Hired Labor Cost

[TheQuicksilver]

So my group has managed to commandeer a small drakkar airship. They are faced with the challenge, however, that while they have a high circle air sailor to captain it, they have no one to row. So, they want to just hire some hard workers willing to row a lot, maybe even a couple air sailor adept to do the work of several normal people.

The question is, what would you value the wages of a simple rower at per day? I'm thinking something like 20sp per day, inclusive of meals and lodging on the airship, with bonuses to those who stay on for additional tours or are willing to take on learning the air sailor discipline from the captain. That'd be like 14sp, assuming a normal cost of 3sp for an okay flophouse and 3x1sp for daily meals by my math.

What do you think, am I pretty on the mark, or am I really over/under valuing day laborers?

[arma]

Cost of living at basic standards at an Inn is 1 silver per day (3 simple meals, flophouse).
But you can probably live much cheaper at home (about a third of that), but at the same time, need extra money for clothing, feeding the kids, etc..
So for simplicity's sake, you can assume a silver to be an average wage for basic work that requires limited skills.
Skilled work would probably go up to five times that.

So, you could hire your deck hand for a silver a day or less (that would include his meals), but the crew requirement needs skilled labor (you need them to succeed at Air Sailing Tests), so you'll want to pay them 1.5 to 2 silvers.

As you need about 10 Result Levels to maneuver a small drakkar, your 20 silvers per day are about right (albeit for the whole crew).

[The Dread Polack]

This just came up in last night's game.

1.5 to 2 silver per skilled laborer sounds appropriate, but another thing to consider is the dangers of air sailing. My group was sailing into Ustrecht, near the Twilight Peaks. Anyone who knows how dangerous that is would likely ask for more.

We were pretty sure it was too much, but I went with 1 silver per total step rating in their air sailing per day. That was 6 sp for most of them, but 10 sp for a few more experienced sailors.

So, how about "hazard pay"? Maybe they will ask for 3-4 silver for dangerous areas, and a bonus *if* they have to fight off sky raiders?

[Flagg]

If I'm not mistaken, a lot of jobs in medievalish times weren't things you worked 9-5 and then went home. Often you lived where you worked, and room and board was part of the deal. You'd have to be pretty skilled to actually get paid on top of that.

[Flagg]

In China during the Ten Kingdoms period (roughly analogous to the Cathay setting), professional soldiers weren't paid at all.

[The Dread Polack]

That may be true. Unfortunately, this is not a normal situation. The chinese soldiers you refer to aren't a very good analog to what I'm talking about. I doubt many of them had much of a choice, and it they did, their devotion to their godlike emperor, or religious-like devotion to their nation isn't reflected in the climate of Barsaive. I doubt a bunch of near-peasants with a rank in air sailing are ready to risk their lives to help the PCs kill things and take their treasure. Much less, are my PCs ready to say "Who's ready to die in glorious battle in service to... to... us?"

Any idea how much they should get paid, or was that just a side-comment?

A couple of the players, as it happens, recently visited our local Science Museum exhibit on pirates, and made the interesting point that pirates often had better living conditions than merchants. While being a merchant sailor was only a short step away from slavery, pirates were free men, equal to eachother (other than rank on the ship), and they actually had more room for living quarters since they didn't carry cargo. No wonder it was so popular (relatively speaking). They were also racially diverse.

That, unfortunately, also doesn't help my situation much since the party isn't a group of pirates. They mainly adventure/treasure seekers at the moment. There's no loot opportunity for the crew. They plan to eventually begin real assaults on Thera. I expect their exploits will eventually draw devoted followers who will be capable combatants in their own right, and will do it for the personal reasons, glory, and the occasional loot.

[Flagg]

The point I was getting at was twofold:

1. Often times, 3 hots and a cot is sufficient, and
2. When actual pay is warranted, it's probably not going to be very high, since #1 is sort of included in the deal.

[The Dread Polack]