Why is the first level of Fortify so cheap?

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Edit: I am looking for the meta-game reason, not the economic reason.

I was testing various enchantments on weapons and armour in GCA for curiosity and giggles, and found that Fortify (also a few others) were really cheap. Checked GURPS: Magic and yep, +1 DR for $50.

Given that the "test dummy" character I made is wearing padded cloth, fine mail, and light segmented plate, that means I increased their DR by +3 for $150.

Granted, most characters won't be able to afford the Lighten enchantments and/or ST that makes this practical, but +1 DR is fairly significant, and it does seem cheap, so I'm wondering about the price.

My main thought is that a small DR boost is cheap, because Fantasy would have a higher average damage than straight Medieval?

[Dalzig]

The cost for Fortify at +1 DR is 50 energy points, not $50. That's how much FP, HP, or whatever else it takes to cast the spell.

Buying Magic Items on Magic 20 suggests $33/energy point for a typical TL3 society when using the slow method of enchanting and $1/energy point when using the quick method of enchanting. 50 energy points falls in line with the quick method therefore a suit of +1 armor would only cost $50. Why the difference? It took one hour to make instead of several days, weeks, or even months.

Now, that +2 armor costs a whopping 200 energy points. That means it's 4 times as expensive, right? Well, not really. The default assumption for the quick method is no more than 60 energy points. It's not a hard limit as you can get more assistants, better assistants, more powerful powerstones, and so on, but you just reach a limit at some point.

That means the +2 armor must use the slow method of enchanting and ends up costing $6,600, 132 times more expensive than the +1 armor.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Dalzig

The cost for Fortify at +1 DR is 50 energy points, not $50. That's how much FP, HP, or whatever else it takes to cast the spell.

Buying Magic Items on Magic 20 suggests $33/energy point for a typical TL3 society when using the slow method of enchanting and $1/energy point when using the quick method of enchanting. 50 energy points falls in line with the quick method therefore a suit of +1 armor would only cost $50. Why the difference? It took one hour to make instead of several days, weeks, or even months.

Now, that +2 armor costs a whopping 200 energy points. That means it's 4 times as expensive, right? Well, not really. The default assumption for the quick method is no more than 60 energy points. It's not a hard limit as you can get more assistants, better assistants, more powerful powerstones, and so on, but you just reach a limit at some point.

That means the +2 armor must use the slow method of enchanting and ends up costing $6,600, 132 times more expensive than the +1 armor.

While that is informative, my question was aimed more at the meta-game reasons. I'm going to dump a lot of text here, because while your answer says you probably know this, it also says there's going to be others who might not. And, I feel it's better to give too much info than too little. ;)

("How was the game?" "Good." *Logs off* ...Frustrating. :/ )

At some point, someone decided that Fortify 1 would be cheap enough for a "quick and dirty" enchantment, and knowing the meta-game rules of a setting can help me run it better, play it better, and engage with it better.

For example, here there are two possible options: Damage in GURPS: Fantasy is intended to be higher than in GURPS: Medieval; or, characters in GURPS: Fantasy are expected to take less damage than in GURPS: Medieval. Those possibilities are mutually exclusive, and imply a different style of play for me as a GM or player.

As such, official supplements and sources will likely then build for one average outcome or the other, and knowing which it is will help me use and approach those official sources more accurately.

Alternately, official sources could build for both possibilities, and knowing that also tells me something about expected play.

Also alternately, I could give everyone Fortified armour, not worry about the difference, and it probably would work out properly...But I'd know less about why.

Or in short: Theorycrafting. The same sort of logic that says that a 10th-level D&D 3.5 character must have an item of permanent Protection from Alignment; that a 1,000-point Hero System character needs to be able to sense across a broad range of the electromagnetic and/or exotic spectrum; and why a 150-point GURPS warrior can work just as well with 15 ST and 10 DX as with 11 ST and 12 DX (because they don't need to target hit locations, just throw enough Deceptive Attack to hit somewhere).

[weby]

The basic magic system has several quirks. One of them is the hard line between 50 point and heavier enchantments where the price jumps by that huge margin.

Note that DF changed that limit to 100 energy and DFRPG removed the quick enchants so that the +1 cost is in line with the higher things.

But overall the enchantment system in Magic is not a very good one and certainly does not make economic sense.

[Culture20]

If you really want to fry your brain, look at the piecemeal armor prices for fortify. +3 boots, gauntlets, skullcaps, and +4 gorgets or bishops-mantles are all on sale! We’re practically giving them away!
The +3 for $150 in your example assumes stacking, which I allow in my games, but Kromm maintains that fortify doesn’t stack with other fortifies on another worn piece of armor (but does count for overpenetration if two people are wearing the two suits). Magic rules are very world dependent.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

Given that the "test dummy" character I made is wearing padded cloth, fine mail, and light segmented plate, that means I increased their DR by +3 for $150.

This assumption is wrong. Multiple instances of the same Spell do not stack together. Put Fortify on 3 pieces of layered armor and only one of them counts.

You might have assumed that Fortify permanently transformed the armor material properties but instead the +1 comes and goes with the Mana Level. In no Mana (or even Low Mana if base Power was less than 20) your magic armor turns back into regular armor.

So you'd be trying to stack the same Enchantment with itself and that doesn't work. No more than 3 Items with +1 Might add up to 1 +3 Might.

Also, are you aware of the penalties for layering armor? Your character would be -2 DX even before the Encumbrance penalties were added in. Stacking multiple layers of armor _is_ possible but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Oh, and the meta-game reason is probably so that low level magic items are affordable. +1 arrows are cheap too and there's a few others.

[Anaraxes]

The changeover point between Q&D enchantment and S&S isn't a design feature of the system. It's a derived result.

(I remember those numbers being published in a Roleplayer article, way back when. Someone made some assumptions about how much enchanters got paid compared to the jobs tables, and then using those numbers, derived the cost for S&S enchantment, and then the points at which Q&D became possible and how much cheaper it would be. The 4e rules just incorporate those results instead of leaving them as an exercise for the reader.)

You can't just change the breakpoint arbitrarily, at least not and still have other things be consistent. To move that point or change enchantment costs, you need to change the assumptions about how much enchanters can make -- which of course is a question of opportunity cost, how much they'd make doing something else with their skills -- or change the actual rules of the system that have to do with powerstones (change their cost, size that can be tapped, rules for ceremonial assistants, etc).

That's all possible, of course, and not even that difficult. The simplest hack is simply to take out the rule that allows Q&D enchantment in the first place, thus turning that $50 +1 Fortify into a $1650 one. But you can also fiddle with the economics from which all the numbers descend if you're that into worldbuilding as a necessary consequence of the rule set presumed to be the actual in-setting physical law.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The changeover point between Q&D enchantment and S&S isn't a design feature of the system. It's a derived result.

(I remember those numbers being published in a Roleplayer article, way back when. Someone made some assumptions about how much enchanters got paid compared to the jobs tables, and then using those numbers, derived the cost for S&S enchantment, and then the points at which Q&D became possible and how much cheaper it would be. The 4e rules just incorporate those results instead of leaving them as an exercise for the reader.)

No, the rules for 4e Magic do not just reiterate an old Roleplayer article (probably Brett Slocum's The Compleat Powerstone is what you're thinking off). The 4e rules with their 60 pt breakpoint for Q&D assume no Powerstones are used at all. They pay Enchanters more than they got in 3e too.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No, the rules for 4e Magic do not just reiterate an old Roleplayer article

My point isn't that they literally reprint the text of that article, but that the number for the crossover point and the cost per energy point are derived from other assumptions, rather than being arbitrary assumptions.

Magic 4e does have some text that talks about where they come from. The logic and methods there do go back to that old article, even if the numbers are different. Since the derivation is discussed, that tells you where to make desired changes -- which isn't just in the final answer. Many games will have few enough enchanted objects, those often made off-screen, that the economics don't matter, as the setting doesn't even include enchantment as a regular profession tied to economics in the first place. In those settings, it's much easier to just change the final answer and set the cost to whatever you like. But then, it's odd even to have "market" prices for magic items in those settings, so the question wouldn't really come up.

[khorboth]

While I don't pretend to know for sure what happened behind the scenes, I've gotten enough peeks to make a good guess. It fits quite well with what others here have said.

At some point, when designing the enchantment spells, the decision was made to keep the first levels of the enhancing enchantments (accuracy and puissance too) within the reach of quick casting for reasonably powered PCs, but higher levels should be expensive enough to require protracted casting that requires extensive downtime, usually done by PCs or between adventures.

At a different point in the system design, prices for enchantments were compared to the wage systems and costs were determined.

Later, the system was analyzed as a whole and this was determined to be not a problem. Note that puissance is about the same price (no books with me) and with the stacking limitations, they pretty well cancel each other out if both sides have the same resources.