[Magic/RAW] An In-Depth Look at TL3 Fantasy Economics and Enchantment

[Stripe]

GURPS enchanters seem to be working-class, "nine-to-five" mages. A quick trip through the second chapter of Magic's Economics and Enchantment section (p. M21) strongly suggests that for a number of reasons.

But, a lot of things assumed in that section don't seem to jive with my numbers. Math is my weakest suite, so it's likely that I'm wrong.

Here's some basic principals laid out in that section (direct quotes):

• Magic items bought new in a TL3 abundant-magic setting should cost $1/energy point up to about 60 points, and $33/point above 60 points.
  
• To determine the price of magic items, we need to know three things: the average salary for a master enchanter, the average salary for a journeyman enchanter, and the average size of an enchanting circle.
  
• A journeyman enchanter makes an Average salary ($700/mo.), while a master enchanter makes a Comfortable salary ($1,400/mo.).

That all sounds good and well at first, but then, on p. 22, it says, "most Slow and Sure projects are done by groups of two or three journeyman enchanters."

That strikes me as the exact opposite of how it should be.

Let's say a group gets a commission for a provided ruby-studded longsword to be enchanted with Flaming Weapon (p. M75) for 750 energy.

Let's take the book's suggestion of $33 per point. Furthermore, let's say you have three mages like the book suggests. A 750-point commission will take 250 consecutive days at the end of which the customer will pay $24,750.

If the enchanters take that amount as pure, net profit (doubtful) and split it three ways, that's $8,250 apiece for 250 straight days of work. That's $33 per day which would be $990 in a 30-day month.

If the three mages in my example are working five days a week and 22 days a month like the book assumes, their wages for the 750-point item averages $720 per month. Not sure how they would be able to do that, though, since you can't take two days a week off from enchanting without adding four days to the total time and if they're using the slow-and-sure method, they're often going to be doing 100's of consecutive days of work.

One thing is certain: solo enchanters are like solo construction workers or carpenters. Building a house takes a long time for one carpenter to do. But, a carpenter can do a quick, simple job like knocking out a wall by himself no problem with the right tools. That's the "quick and dirty" vs. "slow and sure" analogy.

If an enchanter is using the slow-and-sure method, it seems to me that he should be part of a large circle of mages. Using the slow-and-sure method, there is no ceremonial penalty for assistants. You can have 100 assistants. You can have 400. You can have 1,000. Doesn't matter.

Trouble comes when paying these employees. A circle of 150 mages could get a flaming longsword done in a modern 40 hour workweek like the book assumes. But, they're only making ($33 per point x 750 points / 150 mages) $165 per workweek and that's only if they split the gross profit evenly as net profit. That's ridiculous. Every business with 150 employees has overhead.

Magic assumes journeyman enchanters make an average salary and sets that at $700 per month to jive with p. B517. Four weeks of work at $165 per week is $660. Status 0 cost of living is $600 (p. B265). An enchanter making $165 a week would be struggling to keep his head above water and living paycheck to paycheck at Status 0 in a standard, TL3 fantasy setting.

In other words, a business can't support a circle of 150 enchanters charging $33 per point if that's what they're charging and that's their only service or source of income.

So, what I'm trying to say is that something's not quite right in my view. Enchanters aren't always going to be able to work 100's of days at a time and there's even less money in the Quick and Dirty method. I've heard it expressed often on here that magic items are too expensive but even more often that they take too long to make. From what I see, it seems magic items are too cheap, but I agree it takes too long to make them under standard rules-as-written.

As with every rule in every role playing system, you can change RAW to your taste but I'm not at all interested in exploring writing new rules. Also, I'm sure Thaumatology adds several optional rules, but I don't have that book.

What are your thoughts and opinions?

[Purple Haze]

For Q&D I like to assume that the master has skill 20 and 5 assistants, they all have HT 12 and 4 Extra Fatigue (good food, clean living, and health club memberships).

So a standard one day enchantment is up to 96 energy. A Manastone can be made at 19 points in one day. So a two day enchantment is 96+19=115, three is 96+19+19=134, four is 153, five is 172, and six is 191, and seven is 210.

[roguebfl]

What you missed is you numbers assume perfect success on all enchants, where as the RAW number facts in failure rate as well.

[Tyneras]

One thing that bugs me. If most "use or die" skills are in the 14-16 range, why do wizards get a free pass on "worlds greatest" skill levels being normal? Wouldn't it make more sense for enchantment prices to be based off professional skill levels of 12-14? If magic is hard enough to learn that only the worlds greatest get to play, then magic items should be treasured items and signature gear, not sold like a sack of grain.

Edit: I am in favor of positive TDMs for "standardized" enchanting for this reason.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Assumption: Journeyman Enchanter (TL3 Average Job) gives G$700 per month. This is the desired end-goal, and so all numbers are built with this goal in mind.

Okay: 1000-energy enchantment. 1 energy worth of enchantment for every mage-day (eight hours of time). 4.6296% of the time you will fail (1.8518% of the time you will critically fail), and so wastage is a factor. Ignoring Q&D for the moment (as it makes things much cheaper for enchantments it can handle).

At 30 days per month per journeyman enchanter, that means we want energy to cost a minimum of (700/30)*1.05*1.10, rounded up) (G$700 / 30 days * 1.05 wastage * 1.10 expenses) G$27 per-energy for stuff that journeyman enchanters can handle. So something that takes 5 journeyman would cost $135 per day for 5 energy per day, taking 200 days to enchant a 1000-energy thingy. (Or G$27 000 total, not counting the cost of the actual item to be enchanted.)

Q&D with various options is much more economical and much faster but more limited in terms of what energy-value of enchantment can be produced (depending on what options are available).

Adjust numbers to your desired results.

[SuedodeuS]

A slight modification gets things working - say that it's possible during Slow and Sure to stabilize the enchantment as you go, allowing it to spend a few days not being enchanted without any malus (to balance, a stabilized in-progress item can't have any energy put into it until the stabilization wears off). This allows you to put 25 energy into it per mage-month.

For price, we'll look at a 100 energy item. Using Slow and Sure, this takes 100 mage-days, or 4 mage-months, to make. That's a cost of $28,000 to pay the mages their wages. With a failure rate of ~5%, you'll have 1 enchantment per 20 fail, meaning you end up paying $56,000 for 1900 energy, or about $29.5 per energy. Bumping that up to $33 should cover overhead (it's an extra $83.75 per mage per month).

[downer]

Isn't it possible that the three enchanters take different days off? That would leave at least two people enchanting at any given time, while still allowing for rest, sick leave etc. The only problem they might run into would be high holy days when they all cannot work. Even then, it might be common practice to hire an enchanter of a different religion to keep enchanting on those days.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by downer

Isn't it possible that the three enchanters take different days off?

No. All must be present each day. If one becomes permanently unavailable, the enchantment process is wasted.