D&D 5E Worldbuilding: NPC spellcasting services

[BoldItalic]

Any village priest can cast a high-level spell for you with a scroll. It might not always work so there might be some wastage of scrolls, but he can do it in principle. You can cost it up that way.

For example, a 1st level cleric with a Wis of 15 (+2) casting Greater Restoration from a scroll will have a 40% chance of success, so he will, on average, need 2.5 scrolls. Fifth-level scrolls are rare so they trade at 250~2500gp. Suppose he charges you the lowest possible price - 2.5 x 250 = 625gp. There's your cost.

You just need a local scroll warehouse with unlimited stocks ...

 

[Tony Vargas]

That is, do any of you know of any good rules subsystem (for any edition) that discusses the area of NPC spellcasting.

Good? Not really. Mostly just costs for a given spell, like any other thing or service you might buy. 3e did, IIRC, have a fairly consistent rule about the gp limit of a community, so if you were in a 'thorp,' no chance of buying anything too expensive, spells included, while if you were in some vast metropolis, you could buy anything.

Specifically to formalize how there can be spellcasting services that doesn't require high-level NPCs,

I suppose there could be a scroll or some non-mobile/limited-use item (like an altar) that a lower-level non-adventuring type can use to evoke the desired spell effects, for a price. Any number of possible rationalizations. Can't think how to 'formalize' something like that, though. Prettymuch just the DM deciding what's in his world.

and why NPC spellcasting services cost money that player characters never seem to pay for their own spells.

Even though D&D spellcasting is a highly renewable resource, it can still be a comparatively scarce one, so casters can demand payment. So you could justify any price list you find/create easily enough.



One consideration, up-front, is whether NPCs have PC classes & levels or if they're just arbitrary collections of stats created by the DM ad hoc. If the latter, a given NPC spellcaster can have a quite limited, specific, or level-inappropriate set of spells that he can cast.

So if you want the local priest to cast Hallow on an item for the PCs, and be available to cast Restoration and Raise Dead for them if needed, he can have those spells, and maybe very few others. He might be 5th level as far as his NPC stat block is concerned, but still able to cast the higher level spells 1/week, say (or just, arbitrarily be 'granted' them now and then when God & the DM feels like it), while casting others daily.

 

[Jester David]

This is a problem that hails to 3e, as that game codified spell casting prices, and assumed a set percentage of the population had class levels. And that percentage was ridiculously high.
(I personally favour a number of adventurers close to the rate of professional athletes, which is something akin to 0.05%)

Not having NPCs follow PC rules help. Certain spells could be special abilities, or once per week, or once per year. Or they could have a physical toll on the caster.

 

[the_redbeard]

Let's say you arrive in a new settlement, where you eventually get a quest to place a holy gemstone in a desecrated temple. The Hallow gem inside will envelop and cleanse...

"Excuse me, did you say Hallow?"

Yes?

"That mean's somebody in town must be a 9th level spellcaster!"

The Player's Handbook is the rules for the player characters. Get out of the 3rd edition mindset: the rules of the GAME are not the physics of the world. NPC casters have their own rules.

 

[CapnZapp]

And those rules are what I'm asking about.

"do what you want" is not such a rule, however.

I want a rule the players can expect the world to follow per default. Even if it's a NPC rule.

I can still make up exceptions, but as I said, I don't want every NPC to be a special snowflake.

You don't have to agree, but then I would respectfully ask you to not post in the thread. I'm not asking for arguments for abandoning my stance; I'm asking for rules suggestions supporting it.

 

[dave2008]

I think some combination of Tony's idea in post #12 and your ideas in post #3. The only one I don't like is taking damage to cast the spell as your PCs may want to use this too, and then you need to think about balancing it

A ritual that takes time, more expensive components, and multiple casters/people is not something that PCs can count on always being available. They may not have the time to wait, you can run out of expensive components (maybe they quest to get more), or there may not be everyone the need available for the casting.

Now, how to make that a codified rule, I'm not sure. But I think that is a good foundation to start with. You just need to figure out the cost of the time, components, and people per level of spell.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks

 

[Fanaelialae]

I would also add some kind of diminishing returns to the grouping rule. Otherwise a cabal of 16 2nd level ritualists can cast 9th level rituals, which seems excessive. Maybe something like the number of acolytes you need after the first doubles each time.

So, assuming you have an unlimited supply of 2nd level acolytes:
1 acolyte gets you + 1
2 more acolytes get you + 2
4 more acolytes get you + 3
8 more acolytes get you + 4
16 more acolytes get you + 5

so on and so forth...

This way, it takes hundreds of low level acolytes to be able to enact a 9th level ritual, which could be a campaign arc unto itself.

 

[CapnZapp]

Though I'm sure this particular wheel have been invented several times before (for d20 and Pathfinder perhaps?)... Any pointers on existing supplements?

 

[Auramancer]

For clerical spellcasting services, I suggest a small tweak to the Cleric's Divine Intervention feature to allow multiple clerics of the same (or perhaps allied) deity to stack their levels to reach a minimum pool of 10 levels to have a chance of intervention. You could also limit this ability to sacred locations. This still puts a 7 day cooldown on the ability and leaves the nature of the intervention to the DM.