[4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP.

Jose · 07-24-2016, 09:53 AM

In the GURPS magic book there is a set price for magical items, the price is set on the assumption of a relatively low fantasy setting, quite reasonable and without the market getting flooded by flaming swords.
However my group is playing in a high fantasy setting, Forgotten realms more specifically where magic Items are much more common.
Would it be reasonable to lower the prices of enchantments save for, for example the powerstone and manastone enchantments by some modifier to make it more common?

Also one of the main draws for me around enchanting is that the big spells require much more FP than my character has access to. Is there other ways of storing FP than power/mana stones?
And is there a price for manastones?

benz72 · 07-24-2016, 11:27 AM

These are gameworld balance questions that only the GM can answer.
Making an arbitrarily large manastore readily available to anyone patient enough to wait for it to charge leads you to 'unlimited wishes' and that kind of thing. That being said, there is nothing wrong with tweaking the numbers to get faster enchanting times / lower costs. Just be careful what side effects your mana storage devices will produce.

Flyndaran · 07-24-2016, 11:52 AM

Powerstones of hundreds of Points takes hundreds of days in very high mana zones and hundreds of weeks in normal. What adventurerers have years to wait?
Energy cost may be the main limiter in R.A.W. magic. But R.A.W. assumes large groups of super skilled ritual casters in nearly every city. Without that, it all becomes much more low keyed.
One way I like to avoid some of the balance issues is allow quick enchanting/power/mana stone creation but require very exotic hard to get ingredients like the heart of a dragon, fairy queen's blessing, etc.

Fred Brackin · 07-24-2016, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Powerstones of hundreds of Points takes hundreds of days in very high mana zones and hundreds of weeks in normal. .

The rate is 1/day in normal, 4/day in very high but 1/week in low.

Giving every member of a 6 man Q&D team a 200pt stone pushes you to a 12 hour ritual and that's near the practical limit for Q&D. Longer ritual involve Rube Goldberg like schemes involving teams of supporting mages casting vigil and monk's banquet. All just barely possible but relaxing the rules still leaves Q&D with only the lower levels of the Enchantment business.

There are reasons to shoot for circles of 250 pts, 500 pts, 750 and 1000pts but higher really isn't very practical.

As for energy dodges there's Paut (Thaumatology p.52) and Draw Power (some exotic source at the likely tLs) and Raw Magic (Thaumatology p.228). Paut, 15pts Powerstones and a 6 man circle could get you up to 500pts.

The size of possible circles may also be boosted by Aspected Mana, Perks from Magical Styles, Sacred Architecture and exceptional but not at all impossible lead Enchanters. 1000 would be in reach if you combined several of these things with what you were using for the 500 pt circle.

(E) · 07-24-2016, 04:30 PM

You can always try adding magic items that improve enchanting.

E.g.
The mana Web
Lets the owner use multiple powerstones as a single powerstones. 1 hex per power stone. Gold wiring.

Enchanter's bench
Lets the owner enchant with slow and sure at X energy per day.

Jose · 07-25-2016, 05:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The rate is 1/day in normal, 4/day in very high but 1/week in low.

Giving every member of a 6 man Q&D team a 200pt stone pushes you to a 12 hour ritual and that's near the practical limit for Q&D. Longer ritual involve Rube Goldberg like schemes involving teams of supporting mages casting vigil and monk's banquet. All just barely possible but relaxing the rules still leaves Q&D with only the lower levels of the Enchantment business.

There are reasons to shoot for circles of 250 pts, 500 pts, 750 and 1000pts but higher really isn't very practical.

As for energy dodges there's Paut (Thaumatology p.52) and Draw Power (some exotic source at the likely tLs) and Raw Magic (Thaumatology p.228). Paut, 15pts Powerstones and a 6 man circle could get you up to 500pts.

The size of possible circles may also be boosted by Aspected Mana, Perks from Magical Styles, Sacred Architecture and exceptional but not at all impossible lead Enchanters. 1000 would be in reach if you combined several of these things with what you were using for the 500 pt circle.

It seems that baring huge ritual circles I need to somehow put my caster+powerstone up to say 300 for a resurrection otherwise its no dice.
So, I just have to build a bigger and bigger power stone as the game progresses.
Say I wanted to do a power stone for resurrecting any fallen heroes:
My character has IQ+Magery=20 and HT=12. Meaning I get a 2 FP discount.

Assuming a resurrection I then need 300-12=288 FP
Say I wanted to do a reverse age spell it would then be: 100-12=88 FP
Assuming the resurrection I would need to make 288 castings of the powerstone spell. Statistically impossible without a number of crit fails (I wish I could quicksave).
Which could render all my previous work useless in a nifty powerstone explosion.

Effectively lone casters are not capable of doing the big spells. However I cant really dabble in secret ethically questionable magic if I have to hire dozens of scrawny teen apprentices...

As for enchanting if I remember correctly the prices for magic items and borrowing powerstones are both an arm and a leg, and my witch is already missing an eye.

Zoomfarg · 07-25-2016, 07:33 AM

A couple thoughts, which can be easily summarized as "buy more GURPS"... Specifically Thaumatology and Magical Styles.

If you're concerned merely about the GURPS $ per point of enchantment, that cost can be adjusted by changing the standard of living for enchanters, as explained in Magic.

In addition to Paut, Draw Power, and Raw Magic, Thaumatology offers a couple other options, too, some of which are ripe for adventuring potential.

The obvious choice to me is the Raise Cone of Power spell (Thaumatology p. 52), which lets a mage lead a ceremonial casting to gather and store ever-increasing energy as long as the ritual is maintained. It's ripe for Q&D abuse. It basically eliminates the need for Slow and Sure. If I included this spell in a GURPS campaign, I probably wouldn't also allow power stones, but it seems like you want to unbalance things a bit compared to GURPS RAW.

Another choice is to use energy-from-sacrifice rules from Thaumatology
(p. 54). Adventuring opportunity: finding suitable sacrifices, organizing sacrifices to avoid detection by law enforcement, etc. Adventuring opportunity: finding/securing locations with higher local threshold.

You could also increase the amount of energy given by Raw Magic. Adventuring opportunity: collecting Raw Magic.

You could also use Threshold-Limited Magic (Thaumatology pp. 76-82) to have big power with a big risk.

If you want to reduce the risk of a critical failure in a bunch of powerstone castings, you could use rules for skills to salvage critical failures (Thaumatology p. 40).

If you want to somewhat curtail the availability of power, you could use Magical Styles to limit knowledge of big energy sources to particular organizations. Adventuring opportunity: gaining entrance into these organizations, or stealing their knowledge.

Jose · 07-25-2016, 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoomfarg

A couple thoughts, which can be easily summarized as "buy more GURPS"... Specifically Thaumatology and Magical Styles.

If you're concerned merely about the GURPS $ per point of enchantment, that cost can be adjusted by changing the standard of living for enchanters, as explained in Magic.

In addition to Paut, Draw Power, and Raw Magic, Thaumatology offers a couple other options, too, some of which are ripe for adventuring potential.

The obvious choice to me is the Raise Cone of Power spell (Thaumatology p. 52), which lets a mage lead a ceremonial casting to gather and store ever-increasing energy as long as the ritual is maintained. It's ripe for Q&D abuse. It basically eliminates the need for Slow and Sure. If I included this spell in a GURPS campaign, I probably wouldn't also allow power stones, but it seems like you want to unbalance things a bit compared to GURPS RAW.

Another choice is to use energy-from-sacrifice rules from Thaumatology
(p. 54). Adventuring opportunity: finding suitable sacrifices, organizing sacrifices to avoid detection by law enforcement, etc. Adventuring opportunity: finding/securing locations with higher local threshold.

You could also increase the amount of energy given by Raw Magic. Adventuring opportunity: collecting Raw Magic.

You could also use Threshold-Limited Magic (Thaumatology pp. 76-82) to have big power with a big risk.

If you want to reduce the risk of a critical failure in a bunch of powerstone castings, you could use rules for skills to salvage critical failures (Thaumatology p. 40).

If you want to somewhat curtail the availability of power, you could use Magical Styles to limit knowledge of big energy sources to particular organizations. Adventuring opportunity: gaining entrance into these organizations, or stealing their knowledge.

That actually sounds really good, Ill be looking into it. Hadn't really looked much into them, interesting.

Ok, so my witch does have some mental issues, she can be a little possessive at times and her romantic interest is kinda running around with other girls- being in a selective breeding program of some sort.
She wants to make him choose- Should he deceive her again she will royally mess him up. She is 26 a fine woman of age and deent standing, however she really likes experimenting with magic somewhat haphazardly. So should he screw up he will be struck barren -throwing him out of the breeding program and turning herself way too young to ruin his fun (And try out magic). Any ideas how to pull this off, preferably in a way where I can keep it secret?

khorboth · 07-25-2016, 08:01 AM

For a DF type setting, I made some changes which are pretty easy to tweak for the setting of your choice.

1) Prices are based on a limit of 33 energy points for quick-and-dirty enchanting. This results in a real price change there as it goes from one hard day's work to weeks/months of extended work. I raised the limit to 100 energy points based on availability of various mana-enhancing effects and items.

2) Prices as written are for new custom-made magic items. The secondary market of used items is where non-rich people get their equipment. It's default pricing is 1/3 of the cost for new items. With arbitrary modifiers based upon what may be more marketable.

If you mess with the two dials, you can get a reasonable economy for whatever world you like. This keeps enchanters in money, but still has affordable equipment for adventurers.

Zoomfarg · 07-25-2016, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jose

...So should he screw up he will be struck barren -throwing him out of the breeding program and turning herself way too young to ruin his fun (And try out magic). Any ideas how to pull this off, preferably in a way where I can keep it secret?

I'm gonna be honest, my answer for almost every magic question for GURPS is "buy Thaumatology, use Threshold-Limited Magic, and Use Flexible Magic". The spell tomes are holding you back, friend! Free your mind!

Threshold-limited magic gives you access to unlimited energy at the risk of causing magical disasters--the more energy, the greater the risk. Flexible magic systems allow players to improvise effects (with guidelines to scale costs and skill modifiers) instead of using a set of predetermined spells (though spells are still an option within the system).

Dunno how compatible that is with Forgotten Realms. Not familiar with the setting.

07-24-2016, 09:53 AM	#1
Jose Join Date: Oct 2015	[4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP. In the GURPS magic book there is a set price for magical items, the price is set on the assumption of a relatively low fantasy setting, quite reasonable and without the market getting flooded by flaming swords. However my group is playing in a high fantasy setting, Forgotten realms more specifically where magic Items are much more common. Would it be reasonable to lower the prices of enchantments save for, for example the powerstone and manastone enchantments by some modifier to make it more common? Also one of the main draws for me around enchanting is that the big spells require much more FP than my character has access to. Is there other ways of storing FP than power/mana stones? And is there a price for manastones?

07-24-2016, 11:27 AM	#2
benz72 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Chagrin Falls	Re: [4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP. These are gameworld balance questions that only the GM can answer. Making an arbitrarily large manastore readily available to anyone patient enough to wait for it to charge leads you to 'unlimited wishes' and that kind of thing. That being said, there is nothing wrong with tweaking the numbers to get faster enchanting times / lower costs. Just be careful what side effects your mana storage devices will produce. __________________ Benundefined Life has a funny way of making sure you decide to leave the party just a few minutes too late to avoid trouble.

07-24-2016, 11:52 AM	#3
Flyndaran Untagged Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon	Re: [4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP. Powerstones of hundreds of Points takes hundreds of days in very high mana zones and hundreds of weeks in normal. What adventurerers have years to wait? Energy cost may be the main limiter in R.A.W. magic. But R.A.W. assumes large groups of super skilled ritual casters in nearly every city. Without that, it all becomes much more low keyed. One way I like to avoid some of the balance issues is allow quick enchanting/power/mana stone creation but require very exotic hard to get ingredients like the heart of a dragon, fairy queen's blessing, etc. __________________ Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.

07-24-2016, 04:30 PM	#5
(E) Join Date: Jul 2014 Location: New Zealand.	Re: [4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP. You can always try adding magic items that improve enchanting. E.g. The mana Web Lets the owner use multiple powerstones as a single powerstones. 1 hex per power stone. Gold wiring. Enchanter's bench Lets the owner enchant with slow and sure at X energy per day. __________________ Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn

07-25-2016, 07:33 AM	#7
Zoomfarg Join Date: May 2012	Re: [4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP. A couple thoughts, which can be easily summarized as "buy more GURPS"... Specifically Thaumatology and Magical Styles. If you're concerned merely about the GURPS $ per point of enchantment, that cost can be adjusted by changing the standard of living for enchanters, as explained in Magic. In addition to Paut, Draw Power, and Raw Magic, Thaumatology offers a couple other options, too, some of which are ripe for adventuring potential. The obvious choice to me is the Raise Cone of Power spell (Thaumatology p. 52), which lets a mage lead a ceremonial casting to gather and store ever-increasing energy as long as the ritual is maintained. It's ripe for Q&D abuse. It basically eliminates the need for Slow and Sure. If I included this spell in a GURPS campaign, I probably wouldn't also allow power stones, but it seems like you want to unbalance things a bit compared to GURPS RAW. Another choice is to use energy-from-sacrifice rules from Thaumatology (p. 54). Adventuring opportunity: finding suitable sacrifices, organizing sacrifices to avoid detection by law enforcement, etc. Adventuring opportunity: finding/securing locations with higher local threshold. You could also increase the amount of energy given by Raw Magic. Adventuring opportunity: collecting Raw Magic. You could also use Threshold-Limited Magic (Thaumatology pp. 76-82) to have big power with a big risk. If you want to reduce the risk of a critical failure in a bunch of powerstone castings, you could use rules for skills to salvage critical failures (Thaumatology p. 40). If you want to somewhat curtail the availability of power, you could use Magical Styles to limit knowledge of big energy sources to particular organizations. Adventuring opportunity: gaining entrance into these organizations, or stealing their knowledge.

07-25-2016, 08:01 AM	#9
khorboth Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Denver, CO	Re: [4e] Magic - FP cost enchanting and storing FP. For a DF type setting, I made some changes which are pretty easy to tweak for the setting of your choice. 1) Prices are based on a limit of 33 energy points for quick-and-dirty enchanting. This results in a real price change there as it goes from one hard day's work to weeks/months of extended work. I raised the limit to 100 energy points based on availability of various mana-enhancing effects and items. 2) Prices as written are for new custom-made magic items. The secondary market of used items is where non-rich people get their equipment. It's default pricing is 1/3 of the cost for new items. With arbitrary modifiers based upon what may be more marketable. If you mess with the two dials, you can get a reasonable economy for whatever world you like. This keeps enchanters in money, but still has affordable equipment for adventurers.