There are plenty of NPCs in Otari that could transfer the runes, and the transfer from a runestone is free, so an NPC might charge a little for their time, or not, depending on the relationship they have with the party. If transferring from one item to another, the cost is 10 percent of the rune cost.
With NPC rune transfers, don't worry about crafting rolls, just handwave it and keep things simple.
Imo it is fine for PCs to not be able to transfer runes if they lack crafting and don't feel like they can justify the trip to otari. My second AV group lacked any crafter and chose to bash Carman's face in so they lacked a crafter to handle it. Just meant PCs made do with what they found.
As for costs, it is 10% of the runes cost but the NPC should take as much time as would be required to get the item to half cost with assurance.
Or you can let your players know crafting doesn't matter in your games and handwaive it so they can always access whatever they want for their level. In that case 10% and 1 day
There are plenty of NPCs in Otari that could transfer the runes, and the transfer from a runestone is free, so an NPC might charge a little for their time, or not, depending on the relationship they have with the party. If transferring from one item to another, the cost is 10 percent of the rune cost.
With NPC rune transfers, don't worry about crafting rolls, just handwave it and keep things simple.
Only up to a certain level if rune though.
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Previous thread on similar subject.
tl;dr: Abomination Vaults was written before the requirement of Magical Crafting was added to the game rules. The GM can and should give the ability to transfer runes to some of the NPCs.
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It is your game, if the current npcs are not high level enough to do the tranfer, just have a higher level npc move to the town to offer said service (at a price according to his level of)"A price appropriate to his level" is what I was asking for help determining!
As for this question:
I don't think it is balanced to have excessive added costs for rune transfer above what the rune transfer rules list. Not unless the GM is adjusting the amount of income the PCs are getting to compensate.
If it is intended for rune transfer to be very expensive and be a significant portion of the character's wealth expenditure, the rules would call that out.
Also, having rune transfer be a significant portion of character wealth makes Magical Crafting nearly a must-pick in order for the party to stay on the wealth-by-level progression. It wouldn't be possible for the adventure writers to publish loot for an adventure that is balanced both for parties that have a Magical Crafting character and parties that don't.
So if it isn't realistic enough for the NPCs to do the rune transfer for just the listed 10% of the rune's cost, add a trivial or token amount of cost. Perhaps another 10% of a level 2 rune as a fixed cost that doesn't scale with the rune level being transferred.
The cost of transferring a rune from one weapon to another is 10% of the rune's value. That is the cost to do it yourself. The rules don't account for how much an NPC should charge for their time, unless this was added in the remaster.
I kind of arbitrarily decided to use the "earn income" table for how much the NPC charges, with the task level being the level of the rune. It's probably cheaper than is realistic, but whatever. It is easy and at least accounts for the labor, and needing more skilled labor for higher level runes.
If they didn’t bother anyone to get what is required well is the same than with any other thing. So if no player has what is required, they will have to look for another way. Can determine randomly if there is a crafter in the settlement for hiring to do the work.
It is just the same than if they have to climb and no one have Athletics, do you put casually an elevator at hand?
This said, if they are novice players then can put a crafter at hand and advice for the future to take into consideration as now they are not novices.
I think the cost is not high:
hireling
What I’d do is hireling a skilled NPC, who has +4 to the skill, and apply the cost (5 sp) for each roll required to succeed on the check.
If they didn’t bother anyone to get what is required well is the same than with any other thing. So if no player has what is required, they will have to look for another way. Can determine randomly if there is a crafter in the settlement for hiring to do the work.
It is just the same than if they have to climb and no one have Athletics, do you put casually an elevator at hand?
This said, if they are novice players then can put a crafter at hand and advice for the future to take into consideration as now they are not novices.
I think the cost is not high:
hireling
What I’d do is hireling a skilled NPC, who has +4 to the skill, and apply the cost (5 sp) for each roll required to succeed on the check.
Each check requires a day's time, though. Also Otari is a 4th level settlement that likes to cater to adventurers, and has both a black smith and wizard operating businesses. Not allowing of them to have Magical Crafting just because nothing explicitly says they do feels weirdly punitive.
Isn't the official rule 10% of the rune's value to transfer? I don't think it matters if you do it yourself, or hire someone to do it; it's 10%.
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Isn't the official rule 10% of the rune's value to transfer? I don't think it matters if you do it yourself, or hire someone to do it; it's 10%.
That is only the official rule in Pathfinder Society, and there it is a special privilege available because of your membership:
Applying and Transferring Runes
The Society has a specialist at the Grand Lodge who can apply or swap out runes for agents of the Pathfinder Society in good standing. This service is free, and requires no check, but is only available before the briefing or once the adventure is complete unless stated in the adventure. Only the service of transfering the rune is free however. Characters must still pay the 10% materials cost and provide any required runestones.
This pretty definitively implies you'd otherwise be charged for the labor. We just have no reference for what those charges are. I am not seeing anything in Player Core or GM Core, which is a shame.
Then you could just use a NPC:
check Smith and Guildmaster
And the cost is the same than Earning Income for the level of the task, and column that seems to be expert for Smith and master for Guildmaster.
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I think it's fair that Magical Crafter makes things simpler for the group, so they might decide to learn it because it's useful. But it shouldn't be mandatory.
So an extra cost of 10% and maybe needing to wait a few more days for it to be done seems about right.
I wouldn't make too much of an issue about the town level. You don't really want to encourage them to go to Absalom because then you get awkward question like "why don't we just report this whole thing to the big city authorities to solve".