Making money with Gunsmithing to mass produce guns.

[FanaticRat]

I'm going to be playing a gunslinger in an upcoming WotR game, and I've been looking at ways to make money during downtime since I'm going to require a /lot/ of money for stuff (like seriously). I was looking at the Gunsmithing feat and it mentioned I could make guns at half price at 1,000gp/day without a craft check, so I was thinking of trying to make pistols and selling them.

I asked my GM and he gave me the go ahead, but I've never actually played a game where I could craft and sell things, so I had some questions:

1. Do you think selling pistols would be profitable at all, since they've got a sell value of 1k GP? It seems like the most efficient weapon to produce. I had heard something about only being able to sell at half price, but I can't find where it says that.

2. What do you think would be the best way to go about drumming up business? I don't expect to make a lot unless I'm in a rich settlement since they're expensive. Would I need ranks in appraise? I was hoping to team up with a fellow party member with a high diplomacy to help drum up business, and do stuff like give demonstrations, lessons on how to use the guns, etc etc since I expect I'll have to do some work to actually make people interested and get a decent profit out of them.

3. Do you think such a system would be cheesy? Assuming it works like I think it works, I could conceivably make a net profit of 3500 gp in a week's worth. I would need a fair amount of money to get started, but I think that once I start I should be able to keep it up. Again, I want to have a stable income, but I don't want to break things and I don't know if doing such a thing might break the game since I've never done this before.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Unless there is some specific exemption in the rules for making guns, making ANYTHING and selling it to NPCs is a zero-sum game. There is a trait that allows magic items to be sold at a 10% markup, but even with that edge it's hard to make any real gold selling magic items.

Your GM may well have said "sure, go ahead" because he knew you couldn't make a profit at it. Or he could be willing to fudge the rules to allow you to make some gold. But if he is doing that, there might be easier and or more fun ways to make extra cash.

[FanaticRat]

I just thought that it would be cool flavor for my character to make money off of her trade. I was just kinda excited to try to set it up, and I know the character would be interested in it, especially in teaching people how to use and service guns, giving demonstrations to drum up business (but primarily feed her ego)...

Oh well. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

[Adamantine Dragon]

I understand, and if your GM is OK with it, then great.

My archer druid has invested a good bit of skill points in making bows and arrows. She sells them to NPCs as her "job." Due to the rules of the game, she can't really make any cash at it, but she does it anyway and my GM is kind enough to make it at least pay for her ammo and basic supplies. It's all for flavor though, she's been doing it for years (both in game and out) and has not made enough to boost her actual wealth significantly.

[SAMAS]

In a straight-up Craft-to-Selling progression, not so hot.

However, Ultimate Campaign has a bunch of stuff about running a business between Adventures.

As a GM, I would have you play through the first few sales as a modified Diplomacy/Bluff roll, with you actually giving me a general outline of your pitch and/or sales tactics (who you're selling to, what you're telling them, etc...). If I like what you say, you get a bonus on the roll. After you pass that, use the downtime rules for your business.