Selling back workshops

markusdark

Knight
Getting myself ready for an upcoming game, I came across a few workshops my character had from a campaign long ago. And there are times that one campaign closes and another starts and everything you own (except LCO and even then they could) follows your character to the new campaign except the workshops as they're location specific.

I was wondering if there should be a process available to sell back one's workshop, say for half the normal cost. So if a chapter's primary location for their campaign changes, they can recoup some of the pricing. It could even be considered IG that the overall cost to 'move' the workshop is 5 gold to safely transport everything (sell the old workshop for 5 gold, buy the new one for 10 gold - costing the character 5 gold).
 
The problem is the game despertely needs gold sinks..workshops are one of the bigger gold sinks in game. If I was running plot, I probably wouldn't allow them to be sold back for that reason. Per treasure policy though, I think if a plot team wanted to allow it, they would have to recoup the 5g loss out of their treasure bucket.
 
I think that workshops don't cost enough as it is.

Edit: To clarify: I wish that workshops had tiers, and each tier provided a maximum "bonus" amount of PP, rather than a flat double for 10g.
 
10g? I thought they were 15. I've never heard a chapter "buying" it back. You could always use it Friday night at check it because we did the production before heading to your current location (barring that the land is still in existence and plot didn't say that it's gone) but Saturday and or Sunday logistics should not be allowed
 
I wouldn't see a problem with letting someone dispose of them via Merchant.
 
Workshops aren't part of treasure policy. If a chapter wants to let you "sell back" a shop for a discount on another, that's their prerogative. I actually didn't find a listed price for workshops in the rulebook. (If someone does, please correct me.)

Those lands are not player accessible any longer. Talk to your game staff about any deals you want to make about shop tags.
 
I wouldn't see a problem with letting someone dispose of them via Merchant.

That would have to be proposed by the owners. There's no way to Merchant items without a PP value outside of LCO rules.

Workshops aren't part of treasure policy. If a chapter wants to let you "sell back" a shop for a discount on another, that's their prerogative. I actually didn't find a listed price for workshops in the rulebook. (If someone does, please correct me.)

Those lands are not player accessible any longer. Talk to your game staff about any deals you want to make about shop tags.

Took me a second to find it. Page 55 of the ARB describes workshops and continues to page 56, where it indicates they have a cost of 10 gold. I'd copy and paste, but my phone hates it for some reason.

Because there's no way for the ARB to facilitate a sellback, any coin reimbursed to players from the system would have to come from TP, unless some exception exists that I'm not aware of. Admittedly, TP stuff doesn't really fall under the rules that marshals work with.
 
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Keep in mind the following for what I'm about to say: I'm not an owner. I don't have access to the exact wording of treasure policy. I'm pretty tired today.

That said, I believe that workshops would be perfectly justified in being Merchanted back without taking coin from treasure policy. This is due to the following. As workshops have a coin value (10 gold) they could be put out as (a significant) part of a weekends treasure policy. If not put out as such they are purchased by players from coin that had already been put out as treasure policy, craftsman, goblin stamp purchase (production or coin), or journeyman/merchant shaving (the only four legitimate ways that coin enters the game). Thus turning workshops back in, is no different than a merchant turning in a production gem worth 10 gold, except that workshops have an in game effect.

With that said, while I think it can be done, I also don't think it's a good idea. We have too much coin in the system as is.
 
I think that workshops don't cost enough as it is.

Edit: To clarify: I wish that workshops had tiers, and each tier provided a maximum "bonus" amount of PP, rather than a flat double for 10g.

( Please take the below as an honest inquiry as that is the way it is meant)

Just out of curiosity I wonder why you feel 10g is to cheap. As a master Artisan (60 build/4 Profs/2.5 Spell columns equivalent most of the time unless you are making 400 arrows a game) with 20 ranks a work shop will functionally save me a batch price , or 80 coppers (post discount) to make a full 200 production per session (as opposed to just batching) if I'm fully using it. Which puts the pay back rate at about 12 and a half logistics periods. Depending on how often you play, that one particular chapter, that's usually 1-2 yearish. Arguably faster if you double batch etc. per game, although having played a travelling artisan for a few years, it's extremely difficult to get more than double production cost return, even if you work the service angle hard, so a heavy user still takes a year for the cost to break even.

Is the concern with flooding the market with production due the doubling? I know in theory you could have folks with close to infinite spell shields etc. but it's not something we see often in my next of the woods due to the cost/hassle.
 
( Please take the below as an honest inquiry as that is the way it is meant)

Just out of curiosity I wonder why you feel 10g is to cheap. As a master Artisan (60 build/4 Profs/2.5 Spell columns equivalent most of the time unless you are making 400 arrows a game) with 20 ranks a work shop will functionally save me a batch price , or 80 coppers (post discount) to make a full 200 production per session (as opposed to just batching) if I'm fully using it. Which puts the pay back rate at about 12 and a half logistics periods. Depending on how often you play, that one particular chapter, that's usually 1-2 yearish. Arguably faster if you double batch etc. per game, although having played a travelling artisan for a few years, it's extremely difficult to get more than double production cost return, even if you work the service angle hard, so a heavy user still takes a year for the cost to break even.

Is the concern with flooding the market with production due the doubling? I know in theory you could have folks with close to infinite spell shields etc. but it's not something we see often in my next of the woods due to the cost/hassle.

Your math and reasoning is entirely based upon a static price that you charge for production-based goods.

If we assume that merchants had to pay, let's say, 20g for workshops, it should also be safe to assume they'll pass that cost on to their customers, just like real-world economics. Maybe they find unique ways to do so (memberships, priority-in-return-for-donations, etc), or maybe they'll just charge 3x production instead of 2x. The double-cost pricing isn't enforced by the ARB, it's entirely a social construct. Adventuring communities absolutely can afford increased costs on workshops, so I can find no reason that they shouldn't.
 
Regardless of what you sell the item for the production cost difference IS static however, which is why I did the math on the return of capital on that basis. But I get you, in some locals folks might be quad batching and the difference in income if you can work a high enough sales price certainty would suggest that in some situations 10 Gold is not that much/too low. My personal mileage has varied of course and I will note affording a workshop definitely becomes much less of a challenge as the APL of a game rises. Thanks for the reply!
 
For personal use people generally speaking would straight up go without instead of pay 3x production unless they are doing a huge batch order. On those huge batch orders.... I can get them to pay the m production costs only for batch 3 and more. (Shaving the journeyman savings) . Unless the choir doesn't put out much production items as loot, magic items have your spells covered, and production is generally for emergencies only.
 
My personal mileage has varied of course and I will note affording a workshop definitely becomes much less of a challenge as the APL of a game rises. Thanks for the reply!

That's pretty much the reason I'd like to move to tiered workshops, tbh.
 
I almost always get 2.5 for my goods. And I triple batch. Yes, you technically lose money on the third batch that way, but if you sell it all it's a net profit as long as you have the journeyman discount.

Honestly, the only thing about shops that make me unhappy about them is that they're tied to a location. I'd gladly pay 5 or even 10 more gold just to have my shops be mobile within a campaign.
 
10g is not a gold sink, it's an inconvenience, for anywhere except a brand new/low level/low loot campaign. A year old player saying "I have 80g, because there's nothing to buy" is problematic but shows that there is a problem with many aspects of the game, and can easily purchase a 10g workshop.
Inaryn plays an alchemist, she triple batches all the time and sells all her stuff. I play a blacksmith and unless I'm making arrows I don't use production at all because ... well that's a long rant of its own.

Workshops used to be 25g, that is a a better gold sink, but they were also able to be used by more then one person, so people (like our poo' broke asses in the SF chapter 15 years ago) would pool their funds and splurge on a workshop. And there have been events where plot said "yes, you can keep the workshop from the other game."

Tiered workshops would be a neat idea, if done correctly, giving you more then just simple production boost.
 
Tiered workshops would be a neat idea, if done correctly, giving you more then just simple production boost.

Note: These were designed with the idea that defenses do not carry over from event to event, and also that Workshops would actually become community-owned rather than individually-owned, and thus would have to be priced up significantly to account for that.

Additionally, Workshops could carry a Maintenance costs, and could potentially be damaged/destroyed in attacks, so this could give Plot some extra objectives to throw at PCs:

T1 Workshops: Give double production, up to a max bonus of 25 production per batch
T2 Workshops: Give double production, up to a max bonus of 50 production per batch
T3 Workshops: Give double production, up to a max bonus of 100 production per batch
T4 Workshops: Give double production.
T5 Workshops: Give double production, provide community bonus Tier 1.
T6 Workshops: Give double production, provide community bonus Tier 2.
T7 Workshops: Give double production, provide community bonus Tier 3.
T8 Workshops: Give double production, provide community bonus Tier 4.

Example of community bonuses (all unused bonuses expire at end-of-event):

Tier 1 <Potion Making>: All PCs start event with an Endow defense.
Tier 2 <Potion Making>: All PCs start event with an Endow and Magic Armor defense.
Tier 3 <Potion Making>: All PCs start event with an Endow, Magic Armor, and Spell Shield defense.
Tier 4 <Potion Making>: All PCs start event with an Endow, Magic Armor, Spell Shield, and Elemental Shield defense.

Tier 1 <Scroll Making>: All PCs start event with +10 temporary Armor Points.
Tier 2 <Scroll Making>: All PCs start event with an Activatable Evocation Bolt 5, +10 temporary Armor Points.
Tier 3 <Scroll Making>: All PCs start event with an Activatable Evocation Bolt 5, an Activatable Evocation Bolt 10, +10 temporary Armor Points.
Tier 4 <Scroll Making>: All PCs start event with an an Activatable Evocation Bolt 5, an Activatable Evocation Bolt 10, +10 temporary Armor Points, and a single-use Resist Elements.
 
wow you went and made it waaaaay more complicated, but since this isn't an "add this to the rules" discussion, that's fine.

Back to the original question though, I guess it would be up to the staff if you could sell the workshop back, since it actually does have a PP of 10g.
 
wow you went and made it waaaaay more complicated, but since this isn't an "add this to the rules" discussion, that's fine.

Back to the original question though, I guess it would be up to the staff if you could sell the workshop back, since it actually does have a PP of 10g.

Making things worth something, while ensuring there's something coming back into the system, generally requires some degree of complication, sure.

I can understand the confusion about whether it should be able to be sold back or not, but it doesn't have a PP value of anything. It costs 10 gold to purchase, but that doesn't give it a PP value. If a chapter wants to institute a sellback, that's up to them, but it would likely* come out of their treasure policy to do so.

*I have never viewed the rules on Treasure Policy, so I don't consider myself an authority on this subject, and my statement comes entirely from how I've viewed Treasure Policy used and discussed while working with Logistics and as staff.
 
I'm just curious as to why if you pay 10g to get the workshop it doesn't go into treasure policy (or does it) but if you want to sell it back, it comes out of treasure policy. As for myself, I put it forward because I am one of those cash poor types who don't have a lot of money in the pouch. I was just figuring out ways to keep things going and I figured something like a 5g transportation fee would help put a little money back into the game (a tiny sink) while making players not feel as if they've wasted money on something they can't use at all. Even strict LCO items I have seen translate over from one chapter's location to another (the X story game taking place in Y is shut down in chapter 1 but you can still use the items found there in Z story game taking place in B when the new story kicks up). I currently have a dozen + of various workshops in various incarnations of chapters/locations in Alliance San Francisco alone that I (to my knowledge) cannot access due to the number of chapter and sub-chapter IG locations. But I still can use the same weapons I have had for over 20 years. Overall, the price isn't really the issue it's more of the appearance of wasting the money. I found out that my character has some gemstones that are valued enough to get his shops again but I'm not going to buy any at this time as I'm worried about another jump and then losing them once again.

As for the tiered system listed, to me I like a little complexity like this as it adds another dimension to the game, one which if players are into it will enjoy maintaining. I'd even go as far to include in the tiered system a maximum production point output of the workshops (like back in ye olden days) and increase it with a separate cost of to the workshop. Such as Tier 1 has a maximum of 25 points per bath and a starting 250 points total to be used at every logistics period. Every X extra gold put into the workshop you add the tier's maximum total to its numbers (+X gold a total of 500pp worth of items can be made per logistics period. +2x, 750 total. etc. Many would find this as a headache, like I said, I'd LOVE being the shop master assigning time and resources to it. And defending it from raids as well as even tailoring it to work with special and/or LCO resources (although I only can think of this for blacksmithing). For +Y gold, the shop can forge Mithril items, for +Z gold, it can forge Jade items.
 
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