What does it cost to have a spell performed?

[jburkett]

Hello, is there a list somewhere of what it costs to have a particular spell or psychic ability performed? Say, for example, a character would like to have a psionic perform "Read Object" on a found item. Or, how much would it cost to have a healing spell cast? If not, do you have a house rule about how one might go about this kind of transaction? Any information would appreciated, Thanks!

[Axelmania]

I'm not aware of generic guidelines but there are specific examples of shops charging certain fees for it in vampire kingdoms.

[Library Ogre]

In no way official, but in Rifts: Houstown, I set a generic cost at 50-100 credits per PPE or ISP.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm not aware of generic guidelines but there are specific examples of shops charging certain fees for it in vampire kingdoms.

Indeed!

[ShadowLogan]

Hello, is there a list somewhere of what it costs to have a particular spell or psychic ability performed? Say, for example, a character would like to have a psionic perform "Read Object" on a found item. Or, how much would it cost to have a healing spell cast? If not, do you have a house rule about how one might go about this kind of transaction? Any information would appreciated, Thanks!

You might convert prices between Palladium Fantasy (2E) and Rifts (ie gold to credits), but:
-Alchemist Shop (pg246-7) might give an idea
-Psi-Healer (pg158; give a few examples of powers and cost)
-Priest of Light & Darkness (pg63-71; healing touch is sold)

For Spells if I was looking for a rough ball park cost that seemed reasonable:
-calculate cost of item for a single use device by TW rules
-use the cost magic scrolls to determine cost

Psychic cost I'd probably look at the above for Spell cost.

[Mlp7029]

Arzno listed some cost per PPE point for having mages recharge TW batteries which in my mind is the best guideline out there for anything that just involves PPE from a mage. Page 90 Arzno 30-50 per PPE for a kind and generous mage, 100-600 per PPE for a greedy or mean mage. IMHO those are good number if the mage does not have safe access to a ley line or nexus. If a mage can recover PPE at 10 PPE per hour then 30 credit per PPE becomes 300 credits per hour as a wage. If you use a round 2000 working hours per year that's 600k per year. Now if the mage has safe access to a ley line the PPE recovery goes 10 PPE per melee round x 4 melee rounds per minute x 60 minutes per hour = 2400 PPE per hour. That same 30 credits per PPE becomes 72k credits per hour or 72k x 2000 hrs per year = 144,000,000. 144 million a year is way too high I use 1 credit per PPE for mage work in places where there is safe access to a ley line. 1 credit per PPE is still 4.8 million credits a year.

[eliakon]

The initial costs on PPE are a good starting point. We see things like this when we look at the books medical clinics and we see the price per spell/psi use.
Another factor is risk.
Casting "mend the broken" on your mothers favorite vase is safe, fast and cheep.
Casting "Summon Vampire" to call up the specific vampire that broke that vase is going to cost you a hell of a lot more due to the risk.

Spells like Scroll are likely to be massively marked up since you can use the scroll to learn the spell... putting the mage out of business!
Talisman is going to be a bit cheaper since you will have to come back to get it recharged.

Another issue will be if the spell is known! Commonly requested spells like Mend the Broken, or healing magic or magic pigeon or the like, are likely to be pretty cheap... if you can't get it from one mage another will do it. But the more specialized or exotic the spell...the higher the cost as you will need to find a specialist... at the further ends of the bellcurve you run into spells that simply are not available for hire unless you provide the mage with the formula!

[Shark_Force]

there really should be a lot of circumstantial modifiers.

does the mage need to travel? that's gonna cost you. if that travel is for more than a few minutes to maybe an hour, it's likely to cost you a lot. if it involves the mage risking their own neck, even more, possibly to a point where you can't afford it (a cowardly mage might agree to go out into a battlefield for a million credits, but most people can't afford that, making it effectively "infinity" cost).

then you get into questions like how rare the spell is (it doesn't make much sense for me that the cost for a 2 PPE blinding light would be linear in cost with, a level 15 spell that costs 500 PPE). that should have a major impact. and of course, desirability; a spell like sustain, you can actually calculate how many extra hours of work it makes available to you as well as the amount of money it saves on food, for example; if your time is worth, say, 20 credits an hour, then sustain is worth over a hundred credits per day easy.

then you've got to consider proficiency of the mage, in many cases; sustain from a level 1 ley line walker is simply not worth as much as it would be from a level 10 nightbane mage with the proficiencies to ritually cast spells for quadruple duration.

there are likely plenty of other considerations as well. anything like a standard value can only ever really be a guideline, imo. there are far too many factors to consider.

[Shorty Lickens]

Im gonna need about tree fiddy.

[Mack]

I'll go with something like: PPE * Spell Level * 5

Magic Shield would be 6 * 3 * 5 = 90 credits.
Fly as the Eagle would be 25 * 7 * 5 = 875 credits.
Restoration would cost 750 * 14 * 5 = 52,500 credits

If something feels too cheap or too expensive, just change the "5" multiplier as needed.

----------------
EDIT - Hmmm... instead of the "5" one could use the caster's level to represent the fact that it's going to cost more to hire a senior mage versus a junior one. That also accounts for the increased duration / potency.

Fly as the Eagle from level 4 mage ( 25 * 7 * 4 ) = 700 credits
Fly as the Eagle from level 8 mage ( 25 * 7 * 8 ) = 1,400 credits

If nothing else, this gives a starting place to work from.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I'll go with something like: PPE * Spell Level * 5

Magic Shield would be 6 * 3 * 5 = 90 credits.
Fly as the Eagle would be 25 * 7 * 5 = 875 credits.
Restoration would cost 750 * 14 * 5 = 52,500 credits

If something feels too cheap or too expensive, just change the "5" multiplier as needed.

----------------
EDIT - Hmmm... instead of the "5" one could use the caster's level to represent the fact that it's going to cost more to hire a senior mage versus a junior one. That also accounts for the increased duration / potency.

Fly as the Eagle from level 4 mage ( 25 * 7 * 4 ) = 700 credits
Fly as the Eagle from level 8 mage ( 25 * 7 * 8 ) = 1,400 credits

If nothing else, this gives a starting place to work from.

It's a good guideline, but how does rarity factor into it? If restoration costs less than surgury by the Body Fixer....

[Mack]

It's a good guideline, but how does rarity factor into it? If restoration costs less than surgury by the Body Fixer....

That's a good discussion point. My thought is that you'd still have to role-play finding a mage with Restoration Spell, which would be a lot harder than finding a Body Fixer. And if that mage turned out to be 10th level, then the second formula I proposed would be 105,000 credits.

But like you said, it's a guideline. I'd encourage any GM to use it as a starting point and adjust as the circumstance dictates.

[Shark_Force]

It's a good guideline, but how does rarity factor into it? If restoration costs less than surgury by the Body Fixer....

That's a good discussion point. My thought is that you'd still have to role-play finding a mage with Restoration Spell, which would be a lot harder than finding a Body Fixer. And if that mage turned out to be 10th level, then the second formula I proposed would be 105,000 credits.

But like you said, it's a guideline. I'd encourage any GM to use it as a starting point and adjust as the circumstance dictates.

eh, i'm not convinced there can really *be* a great general guideline. there's a lot of circumstantial stuff, especially when you start picking it apart spell by spell.

if there is a good general guideline, i suspect it would look more like the palladium organization building tables than a very simple straightforward formula.

like, you might have *one* part of the equation involve the PPE cost, and there would probably need to be a table reflecting time commitment (including travel time, if any), and you'd probably (most of the time) take the higher of the indicated credit values. and the PPE cost table would need to also account for permanent costs like making a permanent enchanted weapon (PPE) or a golem (HP)

then you'd need to have a table that considers danger level. another one that considers rarity of the spell. level of the spellcaster, provided that it's relevant (it might not be). and then you have to consider that some spells should have a value based on what they produce; a talisman that gives you three uses of armour of ithan at level 5 proficiency should only rarely be sold for more than the cost of 3 suits of non-environmental body armour with 50 MDC each (probably less because there's a decent chance the duration will end before the MDC is used up), but even then you've still got to consider other things (like you can give armour of ithan to a horse that you steal from the bandits when you try to escape, whereas it's hard to cram a suit of human-shaped body armour onto on, or the fact that the armour of ithan doesn't have a prowl penalty), and all of that will more likely determine what you could realistically sell such a thing for in spite of the fact that there's a large PPE investment involved and the spell is pretty rare.

so even after coming up with a set of tables, you'd still probably need to consider individual spells.

i really just don't see a simple straightforward formula working for this.

[TechnoGothic]

House Rule I've seen others use ....

PPE/ISP (use cost) x10 Gold/Credits/Euros/$$$