Dungeon Fantasy - Scroll Pricing

[WhiteLily]

According to page 117 of Dungeon Fantasy Adventures, scroll are priced as a cost factor multiplied by the energy the spell uses.

For instance, a universal scroll is: $100 x energy point

This ignores the casting stat such as Magery or Power Investiture.

I would like to modify the formula to include the casting stat.

Any suggestions?

[Anders]

$75 x Energy Point cost + $25 x casting stat^2?

I have no motivation for why this price and some other price, btw.

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

According to page 117 of Dungeon Fantasy Adventures, scroll are priced as a cost factor multiplied by the energy the spell uses.

For instance, a universal scroll is: $100 x energy point

This ignores the casting stat such as Magery or Power Investiture.

I would like to modify the formula to include the casting stat.

Any suggestions?

It actually does not ignore it, but includes it. The reason a specific level of magery is not needed is because when the scroll was made, the creator had the necessary magery level. All scrolls are assumed to have a skill of 15, triple the cost for a skill 20 one.

If the user needs magery, then the price is $50/energy point for a charged scroll, compared to an universal scroll that does not need magery (what you posted) $100/energy point.

[WhiteLily]

From a purely economic stand point, the community of magic wielders grows smaller the high a casting stat that a spell would require. There may be only a handful of Power Investiture 6 clerics in a nation, while we would expect to be many more PI 1 priests running around.

Also, a spell that requires more should see it reflected in the cost.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

From a purely economic stand point

Here's your problem. GURPS Magic will destroy an economy, even with the most innocuous spell. So there's two options - make a basic rule, go with it, and ignore the consequences; or take an in depth look at the setting and see what the repercussions are given whatever assumptions you have for the setting.

The good news is that GURPS will work fine regardless what you choose to do.

[WhiteLily]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Here's your problem. GURPS Magic will destroy an economy, even with the most innocuous spell.

Sure, but the game itself proposes an economy. The D&D 3rd edition - now has featured adventure paths that take characters from 1-20. Along each adventure, the challenge of the monster increases as does the amount of corresponding treasure.

GURPS doesn't have a level progression. Assuming a constant payout of $500 per game, the players will then attempt to acquire the most spell breaking gear from the local magic store. The book states that all scroll are available for all spells in the Spells book.

IMHO, that makes scrolls an attractive option for players to convert their treasure money into in order to swing above their character point weight limit in the pursuit of more treasure.

I felt it important to cost them correctly.

[Varyon]

Which direction are you coming at this from here - is it that there would exist cheaper scrolls with harsher prerequisites, or that no/reduced-prerequisite scrolls for spells that normally have harsher prerequisites would cost more?

For the former, you're unlikely to see much that requires more than Magery 1 or Magery 2, as I expect beyond that point it's no longer worth the mage's time to create the scroll (higher Magery characters should probably command higher wages). For the latter, I can certainly see a universal scroll for a spell that requires Magery 3 to have a higher cost (if for no other reason than scroll-makers with Magery 3 are less common than those with lower levels); offhand, perhaps the base $100 is for Magery 1 spells; Magery 0 ones would be $75, Magery 2 would be $150, Magery 3 would be $200, Magery 4 would be $250, and so forth (or you could follow SSR - $70, $100, $150, $200, $300, $500, etc).

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

Sure, but the game itself proposes an economy.

Dungeon Fantasy doesn't really have an economy, it has dungeons you loot for money and treasure and "town" where you trade that in for better gear so you can loot harder dungeons for more money and better treasure, which you trade in for yet better gear, and so on. You certainly can add an economy to it, but you're going to run into some... oddities.

[Anthony]

It's reasonable to charge more for spells that are harder to learn (higher magery, more prerequisites, whatever) but it's a hassle to come up with an actual rule for it.

[Gumby Bush]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's reasonable to charge more for spells that are harder to learn (higher magery, more prerequisites, whatever) but it's a hassle to come up with an actual rule for it.

+5% to cost per prerequisite spell?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

According to page 117 of Dungeon Fantasy Adventures,

You're referring to the "Cash and Gear" section on page 117/128 of Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers (powered by GURPS, released in 2017) not to be confused with the 31-page "GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers" from 2007, which also means this is a forum related to the topic: http://forums.sjgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=95

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

scroll are priced as a cost factor multiplied by the energy the spell uses.

For instance, a universal scroll is: $100 x energy point

This is certainly a contrast Buying Magic Items (pg 20 of GURPS Magic) where the focus of pricing is instead the amount of energy used to CREATE the item. Although there is probably some overall trend of higher-cost spells requiring more energy to enchant into items than lower-cost spells, there's definitely no set formula.

I'm guessing this version of pricing is used since DF doesn't have enchantment rules, so casting-cost as a basis instead of creation-cost is the next best thing.

The "charged scroll" here is also something probably mostly absent in GURPS. You might be able to technically do it by using the "Power" enchantment, but that's very costly to put into items...

I guess you could put a Manastone into a scroll instead, or just turn the scroll into a manastone? Not 100% sure if that's legal.

Another idea would be using M56 Temporary Enchantment to reduce the cost of the Power enchantment to 15% (so that would be 75 energy to create a 1-time use of Power 1 for -1 to cost in normal mana)

M56's 2nd-last paragraph Tempory Enchantments can't coexist with permanent ones, so it sounds like items you make via Temporary Enchantment could not benefit from manastones/powerstones anyway.

Well, definitely not powerstones (since they recharge energy) I could plausibly see treating Manastone as a temporary enchantment and allowing such synergy...

Scrolls similarly seem like temporary enchantments (fade after use) so combining them with Manastone or "Temporary Power" doesn't seem wrong either. You just can't do "Temporary Scroll" or "Temporary Manastone" since they're not on the list of spells you can combine on M57's 2nd paragraph.

"Temporary Manastone" actually would limit them if you could only draw on the energy once (even if you only needed 1 energy and it stored 10) but it's not a limit at all if you're using all the energy (like you always would for a 1st tier Manastone, or if maxing out a Manastone on a big spell) so something like "All Or Nothing" for Manastones (or Powerstones) shouldn't really be 15% cost (-85%) but maybe something like 90% cost (-10%).

90% cost wouldn't actually help with your basic manastone anyway (you need -20% to save 1 energy on a 5-energy enchantment) but it could help with the x4 (20 energy) version where you enchant non-valuable items (costing 18 instead).

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

This ignores the casting stat such as Magery or Power Investiture.

$20/$50 per enery is given for uncharged/charged specific to one stat while $40/$100 is given for Universal scrolls able to be used by ANY of the 3 types of spellcasters (Cleric/Druid/Wizard) as well as non-casters.

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

I would like to modify the formula to include the casting stat.

Any suggestions?

Are you referring to the "effective skill" of a scroll? The top of 117's right column mentions that under Dispel Magic:

15 for scrolls bought in town, often higher for ones found as treasure.

Outside DF this is called the 'Power' of the item.

I would assume that baseline prices assume the bare minimum of Power 15, and if you think there should be higher prices for items with higher power, 100% agree with you.

Where I'm stuck (perhaps like you) is by what % each +1 to power ought to increase it. Being more resistant to Dispel Magic by itself has some value, obviously.

I don't know if DF deals with stuff like Low Mana (-5 to cast spells is also -5 to power of enchanted items, so you need Base Power 20 = Effective Power 15 for it to function) but that's also a major reason Power = value.

Another would be counteracting range-based penalties.

- - -

edit: it occurred to me that rather than effective skill (Power) this might instead (or also) about "Magery and Effect" type stuff, such as how much energy a reader could put into a Scroll of Minor Healing (1-3, or more with Healing Magery 4+), but in DF since price is based on energy in the spell, I don't think it would matter? Except perhaps in missile spells since it's unclear how a "charged scroll" works in respect to first-second investment vs "enlargement" investments.

That would be more of a concern with the pricing of enchantments in non-DF gurps though, since the magery of the creator does not effect the energy needed to make it, but presumably does dictate the capabilities of the item and thus should influence it's value