Ensorcel vs. Item

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Lamech

And even a PC probably isn't going to break 15 on both HT and will.

Well, depending on the point level, but even there it's likely that enemies will be similarly competent. However, a few levels of magic resistance will bounce ensorcel pretty reliably.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Lamech

How is that a strike against it? It comes with a free delivery service. You cast the spell and it goes directly to the buyer, no need to for the buyer to stop back or get it delivered.

It was just my opinion... That's why I said AFAIC (As far as I'm concerned). Going against the rules for range is another one of the things I dislike about the spell.

[dds_ks]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Actually, you can economically (cheaper than S&S) manage 600 energy with a 6 person circle and one-college (enchantment only) powerstones cast with cheap materials (48 energy per casting), ...

O.K., this is again offtopic, but...
... start with the rulebook assumption of 6 enchanters, one of them with skill 20 and 5 of them with skill 15: I will buy this, as the master of this circle will need 4 CP in Enchant and another 4 CP in each of the spells he wants to enchant to get another circle member. So "several times 4" can be a lot.
But there are much cheaper forms of increasing the circle's power:
Energy reserve: for 3 CP, any member could increase the sum of available FP by one. Let's assume the maximum of 30 % of HT for this, without the option of "double regeneration" of FP proposed in Fantasy: For 9 CP per circle member, the circle's power rises to 78 FP.
Remember 78, this is the basis for further calculation.

Magic says that using powerstones would not be considered as it doesn't bring important advantages... wrong:
Even in normal mana, each powerstone can contribute one FP per day. This is at least the ratio of S&S, so if you have capital to buy the stones...
... but even this is not the end.

Assume that each of your circle members invests 2 additional CP: one for "Powerstone" and one for "Charge Powerstone". Charging a powerstone is only 1/3 effective, meaning: for every 3 FP invested, the powerstone will get one point of energy. Of course, our circle wants to use "Charge Powerstone" as seldom as possible. So they would like to charge the powerstones from 0 to full. They can invest 78 FP, so they should use 6 powerstones of 26 energy each. This gives them an effective power of 234 energy points.
Well, there are no items for 234 energy points.

Now the question of costs: Charging a powerstone ritually means that every roll of 16 produces a quirk and a roll of 17/18 destroys the powerstone completely. Assume that the circle will deem any quirked powerstone as completely destroyed... not realistic, but easier to calculate.
;-)
As the circle will do this often (it's their job, after all), we can assume that in the long run they will come close to the calculatory probability.
So they will lose the powerstone in 10 of 216 attempts, making roughly 5 % (this includes some reserves).

As I'm too lazy to calculate what 26 point-powerstones cost, I won't do it. So I just say that there are no items costing 234 points of energy. If there is one with 220 points (don't know), then 24 points per powerstone would be enough, but I say 25, because this price is given in the rulebook: 12.000.
5 % of 12.000, times 6: 3.600 $. Now you could calculate enchantment time (3 hours as it is more than 200 energy points), recharge time (ritually = 10 times the normal casting time) and recovery times for the mages. Or you go the fast way again: The mages want to earn 1.400 + 5* 700 per month, roughly 5.000. If the month only had 20 working days (in real world, it's about 22 or 23, and in medieval times it was more like 26), they need a daily salary of 250 $. 3.600 + 250 = 4.000 retail price.

If you want to reduce prices further, let them use only one-college-powerstones. Then the powerstones are cheaper, you would risk to destroy each of them twice, using a maximum capacity of 52 per stone, giving the circle a maximum power of 390 energy points.

And that's still without paut...

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by dds_ks

Assume that each of your circle members invests 2 additional CP: one for "Powerstone" and one for "Charge Powerstone".

Charge powerstone should never be cast in an industrial setting (it might have some adventuring uses); it destroys stones much too fast. If you're amortizing your investment over 15 years, a powerstone will naturally recharge 5,478 energy over that time, and you can probably arrange to make use of at least 5,000 of that energy (some will be wasted). If instead you use charge powerstone, you'll get less total energy (ignoring quirks entirely) unless you're charging stones that are 100 points or larger, and the cost of blowing 500 energy on charge powerstone is not ignorable.

[dds_ks]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Charge powerstone should never be cast in an industrial setting (it might have some adventuring uses); it destroys stones much too fast. If you're amortizing your investment over 15 years, a powerstone will naturally recharge 5,478 energy over that time...

The questions are: how many stones do you have, and how fast do they recharge?
My calculation takes chances = cost of destruction into account.
If, of course, I have 600 powerstones with energy 50 each, I can do a 360-point-enchantment twice a day and wait for their recharging (in normal mana). Give me very high mana, and 150 stones will do.
But if, on the other hand, I only have 10 or 15 of them, then waiting for recharging means that my mages can't do the really profitable job of making quick high-energy enchantments, but have to do something else meanwhile...
... maybe enchanting powerstones...
But they would earn more if they just recharged their stones faster and let the customer pay for the risk of quirking or destruction of stones.

BTW: From the gamemastering point of view, recharging of powerstones has another advantage: you don't need to know the interest rate or the amortisation time. In medieval times, interest rates sometimes were as high as 20 % per year, in some places even higher (if allowed at all...). So if your powerstone costs 12.000: which calculatory cost does this mean per year/month/week/day?
Answer: it depends on your setting. So in each setting you have to recalculate the cost of enchantments with more than 60 FP. I suppose that this is the reason why the rulebook simply says: "powerstones are not used for enchantments".
Recharging doesn't, as you have a statistical chance of quirking, giving you a statistical cost per enchantment. If many mages often do this, quirking/destruction will be close to the statistical value. Just add some "safety", and that's it.