[scc]

Originally Posted by maximara

Considering the time needed for most enchantments things like Enchanter's Staff comes off more as window dressing - something, barring some really fortune circumstances the player would never get to use.

In fact that is my view regarding huge hunks of the Magic Items series.

This only holds true if you keep using S&S, yet the Enchanters Staff makes Q&D a lot more usable.

Originally Posted by maximara

Many of these items cost so much in terms of energy and spells (Burbane’s Staff with its Beast Speech, Total Paralysis, Sense Foes, Flesh to Stone, Walk on Air, Explosive Fireball, Ice Slick, Create Food, Major Healing, Dispel Illusion, Analyze Magic, Invisibility, Disintegrate, Conceal Magic (-10 to analyze), Suggestion, Apportation, Sense Spirit, Plant Form, Missile Shield, Great Voice, 5 points of Power, and 5 of Speed) that the item even existing without having many quirks via "normal" enchantment becomes rarer the more spells it has.

For example the Burbane’s Staff above has 22 spells. At 15 (95.4%) that is 35.5% (.954^22) that every enchantment succeeds without any quirking. Worse yet the chance a critical failure does not happen (which destroys the item) is 65.6% (.981^22)

I believe that S&S allows you to not roll for success, so no chance of quirking. Of course there is the question of way a Mage needs a Staff that allows him to cast a whole bunch of spells, but probably best not to look into that.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So, you can buy 4-dimensional bottles from your version of Amazon?

That's what a "Klein bottle" is, the paradoxical 3-dimenional projection of a 4 dimensional shape. It's analogous to a Mobius strip which is an insoluable paradox if you only exist in 2 dimensions but only a twisted strip of paper in 3D.

So it's entirely likely that you can't even take the Klein Bottle of Beer off-campus. Maybe it just goes "poof!" once you take it outside the campus Reality Stabilizers or maybe dragging on the 3 dimensional end of the bottle won't let you get the whole 4 dimensional bottle through IOU's 4 dimensional gates.

So you're looking for a wealthy (but second semester) freshthing who is for some reason worried about nailing down a 3 and a half-year supply of beer but who doesn't want to drink enough beer to get drunk. Maybe a couple of thousand it anything.

You may say that you could keep a whole fraternity supplied with beer but what fraternity wants to drink beer but avoid getting drunk?

IOU is only a suggested setting, I can quite easily have DF adventurers find one, and later get into trouble from whoever ultimately brought it, and the suggested price is $10.