known credit guidelines for earning money

[Axelmania]

I figure most PCs earn their keep by stealing gear and selling it, or being paid to kill people, and the guidelines can be pretty vague in those 2 categories as it is...

What kind of guidelines do we have for less murder-hobo oriented ways of earning keep though? Like for example manufacturing products, providing transportation services, protection, policing, consulting etc.

[Johnathan]

Page 19 in RIFTS Merc Ops shows common prices and missions involved in hiring mercenaries. This is about as close as I could find right off hand.

[Library Ogre]

I'd lean towards looking at the wages for CS Soldiers. A grunt makes 1700 a month, which is probably pretty close to what you'll get as a truck driver or factory drone. Captains get 2500 a month, or about 30k a year, take home.

Most incomes are probably fairly comparable. Freelancers get paid more, but don't get paid as often.

[kaid]

To some extent though if you are not employeed to some merc force or city/state force murder hoboing is kinda part of adventuring. Given the equipment players have and have to maintain forces where you would need a player using MDC gear is very likely a high risk where even if you win the slow attrition to your weapons/armors gets very very pricey.

That said players should not expect to get that high of prices for battle salvage unless it is something rare and very tasty. In a lot of cases you wind up with just straight up barter because they lack the cash to actually do a sale.

The various military/merc options are a good guideline for wages of an employed adventurer where you are doing what you do on somebody elses dime who is covering your armor/weapon repair costs and or even flat supplying you with the gear.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The problem with those guidelines is both the mercenary companies and the Military OCC's presume the military/mercenary company is paying for ammunition, e-clip recharges and armor damages.

There is no possible way to turn a profit on just 1700 credits/month after just one firefight. a single e-clip recharge costs more, and that's if you come out without a scratch on your armor.

The guidelines are only for troops in a larger organization covering the overhead costs so the troopers don't have to worry about them. if you mean a small group of adventuers negotiating their own rates, it will have to be much, much higher to cover expenses.

[glitterboy2098]

if your not earning money as part of your main questline, sidequests.
be bodyguards, investigators, do clerical, engineering, or electrical work, etc. hell, agree to help harvest the fields. doesn't have to be the focus of a session either, just offered, bit of RP, then fast forward over it unless it becomes plot relevant for the session or mainquest. (example, hired to help harvest.. then bandits attack to steal the harvest.)

[Zamion138]

We had a gm take over and he was amazed we turned down all his job offers, he was offering our small merc squad of 12 (4 pc's and 8 support npcs) 10k and 20k for a search and destroy mission, and 50k to do some trek to nowheresville to deal with some bandits...said we were making his game fail intentionally.
We explained to his job giver in game those would be poverty wages an unless we got free repairs and reloads as well there was no way we could make a living on that.
If we got even minor damage and used only eclips and everything went great (not perfect but great) we could afford to re-arm and feed ourselves the team, we weren't looking to be hand to mouth for killing and possibly dying.

Economics in rifts need a bit of retooling but no one would/should take such low pay unless they are desperate.

[Johnathan]

We had a gm take over and he was amazed we turned down all his job offers, he was offering our small merc squad of 12 (4 pc's and 8 support npcs) 10k and 20k for a search and destroy mission, and 50k to do some trek to nowheresville to deal with some bandits...said we were making his game fail intentionally.
We explained to his job giver in game those would be poverty wages an unless we got free repairs and reloads as well there was no way we could make a living on that.
If we got even minor damage and used only eclips and everything went great (not perfect but great) we could afford to re-arm and feed ourselves the team, we weren't looking to be hand to mouth for killing and possibly dying.

Economics in rifts need a bit of retooling but no one would/should take such low pay unless they are desperate.

I'd probably sing a different tune if it were those prices EACH but not total. No way. Even then I'd probably want to negotiate for repairs and recharges.

[Zamion138]

Ohh yeah if it were 20k A bandit well that might work.....these wete totals.

[Johnathan]

Ohh yeah if it were 20k A bandit well that might work.....these wete totals.

Currently involved in space campaign. It's advanced quite a ways, but in the beginning of the game, my group were couriers. They were hired on by a company as permanent employees to, basically, move Object A from point B to point C and then return for the next run.

We were given a "milk run" (Read - simple in, drop supplies off, and out job) job to ship medical supplies to a planet. The job paid 500,000 credits. The crew consisted of a captain, an XO, a medical officer, an engineer (all NPCs), Navigations Specialist (PC), Sensors and Comm Specialist (PC), Weapons Specialist (PC), and a Pilot (PC). Eight individuals total. Each "Specialist" received one "share" of the pay. Captain received two "shares" and each officer would receive one and a half "shares". Thusly, a total of of 500,000 credits would be split into ten shares and divided amongst the crew. Keep in mind, this wasn't the ENTIRE pay of the job, just the pay the crew would receive. The rest went to the company we worked for. That's 50,000 credits each for the PCs, with accompany that repaired our ship, repaired our armor, and recharged our e-clips free of charge. Any upgrades to weapons, armor and equipment though, or anything new, was on us and we had to pay for it ourselves.

The medicine we were shipping, though, could be refined and utilized as a very powerful narcotic. The possibility of being attacked by pirates existed. If we were attacked in any sort of serious or life threatening manner, we would receive "hazard pay", which was a 50% increase in the job pay (750,000 credits). Of course, "Life threatening" was to be determined by the head of the company we worked for, our captains boss.

In either case, when everything was said and done, by the end of the mission, each PC walked away with about 125,000 credits in their pockets. Double hazard pay and saving a planet from a plague thanks to the medicine we got to them.

Case in point, we accepted a mission that would've only paid us 50,000 credits each and ended up walking away with more than double that, plus salvage and loot. Was a good pay day, and a simpler time for the group in general.

However, I digress. The point is, that was an 8 person team, delivering supplies, and it was, originally, a job that paid 500,000 credits. The fact that we ended up walking away with a total of 1,250,000 credits for the job, was a bonus. However, a full 500,000 of that pay came from contractual arrangements (the double hazard pay).

[boring7]

A point of the original question that seems to be getting glossed over is "making things" to which the answer is, "essentially nothing." I believe somewhere in the last 30 years Kevin has gone on record saying he doesn't like making rules that take the "adventure" out of the game. Any OCC or device or skill built around making money by making things is, at best, light on crunch and intended more for NPCs. Take any OCC that makes things, most of them have no "creation time" mechanic and even the most documented of them (Techno-wizard) is intentionally vague and says, "ask your DM".

And there are so many ways to "cheat" money. MDC plating (for bunkers, buildings, and the like) is listed in Merc Ops for 5k a pound (I think? going from memory). A line-powered device that literally just casts the create steel spell at level 1 can sit in a pyramid you just murderhobo'd your way into and crank out a pound every 2 minutes without ever stopping or needing anything but the ley-line it's drawing from. This device costs a few thousand if I recall, and works indefinitely. Don't like that one? How about a Mend the Broken-powered repair bay that takes the high price of armor and vehicle repair and zeroes it out?

And yes, the money system makes no sense. We ran into an eco-wizardry powered group of npcs that had magic stun arrows (with better range) which cost 8k and magic stun spears that did the exact same thing but cost 80k.

But the "infinite wealth" tricks get shot down by GM fiat for a reason and the economics only matter in the realm of what is available at the GM-written market, so my point is more that everything in the sphere of "how make munnies?" is going to be house-ruled.

[guardiandashi]

I agree the economy in palladium is pretty broken from top to bottom and crafting is as bad. IMO it really comes down to there not really being any fundamental value framework, more well I think this should cost around ... with prices picked more or less at random.

if you compare it to a system /game universe like battletech, or star wars those seem to have a much more "grounded" background economy. that doesn't mean that there are no what the hecks in their "economy" but that IMO more thought was put into the crafting and support economy.

about the only economy that was in some ways worse than palladiums is star trek, but they have the "excuse" that star trek is supposed to be post scarcity, where the "essentials" food, water, shelter etc. are essentially free. its the "luxuries" that are rare and valuable, for example lets say you want to play a guitar, (or other instrument) you can essentially get a replicated one for "free" getting a hand crafted one costs more, and getting one made by a master, or a historical one is "really hard"

[Blue_Lion]

The crafting house rules I use take up allot of pages. If it is not something that interest him I could see why he never bothered. To do right would be a section of rules as least as big as magic.

[boring7]

I think my favorite is still the Mystic Herbalist (England book). For a few hundred PPE and some plants you have all the skills to plant, cultivate, and magically force-grow you can crank out several MILLION credits worth of potions.

The intent, presumably, was to keep PCs from just buying a stockpile of those potions, but it makes a mystic herbalist ridiculously wealthy if they just manufacture and sell to a poorly-GM'd market.

Just perusing that section again, oh my the abusables...

[IGNG]

Their is a pay scale for CS troops in one of the books. I forgot which and haven't seen it in years so take the following with a giant grain of salt.

Rough equivalencies (this is a best guess YMMV)
Dogboy = unskilled-kinda skilled labor (day laborers - rank and file in an IT farm)
Deadboy = blue collar labor (factory worker)
low ranking officer = White collar labor (Manager/shift supervisor)
High ranking officer = Skilled specialist / important manager (Highly skilled RnD types, good lawyers, etc)

[Axelmania]

The problem with salaries with armies like the CS is they provide a lot of services like e-clip recharging, armor repair, room and board, food, security, etc. Someone would settle for a less than competittive salary if other jobs didn't come with those perks.

[Blue_Lion]

The problem with salaries with armies like the CS is they provide a lot of services like e-clip recharging, armor repair, room and board, food, security, etc. Someone would settle for a less than competittive salary if other jobs didn't come with those perks.

Basically the salary is only a small part of what the army pays. For a unmarried CS soldier the pay is totally disposable.
Also service in the CS army puts you and your family on the short list to get into a fortified city.

The listed wages almost never would allow for self supported maintenance of MD gear. (they may be a good idea of what townies would make.)

[Mack]

Additionally, check p34 of Mercenaries. It lists salary adjustments based on the character's unique abilities. Plus p18 has base salaries for merc companies.

[Nekira Sudacne]

again though, that's merc companies. nothing for what would be paid for "A bunch of murderhobos that just wandered into town"

[boring7]

again though, that's merc companies. nothing for what would be paid for "A bunch of murderhobos that just wandered into town"

Given the current state of Yelp and advertising, there isn't really a difference.

[Shorty Lickens]

Page 19 in RIFTS Merc Ops shows common prices and missions involved in hiring mercenaries. This is about as close as I could find right off hand.

I just checked and while I did see common adventure ideas there were no prices listed. On page 19 is a bounty for Gunther Black specifically.

In any case, from the first day I started playing Rifts many years ago, I noticed that things seem pretty damn expensive credit wise, and I've generally played using the guideline that goodies as a reward or trade good are more useful than credits. Giving the PC's equipment is usually a better form of payment and more realistic as many folks wouldnt necessarily have millions of credits just laying around. Even damaged or leftover junk is probably more valuable than cash.

As an example, Gunther Black is a high level nightstalker dragon and frankly 2 million credits for his destruction is actually a paltry sum. You'll use up way more than that just repairing your armor after fighting him.
Looting seems like a good idea but you have to get the stuff back to a civilized area where you can actually SELL the junk you found. Transports also cost money and if your team is badly damaged you'd have a heck of a time making a profit.

[Axelmania]

What is the longest range weapon Gunther Black has? Hopefully more than 30ft fire breath

If you attack long range from cover he may not know where you are to teleport close to you, sixth sense only tells him an attack is coming (not where from)'and clairvoyance may not give useful info.

Night Stalkers have poor day vision, half humans, does he wear vision enhancers like the RMB hatchling?

I would swoop him with Flying Titan until he cast I.pervious to Energy, then switch to a SAMAS. SPD 110 flight can't keep up with 250mph. I can see trouble trying to teleport accurately to something that fast as well.