Fixing D+D economics

[squirrelloid]

Honestly, i think what Frank and K have done with the Dungeonomicon goes a long way to explaining why D+D economics looks the way it is, and make it work in a wish-driven economy. That said, some of us don't want to make the D+D RAW work, we want it to actually resemble, in some vague way, real economies.

Known Problems:
Craft is b0rk3n
Fabricate
Major/True Creation
Wish
Planar Binding

I welcome pointing out additional problems so they can be addressed. I will also incorporate useful solutions below

Solutions:
Craft
First, ignore everything the SRD says, and i do mean everything. What follows is a overview of what is needed from the craft skill.

Second, realize that all goods production involves 2 sorts of value. Value inherent to the materials, and value added by way of labor. Additionally, goods will be worth marginally more because the seller must make a profit to stay in business.

So the first thing we want to do with crafting is figure out the cost of raw materials. This is a fixed cost that is sunk when materials are purchased. For sufficiently well-defined items (say a standard long sword, which has specified weight and is basically 100% steel for all practical purposes. As long as the bulk price of steel is defined, the materials cost of a longsword is easily computed).

The second thing to do is figure out the time involved in constructing such a thing. This will probably involve craft(type) specific rules based on real world times. For instance, most swords have a single piece that includes the blade and a tapered bit of metal that extends down into the handle. This will be fitted to a guard and handle, and bolted on through the taper. Finally, fine steel wire will be wrapped around the handle. Generally this involves 4 pieces: blade, guard, handle half x2 + steel wire and a bolt of some sort as small bits. Most blacksmiths probably make their own steel wire and bolt. Blades would typically be pounded into shape, a process that shouldnt take more than an hour or two. A simple haft and the handle would be fashioned in a mold a poured, then allowed to cool. Total time to make a basic long sword: about 2 hours including melting the metal, etc... (and about 1 hour per if mass producing them, assuming sufficient molds and materials). Once we know the value of his time, we know the cost to produce of a longsword.

Masterwork items of course take more time and may involve hand-crafted materials.

If we can split tasks into simple, complex, and intricate, we can assign a craft DC to each (10, 15, 20) and allow that professionals probably take 10 (to maintain constant quality), and require one check per item, we have a reasonable basis for a skill system. (Craft is trained only in this model). Especially ornate items may require a check per day or per part, and may justify a higher DC.

The hourly rate for such a person will depend on the best quality of work they can possibly do. So an apprentice blacksmith (Expert 1 with Craft(Blacksmith)) can be assumed to reliably produce simple items of reasonable quality. A journeyman blacksmith (Expert 2 with max ranks) can handle complex items, and a master blacksmith (Expert 7, or lower with a decent int bonus) can create intricate items. These levels set what their labor is generally worth, regardless of what they're making, if they are hired on an hourly basis (since they'd rather be making the best item type they could be) unless they are hired for exceptional work (DCs higher than 20). Eg, a master blacksmith hired to make longswords still commands a master's wages because he'd rather be making fancy wrought iron fences or somesuch. Now, if he's a shop-owner as well, or making things with no commission and selling to shop owners, the goods are obviously worth their cost to produce (material+labor actually used) + a little profit, because otherwise the master blacksmiths get outcompeted by their apprentices - a longsword is only worth a longswords value regardless of who made it if you're a person trying to sell one.

(Obviously the DCs cited above are just the first things that came to mind. Getting a +10 to a Craft is easy: 3 from skill focus, 3 from int, and 4 ranks and you can be a master at 1st level. The numbers probably should be tweaked a bit).

Wish:
Honestly, i'm tempted to just ban it and replace it with a spell that says pay 500xp to cast any lower level spell, or pay 0xp and get +1 inherent to a stat. Because while the genie in a bottle story is a staple of fantasy, it (1) doesnt need to be based on a spell available to PCs, (2) is too easy to abuse anyway, (3) makes for really crappy stories when the story isn't under the control of one story teller. Aladdin is not an adventurer, he's a pawn of some malicious DM who controls everything that happens for the sake of the story. Trying to optimize Aladdin is a exercise in mary sue-ism (eg, wish fulfillment) and not good story-telling.

Fabricate:
While a spell that enhances the productivity of workers may be ok, a spell that totally replaces them is not. I'm not sure how exactly i would want this to manifest itself.

X Creation:
I'm really tempted to put duration limits on all of these and/or have serious xp costs to make them permanent. Allowing a character to only have n creation spells active at a time might also be reasonable. Basically, these should not replace raw material garnering activities or even production activities. Thats just stupid.

Planar Binding:
In addition to the Wish nerf above, banning this spell entirely and replacing it with Planar Ally makes a lot of sense. Allowing the wizard to cajole the alliance through imprisonment might make sense, but allowing a charisma check to force them to do what you want? not cool. The DM should be the ultimate arbiter of whether or not you can gain a particular outsider's services depending on the nature of services sought. No bajillion tons of wished up gold by serial Planar Binding spells.

[Username17]

That said, some of us don't want to make the D+D RAW work, we want it to actually resemble, in some vague way, real economies.

Ouch. That's going to be hard. To do that you'd have to essentially jettison the notion of fixed GP value. If you don't have an "exchange rate" mediated from the top (via wish) to ensure that gems and gold have reasonably fixed vaues - they don't have reasonably fixed values.

And that means that nothing has reasonably fixed values, not even currency. There aren't "nations" or "greenbacks" let alone an established line of credit. If the high end of the economy doesn't have a built-in "30 pounds of gold" unit, there isn't going to be any such units.

And that means... arbitrage! Every item sells for the lower of:

• The amount of metal that a prospective buyer can part with such that he'd rather have the item being sold.
  and
  
• The amount of metal that a prospective buyer could part with such that he'd prefer to do that than risk combat with the seller.

And that's really complex, since it means that by definition people can sell goods for more lumps of bigger metal if they are backed up by an ogre with a battle axe than if they are not.

---

A real pre-modern economy is a lava lamp where most commerce is mediated by stabbing people in the face, and "prices" don't even exist. Every transaction is a barter based on current perceived need.

In short, the modern economy that people are used to, where things have prices that you can look up and compare is more like the Wish Economy of D&D RAW than it is like a historically real economy.

---

But sure, if things are a real economy, here's ho things are going to basically work:

[*] Food is produced by most members of the economy, with surplus being very small and being used to feed the rest of the economy that in turn "produces" something that the fod producers need.
[*] A substantial amount of that production is used by people whose production is "not stabbing people in the face". That is, the Protection Racket is a sizable portion of your entire ecnomy and takes most of the surplus food as well as allowing remainders of food to go to the "workers" and "thinkers" that we think of as being the backbone of the economy.
[*]Every aspect of the economy that we think of when we talk about productive labor in the modern context is relegated to this third and smallest sector. These craftsmen and sages produce tools, weapons, and knowledge which are essentially traded to the extortive class previously mentioned in exchange for being allowed to continue to live and to each other for creature comforts.

And that interacts very oddly with D&D's combat system. See this ancient economy was essentially based on the primacy of tiny men with spears. A properly convincing general could dominate the economy year in and year out because his personal charisma held the army together and the army could put down the (frequent) peasant revolts.

Right. But in D&D that's not what happens at all. The ass kicking class is actually the smallest sector because it's literally like four guys. There aren't enough people in the meaningful combatant category to collect taxes or distribute food. The taxmen of the D&D world by definition bear no resemblance to the taxmen of the historical world and are indistinguishable from the taxmen of the modern world - they don't hold the balance of military might, they are some fvcking goblins that noone gives a damn about who take your money on the grounds that you wouldn't like it if the Mage Lord Ketterack got angry.

---

So D&D really can't be made into an approximation of a real economy. Too much military might is in the hands of too few people. But it can be made into a reasonably consistent fantasy economy.

-Username17

[User3]

The second thing to do is figure out the time involved in constructing such a thing. This will probably involve craft(type) specific rules based on real world times. For instance, most swords have a single piece that includes the blade and a tapered bit of metal that extends down into the handle. This will be fitted to a guard and handle, and bolted on through the taper. Finally, fine steel wire will be wrapped around the handle. Generally this involves 4 pieces: blade, guard, handle half x2 + steel wire and a bolt of some sort as small bits. Most blacksmiths probably make their own steel wire and bolt. Blades would typically be pounded into shape, a process that shouldnt take more than an hour or two. A simple haft and the handle would be fashioned in a mold a poured, then allowed to cool. Total time to make a basic long sword: about 2 hours including melting the metal, etc... (and about 1 hour per if mass producing them, assuming sufficient molds and materials). Once we know the value of his time, we know the cost to produce of a longsword.

Since when do people make their swords out of cast iron? Also, since when does someone just pound out a sword shaped object, do a tiny bit of grinding, and call it a sword in 2 hours? Also, what about removing impurities? If you're trying to go for realism, please have a little handy dandy guide (Or better yet, a Chemistry slave/swordsmith slave) to help. 2 hours for a sword? Takes longer to polish it by that account.

[squirrelloid]

1154946434[/unixtime]]

The second thing to do is figure out the time involved in constructing such a thing. This will probably involve craft(type) specific rules based on real world times. For instance, most swords have a single piece that includes the blade and a tapered bit of metal that extends down into the handle. This will be fitted to a guard and handle, and bolted on through the taper. Finally, fine steel wire will be wrapped around the handle. Generally this involves 4 pieces: blade, guard, handle half x2 + steel wire and a bolt of some sort as small bits. Most blacksmiths probably make their own steel wire and bolt. Blades would typically be pounded into shape, a process that shouldnt take more than an hour or two. A simple haft and the handle would be fashioned in a mold a poured, then allowed to cool. Total time to make a basic long sword: about 2 hours including melting the metal, etc... (and about 1 hour per if mass producing them, assuming sufficient molds and materials). Once we know the value of his time, we know the cost to produce of a longsword.

Since when do people make their swords out of cast iron? Also, since when does someone just pound out a sword shaped object, do a tiny bit of grinding, and call it a sword in 2 hours? Also, what about removing impurities? If you're trying to go for realism, please have a little handy dandy guide (Or better yet, a Chemistry slave/swordsmith slave) to help. 2 hours for a sword? Takes longer to polish it by that account.

I don't mention iron once in that quote, nor do i mention casting of anything except the haft (which is most assuredly cast in a standard sword). Its made out of steel - the whole shebang. Anything beyond that is a masterwork weapon.

I could use more specific terms: the tapered bit is called the tang. The handle can be made as 3 pieces - guard, handle, pommel instead of as described above. (Actually, it can even be made as one piece by combining all three as a single block and inserting the tang and fastening it with 1-2 bolts). If you're outfitting the king's army, you probably want to spend as little time on decorating these as possible, so you're going to cast them - the number of pieces/sword is barely relevant to the time required if you have the molds already. All the time of making a standard sword is tied up in the blade.

The proper term is blacksmith. Weaponsmith and Armorsmith are types of blacksmith.

Impurities are removed in the hammering process - especially since the steel recrystallizes every time its heated and cooled.

The actual hammering process takes less than 2 hours - especially for an experienced blacksmith he can probably hammer out the shape in a matter of minutes. Especially since he wants to achieve the shape with the minimal number of reheatings, and metal is going to cool rapidly in air at the temperatures required. There are other steps - a number of internet guides to forging swords exist - my purpose was not to give a guide to making a sword but to put reasonable bounds on the time to make one. These steps mostly involve heating the sword to various temperatures and cooling it (to ensure particular physical properties are retained or gained). They don't take much time per sword if you are making many swords, and can easily accomodate mass-production techniques. Further, most of the modern guides to creating swords assume our aspiring blacksmith is going to want to create nice swords, not something that would have been handed to a tower guard. So a number of processes detailed would only be done once, and done in the simplest way possible.

A sword is not sold sharpened. Polishing a sword is not a lengthy task, and easily accomplished by an apprentice.

I know an actual swordsmith, i could ask him how long it would take him to make a serviceable weapon.

[Fwib]

1154946434[/unixtime]]

The second thing to do is figure out the time involved in constructing such a thing. This will probably involve craft(type) specific rules based on real world times. For instance, most swords have a single piece that includes the blade and a tapered bit of metal that extends down into the handle. This will be fitted to a guard and handle, and bolted on through the taper. Finally, fine steel wire will be wrapped around the handle. Generally this involves 4 pieces: blade, guard, handle half x2 + steel wire and a bolt of some sort as small bits. Most blacksmiths probably make their own steel wire and bolt. Blades would typically be pounded into shape, a process that shouldnt take more than an hour or two. A simple haft and the handle would be fashioned in a mold a poured, then allowed to cool. Total time to make a basic long sword: about 2 hours including melting the metal, etc... (and about 1 hour per if mass producing them, assuming sufficient molds and materials). Once we know the value of his time, we know the cost to produce of a longsword.

Since when do people make their swords out of cast iron? Also, since when does someone just pound out a sword shaped object, do a tiny bit of grinding, and call it a sword in 2 hours? Also, what about removing impurities? If you're trying to go for realism, please have a little handy dandy guide (Or better yet, a Chemistry slave/swordsmith slave) to help. 2 hours for a sword? Takes longer to polish it by that account.

Sounds like you're talking about a masterwork sword, rather than the 'metal stick with an edge' variety

[edit more] dang! didnt get in there fast enough

[Crissa]

1154946434[/unixtime]]Since when do people make their swords out of cast iron?

Since the 1800s, when casting became precise enough that folded metal was no longer of much use?

Then came rolled metal, which replaced most cast steel...

...But most of your random mooks are going to be holding something which was cast, ground, and tossed in a pile. Assuming they're not using shanks or weapons at all!

-Crissa

[Krowout]

I've been working on a system to address this problem for a while and inspired by this thread just spent the last 2 hours trying to perfect my method into some kind of standard formula.

I give up. I can’t do it. There are just too many factors to take into account.

There are some parts of my method that translate and some parts that don’t but none of it takes all the factors into account, such as the creation time and any XP cost.

What does translate is regional economic health. I assign a number from -2 to +2 reflecting the economy and that determines the supply/demand ratio which affects price from ½ to x2. (Economy modifier)

The other part that translates is the local CR – or availability of persons at level X. So if I say that a region is standard CR 4, that means most casters (median) are going to be 4th level and the higher level required to create an item, the more rare it will be, hence the higher cost if it can be found at all.

Then there is the availability of magic to consider, because in my world, certain caster types are more common or rarer in different regions. In an area with few or no good clerics, a potion of cure light wounds will fetch a handsome price.

The Economy modifier will affect the availability factor because a robust economy will simply import what it needs when local casters cannot generate it locally. (A functional Miners camp is a good example because while they may not have any casters or skilled craftsmen on hand, they can afford to easily import magical goodies as needed…unless they are extremely remote.) This part starts to get fuzzy and subjective so I’ll leave this one alone for now.

Also it must be factored in that an economy is dynamic. Many things will affect it, such as war or drought. For instance, a party defeats a dragon and goes to town with their booty. They WILL disrupt the economy.

When I started my campaign I had modifiers ranging from X5 to X0.25
Due mainly to PC influence the modifiers now range from X10 to X0.5
It's taken over 5 years and 4 players going epic to attain such a drastic change but it's happened.

No one has really exploited the price variance from one region to another by engaging in any significant trade but they certainly could and that too would affect the economies and modifiers if they did enough of it.

My method is for use mainly with respect to magical valuations. I halve the variable when used in relation to non-magical goods/services to reflect the altered economy but less reflection on inflation/deflation due to scarcity. Supply vs. demand and whatnot.

It must also be remembered that merchants are in the business of making money and (mine anyway) will offer half the going rate when buying - or less if they think they can get away with it but full regional price when selling (or more in anticipation of haggling - or of a sucker/desperate individual).

They will often prefer to barter as well. "Oh that'll do you no good. It's no wonder you're selling it. But THIS baby here... this is exactly what you need. I'll let it go in exchange for your item and x # coins."
Ditto the exchange for gems but to a lesser extent.

And finally, they will try to buy/sell in packages so that each specific item's precise cost is lost in the whole.


Anyway, I'm sure that I've garbled most of this but I hope the gist of my dissertation is understood. Multiply book values where goods are harder to come by and where currency becomes easier to obtain (you know, inflation in those places where 8 PCs hang out giving plat for tips to bar wenches and messengers boys or hire &/or import 200 laborers to build a keep). Fractionalize values where higher magic is common and the economy is depressed.

Now that I’m at 2 ½ hours on this project, I have to stop. Likely I’ll re-visit it soon but that’s enough for one night. Maybe I’ll actually get a chance to formalize my formula one of these days.

[RandomCasualty]

There are two levels of economies:

The peasant economy
These guys need mundane crap. Food, clothing, shelter, cows, tools, etc.

The important thing to note about peasants in the economy is that nobody cares about them. Unlike in real economies, peasants don't provide any kind of service. Magic does everything they can do and better. The only real value peasants have is in thier ability to worship or otherwise follow. So some would be lord might think it's kinda cool to have a bunch of serfs working for him. It's not that he needs them like in the real world, they just make him feel better, sort of like the court jester. And that's it.

They're actually better off going pure barter, because none of this stuff is worth anything to the higher levels of economies, and makes them less of a target for bandits. So some orcish farmers may come to beat you up, but adventurers for the most part leave you alone, because you have no gold for them to take. Sure they can steal your favorite shovel, but nobody wants to buy that in their economy. It's just not worth any gold.

The only time you ever want gold is to interact with the adventurer economy (perhaps you got sick and need a cure disease spell). But it really doesn't matter because the only time you ever see gold is if you start adventuring or some adventurer takes pity on you.

Maybe someday you may do something nice for an adventurer, like give him lodging for the night, but he'd prefer you just pay him with cows rather than gold, since nobody is coming to steal his cows, except maybe a hungry wyvern. This is the reason peasants are still around. Unless you're just a sadistic blackguard or a dumb beast, you have no good reason to go slaughtering them. They have absolutely nothing worthwhile to take. And this is their primary defense mechanism.

Taxation, paying for the protection of someone higher up, is probably going to be about giving them a bunch of tools and crap. So you may make them for 100 longswords or something similar. They really don't care much for them, but hey, that's the way the world works.

The Adventurer Economy
This applies to all the high level guys. They can make their own food, shelter and mundane equipment. All they need is magical gear, and lots of it. This means they're on the gold standard, because putting gold in a bowl is the only way to get magic items, aside from stealing someone elses.

You can't sell mundane crap to an adventurer so don't even try. You can bring him 200 apples or 10 coils of rope or whatever and he shakes his head and remarks how nobody needs your garbage.

Mundane crap doesn't even factor into the adventurer economy because it can be easily fabricated. So basically everything that isn't a magic item is going to probably be free. Maybe somewhere some fighter pays a wizard for a masterwork sword, but that'd be fairly rare. More likely he just kills a peasant for it or something.

Basically the way new adventurers get gold is by being paid gold by other adventurers for doing minor jobs that they don't feel like doing. Something trivial like "track the goblins back to their lair". And so they get paid in gold. Now once you join the gold economy, you get a big freakin bullseye painted on you, since now everybody else on this economy is going to want to take you out.


The Fix to D&D economics
Quite simply, everything that isn't magic is free. You only pay gold for magic items or magical materials and that's it.

[Crissa]

Where's a peasant going to get a masterwork sword?

Or an adventurer going to get ten coils of rope? Do you really say to the wizard, 'you'd better get your butt cracking, I need twenty men over that lake come tomorrow'?

-Crissa

[User3]

1155792678[/unixtime]]
The Fix to D&D economics
Quite simply, everything that isn't magic is free. You only pay gold for magic items or magical materials and that's it.

You know, some of us would rather nerf the magic that makes the peasants irrelevant than do what Frank and K did. I agree, we can decide that all productivity in the world is produced by wizards and clerics. That everyone and their brother wants to be a wizard or a cleric. Then the peasants (including fighter types) are just plain useless.

Frankly, i think casters are horribly overpowered, and in addition to their ability to totally own in combat, they should not get to singlehandedly fuck the economy over. The point of this thread is to figure out (1) how to make the basic rules work so that it looks vaguely like a real economy, (2) how to nerf casters so the world will actually look like a real economy rather than just 'i think i'll cast fabricate today'.

[RandomCasualty]

1155869700[/unixtime]]Where's a peasant going to get a masterwork sword?

The old fashioned way. A lot of steel, some tools and a craft check.

Or an adventurer going to get ten coils of rope? Do you really say to the wizard, 'you'd better get your butt cracking, I need twenty men over that lake come tomorrow'?

Basically this is the sort of thing that he ends up just taking from villagers in exchange for protecting them. Lets face it, commoners just wouldn't exist without adventurers, since the latest rapid wyvern would take em out.

Most of the time commoners are going to probably be willing to give out mundane gear to adventurers to keep them happy. If you piss off a high level guy, he's going to pretty much destroy your town and kill you all.

Also, rulers may collect taxes from peasants in the form of equipment (chain shirts, longswords, food, clothing, rope), and then later give it out to lower level adventurers in their employ.

Less scrupulous people, like bandits may simply go on raids to villages to steal stuff (though keep it in mind that the peasants will probably just give them this stuff without a fight, it's not worth dying to protect a coil of rope after all).

[RandomCasualty]

1155919662[/unixtime]]
You know, some of us would rather nerf the magic that makes the peasants irrelevant than do what Frank and K did. I agree, we can decide that all productivity in the world is produced by wizards and clerics. That everyone and their brother wants to be a wizard or a cleric. Then the peasants (including fighter types) are just plain useless.

It's not even about casters being overpowered. You could totally remove fabricate and Wish from the game and you'd still have problems. It has to do with the level system as a whole and would require not just that you nerf casters, but that you nerf all high level characters. So long as a 10th level fighter is cleaving through legions of low level soldiers, you won't have an economy.

The thing is that in D&D, you don't have armies. Numbers are worthless to a handful of quality troops. Once you don't have armies, the entire backbone of the real world economy falls apart. You no longer need a worker class when you only have a small handful of people who act as your army. You no longer need to have to clothe, feed and equip army members, because your adventurers can eat easily. Effectively just being "an army of one" makes adventurers separate, because they take up the food and resources of one man that can do the work of hundreds or thousands. You no longer need tons of farmers to support your economy. In effect, farmers now just support themselves. So why have them around at all? They no longer serve a purpose.

Now what adventurers do need is gold, and lots of it. To make their magical items, you put a lot of gold in a jar, wave your hands about for a few days, and a magic item comes out. That's how magic item creation works. Adventurers seriously could care less about 10 suits of chains shirts, unless they could find a buyer for them to exchange them for gold.

Because the adventurers are the tough guys, all the gold is centralized on them. Of course, adventurers don't commonly want to buy low level merchandise, like mundane chain shirts, so the value of such goods is effectively nil, because you can't readily sell them. Remember that you aren't constantly equipping armies of 1st level guys to defend your kingdom, so the idea of a rapid mass production economy doesn't exist. This really is the economy where one out of every 100 people may buy a car and the car lasts him his entire life. That's effectively what making armor and weapons is like.

Also keep in mind you've got huge bands of ravaging humanoids (orcs, giants, goblins), just looking for treasure and people to steal from. So the latest merchant caravan or village is going to be a target if it has something valuable, and there are enough of these small bands that adventurers can't stop them all, at least not at once.

Peasants just don't have gold (or copper for that matter). If they try to mine it, some maraduing band or taxing king is going to catch their eye and take it from them, either that or they end up using it to pay adventurers to bail their asses out of the fire. It's really better that way for them though, because so long as they don't have gold, they may survive. If someone raids them for basic goods, they may just decide to turn over those goods. They may also get hit by slavers, but this keeps them alive and hopefully some dogooder comes and rescues them before their dead.

The important thing is that peasants don't even exist without adventurers, so the idea of some peasants opening an inn and charging them money to stay there is pretty crazy. Not when the adventurer could wipe out their little village singlehandedly. As peasants, you've got a couple options, either you do whatever the guy says, or you already have a bigger adventurer as lord of your town who is willing to protect you (probably because you already do cool stuff for him).

Keeping peasants for adventurers is kinda like owning a puppy. It really doesn't do anything useful for you, but it can do things that make you happy (like build you castles, or make statues of you).

[Crissa]

If you stuff gold in a jar and wave your hands, why not stuffing chain shirts in a jar and waving your hands?

Where in the rules does it say that it must be actual gold pieces?

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1155937552[/unixtime]]If you stuff gold in a jar and wave your hands, why not stuffing chain shirts in a jar and waving your hands?

Where in the rules does it say that it must be actual gold pieces?

Well it says "gold" And presumably, that actually means gold or it means something you buy with gold.

If it's something you buy with gold, then whatever it is you buy now becomes part of the adventurer economy, and since gold can buy this stuff, gold is also part of the adventurer economy. So if you say that chain shirts can make magic items, then peasants no longer have chain shirts, because the adventurers wouldn't let them keep them. The basic idea is that the peasant economy gets all the crap that the adventurer economy can't use to make magic items. The only reason the peasants survive at all is because they don't have anything of value worth taking, since any 10th level blackguard can go chopping through their village and take whatever he wants at any time.

The only reason he doesn't is because it's a total waste of his time. He can't do anything with 100 shovels, 50 coils of rope and 200 peasant outfits. Nobody is willing to trade magic item components like gold for all that garbage. So there's just no reason for him to start slaughtering the local villages. And this is how peasants survive and once in a while turn out new adventurers.