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So, in our current campaign, the city has a large market area. One of the players hit upon the idea of setting up a stall in the market to sell the artifacts, relics and gems and get full value rather than the typical 50%. I'm trying to figure out how much it would cost to do this. I've tried looking at the Downtime rules but they don't seem to cover this. Does anyone have a suggestion?
I recall when the predecessor to this game was called Dungeons & Dragons, but now this game is called Merchants & Marketeers. Sweet! A whole new game, but alas, one with no specific rules.
So some suggestions:
1. Selling gems for full price is automatic. You should be doing that anyway; they're like really valuable coins.
2. Artifacts and Relics are usually game terms reserved for super mega awesome magic items, one of a kind unique fancy stuff so awesome that the game doesn't even give prices for them, so no dice; can't really sell them even in a metropolis because they're worth more than anyone can pay.
3. So I assume by "artifacts and relics" you really mean ordinary magic items. This is where it gets fuzzy:
Do you really want a supply and demand kind of economy? A +1 sword should be super easy to sell for full price in a short time if the population base is large enough. A +3 mermaid bane trident wouldn't sell in a hundred years if your market happens to be in a desert far away from any mermaid-infested shores - the only way to sell that is to a traveling merchant who is headed to a seaside market and he'll take it for, you guessed it, half price so he can make his own profit.
You as the GM need to determine on your own just how big the demand for any item is. Common generic stuff that lots of people might want should sell very fast for full price. Rare stuff that nobody wants might never sell. How quickly is up to you. That +1 sword might sell today, or tomorrow, or next week. That trident might not sell in literally a year or longer - how long do the PCs want to maintain this stall?
All that decision making is up to you, make it as realistic or as simplistic as you want.
Finally, don't forget that marketplaces often charge fees. In medieval times, those fees were often very fluid. By that I mean the guy who charged the fees would assess the wealth of the vendor and adjust his fees to get maximum profit - if such a guy sees your PCs selling valuable magic items for tens of thousands of gold, the fee to keep their stall open could be, for example, 100gp per day (meanwhile the cabbage vendor in the next stall is paying 2cp per day). Of course, this is all up to you too.
For bonus points, if you get tired of playing Merchants and Marketeers before the PCs do, have the big scary king (think Mad King Targaryen) come down to the stall and take an immense liking to the most awesome and expensive item they're selling, such an immense liking that he subtly hints (or not so subtly) that it should be made a gift to his majesty - and everyone knows what terrible things happen to those who refuse to please this scary king...
I don't see the problem with setting up a storefront, but the hitch with running a shop is that it's usually not the big ticket items which keep the business running. It's very rare to sell something of exceptional value, and with haggling, not easy to sell it for as much as you would want.
Then there are the taxes. Oh, the taxes.
The Downtime rules are an abstraction meant to give you Teams and Buildings that will grant bonuses to your Downtime actions. For example a Storefront grants a +5 bonus to the generation of any Capital the building already generates. What you seem to be looking for is a mechanic to create a "business" which does nothing more than occasionally sells expensive stuff so you can get more money for it.
Step 1: buy a cart
You don't need fancy mechanics or a business. Most market stalls are nothing more than temporary structures like tents, carts or a wagons. If you buy yourself a simple cart and drag it around with you there's always a stall you can sell your wares from. It has the advantage of being portable so you can take it with you anywhere throughout the campaign.
Step 2: put ranks in Diplomacy
There is an alternate use for this skill called Bargaining. First you successfully appraise the item you have to sell. Once appraised you hook buyer. Finally you set an asking price, bargain back and forth, find an over/under price the buyer's willing to pay, and shake on the deal. The actual rules for Bargaining can be found here.
On a final note, try not to overthink this. If you want to be a merchant as well as an adventurer, tell your GM. The two of you can hash this stuff out and if you want to make a formal business out of it use the Downtime rules.
Check out the alternate Profession rules in Pathfinder Unchained. d20pfsrd linky
To set up a business is not that easy. First of all you have to pay all the relevant permits and fees to even setup a stall. Next you have to pay all the bribes both to the legal and illegal authorities. After that you have to pay taxes on everything you sell. Even after you do that you are not guaranteed to actually sell anything. I would probably say that all the fees , taxes and bribes will probably start around 30% of the cost.
Anyone who has worked in a sales job can tell you it is a lot of work and requires some skill. I agree with the other people saying that diplomacy is the wrong skill. What they need is professional skill merchant. Since professional skills are trained only they don’t get a roll unless they actually put points into it. Even with professional skill merchant they are not guaranteed to sell at full market value.
If my players want to bargain for purchases I usually give them an opposed diplomacy roll vs the merchant’s professional skill merchant. A tie results in the listed price for every point they beat the merchant they get a 5% discount, if the merchant beats them he gets an additional 5% over the listed price. This is to reflect supply and demand and other variables. If they want to sell I use the same method except the base cost is half the listed cost. They also have to use professional skill merchant, but the buyer can use either diplomacy or professional skill merchant. I only use this when they want to actually bargain, if they just want to sell the loot I allow them to take half value without a roll.
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A swarm of orphans descends on the shop. One of them steals something, and the other 24 orphans are distractions. They scatter in different directions.
Someone buys everything in the shop, paying with bars of gold. Too bad the bars are gold plated lead (or they used a Fools' Gold spell).
A respectable customer claims that one of the items for sale is theirs, and that it was stolen from them. They call for the town guard to apprehend the group.
A dubious character buys an apparently innocuous item, as they leave the shop, they are over-heard mumbling, "Finally, I will be able to complete the ritual! No one will stop me this time."
Someone offers to buy something, but they want to trade in barter. The offer is an exceptional deal, but the trade goods will prove difficult to sell.
Adventurers come in and want to sell their items at 50% of value, of course they were stolen from someone powerful who is using magic to track them down.
Adventurers come in and want to sell their items, when they can't sell their items at 100% value, they set up shop next to the group, and slightly undercut their prices, but take away all of their business.
There are far easier ways of selling things at above 50% value. I know there are haggling rule sets out there.
My old GM used to give us a set % raise based on Diplomacy. So like an additional 1% per rank in Diplomacy (caps out at 70%). Or you could give a % increase equal to the skill bonus in Diplomacy, which would mean you get increases for Cha bonus to Dip as well as Skill Focus feats and things of that nature. If you do it that way most people will still only get about 73% - 80%, but there may be that one or two who get Dip boosting feats and can sell things at 90%. Or you could give 2% per skill rank which would cap out at 90% at level 20.
You could also look at honor/fame systems. Some involve giving you better prices (selling and buying) the more well known and well respected you are within a given community.
There are a lot of problems with PCs setting up their own shops:
1. They will never have a regular customer base since they have no set sales schedule.
2. Selling at 100% assumes an item is in pristine condition. Think about what happens to a car as soon as you drive off. Do you think the same would not apply to bloody armor and weapons?
3. Taxes.
4. Merchant guild fees.
5. On top of those you will probably have to pay rent for the space.
6. Time. Time is money. For a merchant, his money is made by selling; hence he spends every day in his shop waiting for that one customer to come in looking for that one thing he's trying to sell. Adventurers are not going to have time to offload their entire haul because they spend their time earning money via adventures. They are people who want to sell for a week and then adventure for a month or two and sell again for a week or two. Merchants are buying up stuff so they can sell it over the course of the month, year, or even over several years.
7. If your adventurers want to set up shop they should have to set up a permanent shop, complete with staff, floor space, and secure storage facilities (because they are going to be bringing things in faster than a merchant can sell them at 100% value). Oh and the staff would need to be pretty extensive: at least one merchant for sales and accounting, as well as several smiths and crafters for repairs and cleaning of merchandise.
The best course, if you/they really want to set up a shop, would probably be to let all the above points run seamlessly in the background and tell them, "Yes you can set up shop, but there are a lot of fees and issues behind the scenes that are going to cost you a lot of your profits. Rather than deal with all that, I will let you sell at 70%-80% to simulate selling at 100% minus expenses."
Or you could tell them it would be far better to work out exclusive supply contracts with local merchants. Work out some sort of deal where they exclusively supply those merchants with the best of their adventuring hauls (as much as the merchants can afford). In return the merchants (who are receiving premium sales pieces) will give them 60%-75% of the piece's actual value. Of coarse merchants have money caps in the game economy so it will still take a lot of game time to make all these contracts with all these multiple merchants.
It is simple, you open up a business using the Ultimate Campaign rules. What you make using those rules shows your profits after paying the relevant taxes, fees, and protection.
6. Time. Time is money. For a merchant, his money is made by selling; hence he spends every day in his shop waiting for that one customer to come in looking for that one thing he's trying to sell. Adventurers are not going to have time to offload their entire haul because they spend their time earning money via adventures. They are people who want to sell for a week and then adventure for a month or two and sell again for a week or two. Merchants are buying up stuff so they can sell it over the course of the month, year, or even over several years.
This is the main reason I don't do it when I'm a player. My characters quickly figure out that they could spend a few days turning their 400gp worth of stuff into 600 or 700 gp by opening a shop and selling at a premium, or they could go back to the dungeon and spend a few hours making thousands of gp adventuring.
Being a merchant is a JOB. It's for people who want to earn a little income, slowly, while avoiding most major risks. Adventuring is, well, and ADVENTURE - anyone who CAN do it will have more excitement, shorter work days, and vastly more profits than any merchant.
That's usually the exact reason my characters are NOT merchants and tradesmen - they don't have the patience to work a JOB for decades and die poor, or maybe not-quite-poor, when they are capable of adventuring for a year or two and retiring filthy rich.
They are trying to get 100% rather than 50% for selling stuff.
I respect this.
I have been there.
Don't do it.
It doesn't BREAK the game, it is just a very basic part of the game.
If they can simply trade value for value, they get to tailor their gear all the time, without penalty.
Think about THAT.
Just remember that selling for full value can REALLY easily turn into an infinite cash exploit and blow wealth by level to hell. The moment they hit on the idea of crafting a +1 sword for 1000 and selling it for 2000, you should be ready to bring the nope.
Unless that's what you want of course.
Oh yeah, this too.