08-30-2018, 10:50 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
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If they character wants to become an elven equipment importer, great. |
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08-31-2018, 07:01 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
And, of course, there's plenty of adventure to be had travelling deep into the elven forest with money and goods to trade and then traveling back to the kingdoms of men with stockpiles of elven goods.
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Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
08-31-2018, 10:48 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
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09-01-2018, 12:30 AM | #14 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
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09-22-2022, 02:11 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
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Even if we don't extrapolate, that means you buy for 90% and sell for 10%, netting a tidy 10%. There's a rug merchant (i.e. bard) sitting in my notes right now who spent his 60 discretionary points on 39 points of Bard Song and 20 points of Wealthy. He's only got Merchant-13 so he would buy at 100% and sell for 80%, but with another 23 points invested in Merchant-20 he'd be reliably buying at 90% and selling at 100%. And he'll probably never invest those points, because delving with his friends (and indulging his xenophilia) is much more fun than studying to become a master merchant who can buy $9000 worth of wool and quickly find a buyer willing to pay $10,000 for it. Those 23 points will always go towards e.g. Bardic Talent, Song of Terror, or Song of the Wild instead of Merchant, no matter what his parents say. Edit: Oh, wow. Apparently I was in a thread on this topic already, back in 2008. http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...715#post561715 |
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09-22-2022, 02:56 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
get in nerds, we're playing Axes & Arbitrage!
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09-22-2022, 03:37 PM | #17 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
It's worth noting that the generic dungeon fantasy setting is sufficiently inspired by medieval Europe that the economy is probably guild-based. The guilds apparently allow delvers to sell found items without issue, but, if the PCs seem to be moving out of the "delver" role and into "full-blown merchant" role (without having secured appropriate guild membership), them, if some stern warnings don't suffice, they will rapidly find themselves disbarred from the legitimate economy.
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I predicted GURPS:Dungeon Fantasy several hours before it came out and all I got was this lousy sig. |
09-22-2022, 03:48 PM | #18 | |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
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As long as the GM doesn't permit transactions to be instantaneous, it shouldn't be an issue. Realistically, buying $9000 of wool and then selling it for $10,000 will involve hunting down someone with a wool surplus, buying it, and hauling it to someone willing to pay $10,000 for it. It wouldn't be surprising for that to take 1-2 days, which--let's face it--is much more boring way to make a $1000 profit than two days spent stabbing monsters and looking for treasure. After all, you can already get infinite money through infinite dungeon delving (if you survive). |
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09-28-2022, 07:05 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
Another reason to play a wealthy elven bard:
With 60 points to spend, you can afford to be a Wealthy [20] Elven [20] bard with Bardic Talent 3 [10], Song of Humiliation [4], and Energy Reserve 2 [6]. The elf synergy gives you Bow-15, Stealth-15, and Rapier-16 (yielding a parry of 11+DB), as well as slightly more speed (6.25) and Move 7. More importantly, it unlocks more spells including Concussion. Why is this awesome? See, IQ 14 and Bardic Talent 3 is already enough to let you maintain some cheap spells for free if they are in the bard colleges. Hush, Hide Thoughts, Keen Sight are all worth having. But how about Resist Sound? You could take responsibility for maintaining Resist Sound on the whole party all the time. A -4 to -6 penalty on all spellcasting is no joke, and something a full wizard, cleric, or druid probably couldn't stand to do routinely given the opportunity cost. But you're a bard, and you don't have THAT many spells you want to keep up constantly. And that means that the first thing you do every combat is toss your little Concussion ball that you summoned previously (at 15-6 = 9 or better, your reliability stinks, but before combat it doesn't matter much--you can spend 8 points to raise this to 12 or better if you want, and another 8 points will make it both 14 or better and free) before all the speed 6.0 monsters can move. Now all the monsters have to roll HT-3 to avoid physical stun, and none of the delvers do. A lot of horrifying monsters like Ramexes, Flaming Skulls, Werewolves/Vampires, and even Watchers at the Edge of Time have HT in the 10-12 range and are likely to be stunned; even a tougher monster like a pudding (HT 13) or dragon (HT 15) has 25-50% chance of failing. As far as I can tell, Magic Resistance doesn't even help (per Adventurers pg 51) because Concussion is a Missile spell, so something like a Ramex is just stuck with flat 83% odds of being stunned. It's not even a Quick Contest, just a straight HT-3 check, so your -6 penalty from having so many spells on doesn't even hurt your success rate. Normally, the downside to Concussion is the high chance of stunning some of your friends as well, leading to casualties, but you're a bard and you've got them all under Resist Sound already. (So if the wizard wants to start chucking Concussion grenades as well, feel free!) This is not your main contribution to the group. Your main contribution is your ability to buy low, sell high, and stun enemies with Song of Humiliation as a free action. (Plus make friends, hire good employees, and communicate at long distance, as well as psychically interrogating defeated enemies.) But it's a nice little combat shtick for someone who otherwise might feel a lot like deadweight in combat against foes who cannot be mind-controlled, and it more than justifies spending those 20 points on Elf, if you have no objection to Sense of Duty (Nature). It's even better than spending them on Song of Terror because it works even on Unfazeable monsters, and has a higher success rate. (Of course you can get Song of Terror as well, eventually.) Elf bard is best bard. Last edited by sjmdw45; 09-28-2022 at 07:49 PM. |
09-29-2022, 05:30 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Wealthy Elven Bards and the Bow of Infinite Money
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