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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Have you ever wondered just how much one gp was actually worth? Or just how big of a purchase that warhammer +2 was compared to what the locals can normally afford? If you ever have, but didn't want to delve into the boring details of trying to calculate the worth of gold in realistic terms, then you'll want to check out the latest article at Intelligence Check.
In our latest article, our crack team of economists answer these questions and more, all the while showing our work so that you can tweak or modify these standards as necessary for your game. Now you'll know just how rich your characters really are when they raid the dragon's hoard.
Check it out here: Setting a Gold Standard
I came up with Small Farms being worth about 3000 gold. Farmers producing about 300 gold per harvest, of which about 170 gold worth is eaten by a family. Another 30 is taxed. I set large estates at 10 times that value and producing a good deal more.
So food is the most expensive thing in Pathfinder, making sense for a world of subsistence farmers and I had 1 GP being worth about 50 dollars, rather than 90.
Still, cool article. I'm glad other people are answering these questions.
I'm not sure I buy the assumption that poverty levels are the comparison point. Someone living @ the poverty line in the USA is much better off than the poor conditions described in the CRB. That inflates the multiple.
Chobe, the poverty issue is in the price of food. If I say a silver coin is worth 5 dollars, look up how much your iron rations actually cost: let alone a good meal. It is pretty expensive.
A big part of it depends on how you view the world. My game world is mostly subsistence farmers.
Iron rations isn't subsistence food, though. Jerky/pemmican/whatever have an involved labor component, and are meat-based.
I think you're right that food is the starting place, though. If you look at a basket of 1:1 comparables, like the "poor/average/etc" meals, the cost of an ale in a tavern, a loaf of bread, a chicken, etc I think you get a better answer.
The "poverty level" in the USA is a political statement as much as an economic one, so I don't think it works as a proxy for that "basket."
And a lot of people living "below the poverty level" are overweight, you woud not expect that to be the case in a GW of mostly subsistence farmers.
Chobe, that's my point. If a gold coin is 50 dollars and you see how expensive PF food is, you will agree that that is why they are poor.
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Chobemaster wrote: And a lot of people living "below the poverty level" are overweight, you woud not expect that to be the case in a GW of mostly subsistence farmers. At the risk of making things too political, bear in mind that unhealthy food is often cheaper in contemporary America, and hence it's easier for poor people to have an unhealthy diet and thus be overweight.
So I did a little math here using Alzrius standard. If 1 gp = approx. $90, and 10 copper pieces = 1 silver piece, and 10 silver pieces = 1 gold piece, then 100 copper pieces = 1 gold piece. So far so good? I hope so cause I suck at math.
If that is true, then a copper piece is roughly equivalent to 9 cents. I'll round that up to 10 cents just for ease of use. If a mug of ale is 4 copper pieces, that means I'm getting a mug of ale for about 40 cents. I've seen 24 packs of cheap (and by cheap I mean both inexpensive and poor quality) beer for about $15. Which would make each individual beer about 60 cents. So... either the ale is really watered down, or the barkeeps should be charging a couple coppers more.
My father-in-law owns a bar. I can reluctantly say that he purchases domestic beer at wholesale for around .67 a bottle. and then charges $3.00 for that same bottle to customers.
sirmattdusty wrote: My father-in-law owns a bar. I can reluctantly say that he purchases domestic beer at wholesale for around .67 a bottle. and then charges $3.00 for that same bottle to customers. I find that offensive.
It also means the barkeeps in Golarian need to charge more for a round of drinks.
MendedWall12 wrote: So I did a little math here using Alzrius standard. If 1 gp = approx. $90, and 10 copper pieces = 1 silver piece, and 10 silver pieces = 1 gold piece, then 100 copper pieces = 1 gold piece. So far so good? I hope so cause I suck at math.
If that is true, then a copper piece is roughly equivalent to 9 cents. I'll round that up to 10 cents just for ease of use. If a mug of ale is 4 copper pieces, that means I'm getting a mug of ale for about 40 cents. I've seen 24 packs of cheap (and by cheap I mean both inexpensive and poor quality) beer for about $15. Which would make each individual beer about 60 cents. So... either the ale is really watered down, or the barkeeps should be charging a couple coppers more.
Check your math. One one-hundredth of $90 is 90 cents, not 9 cents. A silver piece is worth $9, and a copper is one-tenth of that, or $0.90.
That means that mug of ale isn't 40 cents, but $4.00 (actually, $3.60, but close enough).
Necroluth wrote: MendedWall12 wrote: So I did a little math here using Alzrius standard. If 1 gp = approx. $90, and 10 copper pieces = 1 silver piece, and 10 silver pieces = 1 gold piece, then 100 copper pieces = 1 gold piece. So far so good? I hope so cause I suck at math.
If that is true, then a copper piece is roughly equivalent to 9 cents. I'll round that up to 10 cents just for ease of use. If a mug of ale is 4 copper pieces, that means I'm getting a mug of ale for about 40 cents. I've seen 24 packs of cheap (and by cheap I mean both inexpensive and poor quality) beer for about $15. Which would make each individual beer about 60 cents. So... either the ale is really watered down, or the barkeeps should be charging a couple coppers more.
Check your math. One one-hundredth of $90 is 90 cents, not 9 cents. A silver piece is worth $9, and a copper is one-tenth of that, or $0.90.
That means that mug of ale isn't 40 cents, but $4.00 (actually, $3.60, but close enough). Told you I was bad at math! Thanks for checking my numbers.
sirmattdusty wrote: My father-in-law owns a bar. I can reluctantly say that he purchases domestic beer at wholesale for around .67 a bottle. and then charges $3.00 for that same bottle to customers. Yeah, of course he does. Because the markup on that bottle of beer also has to pay his employees, and his cleaning supplies, and replacing broken glass or furniture, and a host of other things. Truly, if a bar has great atmosphere and a staff that is fun and courteous, I usually don't care how much I pay for drinks. It's all part of the package.
Dude - you are living the dream! You married a woman who's father owns a bar!
Alzrius wrote: Chobemaster wrote: And a lot of people living "below the poverty level" are overweight, you woud not expect that to be the case in a GW of mostly subsistence farmers. At the risk of making things too political, bear in mind that unhealthy food is often cheaper in contemporary America, and hence it's easier for poor people to have an unhealthy diet and thus be overweight. You are correct that this phenomenon occurs, but worrying about whether your excess calories are from "healthy" or "unhealthy" foods is a 1st world problem that carries over VERY poorly to ACTUAL subsistence living.
Recall pictures you've seen from places w/ famines. Recall that none of the people suffering from famine were fat because all they could afford was unhealthy food.
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Chobemaster wrote: You are correct that this phenomenon occurs, but worrying about whether your excess calories are from "healthy" or "unhealthy" foods is a 1st world problem that carries over VERY poorly to ACTUAL subsistence living. That's true, but that wasn't the scenario that (I thought) you were describing when I made my reply. You said that a lot of people living "below the poverty level" are overweight, after having said that the measurement of the poverty level in America was political; hence, I replied in regards to America.
Quote: Recall pictures you've seen from places w/ famines. Recall that none of the people suffering from famine were fat because all they could afford was unhealthy food. That's because when there's a famine it's not a question of what you can afford, or how healthy it is - there's nothing to eat.
You also need to remember that in general only adventurers pay for things in a Golarion style world on the gold standard. I think its a holdover from earlier editions where all that gold needs to go somewhere. I very much doubt that your average commoner pays those values.
Lets just examine the profession skill for a moment.
The profession skill gets you half your check result in gold pieces for a week of dedicated work. Now this is ye old dark ages so they aren't likely to have a weekend but lets assume a 6 day work week and one day of rest. Let us also assume we are talking about Joe Average with no skill mod and see what he can get.
Untrained e.g. manual laborer = 1 SP per day or 6 silver pieces.
1 Rank = (1 + 3 + 1 to 20 or 5 to 20) giving us 2.5 to 10 GP per week.
6 ranks = (6 + 3 + 1 to 20 or 10 to 29) giving us 5 to 14.5 GP per week.
9 ranks = (9 + 3 + 1 to 20 or 13 to 32) giving us 6.5 to 16 GP per week.
I don't think we need to go any higher than 9th level for our skilled workers. They probably can't take 20 as failure would mean no pay so best they could guarantee would be taking 10 to do it right with the possibility of really good or really bad pay if they rushed their job. Anyway we have a range of incomes from 6SP to 16GP for our workers now lets look at some prices.
Meals per day
Good = 5 SP
Common = 3 SP
Poor = 1 SP
So our untrained laborer buying food to supply himself spends 1SP per day hmmm he earns that . . . he can't take a day off EVER or pay for anything else (rent, drinks?, clothes etc). In other words he spends his entire life working to feed himself the poorest quality food in no clothes and with no roof over his head and if he's sick a day he starves. Common meals for a day is half a weeks wages and a chunk of meat the same. A peasants outfit is a day's wages and if its a cold land he'd need to work for 80 days without eating to buy a cold weather outfit (8 GP)
I think that's enough considering our lowest earner now lets consider a merchant at level 9 who buy's common tier items but avoids luxuries.
Parchment 2 SP per sheet.
Ink 8GP per 1oz vial.
Inn Cmmon: 5SP per day.
Well to start off with he'll need food at 3 SP a day food for a week runs him 21 SP or 2GP and 1SP so now he's down to 13GP and 9SP to spend. He'll need to keep records so he buys 10 sheets of parchment a week and a 1oz vial of ink. That's 20SP or another 2GP for the parchment and 8GP for the vial totalling 10GP. He's now down to 3GP and 9SP. Hmmm he'd probably have a house but we don't know prices for that so lets put him in a common inn. 5SP per day for 7 day's is 35SP or 3GP and 5SP leaving him 4 silver pieces saved per week for things like new clothing or the occasional sheet of paper for special contracts.
Well it seems clear to me. The adventurer prices for things aren't going to work for your average commoner/worker earning money. The manual laborers can't afford ANYTHING but the poorest food from their day's wages while the highly skilled workers are hard pressed to meet basic requirements for their job.
Personally I suspect that these are the value for your "trade" towns where a high rate of customers with large amounts of disposable cash inflate the prices. The average worker is going to be shopping at cheaper stores, bartering for their supplies/services or living essentially hand to mouth on some lords estate where they get food, clothing, shelter in exchange for working his lands.
However trying to work out the GP to $ exchange rate based on a poverty line worked out from the adventurer prices isn't going to work. I'd prefer a copper standard myself where your average "laborer" pays say 2CP for a meal and drink. I could partially see a silver but unless the prices drop most people really shouldn't be existing on a gold standard in my opinion, yours obviously may vary.
Gygax stated that original PHB prices represented the equivalent of "Gold Rush" towns...adventurers on adventure frontiers, hauling in dragon hoards had created massive inflation.
I would certainly agree w/ your sense that adventurer prices are not what folks are paying.
But the prices in the PHB are on a per-each basis. A laborer isn't buying 6 prepared meals at a restaurant and bringing them home. His family is buying and/or raising ingredients in larger quantities. That costs less.
A merchant that requires ink for his business isn't buying it in 1 oz bottles @ retail prices.
The PHB cost for a loaf of bread is probably like mini-mart bread, not Wal-mart bread. And even minimart bread is mass produced w/ preservatives in it, an even better comparison might be actual bakery bread.
What actual elements comprise the coins most used by folks is to me the most uninteresting part, but I would agree that the poor are most often transacting in copper and that gold coinage would not be widely used by the bulk of society.
(I would probably give Joe Average at +1 ability score modifier...while his most likely ability score is 10.5, it is unlikely that he will have ALL 10's and 11's, and presumably on average people go into fields that map to their strengths, in the main. Neither here nor there, overall.)
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Liam,
You make some good examples, but I think that you're making a broader error in terms of the comparisons you're drawing (beyond the fact that Pathfinder is supposed to set an abstracted economic model, rather than a perfectly-functioning economy).
I also want to preface this by saying that I'm not an economist of any sort, and if someone with actual working knowledge of economic theory and/or practice were to chime in, I'd probably be very much schooled.
Having said all of that, I think you're mistakenly comparing the consumer price index (of various goods) to the cost of living standards. Given that the cost of living section of the Pathfinder rules makes examples out of things like food, and explicitly states that various levels of cost of living allow for various small items below certain cost thresholds to be "on hand" automatically (e.g. the Average cost of living notes "He can secure any nonmagical item worth 1 gp or less from his home in 1d10 minutes, and need not track purchases of common meals or taxes that cost 1 gp or less."), I think that it's reasonable to assume that cost of living covers more than just housing and taxes.
Ergo, the points you make are actually subsumed by the standard cost of living, rather than being tracked individually.
Er I was making the point that if you compare the PHB prices with laborer wages it doesn't work and thus isn't viable to work out the comparable poverty line of Golarion and America for GP exchange rates wasn't I?
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Liam Warner wrote: Er I was making the point that if you compare the PHB prices with laborer wages it doesn't work and thus isn't viable to work out the comparable poverty line of Golarion and America for GP exchange rates wasn't I? But you also mentioned skilled workers. You charted out rates of earnings for various skill ranks, and used a level 9 merchant as an example.
Also, I think that it's appropriate that an unskilled laborer - who makes the minimum amount the system allows for someone to make - would not make enough money to live on.
Alzrius wrote: Liam Warner wrote: Er I was making the point that if you compare the PHB prices with laborer wages it doesn't work and thus isn't viable to work out the comparable poverty line of Golarion and America for GP exchange rates wasn't I? But you also mentioned skilled workers. You charted out rates of earnings for various skill ranks, and used a level 9 merchant as an example.
Also, I think that it's appropriate that an unskilled laborer - who makes the minimum amount the system allows for someone to make - would not make enough money to live on. True but at PHB prices even the 9 rank skilled worker is struggling to meet their basic requirements. So they have to be buying their supplies elsewhere.
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Liam Warner wrote: True but at PHB prices even the 9 rank skilled worker is struggling to meet their basic requirements. So they have to be buying their supplies elsewhere. That depends a lot on the work, and what's involved. The cost of ink is expensive enough so that it isn't something you'd have on an "average" cost of living, but parchment certainly is, for example.
I'm also not completely certain that the use of Craft/Profession skills to earn a living don't measure net profit rather than gross profit, in which case the costs of basic materials necessary to perform their jobs are abstracted into the check result anyway.
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One thing that you have to understand that it's been a given even from the days of Gygax that there is a tremendous disconnect between the adventuring pricing and anything remotely resembling a realistic economy. Gygax himself called it a "Gold Rush" or "Boom Town" style economy.
Given that Pathfinder has pretty much followed through on Gygaxian tradition, as even the devs themselvs admit trying to resolve this disconnect is a fool's errand.
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