Enchanted STAVES and STAFF enchantment

[hal]

Hello Folks,
Seeing this crop up - I figured I'd start this thread so as to help explore the issues involved in GURPS MAGIC and maybe help people understand things a bit more fully. It is also a means where people can weigh in saying "that's how I do it" or "Hey, that's not how I do it". I am like any other joe on this thread, I put my legs in my pants one at a time and all that fun stuff... ;)

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Exclusive Powerstones are, but the wording of "Dedicated" powerstones is more loose, stating it's energy may be used to cast any spell "by or through" the item, which is where the confusion always comes up.

So, let's explore this issue more fully shall we? First, let's detail the process involved in which we shall create the Staff of Getorix the Wise. Ok, Getorix is a pretentious twit with more money than sense, but he's trying to build a reputation for himself at the ripe old age of 24 years of age.

So, Getorix undertakes the process of commissioning the Staff of Getorix the Wise. First, he wants a 10 point powerstone enchanted so that it will work in a low mana region. This requires that the powerstone be enchanted with a skill of 20 (as any magic item to function, has to have a modified power value of 15+ or it won't work, and low mana lowers the power value by -5). So he finds some mage willing to craft his powerstone - as that is going to be step one in his process.

Unfortunately for Getorix, the only mage he can find who can enchant FIREBALL, MAJOR HEALING, and HAWK FLIGHT - only knows ENCHANTMENT at skill 16, FIREBALL at skill 16, HAWK FLIGHT at skill 15, and MAJOR HEALING at skill 15. Thus, when that individual attempts to enchant his staff with those three spells, they will have the power of 16, 15, and 15 respectively.

So, the enchanter who is preparing the staff informs Getorix "I have to advise you, that in order to create a magic item, your staff in this case, I have to have the powerstone ready before I start the enchantment process itself. Otherwise, it will be a normal powerstone instead of a dedicated one. My enchantment time schedule being what it is, I need the powerstone by May 1st of next year, or you lose your reservation of my time."

So, Getorix agrees to the terms, and expects his 10 point powerstone of a power 20, to be delivered to his enchanter by May 1st. Unfortunately, there are complications - the gemstone was quirked, and a new powerstone project had to be undertaken. The Powerstone was delivered not by May 1st, but would not be available for nearly 2 years! Getorix makes the decision "Ok, Enchant the fireball enchantment first, and we'll add the powerstone later."

So, the Enchanter works at enchanting the 6' long stave with FIREBALL at skill 16 (and thus power 16). Fortunately, the enchantment goes off without a hitch. During the enchantment of Fireball, the 10 point unquirked powerstone of power 20, is delivered. So the enchanter starts up on his next phase of the enchantment. He begins to enchant his MAJOR HEALING, but only after adding in the powerstone to the staff itself. Succeeding at that enchantment, he begins his final leg on HAWK FLIGHT, and finishes that as well without incident. Total Enchantment time involved: 800 + 1,500 + 3000 or a whopping total of 14 years, 6 months and a few days...

Now, nearly 15 years older, Getorix is actively developing into a worthwhile mage, and gratefully accepts his unblemished Staff of GETORIX THE WISE...

[hal]

Now he decides he wants to enchant the staff with STAFF so that it is his personal staff.

Worried stiff that if he enchants this staff further, he runs the risk of destroying FIREBALL, MAJOR HEALING and HAWK FLIGHT (see page 18 of GURPS MAGIC under "MULTIPLY ENCHANTED ITEMS"). Because the powerstone is a separate item, any critical failure investing his staff will not likely affect his powerstone. (note: this is where a Thaumatology roll might be useful to determine if the GM will use that reasoning or determines that ALL enchanted items part of the staff are destroyed with a critical failure!).

So, lucky for Getorix, he succeeds with the enchantment of STAFF on his possession.

It now holds POWERSTONE (10 at Power 20), FIREBALL at power 16, MAJOR HEALING at power 15, and HAWK FLIGHT at power 15 as well. Added to that is now STAFF.

So now what? How does Getorix use this staff? See next entry...

[hal]

Now the proud owner of the Stave with the STAFF enchantment on it, Getorix goes out into the world.

If Getorix attempts to cast the spell FIREBALL through his staff's enchantment, and he uses his 10 point powerstone, it is treated as a normal powerstone, and 1 energy spent on the fireball, is treated as 1 energy. Why? Because the powerstone was not present prior to the enchantment of the subsequently enchanted MAJOR HEALING or HAWK FLIGHT. On the other hand, if Getorix attempts to use either of the two remaining enchantments cast after the powerstone was affixed to the staff - they gain the benefits of the "Dedicated Powerstone".

Getorix can either use his own fatigue to cast a 3 point Fireball, 3 of his energy reserve to cast the fireball, or 3 energy from the affixed powerstone on the staff itself.

A few days later, Getorix decides to cast MAJOR HEALING through the staff's enchantment of power 15. Every 1 point spent from his dedicated powerstone, counts as 2 energy for the spell. Rolling against a skill of 15 from the staff's inherent power value of 15, results in an automatic miss when the Getorix gets a 16 on his roll. Had he rolled a 17+, he'd have gotten a critical failure, and anything less than than 16, resulted in a success.

Later on, Getorix utilizes the HAWK FLIGHT spell from his staff, and again, the powerstone is deemed to be a Dedicated Powerstone, and every 1 point of energy used, counts as 2. HAWK FLIGHT requires 8 energy to initially power up, and 4 energy to maintain. So, spending 4 energy from the dedicated powerstone activates the flight. Every minute thereafter, he will need to either use 2 energy from his dedicated powerstone, or four energy from either of or both of, his Fatigue or Energy reserve.

Now, Suppose Getorix desires to use his staff to extend his reach while casting DEATHTOUCH?

The Dedicated Powerstone only functions as a feature for enchantments cast as spells via his staff's enchantments. If Getorix knew MAJOR HEALING on his own, and tried to cast the spell while holding the staff, he would NOT gain 2x energy from the powerstone. He's casting his own SPELL rather than the magic enchantment casting the spell.

Any other spell that Getorix knows, if using his staff to extend his reach in order to cast his spells, do NOT gain the benefit of the dedicated powerstone. That feature only works for the enchantments themselves.

[hal]

Now for the other questions that may come into play as a result of the STAFF spell itself.

1) per page 13, it states "Touching a subject with your staff lets you cast spells on that subject at no distance penalty. This is useful in situations where you must cast a spell on a subject you cannot touch with your hand (e.g., a healing spell on someone trapped under rubble). This also allows a wizard to tap a Powerstone set into his staff."

Does the mage in question have to be touching his staff in order to gain the benefits of using his STAFF? could he for example, be a mile away, and still tap into the powerstone set into his staff? Can he cast a glue spell centered on the touching point of his STAFF enchanted STAVE, and have a zero range penalty for his staff being in contact with the ground upon which he's casting glue?

If the mage leaves his staff at home, can someone cast DEATH TOUCH and touch his STAFF, thereby negate any range penalties for the spell regardless of how far away he is from his staff?

The point of this thread, is to discuss interpretations of the rules - and perhaps even point out any blind spots in my own interpretation of the rules. ;)

Feel free to ask ANY questions. Also, feel free to introduce your own "Variants" for how you use the rules in this thread, just be certain that you state it as such with perhaps a "HOUSE RULE" warning label or what have you...

[evileeyore]

Huh. I've never read "by or through" as being "by or through", I've always just mentally ignored the 'or through' part (or more accurately subsumed it entirely into the 'by' part).


So, modifying for that, where in text does it allow for multiple Dedicated Powerstones and where does it state they 'become one Powerstone'?

[mlangsdorf]

There's nothing in the text that says an item can have more than 1 dedicated powerstone, but the text of exclusive powerstones uses a plural to describe "the integral powerstone(s)".

I don't think there's any reason to prohibit multiple dedicated powerstones in one object, as long as you continue to treat them as separate powerstones with all the limitations that implies.

[hal]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

There's nothing in the text that says an item can have more than 1 dedicated powerstone, but the text of exclusive powerstones uses a plural to describe "the integral powerstone(s)".

I don't think there's any reason to prohibit multiple dedicated powerstones in one object, as long as you continue to treat them as separate powerstones with all the limitations that implies.

And the specific limits involved are:

"A Powerstone does not recharge if it is within six feet of a larger Powerstone. Stones of the same size split the available mana and recharge at slower speed."

In other words, there is absolutely NOTHING to keep one from having three dedicated powerstones or even exclusive powerstones on a given enchanted object, providing that NONE of the powerstones are any larger than its neighbor.

The key point however, is that you have to divide the number of equal sized powerstones within mutual recharge distance into the normal recharge rate and know that your recharge rate becomes a fraction based upon the number of stones in each other's recharge area. For instance, three 10 point powerstones within recharge distance of each other, take three times longer to each gain 1 energy point of recharge. If a fourth one was included, then it would take four days for each of the four powerstones to recharge 1 point.

One thing that surfaced in my research into the rules as written was this...

Why does GURPS make the distinction of pricing powerstones by a variable value to include the potential costs involved with a critical failure destroying a power stone, when the same rules apply towards multiple enchantments destroying previously embedded enchantments? In other words, if someone places a 800 day enchantment onto a staff (say FIREBALL), and then adds in a 1,500 day enchantment for the MAJOR HEALING enchantment - the odds that the second attempted enchantment will destroy the first initially successful enchantment is the same as would occur when trying to place a second POWERSTONE enchantment on a strength battery.

Why does GURPS MAGIC go one route in pricing powerstones, but not the same route when emplacing ordinary non-powerstone enchantments?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I don't think there's any reason to prohibit multiple dedicated powerstones in one object, as long as you continue to treat them as separate powerstones with all the limitations that implies.

Originally Posted by hal

And the specific limits involved are:
In other words, there is absolutely NOTHING to keep one from having three dedicated powerstones or even exclusive powerstones on a given enchanted object, providing that NONE of the powerstones are any larger than its neighbor.

That, and the fact that you can only draw from one powerstone at a time for a single casting. This is less of an issue for dedicated powerstones than it is for exclusive powerstones, since you can use your own FP to help power an item with a dedicated powerstone.

Originally Posted by hal

Why does GURPS make the distinction of pricing powerstones by a variable value to include the potential costs involved with a critical failure destroying a power stone, when the same rules apply towards multiple enchantments destroying previously embedded enchantments? In other words, if someone places a 800 day enchantment onto a staff (say FIREBALL), and then adds in a 1,500 day enchantment for the MAJOR HEALING enchantment - the odds that the second attempted enchantment will destroy the first initially successful enchantment is the same as would occur when trying to place a second POWERSTONE enchantment on a strength battery.

Why does GURPS MAGIC go one route in pricing powerstones, but not the same route when emplacing ordinary non-powerstone enchantments?

The chances of a critical failure destroying an item in a given casting are about 1.85% (the chance of rolling a 17-18 on an enchantment). For one, or even five, enchantments the likelihood of not destroying the item is (98.15% ^ # of castings) or about 91% for 5 castings, so the chances of destroying it are only ~9%. This would increase the cost by about 10% (since about 1 in 11 are destroyed, you need to raise the price of the other 10 by 10% each to make up for the one destroyed). So while the chance is there that you will destroy an item which has 5 enchantments on it, it is largely non-significant and doesn't push up the price that much. I also think most of us would agree that an item with 5 separate enchantments would be somewhat rare (outside of items with enchantments which can be recast to get a higher level benefit, as per the Accuracy spell).

Powerstones, OTOH, require many castings of the Enchantment spell. A medium sized powerstone requires 15 or 20 castings. A large powerstone requires 50 or more. This significantly increases the chances of the item eventually being destroyed by a critical failure. By the time you get to 37 castings there is a 50% chance that the powerstone is destroyed, which would mean that the cost of any surviving 37+ point powerstones needs to be doubled (or more) to make up for lost materials. By comparison, a non-powerstone magic item with 37 enchantments on it would be ridiculously rare.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by hal

Does the mage in question have to be touching his staff in order to gain the benefits of using his STAFF?

Yes. Staff is an independent item, and it is not linked to a specific owner or user. If I hand you my enchanted item you now have control of it and may use it. If we're both touching it then whoever touched it first has control. There's no reason to suppose that the link to an item survives after you set it down, and given that the rules for controlling magic items specifically mention touching it there's every reason to suppose that holding, touching, or at least wearing the magic item (in the case of enchanted clothing or jewelry) is a requirement of using it.

[hal]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Yes. Staff is an independent item, and it is not linked to a specific owner or user. If I hand you my enchanted item you now have control of it and may use it. If we're both touching it then whoever touched it first has control. There's no reason to suppose that the link to an item survives after you set it down, and given that the rules for controlling magic items specifically mention touching it there's every reason to suppose that holding, touching, or at least wearing the magic item (in the case of enchanted clothing or jewelry) is a requirement of using it.

Interesting. All these years I've been using the concept that the mage who enchanted the staff was enchanting it for his own personal use rather than it depending upon who was the last to fully and solely touch the staff. It made me look at the Classic GURPS MAGIC to determine if the spell was any different in that version than the more recent version, and it doesn't appear to be. Makes me want to break out GURPS MAGIC 1st edition, as well as GURPS FANTASY 1st edition.

The way I've been GM'ing it is more based upon TFT's version of the STAFF spell than the GURPS version. *wry chuckle*

I learn something new everyday... ;)