Economics part 2

When you come down to it, all production and economics comes down to the food supply. Metals and textiles are rather useless when you're starving to death(unless they can somehow procure food)




Last time we were able to determine that 125 cp were generated per acre per year on average. That's all well and good, but nature doesn't seem to do average very often. It tends to involve 4 things, Quality of the Land, Quality of the product, Skill of the Farmer, and luck. After all, there's not much the average farmer can do to stop a series of storms, or rampaging hordes of soldiers, humanoids, or dragons from screwing up his fields or running off with livestock.


125 cp x Land Quality x Farmer Skill check results x Product Quality x Luck =  Farmer's Yield in cp worth of goods.




We already determined 1 part of this equation. Land Quality. What we now have to determine is Farmer Skill, Product Quality, and luck.


First the DM needs to determine the type of agriculture done in an area. If it's crops, the farmer needs to make 3 agriculture proficiency checks, once for planting, once for general upkeep of the crop, and once for harvesting. If the area is instead mostly grazing/livestock, the farmer needs to make 4 Agriculture or Animal handling checks(DM's choice depending on your interpretation of the non-weapon proficiency rules), this is one check for each season of the year(1 check to not lose any animals over the winter, 1 check to not lose any animals to birthing, 1 check to successfully fatten/care for the animals, and 1 check for autumn slaughter). You may substitute more checks or fewer checks as you see fit, but you then make a roll  based on the failure or success of the proficiency checks as described below.

1d00	Success
01-16	0.95
17-40	1.00
41-60	1.05
61-76	1.10
77-88	1.15
89-96	1.20
97-00	1.25
1d20	Failure
01	0.60
02	0.65
03-04	0.70
05-06	0.75
07-09	0.80
10-12	0.85
13-16	0.90
17-20	0.95

The person making the proficiency checks should be the one in charge of the agricultural procedures. In a commune, this may be the village executive officer, while in a steading, it may be the head of the household.


The next you have to determine is product quality. This represents 2 things; first, it represents the innate hardiness of the plant or animal, and 2nd, it represents the how useful the final product is. A pig is a very hardy creature, but if it has hardly any meat on it, it will not produce as much as a less hardy pig who packed on the pounds. As such only one roll on the following table is necessary to determine the product quality multiplier(unless you want to just pick it yourself).

2d6	Product Quality
2	0.75
3	0.80
4	0.85
5	0.90
6	0.95
7	1.00
8	1.05
9	1.10
10	1.15
11	1.20
12	1.25

The next thing you have to determine is luck. Luck is a combination of weather conditions, raids, wars, and even accidental providence. Even if the weather is lousy, a group can still get a better than 1.00 multiplier if they get lucky at raiding or a random druid shows up and helps the crops out!

1d20	Luck
1	0.00
2	0.10
3	0.20
4	0.30
5	0.40
6	0.50
7	0.60
8	0.70
9	0.80
10	0.90
11-15	1.00
16	1.10
17	1.20
18	1.30
19	1.40
20	1.40 +( 0.1 x 1d20)

The end result of this is the farmer's total yield. As a general rule of thumb, a farmer needs 10% of his crops or 25% of his livestock to plant or breed the same number of acres/animals as he did this year. So don't forget to factor that into his amount set aside for determining surplus(surplus is important for the second and third stages of production!)


Tomorrow, hunter-gatherers, mining, fishing, and other non-agricultural "gathering" profession