User blog comment:GolgothaKinslayer/This is the crap my brain goes through/@comment-24302820-20171228073606

Here's another example of the game stuff I've been working on. There are pages and pages of somewhat stream-of-consciousness text like this, as I work my way through a problem or idea. I do full sentences mostly because it's easier to review what I was getting on about when I reread that section sometimes years later, but also because I type fast enough to get away with it (Dvorak for the win!). If you just want to skip to the useful game stuff, it's the last paragraph. The rest was just me getting there.

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Different levels of craftsmen use different tools. The set of tools accumulated by a master can be quite different than those of an apprentice, almost certainly so. I have old rules from way back about different books or other tools providing 1-5 points. We can use these for different levels of toolsets as well. An apprentice's tools offer a +1, a journeyman's +3, and a master's +5. These can give bonuses to production. Let's see how this affects things. Assuming the baseline 600f for an apprentice, at 5% each, this makes an apprentice's potential output 1890f worth. A journeyman's base would be 800, and a +15% bonus would be 2,760. The master, with a 25% bonus, would then have a baseline of 1000, for a result of 3,750f. By way of comparison, an apprentice with a master's set of tools would have a production of 2,250. The baseline set of tools could be the journeyman model, for a standard assistance bonus of +3. A set of carpenter's tools costs 520f. If we double the price per level, going both directions, this is 260f for +2, and 130f for an apprentice's +1. Going upwards, a +4 is 1040f, and a master's +5 is 2080f. This is 16 times the price of an apprentice's starter toolkit. If we use the price of a toolkit as the take-on fee for a new apprentice (or double this) then we can use the base +3 (at 520f) as the cost for that.

Another way to look at this is that the toolkit, rather than provide a bonus, is the basic necessities to do a job at that level. This would then mean that an apprentice using a journeyman's toolkit gets a +10% bonus, or +20% for a master's. A journeyman using an apprentice's toolkit has a -10% production, and a master using the same starter tools has a -20% to productivity. Let's see how this affects things. A master normally would have a potential output of 3000f. If using an apprentice's toolkit, this would drop to 2400, the same as a baseline journeyman. I think that I prefer this interpretation, especially as it doesn't fuck up the maths elsewhere. An apprentice working in a master's shop would have access to the superior toolkit, getting a +20% bonus, though we might halve this since the tools have to be shared among the whole shop. We could say that each craftsman has their own tools, perhaps with a synergistic bonus, or at least a cost reduction for pricing out an entire shop. So, with a shop having one master, three journeymen, and six apprentices (ten total workers) we would pay full price for the master's kit, as this would include specialty and quite high quality tools. The other levels would have an effective half price discount. Thus, we would have 1x2080 + (3x520, 6x130) /2 = 3,250f. This is 1.5625 times the price of the master's toolkit. I can further refine this by saying that the price for a full shop with ten total people is 1 1/2 times the cost of a master's tools. Since this would be going in Conquest, I can show my work for those wanting the cost of a shop with fewer workers. You just get a 130f discount (the same as one apprentice's toolkit) as a synergy bonus for a complete workshop. In other words, the cost for shop tools is 1 1/2 times that of the master's, or you get an apprentice's toolkit for free with every ten employees. The maths are the same either way.

Rather than providing a percentage increase to productivity, we can use pluses on the skill check for proficiencies. For things that assume a set of tools will be available (like most uses of alchemy) then the basic lab is at the journeyman level, effectively. A master's lab would then offer a +2 bonus, something akin to a masterwork tool bonus in d20 and its variants. An apprentice's lab can then be purchased at a quarter of the price for a -2 on the roll. Even shittier, using improvised stuff from a kitchen to do your alchemy, for example, would be even worse, with a -5 penalty. My current pricing schema does allow for a fine range of bonuses. However, since we're assuming the base cost is for a journeyman equivalent, and it's unlikely that people will do anything other than the best or the cheapest, I might just eliminate the even-numbered bonuses. We could then make the apprentice tools half price and the master set double. I might also simplify the bonus schema, and have master tools provide a +10% for all apprenticeship skills, rather than assume that the user is a journeyman. This way, a master craftsman would still benefit from the increased utility of more expensive tools, but not by a whole lot. Apprentice tools would then be half cost for a -10% productivity (pretty much a sucker's purchase) even for an apprentice user. If I go this route I would have to revise my shop pricing scheme from the previous paragraph... or not. It would adjust total productivity, though. However, the aforementioned pricing scheme did already take into account that the apprentice would be using the superior tools when needed, getting the master-kit bonus. Said prior schema did, however, assume that the apprentices' kits were a quarter price, and master's quadrupled. If the adjustment is now a factor of two, that makes an apprentice's carpentry tools 260f, and a master's 1040f. 1040+((3*520)+(6*260))/2=2600f. This is now 2 1/2 times the master's toolkit, or an even five times the baseline kit. That's pretty workable.

To reiterate, a set of master tools is double the cost, for a +2/+10% bonus. Apprentice tools are half cost, with a -2/-10% penalty. Improvised tools have a -5 penalty. An entire shop's worth of tools (for one master, three journeymen, and six apprentices; ten total workers) is five times the cost of a toolkit.