Why Does GURPS Hate Enchanting So Much?

[Langy]

Originally Posted by scc

The actual problem doesn't tend to be the cost, but rather the TIME it takes to make something

The reason for this is that the default assumption is that there are lots of high-skill mages out in the world and enchanting is free aside from the cost of time.

You can still have the same rough results (enchanted items are pricey and relatively rare, etc) by making it so enchantment takes only a small amount of time but costs a lot of money (or CP, or something similar).

I have no idea why GURPS's basic magic system decided to make everything time-based and say that enchanters require no actual resources to enchant things, but it did. File it under all the other questionable decisions made in regards to it.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Better question: why do some systems or GMs hate players so much that PCs can only compete with weapon bonuses? Why are some PCs so bad that they can only handle the adventure by waiting until the challenge is stated and then boosting their characters accordingly?

Just wondering if this is a matter of approaching the issue from the wrong angle; instead of being upset that the party can't get the items needed to boost characters... maybe the GM and/or PCs have some planning issues?

I really think that it is a matter of approach rather than an issue of rules. Rules are designed to balance things in order to avoid player characters enchanting items to easily... But that's all.

After that, it is perfectly possible to create a character specialized in enchantments... But, since enchanting an item requires a lot of time, the player characters would better have another idea to solve the problems they meet in the adventure...

And, of course, the GM also has to balance the problems he put in his adventures with the player characters' abilities. If he really insists on putting foes/traps/problems that requires abilities that the player characters don't have (and not giving them the possibility to find the magic weapon/secret passage/potion they would need to succeed), this is really a GM problem. To be fun, an adventure has to be challenging. But if it becomes unfeasible, it is not anymore fun.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Langy

I have no idea why GURPS's basic magic system decided to make everything time-based and say that enchanters require no actual resources to enchant things, but it did. File it under all the other questionable decisions made in regards to it.

My guess: Because a typical PC fantasy adventurer can acquire money relatively quickly, but not time. This keeps the "arms race" to a reasonable pace.

I'd also note that enchanted items are less necessary in a system where wizards aren't limited in their number of spells cast per day. When your mage can cast Invisibility on any member of the party that needs it (most times, anyway), a Ring of Invisibility isn't as essential.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Oh no, 30 xp to make that wand of cure light wounds that can heal an average of 275 points of damage before being consumed. Surely this will drastically hurt your ability to advance. As for the valuable feats, wizards get scroll for free, and you're not going to need a lot of crafting feats.
.

XP costs in D&D3.x were only reasonable in that only npcs ever paid them. I never saw anyone make anything except wizard scrolls and those were only for the wizard herself. It turned out to be a waste of time anyway. The PC wizard almost always had more money than time.

It also frequently depended on the npcs being dumb as boxes full of rocks. I ran one official 3.5 module where a dead wizard's tower was guarded by the 2 and 3 HD animated objects he's made. The module said he was 16tth level when he died but adding up the xp costs he had been 18th level when he started making walking furniture.

Now in Pathfinder enchanting costs only time and GP and not XP. The requirement for the Crafting Feat is still a significant barrier. My Alchemist got Brew Potion for free and even though it takes only half a day for a low level potion the Adventure Path (Carrion Crown) hasn't provided even that much downtime plus the half GP cost the potions still cost. Right now we aren't even getting 8 hours of sleep a day.

Having just made 5th level I've gotten making Alchemical items so thoroughly rigged (20x normal speed) that my PC can make Alchemist's Fire in an hour. It still takes 1/3 of normal GP and may or may not happen.

Thinking back over 34 years of gaming the only PCs in any system that have enchanted any items were some C&S guys because that system just had to give PCs downtime and an extremely powerful Gurps character who made some items before play started and then later when.....wait for it, the game allowed for some downtime.

Actual weapons training for warrior PCs ahs not been much more common and still revolved around downtime. It's possible that there are many game systems that simply hate for PCs to do anything other than adventure.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Langy

I have no idea why GURPS's basic magic system decided to make everything time-based and say that enchanters require no actual resources to enchant things, but it did. File it under all the other questionable decisions made in regards to it.

In my humble opinion, this idea come from something which is realistic: craft masterpieces take a lot of time to be designed and built.

An enchanted weapon is more than a fine quality weapon. It is something so efficient that it is like a very rare craft masterpiece, something which is not only very fine, but almost perfect.

And if you don't do it for yourself, you have to buy it... With a lot of money. Or to find it, facing a lot of danger, like a treasure. Because it is really a treasure that a lot of people would want to have.

[Qhaysh]

Ars Magica has a great enchantment system. Basically a bout of enchanting always takes at least a whole season (just like most off-screeb activities in Ars). What varies is how much you can enchant a given item. And that's defined by how skilled you are with the "colleges" involved in that specific enchantment. It also costs Vis (raw mana) to enchant anything permanently, so it's a pretty balanced system overall.

If you want quicker enchanting, just do what Langy suggested: reduce time and increase materials cost. That would keep prices roughly the same, but make items much quicker to produce (as long as the cost of materials is per energy point). This would keep prices roughly the same, although it might have some consequences I can't think of.

[tantric]

Anti-magitech bias. If enchantment is easy, then magic replaces technology and WHOOOO we can't have that. Versimilitude would suffer. Seriously, how many TL n+x thread do we have to have become we start considering GURPS Magitech. Come on, guys, when we went 4e we took the old mess that was 3e Fantasy and made 4e Fantasy and 4e Banestorm. It's time to do the same thing with 3e Technomancer -> 4e Magitech and 4e Technomancer.

It can be done - a book of magical replacements for everyday items and the effects these inventions will have on a society, starting with the paleolithic. Might be a bit scattered, but it's *magitech*, that's a feature! Has any other FRPG company ever published a book of Magic Items and Treasures that gave details for glowglobes, cookstones, thief-detectors and hour-flowers?

(I have noticed that if I bitch and moan and patiently request something for about 5 years, it will come about. About 5 years ago I made a big issue about how there were no rules for giving my Dryads little pocket universes in their trees (they had to have some weird switchable payload nonsense). If this theory is correct (the alt being that a stopped clock is right twice a decade) Bestiary should be out next year, and it will have rules for playing animals)

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Rolemaster had Runemastery, which enabled one-off spells to be cast cheaply on items. A spellcaster could inscribe a rune with an associated spell on the item. It remained on the item until the spell was cast, upon which time the rune faded and needed to be reapplied before it could be used again.

That sounds like charms from RPM or Path/Book.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

{Runemastery} sounds like charms from RPM or Path/Book.

Or just Delay.

Consumable items like wands are better compared to Alchemy potions than permanent enchantments.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by scc

The actual problem doesn't tend to be the cost, but rather the TIME it takes to make something

I think its just that GURPS Magic started out as a system designed with a particular kind of setting -- one in which mages were not super-rare but which was not overrun by enchanted items -- combined with GURPS focus on rules that that have a plausible connection to the in-setting "reality".

Note that there are all kinds of official options in GURPS for changing these parameters within the standard magic system for different campaign feels -- see, particularly, "Time and Reliability" on pp. 108-109 of GURPS Thaumatology.