Question about Prestige Point purchased spellcasting services (spoilers for #4-05 The Sanos Abduction)

[Christopher Rowe]

What follows can probably be boiled down to this:

Does the language in the fourth bullet point under "Spellcasting Services" at p. 20 of the current Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide apply to those spells listed as available as "awards" on the Prestige Point table on the following page?

By which I mean, are the spells such as neutralize poison listed on the table on p. 21 assumed to be cast at whatever caster level is necessary for the spell to be successful?

I'm running "The Sanos Abduction" next week and I anticipate that one or more of the PCs will be poisoned by the pukwudgie at the end of the scenario. The scenario helpfully provides three potions of neutralize poison (I'm judging them to have been crafted at caster level 6, though the scenario does not explicitly call that out--the druid who provides them to the PCs is 6th level and the Chronicle Sheet lists them at such a level), but the imbibers will still need to roll a 12 or better for those to be efficacious at the higher tier, and that's assuming they only get dosed once and those stacking poison effects don't kick in.

So I'd like to be prepared for a scenario where a PC will want to spend Prestige Points on a casting of neutralize poison. I might be overthinking this, but this seems to be a pretty complex ruling. The site of the likely poisoning is far, far from any settlements, so that "add 5 to this cost" footnote seems germane, not to mention the fact that my discretion at having a "wandering mystic" (to used the Guide's language at p. 20) available for the casting will come in to play.

It seems like there used to be language in the Guide about spellcasting services purchased with Prestige always being at minimum caster level, but if that's still in there these days, I can't find it.

So I have all these questions. I anticipate the need for a wandering 17th level caster with neutralize poison on her spell list being out for a stroll in the Sanos Forest this coming Tuesday night and I'm sure the answer to how to adjudicate that is in the Guide, but I'm just not finding it.

[andreww]

These two bullet points taken together rather suggest that Prestige purchased spells are at minimum caster level:

Quote:

You can also use Prestige Points to purchase spellcasting services per the table on page 21.

If a character wants to ensure success with a spell that requires a caster level check or a specific caster level, hired spellcasters are able to cast spells at any caster level as appropriate, such as destroyed magic items that might require an extremely high caster level for make whole to repair them and restore their function. For example, remove curse requires a caster level check with a difficulty equal to the save DC for the curse; a caster level of 14 would be required to ensure success on a curse with a save DC of 15.

You would never need to buy a higher caster level cast if the prestige purchase was a guarantee.

I treat the 5pp cost increase as your faction making arrangements to have the right person in place. I will also generally only charge it once even if a group needs multiple spells cast.

[Christopher Rowe]

Thank you, andreww.

[Nathan Goodrich]

Why are people spending Prestige for poison again? Poison effects generally end on their own well before a Pathfinder team can get back to town for prestige use.

The Pukwudgie poison in question here isn't different and the effect ends after six rounds (whether or not the character in question is dead). This isn't the sort of thing you spend Prestige to fix...

[Christopher Rowe]

Nathan Goodrich wrote:

Why are people spending Prestige for poison again? Poison effects generally end on their own well before a Pathfinder team can get back to town for prestige use.

The Pukwudgie poison in question here isn't different and the effect ends after six rounds (whether or not the character in question is dead). This isn't the sort of thing you spend Prestige to fix...

Good analysis, thank you.

[Tallow]

My opinion is PP gets you minimum caster level. The costs of things you can get with PP with the general understanding that PP is worth 375gp each (source: 2PP for a 750gp item) would be roughly for minimum caster level if you do the math.

If you want higher caster levels, pay cash.

[Christopher Rowe]

Tallow wrote:

My opinion is PP gets you minimum caster level. The costs of things you can get with PP with the general understanding that PP is worth 375gp each (source: 2PP for a 750gp item) would be roughly for minimum caster level if you do the math.

If you want higher caster levels, pay cash.

Makes good sense, thank you.