D&D 5E So how much does a tattoo cost?

[Scott Steven Bell]

I would charge a few copper for a basic tattoo up to a couple thousand for an animated magical tattoo by the renowned artist Sergei Shinybottom!

 

[Jester David]

A silver piece is the wages earned by an untrained labourer after a day of work. So, roughly, minimum wage for 8-hours or so. That's about $50. A gold piece would then have the buying power of $500. Give or take.
That's a ballpark.

A good tattoo here costs $100-400. Of course, the materials and time required are likely increased in quasi-medieval times.
1 gp seems reasonable for a decent tattoo. Some places might do it for 3-5 sp. A really good one might take 5-10 gp.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't play 5th, so it just occurred that me to ask: lupins..are they lycanthropes? If they are, a hot branding iron won't work.

A cold branding silver, on the other hand...

 

[rgoodbb]

With DM permission, one of your party could be proficient in tattooing tools (yes homebrew but not really out of the realms of possibility) and do it for free.

 

[The Glen]

As long as the fur has grown back that's just a....I have that, and I know about that, even if you don't, kind of personal thing that makes players just feel cool about themselves........Now though, if they had that waxed off now....That's a whole new level of constitution/pain endurance/madness......ow-chiwawa! type of thing that should grant a few extra XP I feel...

He didn't get the tat as we moved the adventure along, was one of the cases where the rest of the party wasn't going to wait several days while he healed up at the expense of the adventure's pacing.

 

[the Jester]

I'd say it depends on the campaign's economic assumptions and the culture around tattooing. If tattoos are ubiquitous in the culture, even among the poor, and the economy is such that 1 gp is defined as enough money to feed a peasant for a year, a tattoo is probably several cp to a few gp for an extraordinary piece of work that covers a human's back.

At the other extreme, if tattoos are worn only by the elite and are seen as masterwork art in a booming adventurer-driven economy, it might range from a few dozen gp to thousands.

In my campaign, which is in between the two extremes but far closer to the "1 gp = food for a year" side of things, I'd say a tat would run you anywhere from a few sp to a couple hundred gold.

 

[embee]

Also, keep in mind the time cost. For example, each of my half sleeves took 4 separate 4-hour sessions. These are full color and highly detailed. Each one cost about $4000 as the artist charged $200 an hour, plus I added a tip. This was in a modern setting with modern equipment. In between each session was a month to allow for healing.

So, you are going to pay a master artisan's rates and the tattoo won't exist immediately for masterwork.

For a simple B&W "Sailor Jerry" style tattoo, that's however much the character would spend during a hard night carousing. For a piece of "flash," that's a few coppers.

 

[R_J_K75]

As the old saying goes, "Nothing cost more than a cheap tattoo!"

EDIT: If you give the tattoo artist a picture to tattoo and they say "I'll make it look just like that". Run fast and far away.

 

[Umbran]

Hey! You got a new tattoo! What's it say?
"...I ...prepared ...explosive ...ru*****"

 

[Charlaquin]

PSA: This thread is from 2017.