[Thaumatology] Setting magic item prices to make economic sense

[Prince Charon]

One of the more common arguments about magic items is that some of the prices are too high to account for supply, demand, or perhaps both. Perhaps the income of an enchanter is not consistent with the prices of items, or it fits the prices just fine, but not the money that could otherwise be made with the sorts of skills that the enchanter needs to have (e.g. standard GURPS enchantment requires a presumably-rare talent, and multiple Hard skills at 15 or higher), so why become an enchanter at all (thus driving prices up due to greater rarity). Maybe the item existing at all save as a unique creation of a mad elf makes no sense because 'who would want to pay for that?!' (id est it's just not worth it in comparison to other things that the prospective buyer would wish to spend money on), when it's supposed to be relatively common, or at least not rare.

So, this thread, where we try to work out how to fit the prices of various magic items into a believable (which is not necessarily the same as 'realistic') economy. We may end up needing different threads for different magic systems, but this is just to get us started.

For our starting economy, let's assume a TL3^ fantasy world that looks kind of like Western Europe circa 1111 CE, and the standard magic system, with standard enchantment, from the Basic Set. I think it's safe to say that healing items are going to be worth at least as much as the costs given in the books, but even that I'm not totally sure about. What do you think?

[Varyon]

I think the main thing that makes the default enchanting system a poor choice as a profession is that, for whatever reason (probably "We don't want PC's getting rich and/or getting massive caches of magic items by making them"), TPTB decided to make enchanting take an obscene amount of time in addition to requiring a great deal of investment in Advantages and skills - or at least have it do so once you have too high of an energy cost for Quick and Dirty to be an option.

Roughly speaking, skill 12 in an Average skill is sufficient to get an Average income. Every +1 to skill is +1 step on the Size and Speed/Range Table (1, 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, etc) to income, every -1 is -1 step. Calling for an Easy skill instead of Average is -2 steps (half income for a given skill level), while calling for a Hard skill is +1 step (x1.5 income for a given skill level). Calling for another skill at a comparable level and/or pricey Advantages can potentially justify a +1 or +2 as well. You can see this generally working for the professions listed in Low Tech Companion 3.

Enchant is a Very Hard skill, for +1 or +2. It has a lot of prerequisites - needing at least [10] invested in other spells, having the spell you're enchanting into an item be at 15 or higher, and [25] for Magery 2 [25] - for another +1 or +2. And you must have Enchant at 15 or higher to actually be able to use it, for +3 relative to Average. So being an enchanter should be somewhere between +5 steps (x7) and +7 steps (x15) above Average; let's split the difference and say it's +6 steps. That's 10xAverage income, somewhere between Wealthy (5x) and Very Wealthy (20x). Personally, I'd be more inclined to keep the current pricing, but adjust how much energy the enchanter can provide per day to make it match this higher income, if using the enchantment system from Campaigns. So, rather than Slow and Sure being 1 energy that is worth $25 per day, it would be more appropriate for it to be around 10 energy that is worth a total of $250 per day.

[cvannrederode]

I would just like to point out that there's a section in Magic 4E about just this topic. It's titled Economics and Enchantment, and it starts at page 21.

It goes into all the gory details of how the $1 per point for magic items up to 60 points, and then $33 per point after that was figured out.

[Anthony]

I would reverse the process -- entirely delete the rules for energy cost for enchantment, set a money cost for enchantment, and treat it like any other type of crafting (which is to say, unspecified how it works).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would reverse the process -- entirely delete the rules for energy cost for enchantment, set a money cost for enchantment, and treat it like any other type of crafting (which is to say, unspecified how it works).

You could adapt the Crafting rules from LTC3, which is what I intend to do for Oubliette (although there mundane craftsmen can create enchanted items if they put in the labor, they don't need spells - in fact, Oubliette doesn't have spells like that). You can use my suggestion from upthread to calculate the value of their labor based on their skill level. For determining the value of the enchantment, you could keep the nominal energy costs and multiply by some dollar amount (and you can maintain a Q&D vs S&S split if you want to, maybe even add some more tiers to it). Whether the enchanter is able to provide all this value simply through labor, or if they need to have special materials (like how a mundane craftsman subtracts out the cost of the raw materials from the cost of the item itself to determine how much of it is labor), would be up to the GM - and you could certainly allow the enchanter to adjust this on a case-by-case basis (sometimes they take less time because they have special materials, sometimes they take longer because they're making the enchantment from scratch). You could also use the guidelines from AtE to determine the "labor" value of sacrificed items/materials based on how appropriate they are.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would reverse the process -- entirely delete the rules for energy cost for enchantment, set a money cost for enchantment, and treat it like any other type of crafting (which is to say, unspecified how it works).

That's actually quite a reasonable approach. The PC enchanting rules then become something like if you don't want to pay full price, an enchanter can pay between (some fraction) and (some larger fraction) of the cost for raw materials or kits and make up the rest with his time at (some number) of dollars per day of work.

[scc]

Originally Posted by cvannrederode

I would just like to point out that there's a section in Magic 4E about just this topic. It's titled Economics and Enchantment, and it starts at page 21.

It goes into all the gory details of how the $1 per point for magic items up to 60 points, and then $33 per point after that was figured out.

It also refuses to account for Enchanters deciding buy extra FP or use Powerstones to increase the amount of energy they have at hand. Since Magic even more sources of energy have become aviable that break the assumptions made about Enchanting even more.

Now I use a variant rule for Quick and Dirty Enchanting because I mis-remembered the actual rules and my rate of Enchantment is 10 energy per hour per Mage. I also have some story irons in the fire that use the GURPS rules as the behind the scenes mechanics, so all workings below are real world USD, NOT GURPS dollars.

The survivors of a DF-like world are forced to flee to our world circa 2019. After a week of snooping around the members of the Mages Guild get together and elect a new Guild Master and set a new price per point of Energy used in casting spells at $15 per point. Why? Because in their snooping around they found out that's where the minimum wage per hour and Enchanting normally use the Raise Cone of Power spell and you need to hire people for that, preferably dancers.

Note that the Guild has no interest in keeping prices low as demand for magic items always outstrips supply and that this also sets the pricing of regular spell casting.

Note too that the Mages also expect to be paid no top of the calculated energy cost, and for a rank beginner with only Recover Energy-15 who gets 6 energy an hour they expect $90 an hour, whilst those with Recover Energy-25 plus an ER who recover 60 an hour expect $900 an hour, Witches and Wizardress who can recover 3 and 4 times as much (variant schemas to explain striperic costumes) expect 3 and 4 times as much and then some have unusual abilities, access to power boosting artifacts, or simply aburdly high skill (like Enchanting-50) that cost even more to hire, meaning they can expect wages of like $5,000 an hour and they might be no more then 20 years old and have a life expectancy measured in millennia.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by hal

400 non-stop days rules as written: 400-365 is 35. 35/7 = 5.

There are 52 weeks in a year, nearest time then, in weeks for 400 days are 52+5 or 57 weeks. 57 x 5 days per work week or 57 x 6 days per work week depends on whether you as GM want the enchanter to be able take off 2 days per week or 1 day per week as a CHANGE to the rule that says you may not take any time off from enchanting without penalty.

This permits the enchanter to work a more normal work schedule as compared with non magical jobs.

Yes, it changes the required "mandays" of slow and sure, and it no longer imposes a penalty against "resuming" an enchantment after either one day of break, or if the worlds building GM prefers, 2 days of a break. The GM can impose the rule for breaks in the enchanting process to apply for breaks of 2 days (assuming the GM wants their world to permit no more than a 24 hour beak, or for breaks of 3 days (assuming the GM as a world builder, wants to permit up to 48 hours of permitted breaks without penalty).

Either way as suggested above, the final enchantment time is still 57 weeks. The suggested new way still takes as long as far as slow and sure will as the original rules. It WILL impact on the quick and dirty enchantment time, but that too will reduce the overall cost of the enchanment.

How many people in real life work 7 days a week nonstop who aren't farmers tending livestock? Again, my suggestion was a variant of the rules as written, nothing more, nothing less.

WRONG
The Slow and Sure Enchanting rules, as currently written, DO NOT give you weekends off. The effect on team morale of taking weekends off would be insane, given that times already stretch into the years.

Now I have a spreadsheet at hand for size 60 teams doing S&S and modifying them for size 6 teams +1/+2/+3 Swords would take the following time, in days: 42/167/834, subtract 4 and you get the number of WEEKS it would take to make them at your proposed rate. And +6 Swords are a thing, expect at the rate you want they'd take over 1,200 years to make.

Basically if Enchanters can't get weekends off because if they did S&S Enchanting wouldn't be practicle

[hal]

Originally Posted by scc

It also refuses to account for Enchanters deciding buy extra FP or use Powerstones to increase the amount of energy they have at hand. Since Magic even more sources of energy have become aviable that break the assumptions made about Enchanting even more.

Now I use a variant rule for Quick and Dirty Enchanting because I mis-remembered the actual rules and my rate of Enchantment is 10 energy per hour per Mage. I also have some story irons in the fire that use the GURPS rules as the behind the scenes mechanics, so all workings below are real world USD, NOT GURPS dollars.

The survivors of a DF-like world are forced to flee to our world circa 2019. After a week of snooping around the members of the Mages Guild get together and elect a new Guild Master and set a new price per point of Energy used in casting spells at $15 per point. Why? Because in their snooping around they found out that's where the minimum wage per hour and Enchanting normally use the Raise Cone of Power spell and you need to hire people for that, preferably dancers.

Note that the Guild has no interest in keeping prices low as demand for magic items always outstrips supply and that this also sets the pricing of regular spell casting.

Note too that the Mages also expect to be paid no top of the calculated energy cost, and for a rank beginner with only Recover Energy-15 who gets 6 energy an hour they expect $90 an hour, whilst those with Recover Energy-25 plus an ER who recover 60 an hour expect $900 an hour, Witches and Wizardress who can recover 3 and 4 times as much (variant schemas to explain striperic costumes) expect 3 and 4 times as much and then some have unusual abilities, access to power boosting artifacts, or simply aburdly high skill (like Enchanting-50) that cost even more to hire, meaning they can expect wages of like $5,000 an hour and they might be no more then 20 years old and have a life expectancy measured in millennia.

EDIT:



WRONG
The Slow and Sure Enchanting rules, as currently written, DO NOT give you weekends off. The effect on team morale of taking weekends off would be insane, given that times already stretch into the years.

Now I have a spreadsheet at hand for size 60 teams doing S&S and modifying them for size 6 teams +1/+2/+3 Swords would take the following time, in days: 42/167/834, subtract 4 and you get the number of WEEKS it would take to make them at your proposed rate. And +6 Swords are a thing, expect at the rate you want they'd take over 1,200 years to make.

Basically if Enchanters can't get weekends off because if they did S&S Enchanting wouldn't be practicle

I will try to explain one more time and then drop it.

My SUGGESTION is to allow up to 1 day off without it affecting enchanting, or up to two days off without it affecting enchanting as a HOUSERULE.

The IDEA here is to give the enchanter the ability to have a more normal life overall. In a Christian Medieval society, having to avoid work on Sundays was the rule. In a non-Christian Society, that likely doesn't matter. When I suggested calculating how many weeks it takes to create a magic item per the NORMAL rules, and then adjusting the process for where it takes the same number of weeks to make the magic item with the house rule as it took with the original rules - it has the added benefit of LOWERING the energy required for quick and dirty. By allowing the enchanter to leave off enchanting for 1 day without it affecting things, or 2 days without it affecting things - is strictly a HOUSERULE.

So really, CAPITALIZED shouting of WRONG?

Bear in mind the following:

In my campaign universes, magery is not permitted to improve. It is VERY difficult to find sufficient numbers of Magery 2 or 3 mageborn to engage in enchanting. If you were to search in the General Role Playing forum area, you will find a section "Mageborn are like coins". Once the mageborn studies a spell, the time spent learning that spell is expended. Once you try to get a given type of mage, chances are good, that you've got that mage doing engineering stuff with shape earth, earth to stone, etc.

I also took the time to create random attributes via a program written in VB net to generate both the Magery levels of a mageborn as well as their attributes as adults - along with expected duration of their life, and how old they currently are.

The idea here was to use the HARN MANOR rules for running a Fief/Village and then letting people work freely with each other or just in isolation to see just what their mageborn were capable of.

The program I devised for generating magery levels had two components - the more traditional Magery 1 through 3, and the Magery 0 through 3. I even set the program up to allow me to play with higher levels of magery. Each level of Magery was such that for every 1 Magery 3 mageborn, you will have 10 magery 2 mageborn, 100 magery 1 mageborn, and 1000 Magery 0 mageborn.

As with ALL world building - what the GM desires to emulate depends upon their vision. If 2% of the population are mageborn, then 2% are mageborn. If 20% are mageborn, then that's what it will be.

In any event - the rules for magic item prices are such that it would be HARD for any one given mage to actively earn a living.

Why?

To earn money, they have to exchange their labor for coin or their product for coin. Can a struggling income individual afford to purchase a magic item? No. Can a normal wealth level individual buy a magic item with their discretionary income (aka - Income per month less cost of living = discretionary income). No - they can not - not unless the magic item in question is a relatively low energy item. The only likely prospective customers for mageborn's crafts will be those who have comfortable wealth or higher. In other words, the upper 2% of the wealthy people can afford to purchase the magic items in question.

Now, some people may say "they can afford to buy things if they take a loan" but such "credit" tends to be non-existant in early society. The point to take away from all of this is a simple one...

Figure out who can afford to buy any alchemical potion or any magic item with discretionary spending and that will be the pool of customers.

On that note, I'll disengage form this thread - largely because I didn't expect something like this:

WRONG

That's just uncouth.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by scc

WRONG

<Moderator>
A lot more politely please!
</Moderator>

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

). Maybe the item existing at all save as a unique creation of a mad elf makes no sense because 'who would want to pay for that?!' (id est it's just not worth it in comparison to other things that k?

Ina setting like Yrth, eccentric elves are probably a major source of magic items, because they have long enough lifespans that spending a few years making a cool gizmo is a relatively small time investment. Why is there a magic item that lets you talk to hedgehogs? Some elf wanted to ask them a lot of questions. What if you want a magic item that does something specific? Try to get some elf interested in your project.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I've seen plenty of settings where cheap magical items are plausible, they're just not rare magic settings, and they either aren't low tech (I mean, they might be TL 3+4 or something, but not TL 3) or the magic items have very limited functions.

There's tons of fantasy settings where magic items are plausibly way more common than on Yrth, which is the context in which the GURPS enchantment rules were created, and which are pretty harsh by the standards of settings where mortals can deliberately make magic items at all. In many settings, specialists can enchant items related to their specialty without having to be experts in ten other fields too, and often it's considerably faster and less punishing of intermittent work. Also some high-magic settings have more potential magic users than the Yrth default, sometimes a lot more, up to settings like Steven Brust's Dragaera where literally everyone in the Empire has Magery.