Urban income and Cleric tax

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1

I’m trying to design a new type of urban settlement. It’s a Temple Complex, with income from donations, trade and the performance of miracles and spells.

I’ve run into trouble coming up with some reasonable numbers for the income and expenses, though.

Firstly - normal urban settlements have urban revenue, and urban expenses.
If I take an urban settlemnt with 100 families, the income would be (100 x 7) 700 gp.
Garisson works out to 200 gp, Upkeep to 150, Taxes to 140 and Tithes to 70 gp.

But that would mean a profit of 140 gp/month. The rulebook tells me an average urban settlemnt of 100 people makes 25 gp. Factoring in one quarter of the seasonal Festival (500/4 = 125) gives me a net income of 15gp.

Which number should I take as a basis for designing Urban Income? After all, plaers can always decide NOT to throw a festival. Is 25 gp the more reasonable number? Or is 15 the one I should go for? (All in all, it would seem logical that a Temple Complex would have more ánd mandatory festivals)

Secondly - I tried calculating what the gp value of Divine spells cast in such an environment would be. Let’s say we concenrate on spells level 1 - 3, as I imaging hig level Clerics are needed elsewhere, and would go adventuring. Going by the spell availability per market table, I get the foloing numbers:

Class V market: 1st level: 2 - 12 castings per day, 2nd level 1-3 castings per day, 3rd: 0-1 castinge per day.
Factoring in the cost per spell (10 gp for a first level spell, 40 for 2nd, etc), I get between 60 and 390 gp a day of potential spells to be cast! On average, that’s 6750 gp per month - and that’s just a Class V market!

Are these numbers realistic? Or did I mess up somewhere? Because it seems gathering up some clerics and havig them cast spells for money is a good way to get filthy rich! Now obviously, those clerics won’t be casting all day, every day, but even allowing for that, we’re talking BIG money.

2

Just because a PC might be able to purchase that many spells in a day, doesn’t mean that there is actually a constant demand for them.

3

Very true. These are extreme numbers. However, they are a bit relevant to me, as I’m specifically trying to design a place where people would come for healing and miracles - so I imagine demand would be higher than ‘normal’.

Realistically, there would be a limiting factor. And I’m not about to just hand over that amount of gold to my players - I was plannng on using it as a basis for the Divine Power a Temple Complex would generate. Give a gp value to the worship of such a place, as it were.

4

If I’ve understood the rules correctly, you would be hard pressed to sell your clerical spells, as most clerics are giving them away for free as “miracles” in order to gain congregants and generate divine power. Most people aside from wandering adventurers are going to be expecting to get these spells for free as part of being worshippers of that particular religion.

You might have better luck treating selling spells like selling an item, with availabilities based on the class of the market and whether the spell costs 2-10gp, 11-100gp, etc. etc. etc. and with those being based on a month of selling. The end result is you can probably make a decent amount of GP more than, say, a peasant or a skilled craftsman, but you’re spending all your time looking for “clients” to buy your niche service of spellcasting.

5

I like that way of looking at it, Jard. Thanks!

6

Hm.

Another interesting ramification of what you’re designing: the gain of congregants is partly based on the GP value of religious structures in the realm.

Arguably, an urban settlement built for the express purpose of being a pilgrimage site sort of a deal could be construed to be a religious structure.

Pg 133 has the minimum urban investment for the number of families in a settlement - from that you’re getting a minimum of 10(d10+CHA) congregants per month (avg 55) from an urban population as small as 249 families, as the minimum investment is 10K.

That’s a velocity of 40GP/mo/mo growth in divine power obtained, ignoring all other value gained from casting spells or missionaries.

I’ve never really done the math on divine power to know if that’s a large amount or not, however.

7

Hi Koewn,

I noticed that too, although I think you can also read the Religious Structure bonus as only counting once - during the month you actually build the structure. “Each month, calculate the value of […] structures erected” (page 124)

But I agree that it’s something to be aware of. However, if I’m not mistaken those 249 people generate up to 384 gp worth of divine power that same month - as long as they worship the same god as the caster. (Domain Worship, page 125) ! And that can conceivably go up to 768 gp worth, for a Morale 4 domain. All from 249 people…

Now, obviously, those are extreme cases, and it’s nonsense to assume that all people living there would be devout followers of the Temple’s god. After all, the reason I want to make it an urban domain is that I imagine a village springing up around the temple, traders coming to the temple, false prophets and nefarious evildoers trying to sell fake relics, etc.

And, happily, divine power can’t be stored.

What I’m planning, if that helps any, is to make the Settlement generate Divine Power, next to some basic income. Players could then only use that divine power to power Hijinks-style actions in the Temple Complex. So for X Divine Power, you could pray for a miracle (spell, or maybe a ritual spell), you could use some to try and gain more income, to find the loaction of holy artefacts (whose GP value would increase the totals for the Divine Power calculation, but require adventuring to get), etc.

It’s all a bit fuzzy. But I’m having trouble establishing a baseline. What is normal, what is over the top? I want it fun, but not gamebreaking!