NPC levels...

[Norm]

In a city where the magistrate or whatever ruler is usually listed as around 9-11th level, what level would you find the NPC clerics being?

If you needed to hire a cleric for a ressurection, they would need to be 11 or so I think. How common is an NPC cleric of that calibur?

Also the DMG page 203 lists a scroll of regeneration as 2275, so is that what the cleric would charge for casting that spell ?
Also if the person seeking regeneration went o a church of his diety what differences would that have if any ?

Thank for your help I always took this stuff for granted before but now I would like to do it right.

- Norm

 

[S'mon]

In a city where the magistrate or whatever ruler is usually listed as around 9-11th level, what level would you find the NPC clerics being?

If you needed to hire a cleric for a ressurection, they would need to be 11 or so I think. How common is an NPC cleric of that calibur?

Also the DMG page 203 lists a scroll of regeneration as 2275, so is that what the cleric would charge for casting that spell ?
Also if the person seeking regeneration went o a church of his diety what differences would that have if any ?

Thank for your help I always took this stuff for granted before but now I would like to do it right.

- Norm

The DMG has useful guidelines on pages 139-140, but it's really up to you as GM. By the DMG, the typical community leader is a warrior of level 2d4+community modifier, while the highest level cleric is level 1d6+community modifier. So if the ruler is 11th level on 2d4+6 (typical for a small city) the highest cleric is typically 9th or 10th.

 

[Norm]

thanks

Those pages have all the info I need except for what NPC's charge for services. (specifically a cleric casting regenerate. Is 2,275 reasonable? Too high? Too low?

Thanks! I didnt find them.

- Norm

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, chapter . . . 7, I think, in the PHB has prices for items and services. A spell is typically (spell level x 10 x caster level) gp, plus 5 gp for each XP the spell costs to cast.

So for a 13th level Cleric casting a 7th level regenerate spell, it'd be at least 910gp, but your GM might not go by the PHB standards, and might not even make available such spells.

Scrolls cost more because they cost XP to make, and can be used by anyone.

 

[SableWyvern]

Since this is in General rather than Rules, I'll comment on my charges for clerical magic.

Firstly, I find the idea of set costs for clerical spells silly. The DMG alludes to the potential for more variation in clerical spell casting costs, but doesn't give much in the way of hard guidelines. I use the following broad guidelines myself.

1. Potions and scrolls offering 1st - 3rd level spells are generally available at base costs. These are not subject to much abuse, and would only be of interest to people who can afford them.

2. On the spot healing (cures et al) would generally be available from good and neutral clerics to anyone who was not obviously opposed to their religion. The set prices would apply to those who can obviously afford it, but the poor would often get free or open-donation healing. I once had a Rolemaster PC who desperately needed some poisoning healed. The clerics were quite considerate, but charged a substantial (but fair) sum to analyse the damage, because the party was obviosly wealthy. Quickly discovering the poisoning was not lethal, and the damage would heal naturally in a few days, they gladly passed this information on and moved on to aid the more needy. The PC, however, urgently required that the damage he had suffered be healed, and (somewhat rudely) demanded further aid. Another fair but large price was requested, which the party could not pay, per se. Claiming poverty, the clerics looked on dubiously at a party kitted out which gear worth 100s of times what was being asked for for the healing. Eventually, on party member had to sell some magical arrows to get the cash.

If, OTOH, the party had been obviously poor, I would have had the clerics cast their intial spell for free, or at least request only a token sum that could obviously be afforded. They could not have turned away a potential dying person who had come for aid. The second spell would have required a real payment, even from the poor, unless it could be shown that the delay of natural healing would cause extreme hardship.

3. For powerful magic that relates to more than simply helping the poor (raising, mega-buffing etc...), the group must show that their beliefs and intents are compatible with the religion. Payment, at least for expensive components, will probably be required, although not necessarily before the spell is cast. Some kind of quest, task or oath is probably also required. This not only adds flavour, but a quest is far more likely to actually cost the party something. 900 odd gp for an occasional raise dead is nothing to most parties of level 5+. Requiring them to make a pilgrimage to a long lost temple and retrieve scrap of holy cloth is likely to cost resources, time etc...

4. For raising and the like (a fairly rare thing IMC), a cleric will generally not perform one immediately. Instead, he will spend his next prayer period requesting the appropriate spell only if his god believes the character worthy of raising. IOW, it is fully in the deity's hands as to whether the spell is cast. This process may not be necessary, where the PCs are well known to the caster and the spell is already memorised by the caseter.

Hope this gives you some ideas at least.

 

[Norm]

thanks

Thanks alot Sable!
That is a very good way of handling things that I think I will adopt to my game. Thank you very much.

Thanks Ranger, I appreciate those tables

 

[SableWyvern]

Glad to be of assistance.

 

[Nik_the_Pig]

Can anyone say Miracle Max??

Was re-watching one of my all time favourite movies, The Princess Bride, the other day and had it fresh in my mind on reading this thread. Point being... the cleric spell Speak with Dead.

I'm sure most of you know the sceen as well as I but as a refresher: Indigo and Fezic (excuse miss-spelling of names) take their dead companion, The Man In Black to the local cleric, Miracle Max. Indigo & Fezic can't afford the resurrection (only have 60gp) but Miracle Max agrees to do it for so little if it is for a worthy cause. Indigo un-successfully bull$hit$ Miracle Max but he then casts Speak with Dead (good old bellows clamps!) and The Man In Black crys "True Love". Miracle Max trys to back out of the deal and his wife gets the poos with him. He finally agrees once he finds out his own vengance would be satisfied by helping them. Hell, he even throws a Holoclaust Cloak into the deal.

And so.... Clerics may well do things cheap (or free) if it suits the wishes of their God/their moral code (ie: a worthy cause) or their own desires (humiliating Prince Humperdink).

 

[JoeGKushner]

The real question here isn't about NPC levels as the title might indicate, but how much should NPC's charge for healing.

This is complicated by a few factors.

The first is are the characters members of the church? Are they members of an allied church? For exmaple, Torm and Tyr in the Forgotten Realms work together with that old Suffering God to form a trinity of deities.

If the players aren't members of the church, do they belong to an opposing church?

Do the clerics use healing and spellcasting in general as a business or do they rely on the religious aspect of that to handle itself? If it is a business, some churchs might be less honorable than others, charging lower prices to anyone who will pay their blood money fee.

Are the players sociable and friendly? Do they make effort to involve the church in events outside of healing? Do they say, throw a banquete in the church's honor and mention their help in the past and the help they'll likely need from them in the future in front of the important people?

Lastly, how much do you want it to cost? That's always the end result. If a plague or something is sweeping the land and the clerics are swamped with duty casting so to speak, healing for frivolous uses is going to go way down and costs go way up.

 

[Cbas10]

In a city where the magistrate or whatever ruler is usually listed as around 9-11th level, what level would you find the NPC clerics being?

I'm no slave to the rules, but I have found that the guidelines in the DMG, Chapter 5, to be fair and balanced. So, we will talk about averages, here. There are always exceptions to the rule. For a town to have a mayor being an Aristocrat level 10 or so, the town would probably be a small or large city. Let's go with a large city. In this case, you will probably have 3 clerics of 10th to 15th level, a half-dozen clerics of 5th to 7th levels, and a myriad of lower-level clerics. Again, based on your campaign and local conditions, numbers of types and levels of NPCs will probably vary.

If you needed to hire a cleric for a ressurection, they would need to be 11 or so I think. How common is an NPC cleric of that calibur?

Actually, a cleric needs to be 13th level to cast Resurrection; however, they only need to be 9th level to cast Raise Dead. Lets talk about game stats: Raise Dead has a material component of 5,000gp and Resurrection has one that costs 10,000gp. Add that to the suggested PHB prices of (Caster Level times Level of the spell times 10). These costs are subjective, as other posts have mentioned. Do what you will with them. The most interesting thing in the PHB to note is the fact that it says that if a spell costs more than 3,000gp to cast, it is generally not available for player characters to hire spellcasters for - except by DM judgement.

This brings me to an "in-game" aspect to think about. Let's say (using my examples above), you want to get your fighter companion raised from the dead (the level 5 Raise Dead). In this city, there are 3 people who can do this. Chances are, unless, according to the setting, there is one single dominant religion, a city of this size would have various faiths (at least 3!) represented. Larger cities would have a mix of cultures and a demand for various temples of worship. Without even getting into the "Does your character worship the same God" issue, these 3 clerics would undoubtedly be high-ranking members of their respective temples. Are these clerics always in the city? How often do they travel? Just how would your characters get an audience with them? Do these churches have so much money that they can routinely keep massive crushed diamonds on hand? Are all three of them even Good? Are one or two of them unknown to the public in general (such as a Cleric of Nerull in the City of Greyhawk)? After these questions have been considered, THEN we can get into not only issues of faith and whether or not a character is "worthy," but also into issues of politics, greed, and related topics.

Raising the dead is a REALLY big deal, in my opinion. It is far more than simply "dropping another quarter into the arcade game."