How to Finance Slow and Sure Enchanting

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Either way, Q&D enchanting is actually cheaper than S&S into the 'hundreds of energy' range, despite what 4e's Magic claims, a
t.

While Powerstone math goes way back into ....probably 1e from 4e there's the Paut Paradigm".

The factoid behind thia is that mages may drink as many as 6x their ST in doses of Paut (one dose ebign approx. 1 fluid ounce) but must use the resulting energy before a period of 5 minutes a has lapsed.

With 6 mages beign able to come up with 360 energy this was and then kicking in their own FP they can Shatterproof 2 shields per day for the cost of the Paut.

The cost of Paut probably sets a practical upper limit on the cost of Q&D. Not the upper limit of total enrgy though if there are mages with higher average ST than 10.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

While Powerstone math goes way back into ....probably 1e from 4e there's the Paut Paradigm".

Paut is expensive enough that it can't compete well with powerstones, and doesn't even compete all that well with slow and sure. However, DF items of power beat out large powerstones at a certain point (they seem to be able to use the recharge powerstone spell without the limitation that makes recharge powerstone totally useless).

[AlexanderHowl]

Of course, power items that store FP are better than powerstones because they recharge faster. If Staff items can store FP equal to their Power, then every mage will attempt to get a Power 20 staff because it would store 20 FP. While it would take them 3 hours to recharge everything, it would change enchanting quiet a bit.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Paut is expensive enough that it can't compete well with powerstones, and doesn't even compete all that well with slow and sure. However, DF items of power beat out large powerstones at a certain point (they seem to be able to use the recharge powerstone spell without the limitation that makes recharge powerstone totally useless).

And Paut doesn't actually help because what matters is how many FP you can put into a single spell and Paut doesn't help with that.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by scc

And Paut doesn't actually help because what matters is how many FP you can put into a single spell and Paut doesn't help with that.

A mage can drink Paut and it can raise his available energy over his normal amount _if_ he uses it within 5 minutes.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

A mage can drink Paut and it can raise his available energy over his normal amount _if_ he uses it within 5 minutes.

That is I believe a Kromm house rule (I recall seeing it mentioned, but it's not in the text). In any case, at $33 per energy, it isn't a gain.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That is I believe a Kromm house rule (I recall seeing it mentioned, but it's not in the text). In any case, at $33 per energy, it isn't a gain.

It's on p.52 of Thaumatology.

It's very much a gain in time when the mage can drink Paut on Monday and gain 60 energy for Q&D instead of spending 2 months to put in the same amount of energy via S&S.

The threshold for S&S goes up to whatever point can not be reached thrugh the use of Paut, Powerstones, FP and various other dodges together.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It's on p.52 of Thaumatology.

It's very much a gain in time...

Yes, but if your baseline price for slow and is $33 per energy, replacing it with Paut isn't much help (though because you can power the start of the enchantment with something else it still probably comes out ahead; it looks like based on marginal cost you probably start using Paut after 500, and that takes you up to 800 energy, beyond which penalties for long tasks kick in since that's an 8 hour day).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yes, but if your baseline price for slow and is $33 per energy, replacing it with Paut isn't much help ).

I was wondering about that $33 price for Paut and went back to Thaumatology p.52 and saw a pricing scheme that would make Paut $33 at TL3 but only $25 at TL2 and a different price at every other TL and that's not actually very Gurps-y. Gurps gear sells (generally) at a universal price not modifed by TL.

It seemed to be increasing the cost of ingredients and labor as Starting Wealth rose. Even for jsut the Alchemy rules from Magic that's wrong. Ingredients don't go up even if labor does. For mundane gear finished price doesn't go up as labor becomes more expensive. Probably because a higher TL increases productivity. That's moslty where the increased Starting Wealth comes from.

So if Paut is introduced (pseudo-historically) at the TL1 of Ancient Egypt its' prce would be set then and by the usual rules not go up on a per TL basis.

So I don't think $33 should be graven in stone.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I was wondering about that $33 price for Paut and went back to Thaumatology p.52 and saw a pricing scheme that would make Paut $33 at TL3 but only $25 at TL2 and a different price at every other TL and that's not actually very Gurps-y. Gurps gear sells (generally) at a universal price not modifed by TL.

Yet this is explicitly part of the enchantment rules, that the cost of enchanted items is directly linked to the income of the enchanters. Enchanting, unless you introduce Technomancer style industrial enchanting, does not change in efficiency with TL, and therefore becomes more expensive with rising TL.

That said, $25 at TL2 and $33 at TL3 isn't scaling with the price of labour, but with surplus income, and so doesn't make sense with the enchantment rules either.

To have enchanting remain constant in cost/energy, you could say that if a suitable enchanting lab was set up, perhaps with the same pricing as for an Alchemist. A lab would have its own TL, and only be useful for enchanting at that TL (like repair kits, science labs, etc.). Using such a lab would let output scale such that the enchanter's income per energy spent would be constant, and thus output per day would rise. However, even if this worked for S&S, for Q&D speeding up the ritual wouldn't increase output that much because much of the time spent on Q&D is spent resting.

Output from S&S enchanting would look like (assuming no breaks during that month, and TL3 is the baseline):

TL   Energy/month
0     26
1     27
2     28
3     30
4     34
5     47
6     68
7     90
8    111
9    154
10   240
11   347
12   454