Originally Posted by starslayer (Post 1247274)

Wow- you were MUCH harsher then I was for the sliding scale of cost/penalty.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz (Post 1247321)

Can you cast a spell to give you a bonus to Mechanic (item in question) or is that also precluded under 'can't use magic to get better at magic'?

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty (Post 1247725)

Bear in mind that was strictly off the top of my head. GURPS doesn't really have an official set of "quick and dirty" rules for assigning penalties to craft rolls, because there are so many factors and variables and all that. (LTC3 touches on this, but it instead applies longer times to harder crafts, which isn't directly applicable here.) If you want something a bit less harsh, you could turn my 1/2/5 progression into a 1/3/10 one:

$10 = 0
$30 = -1
$100 = -2
$300 = -3
$1,000 = -4
$3,000 = -5
$10,000 = -6

Though that feels too lenient to me. I prefer my first progression.



Good question. I'd say that the craft roll is not part of the magic spell -- it's just a way for the GM to see how well you were picturing the item's details in your head. So you could give yourself a Mechanic or Engineer bonus, yes. That might even be a nice way to balance out the power of a specific "Create" spell for an expensive item -- add in the spell effect and bestowed bonus to cancel out the huge penalty for imagining it properly.