Create Air in Space

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Huyderman

I can easily see this kind of problem propping up. In a campaign where ships could be a month or months away from the nearest source of air, people able to to conjure unlimited amounts could make a tidy profit.

How do they store it for sale? Incidentally, things would get uncomfortably dense unless you got it as a Transmute rather than a Create.

[Refplace]

Ok I agree with the CP cost for create in this case being zero.
However you need to make the advantage work the way YOU want for campaign reasons. So here is an alternative.
Say it requires a regent to use the power. then you have to stock up on it.
Oh and as for costs this also could be done with a hydroponics section and some magical light or substitute.

[Mark Skarr]

I’m a rabid anti-fan of the whole CP for stabilization of the Create advantage. I allow the use of Extended Duration because it tends to cost more then a CP stabilization pool, especially since the CP stabilization pool’s value is left to the GM. Thus the player knows, going into the situation that it’s going to be expensive.

That being said, I think Create Air (Transmutation: Stale Air to Fresh Air) is the way to go. It makes the most sense and shouldn’t cost any CP to stabilize.

[whswhs]

The value of air is not the amount of money you can jack out of somebody who's a few breaths away from asphyxia. It's the equilibrium market value in your particular setting. If the characters are human, then they are breathing air routinely, and obtaining it without ruinous expense, and so there is either free air for the breathing, or a functioning air market (and possibly even an air utility). The price of air in that market is the basis for the point cost of creating air.

This whole argument is what classical economists called the "paradox of value": water is necessary for life, whereas diamonds are a minor industrial material and a decorative luxury; why does water cost less than diamonds? The answer is that the price is determined not by the value of the total stock, but by the value of the last marginal unit . . . and there's a lot more water, so the last marginal unit is worth less.

And pretty much anything that's essential for physical survival is going to be available most of the time in large amounts. So its last marginal unit will have a low value.

Otherwise, if you created gold in a place where gold was abundant, and for a moderate point cost, and then you went to a place where it was far more scarce, the point cost might jump up by a factor of several, and then either character points would be sucked out of you or most of the gold would evaporate. Which is too silly and too much bother to keep track of for most campaigns.

Bill Stoddard

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The value of air is not the amount of money you can jack out of somebody who's a few breaths away from asphyxia. It's the equilibrium market value in your particular setting. If the characters are human, then they are breathing air routinely, and obtaining it without ruinous expense, and so there is either free air for the breathing, or a functioning air market (and possibly even an air utility). The price of air in that market is the basis for the point cost of creating air.

This whole argument is what classical economists called the "paradox of value": water is necessary for life, whereas diamonds are a minor industrial material and a decorative luxury; why does water cost less than diamonds? The answer is that the price is determined not by the value of the total stock, but by the value of the last marginal unit . . . and there's a lot more water, so the last marginal unit is worth less.

And pretty much anything that's essential for physical survival is going to be available most of the time in large amounts. So its last marginal unit will have a low value.

Otherwise, if you created gold in a place where gold was abundant, and for a moderate point cost, and then you went to a place where it was far more scarce, the point cost might jump up by a factor of several, and then either character points would be sucked out of you or most of the gold would evaporate. Which is too silly and too much bother to keep track of for most campaigns.

Bill Stoddard

I've always been a fan of the GM option mentioned to just waive the CP cost for stabilizing things so long as the character with Create has what the GM feels is an appropriate level of Wealth. I'd define it as enough Wealth that you wouldn't exceed income thresholds and become a lot more Wealthy as soon as you started creating or transmuting your 'stuff' as a part-time job, so if you had Create/Transmute Air or Water, you probably need at least Comfortable, and if you have Create/Transmute Gold you need some level of Filthy Rich.

E.g, Midas Gold (or Bob from Heroes) has Transmute (Anything) to Gold (not Always On, thankfully) and several levels of Multimillionaire; he doesn't need to worry about CP expenditure because the income potential of transforming stuff into gold whenever he wants is already accounted for by how rich he is already.

Then you only need to deal with the issues that always crop up when one PC is far more wealthy than the others, but those aren't really affected by how that wealth is achieved anyway.

[Christian]

I'd follow up with the "hydrophonics idea". Whats the reason why most ships don't have any? Right, space. So make this ally spacious (its a basic element of air to take up space). Its not necessary to make it a huge as a true hydrophonic, but it should have SM+2 or SM+4 something like that.