While the Player Core has straightforward prices for what it costs to hire someone to cast a spell, I’ve always struggled with what it would cost to hire ritual casters.

After all, rituals have rather big differences from ordinary spells:

  • They take a lot longer to cast
  • They usually require multiple casters
  • Unlike with most spells, success is not automatic (and the more casters you need, the more difficult it will be to succeed)

So how do you price hiring NPC ritual casters? It would make the most sense to scale their daily fee depending on their skill bonus, but what is appropriate here?

And do they get paid for “time and material”, or do they only get paid for successfully casting the ritual? The latter is far easier to calculate, while the casters will require a considerable “risk premium” for their service, and they might refuse to even make the attempt if the ritual is particularly difficult.

What are your thoughts on this?

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    7 days ago

    Is there rules for hirelings because I feel like in most cases you would need to hire the casters for the day.

    • Jürgen Hubert@ttrpg.networkOP
      1·
      6 days ago

      The closest I can think of is the “Earn Income” downtime activity, but that’s not exactly the same as what you pay NPCs.

  • TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    3·
    15 days ago

    Am I correct in remembering that ritual casting doesnt require class levels in any spell casting class, only a relevant skill check (arcana, divine, occult, or primal) from each participant? In that case, I think just using the basic chart and going off of spell level (which ritual spells also have IIRC) makes sense.

  • SolarpunkDawg@quokk.auEnglish
    1·
    7 days ago

    Okay, so:

    Page 295 of player core has three additional stipulations that apply here

    • Uncommon spells cost at least 100% more (All rituals are uncommon)
    • Longer spells usually cost 25% more (and I don’t think its unreasonable to say this should cost 50% more, but we’ll stick to RAW)
    • You pay any cost listed in the spell

    I don’t think we need to overcomplicate it too much. Lets say our level 2 party needs a main caster for reincarnate. They will probably have the party be secondary casters, but if you need to pay an additional secondary caster, you probably pay the cost of the spell bur don’t add components again.

    It costs 18 gold (3rd Rank Ritual).

    100% more is 36 gold. An additional 4.5 is 25% of (the original) 18. So 40.5 gold, plus 50gp for materials.

    Lump sum character wealth for a 2nd level character is 30gp, so to a level 2 party, this is an decent piece of change.