Peddler Class - Looking for opinions
Here is my version of an itinerant merchant class for Shadowdark. I have been trying to draft this idea for months and have been wanting some feedback. My main gaming table is currently on hiatus so I cannot ask them to test it yet. Seeing the Muleteer class motivated me to finally try to finish up a draft instead of constantly rewriting it in my ideas notebook. My inspiration for how it works comes from the pathfinder 1e feat Brilliant Planner and Zee Bashew’s video on Quantum Inventory. The idea is that during downtime they can put gold and inventory slots aside for later use so they can pull up needed equipment in a pinch for their party. Unlike the muleteer having to roll a DC Charisma check to get the desired item, the peddler just succeeds if the GM finds the item acceptable and its cost is subtracted from the reserved gold. I think this more closely falls in line with the OSR mindset, and avoids the over complication of having an ability that works like a spell, but requires something that costs both gold and inventory space to use. As a constraint I created a debt table that either poses a loss of gold or a penalty during downtime if the peddler expends beyond their fund, which bounces off an ability to haggle up or down the prices of goods.
Here are some questions I am still ruminating over:
- How much gold should the gold fund be?
I currently have it set up as 3gp per level, but I have been contemplating whether it should be 4gp or 5gp per level. I don’t want it too high otherwise there is not much risk in triggering a roll on the debt tables or using Haggle to reduce the price.
- Should Haggle’s increase/decrease to cost of equipment be 25% or higher?
The 25% value was taken from the Skullduggery Extortion downtime as the inspiration
- Are the outcomes of the debt table reasonable?
I want honest opinions since this is my first attempt at making a Shadowdark class.