How does a merchant actually make money?

Summary:

I can't find any actual rules for how a person who runs a business is supposed to make money!

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How does a merchant actually make money?

Protomas Ludwig 27 Oct 2011 07:35

I can't find any actual rules for how a person who runs a business is supposed to make money!

I want to open a magic and alchemy shop. Now I can make a profit on THOSE items, after all it costs half the selling price in materials, so there is a built in profit margin. But suppose I want to stock the pearls used in Identify spells, and other things…they cost 100gp…thats the retail price. Am I expected to buy them for 100gp and SELL them for 100gp too? So all my effort to obtain and store and make them easily available is for NOTHING? I also would like to sell spell focus items and at least some of the material components in a convenient and interesting format. One of the spells require 5gp jade stones…is that retail or wholesale? Also is there a city sales tax? What if I just want to make a totally mundane item like a opal ring, just to sell an opal ring? how much does it cost? do I assume I can ask double the materials cost as a fair asking price? are there ANY rules in the 10 gazillion supplements for 3.5 and pathfinder?

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Protomas Ludwig
Rinzle Ranzibitz Gnome Wizard 3

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

(account deleted) 27 Oct 2011 12:59

Merchants are supposed to be npcs run by the dm. Players are supposed to be adventurers for a living.

Protomas, feel free to write up some rules yourself. Keep in mind, this isn't a free market economy. There are noble houses and secret organizations in the background.

2e just strait up gave the characters what you are asking for around level 9. 3.5 is all about the adventuring and uses the profession skill for things like being a working stiff. I have never nor will ever put any skill ranks into that skill, except sailor, which actually governs something relevant.

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

Kajhera 27 Oct 2011 13:29

I believe there are rules for businesses in the Dungeon Master's Guide II.

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Player of Sidhe Spellweaver, Mekoti

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

Bill Bisco 27 Oct 2011 23:01

On an individual level a lot of the items don't make mathematical or commercial sense. I believe you can get lots of money by buying iron pots and then converting them to raw iron and other things. But yeah check DMG2 or make profession checks or something. It's definitely an aspect of D&D that is lacking.

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

Kajhera 27 Oct 2011 23:28

Since you'll be crafting many things yourself and the base of your shop is your magical expertise:

You'll likely be running a Service business.

Your primary skill will be Craft (any) (or Profession but that's not so helpful), in this case Alchemy.
Your secondary skills will be Appraise and Diplomacy.

Capital is Medium, Resources are Low, and Risk is Low.

In a city, your capital would be … 16,000gp and your profit modifier would be +2. The capital could be reduced by people saying 'hey, run a business, no need to tithe, pay taxes, or get licensed'.

You can run your shop out of a simple house-sized building, which I believe you just got.

Each month you may make a profit check (1d20+Craft+4+ (1/5 ranks in both secondary skills) + (1 if member of an associated guild)+(2 aid other, potentially)+(2 if >40 hours/week spend on it) - (8 if less than 8 hours a week spent on it) ). You can take 10. Subtract 25 to determine profit rating. What you earn or lose is your profit rating x 5.

Alternately… a 'shop' would be entirely different and use a different skill. Little confusing.

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Player of Sidhe Spellweaver, Mekoti

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

(account deleted) 28 Oct 2011 06:58

Can I factotum blast that check? Can a cleric cast Guidance of the Cheatatar?

Man oh man, I am not liking that skill check thing. I suppose Mali will be opening a studio and painting portraits in the downtime if we adopt that.

Actually, it would be much more lucrative to open a University…lol.

edit: Looking further at DMG II, since it is a monthly check, it's not so bad. Sure, if it is a skill check(and it is a skill check imho), some characters will be uber at it. I'm only looking at my character making max 2000 extra gp a month with the university option right now. Later it will probably cap out at 3000 a month. Not too bad against wealth by level.

It is better for a character to get multiple jobs and only spend less than 8 hrs at them. So, painter, university professor, actor, etc. etc. etc. Just have to have my buddy the cleric at my back.

Last edited on 28 Oct 2011 07:24 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

Kajhera 28 Oct 2011 13:37

It is classified as a skill check, yes.

It would cost 32k to establish a university, 5k for the building to house it, and earn 5 x profit rating GP. Certainly be a fun thing to do, if your library leaves you behind for long enough to earn that much. :)

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Player of Sidhe Spellweaver, Mekoti

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

(account deleted) 28 Oct 2011 19:51

I read it as a high profit, so it's 50 x profit rating. My original point was leaning more towards skills becoming a laughable endeavor as magic overtakes them.

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

Bill Bisco 29 Oct 2011 15:28

I read this essay, which gave a few ideas on how to tweak the D&D Economy. Interesting read: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dungeonomicon_%28DnD_Other%29/Economicon

Re: How does a merchant actually make money?

Ichai 29 Oct 2011 16:32

That's from a Tome sourcebook. And while I absolutely love the Tome rules, you do NOT want to mix them with what we have here. If you want to use any Tome rules, I would highly suggest switching to it entirely, rather than the current system of Pathfinder/3.5e/3.0e/Homebrew.
The problem is, Tome is designed to be used by itself, on a base of 3.5e. It's essentially a rebuild or upgrade of 3.5e, just like Pathfinder. Only Frank Trollman went about it from a completely different point of view. So if you add Pathfinder in, or only take bits of Tome, it'll all break and be stupidly overpowered and inconsistent.

I am thinking about DMing a short adventure series eventually. I have a couple dungeon crawls that I've used with Tome in the past, that I could dust off. Maybe run it for some throwaway PCs with Tome rules, just to get the feel of it. (PC death is also fairly frequent in my games, another reason for throwaway characters.)

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