Building a Lawful Good kingdom in Pathfinder, part 1

Politics Note: I will assume throughout this series that the government providing public goods, infrastructure and essential services to the citizens, in exchange for taxes, is broadly a good thing. You don’t have to agree, but don’t waste your time posting any disagreements here, a blogpost about imaginary kings on an irrelevant website.

Quite some time ago now, I hassled the lovely people at Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice about what a Lawful Good kingdom could look like in practice. Could you have something that at least superficially felt like a standard fantasy kingdom, while justifying the designation of Good (Lawful is at least a bit easier)?

"Basically, can it actually be both good - however you want to define that; greatest good for the greatest number is probably a working starting point - and feudal. Can you have castles and banquets and things, and subsistence level farming peasants outside to supply the tassels and banquets and things, and still be good?"

Having looked at the Profession rules in Pathfinder again, I think it might support something approaching a Lawful Good kingdom; at least, a kingdom where ordinary people earn enough to be comfortable and can take pride in their work and contribution to society, and where the nobility do have a distinct and worthwhile role.

"You can earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work."

A typical NPC has ability scores of 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8. Specifics will vary by occupation, but it's reasonable to assume a 10 or 11 in Wisdom, giving a +0 modifier. It's also fair to assume that for an NPC who primarily works in a profession, they'll have at least one skill point, gaining the class skill bonus as well for a total +4. On average, our NPC will earn 7.25gp per week. There are various ways to bolster those earnings, though.

To begin with, our NPC (let's call them Jay) can do the sensible thing and take a Skill Focus (Profession) feat. This will land Jay a nice +3 bonus for another 1.5gp per week. We're on 8.75gp per week at this point.

Jay can also take one of various traits that grant a +1 bonus to particular Profession checks. These represent family influence, growing up in particular conditions, minor blessings, and so on. A few grant +2, but let's stick with our +1, as we're trying to see what a typical person earns, not edge cases. That's 9.25gp each week.

Masterwork tools are another simple option that's likely to be widespread. Yes, they cost 50gp, but that +2 bonus means you'll earn an extra gp per week on average, so they'll pay for themselves within a year. It's a worthwhile investment. Now we have 10.25gp per week.

Even better, you can learn the Craft skill to make your own masterwork tools - yes, it needs you to hit a DC20 skill check, but you'll save a lot in the long run, so get a group of friends together and take turns aiding another.

What about the benefits of teamwork? There's nothing (that I can see) stopping people from aiding another on those weekly Profession checks. While a GM could rule that doing your own Profession check stops you from helping someone else, it's not built in. A trained hireling costs 3sp per day, so whether that's worthwhile depends whether the assumed working week is 7 days (2.1gp for a +2 bonus equivalent to +1gp, net -1.1gp) or less. It's only worthwhile if the hireling works for 3 days or less, so probably not.

Luxurious Living

Now we get into the costs side of the equation. According to the rules, the average standard of living is:

"10 gp/month: The character lives in his own apartment, small house, or similar location—this is the lifestyle of most trained or skilled experts or warriors. He can secure any nonmagical item worth 1 gp or less from his home in 1d10 minutes, and need not track purchases of common meals or taxes that cost 1 gp or less."

Well, would you look at that. Our humble professional - a 1st-level commoner with no exceptional features - is earning 10gp per week. Certainly, Jay can afford to live comfortably, save for a rainy day, hire assistants, and have masterwork tools for their key tasks.

Levelling Up

A related but tangential issue is how to realistically represent the level of NPCs. Level fundamentally represents combat prowess, no matter how hard the game tries to pretend otherwise; XP comes from fighting and completing quests that mostly revolve around fighting. Getting better at your job through experience simply isn't a factor (perhaps because PCs tend to go from 1-20 in the space of a few weeks).

If we addressed this, most professional NPCs would realistically have at least a few levels, and correspondingly higher skills. Since skill ranks and feats are capped by level, that makes a big difference. At 3rd level, Jay can drop another couple of points into Profession and earn another gp per week. At 4th level, if Jay had a Wisdom of 11, they can bump it up to 12 for another +1.

If the GM is allowing the Signature Skill feat, things change dramatically at 5th level. Jay can now pick up the feat, gaining the 5-rank benefit of earning gp equal to your full Profession check results each week, not half your result. Very nice. This is very much an 'if', though.

We could certainly refine Jay more if we weren't trying for an average character. The Patient Calm trait lets you treat 'taking 10' as 'taking 12', and this does stack with a trait bonus. The Brevoy Bandit regional trait lets you add another ability score to Profession checks as well as your Wisdom, for another +1, and this also stacks. By taking a Drawback, Jay can take both of these, plus one of the traits that grants a +2.

There's even a trait that halves the time needed to take 20, which would strengthen any case for allowing 'taking 20' on Profession rolls for income.*

*It's not at all clear whether you can do this normally; nothing says you can't, but equally nothing says you can. That's being said, since a Profession check for income is meant to represent a week of work, taking 20 should require 20 weeks of work.

Jay has a +4 bonus from various traits, a Wisdom of 12 (+1), a skill point that also nets a class skill bonus (+4), and Skill Focus (+3), plus masterwork tools (+2). Taking 10 gives Jay a roll of 24 for 12gp per week at 1st level. We could probably get better, especially looking at racial options for bonuses, but it'll do for now.

Back to the Kingdom

So how does this relate to the thorny question of the Lawful Good Kingdom? Well, we can see here that Jay is earning a comfortable living from the fruits of their labour. Reasonable taxes have been paid, and Jay still has money and to spare.

That certainly doesn't need to be where things stop, though. A benevolent government can do a lot to make life more comfortable. Considering Jay's disposable income is approaching 75% of their income, there's definitely room for higher taxes to fund investment and social infrastructure. But we'll look at that in another post.