Discounts At HQ

[Chrion]

My PCs are part of a larger organization and, as such, I want to give them some benefits of being part of it. I want to give them discounts on items, scrolls, potions, etc., but I obviously don't want it to be game breaking. I find the more I fiddle with the balance of the game, the more I see how finely tuned it is. Anyway, my initial impulse was a 10% off the market price. Does this seem too high? Too low? Any advice would be welcome.

[Brother Fen]

10% is good. That's what I use for our Pathfinder Society and I believe that is one of the official boons. Be careful, however, as your players will try to apply it to selling weapons, crafting and goodness knows what else.

[Asmodeus' Advocate]

But. Uh. Hm.

You're the DM, right? So . . . you control how much money the players get from things? If you're worried about balancing the wealth by level, just give them ten percent less loot than you would otherwise. Heck, give them fifty percent less loot then you would otherwise. Than give them huge discounts at their HQ, and the players will feel like they're getting something out of being part of the organization without it effecting balance at all.

Though, a fifty percent drop in loot drops might be noticeable. Depends on how consistent you've been on handing out the shinies.

[The Sideromancer]

Have you checked out the Fame and Prestige system from Ultimate Campaign? It's basically a metric for getting favours out of an organization and can include purchases.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Also from UC you can look at Contacts. These are folks who are willing to do favors for the PCs as more than one-offs like you get from using Diplomacy on a stranger. One of the things they list that Contacts might do is give the PCs equipment - maybe the "contact" is an agent of their guild willing to hand over scrolls and potions in return for their continued work?

Another thing to consider is the PCs' ability to craft such consumables themselves. If they're low enough level then crafting a scroll costs 12 GP, 5 SP. Letting them buy scroll at 22 GP, 5 SP (10% discount) might be useful if they don't have that scroll, but then again the same amount of money lets the party scroll crafter study that spell then make the scroll themselves.

Crafting gets even cheaper with Ultimate Campaign and the Downtime rules.

What about just giving them a set amount of GP worth of stuff as their reward from the guild? Then, if you're looking for ongoing benefits from their affiliation to the guild give them more intangible benefits like +2 on Diplomacy checks with folks that like the guild or access to a library in town that most people don't have?