Selling spells = broken?

[aboyd]

So my gaming group has split. The cleric has returned to the base city, while the rest of the party continued their nefarious quest. The cleric will have down time of about 2 weeks in game while he waits for the party to return.

The player of the cleric has asked that he sell his spells in the city while waiting. Because he has juuuuust qualified for the Leadership feat, he now has a 2nd spellcaster with him. Between the two of them, this player calculates that they will bring in about 8000 gold pieces while waiting.

My problem is that earning 8000 gold in two weeks is insanely more than anything else provides -- crafting, professions, etc. In addition, that number assumes that all spells are sold and at full price. And in addition again, that number is actually more than the rest of the adventuring party will get, and they're risking their necks!

The party consists of 5th and 6th level characters. If I let this stand, I can easily imagine the group saying, "To hell with adventuring, we all sit around casting spells. Fast forward us 5 years, and we'll pick back up at the point where everyone has 1,000,000 gold. OK? Thanks!"

Please explain your thoughts. Has any player ever done this in your campaign? Does it make sense? Did you have any house rules to reign it in?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

My thoughts are there has to be a demand for his supply. Maybe there's a few people who want a certain spell over that time, but it's not like he automatically finds buyers for every single slot he's got. And there will likely be a day's delay in satisfying their needs, since it's unlikely he'll happen to have the spell they need prepared that day. Then there's competition -- a good church willing to give free spellcasting aid to the destitute, other casters who happen to have that spell prepared that day (why wait till tomorrow if you don't have to?), etc... He can make a little money from it, but it won't be that much, and you have control over how much he earns.

It's not exactly the same, but it reminds me of the note in the PH that wizards typically charge a fee just to look at their spellbooks so as to copy down the text. It's a much smaller fee, only like 50 gp x spell level or something, but just as important to consider how you'd handle that. Myself, I'd certainly allow a PC wizard to barter his spells know for some of another wizard, so they each learn some new stuff. I've been in PC communitis where there were many players with several PCs all living and working in the same city. We allowed PC wizards to go to other PC wizards and pay them the fee to learn from the books they had. In fact, that was the preferred way of handling if a spell was available to be copied.

 

[Darklone]

I´d half that number at least. Since people come to you and want you to cast a spell that you don´t have prepared. So they have to wait one day.

Then what about bartering? That may easily reduce the price by another 25%.

Then I´d roll for every day how many customers come. And what spells they want (animate dead on the local cemetery perhaps?). I smell plot hooks.

 

[Shin Okada]

Basically, I simply do not allow PCs to sell spells. Or rather, I do not allow PCs to earn income outside adventure. That is not the way expected in 3.Xe system. Also, the rule does not guarantee that PCs can sell their spells (or earn money through activities other than selling their roots).

No matter what the way is, I will just tell the player that "You will eventually find some customer, but in the pace that the income and dispense are balanced out. By the way, are you proposing me to let your PC abondon adventuring life and settle down as a background NPC?"

Also, as soon as some player intend to do such activity, I will simply start the next adventure ASAP. By, say, threatening the future of the kingdom or maybe entire material plane.

Ok, onto much essential issue.

Does your entire play group REALLY want to play a merchandize simulation? If so, involving such elements in your game could be OK.

If other members of your play group do not want to play such a game, tell the player of the Cleric that other members do not enjoy that kind of game.

Personally, I'd rather play Traveller when I am in the mood of playing a merchant.

 

[EroGaki]

Basically, I simply do not allow PCs to sell spells. Or rather, I do not allow PCs to earn income outside adventure. That is not the way expected in 3.Xe system. Also, the rule does not guarantee that PCs can sell their spells (or earn money through activities other than selling their roots).

No matter what the way is, I will just tell the player that "You will eventually find some customer, but in the pace that the income and dispense are balanced out. By the way, are you proposing me to let your PC abondon adventuring life and settle down as a background NPC?"

Also, as soon as some player intend to do such activity, I will simply start the next adventure ASAP. By, say, threatening the future of the kingdom or maybe entire material plane.

Ok, onto much essential issue.

Does your entire play group REALLY want to play a merchandize simulation? If so, involving such elements in your game could be OK.

If other members of your play group do not want to play such a game, tell the player of the Cleric that other members do not enjoy that kind of game.

Personally, I'd rather play Traveller when I am in the mood of playing a merchant.

I don't think a PC selling his spells is that big of a deal; I personally don't have a problem with a PC profiting off of his abilities, as long as it is a side thing. Obviously, if he decided to set up a shop and do this exclusively, then he would soon become an NPC. But never allowing it seems a bit much, and it also doesn't make much sense, IMO.

 

[Elethiomel]

Does your entire play group REALLY want to play a merchandize simulation? If so, involving such elements in your game could be OK.

If other members of your play group do not want to play such a game, tell the player of the Cleric that other members do not enjoy that kind of game.

The OP stated that this was during a downtime that the cleric was spending away from the group. I don't see how you get from that statement to the bit I quoted above.

I agree with what others have posted: Let him earn some downtime money, but not for every slot every day. People aren't necessarily going to know to come to him even if they do have a need for a spell, he probably won't have the right spells prepared, and the demand for such spells in the first place is entirely in the GM's hands. Selling spells is tremendously easy for the GM to control through supply/demand.

 

[SSuser]

What type of town is it, including government? What size is the town? How many churches are in the town? Are there laws about opening up a fly by night magic shop? What are the taxes that he would have to pay, cost for opening a shop, cost of advertising? Why would a citizen choose his services over the tried and tested services of a trusted church? A percentage (10%-25%) of the money earned should be donated to his church.

I'm sure the other major churches would be very concerned that some unaffiliated cleric is taking away some of there business.

 

[SSuser]

You could have some fun. Set him up by one of the churches loosing out of all that money. Have a cleric from an evil church (cult or mainstream) seek his help. The evil cleric brings him to a room at an inn and says "my friend needs your healing, I'll pay any fee". Have the patient under a blanket tossing turning and moaning in pain. Your party's cleric heals him and the patient dies.

It was of course a very fresh zombie. From there he could be arrested, kicked out of town, at the very least never trusted with healing townsfolk again.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

There are other ways to legitimitely bunk his profits.

Like I said, of the few people who actually need magical aid, can afford magical aid, and don't go to another caster in the city/town for whatever reason, they still would need to be aware of his presence. Especially since he's just rolling in for a little while and isn't an "established name brand" (I'm taking this too far, aren't I? ), he'll need to spend some $$ on advertising to get the word out.

Also...does the city/town just allow anyone to go around selling magical services to whoever? Seems like the kind of thing that requires licensing to me. And licenses typically have fees, let alone take time to get...

As for his cohort...I don't see why the cohort would just fork over all HIS hard-earned money to his superior. He'll follow him into danger, and support the PC's needs...but he's not a slave to be used for labor.

Hope my suggestions don't seem too much of a kill-joy. But there really should be a reason other adventuring casters don't typically do this sort of thing all the time.

 

[Vegepygmy]

My problem is that earning 8000 gold in two weeks is insanely more than anything else provides -- crafting, professions, etc. In addition, that number assumes that all spells are sold and at full price.

This is, in fact, exactly what the Profession skill is for. How good is he at finding customers to buy his available spells? How good is he at predicting what spells people will need, preparing said spells, and getting to them before the other professional spellcasters do? Etc., etc.

Tell him he can make a Profession (spellcaster) check: one-half the result is the number of gp he earns in a week (or 1 sp/day if he has no ranks and thus no idea what he's doing). In other words, he can earn enough to feed, clothe, and house himself, but not get rich. Which is how it must be, or else all the other professional spellcasters in the world would be Rockefellers, too.

EDIT: Think about it this way. A longsword costs 15 gp on the open market. A character with Craft (weaponsmithing) +5 can make 1.5 longswords a week at a cost of 5 gp each in raw materials. Does that mean the character earns (1.5 x 15) - (1.5 x 5) = 15 gp per week? No. The Craft skill description tells us that he makes only one-half his check result (or 7.5 gp) per week, because his ability to pump out longswords isn't the only thing that affects how much money he can earn.

Same thing for spellcasting. Just because a spell costs X gp on the open market, and the caster can pump out Y spells per day, that doesn't mean the caster can earn X * Y gp per day. There are a lot of other factors involved, not the least of which is there are lots of other people who can cast spells, too.