Post/Author/DateTime	Post
celestialkin 01-02-08, 12:17 PM	Been wondering this for a while. Let's say one of my characters has a few followers with a skill like Profession: Merchant, some property in a city he can have turned into a shop, and some warrior/fighter followers to keep the place safe. Could he use said things to sell items he crafts himself (or his followers craft) for full price? If so, could he also use this method to sell any magic items, artwork, or treasure he (and maybe his party) comes across on his journey for full price instead of half it's value? I figure the half value rule is due to the merchants needing to make a profit themselves, and the fact that items so unusual and valuable might not sell very quickly. Thanks in advance for any help!
katarl 01-02-08, 02:08 PM	The main reason for the 50% sell price is risk, the risk that you won't be able to sell what you're buying. A 75% rule for a shop owner might be prudent as a rule of thumb.
jaelis 01-02-08, 02:39 PM	I figure the 50% cut also reflected the costs associated with renting a shop, hiring security, paying insurance/protection money, taxes, etc (as well as the inventory cost katarl notes). If a player really wanted to set up a magic shop as part of his character idea, I would let him sell things at full price, but I'd arrange it so that the net return was only 50% of the sale price.
InkBlot 01-02-08, 03:25 PM	If you have Profession (Merchant), then you can sell the loot for an extra 0.5*(1d20 + skill modifier) gold pieces. This takes about a week of finding the right buyers, promoting your wares, checking out the competition, et cetera. All Profession skills work that way, and there's no reason for Profession (Merchant) to be any different.
Hsien 01-02-08, 03:29 PM	Profession skill is treated basically almost same no matter what the actual skill. The only difference being that certain professions, iirc, can provide certain synergy bonuses and Role-playing opportunities of course. As a merchant you would be selling items for essentially full cost, however this is seperate from "selling" items found on an adventure. For that you have 2 options, sell to a merchant/person at the generally accepted 50% rate. OR... Sell it at 100% full cost using your own merchant profession. Of course don't be surprised when your DM starts using high profession checks based on value, with penalty modifiers for items outside that merchant type....hope it doesn't get stolen while you out adventuring before it sells as well. Some items can sit on shelves for a long time.
BigGus 01-02-08, 04:06 PM	I figure the 50% cut also reflected the costs associated with renting a shop, hiring security, paying insurance/protection money, taxes, etc (as well as the inventory cost katarl notes). If a player really wanted to set up a magic shop as part of his character idea, I would let him sell things at full price, but I'd arrange it so that the net return was only 50% of the sale price. I thought that myself, but then I thought; if that's the case, how do merchants live if they pay 50% for the item and 50% for the shop/ taxes etc.? I'd suggest about 75%, as katarl said. The extra profit is balanced by two things; (1) just selling all your loot to a merchant is instant cash, while selling things in a shop takes a while, especially for high-priced items. Some things may sit in your shop for years before someone walks in who's willing (and able) to pay the asking price. (2) In a shop, there's always the risk of theft. Even with guards, there will periodically be high-level thieves (either sneaky shoplifters or violent raiders) who'll get away with stuff, and can you really trust all your followers to be honest when surrounded by multiple items each worth 100 years salary or more? If you hire better guards, they'll want better pay; if you don't want your workers to risk stealing from you, you'll have to pay them well too. All of which cuts into your profit margin. The only other way is to stay near the shop yourself; but then how do you go adventuring, and earn more loot? This can be partly alleviated if your party has a wizard who can cast permanency, telepathic bond and teleport; he creates a permanent telepathic bond with your most trusted follower, and puts them in charge of the shop, and teleports back if there's any serious trouble. But then he has to leave two 5th-level spell slots free every day for teleporting there and back - which only a very high-level wizard can do without losing a significant amount of power - and there's always the risk he'll land off-target, wasting valuable time, if nothing else. That aside, I think you have the basic choice of average security for the shop, leaving a 70-80% profit margin but a real risk of theft, or high security, giving a minimal risk of theft but a profit margin of only 55-60%, not much better than just selling the stuff to a merchant. So yes, you can make more money by selling your stuff in a shop, but not that much more, and with real downsides.
Istaran 01-02-08, 05:15 PM	Since Profession(merchant) should give extra money according to the profession rules but the logic dictates that you should get 100% value for selling as a merchant, obviously you need to keep spending weeks and rolling profession(merchant) rolls until your total gold gain rolled equals or exceeds the 50%->100% markup. Until then you have gained 0 gold (not even the 50% you would get from selling to a merchant) as you have not made the sale. Then you succeed at selling the item at full price. Those level 1 scrolls are easy to move, those 100k items sure do sit on the shelves though. Any excess you roll could be put toward making your next sale. Judging from the ratios of level 1 NPCs to higher level NPCs in the DMG, there's almost no market for higher end magic items, while a potion of cure light wounds can always be moved within a few weeks.
jaelis 01-02-08, 05:51 PM	I thought that myself, but then I thought; if that's the case, how do merchants live if they pay 50% for the item and 50% for the shop/ taxes etc.? The merchants buy and sell items worth thousands of gp, but profit only tens or hundreds of gp per transaction. The profit earned is enough to afford a nice lifestyle; if you actually make your players pay upkeep to maintain a lifestyle then sure, let your PC earn enough from his business to offset those costs. But at any level above first, that should be pretty negligible compared to the total character wealth.
Tony Vargas 01-02-08, 10:45 PM	Yes, but, using the system given for professions, it would take a /long/ time to sell an expensive bit of loot at full price, since the only factors taken into account by the system are your skill check and the amount of time you spend. So, if you were selling a 50gp potion, for instance, you'd have to 'earn' 25 gp with your Profession (Merchant) skill before it'd sell for 50 gp.
Kyuketsukiouji 01-11-08, 08:39 PM	Actually, it's Profession(Shopkeeper). And there's a whole slew of rules in the DMG II for running your own businesses. You could use the price of your item to fund the buying of your own shop, or as "upgrade" cost for better profit.
AngryJake 01-12-08, 02:44 AM	screw hirelings, In this case I think a Golem would be a good investment, Sure it's expensive but it is 100% loyal, and it has a massive deterrence factor.
runestar 01-12-08, 03:16 AM	I thought that myself, but then I thought; if that's the case, how do merchants live if they pay 50% for the item and 50% for the shop/ taxes etc.? They don't. The point of selling your loot at 50% price is simply to help expedite the downtime process, and allow your players to quickly dispose of excess treasure and procure new ones efficiently before returning to exploring more dungeons and killing more foes, which is really the highlight of the game. As such, this rule was never meant to be internally consistent or economically viable to begin with, since it assumes that your PCs are adventurers, not merchants. :)