Very variant spell magic

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

Let's get some numbers in here. Assuming TL4: most mages earn Comfortable livings, $1600 per month. So a Halt Aging item costs 3.3 * $1600, or $5280, right? Wrong. Enchantment is a gruelling process, with no days off, so the cost goes up. I'll assume a 25% increase to compensate for that, which brings the cost to $6600, and to quote GURPS Magic, "kingdoms have been toppled for possession of such things," so the market price might well be much higher.

That implies that, while a "typical" mage earns $1600 per month, an enchanter would earn $2000 per month. Now, one who knows how to make a Ring of Halt Aging might instead be more inclined to make Wands of Minor Healing (which a quick lookup of some online resources indicates requires 600 energy, or 6 days of enchanting), simply because 100 days of enchanting in a row is more grueling than 6 days of it, so may charge more than just that 25% markup. So maybe he wants to not simply be (slightly more) Comfortable, but Filthy Rich. Assuming he makes 3 of those rings each year (taking about 2 months off each year), he needs to sell them for $320,000 each. That's pricey, but well affordable for the elite, so he'd have no issue finding a buyer. On the enchanter's end, given a "fair" value for a VH skill (which I'm assuming Halt Aging is) at 15 is around $144,000 per year at TL 4*, I'd say the enchanter is being more than fairly compensated for the additional requirements (additional skill - Enchant - at 15, appropriate prerequisite spells known, Magery 2, and need to work uninterrupted for 100 days at a time).

*As I noted before, skill 12 in an Average skill is good for Average wage, and every +1 to skill or to difficulty is +1 SSR to wages. Skill 15 in a VH skill is therefore +5 SSR (+3 for skill level, +2 for skill difficulty), or x15 to wages. Average yearly wage for TL 4 is 800*12 = 9,600, and x15 to that is $144,000, as opposed to the $960,000 yearly wage for Filthy Rich.