Campaign NPCs and Wages

The D&D / Pathfinder economy has always irritated me. There are aspects that hang over for early systems, bits are added in each edition without really accounting for the rules that are already there – and it rarely hangs together properly. In reality, it works for most games, but when you start to work with the down time rules or develop a stronghold, you see gaps and inconsistencies. Over the last few years, I have been working on a consolidated game world, that pulls all my earlier game settings (forty years of development) together into something that makes sense. Just to make it worse, as a player, my characters get involved with the world. My characters get involved in politics, build businesses and strongholds and my bards write poems and songs – and I try to make it so that players in my games can do the same sort of thing.

At the moment, it is NPC wages and gear, so my starting point will be the Commoner-1 guards that come with the Downtime guard post. There are a few relevant sections.

• Untrained Hirelings (1–3 sp/day) The amount shown is the typical daily wage for general, or unskilled laborers, maids, and other menial workers. This listing includes any sort of typical employment not covered by another service or job in this section. Examples of untrained hirelings include a town crier, general laborer, maid, mourner, porter, or other menial worker. A trained hireling is a mason, mercenary warrior, carpenter, blacksmith, cook, scribe, painter, teamster, and so on. The listed price represents a minimum wage for an adequately skilled worker, and an expert hireling usually requires significantly higher pay. The listed price is a day’s wages (generally 7–10 hours of work per day). This implies that the guards should be paid something. Probably not the absolute minimum, so let’s say 1.5sp per day. (
• an excerpt from the Guard Post description The listed price includes the cost of having unskilled employees as guards (1st-level commoners or experts with uniforms, but no armor or weapons). This implies the guards don’t get paid.
• This excerpt from the Commoner Class description The commoner is proficient with one simple weapon. He is not proficient with any other weapons, nor is he proficient with any type of armor or shield. It has always been that a commoner, who has a weapon skill, will be skilled in a weapon suitable for their work or employment.
• This bit from Creating NPCs Note that these values are approximate and based on the values for a campaign using the medium experience progression and a normal treasure allotment. If your campaign is using the fast experience progression, treat your NPCs as one level higher when determining their gear. If your campaign is using the slow experience progression, treat the NPCs as one level lower when determining their gear. If your campaign is high fantasy, double these values. Reduce them by half if your campaign is low fantasy. If the final value of an NPC’s gear is a little over or under these amounts, that’s okay. It says that basic NPCs have weapons worth 50go and armour worth 130gp.
  So lets assume this is meant for other NPC classes, and half it for Commoners. Then assume that wherever the commoner is, it is low fantasy and halve it again. That still gives 12gp for a weapon and 32gp for armour. Still (in my view) way too high for an ‘unskilled worker’ so let’s halve it again and get 6gp for a weapon and 16gp for armour.
• The cost of living section Poor (3 gp/month): The PC lives in common rooms of taverns, with his parents, or in some other communal situation—this is the lifestyle of most untrained laborers and commoners. He need not track purchases of meals or taxes that cost 1 sp or less. Which implies that the commoner has very little, but is able to make larger purchases – especially if they are on more than the minimum of 1sp/day. (3gp/month is exactly 30 days work at 1sp). *grins* - it costs 9g/ month to sleep on the common room floor and have 1 poor meal per day in the tavern, unskilled commoners are close to living rough, or starving.

• Guards should be paid something, but the guards at the guard post don’t get paid. The guards are unarmed, but have a weapon skill, and probably should have a weapon – and possibly even armour. The guard lives, at best, in some sort of shared accommodation, with poor meals.
• It doesn’t matter, too much, if you own a business in a town or a city – because the guards are assumed to ‘live out’ and their wages can be assumed to come from profits. But if you are trying to build a fort or a castle that doesn’t have an income, it matters a lot.
• However, forts, and most other military buildings, assume that the guards (and soldiers etc) live in, with bunk rooms, common rooms and kitchens available for their use. So, it would be reasonable to deduct their living expenses from the wages paid.

Hirelings has Trained Hirelings, including mercenary warriors, at 3sp/day minimum, and The Contingency Section includes this table.

* Multiply cost by the level of each hireling squared.

So we could say that the Harmless rate is the minimum 3sp/day mentioned earlier and that a guard’s duties are ‘safe’, while a soldier’s duties are liable to be questionable, at best.. That gives

• Warrior1 Guard = 3sp/day– that’s OK
• Warrior3 Guard = 27sp/day– that’s not OK
• Warrior1 Soldier – 6sp/day – that’s OK
• Warror3 soldier = 54sp/day – that’s not OK

Which makes higher level troops wat too expensive! That really doesn’t work properly at higher levels. From the Downtime Manager’s page - a Lieutenant (the officer who will lead them into battle) earns 4gp/ day, less that a norman soldier of ther same level. If I change ‘Level squared’ to ‘Level’, I get …

• Warrior1 Guard = 3sp/day –
• Warrior3 Guard = 9sp/day – roughly the same as a doctor - that’s OK
• Warrior1 Soldier = 6sp/day –
• Warrior3 soldier = 18sp/day – roughly the same as a Junior Manager -that’s OK

• The Downtime rules: bunk rooms can earn up to 1.8gp per day – for 10 people – or 1.8sp per person per day.
• Equipment: Hirelings, Servants & Services: sleeping on the common room floor of an inn costs 2sp per night. If you get a ‘raised, heated floor, the use of a blanket and a pillow’, it costs 5sp/night,
• Equipment: Adventuring Gear: a poor meal in a tavern is 1sp - and you would be pushed to eat for a day, buying food at a market, for less than that. While an average meal is 3gp.

Assuming that a bunk is better than just ‘sleeping on the common room floor’, and the kitchen serves better than poor food, then board and lodging is going to be worth more than most L1 characters could reasonably expect to earn in a day. Whatever they are paid as a day rate, is a bonus.

Lodging: A simple calculation based on the average income from accommodation, using the average income calculation, per sleeping space per day, for each type of accommodation. Inn Floor=2sp, Bunk Room=1.8sp, accommodation=2.2sp, bedroom=6.5sp.

Board: assumes that we provide a whole day’s food for the cost of a single meal at an inn. Poor food=1sp, common food=3sp, good food=5sp.

Let’s say board and lodging, in a bunk room, is worth 4sp per day – that takes the average rent costs (excluding the bedroom), along with average costs for poor and common meals (mass catering is rarely as good as inn food). However, for anyone lucky enough to get a bedroom to themselves, Board and Lodging is worth a massive 1.3gp per day!

That means, if we pay the following day-rate for live in military staff, we should be meeting their expectations.

• Warrior1 Guard = 1sp/day – the equivalent of slightly above minimum.
• Warrior3 Guard = 5sp/day
• Warrior1 Soldier = 2sp/day
• Warrior3 soldier = 14sp/day

Less skilled staff, who provide similar services, are the Watchman (commoner-1) and the Security Guard (Expert-1). It makes a nice progression – a bit of training and watchmen progress to security guards, more training and they can become guards …

Members of The Watch are unskilled classed as Unskilled Commoners, however, I have them down for 1.5sp/day, far less than the live-in benefits - so perhaps 4cp as a day rate, on top of their board and lodging is sufficient - if not generous. An expert Security Guard is not quite up to a warrior guard, so let's say they expect to earn 2sp a day. Which is still less than the live-in benefits – they are better than watchmen, but not as good as proper guards - so perhaps split the difference and give them 7cp/day on top of their board adn lodging.