How good of an NPC can you hire for 25k gp?

[Matrota]

Hey giants I'm back yet again asking for advice on a 3.5e campaign I run. As always, if you're a player in my campaign "The Six," I ask that you read no further, though the spoiler content in this particular post is low.

My players have recently trusted an NPC friend of theirs with criminal connections to hire the best person he can find for 25k gp for a single task.

While the players are having a "discussion" with a boss figure, the hired thief is to infiltrate the boss's private plane, sneak through the fortress there swarming with undead (about half are sentient), bypass guards and magical traps (20th CL), and steal an artifact in the boss's possession. Could they get someone remotely capable of this for 25k gold? About what level character could they hire?

[Lazymancer]

Well, 25k is a lot of money, but you seem to want a wage-paid mercenary for high-level (i.e. spellcasty) no-questions-asked autonomous mission.

Personal opinion: some things cannot be bought. When people have enough money, they no longer sell themselves out. You can't hire a multi-billionaire to risk his life for money - he has plenty of his own. It has to be some insane amount that transcends definition of money, like US state debt.

Rules as written (DMG2 154) more or less support this. On top of the money, any spellcasting NPC will demand a share in whatever it is that PCs are hiring him for. Additionally, level of the party matters, since NPCs start to leverage out of PCs 10 times more money once they are on equal footing.


Personal opinion again: x10 multiplier should kick in regardless of level (it's an abstraction), unless this NPC (or party) has a rock-solid reputation (not just connections) in whatever circles this super-thief is being searched for. Otherwise they are an unknown quantity and people don't want to deal with them.

That said (provided interplanar super-thieves exist), 25k is sufficiently large amount to get them. RAW that's enough to hire Wizard 20 for 6 days. In addition, hired specialist should have some personal interest in helping PCs (cult of Olidammara might want PCs to spread the faith; mage wants a week to research the artefact; clan of thieves would like to publicly demonstrate it somewhere). Of course, success is not guaranteed.


How I'd do it:
1) super-thief demands 5k merely for doing research on the place he is supposed to sneak in. 1-in-6 chance he says "too dangerous" and that would be it. No refunds.

2) If super-thief agrees, he wants half (10k) up front (that's in addition to whatever personal demands thief has).

3) During negotiations (when thief is supposed to steal), a simple open d6 roll:
- 1: super-thief successfully steals the artefact and nobody (except for party) knows it
- 2-4: super-thief successfully steals the artefact
- 5: super-thief fails (50% chance of him KIA; again - no refunds)
- 6: super-thief betrays PCs (keeps the money and rats them out)

4) After super-thief steals the artefact, 1-in-6 chance of not honoring the deal (keeping it)

In toto: 46% chance of party getting the artefact (or 55% of artefact being stolen).

[Lvl 2 Expert]

How good of an NPC can you hire for 25k gp?

In general: one that by heading into a dungeon for a similar amount of days taking a similar amount of risk could expect to come out with 25k gp or less.

If you're going by wealth by level guidelines and this job is of the size that it would get the guy enough XP to go 1/4 of the way towards a new level the hireling can be around level 16. (WBL at 16=315k, at 17 410k, difference ~100k, /4=25k.)

The best was to lower the price or raise the level of your hireling would be to either decrease the amount of work the hireling has to do by doing most of the preparation for the job yourself or to decrease the risk he takes by supporting the hireling in some way. Few people will walk away from 25k as a sure thing for a few days of work they'll definitely survive.