WBL giving you "thralls" and the Leadership feat

[Spore]

I had a few sessions in the last months that strongly showed how much influence money has in Pathfinder (and almost all other systems). Seeing as how PC incomes are VASTLY superior to those of other fields of work you can afford and pay a fairly huge amount of unskilled (or even skilled) servants.

One of the gut instincts here when talking about WBL is a wizard for hire but I want to cut that out. At least unreasonably high level wizards that is. In what ways could you imagine using your wealth to greatly influence the game as a mundane character? Or on another note: Why pay the hefty fee for a divination such as scrying when you can pull a "spy network" thingie for just a couple of coins?

And how much money would you assign to a job like "utility"? When does it hurt actual combat performance? Because as fun as playing around with economy and social RP is most DMs still sic' their encounters at your behind. Maybe altered from your actions but SOME fighting is bound to happen.

An example job of what our DM made our mainquest: Find the BBEG and his three lieutenants and get their artifact level staves (evil items mind controlling their mortal owners, open confrontation deadly). BBEGs are around CR 14 (wizard, cavalier, monk, rogue with unlimited money cheat). Setting is a large mediterranean city with a very zealous monotheism. Unsupervised arcane magic is outlawed. As are servants of other deities (making magic dangerous and unreasonably expensive but still possible). No connections or known NPCs are at hand.

[Segev]

The trouble with using wealth to create a spy network is the lack of mechanical support. You can absolutely do it, but you have to know more about the nitty-gritty of assembling and managing the organization in order to utilize the money effectively to hire a useful spy network.

[Spore]

The trouble with using wealth to create a spy network is the lack of mechanical support. You can absolutely do it, but you have to know more about the nitty-gritty of assembling and managing the organization in order to utilize the money effectively to hire a useful spy network.

There is no ingame reason to deny you a spy network. So most DMs should handwave the intricate details of it. Money goes in, information comes out. You won't explain that. This way the DM can also give you the information you should have if a spy network can feasibly know stuff like this.

A network of 1st level characters (because you can't expect higher level NPCs) might know when a certain character enters the city with or without disguise. But neither do they know the location of magical quest mcguffins or Senator Stabbington's political deceased enemies.

[Segev]

There is no ingame reason to deny you a spy network. So most DMs should handwave the intricate details of it. Money goes in, information comes out. You won't explain that. This way the DM can also give you the information you should have if a spy network can feasibly know stuff like this.

A network of 1st level characters (because you can't expect higher level NPCs) might know when a certain character enters the city with or without disguise. But neither do they know the location of magical quest mcguffins or Senator Stabbington's political deceased enemies.

I didn't mean a DM would say "you can't do that." I meant a DM would say, "How do you even determine what that costs?" There's no off-the-shelf "spy network" equipment package.

What I think you'd have to do is specify how many of what kind of individuals you were hiring, and for how much. Then specify what their tasks would be to form this spy network. "I'm hiring a spy network" doesn't provide mechanical hooks, which means that most DMs probably would wind up just using it the way they use Gather Info checks. Not maliciously, but it's very easy to do nothing more than you'd planned to before the player invested his PC's resources, and thus accidentally rob him of that investment by making it pure fluff.

[Milo v3]

Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign has downtime rules that allow you to basically spend money and get an organisation, that might be a decent place to start.

[Endarire]

Milo: Where in Ultimate Campaign is this information? What does it say about founding/running a business?

[Milo v3]

Milo: Where in Ultimate Campaign is this information? What does it say about founding/running a business?

It's here (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/downtime.html).

[AvatarVecna]

Buying spellcasting services to cast divination spells that can get your info could serve as a decent "paying an information network" rough cost. It's not perfect, but it's something. Alternatively, cast your own divination spells and save yourself the money.