Profession

Epic Path \ Skills \ Profession

• Ability Score Used: Wisdom
• Usable Untrained? No
• Armor Check Penalty Applies? No

You are skilled at a specific job. Like the Knowledge and Perform skills, Profession is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Profession skills, each with its own ranks. A Profession skill represents the ability to cultivate, craft or provide goods or services relevant to the profession, as well as the general knowledge of how to earn a living in that profession.

Even though many of these professions require tremendous endurance, or facile hand or tool work, all professions are Wisdom-based, since they all require a great deal of common sense and learning to achieve greatness, regardless of their physical demands. Even though a blacksmith must be strong and endure heat all day, those things don't make him a great blacksmith. His experience with shaping metal with tools (thus, wisdom) are what make him a great blacksmith.

The most common Profession skills are:

Profession	Description
Alchemist	Crafting of alchemical devices and admixtures. Does not cover alchemical bombs or tinctures (and other class-specific items/tasks).
Architect	Build houses and buildings. Also includes practical knowledge of building styles. See also Mason.
Armorsmith	Crafting of armor and shields.
Artist	Painting, poetry, composition of songs and music, sculpture, etc. When chosen, you must pick a specialty.
Aviator	Piloting of flying vehicles. See also Delver, Drover, and Sailor.
Barrister	Laws, legal defense, researching legal precedents, and swaying of judges and juries.
Blacksmith	Crafting of tools and parts from metal, as well as the crafting of alloys. Does not include armor or weapons.
Bowyer	Crafting of bows, crossbows and other projectile weapons.
Brewer	Crafting of beer, wine and hard liquor.
Butcher	Prepare slain game animals for food. Also removing the pelts (but not treating/tanning them).
Carpenter	Crafting of wooden objects, such as cabinets, tables, chairs, etc. Does not include weapons, armor or buildings.
Cartographer	Surveying and documenting terrain, political borders and recording topographical information. Map-making.
Cobbler	Crafting of shoes and boots, skis and snowshoes as well as other non-humanoid foot/hoof/pod-wear, as long as it's non-metal.
Constable	Knowledge of criminal law, penal codes, and a practical knowledge of criminal practices and thought patterns.
Cook	Preparing tasty, and/or healthy meals from ingredients. Does not include poisons knowledge, or information on gathering ingredients.
Delver	Piloting of submersed vehicles, including submarines or tunneling vehicles. See also Aviator, Drover, and Sailor.
Drover	Piloting of land vehicles, such as chariots, coaches and Crassus engines. See also Aviator, Delver, and Sailor.
Engineer	Crafting, troubleshooting and maintaining machinery. Does not include actual operation of said machinery.
Farmer	Growing crops, tending herd animals, and harvesting. Does not include butchering animals, or selling goods for profit.
Fisherman	Catching fish, either through rod and reel, nets, or other means.
Gambler	Includes knowledge of table games, as well as betting, cheating, and how not to get killed when doing that. Does not include playing sports.
Glass Smith	Crafting of glass items, such as bottles and vials.
Herbalist	Tending of a garden containing non-crop herbs, either for medicinal, recreational, or seasoning purposes.
Innkeeper	Tending of an inn, including the bar, dining, and boarding rooms. Also includes managing a household staff.
Jewelsmith	Crafting of jewelry, including gem cutting, goldsmithing and silversmithing.
Leathersmith	Crafting of leather goods. Does not include the stripping, stretching, tanning and preserving of leather and pelts.
Librarian	Caretaking and indexing of a large collection of books. Includes ability to locate of books within other people's collections.
Locksmith	Crafting of locks. Does not cover picking or disabling of locks.
Mason	Crafting of structures made from brick or stone, such as fireplaces and buildings. See also Architect.
Merchant	Knowledge of running a shop, negotiating with wholesalers, understanding of economics and markets. Does not include haggling.
Miner	Trade of digging for metals and minerals. Includes knowledge of mining hazards, such as gas pockets, cave-ins, etc.
Sailor	Piloting of aquatic surface vehicles, such as sailing ships. See also Aviator, Delver and Drover.
Scholar	Practical knowledge of how to research, how to test theories, and how to discern fact from fiction between contradictory sources.
Scrivener	Translator and transcriber of existing texts. Includes a knowledge of bookmaking, paper making, inks, and handwriting analysis.
Shipwright	Crafting of vehicles, whether flying, burrowing, land-based or aquatic. Does not include operations of said vehicles.
Siege Engineer	Operation of siege weapons, including aiming, maintaining, assembly/disassembly, and movement of siege weapons, as well as managing siege crews,
Soldier	Practical knowledge of being a soldier, including care and maintenance of weapons, armor and kit, as well as military insignias, and military law.
Tailor	Crafting of cloth-based goods, including clothing, tents, etc.
Tanner	Practical knowledge of the stripping, stretching, tanning and preserving of leather and pelts.
Trapper	Practical knowledge of trapping game animals, including finding game trails, watering holes, and setting of snares. Does not include crafting traps.
Trapsmith	Crafting of traps, snares and triggering mechanisms, typically for game hunting, but sometimes for larger, less legal prey. Does not include actually using the traps.
Weaponsmith	Crafting of melee weapons, from daggers to polearms. Does not include crafting of armor or projectile weapons.
Weaver	Crafting of woven goods, such as rugs. Also includes fabrication of wigs.
Woodcutter	Practical knowledge of lumberjacking, including how to chop down trees without getting killed.

Numerous other professions exist, though some are far too dull to be attractive to a player character (e.g., Bookbinder, Clerk, Miller, Porter), too provocative for some campaigns (e.g. Prostitute, Midwife), or are campaign specific (e.g. Redcap, Lamplighter).

Players are free to put ranks into any profession they desire (or multiple professions), granting them insight and knowledge related to that profession, professional contacts, an understanding of common protocols, jargon, laws and business practices pertinent to that profession, etc. Indeed, in addition to making a character's background more colorful, having a profession skill can be highly useful in the right circumstances. In most cases, a relevant profession skill is far more likely to reveal useful information than a more generic skill.

Common Uses

Create a Good

The Profession skill allows you to cultivate, craft or supply a good relevant to your chosen trade (if applicable; some professions provide only services). The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check result, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item's finished price also determines the cost of raw materials.

To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps.

• Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
• Find the item's DC (either from the Goods and Services page, or by asking your GM)
• Pay 1/3 of the item's price for the raw material cost.
• Make an appropriate Profession check representing one week's worth of work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result x the DC equals the price of the item in silver pieces (SP), then you have completed the item. If the result x the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you've completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner. If the result x the DC doesn't equal the price, then it represents the progress you've made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.
• Other Modifiers:
  • Tools: Creating items using a profession skill requires artisan's tools to give the best chance of success. If improvised tools are used, the check is made with a -2 penalty. On the other hand, masterwork artisan's tools provide a +2 circumstance bonus on the check.
  • Spells: A successful Profession check in conjunction with the casting of an appropriate spell enables you to make items with a bonus on the Profession check. This bonus is equal to the spell level of the spell in questions, and depending upon the spell (for example, [Ironwood (Spell)] for wooden items) may also enhance the items directly.
  • Minor Creation: When casting the spell minor creation, you must succeed on an appropriate Profession check to make a complex item.
• Progress by the Day: You can make checks by the day instead of by the week if desired. In this case your progress (check result x DC) should be divided by the number of days in a week.

• Action: Profession checks to make items are made by the day or week (see above).
• Retry? Yes, but if you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week (or day, see above). If you miss by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again.

Locate a Contact

You can use your profession skill to locate other members of your professional community. You must be in a location which is likely to have people who practice your particular profession, but a profession check allows you to find colleagues even if they might be difficult to find for outsiders. The DC of this check is 15, though this can increase significantly if you're looking for a particular individual, such as the guild leader of your profession, or a member of your profession who is also a member of the nobility. Settlement size can also influence the DC. It might be very tough to find the herbalist in a very small community where everyone has multiple jobs, and similarly, it will be very tough to locate a the head of the shipwright guild in a megalopolis, though quite easy to find one random shipwright.

• Action: Typically 1 hour per settlement size. See Settlement Sizes for details.
• Retry? Yes.

Demonstrate Expertise

You can call upon your knowledge of your profession to speak the jargon, comply with the normal protocols or etiquette expected of you, impress your colleagues, and generally be a professional in your field. The DC of this sort of check is generally 10 for casual situations, or 15 if you are speaking with people familiar with your profession. Against other professionals of your field, this is an opposed roll, your profession skill against theirs. If you succeed, you impress your audience with your knowledge, convey the validity of your point of view, etc. A highly successful roll (beat DC by 5 or more) might even change an NPC's attitude towards you, as though you had succeeded on a Diplomacy check. Failing the check by less than 5 means your audience is not swayed by your opinions, but does not change their opinion of your professional competence. Failure by more than 5 means they are dismissive of your ideas, and hold you in lower esteem regarding your competence in this field. Low level characters should consider staying quiet around the masters of their profession, lest they earn a poor reputation that is difficult to shake off later.

• Action: Conversations generally require a few minutes or longer.
• Retry? You can attempt another check 24 hours later, though a particularly poor result from any check may make future checks more difficult, as you are also forced to overcome the bad impression you've made.

Earn a Living

You can earn half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession's daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems.

• Action: A single check generally represents a week of work.
• Retry? Varies. An attempt to use a Profession skill to earn income cannot be retried. You are stuck with whatever weekly wage your check result brought you. Another check may be made after a week to determine a new income for the next period of time. An attempt to accomplish some specific task can usually be retried.

Untrained

Untrained laborers and assistants (that is, characters without any ranks in Profession) earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.

Epic Skill Uses

Note: All uses below require a minimum of 21 Ranks in the skill to use.

Master

(DC 60) - your profession checks can be made in 1 day, instead of 1 week.

Grandmaster

(DC 80) - your profession checks can be made in 1 hour, instead of 1 week.

Maker

(DC 100) - your profession checks can be made in 1 minute, instead of 1 week.

Apex Professional

(DC 140) - in any settlement larger than a large town, you know all of the prominent merchants, collectors and guildmasters.