Why do clerics charge for spells?

[Shemeska]

If you don't trust the guys who are going to save the world for you, you got big problems.

How do you know to trust them though? The PCs don't exist in a vacuum, and someone who might request those PCs to do a special task, a save the world thing, they might also ask a hundred other people to do the same.

 

[Seravin]

If you don't trust the guys who are going to save the world for you, you got big problems.

On the whole I agree with you, but If the world needs saving then you already have big problems to begin with - and you're probably trying to figure out who has the best chances to succeed and who to trust. It's all situational I guess. pax.

Back on track, I throw in with the crowd that says not all churches are equally profitable.
I like Elder-Basilisk's suggestion to treat the money as a representation of the appropriate sacrifice. Magic item creation is already like that, so there's precedent.

 

[Shemeska]

There is a game balance reason that clerics charge adventurers for spell-casting, but is there a rational justification?

Clerics are presumably paid a stipend or salary by the church, which is supported from tithes, grants by the government, sale of crafts (e.g., by monastic orders), and possibly fines and confiscations in some settings.

The cost of casting a spell in most cases is precisely zero. Divine power is provided in return for worship and promotion of a deities cause. Obviously, it makes sense to charge for expensive material components or XP costs. Other than that, why wouldn't a priest expend healing for followers at will? The source of that power is effectively infinite.

On top of what has already been mentioned by others here in this thread, I had a few ideas to toss in.

Given the polytheistic nature of the world the PCs are walking around in most often, various faiths are in competition for the worship and support of their shared flock. Generally a person will devote themselves, and their worship and money, to one deity in particular while also giving worship to praise other deities, and worship to placate others. Whichever patron deity they select is the one that ultimately gets to claim their petitioner whenthey die. Any church out there is going to want its worshippers to choose their deity as their patron, and they'll likewise charge less, perhaps only a nominal fee or even nothing, to provide spells that don't use expensive componants to worshippers who take their deity as a patron. People who worship that deity, but don't have it as a patron, have to poney up some money to take advantage of those church provided services, and likely even more so if they have as a patron a deity of an ideologically or alignment opposed deity. A Vecnite walking into a temple of Pelor is going to get cleaned out for a healing spell if they're even granted it in the first place.

FR actually had some rules involving the cost of, and availability of, clerical spells to worshippers taking a deity as a patron, versus worshippers of aligned faiths, and worshippers of none or opposed faiths. It was pretty workable and realistic for modeling the costs of clerical spells in a polytheistic world.

Of course, if you run a more one dimensional 'Heroes enter the Dungeon and kill things and take their stuff before going to the next Dungeon because they are the Heroes' game you can gloss over it all and assume clerics anywhere will drop what they're doing to specifically go out of their way to heal your PCs.

 

[Altalazar]

PCs are rich. They can afford to pay, and thus they subsidize the free healing of the poor.

Of course, to really model this properly, you should have low level PCs get free healing from good churches when they visit, and then they have to pay when they get higher level and have money (and much more powerful potential healing required).

Truly, there isn't even anything particularly unbalancing about giving out free healing at churches to PCs - after all, they can't take the church with them into the dungeon. If they have time to go all the way back to time, they have time to heal naturally anyway.

 

[LostSoul]

Look at it this way: PCs are rich and powerful. They don't have to pay anymore. Retail healing is for peasants.

How about this (kinda plot-hooky):

Good temples that aren't dealing with the PCs ask for money so they can pay back the community. The fee is based on how much you can afford and how much you need the service. (No Quests to make that girl go to prom with you!) They take that money and spread it around town. Nice and progressive. This might mean that the PCs get some freebies from the temple at low-levels, or when things are dire. It also means that spell costs will scale with level.

Neutral temples are in it for themselves, so they take the money and help themselves out. It's a service, supply and demand, the whole thing.

Now we come to Evil temples. You'd think that Evil temples would be the worst of the lot. But no, they are the nicest guys around (for the most part). When they operate in the "Good" lands of humans, halflings, etc. they are all smiles and kisses. They spread around as much magic as they can, all of it for free.

Why? Because it gets them in with the population. The peasants see no difference between the Good temple and the Evil one. There isn't really any difference in how they go about things. Except every now and then, when they are delivering their sermons, they slip in some bad advice that they know people will take in the wrong way. It's all meant to make people go Evil over time. First it's things like, "Why not cheat on your wife? You're only human after all; to repress your urges is wrong." Then they ramp it up to the real Evil stuff.

They also do a lot of things that the Good temple wouldn't think about. Stuff like the Quest spell to make the girl fall in love with you. (That would be one sick spell. And if the guy complains - I didn't want a slave! - you just make sure that if he spills the beans everyone in town is going to know what he did. And that you cast a Good spell that was corrupted by his evil intentions. Sucker.)

So give this "new" religion a few years of moving slowly, evil guys on the frontiers all worked up to increase the pressure on the Good lands (so they'll be more tempted to take Evil actions because of need), and soon you'll have your own little empire.

Go Vecna!

 

[Drowbane]

There is a game balance reason that clerics charge adventurers for spell-casting, but is there a rational justification?

Clerics are presumably paid a stipend or salary by the church, which is supported from tithes, grants by the government, sale of crafts (e.g., by monastic orders), and possibly fines and confiscations in some settings.

The cost of casting a spell in most cases is precisely zero.

You said it yourself man.

Instead of relying on local government for grants, D&D Churchs can make thier own way by selling Divine "favors". Divine Magic items, Divine Spells cast as desired. And tithes.

As you said "the cost of casting a spell in most cases is precisely zero"... so anything made from selling a spell is 100% Profit (in most cases).

Also, divine spells are "miracles" from the gods, passed through thier clerics. Arguably, it would be blasphemy for clerics to just toss around miracles all day. If the gods hadn't meant for people to suffer from diseases and poisons and die from thier wounds... those conditions wouldn't exist >.<

On the other hand... I'm sure there are some Good (Exalted?) Clerics who help everybody they can... in the name of thier god. While Evil, Neutral, and even Chaotic clerics would be more concerned about making some sort of substantial profit.

 

[Mark Chance]

To make money.

 

[Henrix]

The cost of casting a spell in most cases is precisely zero. Divine power is provided in return for worship and promotion of a deities cause.

I wish more people I deal with in real life shared that point of view. As long as I did not have to.

"Of course I'll code that program for free. After all, it'll only take me half an hour, and time's free, right? Pay for my education? Why, I've already done that, and got the xp!"

 

[DragonLancer]

IRL, if a police officer or firefighter gets injured, on the job or off, they have to pay for medical treatment. Okay, okay, their insurance pays, but the point is the hospital doesn't offer freebies. They even charge their employees.

Now, if the party is undertaking missions on behalf of the church, acting as the church's agents, then I could see getting support in the form of spellcasting, and maybe some potions or scrolls. But just "hey, we're the good guys!" doesn't cut it.

Do they expect free meals at the tavern? Free horses from the king?

Oh I agree. They do end up paying but if they are working directly for that temple I am inclined to grant a 10% off for their services.

They do pay but they grumble about it.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

I wish more people I deal with in real life shared that point of view. As long as I did not have to.

"Of course I'll code that program for free. After all, it'll only take me half an hour, and time's free, right? Pay for my education? Why, I've already done that, and got the xp!"

WOW! You sound just like Richard Stallman! Software is free!