Has anyone tried converting profit factor into an actual number of thrones that someone can potentially have sitting around?

I ask because I'd like to have a Rogue Trader fill a wave of thunderhawk dropships with thrones and bombard someone in the most opulent way possible.

There is something delightfully decadent about obliterating one's enemies in an entirely inefficient and expensive way just to show you can.

First off: Let me applaud your sheer decadence, so muc that Slaaneshis ask if you're feeling alright.

*slow claps*

That said, I would think that even 1 PF is such a gargantuan amount (enoguh to buy voidship weapons! or WARP ENGINES) that I see no reason you couldn't just say "load up 10 Thunderhawks with Throne Gelt....I aim to misbehave (thank you to whoever it was on this forum who said that!) and lose nothing. Bonus point if you let the enemy escape with all the coin "because it isn't worth the trouble to collect"

I agree with Filliman. Even a single Profit Factor should be enough to do it, although if I were your GM, I'd maybe ask you to burn 1 PF as you convert your business contacts and assets into pure Throne Gelt and decide to dump it on a battlefield.

I used to play a Rogue Trader that regularily threw money around just for fun.

I remember when Italy had 1/2 lira pieces. I also remember when the lira was 2200 to the dollar. I went to Italy as a millionaire that summer. Good times.

Honestly, I don't think you'd even have to burn Profit Factor for that. Since it measures your influence and your dynasty's esteem, it may actually gain you PF. At least enough to offset the creative disposal of capital.

Honestly, I don't think you'd even have to burn Profit Factor for that. Since it measures your influence and your dynasty's esteem, it may actually gain you PF. At least enough to offset the creative disposal of capital.

Concur. Plus, assuming that there are neutral/friendly civilians in the area afterwards, your generosity will be praised, which is effectively a slight PF boost as well. And with the appropriate spin, you didn't launch a kinetic strike against your enemies, you just intentionally distributed charity to the poor/underprivileged.

Besides ... you can always retrieve at least some of what you dropped when you send in teams to mop up any pockets of hostiles that managed to get inside sufficiently sturdy cover and loot the battlefield. I mean, they're probably gonna have to use a bunch of supersized vacuum cleaners and/or bulldozers to get most of it ... or you did some prep work with the your explorator to magnetize what you were dropping and send in some supersized floating electromagnets.

Profit Factor is actually near impossible to convert into a specified amount of thrones (like 1pf=10k thrones) because it measures your level of income, so it would be much more easy (and right) thing to convert it into monthly throne income (1pf=10k thrones/month).

Even then if you'll run some simple calculations you'll see that PF is non-linear in its increases, for example - if you have 10PF you only have enough money to buy (for sure) one poor quality knife - 10PF+50(abundant)+10(poor quality)+30(single item)=100 which is by RAW enough to guarantee that you can buy it, if you have, for example, 70PF you can buy 10000+ of those same knifes. on this example we can see that an increase of PF in seven times actually gives as more than ten thousand times increase in buying capability.

I've tried to complete that (at least approximate) graph of every single PF value increase to actual buying capability for a long time, but I have failed to accomplish that, if anyone could do it i'd love to see those results

don't do it. they are not comparable systems.
even though the nightly news may report your gross national product as X Billion Dollars,
nations don't work that way.

I've generally assumed that a Rogue Trader will have somewhere around 10xPF in marked thrones on their person (or their servants' persons as it may be) and can get their hands on 100xPF worth of thrones in easily exchanged items of intrinsic value (Thrones, Gold & Silver, Local Promissory notes, etc.). A commerce check and some time will allow them to find/create/extract more. Actually burning profit factor for Thrones shouldn't happen. Anything that can be bought with thrones isn't worth 1 PF.

I've generally assumed that a Rogue Trader will have somewhere around 10xPF in marked thrones on their person (or their servants' persons as it may be) and can get their hands on 100xPF worth of thrones in easily exchanged items of intrinsic value (Thrones, Gold & Silver, Local Promissory notes, etc.). A commerce check and some time will allow them to find/create/extract more. Actually burning profit factor for Thrones shouldn't happen. Anything that can be bought with thrones isn't worth 1 PF.

Actually, I'd probably up those numbers by at least a factor of 1000.

But some of it may actually represent letters of credit (or the equivalent) authored by local banks, nobles, merchant house offices, etc. - those with local credibility for local merchants, but with sufficient offworld connections to accept your letters of credit/ship account.

Because, really, you're a Rogue Trader. You're basically one of the richest people on the planet by default.

You know the saying 'if you have to ask, you can't afford it'? You can afford it, but you, or rather your buying agent/seneschal/castellan/etc, will probably try to haggle with the seller on principle.

Do you know anyone who carries 10,000 to 100,000 dollars in their wallet, even the extremely wealthy?

I'm intentionally not counting lines of credit, business accounts, the ship's coffers, merchant agreements etc. because those are exactly what Profit Factor Acquisition Rolls and Commerce checks are for. Those aren't Thrones and aren't usable any more then you can buy a McDonalds Happy Meal with with a savings bond.

I was answering the question of a Rogue Trader walking down the street doing something completely unrelated, when he/she comes across a street musician and wonders, how many thrones could I toss in that bag?

Actually if we're going that argument route, Rogue Traders wouldn't carry much of any cash on/with them.

However, this is 40k, and over the top is par for the course.

Also, Rogue Traders tend to be paranoid and/or flamboyant. Either will carry a (small) disposable and/or untraceable fortune, either as a contingency or just because they can.

It may come in non-monetary forms of wealth - precious metals, gems, etc., rather than just cash because it's easier to carry larger sums or their equivalent.

Maybe the RT doesn't toss thrones into the street musicians bag, he tosses some gemstones or some ounces of gold ingots.

Hmm, the table giving examples for the profit factor had, say,hive guilds at around 10, so I´d expect profit factor of 1-2 to still be a countable amount of money,though a huge one. Then again, profit factor also represents favors, influence etc even when it cannot be converted into money, so burning 1 or 2 PF is a possibility if you want to rain the cash now and you don´t want to do it with the equivalent of 2 cent coins.

Showering them with coins of significant denomination would be more expensive, naturally, but also more impressive - and incidentally would likely ruin the local economy, at least from the viewpoint of the local financial authority (likely the one you want to bomb). This makes it more than just a demonstration of wealth

Profit Factor is not a linear value. 1 point of PF at low levels is an insignificant amount compared to 1 point of PF at higher levels.

Why are images of Scrooge McDuck's vault flashing through my head. Sadly, it's sort of like real wealth, though, even if you don't include favors, etc. It's one thing to say "Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world, with a potential net value of $150 billion", but if you ever took one of his children hostage, and tried to ransom them off for, say $4 billion, I'd say Mr. Gates won't be able to come up with it; his WORTH might be one figure, but his liquid/disposable assets are a different, much smaller figure. Much of his money is tied up in Microsoft, his intellectual properties other people pay to use, and he pays to keep, paying employees, procuring materiel, paying taxes on buildings and utilities, moving product, plus he has his house, his cars, that other house, and his helicopter, lots of stuff.

Certainly, you already know all that, but a Rogue Trader is much the same, with resources tied up in their "priceless" accessories, their ship(s), crew, servants, do you own a world, or a colony, anywhere? Did you discover a nice warp route you charter other people to use? Starting out Rogue Traders are often of comparable wealth to a typical Planetary Governor, with all the resources of a planet, its connection to various agencies, and such, so the figure will get ridiculous.

Here's a thought, before you try to figure out how much money your RT is worth, try to figure out how much some of the things they can buy should cost? Being given something, or pilfering it from an ancient tomb ruin is one thing, but what about the stuff you make Acquisition tests for? Example: Aedan Qel-Drake is a well-to-do braggart/pimp. If he was standing in a room with you, you'd see that he has a BQ inferno pistol, a BQ Eldar power sword, a variant Salamander's Mantle, and a pimped, Tyrant-class cruiser. I'll let you off easy, the pistol and mantle coat are both relics from his ancestor's days, so no one had to roll for them, and the power sword was a gift form an opponent/colleague, so same, but the Exalted Wyrm is a ship his father bought from the Navy, like any ship you might. Any idea what a capable void ship goes for? I don't want to come off a jerk, but so much of this system is left numbers-free, because, like epic characters, at some point, the numbers become irrelevant. If we knew the value of ships, even just in PF, we wouldn't have to do threads on selling captured ships, and how it sort of doesn't work.

For carrying pocket change, mega-rich don't, I agree, but they do carry gold cards, or black ones, if they are truly stupid-rich, and some of those are just "don't worry, it can cover this" cards. While I've never seen an ATM or debit swipe in 40k, I'd think your RT won't go anywhere with no spending money, and they and their entourage will be packing so many crazy guns, no one would think of robbing them. Also, they can go into your local Ship-Mart, and buy a ship, but they aren't going to set down a Massachusetts-sized wad of throne gelt, or some questionable treasure they picked up in an old Yu'Vath ruin, but they are going to pay, and the merchant isn't going to do this while wondering if he's actually going to get paid, or if he just got fleeced. I like to think Rogue Traders have something comparable to a rosette, a miniature marvel of technology that contains the Warrant info, other stuff, and that can be used for "large expenses", the way two corporations might do so, today. The merchant knows the RT is legit, he's going to be paid, and he sells the RT whatever new toy they wanted. It works for my head, anyway. Gene-locking also helps prove you aren't faking it, though, of course, some still will.

Has anyone tried converting profit factor into an actual number of thrones that someone can potentially have sitting around?

I ask because I'd like to have a Rogue Trader fill a wave thunderhawk dropships with thrones and bombard someone in the most opulent way possible.

There is something delightfully decadent about obliterating one's enemies in an entirely inefficient and expensive way just to show you can.

Working off of your desired effect: Assuming the vehicle(s) in question can be purchased, why not have the RT do just that. Purchase them via an Acquisition test, with the "Money Filled" property increasing the vehicle's quality by one step. Presumably the vehicle in question isn't the point of the act, and as such can be made functionally shoddy while still being filled with whatever passes for money in the local system. In this way the RT can actually purchase a buttload of these just to show off what he's capable of to his foes.