Legato Piece on the Infernal Bargain

[Alex Blagovestnov]

Question is about bards masterpiece "Legato Piece on the Infernal Bargain"
And it is quite simple - does it need full payment (as described in Planar Ally) or lack of payment simply means +0 bonus on Charisma Check?

Example:

Bard had play hard-rock guitar solo and Beadred Devil appers in a flash of hellfire.

Bard - "Hello mighty fiend! Did you like my new masterpiece 'Highway to Hell'? Maybe you can help me to beat some bandits? I am lack of money and don't want to sell my soul, but i can offer you a big nice keg of beer - would you help me?"
Devil - "You are funny, pity mortal jester, but maybe i wil be statisfied by your music only...let me think"

Bard rolling opposed charisma check against devil - with +0 bonus because of lack of payment and task that does't suit for devil well
Let's assume that Bard wins and now he has devil at his service, with a keg of beer as payment.

Does it works in that way?

[Pizza Lord]

Actually, reading it, it looks like it probably does work that way. The Charisma check would likely be at +0, since normally the required payment is 100 to 500 gp per HD depending on the length of the task (half for non-dangerous tasks) and a keg of beer and a song is likely well below that range.

[Baprr]

I don't think that just because it isn't explicitly stated in the masterpiece, the creature summoned can't refuse you because of lack of payment. The task is somewhat dangerous, may or may not align with the devil, and would probably require about an hour - you'd need 600-6000 gp for that one, and a song and a keg of beer is so out of it's price range, it isn't payment (maybe try an azata next time). I doubt it is the intended purpose of the masterpiece.

But that is a good example of a mildly unreasonable deal. Lets crank it up to eleven! We bind an angel and pay him a kiss on the bum to hunt down and kill paladins for a century - a task ridiculously out of character for your typical angel, suicidal and underpaid. Would he be able to refuse? Not unless he rolls good! Of course, you would think that nobody would try that, but I can bet my life that there is a troll of a player who would.

That is why I think that the creature can simply refuse your task.