Mundane Tattoos

[*Thelith]

When creating a character for PFS if I want to have mundane, normal, non-magical, tattoos do I need to pay for them? Or can they just be part of my backstory and character description?

[Bear Burning Ashes]

I'd suggest both ^_^

But that's what I do. If you want the mechanical advantage of having tattoos (circumstance bonuses when talking to Shoanti and such), you would need to pay for them.

They're fairly cheap, even for elaborate ones. My Shoanti Warpriest used to purchase one after every adventure.

[*Thelith]

No mechanical advantages, just a talking point about my backstory my family name or such nonsense.

[Serisan]

Tattoos are remarkably cheap, but can be made more elaborate for a slight upcharge. It's such a small amount of coin that I would expect players to have paid if they said they had one.

Ultimate Equipment wrote:

TATTOO

Price 1 cp – 20 gp; Weight —

The price of a tattoo depends on the quality, size, and number of colors used. A coin-sized tattoo in blue ink that will blur over a decade costs 1 cp, a hand-sized one in black ink that won't fade costs 1 sp, and a tattoo covering an entire back takes several sessions and costs 10 gp. Each additional color costs as much as a single tattoo of its size. While these prices represent the baseline, tattoos—like any other artwork—can be worth far more depending on the prestige of the artist.

[*Thelith]

The prices are highly variable, I'm fine with saying -10gp for all of my tattoos... All one color nothing massive or intricate.. but was just curious if there was anything official, the variability of pricing and GMs is the issue. One might say all of that is like 1gp and another might say 15gp.. that's a big difference in starting gold.

[Serisan]

I've never heard of a GM exerting that sort of authority over something like this.

[My Life Is In Ruins]

I have an ifrit with tattoos in fire ink at 10gp for permanence (tattooed sorcerer). I pay 11gp per tattoo. That's a very safe price that any PFS GM will accept.
Glow in the dark tattoo should run 6gp(5+1).
You could skimp by on 0.1gp but c'mon... these are supposed to be nice. Now if your brother did them back when you were 10 years old, yeah, pay the minimum.
If they are fancy enough for barbarian nobility then they'd be like 75gp nobles clothes and 100gp jewellery. As a GM I'd tend to think of them as jewellery(accessories). In this case you are using them to qualify for a game mechanic and the gold has to be paid.

[*Thelith]

My Life Is In Ruins wrote:

In this case you are using them to qualify for a game mechanic and the gold has to be paid.

I am not sure which game mechanic I am trying to qualify for? Character descriptions are hardly a mechanic. I can pick my height and weight without paying for the food it would take to have grown to that size.

Thank you all for the input, it seems, to be safe I should use a nominal amount of gold for normal tattoos and be done with it.