making it so large powerstones don't stop small ones from recharging

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by maximara

Powerstone Recharging Rack - Magic Items 1 pg 65-66. Requires a spell of the same name and $75,000 of materials to make. With a asking price of $25,000 per stone no "racks" under four stones exist for obvious reasons.

Once upon a time I worked my way through the GURPS 3E Magic Items books and converted all the "Unique Enchantment" items into spells.

Powerstone Recharging Rack (VH) Enchantment

Powerstone Recharging Rack enchants a storage rack so that it channels and focuses mana, allowing multiple Powerstones to simultaneously recharge in the same area as long as the ambient mana level is High or better. The rack will not function in Low-Mana areas.

Powerstones held within the rack do not influence the rate at which other stones in the rack recharge, nor do they affect the rate at which stones outside the rack recharge (although the reverse is not true – a Powerstone outside the rack will prevent all the stones inside the rack from recharging).

The actual rack is a complex network of wire made from several precious metals. The stones rest in “cradles” formed by the confluence of the wires. The entire network is often enclosed in a wooden cabinet (metal might interfere with the magic), often with a small, leather-hinged door for each compartment.

The magical operation and materials required to create a Powerstone Rack are extremely expensive and the finished rack is extremely fragile. The material cost for the rack is $100 per point of basic energy to enchant it (i.e., $75,000 for an item which will hold one stone), in the form of wires made from precious metals, rare herbs, and alchemical preparations consumed during manufacturing.

The rack must be assembled by a master craftsman who must make a successful roll against Jeweler skill at -7 (-5, if the enchanter and the craftsman are the same person). The enchanter will not know whether the Jeweler roll succeeded or failed until after the rack is enchanted. Failure means the rack doesn’t work.

Once the rack is assembled, it is enchanted using the normal rules. If the enchantment fails, or if the rack wasn’t constructed properly, the enchanter must restart the process from the beginning. The rack can’t be re-enchanted, nor can the materials used to make it be reused.

The completed rack has HT 8, HP 1, and masses 20 pounds per stone it can contain. Its low HP score means that regardless of the item’s mass, a single point of damage from any source will irrevocably destroy it. A wooden case can provide a maximum of DR 4 to the rack inside. The rack itself can’t be enchanted with any other spell, but the case can be enchanted normally.

This is also a Metaspell.

Cost: 750 to cast per stone held.
Prerequisite: Magery 3, Enchant, Powerstone.

[AlexanderHowl]

That seems insanely difficult and expensive for something that can be done with a couple of bookshelves in a basement. Heck, you can actually use the bookshelves for books and just store the powerstones in a 6" cubby every 6'.

[scc]

Your best option is just to buy building a use a wall as your rack.

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree. Imagine a small cottage, 20' by 20', with a cellar and an attic. A magician could store 12 powerstones per floor without any difficulty just on the inside of the exterior walls, giving them 36 energy per day of energy recovery. If they were each 6 point powerstones, the magician would have 6 recharged every day.

[coronatiger]

I've always ruled that a larger powerstone wouldn't prevent a smaller from recharging if it was full. The idea was that since the larger stone was full, it didn't soak up mana from the area as it became available, thus allowing the weaker stone to recharge.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

I've always ruled that a larger powerstone wouldn't prevent a smaller from recharging if it was full.

My group's used that rule, too. (It's the difference between a box of powerstones on a shelf, or a box of powerstones on a shelf with one that's six feet away. No elaborate recharging rack arrangements necessary.)

Not that it ever came up in practice. Powerstones were certainly desired, but they never never came up that often. More than a couple just didn't occur in our games. So the sphere packing exercises were just that -- just amusing white-room math exercises.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

I've always ruled that a larger powerstone wouldn't prevent a smaller from recharging if it was full. The idea was that since the larger stone was full, it didn't soak up mana from the area as it became available, thus allowing the weaker stone to recharge.

I like that idea. If it wasn't used, programming the large stones to shut off while full could work. That might also make them harder to detect, if enchantments shut off?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

I like that idea. If it wasn't used, programming the large stones to shut off while full could work. That might also make them harder to detect, if enchantments shut off?

You don't want to shut the Enchantment off. The enchntment is wat enables the stone to store mana (see the 1st paragraph of the spell description in Maghic). No Enchantment, no stored Mana.

However, if an Item does not currently a working Enchantment it will be ignored by the relevant Detect Spells.

Until a few mintues ago I would have said that it was RAW that fully chrged stones didn't interfere with other ones but I can't find a source for that right now. It makes sense though. A fully charged stone is no longer drawing in mana from the surrounding environment.

I do have to say that I've never seen the question come up in actual play. Even if a group had multiple stones they could ahve each party member carry one (and you don't fret about each party member being always exactly 6 ft or more away from the others).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You don't want to shut the Enchantment off. The enchntment is wat enables the stone to store mana (see the 1st paragraph of the spell description in Maghic). No Enchantment, no stored Mana.

Did we ever get a ruling on that, like powerstones drop from full>empty if they pass through a No Mana zone? Or if Extra Fatigue (Mana Sensitive -10%) that's full drops to 0 and needs to rebuild if walking through No Mana?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

Did we ever get a ruling on that, like powerstones drop from full>empty if they pass through a No Mana zone? Or if Extra Fatigue (Mana Sensitive -10%) that's full drops to 0 and needs to rebuild if walking through No Mana?

Those are totally different questions. One is an item bought and stated as gear and the other is a Power.

The first seems clear to me. Early in the Powerstone Spell description it is described as an Enchantment that stores mana. Whe there is no Enchntment there is nothing to keep that mana from dispersing as normal.

That Extra FP simply stops existing when there is no mana but comes back into existence when there is.