So, I found myself wanting prices for more things than the book gave me.

A player asked me how much it would cost to hire a mechanic to install the mods in his attachments for him, and I came up with This.

Basically, you fill out a few variables, and it calculates what a professional will charge to do the job for you. Allows you to include some inflation on different planets, as well as key in what kind of assistance he has.

His chance of success is worked into the price as well (which I calculated like I would for a real life business).

I intend to use it any time the PCs need to hire an NPC Doctor, or Mechanic or whatever else.

It's not currently suited for dangerous jobs, the variables aren't there to allow them to account for "chance of death" when pricing things. So if the PCs want to hire an assassin, this doesn't currently handle that.

You'll have to download/save a copy if you want to be able to edit the variable slots.

Maybe this will be helpful to other EotE GMs when they want to price a service for their PCs.

Comments are appreciated.

I can't open the file where I'm at, but I did have a dastardly idea from reading your post. You could have two skills for the "professional". Basically, when the players conduct their search (negotiate, knowledge, streetwise, etc) to find the mechanic and don't roll so well, they may find a shady business that over promises what they can actually deliver on. I.e. Charge for a 2y2g service but only provide a 3g service. You can also allow for that retired master who does the od job for fun and they get charged for a 2g service but get 4y.

Just something to mix it up a little bit if you are interested. I like your idea though. My character is shopping for attachements right now while we're between sessions. I don't know if I trust my skills to mod them though with only 3g mechanics.

Hmm.

By my current pricing model, a 3g service costs more than a 2y2g service (it uses the overall dice pool size to determine price) though I could change that fairly easily. (Some math using my service pricing model tells me that a 3g service does have a higher chance of success than a 2y2g service, so I dont think I would want to change that - tell me if I mathed wrong or if there's good reason for me to change it.)

(Though my pricing currently puts a 3g3y service at the same price as a 3g service, so perhaps I should look into that).

One thing I have realized from reading the book. I think your best bet if you're wanting better odds on non-dangerous tasks like medicine or mechanics may be to buy/rent a bunch of cheap droids (or slaves) to help you with the menial task, as if they each spend a maneuver to assist you get 1 boost/droid.

(I may be misunderstanding that, in which case I will need to adjust my pricing model - currently the cheapest way to hire someone for a service is to hire a guy who is good, who has several assistants each giving him a boost die).

Anyways. The spreadsheet I made gives you prices that basically make the mechanic very unlikely to not make a profit. The difference, is the mechanic is going to be less likely to screw up than the player, due to running a shop and having a bunch of assistants or slaves or droids available to help him. The best prices for the player are when the mechanic is guaranteed at least one success, but not much more than that. If you need more successes for some reason, you will want more assistants than that.

I haven't looked over the sheet you made yet, but in regards to the 3g vs 2y2g:

This app/excel sheet another user on the forum made

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3165726/SW%20-%20EotE%20-%20Dice%20Statistics%20v2.xlsx

Gives 3g vs 3p a 47.8% chance of getting at least 1 success, and 2y2g vs. 3p a 69.5% chance. And for a simpler roll it has: 1g vs 1p = 15.9%, 1y vs 1p = 21.2%

Hmm.

By my current pricing model, a 3g service costs more than a 2y2g service (it uses the overall dice pool size to determine price) though I could change that fairly easily. (Some math using my service pricing model tells me that a 3g service does have a higher chance of success than a 2y2g service, so I dont think I would want to change that - tell me if I mathed wrong or if there's good reason for me to change it.)

(Though my pricing currently puts a 3g3y service at the same price as a 3g service, so perhaps I should look into that).

One thing I have realized from reading the book. I think your best bet if you're wanting better odds on non-dangerous tasks like medicine or mechanics may be to buy/rent a bunch of cheap droids (or slaves) to help you with the menial task, as if they each spend a maneuver to assist you get 1 boost/droid.

(I may be misunderstanding that, in which case I will need to adjust my pricing model - currently the cheapest way to hire someone for a service is to hire a guy who is good, who has several assistants each giving him a boost die).

Anyways. The spreadsheet I made gives you prices that basically make the mechanic very unlikely to not make a profit. The difference, is the mechanic is going to be less likely to screw up than the player, due to running a shop and having a bunch of assistants or slaves or droids available to help him. The best prices for the player are when the mechanic is guaranteed at least one success, but not much more than that. If you need more successes for some reason, you will want more assistants than that.

I don't think that multiple Assist maneuvers are going to stack. If allowed, it breaks the system in so many cases that the game might as well just let several actions be automatic successes.

I don't think that multiple Assist maneuvers are going to stack. If allowed, it breaks the system in so many cases that the game might as well just let several actions be automatic successes.

Hmm. ****. Okay.

Is that just you, or is that a common ruling?

I mean, I can adjust it to compensate, but it makes hiring a professional significantly more expensive.

I make software for a living, and I thought it made sense logically that if you divide the work more people it takes less time (though doesn't make the task easier if the team isn't up to the challenge). I thought having it take the same amount of time but increase the chance of success would be comparable, since if you give me 8 hours to do 1/4 the work I would have otherwise have had to do, it would be much easier for me to meet the goal without making any mistakes.

(Though my pricing currently puts a 3g3y service at the same price as a 3g service, so perhaps I should look into that).

Great idea, and great work! I do have to agree with the other here, I think that 2Y2G totally beats out 3G. You also have the chance for 2 Triumphs.

I have allowed my players to have more than one person assisting a couple of times, but not too often. Only so many people can be working on the same computer terminal at a time. And in your case, how many hands can be on that blaster at a time? Sure there are times that that having m re people on a job can help, but usually after two, the others are just standing around talking anyway. So, I recommend the Rule of Two. A Master and an Apprentice. Just to keep things simple.

But anyway, awesome idea, and great job. I can't wait to see version 2.0!

You sort of can have multiple people assist a check (pg. 26) for boost dice, but I'd say you could really only have 1 person helping out with modding an attachment on any normal weapon. I'd say as the task actually allows physical space to have more people, then it allows more. Like trying to hold a guy down? You could probably have the main guy in the center holding him down, and each player giving a boost for each limb they're holding down.

But that doesn't mean you couldn't cram in boost dice for random things like you could do for players. Professional worker who probably has done this before a hundred times? Boost die. Specialized tools for modding? Maybe he's got a manual on hand (similar to the Military Field Manuals in AoR)? Maybe the players are willing to give him some extra time to work on it? Boost dice.

Hmm.

Those are some good suggestions there, Lathrop. I'll add in a box for adding more boost dice other ways.

Are you sure that spreadsheet is right? 2y2g1b vs diff3 only has a 25% chance of failure? My math for the probabilities is all off then. Oh well.

I will correct and update this as I go until it's the accurate depiction of how to price the hiring of individuals that I want it to be.

If you want to hire a bunch of guys to make you a website on the holonet, this should give a reasonable price for how hard that would be for them to do. lol.

I will let you guys know once I have made the updates it needs. They won't all go up tonight; too much to do, and its late. But maybe some time later this weekend I'll put up another update.

Alright one last update for the evening (Link) for those not wanting to scroll up.

It's been tweaked to only allow assist once, and I've corrected the math a bit (I think), but the probability is still off in comparison to that spreadsheet Lathrop posted up. That won't matter much for low difficulty tasks, but for higher difficulty tasks, it means the time estimates (and therefore labour costs) will be off. Still, it's coming along.

I will put some more time into this later.

There was a thread dealing with the probabilities of each die a while ago. I can't find the link though.

Keep it up. I would be very interested in this when you are done tweeking it.