Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dribldoor 02-12-08, 07:17 PM	How much money does an average commoner have? My friend and I can't agree on how much one should have. If someone here has an idea of what the average is, I would be very thankfull.:)
Jaxgaret 02-12-08, 07:24 PM	Pocket lint. Did you mean total wealth or disposable income?
Dribldoor 02-12-08, 07:28 PM	total
VulcanStormwrath 02-12-08, 07:33 PM	Two pigs and a hovel, shirt, pants and a sandwich.
Heros_Backpack 02-12-08, 07:41 PM	Well the starting wealth for a lvl 1 commoner is 5d4gp. The average of that would be 12gp, 5sp. Higher than that, probably a wealth level behind PC classed NPCs (so a level 2 Commoner takes NPC lvl 1 wealth, a level 3 takes level 2 wealth and so on) most of which is probably invested in a house and work goods - herd of cows/mwk tools & craft supplies etc.
Jaxgaret 02-12-08, 07:51 PM	Two pigs and a hovel, shirt, pants and a sandwich. No belt?
Count_Chumleigh 02-12-08, 08:08 PM	Going strictly by the rules, a commoner has either 5d4 gp if created at first level or, if a higher level, whatever wealth the NPC wealth table in the DMG says he should have. I've also seen a well-written, by-the-rules article on this site (can't remember the name, sadly, only that it was in Regdar's Repository when last I looked) that examined commoners in light of the Profession skill and determined the average D&D commoner should actually be fairly well off. But why go by the rules? If you're the DM, the average commoner has exactly as much money as you say he does, no more, no less. And if you're a player in the campaign, that's really none of your business. And if you want to know for the purposes of a character backstory, you can just make it up. Also, no; they don't get belts. Cheers, Count Chumleigh
Jaxgaret 02-12-08, 08:10 PM	Also, no; they don't get belts. Cheers, Count Chumleigh The poor bastards. Cheers :pint:
Dribldoor 02-12-08, 08:17 PM	Thanks for the help
VulcanStormwrath 02-12-08, 08:17 PM	No belt? Length of rope
Heros_Backpack 02-13-08, 06:10 AM	I've also seen a well-written, by-the-rules article on this site (can't remember the name, sadly, only that it was in Regdar's Repository when last I looked) that examined commoners in light of the Profession skill and determined the average D&D commoner should actually be fairly well off. Are you thinking of D&D Commoners make Plenty of Money (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=719384) or Complex Commoner Math (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=733153[/url)?
Shades_of_Grey 02-13-08, 08:02 PM	Ever notice how Commoners in WotC adventures always seem to have a +1 item somewhere in their house?
Count_Chumleigh 02-13-08, 08:14 PM	Are you thinking of D&D Commoners make Plenty of Money (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=719384) or Complex Commoner Math (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=733153[/url)? I was thinking the first one, though the sequel is also very good. Thanks. Cheers, Count Chumleigh
CryoSilver 02-14-08, 08:23 AM	A level one commoner with Skill Focus and 12 Int should expect to make about 9 gp per week. Subtract expenses from that for food and such, and I'd say he could pocket 1 or 2 gp at the end of every week.
Edymnion 02-14-08, 08:41 AM	A level one commoner with Skill Focus and 12 Int should expect to make about 9 gp per week. Subtract expenses from that for food and such, and I'd say he could pocket 1 or 2 gp at the end of every week.And don't forget that you can get food at half price by cooking it yourself, as the prices per meal in the PHB are for finished meals bought at inns and the like. Obviously, cooking at home is cheaper than eating in a restaurant every day.
Naderion 02-14-08, 09:02 AM	Monney in the pocket? Close to nothing. Wealth owned? A small but respectable plot of land, a small house, a full set of furniture, tonnes of farming tools, three or four cows, and goats, pigs, chicken, geese, rabbits, and most likely a dog or two. And if he's lucky there's a small barn and a cellar full of food for the winter. ;)
Robespierre 02-14-08, 09:53 AM	Length of rope No: Pocket lint It really depends on if you want an anachronistic yeomanry or serfs in the case of rural commoners, or what the particular commoner is meant to be, Journeyman Artisan, Guild Master, Apprentice, Lumpen Plebian, small shopkeeper...
McPoyo 02-14-08, 10:05 AM	Keep in mind he'd have at least one ladder in those farming tools. Ladders are the easiest source of returnable income. Commoner 1 has Craft (Whatever you decide allows you to make ladders and 10 poles). He makes a ladder (lower market price means lower cost in raw goods). He then crafts that ladder into two 10' poles. He's now got two 10' poles, plus lots of kindling for every ladder's crafting cost. He plays the market in a large town where new adventurers frequent, and quickly becomes Not-A-Commoner 1. I might have to give a character Craft (10' Pole) now.
Edymnion 02-14-08, 12:19 PM	(Whatever you decide allows you to make ladders and 10 poles)Woodcrafting.
McPoyo 02-14-08, 04:06 PM	I dunno, I still think Craft (10' Pole) should be it. :)
Draco Strang 02-14-08, 05:55 PM	IRL, it's good policy for your average person to have 3 months salary (or hourly pay, whatever) socked away in case of emergencies. Now, I know a lot of people can't do this because hey, life happens, but I think it's a good general rule for the rank and file of your world, unless you specifically want a region or person to be super poor.
ciaran 02-14-08, 08:24 PM	A level one commoner with Skill Focus and 12 Int should expect to make about 9 gp per week. Subtract expenses from that for food and such, and I'd say he could pocket 1 or 2 gp at the end of every week. Good estimate. The reasoning for this, if you want to subscribe to 3rd edition economy, is based on what someone would earn using a profession or craft skills on a weekly basis instead of... adventuring, say. But I'd say any 1st level commoner who carries more than a 10 or 15 CP is looking to get jumped by the 1st level expert who didn't quite qualify for rogue.
CryoSilver 02-15-08, 01:11 AM	The expert hopefully is making a bit more. With his better skill array, he can get stuff like Appraise, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Bluff, etc, all of which would let him deal with/swindle customers. In my campaign world, experts tend to be specialists with jobs that can't be easily quantified by Profession skills. Priests, diplomats, etc.
Naderion 02-15-08, 09:24 AM	IRL, it's good policy for your average person to have 3 months salary (or hourly pay, whatever) socked away in case of emergencies. Now, I know a lot of people can't do this because hey, life happens, but I think it's a good general rule for the rank and file of your world, unless you specifically want a region or person to be super poor. 3 Months? I would be happy if I had a backup of 3 days. Well, maybe I can get that much together... :D But I don't think such rules of hand apply for a semi-mediveal setting. Maybe people in cities have a few coins, but villagers and farmers would likely usually have only a hand full of coppers. Their wealth is in goods and trade is mostly done by bartering.
CryoSilver 02-15-08, 02:43 PM	Farmers probably have little to no cash in the spring and summer, having invested in seeds/tools/help, and then have a windfall come autumn, when they sell their crops, which gets slowly eaten away over the winter months, the remainder to be spent again the spring, repeating the cycle.
Edymnion 02-15-08, 06:18 PM	Farmers probably have little to no cash in the spring and summer, having invested in seeds/tools/help, and then have a windfall come autumn, when they sell their crops, which gets slowly eaten away over the winter months, the remainder to be spent again the spring, repeating the cycle.Common sense wise, yes. Game mechanics, no. They make a profession check every week, and make profit based on that check. Its it entirely rational that they would make the same profit in the middle of winter as they do the middle of harvest? Not really, but its a level of abstraction that is necessary to make the profession skill check viable.
High Octane 02-15-08, 06:25 PM	40 acres and a mule.
CryoSilver 02-15-08, 10:23 PM	Common sense wise, yes. Game mechanics, no. They make a profession check every week, and make profit based on that check. Its it entirely rational that they would make the same profit in the middle of winter as they do the middle of harvest? Not really, but its a level of abstraction that is necessary to make the profession skill check viable. Their value wouldn't change much though; if you can abstract the wealth itself into assets in general, it makes plenty of sense. In the winter, he has cash, which is worth X. In the spring, he has seeds, tools, etc, which are worth X. He makes the money, but then he has to sped it, investing in assets. Profession profit shouldn't always be in capital. Especially since most of his stuff (crops, animals) can be sold at market value, according to the DMG, it's as good as cash.
Edymnion 02-16-08, 12:07 PM	Their value wouldn't change much though; if you can abstract the wealth itself into assets in general, it makes plenty of sense. In the winter, he has cash, which is worth X. In the spring, he has seeds, tools, etc, which are worth X. He makes the money, but then he has to sped it, investing in assets. Profession profit shouldn't always be in capital. Especially since most of his stuff (crops, animals) can be sold at market value, according to the DMG, it's as good as cash.Yes, I brought that up in my article that the bulk of a commoner's wealth would be invested in tools, land, animals, etc, and that the "profit" he makes from the checks would be in the form of trade goods, not coin. But the point is that even in winter, he is making as much profit per week as he is in harvest. I generally hand wave it away as focusing more on things like milk, eggs, brewing ale, etc. Things that can either happen all year round, or that require a long period of time after the original components are gained.
CryoSilver 02-16-08, 01:06 PM	I would apply circumstance bonuses in the fall and penalties in the winter.
Edymnion 02-16-08, 01:11 PM	I would apply circumstance bonuses in the fall and penalties in the winter.Now that thar is a darned smart idear!
Kursk 02-17-08, 09:19 AM	A level one commoner with Skill Focus and 12 Int should expect to make about 9 gp per week. Subtract expenses from that for food and such, and I'd say he could pocket 1 or 2 gp at the end of every week. You're forgetting taxes, guild fees, fees to "avoid" military service, buying "protection" from the local thieve's guild, etc., etc. Might be lucky to to save 1 or 2 sp a week.
CryoSilver 02-17-08, 10:34 AM	Food costs = 2 sp/day for 2 poor meals = 1.4 gp per week. The rest of that 7-8 gp he's spending goes into the other expenses.
ciaran 02-17-08, 01:21 PM	I'd feel very lucky to be able to tuck away a GP every week. Greatswords cost a fortune!! Never mind armor...
Edymnion 02-17-08, 08:07 PM	You're forgetting taxes, guild fees, fees to "avoid" military service, buying "protection" from the local thieve's guild, etc., etc. Might be lucky to to save 1 or 2 sp a week.Aka: "Random things the DM imposes to ensure that his idea of penniless peasants remains true, in spite of the rules". The Profession check already says that the money earned by it is the profit, after the normal costs of doing business have been paid for. If you want to say they have taxes and protection money to pay, I can just as easily say thats covered by normal expenses, and they still make standard profit.
Pandaemoni 02-18-08, 12:44 AM	Taxes are hardly "random". In the real world, in medieval times as now, they were ubiquitous. One should wonder how adventurers avoid taxation, rather than roll one's eyes at the notion of taxing the peasantry. It's more a question of what sort of economy you are running. I tend to like something more in the nature of traditional European peasantry...and they scratched out an existence, lived in single room dwellings *with* all their animals, left children in the woods to starve in hard times, were occasionally overtaxed by their lords, etc. Serfs couldn't even own the clothes on their own back, so I can't imagine them building up too much wealth, in trade goods or otherwise, before the lord's taxes went up. I don't know about paying "protection money", but I do wonder how country folk keep from being robbed by bandits if they do have valuables. Certainly good and fair lords protect some of them, but in many places in Europe the protection offered only extended to letting you inside the walls of the town when there was a threat, not in active patrols of the region. I would add that few peasants were allowed to own land in medieval Europe. Land was reserved for nobles, and land ownership because the became the test for who was good enough to vote or participate in governance in the post-medieval world. If you were wealthy enough to build a home of your own, but weren't noble, you generally leased the land on which it sat for a long time (frequently 99 years), subject to renewal.
Kursk 02-18-08, 09:37 AM	Aka: "Random things the DM imposes to ensure that his idea of penniless peasants remains true, in spite of the rules". The Profession check already says that the money earned by it is the profit, after the normal costs of doing business have been paid for. AKA: "The world has some internal consistency, and logic was used when it was designed by a DM, who thankfully made it past the 6th grade." :rolleyes: In addition, nowhere in the core rules does it say that the listed profit of an item is calculated after taking out all of life's expenses.
Sarella Starshine 02-18-08, 09:58 AM	Looks like both of you either ignored or glossed over the second part of Edy's post. The money that is the result of the proffession check is pure profit. The money for taxes (no matter how high they are), and other normal (and, if you want to have a protection racket going on, it can be considered normal) day to day expenses involved, are NOT coming from the money the check generates. They are already INCLUDED. The average pesant would NOT have much money in coin, but when you start to calcuate the cost of what they own... (the house, the animals, the tools,) it comes to a big enough number that basicly removes the idea that pesantry are these poor semi-starving people that can't afford thier own clothes.
Kursk 02-18-08, 10:17 AM	Looks like both of you either ignored or glossed over the second part of Edy's post. The money that is the result of the proffession check is pure profit. The money for taxes (no matter how high they are), and other normal (and, if you want to have a protection racket going on, it can be considered normal) day to day expenses involved, are NOT coming from the money the check generates. They are already INCLUDED. Sorry, but scutage and many other taxes aren't included and have nothing to do with the business. Please site where in PHB or DMG it states the listed profit is calculated AFTER deducting ALL of life's expenses. Same in real world. It varies by region and county. The profit retained in North Korea by a manufacturer is different than in the U.S.
ikki 02-18-08, 02:32 PM	You're forgetting taxes, guild fees, fees to "avoid" military service, buying "protection" from the local thieve's guild, etc., etc. Might be lucky to to save 1 or 2 sp a week. thieves guild 200km from the nearest city? ;) Orc bands i can understand, or human bandits.. possibly even elves ****** off at people holocausting or chopping down their friends the trees for heat and house. (3 human lives for each tree.. do your best to negotiate ;) )
ikki 02-18-08, 02:38 PM	Taxes are hardly "random". In the real world, in medieval times as now, they were ubiquitous. One should wonder how adventurers avoid taxation, rather than roll one's eyes at the notion of taxing the peasantry. PT, pepetual traveller. http://ptclub.com/whatispt.html Countries dont collect income taxes from tourists, and if you arent legally living anywhere... just a eternal tourist ;) Worse yet, not even collecting a regular income from any guild, but rather "finding" money.
Kursk 02-18-08, 02:47 PM	PT, pepetual traveller. http://ptclub.com/whatispt.html Countries dont collect income taxes from tourists, and if you arent legally living anywhere... just a eternal tourist ;) Worse yet, not even collecting a regular income from any guild, but rather "finding" money. Interesting but incorrect. Live in the US as a "tourist" and if you can't show tax returns from your "mother" country the IRS will tax you eventually.
Edymnion 02-18-08, 04:29 PM	It's more a question of what sort of economy you are running. I tend to like something more in the nature of traditional European peasantry...and they scratched out an existence, lived in single room dwellings *with* all their animals, left children in the woods to starve in hard times, were occasionally overtaxed by their lords, etc. Serfs couldn't even own the clothes on their own back, so I can't imagine them building up too much wealth, in trade goods or otherwise, before the lord's taxes went up.And this is a classic misconception of peasant life. The local lord was responsible for his peasant's well being. If he overtaxed them, or let them starve, he was considered to have broken his end of the social contract. If you can find it, the BBC actually had a very good documentary on the life and times of real medieval peasants. No, life wasn't great, but they generally had enough to eat, protection, houses to live in, beer (well, ale), and more days off than we have today (church sanctioned days of rest). Peasant life wasn't luxurious, but it was far from the squaller and insane poverty that pop culture shows. The whole "peasant farmer being ground into dirt by the heartless nobles" is not actually about peasants, but about serfs. Serfs were the almost-slaves of the era that did all the nasty stuff. I don't know about paying "protection money", but I do wonder how country folk keep from being robbed by bandits if they do have valuables. Certainly good and fair lords protect some of them, but in many places in Europe the protection offered only extended to letting you inside the walls of the town when there was a threat, not in active patrols of the region.Again, this was part of the local Lord's pledged service. He was honor bound to protect those under his rule. A lord that let his peasants be constantly robbed would quickly find himself homeless and destitute, as his peasants up and leave for someone that will follow through on their promises. Feudalism was a social contract. The peasants allowed themselves to be lorded over and be taxed because the other side of the coin was that those they paid taxes to were required to take care of their needs, including food, shelter, and protection. When those things weren't provided, you generally had a peasant revolt on your hands.
ikki 02-18-08, 05:00 PM	Interesting but incorrect. Live in the US as a "tourist" and if you can't show tax returns from your "mother" country the IRS will tax you eventually. All accounted for at the site ;) All you have to watch is the 80 day limit, youll have to leave in between, and the law wont se you..
ikki 02-18-08, 05:12 PM	The whole "peasant farmer being ground into dirt by the heartless nobles" is not actually about peasants, but about serfs. Serfs were the almost-slaves of the era that did all the nasty stuff. Again, this was part of the local Lord's pledged service. He was honor bound to protect those under his rule. A lord that let his peasants be constantly robbed would quickly find himself homeless and destitute, as his peasants up and leave for someone that will follow through on their promises. Read geoffrey hoskings russia and the russians? Delves into that whole serfs life, they didnt suffer too much tho, they had very little contact with the lord or even the manager. They did live simple and uncomplicated lifes, like one peasant who at the beginning of the great war wondered if that conlict with the germans woild concern his village too? But back to the subject. It was very much that social contract, but a contract that instead of being with each peasant, dealt with the whole village. Individuals didnt pay taxes, villages did -collectively, leaving it to the village council to figure out who would give what, and really make all descisions over who would farm what and so forth. Farming as such wasnt resented, or considered hard. Conscription wasnt popular, and desertings common.. but could also provide nobility! Factory duty was however quite unwelcome, farmers liked the rythm of working hard a few weeks of the year and fiddling about the rest of the time, factories tho required a 24/7 rythm. And back on the social contract. As one special case, the mongol empire should be mentioned. You paid taxes, and if bandits robbed you.. the khan was responsible to compensate you in full. Afterall, it was their fault that bandits had robbed, not having done their duty. However that tax was quite heavy, well over 50% and a further 10% tax on young men as conscription... compared to a maximum of 1% in many other places of the world regarding conscription.