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Post by showerbear on Jun 2, 2016 17:20:14 GMT
So I'm still a relatively inexperienced DM (and had never actually played any tabletop games before this) so I hope I'm making any kind of sense here and that this is even in the correct category:
The world I've created (because why not homebrew an entire world when you've only been DMing for what amounts to a few months) has a sort of classic-comic book advertising element wherein anyone with enough gold can clip the little coupon out and mail-away for a spell "to delight your friends and make you the life of the party". My player's characters are going to be able to drop an as-yet undecided amount of gold into an envelope, check a few boxes to show what types of spells interest them, and in six-to-eight weeks receive a brand new spell in the mail. This, I hope, gives me enough of a window to come up with/locate appropriate spells to give them.
My problem is that I'm not sure how much I should make this service cost. I don't tend to reward them with a lot of gold when they're out adventuring (a practice I've only recently realized hampers them probably needlessly) so I'm curious what you folks tend to do as far as wealth acquisition goes and how much you think a service like this would run. I'd originally considered a tier system with cheaper spells being less fantastic and higher cost spells being really useful. Thoughts? Advice? Thanks in advance.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2016 19:37:49 GMT
The correct answer is whatever amount you feel like charging. However, there's a lot of factors that can inform that feeling. Consider the following questions as you try to arrive at an exact figure:
How common is magic to begin with? Can anyone go to wizard school and learn to make a living selling basic spellcasting services? How much wealth do you want the PCs to have after buying such services? Are the prices for spells going to be negotiable? Can the PCs barter instead? Do they need wealth to purchase other important items still? This last one is important; plate armor is the biggest "normal" expense, but once purchased, there's not a whole lot of other useful adventuring gear to be bought with whatever wealth they do acquire. Unless, of course, you allow for purchasing magic items.
If you're looking for more concrete answers, you can take a cue from Adventurer's League table of spellcasting services.
Cure wounds (1st level) 10 gp Identify 20 gp Lesser restoration 40 gp Prayer of healing (2nd level) 40 gp Remove curse 90 gp Speak with dead 90 gp Divination 210 gp Greater restoration 450 gp Raise dead 1,250 gp
From these figures, you can see that the cost is basically Spell Level^2 x 10 + material component cost (divided by 10 for reusable components with a cost) + Z, where Z is an (apparently) arbitrary amount based on the projected treasure accumulation of players in Adventurer's League. It should be noted that Raise Dead is a major outlier, and for good reason. In AL, players get a free raise dead from their faction until they hit level 5. I look at the cost on this table as redistributing the cost of raise dead at lower levels to higher levels.
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Post by joatmoniac on Jun 2, 2016 21:00:08 GMT
Nevvur's numbers and equations are a fantastic place to start, and possibly finish. Another potential factor in the equation is (T = time) in reference to how long it will take for it to get to the players. I wouldn't want to charge too much so that the process still interests the players. Also, are you looking to have them be fairly low level given the phrase "to delight your friends and make you the life of the party"? You could potentially have tiers that the players could contribute towards, or a subscription. It is a very interesting idea, and I hope it works out and your players love it!
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Post by showerbear on Jun 11, 2016 15:14:56 GMT
Thanks guys, I really appreciate the insight. I think I found a solution that works best for our gamestyle/world which is a static price for spells that's tied directly to the CHARACTER'S level. So a character that's level 3 would pay a flat rate of 75gp and receive a randomly chosen spell (either out of the player's handbook that they wouldn't normally have access to or something homebrewed) that would be considered level 2-4. After debating it with the table we all felt like that seemed like a fair amount to pay into what is essentially a spell casting lottery. I also did mental calculations with regard to how much gold and XP they have the potential to earn in each encounter/situation and made adjustments where needed to ensure that players are always certain to be able to try and purchase a spell once per level (I will likely make further adjustments as they reach higher levels) in order to prevent a glut of spell purchasing.
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