08-14-2009, 05:36 PM | #91 |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: Powerstones
Not really. If Manastones are available, then there's more or less no need to ever buy a Tyche potion if your intended use is for charging a powerstone. Just buy a Manastone instead. You not only won't need to do anything in the field to have it ready, but it'll also be cheaper.
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08-14-2009, 05:43 PM | #92 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Powerstones
Quote:
Recharging [which really means making a new] mundane (cheap) manastone costs 20 fatigue per casting. Basically it's about has hard in terms of labor and time to charge a mundane manastone as it is a powerstone. The huge difference is you don't have to pay for the gem. However, in an adventuring/field situation, the field-time becomes critical. Sure you can load up on cheap manastones, but what happens when you run out (and you can only draw on one manastone at a time....just like powerstone). What then? You are in the middle of the 3rd plane of Dante's Inferno and you've just blown your last manastone.....that's sort of thing is not an uncommon predictament for adventuring wizards! If you've got a modest powerstone as backup you're golden. You use that and you can even recharge it cheaply and very safely and reliably (as I proved a few pages back). If you don't, you are S.O.L. -Polaris |
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08-14-2009, 05:49 PM | #93 |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: Powerstones
I was talking about using a Manastone instead of a Tyche's potion to recharge a power stone, not as an alternative to power stones.
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08-14-2009, 05:51 PM | #94 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Powerstones
Quote:
Since Enchantment is ceremonial Magic it ignores both Luck and Bless and always Crit fails on a 17. Big Manastones will be cheaper than big Powerstones but perhaps not much more common since the risk of destroying a valuable stone (i.e. one with many castings invested in it) is the same. At a certain point, probably related to the cost of casting common spells it should make more sense to sell what you've got rather than roll the dice again to try and improve it and risk destruction. There aren't that many spells with a base cost of over 10 pts and over 20 pts.....well, I can think of 4 off-hand but there may not be many more than that. So anyway, the cost of Manastones should not be linear. You can avoid destroying valuable gemstones but you can't avoid loss of invested labor. If you have the Complete Powerstone article from Magic Items I or perhaps use this earlier version here.... http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Rolepla...owerstone.html ...I believe you can calculate the cost of manastones by just subtracting the materials cost. If you're using the "non-valuable item" option (highly recommended) the cost to cast si the same. I'd actually want to doublecheck the assumptions about cost of wizard labor before I relied on it but the probabilities should be right.
__________________
Fred Brackin |
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08-14-2009, 05:52 PM | #95 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Powerstones
Quote:
I'll agree it doesn't make sense most of the time. -Polaris |
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08-14-2009, 05:55 PM | #96 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Powerstones
Fred,
I believe I corrected myself a while ago and said the cost was nearly linear. The big component in powerstone costs is the cost of the game AND it's replacement cost when you have a failure. If you subtract out the material cost AND replacement cost and just use the cost of multiple castings, you find it's a very weak quadratic and thus vastly cheaper (and nearly linear) for all realistic values of manastones). -Polaris |
08-14-2009, 05:56 PM | #97 |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: Powerstones
The cost of wizard labor in that article is $25 per casting - in this edition it's $20 per casting.
So, after rejiggering the formulae, you come out with a Manastone of capacity 40 being $1,271.20. Still much larger than the typical powerstone - so your break-even point for using a Tyche's potion to recharge your powerstone is now just at the 40 point capacity level instead of the 65 point capacity level. |
08-14-2009, 06:02 PM | #98 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Powerstones
Quote:
It's worth noting (for Fred) that a power 40 powerstone (per page 20 GURPS Magic) costs 38,000 gold vice approx 1300 or about 30 times as much. -Polaris |
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08-14-2009, 06:24 PM | #99 | |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: Powerstones
Quote:
Obviously, it's the manastone. You get ten more points of power and your powerstone will continue to recharge on its own. If you just recharge the stone, you'll get much less utility out of it - just those thirty points, rather than the 40+ points of the manastone. |
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08-14-2009, 10:32 PM | #100 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Powerstones
Quote:
This is only true if you have a relatively easy access to those that can provide you with full manastones all the time. In societies that have both powerstones and manastones, that's likely for any centre of civilization strong enough to support an enchanter type wizard (likely large town or bigger), but that doesn't help you if you are cut off for days or weeks on end without magical resupply! I'm sorry, but you seem to keep on missing this primary point and limiation on Manastones. For the adventuring wizard (because of the length of time for reenchantment), a manastone once used is likely GONE until you can buy another one. However, a powerstone with the charge powerstone spell, is a reusuable magical "battery" in addition to your own fatigue and that's a god-send. In the case where your "battery" is greater than 18 or so, it's worth it to use a Tyche potion to recharge. It's not that hard. -Polaris |
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