Ultimate Campaign: Downtime System Questions

[Jacen]

Although I have to say I very much like Ultimate Campaign overall, I do have a few glaring questions with the downtown system that I hope someone can clarify.

First off the rules state that a magic item crafter can spend points of Magic Capital towards magic items creation. Is magical capital worth 100gp per point towards the creation of magic items? If so I could earn it for 50gp and a skill check, thus cutting the construction costs of magic items in half. Granted it would take longer to craft the item. Could I then sell said item for double the cost it took me to craft it?

Next up is town spending limits. Do you need to pay for the entire costs (good, capital, labour and magic) before the construction of a building or recruitment of an organisation can begin? Otherwise spending limits for town size seem fairly moot.

Take the construction of an inn for example. It requires 33 points of Goods, 3 points of Influence, 32 points of Labor, and 90 days to build an inn. Now if I am paying the capital as the Inn is being built, even in the smallest throp I can use 180 points of capital over 90 days, much higher than the 68 points needed for the inn. On the other hand, if I need to pay the capital up front it will take 34 days to pay the capital then 90 days for construction meaning 124 days for my inn, which makes sense as this time would be reduced in a large city with better resources and a higher spending limit.

My last query is to do with the "Run a business" downtime activity. Now the description of this activity says the you can spend the day inspiring your workers by personally running your business, and this means you can make a check to earn capital at +10. So in the inn example my inn has a +41 bonus to earn capital and if I run it personaly this increases to a total of +51 correct?

Why then would I not just abandon this activity to earn capital for the inn by itself as soon as I have a skill modifier of more than +10 (which does not take long in pathfinder) Say I have craft(blacksmith) at +18 I could have myself earn capital at +18, and the inn earn capital at +41 for a total of +59 per day.

Perhaps I am reading things wrong here, any clarification would be much appreciated before I use this system in my home game.

[Epic Meepo]

A big +1 to all of Jacen's questions.

Unless it's clarified that Magic spent on item crafting counts as 50 gp per point of Magic, characters with item creation feats will be able to make up 250 gp in profit to every 2 days by first earning Magic and then crafting items at 25% of their market price. I don't think that was the intent of the rules.

And like Jacen, I'm not sure how to apply the settlement spending limits. When do you pay the costs of a building or organization? Can you break them down into individual Rooms and Teams? If so, is there any way to calculate how long it takes to complete the example buildings without using a project management spreadsheet to track the overlapping construction times and costs of various Rooms?

And to expand upon Jacen's point about running businesses: it seems that you should always make separate checks for every business you own instead of adding them together to make a single check. Individually, you earn 1 gp per business (from taking 10 for each of them) plus sp equal to the total bonus from all businesses. Making a single check for all businesses, you make 1 gp (total) plus sp equal to the total bonus from all businesses. The single check causes you to lose 1 gp per business after the first.

Or does making separate checks for each business you own require you to hire a separate manager for each independent business, as opposed to hiring a single manager for all of the businesses combined? (Come to think of it, that would actually make the most sense: if you add all of the bonuses from your businesses to your own check, you don't need a manager; for each check you make independent of your own, you need one manager.)

[Vlagrate]

Epic Meepo wrote:

And like Jacen, I'm not sure how to apply the settlement spending limits. When do you pay the costs of a building or organization? Can you break them down into individual Rooms and Teams? If so, is there any way to calculate how long it takes to complete the example buildings without using a project management spreadsheet to track the overlapping construction times and costs of various Rooms?

I think the spending limits are mostly for tasks that take far more resources than time, like teams that cost 0 days to recruit or crafting magic items. If you can work on multiple projects at once, you can ignore the limitations of building individual rooms/hiring individual teams. Sum up the total capital the project would consume and divide it by the spending cap; compare the result to the number of days it requires and take the higher number.

Epic Meepo wrote:

And to expand upon Jacen's point about running businesses: it seems that you should always make separate checks for every business you own instead of adding them together to make a single check. Individually, you earn 1 gp per business (from taking 10 for each of them) plus sp equal to the total bonus from all businesses. Making a single check for all businesses, you make 1 gp (total) plus sp equal to the total bonus from all businesses. The single check causes you to lose 1 gp per business after the first.

Or does making separate checks for each business you own require you to hire a separate manager for each independent business, as opposed to hiring a single manager for all of the businesses combined? (Come to think of it, that would actually make the most sense: if you add all of the bonuses from your businesses to your own check, you don't need a manager; for each check you make independent of your own, you need one manager.)

Buildings, rooms and teams are mentioned to be self sufficient, so the money they get is the net income generated by the staff that come with the property. As such, it's numerically more efficient to own a myriad of small businesses and take 10 on each of them. It's more complicated and generally strange. You can rationalize it in a number of ways, but it's probably an oversight rather than an intended feature of the system.

As for managers, they're as overpayed in the mechanics as they are in the real world. The cheapest manager is 2pg/DAY while being away from your business only costs you 7gp/week (rounding down no less).

The other benefit is that they slow down the rate of capital attrition, but unless you're planing to make large payments on projects, it's far more efficient to generate capital as you need it. This is especially true with 2 component businesses, by which you could move one of the bonuses to generating capital and take 10 on both rolls. (Ex: fruit stand with urchins (kitchen + cutpurses) can generate 17 silver on an average day or 14 silver and 1 Goods/Labour)

tl;dr - managers are pointless and expensive (mechanically), many small businesses are better than 1 big one, errata and clarifications are needed

[Epic Meepo]

Vlagrate wrote:

tl;dr - managers are pointless and expensive (mechanically), many small businesses are better than 1 big one, errata and clarifications are needed

Agreed.

Currently, the most efficient businessman in the entire world is a fertilizer salesman who builds a distributed series of compost heaps (each consisting of a "pit" Room). Each compost heap costs 40 gp and earns 1 gp per day as an independent business (by virtue of taking 10 on income checks, not by virtue of providing any sort of bonus).

If the rules instead required a business to have a manager to make an independent income check (instead of just giving a bonus to its owner's income checks), owners would actually have an incentive to build large, efficient businesses whose components provide bonuses instead of unrealistic chains of cheap businesses which provide no bonuses whatsoever, yet still make obscene amounts of money.

[Jacen]

To expand upon my example of crafters being overpowered in the downtime system, let me give a specific example:

We have two characters, one an alchemist who owns an alchemists lab room, the other a fighter who owns a Bar room (I am using single rooms to keep things nice and simple)

The fighter runs his bar to earn GP for +20 a day (+10 for running it himself) and takes 10 on the check so he makes 3gp a day. The alchemist can make the exact same amount of money if her were to run his lab. The problem comes in when the alchemist uses his day to accumulate Magic.

If the alchemist takes 10 on his check he can earn 3 points of magic capital for 150gp, that same three points are worth 300gp towards crafting magic items. He has just netted 150gp of profit for the day rather than 3gp. You could argue that this profit only applies to magic items so its not quite got the utility of the 3gp the innkeeper makes, however adventurers will always spend the majority of their funds on magic items, even with this system in place, and I would rather have 150gp of magic item credit than 3 generic GP.

But the barteneder can use his day to earn influence I hear you say! Well that is correct yes, but influence cannot be used to make me a flaming sword of death, so its not quite the same.

If I am doing something wrong here please let me know.

[Jacen]

Vlagrate wrote:

I think the spending limits are mostly for tasks that take far more resources than time, like teams that cost 0 days to recruit or crafting magic items. If you can work on multiple projects at once, you can ignore the limitations of building individual rooms/hiring individual teams. Sum up the total capital the project would consume and divide it by the spending cap; compare the result to the number of days it requires and take the higher number.

It specifically states on page 80 that spending limits apply to goods, labour and influence, not magic. Therefor they cannot apply to the creation of magic items. You would also need to undertake truly massive projects in order to even come close to the small town spending limit of 15 per day overtaking the construction time.

Does it state anywhere in the rules you can undertake multiple construction projects at once?

[Randal T Meyer]

I don't have book in front of me, so bear with me.
I assume you must pay to earn non-gp capital still with a business.

Inn/Tavern: total options of 10 gp or 4 Influence (or variations)
GP: take 10, 20 gp / 10 = 2 gp / day.
Influence: take 10, 14 = 1 Influence; need to spend 10 gp to earn it

5 days of gp = 10 gp
On 6th day, i can make an influence check, spend my 10 gp from previous week. While i no longer have actual gp, i now have 20 gp worth of goods locked up in Influence.

That is how I am reading it. Anybody else?

[SCPRedMage]

Thread-necro powers, activate!

Vlagrate wrote:

tl;dr - managers are pointless and expensive (mechanically)

Actually, managers can serve one important role you can't cover otherwise: they enable you to leave town for longer periods.

So long as they're paid, they prevent you from losing control over your business (aka, "business attrition"). If you're out of contact with your business for 30+ days, once you return you have to make a leadership check against a DC equal to the days you've been gone minus ten. If you fail that check, the people running the business no longer recognize you as the owner, and you don't get any income from it.

They also reduce your "capital attrition"; instead of losing 1 Goods, Influence, Labor, and Magic every 7 days you've been out of town, you lose 1 of each for every 14 days you're gone.

[GarvokTla]

problems that i've noticed with the Downtime system in UCam;

if you think of using it for supplemental income or profit...you may want to reconsider (especially if you're not a magic item crafter). here's why;

An inn’s investment price is 2130gp (if bought outright) for those whom don’t want to do the math. So if allowed to use a building’s bonuses apply to a skill (especially as direct income) then; +52(to gp Capital) +10 (taking 10 on check) +10 (for PC being there to encourage work) + 10 (skill in profession (innkeeper)) =82 skill check. Using the Profession Skill for weekly income it generates 82gp/week or 11gp 7sp (rounding down) per day. This is 4gp more than the downtime system’s daily earned income (7gp 2sp) based off of gp production if the PC is there (with no manager and not able to use a skill to boost its income). Which is a 62% increase in income. Using the Inn to supplement your Profession (innkeeper) skill would allow you to pay off your investment of the Inn within 183 days (182.05…). Whereas if you weren’t (aren’t) able to use it to add to your profession check for earned income and just ran it as a building making money, it’d take 304 days to pay off the investment. So unless you’re playing in a campaign where you are going to be in/around 1 location for over a year, its not worth the investment.

Problems/difficulty if you are a crafter; (M=Magic Capital)

A 1000gp magical item takes 1 day to make costing you 500gp to make and selling it gives you 500gp. If using the downtime system (taking a 10 in the check) to make the same magical item it takes 5 days (1M/day x 5days =500gp worth of M to craft the item) and 250gp (5M x 50gp). Even if you have a facility that produces 5M/day (approximately a 4100gp investment) it would still take you 2 days to craft the item. 1 day spent making the M required and 1 day making the item. This difference in time increases exponentially for higher value items. 10,000gp magic item requires 5000gp worth of M or 50M to craft. With a building that produces 5M/day that would take 10 days to get the required M to craft the item and still another 10 days to actually craft the item. It would cost you 2500gp for crafting the item and selling it at half cost would be 5000gp with a 2500gp profit margin. The downtime system allows (averagely speaking) makes it so you craft magical items for ¼ of the listed Price (thus making ¼ profit) but at twice the amount of time(minimumly, if no M is in storage) than it normally takes. In other words, you’re trading time for money. The ONLY time you’d not have to spend more time is if you have a business making M while you are out adventuring and have enough M to cover the costs for making all the magical gear you plan on making in your down time. This is possible, but then you have to deal with the Currency Attrition as well as possibly losing your business (lame feature, that basically says stealing is ok if you’re gone for 1 month or more. Ignoring the fact that you hold the title and deed to the property and building that is used).

on the plus side the system did break down the costs and time for making good lairs or bases of opperations within a community that allows you to build there. as well as any bonuses each type of room within said base/lair can provide.

so i have mixed feelings on this particular system, which is leaning to the "don't like it" side.

[GarvokTla]

oh and to further compound the "doesn't make sense" of the situation brought up by this system; if you have a shop and sell your wares for 1/2 price (because you're a PC taking on a NPC's roll during downtime) why is it NPCs can sell their wares at full value?

[GarvokTla]

gah! brain needs replacing. just read my above statement and it just looks weird. here is the rewording;

to further compound the "dont like it" and "doesnt make sense" portions of the Downtime system of UCam; as a PC you can only sell items at 1/2 value (Core book rule). however in the Downtime system if you own a business and make and sell items with that business, why as a PC doing an NPC's job do you still have to sell at half value for newly made goods? how is it that NPCs whom have the same shop and everything can sell for full?

this was not addressed in UCam, but is inherently implied due to the Core Rule Books rule of selling items as a PC.

[Phytohydra]

As for the PC selling items at half price as a shop owner I would assume that the 1/2 price ruling does not apply...

The CRB rules that PC's can only sell items at half price assuming that PC's are not taking time to find interested buyers, but are simply hauling their goods in to a shop and pawning them off on a shop owner who will then have to resell them.

When you are running a shop you are selling directly to a consumer at full price and cutting out the middle man.

[Ikalios]

I know this is homebrew but I'll use the magics components to reduce crafting time in place of price. 100 days to forge a sword is a little bit too much for a downtime. But if I reduce the creation process, let's say 1 day for 5 magic, those magic shops becomes useful for the players, each of them working for "parts" of the sword.

[Broken]

Different question. How would you own a ship? I see where I could hire sailors and a captain. Do I just buy a ship and use it as their location to operate from? Do I build a ship out of rooms? Wouldn't owning a ship grant me a bonus to the business? Should I buy a ship and then outfit it with Lodging or Storage rooms based on size?

Or would this whole thing be better as an investment? If so why have sailors and a captain for teams?

Thanks, just trying to figure this one out.

[Swashbucklersdc]

I built a caravan of Varisian Wanderers as an organization with the caravan of wagons, etc as mobile rooms, so I think your ship analogy would work great!

[Yora]

For practical reasons, I would first buy a complete ship as the "land" to build your base on. And then add rooms to the ship, as you would to a normal building, for normal costs.
You don't need to build walls and roofs, since the ship already has that, but most of the cost would probably be inventory anyway, and you'd probably still have to make some modifications to the ship, so everything fits where it is needed. Since you can't just rip out a wall or put holes into the roof on a ship, those modifications would be more expensive, canceling the cost saving from not having to build walls.

It would make the most sense if you actually plan to be on that ship most of the time. If it's just cruising around on the ocean and comes back every 6 months to deliver your part of the profits, it should obviously be an investment instead.

[Broken]

You know, looking at it, I think your right Yora. Using "Count of Monte Cristo" as a template, those look more like import investments than actually owning a ship.

If you wanted your own ship and crew you would buy the ship (10K gp Sailing ship). You need four teams of Sailors to crew the ship (+8). Lets say bunks are built into the ship, you need two for the crew (+16). Using the smallest size of bunks we get 30 squares. The ship has 60 squares. So using Storage as the hold I think you can maximize the footprint with 7 (+14). If we add a Captain's quarters[Bedroom] (+3) and a Kitchen (+4) to the top deck, cause that reminds me of the ship from smugglers shiv.

That gives us +45 for the check. or 5.5 gp/day
If you hired a Captain to run you ship, you are at 0.5 gp/day

I think that covers it, but I am not sure there would be any profit. it might be possible to build more on to the ship, the top deck has 60 squares to work with, maybe the deck is a common room in size and then you can use the rest to flush out the Captains area, maybe with guest rooms, dinning area, office, extra storage. Still playing with this.

[Broken]

If you have multiple businesses (Dock, Farm, Inn) do you add up all the bonus from all of them and roll once, or do you roll for each separate?

What if they are in different towns? (Magnimar and Sandpoint)

[Chemlak]

The rules say that you roll once per organisation or building, but allows you the option to roll once for everything. In terms of maximising your capital earnings, rolling per building/organisation offers the greater return, at the expense of harder bookkeeping and more dice rolls.

[GM Hands of Fate]

Alrighty, quick question. Say I own a tavern. Is there any upkeep cost associated with that per day? I would assume I would have to pay the staff, buy supplies, ale, etc., but I can't find where that is reflected.

[CaptainJandor]

iirc, there is no upkeep associated with organizations or buildings. just the up-front cost.

remember, however, that for every 7 days you are away from a business that doesn't have a manager (i think) your earnings go down, and once you've been away for 30 days you have to make capital attrition checks.

there also may be costs that come into play due to Downtime Events, but those are randomly generated.

[GM Hands of Fate]

Hmm, OK, then I wasn't missing anything. Thanks!

[Jenner2057]

I might be wrong, but I believe it's intended that the earnings you get are what's left AFTER you pay the staff and upkeep on your buildings. I think it's intended that upkeep, salaries, etc are paid first, THEN you get your earnings. Just my guess. Shrug

[Quijenoth]

Been brainstorming the downtime system this weekend with my group and will try and answer a few questions...

Jacen wrote:

Next up is town spending limits. Do you need to pay for the entire costs (good, capital, labour and magic) before the construction of a building or recruitment of an organisation can begin? Otherwise spending limits for town size seem fairly moot.

earning Capital and Constructing a building are two separate activities during downtime, you cannot begin constructing a building until you have earned the capital to pay for it. (however you could continue to earn additional capital while the building is being constructed.)

Also these costs apply to purchasing capital - you couldn't go into a village and expect to purchase 20 goods just because you got the gold.

Jacen wrote:

My last query is to do with the "Run a business" downtime activity. Now the description of this activity says the you can spend the day inspiring your workers by personally running your business, and this means you can make a check to earn capital at +10. So in the inn example my inn has a +41 bonus to earn capital and if I run it personaly this increases to a total of +51 correct?

Why then would I not just abandon this activity to earn capital for the inn by itself as soon as I have a skill modifier of more than +10 (which does not take long in pathfinder) Say I have craft(blacksmith) at +18 I could have myself earn capital at +18, and the inn earn capital at +41 for a total of +59 per day.

The +10 is in addition to your applied skill check (effectively if you have the skills and a business to run, your take a 10 on the check becomes a 20).

Remember earning capital and running a business is an Activity Phase but you business generates its capital during the Income Phase.

So in your example you could earn 1 goods (18 check) and the inn could earn 4 goods (41 check) or you could work together and get a +10 bonus for a total of 6 goods. It basically boils down to +1 capital. the only restriction is that it must be a capital the building can generate. you couldn't use an inn to get a +10 bonus to magic capital.

CaptainJandor wrote:

iirc, there is no upkeep associated with organizations or buildings. just the up-front cost.

remember, however, that for every 7 days you are away from a business that doesn't have a manager (i think) your earnings go down, and once you've been away for 30 days you have to make capital attrition checks.

there also may be costs that come into play due to Downtime Events, but those are randomly generated.

not entirely correct.

A typical Tavern (Page 112) has an earnings of +19 gp and +17 influence.
The tavern can earn you 2 gp 9 sp or 2 influence each day without you being there and without a manager. A Tavern has no upkeep costs but if you employ a manager (innkeeper) you must pay his wages (2gp/day) as upkeep.

So every day of downtime the tavern will generate you 2gp 9 sp or 2 influence, however, every 7 days you lose 1 point of capital (goods, influence, labor, or magic). Having a manager extends the attrition to 14 days but does NOT prevent capital attrition.

Also, according to the rules for earning capital;

Ultimate Campaign - page 77 wrote:

Earning capital is like using an item crafting feat to create a magic item: You have to put in some work to make the item, but you pay only half the normal price for it.

it goes on to say

Ultimate Campaign - page 77 wrote:

If a downtime activity’s description says it generates capital, you can earn that amount of capital by spending the required amount of downtime and gp on it;

In other words you can earn 2 points of influence from your tavern but it will cost you (or the tavern) 30gp to do so.

Business Attrition is all or nothing. if you are away from your business and it has no manager, the moment you fail a leadership check after 30 days away from the business that building cannot generate you ANY income since you last visited the business, it will continue to lose you capital however via capital attrition unless you abandon it.

Regarding the Ship - I would simply call the business an organisation. you could certainly use a dock or pirates cove as a base and run that as a business but I wouldn't "build" a ship out of rooms.

As pointed out, Magic can generate much more income than goods, labor, influence, or gp, effectively granting you 100gp towards magic item creation for 50gp and 1 days work.

Lets say you want to make a +1 longsword (2,000gp dropping the MW weapon costs to keep it simple) you could craft it for 1,000gp and 2 days work. alternatively you can earn 2 points of Magic for 100gp per day, spend 500gp and 5 days to generate 10 Magic. You could then spend the 10 magic and 2 days work to make the +1 longsword. You now have a +1 longsword for 500gp. you could sell it for 1,000 gp and make 500gp profit but its taken you 7 days to do it.

Is this such a big deal? well if your doing this yourself then no its not - most GMs wont worry because they wont give you the time to generate this between adventures. however if you have buildings or organisations generating you magic, the time investment is negated completely!

Personally I'd be inclined rule that only 50% of the cost to create a magic item can come from Magic Capital.

[CaptainJandor]

@Quijenoth - thanks for the clarifications! that's not a bad idea, either, (the 50% rule).

[Quijenoth]

CaptainJandor wrote:

@Quijenoth - thanks for the clarifications! that's not a bad idea, either, (the 50% rule).

Thanks and glad I could help.

One of my biggest issues with D&D since 3.0 came out is the overall way the game handles money.

The price of magic items compared to mundane has always been impossibly skewed and the new downtime system only exaggerates that further.

[Devon Jones]

So my reading of the book is that downtime *activities* have a gp cost for capital, but building income is not part of the Activities phase, it's part of the Income phase. I believe the intent here is that any activity your character chooses to participate in with their day of downtime means that capital earned comes with a gp cost, but income from rooms/teams/organizations/buildings is explicitly something that takes place regardless of how you spend your time (you could be in a dungeon...).

[Tierre]

I don't really understand organization upkeep part here. Say i build an alchemist workshop for 390gp or half if you have capital/ This nets me +10 to magic and my shop takes 10. So i have 2 magic/day which can go as 200gp for magic item building costing 100gp - so an alchemist lab actually starting to give you profit in only 4 days. So i build 5 of those buildings and now i have +10 magic a day which totally covers my 1000gp/day limit. Now i craft for 25% cost instead of 50 and all of this for a starting investment of 1950gp. Screwed as ever:)

Another thing - i stop all my shops before going to adventure. I have 2 apprentices to aid me in crafting items (+4 to craft magical items for 1040gp - wohoo). Now i go out for 2 years and maybe even loose my shops (though if they ar estopped should i really loose them?) but my apprentices are still working for me all those 2 years without asking for money? I totally understand why they want to send me to hell in 1 month and go their own separate ways:). It is strange as hell that they don't have upkeep. But if i take a manager and pay him upfront 700gp for 2 years with 2gp/day - then apprentices continue to work for me still for free and doing nothing... Also should i have a manager for every building or i can have 1 for all my 5 labs? If i have a manager then those shops continue working without any stupid ideas of saying me goodbye:) I get 20 magic from each lab each 14 days and loose 1 for manager (including 2 weekends every week - never forget weekends). Hm... even if i have to hire a manager for each building - then i pay him say even4gp/day i still get net profit of 1900-56=1844gp every 2 weeks while i am gone from each shop. Wow and i got 5 of them... Sooooo in 2 years of doing precicely nothing to my business with 2000gp starting investment i got a profit of 1844*5*52=479440(approximately for 2 years) to craft items... the problem is i need 2 years to craft it:( But hey i can hire a few mages for 960gp each who can make some +1swords for me to sell or other simple items i might need. I can also actually hire 1 of them beforehand and let him make a lot of simple magic items which i will then sell in Magnimar and Korvosa. Of course i will get more profit in a good dungeon.... but that's for only 5 labs. I can make 100 of them:)

Sorry for this wall of text... just some thinking on the idea of Ucam downtime system.

[khzhak]

pardon me if I missed something, but the downtime adventuring to catch up...does that apply to Pathfinder? one of my regular players missed a scenario, and is behind in relation to the other players, so I'd like to know if I need some sort of sheet to give him experience from that. or does that not apply, and he needs to adventure in a scenario? because I know if there's no sheet to record it, it didn't happen.

[Chemlak]

Tierre:

PRD, Magic Item Creation wrote:

The character must spend the gold at the beginning of the construction process.

Just to point out: you can only spend Magic capital that you currently have to reduce the amount of real gold you need to spend. So, to make, say, a +2 stat item (2,000 gp crafting cost) you need to have 20 Magic capital at the start. With your 5 alchemical labs (10 Magic per day) you spend 1,000 gp and 2 days earning the capital, then 4 days (2 for +5 DC) crafting.

Yes, it is cheaper in terms of gold (I'm not sure if this was an intended consequence of the downtime system) in the long run, but the time it takes is definitely extended.

[Tierre]

Well i just make those 5 shops and go adventuring. They net me 1000gp worth ofmagic every day - so if i go for 10 days i can then make an item worth 10000. So the problem is only at the start of the process which passes pretty fast:) And interesting question - do i need a manager for each building and organization or only 1? I got my magic stored at my house - so why should i have 5 managers if i only need 1 majordomo.

[sgshallow]

GarvokTla wrote:

oh and to further compound the "doesn't make sense" of the situation brought up by this system; if you have a shop and sell your wares for 1/2 price (because you're a PC taking on a NPC's roll during downtime) why is it NPCs can sell their wares at full value?

Where did they ever find any one with that much gold. Using the system properly you would of had a magic shop full of expensive items no one could afford. Magic shops in my game make between 4-7 gp a day

Selling potions and nic nacs in town

[sgshallow]

khzhak wrote:

pardon me if I missed something, but the downtime adventuring to catch up...does that apply to Pathfinder? one of my regular players missed a scenario, and is behind in relation to the other players, so I'd like to know if I need some sort of sheet to give him experience from that. or does that not apply, and he needs to adventure in a scenario? because I know if there's no sheet to record it, it didn't happen.

I believe that you are using the system the wrong way a lot of the posts about crafter's being overpowered are working under the assumption that. If you craft it they will come. The reason that does not work is because almost every NPC in game can not afford products that you want to craft. In my game owning 5 alchemist shops would net you at most 175 gold pieces every week that's only if the city is large enough to support multiple alchemist shops without cutting into your own profit.

[Panics]

I don't think that crafting magic item cost only 25% of the purchase cost.

Purchasing Magic Capital is 100 gp per point; Earning (or Crafting) is 50 gp.

If you +1 longword cost 2000 gp purchased, you would need 20 points;

Earning 20 Magic is 1000 gp. Purchasing 20 Magic is 2,000 gp.

not half of the half!

It would, maybe take longer, but I don't think as per the crafting Magic Item activity p.84.

----

The only broken rule is the Manager which clearly don't work with a per day salary.

If you take a Temple, you net a profit of 2 gp/day (take 10, and it as a +10 gp value). An abbot is 4 gp/day and is stated as "An Abbot is divine spellcaster trained to take care of a Temple or religious organization and its members." So every Temple in the world would bankrupt! I think, it should have been stated as 4 gp per WEEK or 4 sp/day. Even then, as per Core Rule, an Skilled Hireling earn 3 sp/day. Which would make the Innkeeper at 2 sp/day. Maybe its more appropriate. Or you could double the sp/day since they are "managers". Making the Abbot at 8 gp/WEEK or 8 sp/day and Innkeeper at 4 gp/WEEK and 4 sp/day.

Most employees are Untrained Hireling which earn 1 sp/day per Core Rule.

What da ya think?

[Chemlak]

Quote:

You may spend Magic toward the crafting cost.

Quote:

In most cases, using the downtime rules doesn't change the costs for performing the action, but it might allow you to spend capital instead of gp as per the Capital Values table . You can substitute 1 point of Goods or Labor for 20 gp, 1 point of Influence for 30 gp, and 1 point of Magic for 100 gp where appropriate.

Magic item crafting cost is (generally) 50% of the item's purchase price. Since you buy earned capital at half the purchase price (50 gp per point of magic capital), and can use that as 100 gp of the crafting cost, you need 10 magic capital (which cost you 500 gp to earn) to make up the 1,000 gp you need to make a 2,000 gp price magic item.

[Seerow]

Honestly I feel like the capital rewards are far too low. Especially since as noted managers tend to cost more than the benefits they actually provide (I could have sworn one example I looked at actually provided less benefit than the shop earned, but I could be mistaken).

I can understand worries of 1st level PCs deciding to give up adventuring and just start an inn because it's more profitable, but that doesn't seem like a good reason to me to make sure it's impossible to make any sort of real money with the business rules. It should just require someone either be higher level or more specialized to be successful. I for one would prefer a system where generating magic points isn't necessarily the only way to make money worth noting, with businesses that focus on other thing making more money through bulk.

[Damon Griffin]

Our group is a little bit cash poor, desirous of a number of magical equipment upgrades, and only two of our six PCs are item crafters.

For the items we can -- just barely -- afford for the group, we're looking at being in town for 130 days (that assumes a 6-day work week for the item crafters, and one day a week off.)

We could save time by buying some of the items we want, but we've stretched our cash to the limit as is, so saving time also means giving some items up.

Two questions:

1) can the non-crafters earn enough captial over two or three month period to pay for any magical equipment upgrades?

2) are there any circumstances in which the crafters would be better off using earned capital instead of just doing the crafting work normally?

[Eric Hinkle]

In the hopes that this is the right place to ask this question --

Has anyone ever done any guidelines for what sort of Capital a PC should get for things that normally work on a Kingdom level like mines or sawmills? I assume they provide Goods and Labor, and maybe some Influence, but how much?

[Ben Walklate]

Not that I know of, but that sounds like a really good thing to work out for a book bridging the building rules between Downtime and Kingdoms. Some sort of Ultimate book about Strongholds, you might say.

In the next exciting episode of Ben Walklate, Spreadsheet Wizard...

[Urath DM]

There are some buildings already that are duplicated between the Downtime and Kingdom rules. Those should serve as a helpful guide. Start with what Rooms make up a typical/sample Building of that type, and what Capital they can be used to generate.

Remember, too, that the BP earned from Kingdom-scale things is from whole regions/districts being allocated ("zoned") for use with multiple buildings of a type, not just one... although hex improvements may be more consolidated.

Also, the BP represent a mix of things... solid ones like Goods and gold, and less-solid ones like Influence and even "good will" from the people. Further confusing matters, some Kingdom enhancements (Farms, for example) reduce Consumption rather than earn BP, adding more skew to the analysis.

A Farm (Building) is "a typical family farm".. and has a +33 gold modifier OR a +30 Goods OR a +8 Labor OR a +7 Influence modifier.. for 4 gold 3 silvers per day OR 4 Goods OR 1 Labor OR 1 Influence per day using Take 10. Assuming a 30-day month, that's 129 gold OR 120 Goods OR 30 Labor OR 30 Influence... which earned Capital must be paid for at 1/2 the base value. More likely, a Farm is not used for one type of Capital in the entire month, and alternates among earning gold and other types so that the gold earnings can pay for the other Capital types.

1 BP is "approximately 4,000 gp", so it would take a lot of farms in a single hex to earn enough gold to equate to 1 BP (nearly 1,000 farms)... showing why the conversion is described as

Ultimate Campaign wrote:

Build points don’t have a precise exchange rate to gold pieces because they don’t represent exact amounts of specific resources.

[Ravingdork]

Jacen wrote:

First off the rules state that a magic item crafter can spend points of Magic Capital towards magic items creation. Is magical capital worth 100gp per point towards the creation of magic items? If so I could earn it for 50gp and a skill check, thus cutting the construction costs of magic items in half. Granted it would take longer to craft the item. Could I then sell said item for double the cost it took me to craft it?

There's no question about it. That's definitely how it works. As written, it looks to have been very much intended as well.

[Urath DM]

Urath DM wrote:

Ultimate Campaign wrote:

Build points don’t have a precise exchange rate to gold pieces because they don’t represent exact amounts of specific resources.

To expand on this a little, the ruler is not getting the products of the farm or other hex improvement directly.. it is going into the local economy. The mine operator keeps most of the direct gains from the mine while other merchants sell supplies to the miners and purchase the mine's output. The resulting increase in economy manifests as some BP of tax revenue .. probably paid "in kind" by most people (a mix of trade goods, some service on public lands or works, and so on).

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe from Expeditious Retreat Press is probably situated at the mid-point between Downtime and Kingdom scales. It describes the Feudal Manorial System for D&D 3.x use. It is all in gold pieces, but in terms of understanding the relationships involved, it can be very helpful.

There's also a treatment of the Feudal System for the Kingdom rules (Kingmaker version) in Wayfinder #5 (most of these, or similar ideas, have been included in the updated rules in Ultimate Campaign, but there may still be a few worth picking up here and there).

[Eric Hinkle]

Urath DM -- Thanks, I'll see about finding those two books you mentioned.