Resurrection (and probably other) costs

[Errenor]

Why is it so high? (Not the in-world reasons, these are imaginable.) Base ritual costs are 75xlvl, but PFS costs are 75xlvl+125 for the first levels range. It's about 4x character wealth at the 3rd level! What's the point?

[Tomppa]

Paying gold is an option, but it's a bad option. It's not feasible at lower levels, but it does become a possibility at higher levels, especially if you split the cost between the party.

That being said, the real option for bringing back a dead PC is using the Second Chance boon at 40 acp.

[Online Guide Team Lead - JTT]

Errenor wrote:

Why is it so high? (Not the in-world reasons, these are imaginable.) Base ritual costs are 75xlvl, but PFS costs are 75xlvl+125 for the first levels range. It's about 4x character wealth at the 3rd level! What's the point?

I am guessing you are asking (specifically) about how the prices in the Spellcasting Services Cost sheet were calculated?

The "Cost" in the spell/ritual entry is the cost of the Material Component for the spell. You *also* have to pay the person who casts the spell (See spellcasting services in core rule book, page 294.)

More on how this is calculated:

Note that the chart there starts at level 0 (not level 1) since there is a boon that allows you to purchase those spellcasting services as if the target was 1 level lower.

So, you can see that the base "Resurrect" spell, which requires 1 (9th level) primary caster, 2 secondary casters (each competent enough to reliably succeed on a DC 27 skill check), and a full day to cast costs 200 gp, in addition to the Material Component Cost.

(This is part of the reason why the price jumps *dramatically* at 11th, 13th, 15th, etc level, as those are the levels where the spellcaster has to be a higher level as well, and the ritual requires *more* secondary casters, and thus the spell casting services cost as well as the material costs increase.)

That extremely high cost is why there exist ways other than gold to bring characters back (essentially "calling in favors" from the pathfinder society to offset the gold cost.)

In terms of Treasure Bundles, Resurrection starts being feasible at about 9th level (which makes sense as it is a 5th level ritual.) Starting at level 9, Resurrect costs between 15 and 20 Treasure Bundles. (Or spread across a table of 5, about 3-4 TB per PC.)

If you have a member of the Envoy's Alliance at the table, with the "Bring them Back Alive" boon, that drops to closer to 10-15 TB (starting at 10th level) Or 2-3 TB.

[Errenor]

Thanks.

Online Guide Team Lead - JTT wrote:

The "Cost" in the spell/ritual entry is the cost of the Material Component for the spell. You *also* have to pay the person who casts the spell (See spellcasting services in core rule book, page 294.)

So, you can see that the base "Resurrect" spell, which requires 1 (9th level) primary caster, 2 secondary casters (each competent enough to reliably succeed on a DC 27 skill check), and a full day to cast costs 200 gp, in addition to the Material Component Cost.

That's interesting. So that's still more 'in-world' calculation than real-world PFS decision? I did look at Spellcasting services, but there's only spell-casting costs which gives 80g for 5th level spell and doesn't explain the amount. I can't find any reference how to calculate full-day casting for a n-th level NPC. :) Maybe in Gamemastery? Don't know this book very well.

[Online Guide Team Lead - JTT]

Errenor wrote:

Thanks.

That's interesting. So that's still more 'in-world' calculation than real-world PFS decision?

Correct

Errenor wrote:

I did look at Spellcasting services, but there's only spell-casting costs which gives 80g for 5th level spell and doesn't explain the amount. I can't find any reference how to calculate full-day casting for a n-th level NPC. :) Maybe in Gamemastery? Don't know this book very well.

"Spells that take a long time to cast (over 1 minute) usually cost 25% more."

Probably all day should be *even* more, but someone decided to be generous.

For secondary casters the decision was made to assume that they cost half as much as the primary caster. (It doesn't really spell out how much they cost.)

Actually, the spells are being cast at a quite substantial discount as: "uncommon spells typically cost at least 100% more, if you can find someone who knows them at all."

So really "in world" the base costs should be closer to 400 gp or more.

[Errenor]

Thanks. =)
But I should say that even though it's 'uncommon' it's not an always 'in-world' category. And in this case it looks like mainly for GMs to regulate if players could more or less easily resurrect their characters. "In-world" it's probably the most famous ritual which most ritualists strive to learn as soon as they could. Of course it could still be uncommon due to beliefs and costs, but it would be the most common uncommon ritual I think :)