The warlock in my campaign wants to spend his downtime investigating who his patron is. He doesn't know and was coerced into a pact to help his sister who is cursed with a disease. He wants to see if he can hire someone powerful to see if they can sense something. He spent the first week investigating in churches and temples in Waterdeep and got some leads as to when kind of patron he may have. So it makes sense that he can possibly get a high level cleric or mage for the right price. Some of his party members are members of force gray and the harpers so he also has some contacts there. I have an idea of different levels of information he may be able to gather from someone "investigating" his aura of magic.
My question is what should the cost be? I plan on giving different price option of "material costs for the ritual". Higher level ritual will result in more information. I want to make it expensive enough that its not something they can do frequently. But I don't want to make it prohibitive. I also don't want to make it unfair compared to the other player's downtime. Though the rest of the party chose to do more common things that are not as expensive.
Is he trying to actually contact/talk with the patron, or just find out who it is.
If he’s just looking for a name, maybe treat it like a level 4 spell like divination/locate creature (RAW, the spells don’t work like that, but we’re into homebrew territory here) they seem on par with just getting a name.
If he wants to talk, I’d say he has to first have the name, then it could be like a commune spell, level 5.
As far as cost, that’s going to be hard to say, as it will depend a lot on the economy of your world. But if you want to keep it possible but rare, I’d suggest an ingredient rather than a gold cost. Like say he needs a particular flower, then let him only ever find one or two of them. It’s easier to control how many of those he gets, than to worry about gold and how he’ll use it.
I would not make the price about money, this is a fantastic plot hook for you to open the party up to different encounters. Maybe a high level mage tells him if he can retrieve a magic item in the dungeon then he will help, he teleports them into said dungeon. Or a cleric needs help clearing a tomb of undead, or the party to travel to hell to save a soul.
The kind of individuals who can help him with this information are unlikely to need money, so favors and use of the parties skills are far more likely to persuade them to help.
I wouldn't have them charge money since high-level spells are uncommon and they would cost too much for the character to afford. I would have them ask for magic items or a favour instead since that would be more useful for them. You could also charge a price in money (~2.5 K) and have the characters find a specific item or component as well. I think this would provide a good adventure hook if the mage/cleric wants something done or retrieved.
You could also have them save up to get the spell cast, but this could cause conflict if the player/character wants to know as soon as possible, and as mentioned earlier, it would make it unfair.
Thank you all! I ended up having him agree to retrieve a specific component that she would use for the ritual. So he was able to have answers right away but he now needs to pay her back. And he could possibly retrieve maybe two samples and get even more info.
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The warlock in my campaign wants to spend his downtime investigating who his patron is. He doesn't know and was coerced into a pact to help his sister who is cursed with a disease. He wants to see if he can hire someone powerful to see if they can sense something. He spent the first week investigating in churches and temples in Waterdeep and got some leads as to when kind of patron he may have. So it makes sense that he can possibly get a high level cleric or mage for the right price. Some of his party members are members of force gray and the harpers so he also has some contacts there. I have an idea of different levels of information he may be able to gather from someone "investigating" his aura of magic.
My question is what should the cost be? I plan on giving different price option of "material costs for the ritual". Higher level ritual will result in more information. I want to make it expensive enough that its not something they can do frequently. But I don't want to make it prohibitive. I also don't want to make it unfair compared to the other player's downtime. Though the rest of the party chose to do more common things that are not as expensive.
He has maybe 4-5K available
Is he trying to actually contact/talk with the patron, or just find out who it is.
If he’s just looking for a name, maybe treat it like a level 4 spell like divination/locate creature (RAW, the spells don’t work like that, but we’re into homebrew territory here) they seem on par with just getting a name.
If he wants to talk, I’d say he has to first have the name, then it could be like a commune spell, level 5.
As far as cost, that’s going to be hard to say, as it will depend a lot on the economy of your world. But if you want to keep it possible but rare, I’d suggest an ingredient rather than a gold cost. Like say he needs a particular flower, then let him only ever find one or two of them. It’s easier to control how many of those he gets, than to worry about gold and how he’ll use it.
Depending on who/what his patron is, there might be a need/reason for a “blood sacrifice”
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I would not make the price about money, this is a fantastic plot hook for you to open the party up to different encounters. Maybe a high level mage tells him if he can retrieve a magic item in the dungeon then he will help, he teleports them into said dungeon. Or a cleric needs help clearing a tomb of undead, or the party to travel to hell to save a soul.
The kind of individuals who can help him with this information are unlikely to need money, so favors and use of the parties skills are far more likely to persuade them to help.
I wouldn't have them charge money since high-level spells are uncommon and they would cost too much for the character to afford. I would have them ask for magic items or a favour instead since that would be more useful for them. You could also charge a price in money (~2.5 K) and have the characters find a specific item or component as well. I think this would provide a good adventure hook if the mage/cleric wants something done or retrieved.
You could also have them save up to get the spell cast, but this could cause conflict if the player/character wants to know as soon as possible, and as mentioned earlier, it would make it unfair.
Thank you all! I ended up having him agree to retrieve a specific component that she would use for the ritual. So he was able to have answers right away but he now needs to pay her back. And he could possibly retrieve maybe two samples and get even more info.