Epic Hirelings?

[unseenmage]

How would the Playground adjudicate an epic character who doesn't have Epic Spellcasting hiring other Epic characters to research and cast epic spells?

[Silva Stormrage]

What does the epic character have to offer an epic spellcaster? I mean it can't be money, the epic spellcaster can get all the gold he ever wants.

[137beth]

It depends a lot on how common epic characters are in your setting.
In one of my settings that I've used for epic games, there are infinite planes, with infinitely many gods, epic characters, etc. So if you look hard enough, you can find plenty of epic casters-for-hire. In a world like Eberron, though, epic casters are very rare, and possibly nonexistent outside of Argonesson (IIRC DoE says that the dragons have probably discovered epic magic). So you really first have to decide whether there are even any epic casters the PC can find.

It also depends on whether you are assuming the universe to be self-balancing between classes/CR: i.e., would a 30th level wizard NPC treat a 30th level fighter PC as a credible power? Or would the 30th level wizard NPC view a 30th level fighter as worthless? Partly this depends on how much meta-gaming within the setting occurs. Partly it depends on whether you have done anything to balance classes. Partly it depends on what items and artifacts the fighter in question has. Without house rules, most of a 30th level fighter's power is coming from magic items, which a wizard of the same level can also have. If the fighter has some unique artifacts that can do stuff a wizard can't, the wizard might help in exchange for a service of some sort.

Now, if, on the other hand, you are an epic binder trying to hire an epic healer/bard/homebrew-tier-3-full caster, you are more likely to be able to offer the bard something he/she/it can't get itself. However, once again, the price is probably not gold. It could be a magic item that the hired caster is incapable of crafting (though this may be very hard to find). It could be an artifact. Most likely, though, it will be some sort of service. This can make for a nice plot hook, though you have to make sure there is something to involve the other PCs.