In many AD&D® game campaigns,
magic-users fall into two categories: reclusive,
powerful NPCs whose services might
be bought, and wandering, adventuring
NPCs and player characters. However, this
simple form of classification doesn?t do
justice to what a magic-user is and what
such a character could be capable of.

In a sense, magic-users have much in
common with the doctors and lawyers of
our own world. They are experts in a body
of specialized knowledge; they spend years
of study to gain their expertise, and they
also expend more effort and money than
members of any other character class to
acquire their class?s special skills. Presumably,
like doctors and lawyers, some take up
magic out of a love of knowledge, and some
for altruistic reasons ? and a goodly percentage
choose the profession based on a
desire to turn their powers into wealth.
Unfortunately for those in the third group,
the rewards for all their effort and study
may prove to be rather meager.

Consider: If a mage chooses not to go
adventuring, he or she has two ways to
make money ? casting spells for a fee, or
enchanting magical items. The latter, of
course, is extremely possible ? creating
even one magic item could support a spellcaster
in luxury for some time, and it?s
certainly much safer than adventuring
against pit fiends and mind flayers. The
catch, alas, is that it takes a 12th-level
magic-user to cast the necessary spell, putting
it beyond the reach of many spellcasters.
Furthermore, even a wizard of the
requisite level must still find a copy of enchant
an item somewhere and make a successful
attempt to learn it.

For magic-users without the luck or the
level needed to learn enchant an item, the
alternative path to wealth is to cast magic
spells for hire. This, too, has its drawbacks.
The most obvious problem is nobody wanting
your spells. Many magic-user spells are
combat- or adventure-oriented. A stay-athome
magic-user won?t find many people
wanting to buy a casting of fireball, magic
missile, or lightning bolt. Other spells, like
shield or find familiar, are usable only by
the one casting them, so they have no sale
value. Finally, even if the magic-user does
have one of the useful spells ? identify,
stone to flesh, reincarnation, detect magic,
etc. ? how can he be sure anyone will
know he has them? How many customers
can he expect to knock on his door?

The answer to that will depend on what
the magic-user does to get customers. After
all, why should a magician wait for adventurers
to seek him out when he can seek
them out? Instead of being purely a place of
contemplation and study, a magic-user?s
guild hall might be plastered on every wall
with advertisements or magic mouths,
listing spells available, rates, and the level
of the caster, all placed by members in
hopes of attracting clients. (?Lagor the
spellbinder detects more magic faster ?
special discounts for rings and rods!?) This
tactic alone might serve to boost business
(and profits).

The truly ambitious wizard, however, will
not stop there. Instead of merely providing
spells on request, he might go out and
create his own market, designing and offering
special services that no non-magic-user
can match. In our world, technology
changed the face of many trades and professions;
in a world where magic reigns, sorcery
could have the same effect. Dozens of
ordinary jobs could be done faster, better,
and more efficiently by magic. Why
shouldn?t some enterprising magic-user go
ahead and do them, and turn a profit in the
process?

What follows, then, are suggestions on
new ways for spell-casters to get rich (and
I?m sure there are many more that haven?t
occurred to me). I believe they can add a
touch of novelty to an AD&D world, emphasizing
the difference from our own.
While I conceived of them for use by NPCs,
some might prove interesting avenues for
player characters to explore as well. With
this in mind, some of the practical problems
involved in opening such businesses have
also been covered.

To begin with, there are the areas of
information-gathering, surveillance, and
espionage. Magic-users have many ways to
gain hard-to-learn information ? clairvoyance
or wizard eye, for example. Think
what a king or an empress might pay for an
agent who can hear a conversation in any
room with which he?s familiar, watch a
meeting through solid walls, or read even
the best-hidden secret documents. Think
how a wizard eye could revolutionize detective
work, making it possible to trail a man
with almost no chance of detection. For the
less honorable magic-user, blackmail is
always an option. (?My crystal ball showed
me a most interesting scene ? some noblewoman
consorting with the queen?s paramour
? ahh, yes, counting gold always
takes my mind off such tawdry matters.?) A
magic-user specializing in such services
could find plenty of clients. Of course, this
would lead to the development of appropriate
security measures, both magical (an
amulet of proof against detection would
neutralize such spying techniques) and nonmagical
(simply writing down conversations
instead of speaking them would foil a mage
using clairaudience).

Another field where magic-users could
make an impact is communications. In
these days of interstate highways, television,
and telephones, it?s difficult to realize how
isolated even a large town could be forty
years ago, never mind the medieval setting
of most AD&D worlds. But just as science
helped bring our world together, magic can
do the same in AD&D campaigns.

Consider, for example, a widely flung
empire, where even vital news ? plague,
famine, rebellion ? can only be spread at
the speed of a man on horseback. How
much more efficient to hire a couple of
magic-users, equip each of them with a
crystal ball, and set them in two widely
separated cities. At regular intervals each
would stare into his ball at the other end
and trade reports (or, if the rooms were
familiar to them, clairaudience would serve
just as efficiently). This has its limits ?
without efficient clocks, timing the reports
might be difficult ? but it should still work
often enough to be useful. Such a system
could also be set up as a private concern,
offering information from leagues away to
local lords (politics and war news), merchants
(crop yields, weather, and current
prices), and anyone else willing to pay for
the service.

Along with the lack of modern communications,
most AD&D worlds lack swift,
modern means of transport. As most adventurers
know, travel is a slow, often risky
business. This presents another opportunity
to the enterprising magic-user. A teleport
spell could take days and miles off a journey,
something worth paying for if speed is
important; even when time is not of the
essence, the very rich might find instantaneous
travel a wonderful luxury.

There are, however, several drawbacks
the magic-user would have to keep in mind.
First, he or she must be familiar with the
target area to minimize the risk of teleporting
low or high. (It would be advisable to
set up a standard ?landing site? in each
city, a place with which the magic-user can
become thoroughly familiar.) Second, the
amount of weight carried and the number
of jumps per day will be limited by level ?
a 9th-level caster could only memorize one
teleport spell a day, forcing him to go one
day and return the next; if there were several
passengers, it might take a week or
more to transport them all.

In addition, the risk of teleporting high or
low cannot be completely eliminated. What
is the magic-user?s liability, then, if he
transports a client into the floor, killing
them both instantly? Will payment for raise
dead spells (coming from either the raised
magic-user or his estate) suffice, or will
there be punitive damages as well? In fact,
this problem could arise with any magical
endeavor ? if a thaumaturge casts identify
on an object and gets a wrong property, can
he be sued? What if someone relies on his
statements as to its powers and gets seriously
injured? Even if the customer can?t
regain his money, the failure would seriously
damage the magic-user?s reputation
and business.

Turning to yet another branch of business,
consider construction work. To anyone
engaged in construction, dig or move earth
spells could be well worth the price, as could
telekinesis or levitation for raising stones.
Even a low-level magic-user could enlarge a
few workmen to ogre- or giant-size to increase
their strength; if enlarged enough,
they could even use items like the mattock
of the titans in their work. It would also be
possible to raise a wall of stone entirely by
magic, saving both time and money ? but
of course, it would also be possible for it to
be dispelled by enemies.

Even menial labor can be lightened with
magic. There may be a number of low-level
NPCs content to use 1st-level spells and
cantrips for menial tasks. My own campaign
world has several traveling tinkers
and village magicians content to live peacefully,
casting humble mend spells and the
like, rather than compete for greater knowledge
and power.

For the neutral or evil magic-user, there
is also another option ? crime. I?m not so
much concerned with the spell-caster committing
his own crimes (the potential of
magic for murder, arson, and fraud is too
obvious to bother discussing), but with a
magic-user working (on retainer, perhaps)
for the local thieves? guild. Illegal or not,
such work could provide a steady income ?
casting detect magic and identify on stolen
property, making a pair of thieves invisible,
or diminishing them (to slip through windows
or small holes).

Polymorph other could also yield rich
rewards for the magic-user who knows it.
Many AD&D characters are interested in
obtaining rare beasts and monsters for their
use, and they?re often willing to take great
risks and expenses to acquire them; a
magic-user who can provide them easily
should find a ready market. If a cavalier
wants a griffon for a steed, why go to the
effort of catching one when it?d be a lot
simpler to polymorph a cow? The system
shock roll might be a failure once or twice,
but it should work eventually. If you have to
feed a subdued dragon, polymorph a few
blue-bottle flies into horses or cattle, then
let the dragon kill them if the system shock
hasn't done it.  It'd be a lot cheaper than
buying that much meat through regular
channels. 

NPC businesses like these can be a very
interesting part of the background of
AD&D worlds. However, what if player
characters decide to make investments, not
war? How does a DM deal with player
characters who want to be entrepreneurs,
not adventurers? Well, that can be interesting
too; the key to making it so is to make
the business jungle as much of a challenge
as a real jungle. If the players expect their
characters to make easy money, make sure
that they?re wrong.

First ? the player character enterprises
must get established. This will require
advertising and possibly winning public
acceptance. Who?d want to be the first
passenger teleported by an aspiring businessman?
The law will also have to be dealt
with; taxes must be paid, as well as rents,
insurance, and licenses. If the characters
neglect these things, what are the penalties?

Second, there?s the question of business
liability. This has been discussed above in
the text about teleporting.

Third. . . well, businessmen are not
without enemies. There may already be
magic-users in the same business the PC
wants to start, in which case they may be
hostile to their competition. Even nonmagical
businessmen may prove unfriendly
? a shipping or carriage company would
see a teleporter as a threat to its trade, and
local laborers would see their jobs disappear
if a magic-user comes to a building site.
Counterattacks could range from the nonviolent
(bribing the town council to put
some legal obstacle in the PCs? path) to
very violent (hiring an assassin to put them
out of business permanently). If the characters
have acquired any enemies during their
adventuring, their foes might decide that
this is the perfect time to strike. Who
knows? Your players may decide their characters
were better off fighting Demogorgon.

Turning magic to money requires as
much thought from the DM as designing a
well-crafted dungeon. Giving that thought
can make magic-based businesses a fascinating
aspect of background detail or a challenge
for your players -- and either way,
your game will profit by it.

Pricing magic-user spells
For every magic-user with the drive to set
up his own business, there will probably be
three or four content to operate the oldfashioned
way, selling their services on a
per-spell basis. Since most PCs will need
such services eventually, it seems a good
idea to have a definite pricing system which
will give them ? and you ?some idea of a
fair price for spells. What follows is one
example of how it can be done.

To begin with, there is a base price per
spell level, which I arbitrarily set at 200 gp
per cumulative spell level. That means 200
gp for a 1st-level spell, 600 for a 2nd-level
one (200 + (200 x 2)), 1200 for a 3rd-level
one (200 + (200 x 2) + (200 x 3)), and so on.
Given the sharply increasing power and
scarcity of higher-level spells, this doesn?t
seem unreasonable.

In addition, there will be an added fee
based on the level of the caster. Many spells
are more effective when cast by a higherlevel
magic-user ? identify, dispel magic,
and contact other plane, to name a few;
these spells carry an added charge of 100 gp
per cumulative level of the caster. If a party
wants some magic dispelled, it can go to a
5th-level caster and pay 2700 gp
(200 + 400 + 600 for the spell itself and
100 + 200 + 300 + 400 + 500 for the mage?s
levels), or to a 7th-level magic-user and pay
4000 gp (1200 for the spell and 2800 for the
caster) to get a higher chance of the spell
being successful. For other spells, like stone
to flesh, where the level of the caster makes
no real difference, a straight 100 gp per
level ? not cumulative ? should be sufficient;
a 3rd-level spell in this category (like
invisibility 10? radius, if you?re not worried
about someone casting dispel magic at it)
would cost but 1700 gp from a 11th-level
magic-user and 1900 gp from one of 7th
level.

Beyond the basic price and the caster?s
fee, there will be additions for certain special
extras. If the material components are
rare or expensive, the client buying the spell
will be expected to pay for or supply them.
Spells which materially weaken the caster
(like haste or wish) or have great risks attached
(like cacodemon or spiritwrack) will
cost double the normal amount for a spell of
that level. A haste spell cast by a 5th-level
spell-caster would cost 5600 gp (double the
normal 2700 gp); a 7th-level magic-user
would charge 8000 gp for the same service.

If you use this system, you should keep in
mind that practical considerations may alter
the theoretical list prices. In a port or an
island city, for instance, spells like water
breathing or airy water will be worth more
than other spells of the same level and could
go for a correspondingly higher price (but
then again, they might be a great deal more
common, which would drive-the price back
down). Magic-using businesses like those
I?ve described might charge less per spell
(making it up in volume) or more (as specialists).
Of course, if there?s only one
magic-user in a thousand miles and a character
just has to get a spell cast ? well, the
only use for a pricing system may be in
letting him know how badly he?s being
ripped off.

This system is an arbitrary one, though
not unreasonable; don?t hesitate to change
the basic cost per spell level or caster level if
it suits you better. This is particularly true
for worlds where the highest levels are very
low (4th or 5th) or very high (20th and up).
In the former case, spells over 1st level will
be so much rarer that the price per level
should be sharply steeper (300 or 400 gp
cumulative, perhaps); in the latter case, the
increased supply should lower the prices of
even 9th-level spells. In either case, adapt
these ideas freely to suit yourself and your
game.

FEBRUARY 1986