Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

So I'm a big fan of scrolls. Namely the expanded scroll rules from dungeon fantasy sages.

I have found they are both good loot, and genuinely interesting toys for the PCs to play with. Similar to potions, but a more fixed and defined effect combined with the ease of transport and their light weight make them, in my mind at least, ideal for an easy 85% or more of situations.

Now. Just reading dungeon fantasy sages and looking over the rules and the flavor and the like. It states that clerical spells of healing and disease healing etc are a major source of income for the clergy and the like. Which makes sense. That also assumes that the clerics have access to the scroll spell which I can understand.

Now. I am looking to see if there is anything that allows PCs to create scrolls of the same effect as the sages scrolls. Essentially allowing them to create them in their spare time. Mage days seems a bit extreme for me. Especially when the spells cost a reasonable amount for a single person to cast. But I understand for economy reasons.

I was wondering if someone has already created an updated version of the spell for that purpose already. Like. Including the ability to make them charged and or universal etc.

It'd be nice if it has already premade and I don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

The speedbump is that M57 seems to be the only Enchantment Spell with a "Time to cast" listing. Well, except "Remove Enchantment" on M58 which says to "see Enchanting (p16)"

All the rest lacking TTC entirely I think impleis the standard options: 1 hour per 100 energy (Quick and Easy) or 8 hours per 1energy (Slow and Sure).

Scroll doesn't even have an "Energy Cost" however, so neither option is technically viable...

But presumably the "day per energy to cast the spell" is roughly "Slow and Sure, with Energy Cost same as spell"

I haven't figured out Universal, but "Charged" seems like it's plausible under existing rules.

M57 "Power" seems un-economical for one-shot itemsfor scrolls since it costs 500 energy...

But 15% of 500 is mere 75 energy, per M57 "Temporary Enchantment".

M57 notes ALLOWED combinations:

Temporary Enchantment cannot be used in conjunction with
any Enchantment college or Meta-Spell college spells
except the following:
Hex,
Limit,
Link,
Name,
Power,
Speed.

So in theory you could spend 1 day creating a 1-energy spell scroll, then 75 days (or 1 hour if you can amass enough energy together) to give it a one-time "power" use.

That's super-expensive though, so I had some house-rule ideas to make things cheaper.

Firstly: we know power applies as a discount to ALL spells on an item. No matter the college.

Based on the precedent of powerstone being cheaper to cast if it only affects one college (20 to 12 is -40% just like the One College limitation!) the idea is to allow a similar tidscount to "Power" as well.

60% of 500 energy is 300 for example (a bit easier to enchant) and you might even go a step further and make "One-Spell Power" and 20% of 500 is 100.

Based on that, "one-spell power usable one time" should be a mere 15 energy for the first tier. Add the 1 energy it costs to make the scroll and it's 16 energy. That's low enough that a lot of mages could approach it using "Quick and Dirty".

This is SLIGHTLY cheaper than Spell Stone (M60) which is 20x casting cost... as it OUGHT to be IMO since Scroll has drawbacks:

1) only mages can use them (anyone can use spell stone)
2) must be literate in language it's written in (no literacy needed for spell stones)
3) must speak aloud to activate (can crush a spell stone quietly)
4) takes double casting time (spell stones take only 1 second to activate, like Hang Spell or Reflex)

Spell Stone's biggest drawback is the expensive component need. It's exactly the same as Powerstone, but in the case of a powerstone you're making a long-term item, not destroying your wealth for a 1-time use.

Powerstone has the option of ignoring the expensive components by investing 4x energy. Spell Stone doesn't, but that sounds like an okay house rule (80x casting cost).

That seems fine to me, because using "Power" to build scrolls gets very costly over time, even using my -80% "one spell" -85% "one time" discounts.

15/500 quickly becomes 30/1000 then 60/2000 then 120/4000 when you get up to 4 power. Now compare how this would be to multiples of 80...

1/ 15:80
2/ 30:160
3/ 60:240
4/120:360
5/240:480
6/480:560
7/960:640

As you can see, by 7 energy, the linear x80 eventually is cheaper than the constant doubling formula Power uses.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

Looking over that, I agree. I seem to follow the logic and the like.

However. It still doesn't answer the question.

"Why would someone want to do this?"

Like. Scroll according to magic is bad. Like. Very bad. I have never had a player look at that spell. And be happy that it exists and attempt to work it into their character. Players new to gurps, or new to magic caster etc see it, they get super excited, and then they learn how it works. And it's just instantaneous dismissal. I've seen countless discussions online about how it's not useable etc. And I'm inclined to agree.

Like. Why would I take 6 days to make a scroll of a spell that takes 6 fp to cast. That then has those listed disadvantages to use the thing. When you could just hang the spell? There's just never a reason to do it. It's like 1 step forward. At the cost of 12 steps back.

Where as the DF scrolls are interesting and fluid. And they are useable and fun. Players see awesome stuff happen thanks to scrolls. Eg making a big splash of light in a dark cave while fighting vampires or something. Or finding that scroll of resurrection, or suspended animation. Or explosive fireball when the hero's desperately need to turn the tide. Etc.

Only then to figure out they can't prepare those sorts of items in their down time. The wizard that's 320 character points that's played the same dude for 6 years weekly can't make them half as good as a npc merchant in town.

It seems very off to me. And that's something that I don't often say about gurps.

I could see a scroll spell that works almost like it does in magic, with the option to take say a -3 and triple it's cost to make it charged. And maybe a -3 and triple it's cost to make it universal. And if using the options together it's a -8. Or something. Then allowing magic perks that allow that to be bought off if bought to specific spells. Then allowing something like the rules for material enchantment pyramid inorder to actually make the thing. Test it there for a bit. See how it functions. And then make adjustments as needed.

But it's a case of 'these things are amazing I want to be able to prep them in my 3 weeks of downtime.' or 'giys I can't make it to the next 3 months of sessions cause I'm doing a trip for work, but I can email and we have me make some scroll during my downtime, I'll stay in town and make them for when I get back or something's

But the rules for making them are justto horrid to ever think about making them.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

Because they want to make the spell available to somebody else without needing to be there themselves. Scroll production is a crafting job for wizards who are too smart to spend their time crawling into monster infested holes in the ground. PCs don't generally make them any more often than the manufacture their own weapons.

If you do alter them to the point that it makes sense for PC wizards to produce them, then either the market cost drops so much that it no longer makes sense for PCs to be wizards - just buy scrolls for anything you are ever likely to need - or conversely wizard character can earn so much more money as a scroll craftsman than he could ever hope to as an adventurer that it becomes an outright insane job choice instead of just a reckless one.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

I would fix this problem with 2 House Rules. It's not RAW but is would be simple.

The first one is to change the time to write a Scroll from 1 day per energy to 1 hour per energy.

The second is to entriely remove the "gem/stone" requirement from Manstone and thus probably fixing another useless spell. Re-name it "Mana store or if you really can't bear to get rid of Manstone make a new Spell. Just let 1 energy pt be Enchanted per 1 hour of Q&D ritual.

So suppose you're worried about some fellow adventurer who lacked the foresight to buy Rapid Healing and gets a broken arm off a Crippling injury. You need an Instant Restoration to fix that and that's a 50 pt Spell (something else that might need fixing).

There's no practical way at your level of character pts that you can scape together 50 energy in the field so you don't even bother to learn Instant Restoration (you might not bother to learn regular Restoration either because that always take a month).

Sow aht would it take for soem npc Mage to make a charged Scroll of Instant Restoration under my proposed House Rules? 50 hours to write the Scroll and another 50 to get the 50 pts of Msnastore but it only requires one Enchanter.

So, 12.5 days at $33 a day at the comminssioned/custom magic item rate or $412.5. Not really that bad for an emergency item. If you wanted the 100pt version of Stop Bleeding that stabilizes Mortal Wounds that would only be 20% of the cost.

Note that you do have to roll once for writingthe Scroll and after each pt of Manastore and the cumulative chance of getting that natural 18 is why you don't make a Scroll of Resurrection.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

Generally speaking, it's often alright to assume a character with skill 12 in an Average difficulty crafting skill can generate (Average Monthly Income)/200 worth of labor every hour, at least with a successful roll against the skill. Every +1 to skill is +1 step on the Size and Speed/Range Table to income. Having a Hard or Very Hard gives an effective +1 or +2 to skill level (so skill 12 in a VH skill generates the same amount of labor as skill 14 in an A skill), Easy is instead at least a -1, possibly a -2. This matches decently well with the income figures for various professions in LTC3, although it does make high skill allow production of items cinematically quickly, but that's hardly inappropriate for DF. This assumes access to relevant materials and an appropriate workshop.

You could use the above guidelines to figure out how quickly the character can create a given scroll (I assume using the lower of Scroll and the relevant spell skill). The character would still need to purchase (or otherwise acquire) the appropriate media (high-quality papyrus, magical inks, etc), and should probably have to pay to rent space in an appropriate workshop, of course. I'd be tempted to say the Mage's Guild (or Temple, or whatever) pays something like 10% of a scroll's nominal cost in materials, maintaining workshops, etc, and the rest is the scriber's labor. Murder-hobos, even if temporarily settling down (while their player is out on a business trip, say), are going to be paying markedly more for materials and to rent space in an appropriate workshop, if the guild even lets them do that at all. I'd be inclined to go with somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2 the scroll's nominal worth, but the character still has to put in the same amount of labor, and the fact the scrolls lack the Mage Guild's official seal (or whatever) means the character isn't going to be able to sell them, or won't be able to sell them for enough to turn a profit (it is a built-in assumption for DF that the murder-hobos can't really make money without murder-hoboing it up, as otherwise why do the latter?).

Now, I don't have Magic to check, but let's say Scroll is a Hard skill, and you want to make a Universal, Charged Scroll of Fireball (also a Hard skill), at 3d damage. You have each skill at 17. That's comparable to an Average skill at 18, which would produce labor at +6 SSR (x10) the Average rate. DF's starting wealth of $1000 implies roughly TL3, so Average income is going to be around $700/month, or $3.5/hour. So, your labor in making the scroll is at $35/hour. Assuming you set it to skill 15, the scroll would cost $300 to purchase ($60 for 3 energy - skill 15 is $20 per energy - multiplied by 5 for being both Universal - x2 - and Charged - x2.5). You need to make up for 90% of this, or $270, in labor - that's 7.7 hours (might as well round up to 8). The Mage's Guild would need to pay $30 to cover materials, shop upkeep, etc, but the character would pay markedly more (for materials, renting a space, etc) - probably somewhere between $100 and $150. Such a "bootleg" scroll wouldn't be possible to sell on the open market, and even on the black market would probably be worth only a little more than what the character paid to make it. But, hey, the downtime lets the character produce the scrolls for 1/3 to 1/2 the cost, and if he intended to just use them for himself, Universal wouldn't even be necessary (cutting cost - in both time and money - in half).

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

HAVING a scroll can be good... for some spells anyway. Mostly because of not needing to roll at all (enchanted items still require you to roll against Power) and because that means ignoring annoying stuff like cumulative penalties.

Of course that requires multiple scrolls of the same spell...

You come up against that 'Slow' time that is paralyzing, which is why giving Scroll Quick and Dirty would have LOTS of mages doing it, but then also mean lots of mages have access to a wide variety of spells.

I'm thinking we could maybe reverse-engineer Temporary Enchantment to come up with multi-use scrolls made at higher cost.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

Eh, as long as it follows the same rules as powerstones you can just cast it for 4x cost without using a gem; an extra $20 per point of energy fits nicely...

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

[QUOTE=Varyon;2341441] /QUOTE]

I like this a lot. It seems to really work nicely. At least in theory.

However. I don't play dungeon fantasy, or dungeon fantasy point totals.....

But overall it seems pretty nice

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

In my games, scrolls contain energy for their associated spell up to the creator's level in the Scroll spell (for an additional price equal to 0.5% starting income per point of energy) without increasing the time to make the scroll (the base/minimum cost of a spell determines the time required). Users must use the energy with the Scroll before their own reserves when casting spells from a scroll, but a Scroll does not dissolve until all of its energy is exhausted.

For example, a TL3 magician with Scroll-20 could store up to 20 FP in any of her scrolls (and can charge an extra $100 for her scrolls). If she has Major Healing-15, she can create a Scroll of Major Healing in just 1 day and charge $133 for the scroll ($33 for one day of scroll creation and $100 for the energy). The scroll could be used to heal up to 40 HP before its own reserves are exhausted.

Of course, the ability to store energy within scrolls changes the economics of magic quite a bit. Enchanters specialize in Scroll instead of Enchantment, meaning that the price of enchanted items increases 4x. Since scrolls can only be used by mage though, it means that every PC buys Magery 0 unless they have a really good reason not to.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

That requires 2 Enchanters or a revolving horde of 10 pt Powerstones. Doable but possibly not that attractive. Certainly not simple.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

I had thought of using Manastone with a Scroll before but forgot about it when replying here.

I'm pretty sure it's canon that Manastone follows the same rule as powerstone, so you could spend 5x4=20 energy to make one from anything.

There doesn't however seem to be a canon "One College Manastone" like there is for Powerstone. But it seems reasonable enough to extrapolate it as 60% of the cost (like Powerstone does) so that it's 3 or 12 energy.

Using my idea of a "one spell manastone" (since One College Powerstone basically matches up with applying the -40% One College magery limitation to energy cost...) of -80% would make it 1 energy to create a 1-spell manastone from an expensive object, or 4 energy to create a 1-spell manastone from any object.

It's pretty cheap, but you're still limited to the 60-minute manufacturing time minimum for enchantments unless GM also allows you to fiddle with that using various "Time Spent" or "Long Tasks" rules.

Long Tasks is intended for 8+ hours (more the Slow and Sure method) but it might be interesting to do something along those lines on a "per minute" basis.

if Time Spent discounts were also allowed then 60 minutes could be reduced to 6 minutes for -9 to skill...

Or just extrapolate "max 100 energy enchantment per 60 minutes" to "max 5 energy per 180 seconds" or "take 36 consecutive concentrate maneuvers per 1 energy your enchantment costs".

Being able to put 1 energy into a "one-spell pebble manastone" per 4x36=144 seconds (2 minutes 24 seconds) might seem pretty powerful (you'd probably have mages stockpiling these) but I kinda like the idea... is it really THAT powerful?

Maybe as a balancing factor we could invert the usual rules for "more energy to cast magic on big SM things" where instead, it's actually EASIER to store magic in big objects, and HARDER to store magic in small ones?

The simplest would probably be just to apply SM as a skill penalty or skill bonus to manastone/powerstone.

This would help deal with issues like "my manastone is a grain of sand, I carry thousands of manastones in my hourglass". It'd be POSSIBLE, but really hard to set up due to the skill penalty.

Whereas something like "my manastone is this big SM+10 boulder" would be more common since it'd be easier, but also less convenient to port around.

An additional limiting factor would be to actually force mages to roll to observe/hit/find their manastones. It would be harder to notice / touch smaller manastones/powerstones, which would be an additional incentive to use larger ones.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

Another issue with manastone/powerstone exploits is the x2 and x3 tricks...

These "attach to a magic item" things on M70 are basically FREE ... but I'm wondering if maybe we could require some kind of enchantment ==sto actually get that relationship between them. I'm thinking two-sided, one to modify how manastone/powerstone works, the other to modify how the spell linking to them works.

These would be sort of like "Limiting Enchantments" since they restrict what either spell can normally do, but also a boosting enchantment since the end result is it makes the output of powerstones/manastones more efficient.

step 1: two variations of "Dedicate Stone to Enchantment" which will create a "Dedicated Non-Attuned Stone". Only the stone needs to be present (range penalties are calculated to it). You must know the spell you're dedicating it to, but it can work for any particular item holding that enchantment. UNLESS the other is present, in which case you can dedicate it solely to that.

"Dedicate Powerstone to Enchantment" (cost 5% of enchantment + 5 per energy in Powerstone, or 200 whichever is less) prevents a powerstone from being used in any way except to power a particular enchantment in an item that it is touching. It will usually be ATTACHED to keep it constantly touching.

"Dedicate Manastone to Enchantment" (cost 1% of enchantment +1 per energy in powerstone, or 40, whichever is less) same as above except you're using a limited power supply so it's 1/5 the cost

NOTE ONE: for stones with 2+ energy you can cast it ALL AT ONCE to limit the entire stone, or you can cast it in levels. It is more energy efficient to do it all at once, but the lower per-casting cost for divided casting is more feasible for many mages

NOTE TWO: this prep gives no added efficiency, but is rather a prerequisite for the followup enchantments which then endow the efficiency. The only advantage to this is if you don't want your powerstones to be usable for purposes other than powering a magic item, in case someone got access to it. They could still use it, but only if they knew specifically which item to use it for. That's why the option of it being cheaper than Limit's usual 200 is proposed.

NOTE THREE: this must be cast multiple times for each enchantment you want to link the stone to. This allows it to fuel multiple spells in the case of an item carrying multiple enchantments. These spells do not interfere with one another.

The 200 cap is based on the cost of the "Limit" enchantment, since that's really all it's doing at this point. Applying 20% of the cost (40 energy) seems reasonable for Manastone since you're only limiting how a non-rechargeable source can be used.

Another (canon?) option might to just apply the 85% "Temporary Enchantment" discount to Limit: this would reduce Limit to 30 energy and is actually canon BUT: this means the limit only applies one time and then leaves, so it would leave your Manastone un-limited for future use if you didn't use up all the energy.

It is not legal to apply the 85% discount to Manastone/Powerstone themselves as they are not among the list of opted-in exceptions to the baseline ban on applying TE to meta/enchantment college. That said: there probably isn't any game balance problem with allowing that for Powerstone at higher levels.

1) Powerstone 1 usable 1 time is equal to Manastone 1, so you should pay the usual 25% cost (5 instead of 20, or 20 instead of 80) instead of 15% cost
2) Powerstone 2 usable 1 time is INFERIOR to Manastone 1: it can only fuel a single spell of 1 or 2 energy, while Manastone 2 has the option of fueling TWO spells costing 1 energy apiece.
3) the flexibility of Manastone (maximum uses = level of manastone) vs one-use powerstone grows with extra levels, making 15% cost vs 25% cost a lot more logical.

As for the first level: I actually think it's okay to allow the creation of a 1-use powerstone (so long as the ENTIRE stone is gone, not just levels equal to whatever amount of energy you used) for cheaper, because where paying 5 energy for manastone 1 instead of 3 energy for OUPS is valuable is when you aspire to later upgrade that to a more-flexible multi-use powerstone.

It seems wrong to allow the -85% Temporary Enchantment discount on Manastone though since it's energy is already temporary (doesn't recharge) so that ought only to be based on the higher powerstone costs...

There is still technically a drawback to it (Manastone 10 could be used to power 10 spells, OUMS can only cast 1 spell of 1-10 energy) but the end result is equal to something you'd get by limiting a powerstone to finite uses, so it shouldn't be allowed.

To be worth only 15% cost it seems necessary to make powerstones "all or nothing" because "only the levels I use expires" for powerstones would just make it equivalent to manastone but costing less.

Or actually WORSE because powerstones start off empty ("becomes an uncharged powerstone") whereas manastones presumably starts off fully charged (M127 says Charge Powerstone "does not work on Manastones" so if it didn't begin charged, there's no plausible way to charge it)

What might actually be interesting is if we actually altered the spell tree a bit. Manastone would be the baseline ("give an option capability of holding mana") and then make "Charge Manastone" a very expensive spell (much worse than the 3:1 ratio for CPS)

Then to upgrade manastone into powerstone it'd be something like "Draw Mana from Hex"

Then if you had that, you could cast the cheaper version of Charge Manastone (classic Charge Powerstone) which costs less since in addition to your own personal energy it is drawing upon future mana-draws to create a sort of point-debt.

With this approach, I am suggesting we do away with this usual policy:

If a dedicated Powerstone is removed from a magical item, the
magical item is automatically broken and loses its enchantment, but the
Powerstone is intact, and becomes a “normal” Powerstone again.

Anyway getting back to the "Dedicate Stone" stuff: if that becomes a problem later on (mage who made it wants to use the stone for generic use like casting his own spells by hand) then they can just do "Remove Enchantment". But anyway the followup (to get the x2 or x3 efficiencies) would then be to target the enchantments in the item to match up to the powerstone, so that both spells in synergy create the discount.

step 2: two variations of "Attune Enchantment to Stone":

"Attune Enchantment to Powerstone" (same cost as Dedicate Powerstone to Enchantment)
"Attune Enchantment to Manastone (same cost as Dedicate Manastone to Enchantment)

This step is done to prepare for the followup spells. It requires both the enchanted item and the stone it's attuning to to be present.

If enchanter is not touching one or either item, sum the distance caster is from each item respectively to calculate penalties.

They do not need to be touching or attached, although if they are not, ALSO add the distance between the items as a skill penalty (ie it is easier to enchant a staff+stone both 1 yard in front of you at -2 to skill, than to enchant a staff 1 yard in front and a stone 1 yard behind at -4 to skill.

step 3: two variations of "Synergize Stone to Enchantment" (Synergize Powerstone and Synergize Manastone)

cost is DOUBLE either of preceding 2 pairs, effect is getting the +100% output (1 energy from stone = 2 for spell)

step 4 "Exclude Non-Stone Enchantment Power" : this limits an enchantment in an item (must be cast multiple times for items with multiple enchantments) so that spells cast by it (per other colleges) or through it (per staff) cannot draw energy from the caster's HP/FP, only from manastones or powerstones which have been attuned to it as in step 1.

This follows the usual rules so they cannot be used in concert (maximum 1 powerstone or manastone can be tapped to fuel a spell at a time) but the item can, for either maintaining a spell or casting new spells, switch which powerstone or manastone it draws upon. This is effectively equivalent to "No External Energy" limitation from Thaumatology on the item's magery.

same as steps 1 or 2, half of step 3

step 5 "Synergize Enchantment to Stone" is a followup pair to ENSEP above. When cast on an enchantment which can only be powered by stones dedicated to it, that enchantment gains +100% efficiency.

This stacks with "Synergize Stone" so the +200% creates a 1:3 ratio, although it would be possible to skip step 3 (synergizing a stone) to just get x2 (a new option).

This costs the same as step 3 (double the cost of 1/2/4) so getting x2 from 1/2/3 is cheaper than going the 1/2/4/5 route, making the latter mostly just appealing for stacking the benefits.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

I find that it just simplifies things to have the Scroll spell store the energy in the scroll.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

It does but it also makes it much better than it was intended to be, and it makes Spell Stone created with Slow and Sure a lot more niche

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

I have never used Spell Stone in my games, so I do not think that is actually a bad thing. Of course, each to their own, but I think that it is a simple and effective solution to both the scroll problem and the enchantment economics problem. It also allows a scroll mage to be a legitimate threat, as a scroll mage that is carrying around two dozen scrolls could easily have 360 points worth of energy available to them.

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

Did Scroll ever get clarified how the "you don't have to roll" works with standard -1/yard distance modifiers? I generally like the idea that scrolls are more reliable than in-the-moment casting.

I also like that the burning of the paper provides some of the energy for the spell. Maybe the caster's Scroll skill permanently reduces the energy of the written spell (e.g. Scroll-15 writes spells that are -1 FP)

Re: Is there a fixed version of the Scroll enchantment?
 

I love the idea of them carrying around charged scrolls, I just think it should still be possible to create uncharged scrolls with more ease than it is to create charged ones, so we should have a mechanic for making the uncharged scroll then a mechanic for charging it.

I did sort of wonder if Energy Cost reduction for high skill might apply. M57's "the mage reading the scroll pays the normal energy cost" sounds like it doesn't. I guess "the energy cost to cast the spell originally" makes it sound like maybe it did though... but due to parenthesis "base cost for area spells" I think 'base' just refers to "before multiplying for radius" rather than "before subtracting for skill"

This is of course sort of a problem for spells which don't have a "base" casting cost at all, which we see in Healing (Recover Energy / Share Vitality) and Necromancy (Steal Energy and Steal Vitality) and Technological (Conduct Power+Steal Power+Draw Power)

M20 values Buying Magic Items at 33/energy point so I guess that'd be 33 dollars per the base cost of the spell on the scroll, IF you can only make scrolls using the daily "Slow and Sure" method and not Quick and Dirty (if latter works, then scrolls would just be valued at $cost. If looking at sum value we'd also need to take into account the value of the parchment it is written on, but that's probably just 1 dollar.

To use the "just make the scroll a manastone" approach we would want the scroll to be valuable enough that we don't need to pay x4 energy to cast manastone. Manastone is only worth $1/energy point (you can make it with Quick and Dirty) so that doesn't increase the value much.

If you can manage to enchant 34+ energy worth of stuff into an object via Quick and Dirty then this would be a faster way of increasing that object's value than using S&S-only means.

The first tier of value we need for Manastone is $50 so after you have a 1+33=34 dollar scroll you need to add 16 dollars of value to it (16 energy of enchantment) to make Manastone cheaper to cast.

M58 Talisman could be one cheap way to do that: it only costs 15 energy to enchant. To cover the one-dollar difference you can buy slightly fancier parchment for 2 dollars per roll I guess.

That will at least let you create a one-energy manastone out of the scroll for merely 5 energy. A two-energy manastone will be trickier though, because the next tier is 40+80=$120.

One possible house rule one could consider is not using the same M69 guidelines for Powerstone as a Manastone requirement, instead since Manastone is 1/4 the casting cost, maybe the final result of that formula could be 1/4 too? So $12.50 then $30 for example.

Another as mentioned previously is the idea to lower Manastone's casting cost if you limit what it's energy can be used on (like One-College Powerstone) so 3/12 for 1cMS and 1/4 for 1pMS. This also would have the advantage of preventing the energy in the manastone-scroll (manascroll?) from being used to power spells other than the one written on the scroll.

This would also of course reduce the value of the resulting items (since they took less energy to make). M20's "Powerstone Costs" for example assume an all-colleges powerstone ($20 for labor at $1/energy) so you'd have to adjust that chart to find "One College Powerstone Costs" or my posited "One Spell Powerstone Costs" or to adapt it to Manastones.

I don't like the idea of just getting already-costly fancy-gems though (might be hard to find) if you really want to get the item valuable enough for a discount then you can just make it valuable by stacking on other stuff like Talisman.

M60 Ensorcel at -90% (20x instead of 200x) on a 1-energy spell would be another way to tack on $20 worth of value to an item.

As might Impression Blocker (also M60, also 20 if 1lb) if you put it on a shuttable-container. Since it is rated by "pounds" rather than "volume" you don't actually need to make it big, you might have a tiny purse capable of blocking an impression from a chunk of dwarf star should the need arise. (realistically though, the market value of that probably won't be as in demand as larger containers capable of blocking impressions)

M97 "Inscribe" is also a neat trick: it's 20 energy to enchant minimum, so that's worth $20, and you could probably use this to write your scroll, which avoids the need for buying quills/ink or estimating their costs and what value they add to the cost of your parchment.

This is one area where I begin to question the "assumed market value" of enchantments though: if you make awful-looking pictures (bad art roll) then should it really be worth a minimum of $20? Should this even be worth much more than standard art at all? About the only feature of it that I can think is that it's words/images that vanish in No Mana zones... unless of course you combined it with limiting enchantments like "only hobbits are able to see my artwork".

M119 "Mystic Mark" is only 30 energy so there's another option. It's more time-efficient to go as close to 100 energy (max enchanted in 1 hour) if using the default '1 hour minimum' for Quick and Dirty.

Manastone seems like the cheaper path to take here compared to using 15% of "Power".

We might also look at how certain "free to power" enchantments are priced as some kind of guideline on how to design that for other spells...

M78 spell "cook" for example. Normally 5 seconds to cast, 1 energy per meal. 30 energy can create a "one meal per day" pot which costs NO energy to use, but it takes 60 seconds (instead of 5) to take effect. It doesn't mention if it requires a roll against Power like usual, I like the idea of it requiring that personally.

Based on that, it would seem reasonable to say that you can get "Power 1" (normally 500 energy) at 6% of it's usual cost (even lower than the 15% you can pay for it using Temporary Enchantment: 1 time only) so long as it has "usable once per day" and "spell takes 12x as long to cast" balancing it out.

That's being conservative since I'm assuming here a cost of 0 for "object which lets me cast cook" and thinking that 30 purely comes from the 'Power'. Realistically that's not going to be the case. It's realistically probably going to cost at least 5 energy for something like that, so "5% of usual cost" is probably a better guideline for modifying Power this way.