Alternate enchantment system - brainstorming

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Incidentally on the theme of More Enchanting Skill = More Awesome Enchanting, not More Bulk Enchanting:

If each additional enchantment on the object causes a cumulative -1 to Enchanting skill to work with it again, due to the rapidly increasing complexity of the thaumatological matrixes surrounding the objects aura (or whatever), that would give higher skilled enchanters the ability to make more complex magic items. And room for Enchanting perks to ignore that "spells on the item" penalty for a given enchantment, much like ignoring the normal "spells on" penalty.

That would be an interesting option for plus items. Each plus makes adding the next one that much harder rather than just taking more time and energy.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Incidentally on the theme of More Enchanting Skill = More Awesome Enchanting, not More Bulk Enchanting:

If each additional enchantment on the object causes a cumulative -1 to Enchanting skill to work with it again, due to the rapidly increasing complexity of the thaumatological matrixes surrounding the objects aura (or whatever), that would give higher skilled enchanters the ability to make more complex magic items. And room for Enchanting perks to ignore that "spells on the item" penalty for a given enchantment, much like ignoring the normal "spells on" penalty.

I like that.
Besides using the advantage the method most of us are working with does have less skill rolls then yours or the energy accumulation method.
This not only reduces risk of crits but also appeals to those of us who are lazy and want fewer die rolls and complicated bookkeeping. Margin of success does have that drawback too, how many points did you make that roll by? ok lets add that, next roll...

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm noticing a definitely trend towards folks linking spell skill, or magery level, or some other character quality, to controlling energy accumulation per cycle.

EG: Magery level energy per day, some function of Enchanting skill per day/week, etc.

This produces a dramatic difference in enchantment time between (for example) a Magery 1 caster vs a Magery 3 or a Magery 6.. and also provides some sharply diminishing returns - going back to the 500 energy item: improving from Magery 1 to Magery 2 halves enchanting time, but halving again takes Magery 4, etc. Magery 1 guy might take 500 days to produce it, while Magery 6 guy takes 83.

Well, diminishing returns are good, they allow steady increase without making it out of control.

As for the assistants, my idea is that they contribute less energy than the main enchanter (Like 20%?), and they greatly increase the chances of something going wrong. Thus, they're required if you're really tight on your deadline, but otherwise, most enchanters don't bother with them. If you don't reduce the main enchanter's skill for having assistants (after all, if every failure by the assistants adds a quirk, and every crit fail makes the main enchanter auto-fail his roll (and crit fail on any normal failure), then having multiple enchantments impose penalties on the enchanter's skill is something that I can stand behind. Now, I would say that leveled enchantments count as multiple enchantments, and that you first enchant the lower levels before going for the higher levels. This means that any hack can enchant Fortify+1, but Fortify+5 is hard even for a master. Also, Quick and Dirty becomes working with assistants, and Slow and Sure working alone, as you're much more likely to get an unquirked item this way.

[Randover]

I know that I am awfully late but Materials for Wizards, Magicaly potent materials, and dollars=energy 100=25. I used this for several games now. And it worked fine. As GM I could always add extra enchanting supplies for my group. So mage usualy can't harvest or simply prepare that much by himself.

The process is then like this: Mage returns with group to the city from there adventure, he checks with local Alchemyst/Mage'guild/Enchanter for enchanting supplies to buy. If he doesn't have that much money he could create some on his own (something between poor-avarage value job payment is fine) and then he enchants what he likes.

Of course there is more of an issue to the fact that standart magic items is not what I realy want for my enchanters to have. I usualy tent to support two things ...1. some amazing large project - flying ship, dancing blade, golem, prnament portal etc. 2. one use items, especialy those useable only by enchanter himself

[johndallman]

This is starting to look promising. The successful D&D enchantment system I use does its calculations in "working weeks". Having more skill doesn't reduce time but does let you work on more than one project at a time.

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Bruno

It takes five 8 hr working days and a roll against Enchant to "accumulate" 100 energy (numbers subject to change).

Just to throw in a thought, as an alternative rate, I'd like to suggest 50 energy per 8 hr/day.

The number simply comes from the FP rate. 1 Energy is 1 FP. Most people will recuperate FP at the rate of 1 per 10 minutes. This translates into 6 per hour, or 48 per 8 hour day. I'd simply round it up to 50 per day for simplicity. Or, if you don't mind more complicated math, leave it at 48 per day.

Or more specifically, divide the energy cost to enchant by 6 to determine how many hours of work required to enchant. A 500 energy item would therefore require 83.3 hours of enchanting (1.5 weeks for a single mage, much faster for groups).

As you suggested, roll each day to add the energy. In fact, at that point, you can use the "Long Task" rules or a variant thereof (p.B346). Assistants can reduce the time, and they can each make their rolls as well for their contribution, but, as per enchanting, gives everyone in the group a penalty based on number of enchanters, making the chances of them adding full amount of workhours less likely.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Just to throw in a thought, as an alternative rate, I'd like to suggest 50 energy per 8 hr/day.

The number simply comes from the FP rate. 1 Energy is 1 FP. Most people will recuperate FP at the rate of 1 per 10 minutes. This translates into 6 per hour, or 48 per 8 hour day. I'd simply round it up to 50 per day for simplicity. Or, if you don't mind more complicated math, leave it at 48 per day.

I've run a setting with something similar, enchanting an item opens up an echanting matrix where the primary mage sets the original matrix level and drops in energy, as much energy as he wants, passing it on to the next mage, which subtracts 1 from the matrix, who drops in more juice, and so on.

The more mages dropping in juice the more complicated the matrix gets, so after a certain point it becomes too hard to add in more collaborators, but with a base 20 skill you could get five people alternating powering up an item around the clock, which would drop the matrix to 15, -5, meaning they're putting in 50+ FP an hour, (5 each at 10 FP per hour), this lets a group of PCs create a 500 FP item in 10 hours.

[Pagan]

This is what I currently use IMC for spellcasters using the standard magic system (which I have broken into styles)

Magical Enchantment Rules
Basic Rules:
When enchanting magical items using the slow and sure method, an enchanter may put an maximum amount of energy into an item up to 1/2 his or her enchant skill level plus his or her magery level per day. He may invest this energy at a rate of 1pt per hour of concentration/meditation/energy transfer (basically he can't do anything else for that hour). The required skill roll is still the lower of Enchant and the spell being enchanted into the item. As long as the item to be enchanted is not damaged or another enchant spell is cast on the unfinished item the caster may take breaks between enchantment sessions for as long as he wants. The rules for quick and dirty enchantment remain unchanged. Personal fatigue expended in this way may only be recovered with sleep. Energy spent from reserves, power items, etc are recovered normally.

Circle Enchantments
When a circle of mages gets together to enchant an item, subtract one from
each enchanter's skill for every mage beyond the first. If two mages are in
the circle, each subtracts one, six mages would subtract five, etc. The total
of the modified Enchantment scores is the number of points that may be put into the item each day. As the number of mages increases, you tend to get
diminishing returns. All the other rules for ceremonial magic are still followed.


Skill for Speed
Instead of being able to enchant an item with a number of points equal to ½ the enchanter's skill with Enchant, reduce skill by one for each two points additional the mage wants to put into the item. The enchanter is not required to put in the same amount of points per day, but the success roll is based on the largest daily amount. Trading skill for speed does involve some risks. Each time a enchanter does this they must make a roll using the modified skill of the item that day or lose 25% (round up) of the total amount of energy currently in the item and have the item gain 1 quirk.

In a circle, only the lead enchanter can trade his skill for speed.

Example: Magnus enchants his amulet of armaggedon using this variant. He decides he wants the amulet as quickly as possible, and is willing to accept the fact that the amulet will not work in a low mana area. He reduces his skill to 15 (from 20), allowing him to put 10 extra energy into the cloak per day.

I do only have 1 skill roll for success (not counting trading skill for speed) with normal failure costing half the energy and adding a quirk to the item but leaving the item ready to receive additional energy and critical failure destroying the enchanted item.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Well, diminishing returns are good, they allow steady increase without making it out of control.

(We chatted about this in private, but might as well make the discussion available here)

It's not the diminishing returns so much as the huge amount of returns available without having to go adventuring (or hire adventurers) to pick up components.

I should have articulated this in the first couple of posts, but I would like the primary source of "speeding up" enchanting to be the kinds of magical materials PCs might be harvesting while or after slaying their monsters, or more intense and general purpose sources in rare minerals deep within the earth in monster-infested caverns (there are in-game reasons why deep caverns are both monster-infested and the source of magic-rich materials - and why monsters are often sources of magical materials themselves).

So having a more modest reduction from character abilities, but huge discounts from carving a stegadon's thighbone into your mace of +3 damage Yes, dinosaurs are magical monsters. It's a fantasy game, and really what are stegadons doing around in the same game as humans?

This ideally should make fast-casting expensive - I'll be pricing the market value of raw magic materials as higher than it would cost to just get a wizard to do it the slow way. It should be more for "rush orders", not standard practice.

I'm also looking at capping the amount of "Raw Magic" that you can dump into an enchantment based on Magery in some way - so that raw talent and sensitivity to magic is still relevant to the casting process, but not making it a necessity for the "professional" stable enchanter. I'm not sure if I want extra rolls to control the raw magic, or have it add skill penalties, or just generally make magic items slightly quirked in a pre-set way related to the source (pixie dust makes items sparkle permanently or float slightly, chimera blood gives them a smoky aura that smells slightly of goat, dragon's blood makes the item stick to pure gold obnoxiously...)

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

As for the assistants, my idea is that they contribute less energy than the main enchanter (Like 20%?), and they greatly increase the chances of something going wrong. Thus, they're required if you're really tight on your deadline, but otherwise, most enchanters don't bother with them.

Definitely something I think I'll be bringing into whatever the final shape turns out to be.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Now, I would say that leveled enchantments count as multiple enchantments, and that you first enchant the lower levels before going for the higher levels. This means that any hack can enchant Fortify+1, but Fortify+5 is hard even for a master.

I really like this. It also means your Magery level is still contributing to making you a "more awesome" enchanter, by increasing your skill level so you can soak those penalties. Or I might directly link Magery to it by letting

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Also, Quick and Dirty becomes working with assistants, and Slow and Sure working alone, as you're much more likely to get an unquirked item this way.

Yeah, definitely getting some details together. Now to run those numbers on MOS vs success and see if MOS distorts things as much as I think it does... although MOS + penalties for multiple enchantments might help cancel each other out.

[Refplace]

Well raw materials is something I think that has to be settign specific and pretty arbitray.
Do you go by weghit? That makes animals and monsters a premium and gems useless.
Do you go by basic value? still have to set that.
Rarity? Could set things up as Common, Rare, Very Rare, etc and then give values to that.
Set up a list of your own? The latter seems to me where you have to go.
Then do tthe raw materials act as a multiplier or an additive?
Multipliers might be simplier but your magnifying the core skill or magery cap which you may not want.
Additive seems to be more complicated but then the focus can be on the raw material. Practically Anyone can make a magic item from X for example.