The issue with 'butchering a whole cow' is where, exactly, did the range find a wild cow to butcher? Were they poaching off someones's cattle farm or are their wild herds of cows inexplicably roaming the countryside?
If the ranger is taking too much from the woods, then there will be consequences. There simply is not an unlimited game supply in any given region.
I was using the cow as an example since I could find the cost of a live cow in PHB and base the idea around that which I could then apply the concept to say deer.
If he wants to actually earn money, he should do some sort of adventure to hunt or trap a rare, valuable creature. Catching large numbers of rabbits or deer isn't really something that should be able to bring in large amounts of money: there's a limit on just how much he can catch and bring to the market every day, and it's probably not an entire cow's worth. Also, it would rapidly depopulate the game from an area, which is not a terribly rangery thing to do.
I like this part.
I had characters escorting Hunters back to Daggerford as the roads were thick with beasties and bandits. They had several horses saddled up with meat, skins and furs. They were on their last day of travel before making a safe return, when I had 2 of the Hunters plead with the group to allow them to set up some Mink traps late at night. Half the group went with the Hunters and the others and an Old Skinner set up camp. Of course this was an encounter set for an attack by wolves. Running through a scary, dark forest, hearing howls come closer and circling, the party was rushing back to camp at almost breakneck speed. They got back to camp safely and the fight started with all the party members involved. They killed most of the wolves. The next morning, the Hunter's upped the party's escort pay and cut them in on the Mink furs.
I think my next go around with Downtime I may do some 1-on-1 adventures with the players. I see the quick benefit of the WAR rules for it and I like them for the quick need, which this time around I will use them to their fullest extent. Next time I may open it up and give the players some more freedom as if the Adventure goes accordingly this group will end up in Saltmarsh and I'll let them explore and take their downtime again.
I'll say that I have set up a campaign with ~1 month downtime during adventures and have really added a lot of stuff to flesh out the downtime. It was a lot of fun the first 5 or so times, but now it feels more like a burden than anything else. It's a lot of work to keep up and by definition it's less interesting than adventuring. I wish I'd focused more on just a quick "what do you want to do?" and then a couple minutes of narration and maybe a roll or two.
For this particular case, your Ranger would get his bow. The interesting part (but not more interesting than a couple minutes' narration/discussion) is how he does it.
I'll say that I have set up a campaign with ~1 month downtime during adventures and have really added a lot of stuff to flesh out the downtime. It was a lot of fun the first 5 or so times, but now it feels more like a burden than anything else. It's a lot of work to keep up and by definition it's less interesting than adventuring. I wish I'd focused more on just a quick "what do you want to do?" and then a couple minutes of narration and maybe a roll or two.
For this particular case, your Ranger would get his bow. The interesting part (but not more interesting than a couple minutes' narration/discussion) is how he does it.
Good point of view on this thanks for sharing your experience.
I would guess that the area around such a large town is listed as "king land' and off limits to hunting. Plus far to many street/poor people would be hunting small game to make that an easy past time.
He could sell whole carcasses to butchers and make a better faster profit.
I am sure there is a "used" weapon dealer in town who might just have a old bow around and be willing to let him have or use it in exchange for something.
Maybe he could be part of a short cattle drive for the local butchers.
one of the reasons that cows go for 5 GP is how much stuff they have, a typical modern cow weighs about 1400 lbs on the hoof. figure Medieval cows were more like the longhorns at around a 1000 lbs for a cow and 1200 lbs for a steer or bull. of that almost nothing is wasted - hides for leather, hooves for glue, bones for fertilizer and other uses and then there is the meat - probably 600 - 900 lbs of meat. only a large bear or some of the African game animals would be as large. The largest American hunting animals are the elk (700-1000 lbs) and moose (1200-1600 lbs). a Buck deer weighs about 150 lbs so figure around a tenth the size of a cow so a tenth the value - 1 EP a deer. for small game like rabbits and squirrels the fur is probably the most valuable part but even that is probably no more than 1SP a skin for prime furs. keep in mind that the American mountain men would trap 400-500 lbs of fur in a year. they got about 5$ a lb at peak (1831) but only about $1.50 /lb by 1840. so a ranger doing a little trapping and hunting here4 and there is barely getting spending money in all likelyhood.
Would argue the opposite as the farmer raises cow sells it to butcher for profits who then butchers it and sells the meat for profit
I read through this thread planning on making this comment from the beginning. Getting an animal butchered is actually VERY expensive, so the meat sold afterward would indeed need to sell for more than it cost to buy the animal.
I know this is an old thread but, My thoughts on it from an economic perspective, if a 1000lb cow cost 10gp, then I’d say a 100lb deer would cost 1gp. Add a 50% processing charge and RP that he sells the fresh meat at the market or smokes/salts it and sells it dried. So 1 deer and 2 days worth of time maybe equals 1.5gp profit.
I have a swarmkeeper ranger character that I’m Rping as collecting honey from my swarm of bees. I’m using the honey to make mead and working with my dm to determine an option to sell the honey and mead during down time.
I would guess that the area around such a large town is listed as "king land' and off limits to hunting.
I totally agree with this. The local noble would have no tolerance for poaching.
However the noble might happily hire the ranger for the duration of the down time to be a royal hunter. The noble could provide the bow and arrows and a payment to the ranger for “30 days of service”. That payment could be handled by a simple dice roll like mentioned earlier in the thread. Determine the dice by how much you as the dm think is reasonable. Maybe just 1d4 to represent a possible 1gp per week depending on success hunting. Maybe 1d4 per week if you want slightly higher reward possibilities.
Lots of fun ways it could be quickly and simply handled in 5 minutes or less.
One thing to remember about meat is that without access to refrigeration it's not something that can really be stored or transported unless it's salted or dried. If you kill a deer, you can make jerky out of it but you probably can't transport fresh venison to town before it spoils unless it's winter. Furs are substantially easier to transport- that's why there was a fur trade and not a meat trade. And the most valuable furs tend to be small ones like mink, otter, or beaver furs, not deer. I still stand by my original post that the best method for an adventurer to make money this way is via a short adventure hunting a rare and valuable creature rather than trying to trap enough furs to pay for a new bow.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The problem with that is that by the skill rules you would need the woodcrafting skill to make your bow and arrows. In older editions they had the skill bowyer for this. The truth is that in real life if you look at the most recent versions of a “ranger” - something like the mountain men - then your talking about having at least 6 and possibly up to 12+ skills and tools (athletics, stealth, investigation, nature, perception, animal handling, insight, medicine, survival, intimidation, and persuasion, herbalism, leather working, woodworking, tinkering, cartographers tools, and cooks utensils) for survival on your own for extended periods. (IMNSHO it’s the ranger not the bard that should have the jack of all trades ability as a class feature). Anyway, my point before was that regular hunting probably isn’t going to net a ranger much n the way of down time earnings. You want that take herbalism and make healing potions for sale.mini adventures with the party to take out high value beasts and monstrosities is both more lucrative, and more deadly to the ranger and the party but would give folks a very different sort of adventure hat might be fun and would certainly showcase the ranger’s wilderness abilities that prolly aren’t getting much play in the regular campaign.
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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I was using the cow as an example since I could find the cost of a live cow in PHB and base the idea around that which I could then apply the concept to say deer.
I like this part.
I had characters escorting Hunters back to Daggerford as the roads were thick with beasties and bandits. They had several horses saddled up with meat, skins and furs. They were on their last day of travel before making a safe return, when I had 2 of the Hunters plead with the group to allow them to set up some Mink traps late at night. Half the group went with the Hunters and the others and an Old Skinner set up camp. Of course this was an encounter set for an attack by wolves. Running through a scary, dark forest, hearing howls come closer and circling, the party was rushing back to camp at almost breakneck speed. They got back to camp safely and the fight started with all the party members involved. They killed most of the wolves. The next morning, the Hunter's upped the party's escort pay and cut them in on the Mink furs.
I think my next go around with Downtime I may do some 1-on-1 adventures with the players. I see the quick benefit of the WAR rules for it and I like them for the quick need, which this time around I will use them to their fullest extent. Next time I may open it up and give the players some more freedom as if the Adventure goes accordingly this group will end up in Saltmarsh and I'll let them explore and take their downtime again.
I'll say that I have set up a campaign with ~1 month downtime during adventures and have really added a lot of stuff to flesh out the downtime. It was a lot of fun the first 5 or so times, but now it feels more like a burden than anything else. It's a lot of work to keep up and by definition it's less interesting than adventuring. I wish I'd focused more on just a quick "what do you want to do?" and then a couple minutes of narration and maybe a roll or two.
For this particular case, your Ranger would get his bow. The interesting part (but not more interesting than a couple minutes' narration/discussion) is how he does it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Good point of view on this thanks for sharing your experience.
Would argue the opposite as the farmer raises cow sells it to butcher for profits who then butchers it and sells the meat for profit
I would guess that the area around such a large town is listed as "king land' and off limits to hunting. Plus far to many street/poor people would be hunting small game to make that an easy past time.
He could sell whole carcasses to butchers and make a better faster profit.
I am sure there is a "used" weapon dealer in town who might just have a old bow around and be willing to let him have or use it in exchange for something.
Maybe he could be part of a short cattle drive for the local butchers.
one of the reasons that cows go for 5 GP is how much stuff they have, a typical modern cow weighs about 1400 lbs on the hoof. figure Medieval cows were more like the longhorns at around a 1000 lbs for a cow and 1200 lbs for a steer or bull. of that almost nothing is wasted - hides for leather, hooves for glue, bones for fertilizer and other uses and then there is the meat - probably 600 - 900 lbs of meat. only a large bear or some of the African game animals would be as large. The largest American hunting animals are the elk (700-1000 lbs) and moose (1200-1600 lbs). a Buck deer weighs about 150 lbs so figure around a tenth the size of a cow so a tenth the value - 1 EP a deer. for small game like rabbits and squirrels the fur is probably the most valuable part but even that is probably no more than 1SP a skin for prime furs. keep in mind that the American mountain men would trap 400-500 lbs of fur in a year. they got about 5$ a lb at peak (1831) but only about $1.50 /lb by 1840. so a ranger doing a little trapping and hunting here4 and there is barely getting spending money in all likelyhood.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I read through this thread planning on making this comment from the beginning. Getting an animal butchered is actually VERY expensive, so the meat sold afterward would indeed need to sell for more than it cost to buy the animal.
I know this is an old thread but, My thoughts on it from an economic perspective, if a 1000lb cow cost 10gp, then I’d say a 100lb deer would cost 1gp. Add a 50% processing charge and RP that he sells the fresh meat at the market or smokes/salts it and sells it dried. So 1 deer and 2 days worth of time maybe equals 1.5gp profit.
I have a swarmkeeper ranger character that I’m Rping as collecting honey from my swarm of bees. I’m using the honey to make mead and working with my dm to determine an option to sell the honey and mead during down time.
I totally agree with this. The local noble would have no tolerance for poaching.
However the noble might happily hire the ranger for the duration of the down time to be a royal hunter. The noble could provide the bow and arrows and a payment to the ranger for “30 days of service”. That payment could be handled by a simple dice roll like mentioned earlier in the thread. Determine the dice by how much you as the dm think is reasonable. Maybe just 1d4 to represent a possible 1gp per week depending on success hunting. Maybe 1d4 per week if you want slightly higher reward possibilities.
Lots of fun ways it could be quickly and simply handled in 5 minutes or less.
One thing to remember about meat is that without access to refrigeration it's not something that can really be stored or transported unless it's salted or dried. If you kill a deer, you can make jerky out of it but you probably can't transport fresh venison to town before it spoils unless it's winter. Furs are substantially easier to transport- that's why there was a fur trade and not a meat trade. And the most valuable furs tend to be small ones like mink, otter, or beaver furs, not deer. I still stand by my original post that the best method for an adventurer to make money this way is via a short adventure hunting a rare and valuable creature rather than trying to trap enough furs to pay for a new bow.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The ranger should be able to make his own simple bow.
The problem with that is that by the skill rules you would need the woodcrafting skill to make your bow and arrows. In older editions they had the skill bowyer for this. The truth is that in real life if you look at the most recent versions of a “ranger” - something like the mountain men - then your talking about having at least 6 and possibly up to 12+ skills and tools (athletics, stealth, investigation, nature, perception, animal handling, insight, medicine, survival, intimidation, and persuasion, herbalism, leather working, woodworking, tinkering, cartographers tools, and cooks utensils) for survival on your own for extended periods. (IMNSHO it’s the ranger not the bard that should have the jack of all trades ability as a class feature). Anyway, my point before was that regular hunting probably isn’t going to net a ranger much n the way of down time earnings. You want that take herbalism and make healing potions for sale.mini adventures with the party to take out high value beasts and monstrosities is both more lucrative, and more deadly to the ranger and the party but would give folks a very different sort of adventure hat might be fun and would certainly showcase the ranger’s wilderness abilities that prolly aren’t getting much play in the regular campaign.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.