Limits on powerstones

[hcobb]

ITL 163: "but no one in history is known to have tried to build one any greater than 720."

Because?

ITL 150: "An 18 ruins the entire spell ... A Charm can help him on this roll."

Let us assume that any natural roll of 18 ruins the entire powerstone enchantment and that charms do not modify this.

A 720 point stone requires at least 288 wizard weeks of work and so has only a 26% chance of making it that far, even with base DX 15 and a +2 charm.

Agreed?

[JLV]

Originally Posted by hcobb

ITL 163: "but no one in history is known to have tried to build one any greater than 720."

Because?

Because no one is known to have tried to do so. It's right there in the sentence.

[Skarg]

There's a natural dis-incentive to keep increasing a single powerstone because the more valuable the existing stone is, the more you're risking by trying to increase its power. No one wanted to be the guy that broke the ST 720 powerstone by trying to make it slightly stronger.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by hcobb

A 720 point stone requires at least 288 wizard weeks of work and so has only a 26% chance of making it that far, even with base DX 15 and a +2 charm.

Agreed?

I'm not sure I follow the Powerstone description: "It costs a wizard 5 ST to put 1 ST into it.... A wizard cannot put more ST than his basic ST attribute into a Powerstone each day."

So does that mean a ST10 wizard could increase the charge of the stone by 10 per day or by 2?

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by RobW

I'm not sure I follow the Powerstone description: "It costs a wizard 5 ST to put 1 ST into it.... A wizard cannot put more ST than his basic ST attribute into a Powerstone each day."

So does that mean a ST10 wizard could increase the charge of the stone by 10 per day or by 2?

Just use the flat 25 ST/day of enchantments (adding five to the charge level, when doing nothing else that day).

[RobW]

I completely don't follow?

[TippetsTX]

For every 1 point of ST he puts into the powerstone, the wizard will expend 5 ST of fatigue, right? To recover those 5 points, the wizard then has to rest for nearly an hour and a half (75 minutes) before he can add another point to the powerstone. So extrapolating from there, it will take the wizard 12 1/2 hours to add 10 ST to the powerstone at which point he is maxed out for the day.

[Skarg]

The wording uses the words "put into" for the limit, and for the 1 ST that is "put into" the powerstone for every 5 ST used to do so. To me, that's clear enough that the limit is about the amount added to the stone (50 ST to put 10 ST into the stone), rather than a limit of expending 10 ST, which would only "put into" the stone 2 ST.

And that matches TippetsTX's practical rate calculation pretty well, too.

What I continue to wonder, however, if that limit is per stone, per wizard, or per wizard/stone combination.

i.e., it could mean:

A) It's a per-stone limit, so even if you have multiple wizards, no stone can be recharged more than +10 ST per day.

B) It's a per-wizard limit, so even if you have multiple stones, a wizard can only put +10 ST total into any combination of powerstones he might have access to.

C) It's a per-wizard/stone-combination limit, so each wizard can only power each stone at most +10 ST per day, but a wizard could put more into multiple stones, or multiple wizards could put more into one stone.

So, if it comes up (which it may well never do for many GMs) the GM needs to choose which of the above limits apply. I tend to think I'd apply both limits A and B (which ends up including C).

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

To me, that's clear enough that the limit is about the amount added to the stone (50 ST to put 10 ST into the stone), rather than a limit of expending 10 ST, which would only "put into" the stone 2 ST.

And that matches TippetsTX's practical rate calculation pretty well, too.

OK, so in that case, to go back to hcobb's original question, wouldn't the 720 ST stone require "only" 72 days of work (with apprentices) instead of 288 weeks?

Sorry, our current group doesn't "do" wizards, and back in the day, one keener handled all item creation tasks and the rest of us were happy not to know. So after 40 years, I have very little understanding of this topic!

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by RobW

OK, so in that case, to go back to hcobb's original question, wouldn't the 720 ST stone require "only" 72 days of work (with apprentices) instead of 288 weeks?

Sorry, our current group doesn't "do" wizards, and back in the day, one keener handled all item creation tasks and the rest of us were happy not to know. So after 40 years, I have very little understanding of this topic!

No worries.

No, those are two different activities. The one where you just put 5 ST into a stone and it charges it up one is just how you re-charge a powerstone. Any wizard can do that without a spell.

But powerstones have a capacity (which is the most ST that can be stored in a powerstone at once), which is given to them by enchanting them. Enchanting them requires the Greater Magic Item Creation spell, an expensive lab, at least a week of work, healing potions and other ingredients, much more ST (40+), a DX roll, etc, every time you want to increase the capacity of the powerstone (or to create a new powerstone). That's what hcobb is talking about.