Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-17-2018, 10:33 PM   #21
weby
 
weby's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalillama View Post
12 isn't really a professional level in a spell though. The 'skill 12 to make a living at it' rule assumes positive TDMs for routine tasks, which spells don't get.
The only task difficulty modifies that are specified as not applying are time spent as specifically called out. The generic task difficulty modifiers for routine tasks would seem to apply as normal.

Of course as a world builder you may specify that spell casting is always a adventuring task and not allow routine uses, but that does not work well with having high number of mages in the general population.

But in the general case it seems there should be task difficulty modifiers as normal. There should be a different difficulty if you have to dodge enemy attacks between castings with adrenaline up and routine use in your day to day job.
__________________
--
GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/
weby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-17-2018, 11:06 PM   #22
weby
 
weby's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I tend to agree. In addition, Enchant is wickedly difficult when using Ritual Magic, so enchanted items should be very rare and very expensive. For example, a character with IQ 12 and Magery 3 needs to spend 8 points to get Ritual Magic to 15, 8 points to get College of Enchantment to 15, 8 points to get another College to 15, and 11 points to get Enchant to 15. With those numbers, an enchanter needs to make a minimum of Wealthy income just to make it worthwhile to learn everything needed to make any magical item.
It should be noted that quite many GURPS professional templates seem to have 8 points in a primary skill with maybe few 4 pointers as extras so the requirement is not so dissimilar from others.

But indeed, in most cases it would make more sense for the mage to do something else with their magic to get a better income.

The requirement for skill 15 is indeed harsh.

It should be noted that already using the standard prices magic items are extremely expensive. A 4' by 6' flying carpet at $158k is more expensive than a Helicopter for a TL 8 character when compared to average pay with the comparable price of 588k vs the helicopter 500k. Making enchanting cost 5 times as much would push the price to $3mil compared to current salaries and making enchanting cost 20 times as very wealthy, would push it to business jet price class.

Overall if you want to preserve the traditional fantasy feel you either need to:
Adapt the D&D idea where a adventurers are really wealthy, in GURPS terms even starting adventurers should be at minimum comfortable/wealthy with them reaching multi-millionaire by level 20, or to make magic items cheaper.

Of course if you want to build a different feel than the "standard fantasy" then you can obviously change things as you see fit.
__________________
--
GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/
weby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-17-2018, 11:29 PM   #23
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

The base assumption here is that all of those people who have Magery have it at level 3, yet Magic doesn't say that. Take that statement as meaning that 1 in 100 people have Magery 0 at least, but that includes people who have modified Magery 0.

I have no idea how things scale beyond that, but it might be fair to say that 1 in 150 have unmodified/limited Magery 0 or greater with a caveat that the unmodified in this case only applies to their Magery 0, higher levels may well be modified/limited.

After that consider not allowing permanent creations except for the simplest things, air, water, and normal earth are all permanent, but everything else temporary, as are transformations, so if you turn lead into gold you'll soon have an angry mob after you for duping them.

EDIT:ADDENDUM: I should have said this before but I was in a bit of a hurry.

There may well be logistical issues to enchanting or other that restrict who a society allows to perform it, or who other people are prepared to work with. For instance Thaumatology 251 says that Kumeatêl, who provides bonuses to enchanting, is associated with "silk cord, knots with hidden ends, rose (both the flower and the color)" which means that a shibari outfit of red silk rope provides a +3 to casting, in a society where this is known and used enchanting may well be restricted to attractive people, and possibly only women as a result.

And while this isn't in the rules, I was once working on a Magical Style that operated with the assumption that enchanting used the normal failure table to explain why it doesn't get the usual +4 for non-combat, which resulted in rituals needing to be conducted skyclad to prevent clothing ending up being the target of the spell, and it taking place inside two pentagrams to contain any summoned demons, with various support personal between the time and so on.

Last edited by scc; 06-18-2018 at 12:55 AM.
scc is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 06:18 AM   #24
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Why would any magic get any TDM modifiers for non-combat situations? I am unaware of any rules that state that magical spells (or any other form of supernatural abilities) get them at all. Could anyone point me to the place where it explicitly says that magic spells (or other supernatural abilities) benefit or suffer from TDM?
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 06:42 AM   #25
Rupert
 
Rupert's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Why would any magic get any TDM modifiers for non-combat situations? I am unaware of any rules that state that magical spells (or any other form of supernatural abilities) get them at all. Could anyone point me to the place where it explicitly says that magic spells (or other supernatural abilities) benefit or suffer from TDM?
Most people seem to assume that they don't, but as the rules don't say anywhere that they don't, and just about any other skill use can get them, why should they not?
__________________
Rupert Boleyn

"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."
Rupert is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 09:25 AM   #26
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Most people seem to assume that they don't, but as the rules don't say anywhere that they don't, and just about any other skill use can get them, why should they not?
and...

This is a perfect example of how Sean Punch, Aka KROMM, got his start working for Steve Jackson Games. Initially, he was just a GURPSNET participant. Then, over time, his responses garnered the eye of SJGames, and eventually, he became the Line Editor.

But seriously - the issues involving "that which is not expressly forbidden is permitted" vs "that which already has a rule relating to it, is exempt from any other generalized rule" tends to require official adjudication, or at the very least, GM's who know that the buck stops with them, and they make a ruling.

GURPS MAGIC went so far as to suggest that there are multiple ways in which to put out a fire without using one specific spell seemingly invented for just that purpose alone. So too, multiple different spells might offer similar effects, but simply arrive there from a different route.
hal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 11:10 AM   #27
Railstar
 
Join Date: Jul 2012
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
Half the time spent enchanting goes towards the spell enchant, the other half towards the spell being enchanted.

The liberal skill increases for player characters is one thing, but normal people aren't adventurers, and in theory, grow that much more slowly. In trying to discuss relatively realistic NPC growth, the GM almost had to divorce normal experience growth rules for game play from the NPCs. But that becomes a discussion on its own right in a new thread.
Very good point. I calculate it as taking nearly a decade to get 12 points in Enchant and 12 points in assorted other spells, so it'll take a while to build the skills up.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
My concern would be that Continual Light-13 is no harder for an IQ 11, Magery 0 to achieve than it is for that same character to achieve Engineering (some specialty)-13. And being able to cast 3 moonlight level Continual Light spells every hour is already enough to make a spellcaster Comfortable or possibly Wealthy (see http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com...ch-should.html). This is same level of skill as a modestly successful engineer, not an ace pilot/SEAL/brain surgeon.

The idea that journeyman mages are of Average wealth is a sop to players, who want to play wizards in modest point games without having to buy Wealthy and Status 2. And that's a reasonable goal. But it breaks world-building because it's very hard to justify that someone who can cast even a single useful spell isn't fairly wealthy, and a typical PC or enchanter level mage who can cast two dozen spells at skill 15+ should be continuously employed for serious money.
I absolutely agree with you. Usually I delve into the setting to get around not being Wealthy, usually I just say "what's the market demand for the spell?" And "Does the wizard have connections to access buyers with?" Or "How do you advertise?" Which becomes especially complex for a necromancer or similar wizard. Can you necessarily sell 3 moonlight-level Continual Light spells every hour? For the price expected of it?

Personally I fully support PC wizards developing those connections in play, but that comes down to GM style. I can see a delver-wizard as being extremely limited in their capacity to market their spells.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Given the horrifying consequence of having incompetent people using magic, the practice of magic naturally lends itself to skill 15+. A person with a skill 9 will try twice as much for the same effect as skill 15, meaning that they will have magical critical failures twice as often, meaning that they will accidentally summon a demon twice as often. A skilled magician will also be able to afford guards to help drive off said demon, which an inexperienced mage will not, so inexperienced mage tend to get dragged to Hell more frequently than experienced mages. To add my own spin to the old saying, there are old mages. there are unskilled mages, but there are no old unskilled mages.
This makes a strong case for "any professional wizard is effectively performing under life-or-death conditions", which justifies the skill 15+, but doesn't necessarily mean those people of that skill level should be more common than the commandos and such.

I think we should clarify your definition of "mages". When I think of "mages" in GURPS, especially in the context of being 1% of the population, I think "people with Magery" - not "professional wizards who make their career from magic."

This does bring some ideas up about how to stop the economics of magic issue. Namely, the risk of a wizard blowing himself up or being dragged off to hell means a few things...
1 - hiring a wizard is risky, and most insurance companies won't cover "our wizard summoned a demon by mistake", meaning less work available for the wizard.
2 - how do you practise without dying and improve your skills to 15+?
3 - going back to Enchantment, it being longer term with fewer rolls in more hours means it might simply be the way for a wizard to work with the least chance of cataclysmic effects.

The problem with this line of thinking is Enchant seems to do nothing until at skill 15+, which brings us back to "how did the Enchanter gain skill 15 to begin with?" But Enchantment rules are an issue.

Last edited by Railstar; 06-18-2018 at 11:35 AM.
Railstar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 11:42 AM   #28
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

I think that an apprentice with Enchant-10 could invest 200% more energy through Slow and Sure Enchantment to get an effective Power 15. Now, that is economically unsupportable, but it is fine for the learning process.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 12:40 PM   #29
weby
 
weby's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Why would any magic get any TDM modifiers for non-combat situations? I am unaware of any rules that state that magical spells (or any other form of supernatural abilities) get them at all. Could anyone point me to the place where it explicitly says that magic spells (or other supernatural abilities) benefit or suffer from TDM?
Magic p7 says:
"Casting a spell works like any other
use of a skill
: roll 3d and compare the
total to your effective skill (your base
skill with the spell adjusted by any
applicable modifiers)." and then goes on to talk about effective skill and such.
(emphasis mine)

And the general section on modifiers and effective skill B344-356 talks about how skills are modified with some modifiers coming from the skill and then from a long list of generic things and only the time spent is separated from the list out to not apply to magic.

Thus spells are skills and they use effective skill for casting, not absolute and thus use general skill use mechanics unless specified to some part to be different(as is the case with time spent).

It should also be noted that ceremonial magic places several other restrictions specifically for ceremonial magic restricting things like luck and more. So above fully only applies to non ceremonial magic.
__________________
--
GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/
weby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-18-2018, 12:44 PM   #30
weby
 
weby's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: The Economics of Enchanted Items

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I think that an apprentice with Enchant-10 could invest 200% more energy through Slow and Sure Enchantment to get an effective Power 15. Now, that is economically unsupportable, but it is fine for the learning process.
Magic p 16.
"Lone enchanters cannot gain a skill bonus for using extra energy."
__________________
--
GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/
weby is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:51 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.