Cost to cast spells as a service

[DemiBenson]

As came up in my recent game session, PCs went looking for a specialist wizard to cast a spell on their behalf (in this case History). To keep the game going, I had her charge 10x the energy cost in $/cp. I’m open to any reasonable formula for what a cast-spells-as-a-service wizard would charge.

What have others used?

[Polkageist]

I seem to recall that for enchantment it was something like $50/energy point up to I think like 50 or something for quick & dirty enchantment.

Anyways, that sounds about right. Roughly on par with a scroll. A wizard w/ Recover Energy gets a FP/EP back every 5 minutes, so even if the gas out completely they'll be back up and ready to cast something again within the hour.

Sooo, that's like $100/hr if they have a FP/EP tank of about 10 that they're willing to spend for customers.

For added fun, you could apply the merchant skill to tweak that value up and down which is a good reason to keep it $10/point, easy math.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

As came up in my recent game session, PCs went looking for a specialist wizard to cast a spell on their behalf (in this case History). To keep the game going, I had her charge 10x the energy cost in $/cp. I’m open to any reasonable formula for what a cast-spells-as-a-service wizard would charge.

What have others used?

In my current setting, the cost of going into a guild and hiring a mage to cast a spell for you is going to depend on where you are, who you are, who they are and how much money they think they can soak you for. It'll start at G$65 for the most common of things cast by the most common of mages and go up from there (G$65 being the daily wage of that mage*).

*: TL3+1^, Status 1, Comfortable wealth, G$1600 monthly income, 25 (of 32) days worked per month, 10 (of 28) hours worked per day. A relatively leisurely job.

[Kromm]

This is covered at considerable length on GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown, pp. 43-45. There are many cases and exceptions there, but the "going rate" to get someone to cast a legal non-Enchantment spell that doesn't count as "on" for the caster is $5 per energy point. Anything illegal costs $50 per energy point (e.g., $400 for the Zombie spell), and there are also potential social costs. Both rates assume an effective skill level of 15, which might not be enough if the objective is to remove a potent curse or overcome a large situational penalty. Each +1 to skill adds 40% to cost; e.g., skill 20 costs 3× normal.

[Donny Brook]

The answer must be significantly setting-dependent.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Kromm

This is covered at considerable length on GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Setting: Caverntown, pp. 43-45. There are many cases and exceptions there, but the "going rate" to get someone to cast a legal non-Enchantment spell that doesn't count as "on" for the caster is $5 per energy point. Anything illegal costs $50 per energy point (e.g., $400 for the Zombie spell), and there are also potential social costs. Both rates assume an effective skill level of 15, which might not be enough if the objective is to remove a potent curse or overcome a large situational penalty. Each +1 to skill adds 40% to cost; e.g., skill 20 costs 3× normal.

Thanks!
I knew I had seen it somewhere, but that was not in the first few places I looked

[Varyon]

In theory, the cost of a spell would be equal to the mage's hourly wage multiplied by how many hours it takes for the mage to recover from the casting. There are, of course, caveats. First off, a mage may well not be able (or willing) to essentially cast spells back-to-back, simply because there isn't always someone who needs (and can afford) one of the mage's spells cast. Additionally, it's unlikely a mage who knows a spell at a high enough level to have a reduced FP cost - or a mage who knows Recover Energy or has some other way of restoring FP - would actually charge less for a casting. They might, simply as a way to outcompete less-skilled mages, but probably not to the extent implied by how little time they must spend recovering. Finally, there's the issue of Critical Failures - while the bad results aren't terribly common, they can occur, so the mage needs compensation for taking that risk.

My inclination would be to have a mage charge somewhere around 15 minutes worth of their time per nominal (that is, how much it costs before adjusting for high skill) point of FP the spell costs. For spells with lengthy casting times (measured in minutes or more), the mage should add on at least the amount of time this takes (1.5x the amount is probably a better bet). Each casting should have a surcharge equal to (chance of Critical Failure)*(1 week's wages). While most Critical Failure results put the mage out of commission for far less than a week, I feel that's roughly fair to account for the really bad (but rare) results. For spells that the caster must spend HP to cast, I'd probably go with either one day's wages per point of HP, or perhaps just charge for casting an appropriate healing spell (or pay for an appropriate potion, if those somehow cost less), provided you allow magical/alchemical healing to restore HP lost to casting a spell (and the mage has access to such healing). Arguably, one day's wages isn't quite fair, given that an HT 10 character will often need around two days on average to restore 1 HP, but as the character can still cast FP-fueled spells during this time, I feel one day is probably fine.

[Kromm]

It's important not to impose modern values on fantasy wizards. In our world, we're all programmed to believe that time = money. I doubt that would be true for casters in a world using the GURPS Magic system. The real cost there isn't time, but energy. When that energy is FP, there's a strong-if-implicit assumption that regaining it requires rest, food, water, shelter, and good health; i.e., calories = money (well, opportunity cost), much as in the natural world. That is what your wizard is going to be charging for.

Probably the best way to look at it is to work out how much money a person needs to earn to pay for food, shelter, etc. each day. Also answer the question "How many FP can the wizard regenerate per day?" Divide the first figure by the second to find a minimum cost per FP. Then scale that up to reflect what kind of lifestyle a wizard expects to live.

For instance, a typical DF wizard must pay $150/week to survive in town, or 1/7 of that per day. They'll probably have Recover Energy-15 and be able to regenerate 1 FP per 5 minutes. Subtracting time to sleep, eat, drink, wash, have a social life, etc., they might work 8-10 hours/day; in that time, they'd regenerate 96-120 FP. So, the floor per FP is $0.18-$0.22.

The $5 figure I gave is 22.4-28 times the floor. I'd read the floor as "sustenance-level" pay for a Poor wizard (1/5× Average pay), meaning most sedentary working wizards want 4.48× to 5.6× times Average pay, or a Wealthy lifestyle, in DF. That goes with Status 2 . . . which is between the Status 3 of a guildmaster and Status 1 of an ordinary merchant. So, it seems about right for an extraordinary, magic-using merchant who isn't the master of the Wizards' Guild.

Casting time doesn't factor into this because really, the wizard isn't expecting a firm 40-hour workweek anyway. Indeed, as I said earlier, most fantasy worlds don't have modern economic values, which include 9-to-5 jobs and five-day workweeks. What the wizard will care about is the hours they spend tired, hungry, and kind of hungover from burning FP. Imagine running marathons for a living!

Obviously, this is world-specific. I'm assuming a TL Olden Tymes setting that's effectively TL3 in many ways, without modern labor reform, but with commonplace magic people pay for like we pay for pizza and taxi rides. Change any part of that and the calculation changes, too. But I'd still wager that the dominant consideration would not be, "How much is my time worth?", but rather, "How much is my discomfort worth?" That is, wizardly pay is less about wages in the conventional sense and more like inconvenience pay or a meal allowance – or if burning HP, danger pay or medical coverage.

[Kromm]

Also, the $50/FP figure for illegal castings isn't because black-market wizards all expect to live Very Wealthy to Filthy Rich lifestyles at Status 3-4. It's because they take more risk (so again, you're paying for inconvenience and pain, not time) and don't/can't work as often (much as contract killers don't spend 8-10 hours/day, every day, murdering people). They might get a few jobs per week and have to kick back much of that as protection money and bribes to crooked lawmen.

[Kromm]

Ultimately, "wizard" should not be seen as a job paid a wage or salary in most cases. It would be closer to a modern-day gig worker or contractor:

Here's a gig. Bid low to secure it. Work fast and do your best work to build a reputation that means you're offered more gigs for which you needn't bid as low. Eventually get exclusive premium work from private patrons. Profit.

Dividing earnings by the time won't yield sensible results. Obviously, there will also be "staff wizards" with regular pay . . . but those will be rare sinecures.