Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
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.
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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.