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Old 07-19-2019, 03:39 PM   #1
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

Recently a very interesting observation was made that I hadn't thought about:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
In most Q&D calculations the assistants are using Powerstones.
In Low Mana thsoe are more expensive both because they need a base Power of 20 to work at all
Reading M69, I had only thought about the obvious problem of going Normal>Low, that being the reduction from a Daily to Weekly rate of regeneration.
I'm not sure how that might work with "Very Low" mana suggested in Thaumatology (perhaps monthly?)
What I hadn't considered is the secondary issue of needing a higher "power" (ie higher skill in Powerstone) to make powerstones that would recharge in low-mana. I guess that would be skill 25 to work in 'very low' mana due to the -10 penalty there.

Since Powerstone is an enchantment spell, would it abide by the "Power of a Magic Item" on M17, so the "Power" would be the lesser of your effective (ignoring Mana penalties) skill in "Enchant" (a prereq for Powerstone) or your effective (ignoring Mana penalties) skill in "Powerstone"?

"can spend extra energy to raise his effective skill, and hence the Power" seems like a way around this. 20% of 20 energy is 4 points, so every 4 energy would be +1 to a powerstone's power, and every 20 would be +5?

Given the absolute minimum of 1 hour time when using "Quick and Dirty" enchantment, and the rate of 100 energy per hour, assuming you can amass 100 energy it's economic time-wise to use that much, so a 20-energy powerstone enchantment with 80 extra energy would be +20 to skill. That would absorb the -10 for even "very low" mana and allow you to use 10 assistants.

Of course, if you can amass that much energy, you could handle doing "quadruple cost" powerstones using cheap components, using a base cost of 80 energy and spending 20% of that (+16, for a total of 96 energy) to get a meager +1 bonus to skill. Cheap one-college powerstones (16x4=64) would allow a better bonus (20% is 7.6 energy, so you could buy +3 for 30.4 rounded up to 31 energy, for a total cost of 95 points)


The sticking point is this:
"If an item has several spells on it, each spell has its own Power."
Given that power stones can be built up over time into larger-capacity powerstones, and each involves a separate Ceremonial Magic casting (which may result in different effective skill, depending on your skill at the time, how many helpers, etc) it stands to reason that each casting would basically have a different "Power".
This causes no complications if all castings happen to be in the same range, but raises questions if they're enough to cause enchantment disabling at low or very-low mana levels.
"No Mana" is easy to work with since powerstones / manastones can't be used at all (which is all well and good since you wouldn't need the energy, not being able to cast magic)

There seems to be 4 obvious options:

1) always use the best power, meaning a low-power powerstone could have its previous levels' usefulness upgraded with a better ceremony, or a good ceremony early on could let you skimp later

2) always use the worst power, meaning a high-power powerstone (power 25 for example) could be "ruined" by casting an inferior 15-power or 20-power upgrade on it

3) track power levels separately for each upgrade: so a "15/20" 2-energy powerstone would only be able to build up to 2 energy in normal mana, and only regain 1 energy in low mana, while a "20/20" 2-energy power stone would be better as it could build up to 2 energy even in low mana.

4) average the power levels, so a 2-energy powerstone cast with power 19 then power 21 would result in a power 20 powerstone
Which option seems best?

This may be a consideration for "Manastone" too, since even though those don't regenerate, maybe a Manastone would need "Power 20" to be able to draw upon it in Low Mana and "Power 25" to draw upon it in Very Low Mana?

If using option 3 (separately tracked Power) it might mean that with a 15/20 2-energy Manastone, you might be only able to use up 1 energy in a Low Mana area, and the other half of the energy could only be tapped in Normal or higher?
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Old 07-19-2019, 08:26 PM   #2
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

Option 1 is too prone to abuse - it seems like the best way to make a powerstone would be to imbue the first 1 point while funneling as much energy as possible into increasing skill (to maximize Power), then later coming back and doing a lower-skill enchantment to boost the amount of FP it can hold. I dislike Option 2 because it makes it too easy to wreck a good powerstone. Option 3 would be my preference, but could get a little complicated, particularly for a stone that's been upgraded many times, particularly if each upgrade imbued different amounts of FP ("This powerstone has 3 FP at Power 15, 1 at Power 20, 8 at Power 25, and 2 at Power 30"). Option 4 may be best for both simplicity and balance (the powerstone from the prior example would just have 14 FP at Power 23 or so).
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Old 07-20-2019, 05:49 AM   #3
Aldric
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

I would just keep track of the first enchant, that's the power of the stone, additional more powerful enchants won't change it, and lower level ones sinply fail, you're not powerful (or skilled) enough to improve this stone.
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Old 07-20-2019, 06:54 AM   #4
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Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

We've never tracked the power of powerstone, too much hassle.
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Old 11-09-2019, 09:06 PM   #5
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Option 3 would be my preference, but could get a little complicated, particularly for a stone that's been upgraded many times, particularly if each upgrade imbued different amounts of FP ("This powerstone has 3 FP at Power 15, 1 at Power 20, 8 at Power 25, and 2 at Power 30").

Option 4 may be best for both simplicity and balance (the powerstone from the prior example would just have 14 FP at Power 23 or so).
In the case of option 4, if having a higher-Power powerstone was more important to you than having a high-FP stone, would you foresee people using "Remove Enchantment" targeting the lowest-Power casting of Powerstone to remove it and raise the average?

Using your example, if you got Power 30 the first two times, even suffering -10 to skill from Very Low Mana, it would still operate at Power 20... but if the average was lowered to Power 23 then it would be reduced to skill 13 and you couldn't use it at all in low mana.

Option 3, though, would be less all-or-nothing, it would just temporarily function like a smaller Powerstone when the lower levels drop below 15 from the mana penalties but the higher levels remain above it. There would be no incentive to cast "Remove Enchantment" in this case since you wouldn't have to worry about the average.

I'm actually starting to wonder about the specifics of Powerstones when their Power dips too low. Like what happens. As far as I know, at -5 (Low Mana) a Powerstone with 15-19 Power (dropping to 10-14) basically functions as if it existed in No Mana?

A powerstone does a few things:

1) stores energy (whether naturally regenerated, or shoved in via Charge Powerstone)
2) recharges energy based on surrounding mana
3) allows that energy to be tapped
Are there any of these which would stop functioning if it was brought into a No Mana zone? Like should a Powerstone lose all its stored FP if it passes through No Mana?

I'm also not sure if Low Mana's 1 point per week regeneration would work if the power was 15-19 (the -5 makes the enchantment cease to function) or if it requires a power 20+ to work then.
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Old 11-09-2019, 11:36 PM   #6
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

Increasing skill through extra energy gives +1 per 100% above +100% (+4 to skill), meaning that +80 energy for Powerstone would give +7 to skill, not +20 (Magic, p. 12). Even if you could get 100 energy, it is not terribly effective, as +7 Power should cost 5x as much.

This relates to the problem with the basic economic assumptions of enchanting. Journeyman enchanters need twelve skills, two at 15+, and an uncommon advantage, so they should be Comfortable, not Average, earning $100×Enchantment. Master enchanters need twelve skills, two at 20+, and an uncommon advantage, so they should be Wealthy instead of Comfortable, earning $250×Enchantment. This should quadruple the cost of enchanted items ($12,500/month for a team of one master and five journeymen ÷ 22 days/month ÷ 6 energy/day ÷ .95 = ~$100/energy point).
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Old 11-10-2019, 01:01 AM   #7
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Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
This relates to the problem with the basic economic assumptions of enchanting. Journeyman enchanters need twelve skills, two at 15+, and an uncommon advantage, so they should be Comfortable, not Average, earning $100×Enchantment. Master enchanters need twelve skills, two at 20+, and an uncommon advantage, so they should be Wealthy instead of Comfortable, earning $250×Enchantment. This should quadruple the cost of enchanted items ($12,500/month for a team of one master and five journeymen ÷ 22 days/month ÷ 6 energy/day ÷ .95 = ~$100/energy point).
They can burn through a lot more than 6 energy per day. Using the assumptions of Magic, but with Wealthy/Comfortable teams rather than Comfortable/Average teams means the cost should be: 5 + (5 x 2) / 2 + (5 x 1) = 15 / 7 = 2.14 times the price. If teams are Very Wealthy/Wealthy it's: 20 + (5 x 5) / 7 = 45/7 = 6.43 times the price.

That's assuming there's demand for their services at these costs, of course. If demand for magic is not high (at least at high prices), it might be that the best living enchanters can get is Average, Comfortable for a circle master. If social mobility limits ones options it might also be that this is the best job even a highly intelligent commoner can readily get, so those with Magery would still end up doing it.

The expected income of enchanters, and mages in general is very dependant on campaign assumptions, though for what passes for a GURPS default assumptions I agree that at TL4- Comfortable/Average is too low.
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Old 11-10-2019, 08:17 AM   #8
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

The previous team could make Power 20 items through Slow and Sure enchatment or Power 15 through Quick and Dirty. They can only spend 6 energy per day with Slow and Sure Enchantment, which is used to derive the economics of enchanting (since most magical items cost more than 250 energy) For Quick and Dirty, the economics change somewhat, but it is still more limited because mages need a third skill at 15+ to accelerate energy recovery and depend on Powerstones to make up the difference.

So, let us imagine the same team optimized for QD. They can do four enchantments per day, allowing for one hour of recovery between enchantments. They will each need 20 7-point Powerstones, allowing them to dump 100 energy per hour into an enchantment, which is $120,000 of Powerstones (with a 20% return on investment per year and 264 energy per year per Powerstone used for enchantment, this adds ~$1 per energy to QD). As for our mages, they earn ~$1.5 per energy to QD, increasing the cost to ~$2.5 per energy. The increase in costs of QD actually increases Powerstone costs by 25% and, when do the final recursive adjustments, the final cost of QD is ~$3 per energy (50% from enchanters and 50% from Powerstones).

So, the cost of QD should be $3 per energy, which means that casting Powerstone should cost $60 per point ($240 for nongems). A Powerstone casting on a staff would cost $240 per point (plus $10), meaning that the break even point for cost would be around 10-point ($2300 for the Powerstone and $2410 for the Powerstaff). A 50-point Powerstone is much more expensive than a 50-point Powerstaff ($71,500 versus $12,010). You would want to cast Staff beforehand, as it is better to ruin that enchantment rather than the accumulated Powerstone enchantments.
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Old 11-10-2019, 08:32 AM   #9
Anders
 
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Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

There's a fifth option - use the latest result. It's what I would use.
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Old 11-10-2019, 10:52 AM   #10
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: The "Power" level(s) of Powerstone (and Manastone) in Low Mana

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Increasing skill through extra energy gives +1 per 100% above +100% (+4 to skill), meaning that +80 energy for Powerstone would give +7 to skill, not +20 (Magic, p. 12). Even if you could get 100 energy, it is not terribly effective, as +7 Power should cost 5x as much.
Isn't that just for normal spellcasting skill boosts? I was looking at the Ceremonial Magic rates. Although you would need at least 1 helper to do that, as I recall reading that you can't get the bonus to skill for extra energy if using the option to enchant alone. Maybe that's one reason to take the Solitary Ceremonial enhancement for Enchantment-Only limited Magery?

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
This relates to the problem with the basic economic assumptions of enchanting. Journeyman enchanters need twelve skills
Maybe it's more feasible if using the Ritual Magic system where prereqs are ignored and instead there's just a huge basic penalty?

Then, as for the whole needing the spell (which would be a technique here) at 15, couldn't you achieve that by spending extra energy to raise it to 15?

I could see them doing this, pulling out all the stops, to make their first Enchantment-Only Powerstone, which they could then rely on more and more to build a 2nd powerstone (I think you can't draw on a powerstone to cast powerstone on that same powerstone?) and then the pair of powestones could alternate to boost each other until you had a decent pair of enchantment-only powerstones to eventually alternate between to build powerstones intended for other colleges (or broad application).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders View Post
There's a fifth option - use the latest result. It's what I would use.
In that case you would probaly have mages who got a lucky roll afraid to enchant their powestone further, while those who got a bad roll would be in a rush to enchant it again to boost it up.

Also if taking a "the last roll is what counts" approach then shouldn't failing cause the entire powerstone to shut down?

Since crit success gives a random bonus to the Power, it might be interesting if somehow the margin you rolled below 15 (on a success) had some influence on power too. Like maybe +1 to 15 per MoS/5 ?
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