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Plunder
There’s a difference between plunder and the gold pieces in a pirate’s pocket. While gold doubloons and fabulous jewelry can be plunder, pirates are rarely lucky enough to encounter a ship with a hold full of such treasures. Typically, there are trade goods, foodstuffs, spices, and valuables of a more mundane sort. Such takes can fetch significant prices, but for scallywags more interested in looting than the specifics of what they loot, this system provides a way for parties to track their plunder without getting bogged down by lists of commonplace cargo and their values down to the copper piece. Aside from streamlining the collection of riches, this system also allows characters to increase their infamy, paying off crew members and spreading their wealth with more appealing dispensations of loot than what was aboard the last merchant ship they robbed.
| Community | Base Sale % | DC to Increase | Maximum Sale % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size | (GP for Plunder) | Sale | (Max DC & GP for Plunder) |
| Thorp | 10% (100 gp) | 10 + 5 per 5% | 20% (DC 20; 200 gp) |
| Hamlet | 20% (200 gp) | 10 + 5 per 5% | 30% (DC 20; 300 gp) |
| Village | 30% (300 gp) | 10 + 5 per 5% | 40% (DC 20; 400 gp) |
| Small town | 40% (400 gp) | 10 + 5 per 5% | 60% (DC 30; 600 gp) |
| Large town | 60% (600 gp) | 10 + 5 per 5% | 80% (DC 30; 800 gp) |
| Small city | 80% (800 gp) | 10 + 10 per 5% | 90% (DC 30; 900 gp) |
| Large city | 90% (900 gp) | 10 + 10 per 10% | 120% (DC 40; 1,200 gp) |
| Metropolis | 100% (1,000 gp) | 10 + 10 per 10% | 140% (DC 50; 1,400 gp) |
Community Size: The size of a community is determined by its population, noted in every community stat block and further detailed in the Pathfinder RPG GameMastery Guide.
Base Sale %: Every community is willing to buy plunder from the PCs, but not necessarily at its full value. This column lists the percentage at which a community is willing to buy 1 point of plunder (along with that percentage’s expression in gold pieces).
DC to Increase Sale: This is the skill check DC required to increase the sale percentage a community offers for plunder. Every community can be convinced to offer more for plunder (to a maximum sale percentage listed in the final column of the table below), but this requires the PCs to make a skill check. The DC of this skill check is 10 + an amount determined by how much the PCs are trying to increase the sale percentage. For example, if a PC is unwilling to accept a mere 20% of the value of his group’s plunder when attempting to sell it in a hamlet, he can attempt to increase this percentage by 5% by making a DC 15 skill check. If he wants to attempt to increase the percentage to 30% (the maximum amount the hamlet can possibly pay), he must make a DC 20 skill check. Failure results in no increase, and this skill check can only be made once per day. In larger communities, the DC to increase these percentages rises, but the percentage also increases, as does the maximum percentage buyers can be talked up to.
Maximum Sale %: This is the highest percentage at which a community can be talked into buying 1 point of plunder. Merchants in a community will never buy plunder for a higher price than this. Additionally, this column lists the skill check DC required to haggle buyers up to this percentage, and how much the percentage is worth in gold pieces.