NPC Healing - cost per point

[gnfnrf]

Higher level casters don't sell themselves short. Once the 1st level cleric is out, the 5th level cleric does not drop his price. Since higher level PCs have deep reserves of life force, 3 gp-5gp per HP sounds fair accounting for the risk involved with a temples clerics having their spell stacks drained to heal someone.

There's nothing wrong with a 3 to 5 gp cost, except that there's no reason to pay it; it's cheaper to heal from wands oneself. High level casters may charge more than low level casters, but if they price themselves out of the market, they make no money at all. No-one will pay 100 gp for a CLW from a 10th level caster, so why would he charge that? Remember, using the PHB services spellcasting prices for healing requires discretion anyway, since as written, you need to make the request 24 hours in advance.

Even if you don't have anyone who can activate a wand of CLW (no cleric, druid, ranger, or paladin, and nobody with UMD), you can still own one, go to the cleric, and have him activate it when he is out of spells. This probably costs a little extra, but since he isn't expending any resources, it can't be that much.

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gnfnrf

 

[Infiniti2000]

Technically speaking, that doesn't matter. The cost for NPC spellcasting includes multiplying by the NPC caster's level. There is no exception listed for the case where the caster's level provides no benefit.

Actually, technically speaking it does matter. If a 10th-level wizard creates a scroll of magic missile at 9th caster level, it will be priced at 9th caster level. Lopke_Quasath is suggesting that a 6th-level caster need only cast the spell at 5th-level. The interesting part of this is that it could be a humorous RP scenario wherein the unscrupulous NPC cleric tries to get the extra money by "overcharging" by casting at CL 6th for a cure light wounds.

Which actually does make sense. If you hire a top-notch programmer to code your 'Hello World' program, he's going to charge you based on his going rate, not charge you as if he was a neophyte just because a neophyte is capable of coding that program. The high-level cleric's time is just worth more than the low-level cleric's, even if that time is spent casting a CLW that cures 1d8+5 in either case.

The analogy doesn't hold water because we have no mechanism for a top-notch programmer to lower his programming level for the purposes of lower pricing and/or other reasons. That's what is being suggested here, however.

This is why when you make a scroll of dispel magic you should never do so at a higher caster level than 10th.

 

[Rvdvelden]

If you wanted to allow PCs to heal during 'down-time' at a temple and wanted to choose a flat rate per hit point healed instead of rolling all those dice and working it out - how much would be reasonable per point healed?

I was thinking somewhere between 3 and 5gp per point - is that ridiculous?

On the assumption that magic items are freely available and lesser vigor isn't, my calculation would be as following:

Wand of CLW = 750 gp for 50 charges = 15 gp per charge
At 1d8+1 this gives 5 HP on average (rounded down).
Cost on average is 3 gp per HP.

Assuming that they don't have anyone to activate the wand themselves, they need to hire help to do so. For that, the following rule could be applied:

Hireling, trained (3 sp per day): The amount given is the typical daily wage for mercenary warriors, masons, craftsmen, scribes, teamsters, and other trained hirelings. This value represents a minimum wage; many such hirelings require significantly higher pay.

Considering that they don't have to use the services of someone like that the whole day, even if you would raise that minimum price to let's say 1 gp per day, the average price per HP doesn't significantly change from 3 gp per HP.

If you charge them more than 3 gp per HP, they're better of doing it like I described above. Everything they are charged over that has to come from scarce availability of resources (magic items, hirelings) or other restrictions you have determined.

 

[carborundum]

Thanks guys - the problem came up because the party barbarian wants to become a Forsaker and is currently refusing potions and wands from the party. He'll still accept healing from the temple of Tempus if it's absolutely necessary.

What can you do?

 

[Dimwhit]

Thanks guys - the problem came up because the party barbarian wants to become a Forsaker and is currently refusing potions and wands from the party. He'll still accept healing from the temple of Tempus if it's absolutely necessary.

What can you do?

Let him deal with it and pay market price for healing. If there is healing in the party and he's turning it down for a class-related reason, maybe him pay. And tell him not to get hit...

 

[Pyrex]

Thanks guys - the problem came up because the party barbarian wants to become a Forsaker ... What can you do?

What you can do is tweak the Forsaker towards being a useful class. Starting by taking the rediculous cap off the Fast Healing ability and just giving him Fast Healing 1.