Cheap mounts, for rent, magical

[Zhure]

I've been toying with the idea of a large scale city-wide system wherein they rent mounts out to prospective citizens for a nominal fee. Pay the fee, get a horse and tack for a day. No deposit, no return.

Ideally this gets started by some Wizard with craft Wand and the Mount spell. He crafts the wand at 4th level, giving it an 8 hour duration, and a cost of 3000 gp per wand, or 60 gp per charge market price. He can bring this down to 45 gp per charge if he takes the Magical Artisan Feat. (Obviously in a city of large size multiple wizards would be employed creating these wands, but any old apprentice could collect the fee and crank out the horses.)

Is it worth it for the citizenry to spend 45 gp for a day's rental, vs actually purchasing a riding horse and saddle (85 gp) to own it for the beasts lifetime?

The city could offset the cost somewhat, by reducing street cleanup costs and feed costs.

I guess my final question: Is this a viable business practice and how could it be improved?

Greg

 

[Garmorn]

Yes, for a modern example look at the american rental car busines.

Renting for short period is cheaper if land is very costly (common in cities), you are there for short periods and arrive/depat by ship, your own horse is injured/sick/or other wise unavailble. There are other reasons that are quite common.

A cheaper method for a long time merchant would be to use a wondours item with 5/day useage. Over the long haul his cost would be lower, but the intail out lay would be very high.

 

[yennico]

It sounds like a good idea, but who can really use a wand ?
I do not have my PHB and DMG handy but IIRC wands can only be used by persons with the spell on their spell lists or with the skill use magic device ..

Just my 2 cents
yennico

 

[Archer]

This scenario would likely take place in a high magic world with permanent teleportation circles between the major cities.

A low level sorceror (6th) could make a good living making 14 horses per day that last 12 hours or with extend feat 24 and 36 hr horses would also be available. Even charging a mere 25 gc per horse and not using any xp on magic items he'd be making 350 gc/day or 125,000 gc per year.

The wondrous items that create five 8 hr horses per day go for 8,000 gc each so over the course of a year this business could grow exponentially. This is much cheaper and efficient than your wizards with wands scenario. You could even price the horses at 10 gc per day and it would still be a good economic model.

You can force your magical horse until it "dies" from exhaustion because it will disappear anyway so you can make better time than with a regular horse.

Why ride when you can fly? Because that same sorceror can only use 3 fly spells per day and flight has a much shorter duration.

Why ride when you can teleport? Because the teleporter has to know the location and there is always a risk unless the higher level teleport without error is used.

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

Would it work? The "Mount" description states: "The character summons a light horse or a pony (the character's choice) to serve the character as a mount"

Can another person use said mount?

Maitre D

 

[Zhure]

Would it work? The "Mount" description states: "The character summons a light horse or a pony (the character's choice) to serve the character as a mount"

Can another person use said mount?

Maitre D

I believe that's just flavor text, and by "serving the character" it means "willingly does the caster's bidding.
Greg