Living cheap and living large

[Anders]

Proposed house rule.

Normally you spend $600 each month you spend in town.

You can live cheaper ($300), but you and everyone you spend significant time with get a -2 to all reaction rolls. Since you get too little quality food, you get a -2 penalty to all resistance rolls against poison and disease.

You can spend more money ($1,200). You get a +1 bonus to all resistance rolls against poison and disease, and after living like this for a month you get a +1 bonus to all reaction rolls.

A creative GM could also make it so that more lucrative misisions are only available to 'the better kind of people' (i.e., people who live large). We wouldn't want to hire street ruffians, would we?

Something like that. Thoughts?

[benz72]

This is from the prospectus for my Caverntown campaign. I hope you find it useful.
The Company You Keep
Delvers have many lodging options while recovering in Caverntown. Some of them are more amenable than others to certain activities than others.
Inn Quality Cost/wk Contact Level Bonus
Cheap 150 Street -1 to locate gear using Merchant, +1 to locate gear using Streetwise
Good 300 Merchant +1 to locate gear, +1 to Carousing
Fine 1000 Guild +2 to locate gear, +1 to haggling for price, +1 to find patronage
Exclusive 5000 Government +1 to influence officials, +3 to find patronage, +2 to sell luxury items

Inn Name Quality Owner Notes
North West Inn Cheap GG (Gargoyle) Players don’t know yet
The Attic Cheap Constance Hickory Tenement rooms built high
Wander Inn Good Wallace Wilson Largest inn in Caverntown
The Sunset Good Cesar Hilltown Totally underground
Cheery Lodgings Fine Cheery O’Malley Run by Hospitality Guildmaster
King’s Chalet Exclusive Sequana Conrad “I’m sorry, we don’t have room for you”

Homeowners
If the PCs acquire permanent lodging within Caverntown the cost of upkeep, property taxes, guards for maintaining security while out adventuring, &c. will still cost money, just not quite as much as a more transient lifestyle. Substitute this table for the inn quality chart above.

Property Quality Cost/wk Contact Level Homeowner Bonus
Cheap 100 Street +2 to Streetwise for activities in your neighborhood, +1 in other areas.
Good 200 Merchant +2 to locate good quality gear, +1 to avoid trouble with the law
Fine 500 Guild +2 to locate any gear, +2 to avoid trouble with the law
Exclusive 3000 Government +2 to influence officials, +4 to avoid trouble with the law

Properties generally cost 100 weeks upkeep time the number of persons supported. E.g. a Good house that will host 5 delvers would sell for (5 x 100 x 200) = $100,000 and cost $500/wk to maintain whereas a palatial mansion that would accommodate 10 delvers would cost (10 x 100 x 3000) = $3,000,000 and demand $30,000/week in upkeep, taxes, food, staff wages &c.
Failure to pay each 33% of upkeep reduces 1 point of bonus. When the bonus reaches 0 the quality reduces by 1 until upkeep is paid. This CAN drive a property down multiple quality levels

[benz72]

Anders, it looks like copy & paste formatting isn't going to work. If you'd like a link to the google doc, PM me.

[Rasputin]

From my campaign blog, and thinking out loud about urbancrawls:

The High Cost of Urban Living
Cost of Living for Status 0 or higher is normally is $150/week. There are times when this is better assessed per day, in which case the Cost of Living for Status 0 is $20/day. This handles normal room and board, including cost to stay at a tavern. If delvers want to stay at an inn, this adds $100 to daily Cost of Living (thus, making it $120/day) and grants +2 to rolls for Bargain Hunting (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 13), Rumors (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14), Advertising (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14), and Finding a Sponsor (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14).

Compulsive Behavior adds lower amounts to Cost of Living when tracking Cost of Living day by day. Instead of the chart on Adventurers, p. 59, a self-control number of 6 adds $16 each day to Cost of Living; a self-control number of 9 adds $12 each day; of 12 adds $8; and of 15 adds $4. This amount does not change with Status.

Daily Cost of Living to feed animals is $10 at SM 0. Halve this for each SM below 0, and take twofold this for each SM above 0. This likewise does not change with Status.

Slumming It
For Status -1, Cost of Living is $10/day, and the delver must make an Urban Survival roll against a cutpurse showing up to pick his or her pockets. Assume the cutpurse has an effective Pickpocket skill of 17 vs. the delver's Perception or Per-based Streetwise; failure means the cutpurse gets the delver's money. If the delver already owns a home here ($1,000 gets him or her a permanent hovel in town, but the delver still must pay Cost of Living), this roll is at +5. Casting the Watchdog spell before going to bed keeps this from happening.

For Status -2, Cost of Living is $4/day, and not only must the delver roll against Urban Survival to avoid a cutpurse as for Status -1, he or she must also must make a HT or HT-based Urban Survival roll to avoid the Aching Ague (below). If playing with the Hygiene modifier, apply it here. If for some reason the delver owns a home, that doesn't help at all with stopping the Aching Ague.

Someone living at Status -1 or lower might be going hungry. Roll Urban Survival. If someone living at Status -1 fails, he is down 1 FP from missing a meal; if someone living at Status -2 fails, he is down 1d/2 FP from missing meals. If someone living at Status -1 owns a home, he doesn't need to make this roll; if someone living at Status -2 owns a home, he still needs to roll, but treat failure as if he was living at Status -1.

Note that someone living below Status 0 will take a penalty to reactions in town equal to the Status at which he is living. He also takes the same penalty to Finding a Quest and Finding a Sponsor (Dungeons, p. 4; Exploits, p. 14).

Aching Ague
Bedbugs spread it, or rats and fleas on the street.

Statistics: Blood Agent (Bedbug bites); HT to resist; 1d-2 day delay; 1d-4 HT damage; 12-hour cycle with 6 cycles. Symptoms produce stomach problems, which is the Nauseated condition (p. B428) after losing 1/3 HT; after losing 2/3 HT, doing anything stressful like combat or moving more than 1 yard a second means a Retching (p. B429) spell for 2d seconds; resist HT to keep from retching. Not contagious.

[DeadParrot]

Originally Posted by Anders

Proposed house rule.

....


A creative GM could also make it so that more lucrative misisions are only available to 'the better kind of people' (i.e., people who live large). We wouldn't want to hire street ruffians, would we?

Something like that. Thoughts?

Who gets hired for what may well depend both on Employer and Mission.

A King hiring an armed escort for a diplomat to a neighboring country would most likely want to hire 'higher' status warriors.

The same King hiring an armed band to kill a diplomat known to be traveling to here from a neighboring country would likely want to discreetly hire 'ruffians' as if they are seen doing the deed it could be explained away as simple banditry.

A small time crime boss wanting to hire an escort for his monthly payment to his boss would also probably hire known ruffians.

The same crime boss wanting a message delivered to someone in the palace would likely hire a high status person.

Characters could game the system depending on the type of mission they are trying to acquire. If they are trying to infiltrate the crime syndicate, they could well go 'undercover' by living in rather bad conditions and after they have become established as down and out, start asking known crime associates about job possibilities.

Of course, characters will have to bear the financial cost of living high if they are trying for that diplomat escort mission. And risk the downsides of slumming it if trying to infiltrate the crime syndicate.

[Anthony]

You can always steal a page from Isekai (which is presumably reflecting something familiar from JRPGs, if I played them), where you have D-rank, C-rank, B-rank, A-rank, S-rank, etc, adventurers, and to get an adventure from the adventurer's guild you need to be a proper rank of adventure. Thus, status 0 adventurers qualify for status 0 quests, status 1 for status 1 quests, etc. Maybe also it determines which stores you can buy from.