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My players began downtime activities in Drezen last night and I must say that some of it was.....amusing.
Three of the four players began relatively standard activities, with one starting work on a temple, one starting work on a tavern and an organization to operate out of it, and the other beginning work on a casters tower while also starting research on various leads that cropped up at the end of the previous session.
The fourth player on the other hand decided he wanted to found an organization. But it was not just any organization. No, this would be a labor union. He proceeded to spend about a month hiring 40 teams of laborers, 5 teams of bureaucrats, 5 teams of elite guards and 5 teams of craftsmen. Basically a large labor force split into groups lead by foremen and protected by a small group of armed guards and overseen by teams of lawyers, accountants and other paper pushers to see to the bookkeeping. Once Drezen is rebuilt he will have enough laborers to on average produce 25 units of labor consistently each day (with the possibility of a little extra which he will donate for free to the city), which happens to be the exact amount of labor one can sell at 10 GP per unit, or 250GP income per day. In a month of downtime this labor force would generate 7500GP in labor alone, or 91,250GP per year.
Basically, this player founded the Drezen branch of the Teamsters and I cannot really fault him. In a town in the Worldwound everyone is going to need labor for building, maintaining or repairing various projects, and while the town is being rebuilt he is donating most of that labor along with a large supply of goods to the reconstruction effort. He is using it to build mass lodgings which will replace a number of the ruined housing units and lodge his force of near 300 workers, bureaucrats, soldiers and craftsmen. After Drezen is rebuilt they will maintain the city and provide the manual labor required to expand and keep the city running.
They just also happen to generate stupid amounts of free money and provide for a seriously comfortable retirement after the Demons are dealt with and the Worldwound is closed. Once the city has its economy restored I will have Irabeth impose a tax on the labor, but it's still basically a giant labor union capable of generating enormous income, and if the player is somewhat philanthropic about it I cannot find fault in him for doing it. I also can't find anything in the rules preventing it.
Anyone have any thoughts?
By the end of the AP, it's probably retirement time anyways, so...
Reward him for his endeavours! He's retired after that, so if he's filthy rich, it matters how?
:-)
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Oh I'm not worried about it after the campaign, and I suppose in the grand scheme of things it won't really matter during the campaign either because things move so quickly, but if the party decides to fend off Xanthir Vang's attacks for a year the character could rake in some 91k extra gold to just do with as he pleases.
Also he has told me he plans to take the Leadership feat so he can get a cohort to put in charge of the union while he is adventuring. Ostensibly this cohort could make his collections and keep things running smoothly while the players are off tramping through the Abyss killing Demon Lords, so that when they return he has a nice extra paycheck waiting.
I just want to know if there is anything anyone can find in the rules to prevent this kind of organization, or if it's 100% legit as written. I cannot find anything preventing it, so I'm inclined to applaud the player's creativity and let it slide.
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As a DM I would applaud the player for being creative and thinking outside the box. It is pretty legit and the money is great. But I would also pull the player aside and remind him that though he is rich, most of that money goes to the workers and housing and upkeep. After that Id remind him that there is still a limitation on what he can actually buy with that kind of money.
Be careful so they don't mess with the balance of the game.
What race and class is he? Just curious.
Also, I think you should have Aponavicius kill a bunch of his union people when she attacks Drezen in Book Six. Then it'll be personal!
He's a human Warpriest.
I would like to point out that none of the teams he recruited to the organization have an upkeep he needs to pay, so technically all of the resources generated by it go directly to him and have no cost associated with them. I am very likely to change that, but as written I cannot find anything that costs him any money other than the initial recruitment cost, and attrition if he leaves the organization to itself for too long.
Additionally I cannot find anything in the book that actually allows for the sale of capital such as Goods or Labor. I see that they have a purchase cost and that you can buy them (which means SOMEONE is selling them I guess) and I see where you can convert them from one kind of capital to another kind (though not Gold) but I do not see that you can sell them. Now it's relatively easy to extrapolate that you can sell the labor for the listed cost, though with two costs listed it's impossible to know which cost to use. I guess you could just rule that you sell them for the earned cost and never the purchased cost since most people buying them likely would be earning them, or government people who would likely get a discount for bulk purchase.
Anyone have any input on this? I'm still inclined to let the player make money here since it's a slow process and not likely to affect the campaign, and it's certainly an interesting and innovative use of the downtime rules.
I think that its a good idea from your player. It depends on how much reality you wish to impose on him. That many people should have an upkeep cost as they are employed. Maybe that means you should deduct the skill labor cost per day from his income, I believe like 3sp each day from the core rulebook. That could deduct at least 30gp profit per day from him. Also supplies aren't free either. One could assume that there is some cost in making Goods.
I don't honestly get how he's supposed to generate money by "selling" units of Labor capital. You pay half the price of any capital to "Earn" it through checks. So, he pays 250 gp to generate 25 Labor.
Although you can't sell capital, you can use it for its listed Purchased Cost as payment toward any applicable downtime activity that requires you to spend gp.
Also, capital can't be sold. Period. Even if it did, following most of Pathfinder rules, it should be sold at half price which would make it 0 profit (since a player spends half the cost of the capital to earn it).
He could turn all those bonuses to generate gp and maybe in the long run make some money (not much since the initial costs are very high and should take some time to make up for).
On a last note: If he means to leave his organization for any period of time, he needs to hire a manager. Even if that manager is a cohort, he needs to get paid.
You can select a cohort or notable follower to be a manager, but you still must pay a wage. Having a cohort or follower as a manager means you know the manager is loyal to you—it doesn't mean that she'll work for free while you're off adventuring.
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There is a cost built in for making the various capitals Goods, Labor, Influence, Magic. The cost is half the market value. So you can make 1 unit of goods/labor for 10 gold Or buy one unit of either for 20 gold.
All teams are assumed (raw) to have their own housing/pay/food/appropriate to their roles. Drivers do NOT have wagons, you need must buy them separately same with mounts for everyone cept Calvary (IIRC).
I play in a Downtime game on the forums here and run one here and have been using downtime in my assorted campaigns (running 3 wrath games & had tpk in a wrath game so was 4 at one point).
Because Selling Capital is not mentioned RAW. (It does not say that you can sell capital at all, just trade it. per d20pfsrd/srd/uc book/sites)
RAI for my DM and for myself in my games is that you can sell capital at the cheeper/production cost not at the market value.
I adjust Downtime Activity: Sell Capital with traits/feats and such similar to selling a normal or magical item.
$ ~50% market value of item + personal modifiers + Bargaining if wanted by player.
So if a player wants to sell 25 labor, they would make 250, not the 500 the labor is actually worth.
It sounds like you on the right path with things Aldarionn.
The game I am playing is a thieves guild game. Our boss charges a flat 10% of our gold income, before expenses, each month.
In the downtime game I am running set at level 5 NPCs working on rebuilding Kenabres (start date 1 month after Kenabres destruction) using a similar Reconstruction Point system as Dresden uses. This is set 100% within the same campaign as one (well two but one is dead atm) of my face-face tables. IN this downtime game the players pay a 20% tax until town is rebuilt. Then they can move to Dresden and do the same if the face-face players havnt finished the 100 Recovery points yet.
I would highly suggest some sort of tax rate. It would be the same for players as for NPC's so a flat number is good. Tax should be MUCH higher then normal when in the rebuilding Dresden phase, then drop down to a lower rate.
Do not attempt to screw over the player for being creative though and crunching all that math, or your table will NEVER do it again in any other campaign.
I am not sure if you have the players set as the rulers of Dresden or if it is under the Queen's Rule. If some NPC is in charge of things, simply have the NPC tell the war priest's managier that there is a tax and have that guy tell the player.
Allow the player a conversation with the person imposing the heavy tax. Allow the player some rolls.. diplo/profession:bargianing/trade something. that if they roll good they only pay a portion of the tax. Like this.
Tax rate is currently set at 40% while rebuilding.
Player talks to ruler and can come up with a simple logical argument. drop the tax rate to 30% for player. (no rolls just a conversation)
Player tries some rolls and rolls ok (drop it to 25% for rebuilding and 15% normal)
or
Player tries some rolls and rolls awesome (drop it to 20% for rebuilding and 10% normal)
Allow ingame events to reflect higher or lower tax rate. If the PC save the live of person taxing them, multiple times.. If the PC was willing to let the person taxing them die for selfish reasons..
I hope that helps a little bit.
Very impressed with that player.
Rooms/Teams CAN be damaged so bear that in mind as well.
There is a cost built in for making the various capitals Goods, Labor, Influence, Magic. The cost is half the market value. So you can make 1 unit of goods/labor for 10 gold Or buy one unit of either for 20 gold.
All teams are assumed (raw) to have their own housing/pay/food/appropriate to their roles. Drivers do NOT have wagons, you need must buy them separately same with mounts for everyone cept Calvary (IIRC).
I play in a Downtime game on the forums here and run one here and have been using downtime in my assorted campaigns (running 3 wrath games & had tpk in a wrath game so was 4 at one point).
Because Selling Capital is not mentioned RAW. (It does not say that you can sell capital at all, just trade it. per d20pfsrd/srd/uc book/sites)
RAI for my DM and for myself in my games is that you can sell capital at the cheeper/production cost not at the market value.
I adjust Downtime Activity: Sell Capital with traits/feats and such similar to selling a normal or magical item.
$ ~50% market value of item + personal modifiers + Bargaining if wanted by player.So if a player wants to sell 25 labor, they would make 250, not the 500 the labor is actually worth.
It sounds like you on the right path with things Aldarionn.
The game I am playing is a thieves guild game. Our boss charges a flat 10% of our gold income, before expenses, each month.
In the downtime game I am running set at level 5 NPCs working on rebuilding Kenabres (start date 1 month after Kenabres destruction) using a similar Reconstruction Point system as Dresden uses. This is set 100% within the same campaign as one (well two but one is dead atm) of my face-face tables. IN this downtime game the players pay a 20% tax until town is rebuilt. Then they can move to Dresden and do the same if the face-face players havnt finished the 100 Recovery points yet.
I would highly suggest some sort of tax rate. It would be the same for players as for NPC's so a flat number is good. Tax should be MUCH higher then normal...
I like these ideas, and I think I will use them.
@Rune - Which page is that on? I seem to recall reading it but I could not find it when actually looking for it.
I am likely to allow the player to actually sell labor, because the idea is his hired workers go out on contract jobs and thus PROVIDE labor for other players, NPC's or the government of Mendev wishing to build up the city of Drezen. The fact that his workers "generate" labor is an abstraction to represent this.
Now I am likely to impose some restrictions, and I will definitely have him roleplay negotiating a fair tax rate, but I think I am going to let him get away with this one. Seems like a really interesting idea if not exactly what the original rules intended.
Klokk, not to get on your case or anything, but you keep typing "Dresden" when you probably meant to say Drezen. They are both destroyed cities, but Drezen is ruined because of demons and Dresden is ruined because of this.
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Anyone have any thoughts?
He disappears under suspicious circumstances coming out of a tavern one night. No one knows who took him or why. Everyone assumes he is dead and everyone has a rumor on where he's buried. Historians spend the rest of time debating over who actually killed the fourth player and where he's buried.
Anyone have any thoughts?He disappears under suspicious circumstances coming out of a tavern one night. No one knows who took him or why. Everyone assumes he is dead and everyone has a rumor on where he's buried. Historians spend the rest of time debating over who actually killed the fourth player and where he's buried.
This made me chuckle, and may be how that character meets his end ;-)