Mail Carrier In D&D 3.5

[Bartmanhomer]

I just thought of something. Suppose one of your characters have a job to carry mail during your adventures. It could be a town, country or even another plane. For that you it should required a skill Profession (mail carrier) and it also required numerous languages to know who's mailing the letter that you're delivering to. I actually know in one RPG in Paper Mario, there was a parakoopa name Parakarry. He delivers mail thoughout Mario adventures. It's a really good skill to have just to earn cash. What do you think?

[BowStreetRunner]

You should definitely play the Hobbiton missions in Lord of the Rings Online. There are an entire series of mail-carrier missions just waiting for you.

[Bartmanhomer]

You should definitely play the Hobbiton missions in Lord of the Rings Online. There are an entire series of mail-carrier missions just waiting for you.
Really? Cool.

[Khedrac]

I totally disagree about it requiring a special skill. Anything it needs I would expect to be covered by either Knowledge Geography or Knowledge: Local.

As for languages, that would totally depend on the languages commonly in use where you are being asked to carry the message.

More on requiring skills:
If you are trying to do this as a profession, then yes, having useful skills will make you better at it. If you are travelling to the next town and offer to take any messages for there with you, then no - no skill required at all (you probably just hand the messages to the net town's mayor or village headman or inn- or shop-keeper if it is too small for a civic leader.

I think you are thinking in terms of individual delivery - that would be very much a professional service only concept (some countries don't have that today - everyone gets their mail from their local post office). I would not expect any request to take a message to a different town to involve personal delivery without detailed instructions on how to find them (and extra payment) except possibly when dealing with nobles.
Within a town then hiring a runner to deliver a message to a person or location makes sense.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Remember that whatever you're thinking of has to be cheaper than doing the same task by magic. Why risk handing off a letter to an expensive post carrier who'll probably get it to its destination eventually when you could pay a wizard to do it by magic?

[Gildedragon]

I will agree with the "no special skill needed"
Kn Local, Gather Information, and Kn Geography ought have you covered, even for tracking someone down. Heck tracking someone down via GI and Kn Local checks could be a quest in and of itself

[Willie the Duck]

I just thought of something. Suppose one of your characters have a job to carry mail during your adventures. It could be a town, country or even another plane. For that you it should required a skill Profession (mail carrier) and it also required numerous languages to know who's mailing the letter that you're delivering to. I actually know in one RPG in Paper Mario, there was a parakoopa name Parakarry. He delivers mail thoughout Mario adventures. It's a really good skill to have just to earn cash. What do you think?

I think it's you that I remember from previous threads asking about the psionic handbook and whether they can have Profession: psychic to earn extra cash and maybe one or more other threads along the same vein. Is there a particular reason for this? The answers are going to be the same regardless of what profession you ask: 'Sure, if you want to.' 'There's probably a skill that can do that other than profession'. 'Spending sp on flavor instead of mechanical benefit like that is kinda cool.' etc. etc. Just curious.

[Telonius]

Remember that whatever you're thinking of has to be cheaper than doing the same task by magic. Why risk handing off a letter to an expensive post carrier who'll probably get it to its destination eventually when you could pay a wizard to do it by magic?

That worked for a while, but the wizards eventually got a stern talking-to from the authorities. (Apparently the Thieves' Guild had started sending out messages claiming to be a princess captured by a dragon).

[BowStreetRunner]

If the character is going to be just handling a regular route in order to make money, then it really would just be the Profession (mail-carrier) skill. This would cover all of the knowledge related to the mail 'system' including rates and rules and such, and allow them to make an income performing the job. IIRC most ancient and medieval settings IRL had no formal mail carrier system. The wealthy used actual messengers while the rest would often fall back on just asking others who are 'going that way' if they would mind dropping something off. When actual post systems first came onto the scene, the carriers would make no regular salary, instead earning a per-delivery commission. So there was some skill involved in self-marketing to make sure people chose you to deliver their packages and that your regular customers didn't get poached by your competition. This sort of thing would all be reflected by the Profession skill.

For special delivery situations where the carrier has to actually locate a person [Gather Information] or place [Knowledge(geography)] or deal with local customs such as knowing the appropriate bribes for officials [Knowledge (local)] then other skills would come into play.

In some settings there may indeed be some sort of magical effects used in mail delivery while other it may be quite mundane.

Truly, the Profession check is really just a check to see if you can make a regular income performing a task repeatedly over time. This takes the place of requiring you to go through one-off missions for every single delivery. For a campaign based around such a character the DM might have them make a Profession check to see how much money they've been making on their regular route, while running them through specific adventures for those deliveries that were more than just routine.

[Bartmanhomer]

I think it's you that I remember from previous threads asking about the psionic handbook and whether they can have Profession: psychic to earn extra cash and maybe one or more other threads along the same vein. Is there a particular reason for this? The answers are going to be the same regardless of what profession you ask: 'Sure, if you want to.' 'There's probably a skill that can do that other than profession'. 'Spending sp on flavor instead of mechanical benefit like that is kinda cool.' etc. etc. Just curious.

Yeah I was just curious if anybody ever did a mail carrier job with one of their characters. And I did mention about psions running a psychic services for a skill in my previous threads.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

That worked for a while, but the wizards eventually got a stern talking-to from the authorities. (Apparently the Thieves' Guild had started sending out messages claiming to be a princess captured by a dragon).

I'm pretty confident that any authorities would also be doing things by magic, because there's zero advantage to paying some 3rd party to do it if that third party is both more expensive and slower.

[Zaq]

This depends entirely on the world. If there's a formalized postal service (it doesn't necessarily have to be governmental, though that will almost always be the case, but it does have to be large, widespread, and trusted), that's going to be very different from if there isn't. Just for one thing, will houses be numbered? Will streets even have names that unambiguously identify where to find a certain dwelling? You have to have a certain degree of infrastructure in place to send mail to an address rather than to a person, at least if you're not delivering directly to nobility. And will houses even have mailboxes or places to leave mail if the occupant doesn't answer the door? If you don't have reliable addresses, you'll need a way of tracking down a specific person, which gets more difficult the less of a big-shot the person is. (Everyone in town knows roughly where to find a noble's mansion, and it wouldn't be hard to find a merchant with a good reputation, but only people who see Joe Commoner on a very regular basis—and there isn't a huge geographical area of people who qualify there—will be able to point you at his house.)

And, of course, it's only once you get a big and efficient postal service that the common folk can really afford to send mail regularly, which is going to have some effect on what kinds of things your character will have to do in order to actually deliver mail over the course of a campaign. If there isn't a formalized postal service, how will your customers contact you to request your services? None of this is impossible to overcome, but it is something that should be addressed if you want this to really matter.

Being an individual courier, of course, is a different way of doing this sort of thing, and it requires less worldbuilding on the part of the GM. You'll still have to figure out if it makes sense at the table for your deliveries to be something you generally do on-screen or off-screen, so to speak, but it can still be done.

[Eldaran]

Fallout New Vegas shows that such a concept can be interesting. I would suggest having it not be a regular mail carrier, but rather one charged with delivering special items to interesting places.

[Bartmanhomer]

What about delivering mail and package by different planes such as Arborea, Limbo, Abyss or other planes?

[Chronikoce]

You could have a mail service that exclusively caters to deliveries between high level wizards who are unwilling to drop their defenses to allow communication or transportation of objects.

Though they might just use summoned servants of some sort and a dead drop system thus removing your role.

[Darrin]

I'm tempted now to play a Mailman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?447435-quot-The-Mailman-A-Direct-Damage-Sorcerer-quot-(from-Wizards-forums)) sorcerer with "Profession: Mail Carrier" maxed out.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

You could have a mail service that exclusively caters to deliveries between high level wizards who are unwilling to drop their defenses to allow communication or transportation of objects.

Though they might just use summoned servants of some sort and a dead drop system thus removing your role.

Why wouldn't they?

[TheYell]

"Take this to Barad-dur --- postage due on delivery"

[Chronikoce]

Why wouldn't they?

They only reason I can think of is they both don't trust each other so much that they agree to hire a third party to transport the item or missive from one dead drop to the next.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

They only reason I can think of is they both don't trust each other so much that they agree to hire a third party to transport the item or missive from one dead drop to the next.

Good answer, especially since you then require an additional third party to act as a finder for the deliverer, which means we have some justification for a post company. The problem I see is that, to satisfy wizards operating at this level of paranoia, I'd expect the post company to use employees who don't have free will. Why use a party of adventurers who might keep the package, side with one wizard over the other or drop the quest entirely? Why not use, say, a purpose-built construct?

[Chronikoce]

Good answer, especially since you then require an additional third party to act as a finder for the deliverer, which means we have some justification for a post company. The problem I see is that, to satisfy wizards operating at this level of paranoia, I'd expect the post company to use employees who don't have free will. Why use a party of adventurers who might keep the package, side with one wizard over the other or drop the quest entirely? Why not use, say, a purpose-built construct?

Well the post company could raise adventurers. They are postmen in training with the adventuring being funded by the post department until they are strong enough to do these missions. This would mean they are invested in being loyal to the company first and would give the company ample time to make sure that a given adventurer was trustworthy.

As for not using constructs, I'm not sure. Are there any spells that can disable or take over control of a construct if you're not the creator? If that exists then it could be a liability. If not though then a construct would likely be better.

Warforged postmen? Then they can can deliver the mail without tiring and inclement weather wouldn't stop them either!

[ExLibrisMortis]

Are there any spells that can disable or take over control of a construct if you're not the creator?
There is a feat, Master's Voice, that allows you to make an UMD check to take over any mindless construct or undead, as if you are the creator. It requires Wedded to History (Golden Ager), so it comes with pretty heavy fluff restrictions, but it doesn't allow any defence, because it's UMD (not an attack or spell).

[Chronikoce]

There is a feat, Master's Voice, that allows you to make an UMD check to take over any mindless construct or undead, as if you are the creator. It requires Wedded to History (Golden Ager), so it comes with pretty heavy fluff restrictions, but it doesn't allow any defence, because it's UMD (not an attack or spell).

I guess if they are paranoid enough (or the company is good enough at advertising mitigation against these techniques) that could be a reason to have live employees.

[Tanuki Tales]

You know...people capable of reality bending might just see becoming glorified mail carriers as beneath them and even thinking about employing them as such so insulting you spend the rest of your days as a sapient doorstop.

Just because magic can revolutionize society when applied on the scale of industry doesn't mean any of these self proclaimed arcane gods would have a reason to create the Tippy-verse.

[Chronikoce]

That's why I'm suggesting the mail carriers would be adventurers working for people to transport messages or goods when a caster can't be hired or trusted

[Skysaber]

My group is big into exploring "what-if" scenarios, and one of the favorite topics of conversation around the game table is how magic would change society, what effects it would have, and how things in our game worlds could not match the medieval pattern on certain points.

One of those topics frequently discussed is that D&D worlds are far too dangerous for human life to exist for very long, but that's a different topic than this thread is on.

Anyway, I've had to design a few cities to appeal to this group's sensibilities and frequently lots of tasks end up falling to animated skeletons - mail among them.

Mindless undead are bad about following complex instructions, but "go along this route, collecting anything you find in this kind of container, and leaving certain things when this mark and that one match" isn't much more complex than patrolling, looking for adventurers to kill, and covers mail delivery, trash pickup, street sweeping, milk man rounds, coal deliveries, and a truly shocking number of basic infrastructure tasks that support a complex society.

Mindless undead patrolling set routes bringing back everything they find in mailboxes to central locations to be sorted, checked for stamps, then delivered by other skeletons brings new meaning to the old motto: "Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night will stay us in our appointed rounds" doesn't it?

But you could just as easily get a wizard who decides to use quasits (count on them to read your mail), or any of the various homunculi, instead.

I could see a mid-to-low ranked wizard who is getting on in years, retired to a town where good drink and companionship are plentiful, who starts to make himself homunculi as servants so he doesn't have to iron his own sheets or draw bath water, and eventually makes too many, so as a hobby rents them out to do errands for others - and a generation or two later, several guilds have cropped up where magical servants handle all sorts of tasks, mail delivery among them.

I could also see an enterprising thieves guild doing it with a large force of bound quasits, just so the thieves could learn all what was being talked about and plan their crimes accordingly.

Fact of the matter is, most times when folks want to Contact Other Plane they talk to a cleric, they don't send a letter. So the bulk of all mail delivery will be local, and fairly boring. Those times when a daring adventure beckons, when this or that missive absolutely has to go out, the king will typically send a knight that he trusts out as a royal messenger. And to reward him for that level of risk the pay was often enough for that knight to retire on. The job would never go out to your common, tavern-garbage adventuring party (except we do it all of the time anyway, because who cares about logic?).

[tsj]

For a skill as limited in use as profession (mail man/woman) then I would suggest making it receive bonus ranks from
Gather information, knowledge local, knowledge geography et.al.

And then allow the skill to cover:
- Knowledge of all known mail delivery systems
- able to substitute ANY other skill when it comes to mail related skill checks (ie. substitute knowledge geography etc. .)

Also it could add bonus damage if your charecter goes 'postal'
:-)

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Skysaber: back in one of the old Giacomo-fueled Monk v NPC classes threads, there was a great deal of discussion of the possibility of animate dead as an initiator for an industrial revolution. It was probably the Monk v Adept thread at the old Brilliant Gameologists boards, if you want to look it up.

[Gildedragon]

Skeletons are big motors for "automatization" of industry and farming (unless you rule they bleed NEP energy into the world. Then just industry). Though for domestic service and stuff like postal delivery I can see humans still doing the work... Though with specialized skill sets (marks to protect from the wrong person reading; in-hand delivery; tracking down missing people); maybe free reading or response writing if it is a mostly illiterate population (or for barbarians); free translation services...
This also protects the mail reciever from attacks via written spells (symbols of whatever; snake sigils; glyph of warding; explosive runes; etc) though they then probably have some defenses against that sort of tampering

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

That's why I'm suggesting the mail carriers would be adventurers working for people to transport messages or goods when a caster can't be hired or trusted

I just don't see why the mail company, to ensure maximum security for the mail, wouldn't require their employees to submit to a geas or mindrape or something to permanently instill the "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor scary green thing with huge teeth stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" mentality. And when two ultraparanoid near-epic full casters are negotiating delivery of an item, I'd expect something like that to be a required condition to protect both parties.

[Gildedragon]

I just don't see why the mail company, to ensure maximum security for the mail, wouldn't require their employees to submit to a geas or mindrape or something to permanently instill the "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor scary green thing with huge teeth stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" mentality. And when two ultraparanoid near-epic full casters are negotiating delivery of an item, I'd expect something like that to be a required condition to protect both parties.
A) it makes for bad work conditions.
B) benefits of mail delivery are enough that compulsions aren't necessary
C)if you're mindraping your force who is to say some other party isn't tampering with them
Overall it's best if couriers are tough to tamper with (enchantment/illusion resistant; though vulnerable to divinations)

[Chronikoce]

Loyal employees are better than coerced employees. If coerced then someone else can come along, break the enchantment or whatever and now they have an upset ex-employee happy to assist them.

As for automation. Sometimes automation is risky. It's only as good as your ability to program it to deal with unknown variables and as such it can provide unreliable service when presented with extreme conditions.

A loyal and capable delivery crew can respond to the needs of the delivery and if provided with magic items could even abort the deliveries with contingent teleports if need be.

You also have sentient eye-witnesses who can provide feedback as to why a delivery failed if multiple attempts are needed for success.

[Gildedragon]

A ritual that gives the couriers Karsite as a template would be handy to make them resistant to magical tomfoolery; also making them dependent on the Postal Service for magical items (or devices)

Or acorn of far travel for a dead magic and other-useful-things plane made into a badge

[icefractal]

As far as high-level casters delivering mail - I figure they usually have better things to do. Something that they can do once and then forget about, like a permanent Teleportation Circle between major cities? Sure. But putting any kind of daily effort into delivering stuff? Not unless people are paying something amazing in exchange.

So the best bet for well paid delivery would be:
1) Important enough that the sender doesn't want it changing hands multiple times.
2) Either the source or destination is minor enough not to have existing infrastructure for this.

There's also local deliveries, within a city, but those are going to be much less well paid; most people can only afford a few copper or at best silver, and the rich ones likely have their own servants to deliver stuff already.

Edit: Incidentally, if you do want to hire a high-level caster to deliver things, your best bet would be a Sorcerer or other spontaneous caster. A Wizard could turn those spells slots into Wall of Iron + Fabricate instead, so you've got to pay more than a crate of masterwork daggers (+risk bonus), whereas it's entirely possible that Teleport is a given Sorcerer's only commercially applicable spell.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You might have low-level teleport users, such as the Expedition to the Demonweb Pits' Jaunter, which gets teleport at 4th, and plane shift at 5th - those are character levels.

Let's say talented people (dex 15+) are recruited by the Wayfarers Union. They enter as martial abrupt jaunt conjurer 1, which is thematically appropriate as well (another good option is cleric 1, with two flaws). Starting feat, bonus feat, and a flaw are used for Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack, skill points go to four ranks Knowledge (the planes), in-class. The recruits improve their dexterity at level 4, thus getting three castings of teleport per day at character level four. Interestingly, this allows, say, a wizard 1/jaunter 4/[something with Knowledge (arcana) and (geography) in-class] 2 to qualify for Wayfarer Guide later on, getting them a 5th-level spell slot at level 9, despite not being able to cast second-level spells otherwise.

[Chronikoce]

I think it is reasonable to assume that any caster with enough castings to make personalized delivery possible will be far to expensive to hire to do so.

This opens the market up to the mid level characters who have enough power and means to defend themselves and the delivery (with financial and magical support of the post company).

If the post company deals in point to point delivery they might supplement their income by using their postmen in training to do the standard low level dungeon crawling.

The postmen get stronger and get paid and they bring back the dungeon loot to the post service in exchange for future missions and supplies as well as the lucrative job of one day being a postman.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

A) it makes for bad work conditions.
B) benefits of mail delivery are enough that compulsions aren't necessary
C)if you're mindraping your force who is to say some other party isn't tampering with them
Overall it's best if couriers are tough to tamper with (enchantment/illusion resistant; though vulnerable to divinations)

Hence my original suggestion of constructs. I think generally it'd have to be either incredibly cheap or more reliable than your normal adventuring party could ever be.

[Skysaber]

Skysaber: back in one of the old Giacomo-fueled Monk v NPC classes threads, there was a great deal of discussion of the possibility of animate dead as an initiator for an industrial revolution. It was probably the Monk v Adept thread at the old Brilliant Gameologists boards, if you want to look it up.

Thanks, I went and read that, and it was amusing, but the suggestions never seemed to reach past "put them in treadmills, then order them to walk" before they wandered off to other topics - which admittedly lets you throw mills and factories all over the place, and it was very amusing. But to me the best part was the link to another board's discussion on using zombies as logic gates to create giant, necro-powered computers. So thanks again for pointing that out.

On the subject of mail, one inescapable fact trumps all. Many have said it before, but here it is again: the more competent your help, the more compensation they require for their services. And hiring super-adventurers who can traverse planes to find anyone, anywhere, is not a mail service, because it's out of the price range of all but the wealthiest kings. So those are special couriers by definition.

A mail service runs by the same rules of any business: The lowest cost option that is basically equivalent is the one that people are going to use.

I don't need super-adventurers who are capable of sneaking into Mordor under Sauron's nose to deliver a letter asking Frodo how he is doing if all I am doing is sending a birthday card to Aunt Edna, who lives with her four cats inside a peaceful city.

The most I'd spring for is 25gp to hire a Ranger to send it via an Animal Messenger spell, and even then I'd consider that a high cost option when most people earn 1sp a day. 250 days of work to pay that off is a bit steep of a bill.

What I'd most like is an option that costs virtually nothing, so that's why I recommend skeletons as nobody has to pay them anything. The entire service could be run for virtually nothing because all of the labor is free. Get ten stamps for a copper and each one will take a letter anywhere we have service, is one entirely possible pricing scheme.

[Darrin]

I don't need super-adventurers who are capable of sneaking into Mordor under Sauron's nose to deliver a letter asking Frodo how he is doing if all I am doing is sending a birthday card to Aunt Edna, who lives with her four cats inside a peaceful city.


If you change "Mail Delivery" to "Package Delivery", you've got an entire campaign (and probably a dozen more) right there. Instead of a letter, deliver this ring to Mount Doom. Heck, that's the elevator pitch for Futurama's Planet Express: we deliver MacGuffins. Even if the PCs aren't recognized as world-shattering mega-murderhobos yet, maybe Gandalf got cleaned out at Istari Poker Night and is short on cash, let some more affordable newbies give it a go. Way too many adventure hooks spiral off from, "Did you lose/open/examine/activate/polymorph/rishathrah the package?" I think I need to add an alcoholic warforged henchbot to my next campaign...



What I'd most like is an option that costs virtually nothing, so that's why I recommend skeletons as nobody has to pay them anything. The entire service could be run for virtually nothing because all of the labor is free. Get ten stamps for a copper and each one will take a letter anywhere we have service, is one entirely possible pricing scheme.

WFRP did something like this in "Something Rotten in Kislev", but I don't recall if mail delivery was involved. As PCs, we were completely unprepared for it... It was a very awkward report to Graf Boris Todbringer.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

In a way, is this not the underlying conflict between mail and clacks in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal?

[schreier]

I remember the TV show young riders (Pony Express) -- I'm basically picturing that ... could even have some prestige classes: Wayfare Guide, Jaunter (teleporting), or the Horizon Walker as another option