New rules just added to current game, help!

[Boren]

Greetings all,
So our GM just decided to add the downtime rules into our current game and I feel like I must be missing something
Form my calculations if I build a magic repository, forge, and storefront to create and sell magic items, let's say a +1 longsword for this example, I first generate the capital, pay the creation cost for said capital in this case aprox 560gp, so far so good, then move it to my store front to sell, wait 3d6 weeks for it to actually sell and I get aprox 250gp for all that time. That's a net profit of -110gp... what?
Somebody please tell me I'm missing something important here

[yukongil]

Where are you getting the 250gp?

the gold you get from such a downtime venture would be your capital check in gp /10 per day of downtime. The thing you're missing is that it's an abstract system to run the day-to-day operations of a PC controlled space or business. It's not meant to make you rich, otherwise what is the point of actually playing the game?

It does give you the nice benefit though of being able to make most things for half the normal cost, since you can supply Magic capital in place of the gp cost of raw material when crafting magic items at a rate of 1:100, but if you make the Capital checks you can buy the Magic Capital for 50 gp per point.

[OmniMage]

Downtime rules are not going to make you rich over night. Its take a while for businesses to pay for themselves. The money you get from adventuring is going to be much more. In fact, you should view it as a means for poor adventurers to gain wealth to become members of the middle or upper class. The wealth that adventuring gives you will allow you to build businesses that the middle and upper class would already own.

The income from downtime will allow you to retire from adventuring and live comfortably. Magic capital will allow you to arm yourselves with plenty of magic gear.

You don't sell items using downtime rules. Use other rules for that. Downtime produces money and capital. It does so at a slow rate. A business that makes goods will produce goods that there is demand for.

Technically, you could sell expensive magic items. A business with a poor ability to generate capital will do so at a slow rate. The time to make the sale is how long it takes to generate the said wealth. For example, an alchemy store can produce 3 gp 2 sp per day, so it would take 3 days to sell a unit of acid (10 gp). 10 gp / 3.2 gp per day is 3.125 days. After 4 days, the business would have earned 12.8 gp.

Also, you don't need to produce items before you sell. Assume that the business is already producing goods or offering services that are in demand.

[Meirril]

Boren wrote:

Somebody please tell me I'm missing something important here

The downtime rules are a horrible way of making gold. The gold output from the businesses is negligible. The big deal about businesses and organizations is the other resources they produce.

Labor, goods and magic resources can be used like gold in the town you earn them. Your business earns opportunities to purchase resources for half price. So if you use resources that you earn to pay for stuff, you effectively double your money. These same resources can also be used for mundane or magical crafting.

Normally crafting magic items doesn't let you make any money. You spend 500 gp to produce a 1000 gp item. Then you sell it for 500 gp. Now if you use downtime resources you pay 250 gp for 500 gp worth of resources. So for every 1000 gp worth of magic item you produce, you gain 250 gp if all of the crafting cost is covered by resources you earned.

Out of the resources, Influence is the most difficult to use. Influence can only be spent on the actions of people. You can't use it to make items, unless you can convince your GM that a certain ritual needs assistants. You can use it to bribe people in town, or to pay for spell casting services. Honestly I only earned Influence when I planned on spending it immediately to pay for more rooms/teams.

If you decide you want to use this system, talk to your GM. If you are allowed to hire teams of acolytes to act as individuals. 2 acolytes acting independently can produce 2 magic per day. 2 Acolytes acting together produce 1 magic per day. See how your GM wants to run that. He might insist on totaling up your production bonuses and only allowing 1 roll, or he might let you roll once for each 'business' and its more profitable to set each team and room up as separate entities rather than one large organization (a weakness of the downtime system).

Also the entire downtime system only makes sense if there is substantial downtime between adventures. If your group constantly rushes from one dungeon to another it isn't worth investing.

[Boren]

Yeah I get most of what's been said above here's my thing, if I have a store front I'm no longer selling a magic item for half price to a vendor who's going to re sell it, I am the vendor and I'm selling it at full price. Yes no am I crazy?

[LordKailas]

Boren wrote:

Yeah I get most of what's been said above here's my thing, if I have a store front I'm no longer selling a magic item for half price to a vendor who's going to re sell it, I am the vendor and I'm selling it at full price. Yes no am I crazy?

Logically you are correct. For balance reasons it isn't how it works.

However, if you want to imagine that you've sold a +1 magic weapon at full market value then every time your shop earns 1,000gp then effectively that's what you've done. Sure you're selling it for full price but it takes weeks upon weeks before anyone with the interest and wealth to purchase said item comes along. Just because you have a store front to sell things out of, it doesn't automatically mean you actually have customers buying said things.

Even when I had a high level character and I was using the full kingdom rules to run my own kingdom. I was putting more cash into the kingdom to pay for things than I was generating from taxes (and I was generating far more than what was needed for upkeep). Primarily because I wanted things faster.

The downtime rules let you do cool things when you aren't adventuring. But they are purposely slower then just adventuring. That way characters are motivated to go out and adventure some more.

Edit: for a real world perspective. Selling an item for full price vs selling it for half price is the difference between selling an item on etsy vs selling it at your local pawn shop. I have friends who have tried and failed to sell things on etsy and had items up for months without getting any interest in them.

[EldonGuyre]

Yeah, it takes years on a city guard's wages to save up for that +1 sword.

[OmniMage]

Maybe I should make it more clear. Downtime rules are not going to sell your magic sword. There are many variables that go into selling your sword, which amounts to selling it for half its price. Some of us were trying to rationalize and roleplay how selling a magic sword (or other expensive item) would work in downtime rules.

Downtime rules make money in much the same way that profession and craft makes money. For those skills, you make half your check in wealth per week. The difference here is that downtime rules count your progress daily instead of weekly, and it adds to the income you make.