Piracy Prices

CI am currently running a pirate campaign. Long story short, my players are tasked with discovering the reason for the sudden dramatic rise in piracy along the sword coast and, if possible, stopping it by pretending to be pirates.

Using the rules from Ghost of Saltmarsh and some real world history, the party can attack ships and the like and sell stolen goods back at base. However, I'm at a loss when it comes to prices as well as what kinds of goods. I went with the common stuff, Tobacco, silks, spices, molasses,, but I want more variety. Since their ship can hold 100 tons, compared to cargo ships that can hold twice that, they'll be dealing with hundreds of pounds of goods.

Since I plan on allowing them to upgrade their ship (buy better cannons, special cannon ammo, hull and sail improvements, special rooms like a workshop or brewery on board, etc). I'm having a hard time finding a balance when it comes to price. since I don't want them to fully upgrade and be capable of bringing down a man o war without taking a scratch.

I was thinking along the lines of the following (in my world 100cp = 1sp, 100sp = 1gp, 100gp = 1pp)
Tobacco - 50sp per pound
Silks - 1.5 gp per pound
Spices - 1 gp per pound
Molasses - 2 per pound (for sugar and Rum making)

I don't have any tangible evidence to back this up, but I would guess the market is controlled by the local crime lord (Gellan Primewater, if you're using Saltmarsh). Only a few people would take the risk of dealing with violent criminals, and whoever deals with those criminals needs enough muscle to ensure the criminals don't turn on them. They probably pay about 10% of the retail cost to the pirates, then turn around and sell the item at about 80% of retail cost on the open market, undermining their competition and still making a profit margin of about 60% (accounting for overhead, insurance, storage, etc).

Well the question is sponsored vs unsponsored piracy.
If you have a letter are marque or similar you can unload at a port of the sponsor and sell at full price.
If you don't sell there and the good are known to be stolen you are often looking at a 7% of nominal value (items like art that can't be changed without destroying value and are highly identifiable- may also cover magic items) to about 12% for well regulated items (probably covers magic items and the like) to about 50-70% for bulk items (lots of looking other way etc)

That said the question becomes what is being traded as a way ask what is worth stealing. Many pirates were rather selective and looked only for good targets to justify costs, fencing issues, and risks.

Spices? Can be very lucrative. Basically drove the Portuguese Empire (called the grocer king as an insult for this) and looking 4 of 5 ships and paying out life insurance Magellan's backers still made a profit from the one ship's cargo of spices.

Dye? Well crushed dried cactus mites were the second most valuable cargo of the Spanish main after bouillon. Hell the whole redcoat's thing in England was to make a market/bragging rights for the dye stolen on the high seas.

Salt....was a major trading commodity, and often carried by ship. Bought almost everywhere (but source is often apparent for skilled buyer-but not transporter)

Precious metals and gems. Gold coins, Silver Bars, Mithril billets, etc....all classic targets.

The crew/passengers. Both as potential slaves (research the Barbary Pirates/Corsairs for a good look at an example sea targeted slave trade) or a ransom to pull from their home nations/family.

The ship itself. If you can take it without too much damage (way easier with a DnD PC party type assault) then selling the ship is a major target. This is amajor driver for stealth, trickery, etc rather than blasting them dead in the water. Will need extra crew to pull off.


Also crew and maintenance costs can be a bear so if you find yourself having given out too much gp just say that they need to drydock their ship for a month and still pay the crew etc. You can use the old (a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money) to your gain here.


Also Wine/Beer etc. Preserved food (Garum, salted veg, salted meat/fish) asphalt, cloth, tin (for making bronze), hides, Ivory, glassware, ceramics ("China") , lumber, would also be useful bulk to fine goods.

And if you are aiming for high value...this is DnD.
Trolls Blood (a base for healing potions), spell components, dragon-egg-shell tableware, blank scolls/paper, poison (i mean thousands per dose-worth more than printer ink) go hog-wild.

Your average peasant is going to make 1sp/day, so 2gp/pound of molasses is a huge investment. And they won't need anti-smoking activists either!

For commodities, as opposed to luxuries, consider using cwt, (hundredweight, or 100 pounds: about the weight of the contents of a full shipping barrel,) as your base unit of measure. Shipping smaller lots isn't worth the effort.

To price, consider what a peasant could pay for a month supply. Mollasses, for example. The peasant pays half his wages for rent, leaving about 12sp to spend. Then he tithes 3sp to his temple leaving 9sp. A pound, (about one pint,) of mollasses would have to last 4-5 months to be worth 1gp! So say a pound sells for 1sp. Average Peasant has limited access to sugar so molasses is necessary, and he may need more than a pint each month!

That makes a cwt of molasses worth 10gp. But wait! The merchant wants 10% profit, as does the vendor, and the transportation costs must be factored in too. So now that cwt of molasses is worth 7gp.

And if the guy buying the molasses knows it is stolen, he might not even offer 10% of the dockside price. That cwt of molasses just dropped to 70sp.

And that's why piracy always fails in the long run. Sure, when nations are shipping vast amounts of gold and silver, pirates can flourish, for a time, but the economics of international trade require many ships operating profitably to build fortunes.

There is a commodity which takes up cargo volume, is expensive to buy, rarely resellable, and absolutely necessary to have on hand at all times: food. More ships have lost their crew or have been taken over by their crew over food than for all other reasons combined.

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Originally Posted by Sk8ter274

the reason for the sudden dramatic rise in piracy along the sword coast

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May I ask what this reason is? Depending on the reason it might not make sense for new pirates to just show up.

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stopping it by pretending to be pirates.

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It sounds very much like they are actually being pirates.

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However, I'm at a loss when it comes to prices as well as what kinds of goods.

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If you want to be thorough, you should have a table of prices. Goods X places. The whole point of shipping is that things are different prices in different places. And people aren't going to ship through pirate infested waters for a low profit margin. If you don't want to be thorough, just write the prices for the base and keep in mind prices at the base may be very different than other places.

If the base is a secret pirate island or something, basic goods like flour, rice/ beans, drinking water, juice, meat, cloth, et cetra might be much much more expensive than normal since the island is separated from legitimate society.

Also in a fantasy setting the crew are going to expect potions of cure disease and cure wounds. If the listed prices aren't too your liking you can make cheaper versions good enough for NPCs.

With trade goods a pirate might be getting selling for much, much less than the final destination's price. The buyer's have all the risks and expenses of a legitimate merchant, plus extra risks from authorities and dealing with criminals.

Some extra goods for fantasy flavor:
Rutile, or Anatase: minerals used to make adamantine. Generally nobody knows how to process them. (IRL titanium ores, processing is much more expensive than the ore and most places can't do it economically)
Depleated Kimberlite: diamond ore with the big diamonds taken out. Someone somewhere else knows how to extract diamond dust from it.
Amber: About 1.5 gp per pound today. Could be justified for a wide variety of vaguely magical things.
Elderwood resin: No idea what it's for, but it sounds fantasy-yl maybe elves export it.
Monster ivory: Fantasy worlds are filled with large creatures with big teeth and tusks that are constantly attacking adventures. Not making it into things would just be wasteful.

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I'm having a hard time finding a balance when it comes to price.

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Figure out about how much money you want them to be able to make, and how many times they'll be able to attack ships. If you want to be more sure/ handle the fact fact that they''ll be able to attack better ships build a spreadsheet. Columns: money (current) money (total), ship quality (maybe many), expenses, gross income, net income.

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Originally Posted by Quizatzhaderac

It sounds very much like they are actually being pirates.

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I think the OP is referring to some sort of Q-Ship scenario.

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Originally Posted by Quizatzhaderac

If you want to be thorough, you should have a table of prices. Goods X places. The whole point of shipping is that things are different prices in different places. And people aren't going to ship through pirate infested waters for a low profit margin. If you don't want to be thorough, just write the prices for the base and keep in mind prices at the base may be very different than other places.

If the base is a secret pirate island or something, basic goods like flour, rice/ beans, drinking water, juice, meat, cloth, et cetra might be much much more expensive than normal since the island is separated from legitimate society.

Also in a fantasy setting the crew are going to expect potions of cure disease and cure wounds. If the listed prices aren't too your liking you can make cheaper versions good enough for NPCs.

With trade goods a pirate might be getting selling for much, much less than the final destination's price. The buyer's have all the risks and expenses of a legitimate merchant, plus extra risks from authorities and dealing with criminals.

Some extra goods for fantasy flavor:
Rutile, or Anatase: minerals used to make adamantine. Generally nobody knows how to process them. (IRL titanium ores, processing is much more expensive than the ore and most places can't do it economically)
Depleated Kimberlite: diamond ore with the big diamonds taken out. Someone somewhere else knows how to extract diamond dust from it.
Amber: About 1.5 gp per pound today. Could be justified for a wide variety of vaguely magical things.
Elderwood resin: No idea what it's for, but it sounds fantasy-yl maybe elves export it.
Monster ivory: Fantasy worlds are filled with large creatures with big teeth and tusks that are constantly attacking adventures. Not making it into things would just be wasteful.

Figure out about how much money you want them to be able to make, and how many times they'll be able to attack ships. If you want to be more sure/ handle the fact fact that they''ll be able to attack better ships build a spreadsheet. Columns: money (current) money (total), ship quality (maybe many), expenses, gross income, net income.

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This looks like a lot of work for a game, man. I really don't want to have to work up a full set of financial statements for my fake businesses.

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Originally Posted by Quizatzhaderac

May I ask what this reason is? Depending on the reason it might not make sense for new pirates to just show up.It sounds very much like they are actually being pirates.

If you want to be thorough, you should have a table of prices. Goods X places. The whole point of shipping is that things are different prices in different places. And people aren't going to ship through pirate infested waters for a low profit margin. If you don't want to be thorough, just write the prices for the base and keep in mind prices at the base may be very different than other places.

If the base is a secret pirate island or something, basic goods like flour, rice/ beans, drinking water, juice, meat, cloth, et cetera might be much much more expensive than normal since the island is separated from legitimate society.

Also in a fantasy setting the crew are going to expect potions of cure disease and cure wounds. If the listed prices aren't too your liking you can make cheaper versions good enough for NPCs.

With trade goods a pirate might be getting selling for much, much less than the final destination's price. The buyer's have all the risks and expenses of a legitimate merchant, plus extra risks from authorities and dealing with criminals.

Some extra goods for fantasy flavor:
Rutile, or Anatase: minerals used to make adamantine. Generally nobody knows how to process them. (IRL titanium ores, processing is much more expensive than the ore and most places can't do it economically)
Depleted Kimberlite: diamond ore with the big diamonds taken out. Someone somewhere else knows how to extract diamond dust from it.
Amber: About 1.5 gp per pound today. Could be justified for a wide variety of vaguely magical things.
Elderwood resin: No idea what it's for, but it sounds fantasy-yl maybe elves export it.
Monster ivory: Fantasy worlds are filled with large creatures with big teeth and tusks that are constantly attacking adventures. Not making it into things would just be wasteful.

Figure out how much money you want them to be able to make, and how many times they'll be able to attack ships. If you want to be more sure/ handle the fact fact that they'll be able to attack better ships build a spreadsheet. Columns: money (current) money (total), ship quality (maybe many), expenses, gross income, net income.

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The sudden rise in piracy is due to the pirate city, located on the back of a giant hermit crab is stuck in a single location for too long and supplies have run low. Authorities have been unable to pursue ships because a group of arch mages have transported the crab to the elemental plane of water with portals disguised as dangerous hazard such as whirlpool the size of mountains to allow the pirates in and out.

In the material plane ,the north has suddenly gotten so cold that the sea has frozen miles from land (3 very ancient white dragon). The south is filled with hordes undead and undead ships and those that enter join the undead (3 Trapped Lich is creating/sending army to discover a way to free him).If all goes well and they live long enough, they'll discover that the dragons are trying to bring Tiamat into the world while the liches are trying to bring Vecna in exchange for hidden knowledge. But when they foil both they will have to defeat a great old one (haven't decided won which yet)

As for prices, I've already determined prices for a handful of goods and the prices for various ship upgrades along with how long it'll take. As for how often they go "pirating" they'll either have to pay a steep bribe for information on potential targets or wander the seas and hope they find one (d100 table) Even if they acquire too much, every month or so they'll need to drop serious coin for ship maintenance, crew wages, etc.

The reason for suddenly showing up as "new pirates" is the city is more or less a city of monsters and welcomes newcomers so long as they're not jerks or racists. All the non human races except for elves, dwarves, gnomes have flocked to this city due to racism against them. Humans are rare and it is usually due to some high crime they've committed. There is also no "nobility" and if you can't pull your weight, it is you're own fault mentality going on. Kinda like a cross of Rapture and columbia from Bioshock series, but more a lot less dystopia and white supremacy. I mean, how would a full blooded orc be received or even accepted as noble in a place like Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep by the old nobility? The monstrous races basically were okay, you do you. We'll be over here. PS **** You!

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Originally Posted by Sk8ter274

The sudden rise in piracy is due to the pirate city, located on the back of a giant hermit crab is stuck in a single location for too long and supplies have run low. Authorities have been unable to pursue ships because a group of arch mages have transported the crab to the elemental plane of water with portals disguised as dangerous hazard such as whirlpool the size of mountains to allow the pirates in and out.

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Wow. That's like saying "I have a magic wand that turns things to gold. I use it to turn bank guards to gold so they can't stop me from stealing thousands of dollars from the teller window."

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Originally Posted by Xuc Xac

Wow. That's like saying "I have a magic wand that turns things to gold. I use it to turn bank guards to gold so they can't stop me from stealing thousands of dollars from the teller window."

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Blackbeard sort of did the same thing. He blockaded an entire town in exchange for medical supplies.

I clearly haven't though it out completely, but now I'm thinking there is something of value inside the crab that the followers of Tiamat and Vecna both want and have blockaded the city in their own way. Rather than risking their lives and deal with it, the arch mages rulers of the city
simply ran away until some group of adventurers deal with it since they always do. Some of the mages have even sent their group of adventurers to investigate which the party might meet. Of course the city requires supplies, so they leave open disguised portals. If those supplies are pirated or bought makes little difference to them. They are of the mind if you can't protect your supplies than you deserve to be robbed from.

Yeah, but why are archmages with access to huge interdimensional gateways bothering to plunder molasses and basic groceries? They should be able to Teleport anywhere in the world and say "Here's a ruby the size of your head. Please give me all the grains, potatoes, and sheep your nation planned to export this year."

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Originally Posted by Xuc Xac

Yeah, but why are archmages with access to huge interdimensional gateways bothering to plunder molasses and basic groceries? They should be able to Teleport anywhere in the world and say "Here's a ruby the size of your head. Please give me all the grains, potatoes, and sheep your nation planned to export this year."

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Because they don't care so long as they're not inconvenienced and they, while won't admit it, they're will to wait till the situation becomes problematic for them or the cities that shunned them beg for help from "mad, monstrous mages that shouldn't be allowed life let alone a place among the nobility "

Mind you this city is gonna be the Atlantis of faerun. Surprisingly advanced in tech and magic, though most of it is quality of life stuff like fridges and radios. They didn't want to give cities the excuse that they were building an army to attack. The armed forces of the city are like ancient Greece. Only the rich can fight because they can afford the equipment and training.

Don't overthink it. You're not running a pirate simulator.

Calculate the amount of gold appropriate to the encounter, and tell them they find that much in goods - you can be a bit more poetic than that, of course, but describe amounts in values rather than weight, and just do enough research to roughly eyeball the size / weight if it becomes absolutely necessary (which it usually won't, at sea.)

When you want to have more wealth than that on a ship, put it in a form that's harder to sell, and make that a plot hook for an adventure - eg. illegal spices or somesuch that have to be smuggled into port.

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Originally Posted by Aquillion

Don't overthink it. You're not running a pirate simulator.

Calculate the amount of gold appropriate to the encounter, and tell them they find that much in goods - you can be a bit more poetic than that, of course, but describe amounts in values rather than weight, and just do enough research to roughly eyeball the size / weight if it becomes absolutely necessary (which it usually won't, at sea.)

When you want to have more wealth than that on a ship, put it in a form that's harder to sell, and make that a plot hook for an adventure - eg. illegal spices or somesuch that have to be smuggled into port.

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Good idea. Didn't consider that. I'll have to increase it a bit. Gotta have some spending money for potions since there's no healer.

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Originally Posted by Sk8ter274

Good idea. Didn't consider that. I'll have to increase it a bit. Gotta have some spending money for potions since there's no healer.

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Then later the adventurers do the calculation and find that they got enough tea to sink 100 plane carriers in their single raft.
At which point they decide to build a giant lead town filled with tea on their raft and call it tea town until the gm check the carrying capacity of the raft at which point people complains for centuries about the wrath of the gods that sunk tea town.