you should have headband also, and another rank hitting 24
30 is the soft cap (once you take 10 for 150 you're basically capped out.) Unless you have the gencon boon, but I'm not actually going to math out those last few level bonuses.
There are a couple points when the math jumps. once you're +14 each +1 is ~4.5 gold per roll, until you hit +20, then it jumps to +6.5 (as 150 opens up). It then starts leveling off once you get +24 since it's become impossible to roll "low" of 20. and only goes up 5gp per +1.
either way, here's breakdown by bonuses;
bonus per roll
7 16.35
8 18.8
9 21.25
10 24.75
11 28.25
12 31.75
13 35.25
14 38.75
15 43.25
16 47.75
17 52.25
18 56.75
19 61.25
20 67.75
21 74.25
22 80.75
23 87.25
24 93.75
25 98.75
26 103.75
27 108.75
28 113.75
29 118.75
30 150
So if you build super day-jobber, assuming bards don't actually get double gold (Mark and Mike literally ruled opposite on it, haven't seen an update)
And you go slow advancement the whole way;
1st 6x 16 286.75
2nd 6x 17 313.5
3rd 6x 18 340.5
(circlet of persuasion)
4th 6x 22 484.5
(headband)
5th 6x 24 562.5
6th 6x 25 592.5
7th 6x 28 682.5
(cha increase, headband 2)
8th 6x 29 712.5
9th-12th 24x 30 = 3600
So if you super optimize it, it's worth 7575.25 gp. minus the 50 for MW tool, and MAYBE 4500 on circlet, but that is a good item if you're a social character anyway, so nothing major there.
That also assumes slow advancement, it's literally half that on normal advancement.
All that being said If you're optimizing your diplomacy, intimidate, or bluff already, it's worthwhile to pick up the Caravan :D.
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Eh, when I first started playing PFS, I did some math concerning the Day Job mechanic, and even with amazingly consistent favorable rolls, the gp gained really isn't worth going out of your way to make sure you have ranks in a skill you can use for it. It's almost always of greater value to a character to have those points in a skill which can be used during play. If that skill also happens to be usable as a Day Job, then yay, free gold.
That said, I've run though many scenarios where a specific profession or craft skill was necessary to complete certain tasks, some more essential than others. If you have some "extra" skill points and are not sure what to put them in, pick a skill appropriate to concept and go with it. You never know when it'll actually get used in play.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I played at the table with a half-orc inquisitor with a Day Job of barrister. That makes that caracter distinctive and cool.
I have a paladin with a Day Job of storyteller, passing along the hero-tales of his church, more for edification than entertainment. He donates the money from the Day Job to charities. It's important to me that he does something other than don warlike armor and charge into combat at the behest of his Venture Captain.
Darn and I thought I was being original. Though it would be funny if we were at the same table
"Hi, I'm a half orc lawyer."
"Hi, I'm a hellspawn tiefling lawyer."
"So you're-"
"The lawyer from Hell. Yes, I get that. A lot."
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So, as has been said, I think that most people who take Day Jobs do it for RP reasons. Aside from that, and the number crunching, I thought I would offer a general comparison.
Please keep in mind, that this is an analogy, not a mathematics competition, and I am speaking in generalities.
This is an IRL-based comparison:
- Let's assume that I am a skilled professional (an accountant?), and am pretty successful at what I do, and am fairly wealthy. Say, $400,000. If I find do a little extra work at Tax time each year and add an additional 1% to my income, I net another $4,000. At an average of $2,000 apiece, I can now afford a couple of 5-day Carribean cruises a year. (or go to GenCon, Paizocon, Pax *AND* Origins with flights and everything!)
- Or, let's say I am far below the poverty line, and only make $4,000. That 1% ($40) is enough to cover the cost of a One Day Pass to a convention that's not too far away.
- Let's say I only make a decent living. Say, $40,000. If I get a 1% raise, I can afford to buy twenty game supplements (at about $20 apiece)every year! Show me a single gamer who would refuse to have money for one or two new gaming books every single month!
That all being said, comparably speaking, adventurers don't really make money like that. They're the basketball stars and movie stars of their world. It would be more like four million, or 40 million that they make. 1% isn't all that much, I agree ... but, it's enough to make a discernible difference. Another way to think of it: how significant would it be in your mind if someone asked to borrow 1% of your income (how ever much it may be). I bet suddenly that friend asking to borrow $400 is asking for something that's a pretty big deal.
But, of course, Your Mileage May vary.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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so, what are we discussing here?
Day Job check = free money.
no day job check = no free money.
am I missing something?
I think it's more.
Skill points = free money
Skill points = skills useful in the scenario.
And arguing which is better.
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As a tangential question to this issue, I was wondering when it’s better to Take 10 on a Day Job roll and when it’s better to just roll and see what you get. I took a look at expected values and most of the time it is better to roll your Day Job check rather than take 10, but not always.
You should Take Ten on a Day Job check if the bonus to your roll is exactly 15, 16, 20, 21, 30, or 40+. Otherwise roll it and on average you will come out ahead.
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yeah the point at which a bad roll has a larger negative than a good roll, and that negative will happen a large % of the time. In this case, it's exactly when you reach a day job "tier" Thanks Odea for making that spreadsheet :D.
The main argument here is. "How much are skill points worth". in the Case of rune-carved key part 2, knowledge check or die, those skills were important :D.
Many optimizers will tell you that crafting feats arent worth it, because you're selling a feat for gold, same is true for improved critical ect.
Day jobs are another example of trading a non-renewable resource, and more restricted resource for something that is much more available. Gold.
analytically, you're equating the cost of 1 skill point per level, to MAYBE 3-4k gold over your career, and that is if you're good at it.
Then we factor in "what if I GM, or play modules" oh well then you lose entire levels of that gold.
the example i posted above, played the character from 1-12 in normal scenario's at slow advancement and was maximizing cha based skills. it made 7500gp.
Now, lets look at this from the other side. Vanities. 1 PP is worth 375gp, this is an equatable value. If you have a +15 in a skill, that's 50gp/day even on take tens, and it only goes up. So it's worth the vanity, especially if its something you;d do anyway.
Also as was pointed out in this thread. Crafts and Professions come up a lot in scenario's and faction missions, so if you're going to have a dayjob take something like "stonemason" or "jeweler" it could help out :D
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This is interesting. I had assumed that the day job amount was halved the same way as XP, prestige, and gold on slow advancement, but checking the most recent Guide (4.2) there is nothing that says to halve it.
And you go slow advancement the whole way;
1st 6x 16 286.75
2nd 6x 17 313.5
3rd 6x 18 340.5
(circlet of persuasion)
4th 6x 22 484.5
(headband)
5th 6x 24 562.5
6th 6x 25 592.5
7th 6x 28 682.5
(cha increase, headband 2)
8th 6x 29 712.5
9th-12th 24x 30 = 3600
heh yep, it's the one mechanical advantage to playing slow advancement :D
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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This is interesting. I had assumed that the day job amount was halved the same way as XP, prestige, and gold on slow advancement, but checking the most recent Guide (4.2) there is nothing that says to halve it.
Some things stay the same. You spend just as much on consumables and miscellaneous minor expenses during a scenario on slow advancement as you do on full advancement, and that's often more than you could earn from your day job.