Post/Author/DateTime

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Lilt 11-15-04, 06:33 AM

I am presently playing in a 'living campaign' set in feyrun. Due to the 'living' nature of the game I am also part-responsible for GMing the game, as is everybody else. The PCs presently range between 7th and 10th level. There are essentially 4 days of downtime between each session. What I'm looking for is a system by which everyone can gain a fair amount of money given what they've bought and their level. Here are some examples of money-gaining exploits and what they might pay: Crafting, Pays as the skill description says it does Performing, Pays as the skill description says it does Profession, Pays as the skill description says it does Mercenary Work, Pays as mercenary leader of character level (3sp/level/day from DMG) From this we can abstract that a fair amount is somewhere around skill check/4 in gp assuming that they have half a week to work (feyrunian weeks are 10 days). Those ones are quite simple, the problem is that not everyone has those skills and some services pay significantly higher than others. A 9th level spellcaster could quite easily cast 180000gp worth of spells given 4 day's casting. With these prices, Could it ever be allowed for players to 'sell' any spells, even at the 50% reduced price normally available to players, without screwing non-spellcasting classes with the money-making rules? IE: A single 2nd level spell, cast at 3rd caster level, nets the character 30gp when sold at 50% and logically there are people in the world interested in the higher-level spells. One downtime activity that I am interested in bringing into line (and making sense of) is the use of the Mercantile Background feat. This feat allows the characters to sell items at 75% base price rather than 50% (in game terms, they need to spend the 4-day downtime segment to do this). This character has been buying gear from the party at 60% base value and selling at 75%, whilst paying a bit for guards and similar. He has had a monopoly on good deals for the PCs since 1st level (trading the loot of 2 groups that ran simultaniously, both consisting of 5-7-people, even when the trader character wasn't being played) and now has 100000gp or so, but no access to the gold beyond what is allowed on the character wealth by level chart. This was originally a GM-endorsed monopoly made in a deal with the previous head-GM of the campaign. The problem is that it gives an awfully large amount of money to one character, whilst making no sense by giving them no access to their own gold. I'm looking for a way to change the game world so that the feat is a valid choice for any character and does-not make the character as much money. The only reason he has made as much money is that he had a monopoly. Logically, if money can be made from the players, other characters in similar positions (characters with the mercantile background feat) would also attempt to get their cut. Prices would be driven up from 60% to 65%, possibly even 70% of the base value. Essentially: IMHO, the feat should allow a character some options. They can keep most of their money as trading gold, thus make a fair amount of profit. They can maintain a fair amount of trading gold, whist spending some of the extra gold on equipment for themselves (meaning that the feat essentially allows them a bit more equipment than other characters). At most times the characters could spend all of their gold on themselves, in which case they won't have much capitol to make more profit with in the future. Traders would also not be able to trade with the party unless they were playing. It seems somewhat late to do this now. One character has over 100k gold. I'm considering allowing the character who is presently the party merchant to continue being denied access to his funds and buy at 60%, but warn him that if there is ever somebody else who takes the mercantile background feat then he will have to shift his prices up as they would be using the new trading rules (and other traders would suddenly be around driving prices up). What I still need to doo, however, is decide exactly what profit margins should be possible. How much extra gear should they have whilst maintaing the same amount of trading gold? I'm thinking about capping the amount of profit they can make at a particular value, reducing the effectiveness of the 'save all your gold to trade' strategy but ensuring that nobody gets too far ahead. Any suggestions?