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I've never had a recruiter reach out to me in front of my boss. They always wait till he's gone.Which is great.
Do it while the PC is present, not while his back is turned.
That's really all there is to it.
At this point, we have some sort of communications block that just isn't getting broken. But whatever, one more attempt.
Whatever you're going to do to a PC's business, do it so he has a chance to respond before you screw him over.
I really don't know how to make it any clearer than that.
It sounds like you two are disagreeing to agree. It seems like the players have some amount agency in both of your ideas, just starting at different points in the event.
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I dunno... I don't see the downside of screwing him over, other than he's no longer getting ten times the cash the other PCs are getting. I don't like to micromanage player's sheets and decisions, so if someone wants something cool, I'm inclined to allow, but I make no promise this new coolness will stick. I'd rather screw him up front than retcon the game like nothing ever happened.
I found something in the assistant section that I am unclear on. Under RUNNING THE BUSINESS, it says that "Each assistant you add imposes a penalty equal to the appropriate Labor Factor penalty on your skill check to determine profits." This sounds to me like a small business with two assistants suffers a -4 penalty, or a medium business with two assistants suffers a -10 penalty. However, under DETERMINING PROFITS it implies that you suffer only a -1 penalty per assistant, regardless of business size. What am I missing?
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I don't think you're missing anything, but I think the wording could be improved. Under Labor Factor, it reads:
Labor Factor: This value indicates the minimum labor “cost” of running your business. It serves as a penalty on your Profession skill check to determine profits, accounting for the various laborers, assistants, experts, and apprentices you must employ to maintain a business of the associated size. Typically, your business can have a maximum number of employees equal to 2 × the positive value of its base Labor Factor (or a maximum of two employees for a mobile business), but each employee your business has beyond the minimum increases the Labor Factor penalty by 1.
(bolds mine) So I think the text you found is meant to refer the reader back to the labor factor section where they tell you how to perform the calculation.
I know what I need. More OCD, less ADD. That's what I get for skipping sentences.
I dunno... I don't see the downside of screwing him over, other than he's no longer getting ten times the cash the other PCs are getting. I don't like to micromanage player's sheets and decisions, so if someone wants something cool, I'm inclined to allow, but I make no promise this new coolness will stick. I'd rather screw him up front than retcon the game like nothing ever happened.
Then never use the rules in the 1st place. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to understand that a system for making money is going to make a character money, and if it doesn't make anything of note, what's the point? Just to make him do a little dance for you? Or to let his character just play make believe on having a business?
This is why I came up with a system to remove gold from character power. WBL is a poison in this game's bloodstream.
Also, the obvious (to most people) downside of just screwing over one of your players is that it's a dick move.
Those conflicts and such are all represented in the Ultimate Campaign downtime system.Which would require them to happen during downtime, which is the opposite of what Purple Dragon Knight is advocating.
We roll for downtime events for every day, whether the PC's are in town or not.
I don't see why you couldn't roll pseudo-Downtime events for each month or part thereof you are not running your business. The 3.5 DMG II also had a system for running your own business, with a lot of extra events in there too.
As another idea for capping potentially huge profits and using up employee slots, you could say that your maximum profit bonus is equal to your ranks in the relevant Profession skill, plus each skilled assistant you have beyond the minimum needed for your business size. That way, although you are still taking an additional -1 to your income checks for each assistant beyond the minimum, you are also raising your potential profit by one point each time.
For instance, say that I have 5 ranks in Profession and a brand new large business (at rank five of course), so I have a -10 penalty to income checks and can generate a maximum of 5,000 gp profit per month. If I have five extra assistants, I have a -15 penalty to income checks, but I can generate a maximum of 10,000 gp profit per month.
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The primary challenge with any enhanced profession system is the conflict between game systems and verisimilitude. PC wealth increases with level while profession, craft, and other systems meant to seem more "real" tend to increase wealth over calendar time. The reference points (level and calendar) are completely out of whack.
Systems like the existing profession skill don't seem broken because the amount of money you get is incredibly small and campaigns usually operate on human timescales, but if you had a campaign full of elves and a willingness to spend centuries of game time making profession checks, you could certainly break things.
If you want to increase the amount of money that you get from Profession, you shorten the viable windows within which using profession has a reasonable and limited effect on game balance and wealth by level. And of course, there's no single solution because campaigns all play out at different in-game rates. If you want to create a general solution for letting the system pay out more money without shattering the in-game economy, you have to find a way to dynamically match the income schedule to the wealth-by-level schedule. That's something that's easy to fix as a houserule for one campaign, and harder to accomplish in a sourcebook that's used everywhere. Keep this in mind if you're writing up your own houserules, because the income schedule that works in one campaign may not necessarily work in another if the amount of downtime changes.
One option is to use the staggered advancement rules as an anchor for your Profession checks, instead of using a calendar. If, when building your system, you find that four checks per level keeps your PCs reasonably close to expected wealth while still giving them a worthwhile return on their investment, you could have them make their profession checks every time they hit one of the staggered advancement XP tiers. If your numbers work better with two checks per level, then do 0% and 50% (or 25% and 75%, if you like being a little offbeat). If you need 7 checks per level, well... you're presumably reading this on a computer that has a calculator on it, so you can do the math yourself.
A second option is to build out multiple levels and a GM (you?) can choose which one fits his or her campaign's downtime the best. This requires more planning but also provides the PCs with a higher level of realism--occasionally, they're going to plow through challenges and they won't get much money that level, and sometimes they'll be stuck at a given level for a while and they can load up. (A little bit.)
The third option I can think of is to use a lot of NPCs with Sunder. Sunder's not so bad if the PCs can make most of their money back in a few months of downtime!
I agree with tailoring your rules to your players. During the gestalt Star Wars D20 campaign I ran, we had two Nobles in the group, so whenever the story took a break for a few weeks or what-have-you, I'd allow them two or three resource rolls to gather cash (normally usable 1/day) and then skipped over the assumed downtime with no other effect.
(I also did the same for the two Tech Specialists, if only to cut down on ridiculous numbers of Craft checks.)
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The third option I can think of is to use a lot of NPCs with Sunder. Sunder's not so bad if the PCs can make most of their money back in a few months of downtime!
An infestation of Rust Monsters and/or Disenchanters could work too.
It would not be unreasonable to say that unless the unlocked rogue is making the skill check personally (in downtime), his business cannot benefit from the double income. After all, it would be quite understandable to assume that the experts managing his property don't have the Profession unlock themselves.
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So, basically, the rules provide a way for a rogue to actually be like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark. Hes not Superman, or Thor, or even the Hulk, but if it can be bought, he can buy it.
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Just realized that this gives a whole new meaning to the term "Robber Baron" . . . .
I'm glad you liked it! It's always nice to know that someone else uses the stuff you make. :)
I'll take a look at the high-level maths myself and see if I can come up with some recommendations for you.