Goblin Squad Member
|
MMOs have alot of standard services like healing and teleportation and long-duration buffs. PFO can certainly have these, and they can make sense in the details of the PF world.
This is pretty straightforward, or could be. There may or may not be NPCs available to provide spellcasting services (priests at a temple, mages at an arcane school). I can picture a cosmopolitan temple or arcane school assigning individuals shifts as spellcaster-for-hire. Both the temple and arcane schools provide these services for various reasons. Firstly, it keeps a steady supply of revenue for the organization, which help with property taxes and other shared costs. Secondly, it shows that the organization is contributing and adding value to society and quality of life, which makes the people and government happy (thus reducing the chances of a torch+pitchfork mob). Thirdly, it teaches the members of their organization some people skills (never a bad thing) while also gathering useful information about goings on in the area.
The temple can provide medical assistance via spontaneous casting of cure spells. I suspect low level acolytes would also be available for an emergency as well. Any other spell requests (and associated "donations") should be made a day in advance so the priest on tomorrow's shift can prepare the spells you request.
The arcane school can function a little quicker, as the shift-wizard would start the day with all empty slots, and fills them with the requested spells in 15-60 minutes (See THIS LINK for how).
Some example services include...
Teleport party to commonly known location: 450 to 910 gold, or more if a larger party
Buff - Mage Armor: 10gp per hour duration
Conjured - Mount: 10gp per 2 hours
Emergency healing to stabilize (Cure Light): 10gp donation; we'll bill you later
Conjure clean water in a drought: 5gp donation per 2 gallons
Sanitize food during plague: 5gp donation per cubic foot
Conjure food during famine: 150gp donation per 15 people for 1 day's rations
Find a lost item in a known nearby vicinity: 150gp donation
Restore sight to one who is blind: 150gp donation
Buff - Magic Circle vs. Evil: 30gp per 10 minutes, minimum 150gp
The implications of this can give ideas for game events ... famines, plagues and droughts can afflict regions, caused by badguys, or simply as background to add depth and immersion, while also potentially adding complications to areas.
For example, a famine would affect which merchants are at the marketplace, and affect local prices of foods or organic materials, and also cause the local temple to be fully "booked" with requests to conjure and sanitize food (partly subsidized by charities, insurance companies or the government), so healing services are simply unavailable.
For organizations which have the resources, high demand requests can be automated and charged at competitive rates. This is done through crafting traps.
An arcane society could make a room trap which spends 20 seconds reading the mind of a person and teleports them (and up to 3 additional passengers) there. They'd charge a fee to use thie room, which can put any "grunt-work" teleporters-for-hire out of business. Making the trap would be a big investment...
- CR 8: Detect Thoughts + Greater Teleport
- Craft DC 35: CR 8 + reset + proximity trigger
- Costs 48,500gp: Greater Teleport + Detect Thoughts
- Crafted in 97 days
See? Expensive!
However, if you charged a "mere" 100gp per teleportation (up to 4 people per use), you would recover your costs in 485 uses, and everything else would be pure profit. 100gp is also more affordable than the 450gp minimum for lesser teleport, which drives out all smalltime competition and also broadens your market. You could technically drop the price to something very low, but then you'd also attract the riffraff and no self respecting arcane society wants to associate with dirt farmers.
This example illustrates how temples could have healing rooms, or food-conjuring altars (both traps triggered by prayer and/or donation). Arcane societies could have short term horse rentals ("24 hour conjured rental for a mere 10gp!") if the market has enough demand to pay back the investment. The possibilities can easily get out of hand.
All this shows that any sort of MMO-standard elements you see in a town could easily be present in PFO with a bit of resourceful referencing.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I point this out more to say that consistency and immersion are not significant hurdles for almost any sort of element you want to add to the game; anything is possible if you explain it within the setting's rules.
Thus, let the game's vision, game design, and player enjoyment come first, and the explanations can resolve almost any inconsistency.
Would teleport rooms (where you pay to use) be something that adds to the game? If so, here's a way to explain them.
Is paying a temple for healing a game element that people want? If so, here's a consistent way to explain the hows and whys.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Never liked "a wizard did it"... it's a fluff-railroad
... kind of like a pair of 5 year old kids arguing about whose imaginary friend would win in a fight, so they just make stuff to one-up the other.
A set framework, which can be used as a sort of toolbox to design solutions, is more consistent, fair and honest.