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View Full Version : 4e - Ritual Price List for an Adventurer's Guild?



Saph
2008-08-11, 10:40 AM
I'm going to be running a short campaign starting this Saturday, and as an experiment I'm going to be running it in 4e. The PCs are a new party in an adventurer's guild in the Forgotten Realms, Tethyr.

The adventurer's guild makes missions and information available, but as they have a bunch of high-level adventurers on hand, it also makes sense for them to provide ritual services (at least for Heroic-tier rituals) for a fee. I'm trying to knock out a price list.

The rituals I can see an adventuring party routinely needing are:

Level 6 - Cure Disease (component cost 150 gp)
Level 6 - Sending (50 gp)
Level 8 - Linked Portal (50 gp, circle-to-circle only)
Level 8 - Raise Dead (500 gp)
Level 8 - Remove Affliction (250 gp)

What do you think would be a good mark-up for each one? The prices should be high enough for the guild to make a profit and to give the PCs a motivation to get the rituals for themselves, but low enough that they can be used if really needed.

- Saph

FatherMalkav
2008-08-11, 10:44 AM
20% seems fair for members, maybe a little less. Does the party have a Wizard? That'll be their easiest way to get cheap(ish) rituals since it gets the feat for free, as well as routinely getting free rituals added to their spell book.

Costs
Level 6 - Cure Disease (180 gp)
Level 6 - Sending (60 gp)
Level 8 - Linked Portal (60gp)
Level 8 - Raise Dead (600 gp)
Level 8 - Remove Affliction (300 gp)

Saph
2008-08-11, 10:47 AM
20% seems fair for members, maybe a little less. Does the party have a Wizard? That'll be their easiest way to get cheap(ish) rituals since it gets the feat for free, as well as routinely getting free rituals added to their spell book.

They'll be starting at level 1, which given the slow pace of 4e advancement, means they'll probably never hit level 6. So the only way they'll get these rituals is by buying them.

- Saph

Knaight
2008-08-11, 10:51 AM
I would look at a few higher level rituals too then. Advancement isn't quite as slow as it first tends to seem.

Saph
2008-08-11, 10:56 AM
I would look at a few higher level rituals too then. Advancement isn't quite as slow as it first tends to seem.

8-10 encounters for a level, right? Even if you pack in 4-5 encounters per session, that means the party will need 2 sessions to level up. We meet only on Saturdays, and don't play every week. So it'll take them at least three months of real-time before they can cast even the lowest-level of the rituals I listed above. Hence for the forseeable future, the only way they'll have access to these abilities is by paying for someone else to cast them for them. Which is why I'm working out the price list. I'll worry about the higher-level stuff later.

- Saph

FatherMalkav
2008-08-11, 11:08 AM
I play a GM roulette campaign and we thought it was going to be slow going too, but if you just toss a little extra xp per encounter the leveling goes fast, not to mention the characters can be tougher then they first seem; I put a party of four against two 850xp encounters and an 800xp because I was expecting 6 PC's and we didn't lose a single one.

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-11, 11:17 AM
There is always credit for doing a job or mission for the Guild.

Saph
2008-08-11, 11:22 AM
Yeah, but right now I'm really just looking for a price list.

- Saph

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-11, 11:24 AM
IMO Guild members should receive a 5-10% discount to standard market prices as one of the benefits of being guild members when they have the cash.

Purchasing service on credit when they are short at 100% standard market price or a premium of 110 -120% standard market price.

Starsinger
2008-08-11, 11:28 AM
Well Saph, what would the markup be for a non-guild person to provide that ritual? If Crazy Bob's Ritual Emporium charges a 15% markup, the guild should be less than that, since it's a members only service.

Saph
2008-08-11, 11:29 AM
Basically I'm trying to work out what general prices would be - the adventurer's guild prices are a subset of that.

Cost plus 20% seems very cheap to me - even in a modern market economy you're almost never going to get that low a price. In a semi-Iron-Age world where capitalism doesn't exist and the people who can cast the powerful stuff are mostly busy teleporting around the continent and fighting demons, I would have thought prices would be a lot higher. Remember you're also paying for the wizard or cleric's time.

- Saph

FatherMalkav
2008-08-11, 11:30 AM
I think the benifit for members is the access to these rituals. The guild needs some money for keeping themselves maintained and the like after all. Charging for the service means the adventurers take a larger cut of profit from their missions.

@Saph: Honestly, no. Market Value would be from 50%-100% markup, I was trying to keep the price reasonable for the PC's; high enough that they want to be able to cast it alone, but low enough that it won't break the bank to bring Joey back. Also though think of the Guild mates getting the ritual for 'wholesale', barely any mark up from cost. The public would be paying the big money.

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-11, 11:33 AM
Standard market price presumes access to the rituals.

Starsinger
2008-08-11, 11:33 AM
I say double cost for a non-guild member to cast the Ritual. And 1.5x the cost for a guild member to cast it on behalf of the party.

Edit: Possibly with a payment plan for the likes of Raise Dead.

bosssmiley
2008-08-11, 01:07 PM
I'm going to be running a short campaign starting this Saturday, and as an experiment I'm going to be running it in 4e. The PCs are a new party in an adventurer's guild in the Forgotten Realms, Tethyr.

The adventurer's guild makes missions and information available, but as they have a bunch of high-level adventurers on hand, it also makes sense for them to provide ritual services (at least for Heroic-tier rituals) for a fee. I'm trying to knock out a price list.

The rituals I can see an adventuring party routinely needing are:

Level 6 - Cure Disease (component cost 150 gp)
Level 6 - Sending (50 gp)
Level 8 - Linked Portal (50 gp, circle-to-circle only)
Level 8 - Raise Dead (500 gp)
Level 8 - Remove Affliction (250 gp)

What do you think would be a good mark-up for each one? The prices should be high enough for the guild to make a profit and to give the PCs a motivation to get the rituals for themselves, but low enough that they can be used if really needed.

- Saph

Simple answer: "What you got?"

Force the PCs to ask themselves how much these rituals are worth to them. Strike a blow for supply-and-demand in 4E! :smallbiggrin:

Oracle_Hunter
2008-08-11, 01:29 PM
I'd say the following price structure:

Non-Guild Member: 10-50% mark-up, depending on the risks involved in gathering reagents. If you can scrape it off the walls of your city, and the ritual casters basically exist for the benefit of the Guild Adventurers, then you just make pure profit when some random adventurer shows up asking for a Ritual. The Market Rates are already pretty high over cost, so there's no real need to gouge much more, unless you want to :smalltongue:

Guild Members: At Market Price if reagents are risky to get, but free if the PCs gather the reagents themselves. Remember that Guilds make their money off of Guild Fees, not al a carte charges to members - and getting reagents can be an adventure in and of itself. If you like, you can charge a small premium for really long rituals, to make up for the time of the caster.

Ritual Scrolls and access to Ritual Books will still cost quite a bit of money - it takes a long time to make a Ritual Scroll!

This price structure provides reasonable prices for an inherently thin market (http://www.investorwords.com/4961/thin_market.html) and good incentives for frequent adventurers to join the Guild.

FatherMalkav
2008-08-11, 01:50 PM
Resources in 4e are easy. I don't have my book on my but the basic breakdown is:

Religion - Incense and oils
Nature - Assorted herbs
Heal - potions and oils
Arcana - magical matter called 'Resonance' or some such

None of it is specified, you just need Xgp amount.
Again, I'm at work without my books so I may be off.

KillianHawkeye
2008-08-11, 09:10 PM
Resources in 4e are easy. I don't have my book on my but the basic breakdown is:

Religion - Incense and oils
Nature - Assorted herbs
Heal - potions and oils
Arcana - magical matter called 'Resonance' or some such

None of it is specified, you just need Xgp amount.
Again, I'm at work without my books so I may be off.

Correction-

Arcana-based Rituals require alchemical reagents (metals, salts, dragon's blood, eye of newt, etc.)

Residuum can be used in place of any kind of ritual components.

Yakk
2008-08-12, 11:33 AM
Half of your Guild Dues goes into Guild Credit.

Doing missions for the Guild earns half Guild Credit, half cash.

Base costs are 20% of the cost of buying the ritual, plus reagent costs, per casting, if the ritual takes only a short time to cast. Longer casting times costs more (per day costs):


1 50
2 70
3 85
4 130
5 180

6 250
7 350
8 475
9 650
10 900

.. Etc, with each +5 level increasing the cost by a factor of 5. (Magic items increase in cost by a factor of 5 each 5 levels, so I used the same curve for hiring a caster of level X to cast a ritual).

Rituals paid for with non-Guild Credit cost twice as much.

(Most of the markup goes to the Guild General Fund, btw).

Jayabalard
2008-08-12, 12:04 PM
Basically I'm trying to work out what general prices would be - the adventurer's guild prices are a subset of that.

Cost plus 20% seems very cheap to me - even in a modern market economy you're almost never going to get that low a price. In a semi-Iron-Age world where capitalism doesn't exist and the people who can cast the powerful stuff are mostly busy teleporting around the continent and fighting demons, I would have thought prices would be a lot higher. Remember you're also paying for the wizard or cleric's time.
I was going to point out that you're not figuring in the cost of the time of the individuals to run the ritual, or any overhead costs, but it looks like you've already thought of that.

I have no idea what a reasonable wage for someone running the ritual; meaning what are they expecting to make off of it. At a guess, you'd probably want to figure that off of the level of the ritual, but some people may want more than others.

The guild is probably going to want a cut; I'd say a 10-25% of the gross (not net) would be added to the cost, and would be paid to the guild; any guild discounts come out of that.

You might wind up with something like
component cost
+ 10g x ritual level (fee for the person who runs the ritual)
+ 25% guild fee for non members, or +20% for nonmemebers