Healing potion calculation

[hcobb]

First hire a typical Healer: ST 6 DX 15 IQ 14 for $100 a week, plus $50 in living costs by ITL 58
Then rent a lab ($150 per week, plus $50 for materials) ITL 145
Pay out $1070 in common materials each week
And risk an average of $73 in explosion and healing costs

For a net cost each week of $1493

The payout is $1500 but this is only 95.37% of the time so net gain is $1431

I.e. you lose an average of $62 a week, under the best possible conditions.

[Skarg]

* Not to mention your "typical" healer has ST 6 and so is liable to die in his first lab explosion.

* 40-point human characters are exceptional superlative people. Average human people are 30 points, and min ST usually 8.

* So a typical healer (itself an above-average profession) seems to me more like ST 10 DX 10 IQ 11, Physicker talent. He doesn't know how to make healing potions. A typical master physicker or alchemist who could try to make healing potions might tend to be more like ST 10 DX 10 IQ 14 on average.

* Of course, making potions requires a DX roll to be made per week, so (unless the GM develops the potion system further to make it a bit less dangerous, and/or ups the typical prices) typical people who could make potions probably don't try unless they are fairly desperate.

* So it probably does take an exceptional person to reliably make potions, or there is more to it than ITL lists... some equipment and/or techniques and/or talents that can increase the chances of success and mitigate the damage of lab explosions.

* As for the asking prices versus the list prices, they are about like many potions and magic items - i.e. they end up tending not to make much profit if sold at the listed price. So, as we and others have discussed many times before, the listed prices are for GMs who want fairly easy access to magic items and potions, or they represent nearly the lowest price they might ever be sold for, if you can even find them for sale.

* And, it seems to me, if you use all the rules, and/or apply GM discretion, that does turn out to be the case, because the price ends up being twice or more what the list price is, in most cases.

For example:

Guy Who Actually Makes And Sells Healing Potions - Human
ST 10 DX 14 IQ 14, Literacy, Master Physicker, Business Sense
Book with instructions for healing potions ($100)
Owns his own lab (pays no rent)
Wears soaking wet protective clothing while doing alchemy.
Has another physicker nearby who can come try to heal him if he is rendered unconscious in an explosion, who also has several healing potions stored up.

Say his net costs are still close to the $1500 list price of a batch of 10 healing potions (he owns his own lab etc but is "only" DX 14). Ok, but he has Business Sense, which lets him usually sell his potion for double the "fair" price, so $3000 (even if the GM doesn't decide that the actual market price is probably more like 3 times the cost, so $4500).

But that's not all, even if he doesn't try to sell for double price, prices for magic vary by reaction roll - see ITL 166, and someone with Business Sense (either him or his shopkeeper) get a +1 reaction roll on business transactions (which could also be added to using other talents that give positive reaction modifiers - maybe the brewmaster lacks Business Sense but hires a salesperson who does, and who also has other reaction modifiers). According to ITL 166, reactions can multiply costs for magic by anywhere from .75 to 10.

[KevinJ]

ST 6 is OK, if he dies in his first lab explosion you don't have to pay him, thus saving money.

[hcobb]

At ST 6 you take 12 damage.

Your buddy pours 7 healing potions down your throat within one hour (as per ITL 10) and you're back to ST 1.

Then because you are a Healer (by the job table at ITL 58) you heal up three hits on yourself and are at ST 4.

Then rest up four days and return to work next week at full ST.

[JaySixA]

Originally Posted by hcobb

At ST 6 you take 12 damage.

Your buddy pours 7 healing potions down your throat within one hour (as per ITL 10) and you're back to ST 1.

Then because you are a Healer (by the job table at ITL 58) you heal up three hits on yourself and are at ST 4.

Then rest up four days and return to work next week at full ST.

Alas, your buddy took a long lunch today and comes back to find your lifeless body.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by hcobb

I.e. you lose an average of $62 a week, under the best possible conditions.

The PCs may be better off buying potions from NPCs who are not restricted by the rules. Fortunately, the GM can do anything imaginable . . . including offer potions for sale when, where, and for whatever price is desired at the moment.

Trying to apply the rules that govern player characters to the entire game is an exercise best ignored.

[Sinanju]

Originally Posted by philreed

The PCs may be better off buying potions from NPCs who are not restricted by the rules. Fortunately, the GM can do anything imaginable . . . including offer potions for sale when, where, and for whatever price is desired at the moment.

Trying to apply the rules that govern player characters to the entire game is an exercise best ignored.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html

[HeatDeath]

If you handed Michael Faraday or Benjamin Franklin a 50's chemistry textbook, and gave them a few additional pointers, they would be perfectly capable of making lithium-ion batteries.

And they would run screaming into the night due to the sheer energy levels and danger involved.

The rules describe player characters doing magic item creation as basically garage-level tinkerers. Geniuses to be sure, but, and this is a big but...

You can't model a Tesla battery factory by rolling up a hundred Benjamin Franklins with chemistry textbooks. Like your small propietor trying to manufacture healing potions on an industrial scale, they wouldn't survive the week. Unless, just like in real life, they spent man-years optimizing their processes for safety and repeatability, a process the magic item creation rules do not even slightly model.

Tl;dr, the magic items creation rules model artisanal processes that do not scale.

Think Shockley hand-building a transistor. Not Andy Grove building billions of them.

[hcobb]

I'm going with:

Note that the listed prices are in general slightly less that what it would cost the PCs to make the potions under their best general purpose setups, not even accounting for security, taxes, etc. This is because most potion production is conducted by operations that are located where they have competitive advantages with ingredients and other aspects.

When the GM rules that the general supply of certain potions is limited, non-existent, or at much greater cost than listed the players can either go through the time and expense of setting up the production (secure a lab, have or hire chemists and alchemists, gather the listed ingredients, protect their operations against bandits operating outside or within the law, etc.) or they can use the Finding Magic Items for Sale rules on page 166 to search for the potions.

[JLV]

Honestly? I just think this whole thing is being completely over-analyzed. It's a game. You know, for fun. I do NOT sit around doing economic analyses on wizarding, or physical analyses on the martial arts moves in chop-sockey movies. I simply enjoy them. As a GM, if I see something that bothers me, I immediately fix it -- without producing a white paper on the subject. Just my $0.02 on this whole process...