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Old 05-15-2020, 11:01 PM   #1
JimmyPlenty
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Human Batteries

How does everyone here handle the bigger spell requirements with tons of NPC's giving ST to help with a spell or magic item?

As much as this may work. I just think mages "clocking in" just to make a +1 this-or-that kind of weird. Akin to coders going to work to make a program I suppose? I am sure if fantasy worlds were real, these make sense, but it seems to take the fantasy out of it.

I know it is a thing we all see for cults for bringing up demons. So for that I am OK on.
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Old 05-15-2020, 11:06 PM   #2
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Human Batteries

Note ITL 154 that the apprentices are learning new spells while resting quietly 12.5 hours a day.
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Old 05-17-2020, 09:49 PM   #3
Axly Suregrip
 
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Default Re: Human Batteries

hcobb you mean resting 6.25 hours/day.
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:39 AM   #4
Steve Plambeck
 
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Default Re: Human Batteries

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyPlenty View Post
How does everyone here handle the bigger spell requirements with tons of NPC's giving ST to help with a spell or magic item?

As much as this may work. I just think mages "clocking in" just to make a +1 this-or-that kind of weird. Akin to coders going to work to make a program I suppose? I am sure if fantasy worlds were real, these make sense, but it seems to take the fantasy out of it.
If you're allowing PCs to make magic items in your campaign then apprentices become a consideration, because the magic item creation rules call for them -- lots of them in some cases. If you as the GM only introduce magic items through NPCs, you can leave how they were created a mystery. The same goes if they were found as relics.

But yeah, I have to agree: using apprentices like assembly line workers kills the romanticism. The rationale for it, that they are learning the magical arts in the process, falls apart when all they get to do is cast Aid spells, rest, and cast more Aid spells all day. This just takes all the magic out of magic.
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Old 05-18-2020, 04:18 AM   #5
JimmyPlenty
 
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Default Re: Human Batteries

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
If you're allowing PCs to make magic items in your campaign then apprentices become a consideration, because the magic item creation rules call for them -- lots of them in some cases. If you as the GM only introduce magic items through NPCs, you can leave how they were created a mystery. The same goes if they were found as relics.

But yeah, I have to agree: using apprentices like assembly line workers kills the romanticism. The rationale for it, that they are learning the magical arts in the process, falls apart when all they get to do is cast Aid spells, rest, and cast more Aid spells all day. This just takes all the magic out of magic.
Perhaps I am getting this wrong in my mind though. Maybe the actual work is only like 10 minutes long each session, wizard gets depleted, has to rest reading a book or whatever, then repeats. Not exactly sitting there all day.

There should have been a chart for how much ST a day a wizard can dish out according to IQ level.

If the above I said was true and it is not a constant attention thing, am I right to say that an 11 ST wizard could generate

casting 10 ST (to remain conscious)
resting to regain 2.5 hours
casting again for 10
resting to regain 2.5 hours...etc
15 hours of work = 60 ST?

Ok maybe doesn't sound crazy if so. I had it in my head everyone working on it was consistently busy. Sounded like a lot of work just to make an item.
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Old 05-18-2020, 05:22 AM   #6
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Human Batteries

Extract 25 effective ST from the 10/10/10 Apprentice?

Cast 8 1-point Aid spells, four of these work so four net ST.
Rest two hours.

Repeat six times for 24 ST and 12 hours.

Take another half hour for the 25th point.
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Old 05-18-2020, 06:00 AM   #7
Axly Suregrip
 
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Cast 8 1-point Aid spells, four of these work so four net ST.
Good point. I did not consider failed spell castings.
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Old 05-18-2020, 08:14 AM   #8
hcobb
 
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A DX 9 Molly needs to rest 17 hours a day while a DX 15 apprentice only needs 7 hours of rest each day to meet the 25 ST quota.
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Old 05-18-2020, 12:04 PM   #9
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Default Re: Human Batteries

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyPlenty View Post
As much as this may work. I just think mages "clocking in" just to make a +1 this-or-that kind of weird.
I've never really been into this either.

But you got to admit it's very distinctive, as from here, you get very quickly to dystopian settings like hcobb's, where the magic economy drives everything. Underpaid battery labourers selling their bodies for 12.5 hours a day to rich goblin fiefs to meet the world's insatiable demand for cheap iron flesh rings.

I mean, THAT's dystopian.

Last edited by RobW; 05-18-2020 at 12:07 PM.
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:48 PM   #10
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Default Re: Human Batteries

As an alternative you could eliminate enchantment and toss it all under Alchemy.

Replace the ST costs with strange and funky critter parts. So anybody who wants to mass produce Iron Flesh rings is going to have to skin a lot of gargoyles. (Remove the Calling spell to keep this from getting too easy.)
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