Assume the example Thieves Guild from p. 113. You got a guild containing the following teams:
2 cutpurse teams
1 robber team
1 scofflaw team
and 1 soldier team.
If you've been gone for a week and then return to the settlement for some downtime, you go through the downtime phases and then come to the income phase.
You get to step 2 - Determining organization income. You have to make a capital check for each day your team has been operating, so we roll 7 times (or more likely, we take 10 on 7 checks), and because our guild don't have a building to operate out of, their earnings bonus get halved.
Assuming we just go for GP, the capital check should look something like this:
Cutpurse +1.5(3 halved)
Cutpurse +1.5(3 halved)
Robber +2 (4 halved)
Scofflaws +1 (2 halved)
Soldier +2.5 (5 halved)
Placing your capital check at +8 (8.5 round down). Now the capital check is conducted like a skilled work check, meaning you roll 1d20(or take ten)+relevant skill and then add the earnings modifier, and divide the whole bunch by 10, to get your total gp output.
But what team makes the capital check? Is it the robbers? With their 3 ranks in disable device and another +3 for it being a class skill, we would get 24 (10+6+8), divided by 10, earning us 2gp. But is it the robbers skill checks we use?
TL;DR: Which team's skill bonus is used when making a skilled work test, as part of the capital check?
-Nearyn
Unless I misread something (which does happen), organisations just make a single check using the combined team bonus for the type of capital you're trying to earn. They do not make skilled work checks, and do not get skill bonuses added to the roll.
I'm thinking of this passages:
Earnings: This entry indicates what bonuses the room or team gives to its building’s or organization’s checks made to generate capital. Buildings and organizations act like characters in that they can attempt a check each day to earn capital performing skilled work (without costing you any downtime). You must pay for capital earned in this way as normal (see page 77).
And I think Skilled work lets you add your skill bonus to the check?
-Nearyn
When you (the character) do it, yes. The first sentence is the important bit, though:
This entry indicates what bonuses the room or team gives to its building’s or organization’s checks made to generate capital.
In other words, this is the bonus this team (or room) gives to capital checks made by the organisation (or building). It is essentially a replacement for the skill bonus that your character uses when he makes a skilled work check.
Good catch. I think you are right.
Would you argue this is also the case if you have a manager assigned to the organization, or does he get to add his skill bonus to the check?
-Nearyn
I would say not for two reasons:
Firstly, the downtime system is all about what your character is doing in his days off. Yes, you get bonuses (and no-time-required) to checks for having teams and rooms (if you present a roleplaying reason for that team or room to generate capital), but not extra skill rolls.
Secondly, the rules for managers are pretty clear on what they actually do:
Having a manager delays capital attrition (Upkeep phase step 3) from 1 every 7 days to 1 every 14 days. As long as the manager’s pay is up to date, having a manager look after your business prevents business attrition (see step 4 of the Upkeep phase on page 81).
Skills: This indicates the main skills the manager has ranks in, allowing you or the GM to make skill checks for the manager if an event or encounter requires it.
Earnings checks are neither events nor encounters, so there is nothing in the rules that suggests they get to use their skills for them.
Related question:
Are the Corruption / Crime / Law / Lore / Productivity / Society modifiers for settlements supposed to be factored in either a) the character's individual skill check roll, b) the modifier for the team's roll, c) both or d) neither?
If the answer is yes for the team's roll, is that modifier (assuming Productivity) applied once for the summation of all teams, applied to each team or some middle ground of the two?
Simply put, teams don't make checks, organisations do. An organisation may consist of a single team, but it is still the organisation that rolls. So any modifiers will apply to the roll made by the organisation, not,each team within the organisation.
Thanks. Much appreciated.
So taking that into account, if a PC had multiple teams in a single town (mercenary company, thieve's guild etc), all of those teams would be under a single organization, so the modifier would apply just once?
If the same PC had another couple of teams in another town, that would also be one, separate, organization, using that other town's settlement modifiers.
And is it safe to assume that you can only have one organization per settlement?
You can have as many organisations as you want in any given settlement. In one you might have the bar staff that run your inn, the loaders and freighters of your mercantile company, the bookkeepers of your accounting firm, and a thieves guild.
You are explicitly allowed to choose whether to roll them all together as one big bonus, or roll each organisation separately (pro tip: roll separately. It's more rolls, but you get more capital/gp).
Each will need their own manager for when you're out of town, though, which could end up costing you a pretty penny in manager fees.
Interesting. So then, would it be more profitable to designate multiple organizations and them apply the settlement modifiers to their individual checks, in essence multiplying the settlement modifier by the number of organizations?
Aside from the bookkeeping, where would be the down side?
Well, perhaps.
The problem is that settlement modifiers only affect certain specific rolls. As a GM, I would be completely okay with the Productivity modifier being used on Craft, Profession and Perform checks to generate capital, but Sleight of Hand being modified by Crime would only work if it was explicitly being used to pick pockets by the organisation. Which could have unfortunate consequences.
True, but the PC in my group is big on Artisan workshops so Productivity would be appropriate.
Although the question of the added manager cost vs. the multiplying settlement modifier by actually come out as a net loss.