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 downtime 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. NPC Wages

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.

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.

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.

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.

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) a bit 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)

From all of that, I get ….

• 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 (a commoner) lives in some sort of shared accommodation, with simple 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.

Here are some thoughts.

According to ….

• The Downtime rules: bunk rooms can earn up to 8gp per day – for 10 people – or 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 worth more than an untrained commoner could reasonably expect to earn in a day. Whatever a live in guard is paid as a day rate, is a bonus. I am going to set the day rate at 5cp for a Level 1 commoner guard, and 6cp for a L2 commoner. I am also going to give guards a club, which is free and well within expected gear range. Now to extrapolate that to guards and soldiers.

Hirelings has Trained Hirelings, including mercenary warriors, at 3sp/day minimum, and 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 ‘questionable’ as there is always a risk that something will happen, while a soldier’s duties are liable to be hazardous. That gives

• Warrior1 Guard = 6sp/day – about equal to a nurse – that’s OK
• Warrior3 Guard = 54sp/day– that’s not OK
• Warrior1 Soldier – 1 gp/day – about equal to a doctor – that’s OK
• Warror3 soldier = 9gp/day – that’s not OK

Which makes higher level troops very, very 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. If I change ‘Level squared’ to ‘Level’, I get …

• Warrior1 Guard = 6sp/day – about equal to a nurse – that’s OK
• Warrior3 Guard = 18sp/day – roughly equal to a junior manager – that’s OK
• Warrior1 Soldier = 1 gp/day – about equal to a doctor – that’s OK
• Warror3 soldier = 3gp/day – one gp less than the officer - that’s OK

Let's say board and lodging, in a bunk room, is worth 5sp per day – that means we pay the following, in cash, for live in military staff.

• Warrior1 Guard = 1sp/day
• Warrior3 Guard = 1.3gp/day
• Warrior1 Soldier = 5sp/day
• Warrior3 soldier = 2.5gp/day