[Magic] Enchanter Wages

[DCB]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I think that 'Assistant Enchanter = Average Wealth' is a fine thing, maaaybe Comfortable

It's worth considering that even the least capable of enchanters will have (a) a rare and valuable talent, (b) a job that risks summoning hostile demons, and (c) a PhD's worth of training.

If IQ 11 is a reasonable average for beginner enchanters (average 10 to start, increased due to extensive study and mental work), then they're working off a 13 spell base. That means their study requirements are:
- 16 points (Enchanting-15)
- 10 points (10 prereqs for Enchanting)
- 11 points (raising a prereq spell from 11 to 15)

37 points, and he's only minimally able to make a single type of enchantment. Instead, the enchanter-to-be could spend that time studying and earn about 30 points in other skills, so the competing job options are -- at least -- Craftskill-14 and Merchant-14, which is likely to be at least a Comfortable job.

Moreover, every additional enchantment he wants to be capable of working on adds 10-20 points (depending on prereqs). An enchanter capable of working on just 6 different enchantments will, at Magery 2 and IQ 11, require about 100 points of skills. A fraction of that would make him a master craftsman and merchant (skill 20 in each), surely a Wealthy job.


As a result, Enchanting would need to be well-paid to attract people. I would expect being able to work on even one widely-sought enchantment would be a Wealthy job (as part of an Enchanter's Guild or the like), with higher pay for those with better skill. At TL4, that works out to $4,000/mo entry-level, or about $25/pt if energy is accumulated at 1 pt/hr instead of per day.

Q&D would require a mage with very high skill -- Enchanting-20 and Spell-20 is another 40 points, +30-40 for each extra spell, or ever-more-rare levels of Magery and IQ -- which is probably at least a Filthy Rich job. Pricing it at that (+ 5 normal enchanters) gives $60,000/mo, or about $3,000 per work day, or about $800 per Q&D+rest cycle; call it $1,000 (due to the higher rate of demon summonings and higher likelihood of a day not being fully booked), and that's about $10/pt for a Q&D item of up to about 60 energy.

Q&D for higher-energy items will require (a) better-trained assistants (Energy Reserve), or (b) an even more rockstar Master Enchanter with multiple skills in the 20s. As a result, I would expect Q&D enchanting would increase in price fairly quickly, exceeding the cost of Slow&Sure enchanting somewhere around the 100-150 energy mark.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DCB

(a) An enchanter capable of working on just 6 different enchantments will, at Magery 2 and IQ 11, require about 100 points of skills. A fraction of that would make him a master craftsman and merchant (skill 20 in each), surely a Wealthy job.


As a result, Enchanting would need to be well-paid to attract people.

To the negative aspects of the job (many prereqs) add the non-monetary bennies. Indoor work, no heavy lifting. No travel requirements. No administrative duties and access to the only functional health plan in a low tech world (i.e probably knows a Healer Mage).

Then there's the retirement plan which is "knows somebody to help you cast Halt Aging".You'll never get old and need to retire.

Mnay, many bennies compared to other alternatives. Comfortable probably but I don't believe you need to go to Wealthy to attract applicants. Indeed, you mght need to enchant your Staff to beat them away (or at least impose long Appreticeships to discourage the less talented).

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

To the negative aspects of the job (many prereqs) add the non-monetary bennies. Indoor work, no heavy lifting. No travel requirements. No administrative duties and access to the only functional health plan in a low tech world (i.e probably knows a Healer Mage).

Then there's the retirement plan which is "knows somebody to help you cast Halt Aging".You'll never get old and need to retire.

Mnay, many bennies compared to other alternatives. Comfortable probably but I don't believe you need to go to Wealthy to attract applicants. Indeed, you mght need to enchant your Staff to beat them away (or at least impose long Appreticeships to discourage the less talented).

Non-monetary benefits are part of the GURPS income. Indeed, many jobs in a low TL world have incomes that consist primarily of non-monetary perks.

And why are you assuming that there is no travel, no administrative duties and only indoor work? Surely someone must do the administrative work of enchantment and the time of the most talented enchanter is far more valuable than of the assistants. And in any world where Mana is not completely fixed and identical all over, it might be necessary to travel somewhere the conditions are favourable for the enchantment in question, and that place is not necessarily indoors, comfortable or safe. And speaking of safety, there is the risk of demons, which is not generally a concern for other highly-skilled intellectual work.

Do you really believe that a blacksmith who has mastered a single IQ/Average skill well enough to make non-magical swords ought to have the same income as a Magery 2 enchanter who has learned at least ten IQ/Hard skills well enough to be able to assist in making magical ones?

Remember, a senior bureaucrat with three skills at 14+ is Wealthy. The swordsmith mentioned above has one skill at 14+, one at 11+ and is Comfortable. Jewellers need only one skill at 14+ and are Comfortable. Clockmakers have two skills at 12+ and are also Comfortable.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Non-monetary benefits are part of the GURPS income.

No, they are very likely to be part of the Cost of Living and they might be part of havng a Patron but they don't get folded into the $ automaticaly.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No, they are very likely to be part of the Cost of Living and they might be part of havng a Patron but they don't get folded into the $ automaticaly.

Hunters and gatherers at TL0 and farmers at low TLs don't get $400+ in cash every month. Their income is in non-monetary things, but no less real than that.

If wizards are paid partially in kind, why would it be different for them?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Hunters and gatherers at TL0 and farmers at low TLs don't get $400+ in cash every month. Their income is in non-monetary things, but no less real than that.

If wizards are paid partially in kind, why would it be different for them?

At TL0 the Gurps $ does not represent a coin. It represents material goods of innate value.

AT TL 3 and 4 it generally does represent coins,

More than that you keep trying to take intangible benefits or factors of the lifestyle purchased with the Cost of Living and shift them to part of a Job's salary.

Truly reralistic low tech Jobs might frequently be lsited as CoL+2 coppers per month but that'[s not the way Gurps figures Income.

[DCB]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

add the non-monetary bennies. Indoor work, no heavy lifting. No travel requirements. No administrative duties

All of which are as true of most other high-skill jobs such as master craftsman.

access to the only functional health plan in a low tech world (i.e probably knows a Healer Mage).
Then there's the retirement plan which is "knows somebody to help you cast Halt Aging".You'll never get old and need to retire.

Both of which are probably as likely to be true of any well-connected Wealthy person in a major city. (If they're even offered; it's not at all a given that healing and anti-aging magical services are readily available, as there are only so many mages around.)

More importantly, the Wealthy master craftsman is more likely to be able to afford those services than the Comfortable enchanter.

Comfortable probably but I don't believe you need to go to Wealthy to attract applicants. Indeed, you mght need to enchant your Staff to beat them away (or at least impose long Appreticeships to discourage the less talented).

Given the usual assumptions about the rarity of Magery 2 -- somewhere around 1-in-1000 being even capable of it -- it's almost impossible for there to be a glut of applicants.

If enchanting is a highly-valued service (generally agreed), and if the supply of enchanters is tightly restricted by innate talent (<0.1%), then we would expect the "Enchanter" job to pay better than competing options in order to avoid losing potential Enchanters to those other options. If it's more work for less pay than being a Master Craftsman, one would expect to see substantially fewer practicing Enchanters than people with Magery 2.

Which is an entirely reasonable setting, of course; perhaps there's a strong stigma associated with magic (due to demonic attacks and the like) which sharply reduces the demand for enchanted items. That doesn't represent the bulk of settings, though.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DCB

All of which are as true of most other high-skill jobs such as master craftsman.

Both of which are probably as likely to be true of any well-connected Wealthy person in a major city. (If they're even offered; it's not at all a given that healing and anti-aging magical services are readily available, as there are only so many mages around.)

More importantly, the Wealthy master craftsman is more likely to be able to afford those services than the Comfortable enchanter.

Nope, a competent mage doesn'tr need to hire anyone to cast Halt Agfing on himself. As a 20pt spell he only needs 1 friend with similar abilities to himself and they cast it on each other as a trade of favors.

The guy with money doesn't need to only know one friend. He needs to hire both of the mages from the previous paragraph. Mages are going to get Halt Againg ahead of people who simply have money.

[Anthony]

The requirements for being an enchanter are pretty heinous, mostly because of the minimum skill requirement of 15. Let's look at a least-cost build for a mage capable of creating, oh, magic swords with Penetrating:
IQ 10 [0], Magery 2 [25].
Purify Air-10, Seek Earth-10, Ignite Fire-10, Seek Water-10, Find Weakness-10, Lend Energy-10, 4 other spells, Enchant-15 [20], Penetration Weapon-15[16].

That's 46 points in skills, and you can do exactly one enchantment, and you have essentially no other useful skills. At IQ 13, which is well above average, it's still 22 points in skills. For the same skill points, you could have Smith-22 on the IQ 10 character, Smith-19 on the IQ 13 character, either of which is easily a master craftsman and would be Wealthy.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

At TL0 the Gurps $ does not represent a coin. It represents material goods of innate value.

AT TL 3 and 4 it generally does represent coins,

More than that you keep trying to take intangible benefits or factors of the lifestyle purchased with the Cost of Living and shift them to part of a Job's salary.

Truly reralistic low tech Jobs might frequently be lsited as CoL+2 coppers per month but that'[s not the way Gurps figures Income.

Anything that can be used to defray Cost of Living is legitimately Income in GURPS terms and set forth as such in the Job Tables. Whether that's cash, goods or services; such the service of friendly mages casting spells on you.