Using The Magic Items Volumes With 4e

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The lend energy wands are for recovering energy after the enchantment is finished, not making the enchantment more powerful; it just saves you downtime between attempts.

Which doesn't address my main point of many of the Items in Magic items cost so much in terms of energy and potential quirking or out being destroyed during enchantment that only the most basic magic items will be floating around.

Even DF Adventures (pg 30) implies that Q&D enchantment past an hour is not viable. Otherwise why would items more then 100 energy points be "second-hand Slow and Sure items"?

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by maximara

This doesn't jive with the enchantment rules I have read. Please cite the work this 30 feet (ie 3 hexes) if in another room does not invoke effective skill per the within 10 yards (ie 10 hexes) penalty regarding Q&D enchantment that appears in GURPS Magic occurs in.

I'm not saying that we can't house rule it but people should know that it is a house rule (or a possibly depreciated 3e rule)

30 feet is 10 yards.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

30 feet is 10 yards.

Oops. I have no idea what I was thinking there.

But it doesn't change another aspect pointed out in DF itself - past 100 energy enchanters go the S&S route.

This would seem to imply that there is something about going over 100 energy that make it impractical for Q&D enchanting (assuming one isn't allowing Syntactic Magic which makes powerful magic items insanely quick and much cheaper)

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by maximara

This doesn't jive with the enchantment rules I have read. Please cite the work this 30 feet (ie 3 hexes) if in another room does not invoke effective skill per the within 10 yards (ie 10 hexes) penalty regarding Q&D enchantment that appears in GURPS Magic occurs in.

I'm not saying that we can't house rule it but people should know that it is a house rule (or a possibly depreciated 3e rule)

English system doesn’t follow metric rules. One yard equals three feet. But the distance is immaterial. Say they’re a football field away; they’re just available to allow maximum number of enchantments per day.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by maximara

Oops. I have no idea what I was thinking there.

But it doesn't change another aspect pointed out in DF itself - past 100 energy enchanters go the S&S route.

This would seem to imply that there is something about going over 100 energy that make it impractical for Q&D enchanting (assuming one isn't allowing Syntactic Magic which makes powerful magic items insanely quick and much cheaper)

That is an assumption based on “average available energy for enchanters”. Unless DF has different rules than standard GURPS Magic.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

Even DF Adventures (pg 30) implies that Q&D enchantment past an hour is not viable. Otherwise why would items more then 100 energy points be "second-hand Slow and Sure items"?

GURPS 3rd edition had a sidebar on costs for enchantment using powerstones. They were icky math. Thus, in GURPS 4th edition magic they did away with the sidebar and declared that no-one would do enchantment with powerstones, and DF followed that model.

However, the did not actually change game mechanics to prevent people from using powerstones. Instead, they changed game mechanics to make using powerstones more appealing, because they introduced powerstones on cheap materials and one college powerstones.

A one college powerstone on cheap materials requires 48 energy per casting, which is comfortably under the Q&D dirty threshold, and thus costs $48. It is not entirely clear which college you'd use when enchanting, probably either enchantment or the college the effect being enchanted into is, but one of them should be available; if not, we have the option of general purpose stones on cheap materials.

A general purpose stone on cheap materials is 80 energy. For a circle of 6 with 10 fatigue per mage, this requires each mage to use a 4 energy powerstone. 4 point regular powerstones require $320 in materials and another $80 in enchantment and have an 82.7% chance to make it through the enchantment process undamaged, for a total cost of $484, or about $2,900 for the entire circle; if we charge $20 to use those six stones, we need to use those stones a total of 145 times for them to pay off, which in normal mana will take about 19 months if they're used every time they recharge, after which they're pure profit. Thus, we can credibly get general purpose stones for 80 energy per casting.

The number of castings required to create a stone is the sum of a geometric series where the nth term has a value of r^n, where r is the reciprocal of chance of each roll succeeding (depending on your tolerance for flaws, 1.0189-1.0486). This has a well known solution: S(n) = r * (1-r^n)/(1-r). If we set r to 1.03 (suggesting we discard 62% of flawed stones) a 90 point stone requires 456 castings and costs $36,480. It can be used 4 times per year, so in 10 years it can be used 40 times for a price per use of $912; add $10 for the mage, and our total cost per mage is $922; for a circle of 6 (600 energy enchantment) that's $5,532 (and on cheap stones, a mere $3,380). That same enchantment done slow and sure would cost $19,800.

This is close to the upper limit on practical; 124 energy stones (sufficient for 800) require 1,307 castings and are only used 29 times in 10 years or $3,606 per use, giving a Q&D cost of $21,696, which is still less than the $26,400 of S&S, but nowhere near as appealing. Better, we can use paut on the 600 energy procedure; +200 energy from paut will cost $6,600 for a total of $12,132.

Note that DF doesn't have powerstones and instead has power items, with a cost that works out to ($N^2*10 + $N*40)*1.0189^N; instead of recharging themselves, they get recharged for $5/energy (time unspecified but fairly fast). A 90 point power item would thus be $455k, which is way more than the powerstone above, but if we assume one day to charge it can be used something like 1,250 times over 10 years, with a cost to use of $364 (rent)+$450 (recharge) = $814.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anthony

GURPS 3rd edition had a sidebar on costs for enchantment using powerstones. They were icky math. Thus, in GURPS 4th edition magic they did away with the sidebar and declared that no-one would do enchantment with powerstones, and DF followed that model.

"Declared that no-one would do enchantment with powerstones"?

Thanks to the way Magic was done (effectively throw 3e Magic and Grimore together and not do needed changes) that is not true:

"A lone caster is limited to the energy provided by his FP, HP, and one Powerstone. But assistants can contribute their own FP and HP as described for ceremonial magic. Assistants may also use one Powerstone each." Magic 17

The example text expressly on the very same page even shows the use of powerstones in enchantment:

"He rolls a 9, succeeding. He spends 8 FP and 8 points from his new Powerstone, while Tubbs spends 9 FP and 5 points from his Powerstone, for a total of the required 30 points."

It's there but isn't really expanded on in 4e. Part of that is likely due to GURPS Fantacy and Thaumatology which threw out a lot of the assumptions made in 3e's magic.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

"Declared that no-one would do enchantment with powerstones"?

Yes. See GURPS Magic:

Originally Posted by Magic p22

Powerstones are essentially irrelevant; a professional Quick and Dirty enchanter, as we will see, performs several enchantments each day, and trying to use Powerstones is not a good return on investment.

This statement is spectacularly wrong, but is what is used to determine magic item costs.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yes. See GURPS Magic:

This statement is spectacularly wrong, but is what is used to determine magic item costs.

The statement is not "spectacularly wrong" as it is clearly based on the Powerstone recharge rate (Magic 69):

No Mana: None
Low: 1 point/week
Normal: 1 point/day
High: 1 point/12 hours
Very High: 1 point/6 hours

The best a powerstone can do based on its recharge rate is 4 energy points per day.

And that is assuming that the enchanting mage is either crazy enough to enchant in a very high mana area (which makes 16 a critical failure and rolls of 17-18 totally disastrous per Magic 6) or has the Stable Casting (+40%) enhancement to Magery.

Then there is the issue that the powerstones must be at least 6 feet from each other to recharge at the normal rate.

If one could stack cycles then the transition from Q&D to S&S would occur at 264 (6 mages in the circle * 10 FP per cycle * 4.4 cycles per 8 hour workday) rather then the 60 given. The obvious conclusion is that a Q&D enchantment must be completed in one hour and you cannot stack cycles for a longer enchantment. It is the only way what is presented in Magic and related material (such as DF Adventures) makes any degree of sense.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

The statement is not "spectacularly wrong" as it is clearly based on the Powerstone recharge rate (Magic 69):

It is wrong because mages are allowed to own more than one powerstone.

Originally Posted by maximara

And that is assuming that the enchanting mage is either crazy enough to enchant in a very high mana area (which makes 16 a critical failure and rolls of 17-18 totally disastrous per Magic 6) or has the Stable Casting (+40%) enhancement to Magery.

Just take the powerstone out of the VH Mana area to enchant, put back in to recharge.