D&D 5E Cost (in gold pieces) of Spellcasting

[Arcshot]

I'm looking at the cost of spellcasting in the Adventure League Harried in Hillsfar and quite amazed at how cheap spells can be.

Eg Remove Curse is only... 90gp?
Raise Dead... 1250gp?

Comparing to gears, a magnifying glass is already 100gp and a Plate mail 1500gp. What this is telling me is that the godly powers granted by a deity or higher powers/immortals to a mere mortal is cheaper than mundane items, that a terrible curse (eg lycanthropy) removed is not as valuable as a piece of lens, and that a PC's life is cheaper than a metal suit. Of course DMs can adjust the spellcasting cost accordingly in their campaign but this is an interesting observation from the official material. For me, a Remove Curse would worth at least 1500gp (and with a quest) based on the rate of treasure the PCs gathered over the first few levels.

How would you charge for spellcasting service?

 

[discosoc]

Remember to factor in the price for components. Anyway, I've always felt like NPC casters of any significant level should be incredibly rare. Maybe the Bishop of the church is a 2nd level Cleric or something, at most. The biggest challenge would be in finding someone who's high enough "level" to cast the stuff like Raise Dead, rather than simply stopping by for a quick spell casting before hitting the tavern.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Covert to a silver based system, where one SP basically equals a dollar for reference, this is more player friendly and more in line with cost of living (Lifestyle Expenses PHB 157), gold should not be as common as it seems in D&D and with everything listed in GP, gives the impression it is.

That means your Remove Curse is 900 SP and Raise Dead is 12,500 SP.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

The prices are fine. A wizard still has to spend way more money than a fighter even with these prices. Keep in mind that a Fighter only needs to spend these 1500 gp for the Plate Armor once. A wizard has to pay 50 gp per spell he copies. There are spells that use up the ingredients when cast so he has to pay that per cast. There are also multiple spells with a cost, just getting all the ingredients adds up to way more than a plate mail.

From a marketing viewpoint on services, it still makes quite some sense. Remove Curse doesn't even consume any ingredients. It just uses a 3rd-level spell slot. Not many can cast 3rd-level spells, but if those that can would only cast it once per week for 90 gp, they'd already have covered all their lifestyle expense and still have lots of money left.

 

[Azurewraith]

I think as others have said when you think about casting Raise dead where you going to find a cleric that can cast a 5th level spell im to access my info now but isn't that like a 7th level cleric? Ontop of that someone needs to find a 500gp diamond these things wont be lying around on the ground. Then theres the fact that raise dead requires the corpse to be in pretty pristine condition if i where to list a corpse on ebay for use with the raise it would have to be like new

 

[S'mon]

The only issue I have is with the cost of the magnifying glass - if available at all, it should be much cheaper. I tend to treat the 1500gp plate armour as top-of-the-line gothic plate, with it being rare and much sought after, needing tailoring to the individual wearer. Most warriors, even experienced ones, will wear much cheaper armour.
Spell costs look ok but I don't normally have casters charge set rates for services.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I think some tools are so expensive, because otherwise a non-magic class that doesn't use heavy armor (e.g. Rogue) doesn't have much it can spend money on.

 

[Azurewraith]

There is also the fact that magnifying glass will be artisan work given the medieval tech level of most settings

 

[77IM]

You can also find magnifying glasses and plate armor as loot. I'd like to see you search some corpses and turn up a 9th-level cleric. ;}

 

[77IM]

BTW, the formula for these seems to be:

cost for having a spell cast = (spell level)² + (cost of consumed components) + (cost of non-consumed components / 10)​