Powerstone calculations

dwightemarsh · 10-03-2015, 01:06 PM

I expect that others have already started threads on this topic, but I can’t seem to find them.

I have been considering Powerstones in Quick and Dirty Enchantment, and I have to say, I think the calculations for prices of Powerstones in Magic seem off.
The assumptions used in Magic is that energy used in Quick and Dirty Enchantment is valued at $1 per point of energy, and energy used in Slow and Sure Enchantment is valued at $33 per point. The system looks at creating items with Quick and Dirty and provides a maximum level of energy for Quick and Dirty of 60 points, saying that using Powerstones to increase level is uneconomical.

That can’t be true.

In a normal mana environment, a powerstone can recover a point of energy a day, assuming it is drained on a regular basis. The assumption of having 60 points available is based on a six man enchanting circle. If each person in the circle had a five point powerstone, that would increase the range from 60 to 90, or if you droped the available power per enchanter from 10 to 9, (assuming that the average HT is 10 and they don’t spend so much FP that they fall unconscious) that provides 84 points of energy for quick and dirty enchantments.. A five point stone is valued at $595, and if a point of energy is valued at $1, if you harvested 300 points of energy which you valued at $1 a point, you have received over a 50% return on capital.
Once you have more than 80 points of energy available for Quick and Dirty Enchantments at a cost of $1 per point of energy, the economics of creating powerstones totally changes. Now, the cost of a flawless powerstone of power n will be $80+216/206(cost of flawless powerstone of power n-1), if you assume a powerstone with a quirk is totally valueless (a simplifying assumption) . Assuming that you start with an unenchanted object of power 0, a twenty one point powerstone would cost $2848. Assuming that energy is still valued at $1 per point and as a stone would recover 300 points a year, that is still more than a 10% return on capital. Thus, now we have (21+9)*6 =150 points of energy available for quick and dirty enchantments.
That is assuming that I am only willing to pay $1 per point of energy and that I need a 10% return on capital. What if I was willing to pay $2 per point of energy for quick and dirty, that would still be a lot cheaper and faster than $33 per point for slow and sure. For instance, a 33 point powerstone would cost around $6300 each, six would cost around $37800. With six such stones and with 9 points each from enchanters, we should be able to get 42 points per enchanter, or 252 points for a quick and dirty enchantment. IIRC, it takes 250 points to create a basic golem. With the recharge rate on the powerstones, , you should be able to create 11 golems per year. With slow and sure, the price of a golem should be $8250, lets assume the market is generally able to support selling 11 per year at $2000 each. That would give you gross revenue of $22,000, If you pay $1 for energy from the enchanters, you pay 9 energy per enchanter*11 enchantments *6 enchanters*$1 per point of energy=$594 to the employees, and you have $21,406 as a return to capital. That seems like a really nice return

That assumes that we treat any ordinary failures that quirk the stone as making the stone worthless. 60% of the time, this only quirks the stone rather than destroying it, so the formula for powerstone costs is somewhat overstated.

When you look at Magic, there are all sorts of explanations of what factors might be applied to make magic items rarer. Obviously, those things still apply, the above calculations assume that markets are stable enough and magi are common enough so that you can set up magic item creation on an industrial scale, which may or may not be true. However, I think the baseline presentation of magic item creation is already incredibly difficult and expensive, and then mentions that you can make it harder. Showing how it is not quite as bad as all that, (but can be that bad if you want it to be) seems more in the GURPs spirit.

Anthony · 10-03-2015, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwightemarsh

That can’t be true.

It isn't; the rule in Magic is just being simple. I did some calculations on this a while ago here.

weby · 10-03-2015, 01:52 PM

There have been several threads over the years on the magic economies surrounding enchanting with power stones.

The biggest problem I have is the idea that $1 and $33 are reasonable costs for enchanting.

Why would anyone work that cheaply in such a dangerous profession when comparable work would be easier to learn, as well paid and no demons being summoned..

That $33 gives less than $1000/month. If you include the failures and the need for work space and such you are fairly close to a likely $700 or thereabouts salary and that is only if you have full time work available.

For that salary you need skill 15 in many hard skills(everything you wish to enchant) and several other skills at lower levels to get the enchant spell. And occasionally you summon demons..

Compare that to the basic scribe who needs Professional Skill (Scribe)-12 and Writing-12. And will not summon demons on failures..

Already the skill level requirement should cause a salary difference, not to mention the dangers.. So I would say that maybe double would be more reasonable.

Now quick and dirty enchantment will require even higher skills if you want assistants. So really at the base skill level or 15 you are limited to your own power. you will need skill 18 just to have 3 assistants and 20!! for 5 assistants.

After that you cast the spell taking likely an hour, and then you need to rest maybe an hour if they have one more skill at skill at 15 (recover energy).

Thus during a day you will be able to produce maybe 4 such sets. That corresponds(without power stones) to about maximally 12*4*$1=$48/day for each participant. This is slightly better than the slow and sure.. but still bad pay for someone with a requirement of skill level 15 in several skills, not to mention a skill 18-20 person to lead the thing.

So, if I were to use the standard enchanting rules I would start with the enchanter monthly pay and work things from there (the costs of power stone enchanting included).

I thought about all that, and the strange costs for enchanting spells and all that and decided to create totally new rules instead..

trooper6 · 10-03-2015, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weby

That $33 gives less than $1000/month. If you include the failures and the need for work space and such you are fairly close to a likely $700 or thereabouts salary and that is only if you have full time work available.

...snip...

So, if I were to use the standard enchanting rules I would start with the enchanter monthly pay and work things from there (the costs of power stone enchanting included).

But...the costs *are* based on enchanter monthly pay. Magic pg. 21: "For our hypothetical abundant-magic setting, we posit that a journeyman enchanter makes an Average salary, while a master enchanter makes a Comfortable salary (pp. B516-517). Thus, monthly pay for a journeyman enchanter is $700, while monthly pay for a master is $1,400. At the same time, we posit that the average master enchanter has Enchant-20, and can therefore lead a circle with up to 5 assistants."

Given that information, it is fairly clear to me that you can adjust the enchanting costs based on what you think Enchanters should make. If you think journeyman enchanters should make Comfortable salary and master enchanters should make Wealthy salary because the job is so dangerous and requires such specialized skill and very high levels, just adjust based on those new salary thresholds. pg 22 explain exactly how they got their numbers. This will make enchanting much more expensive...which might be what you want.

So based on the math in Magic, if, in your world, journeymen are Comfortable (monthly salary $1400) and masters are wealthy (monthly salary $3500)...that means:

Slow & Sure: $66 per point
Quick & Dirty: $2 per point

You decide how wealthy enchanters are in your world and then just follow the math on pg 22.

ericbsmith · 10-04-2015, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trooper6

But...the costs *are* based on enchanter monthly pay.

Yeah, I think his problem (and mine) is that the rules in Magic for Enchanter pay is far, far, far and way too low. Enchanters need to possess a very rare natural talent (Magery 2+) as well as a high degree of training (skill 15+ in a number of spells) and assumes a higher degree of risk for his job (even if you disregard the demon summoning, critical failures at magic are almost certainly more dangerous than at mundane jobs like Scribe or Tanner). Enchanters should almost certainly be several pay grades higher than Magic assumes for them, which makes the default values used in Magic almost worthless for anyone who puts a modicum of thought into what Enchanters should be paid in their gameworld.

simply Nathan · 10-04-2015, 12:29 AM

In a gameworld I was collaborating on we wound up with circles of 4 enchanters using both a continuous cycle of one 10- or 20-point powerstone per enchantment and a doubling of the number of castings per day by using Lend Energy to skip the rest period (four assistants whose only job was to refill the enchanters per enchanter). We had several basements of the wizard tower with holders spaced out perfectly to make sure the powerstones were all a minimum of 2 yards from each other and a cycling procedure to make sure each one was fully recharged before it got used again.

Master enchanters were Wealthy, journeyman enchanters were Comfortable, and energy slaves were Poor but had benefits (including access to magical training and a future in the industry).

We wound up with TL3 Q&D enchantments costing something on the order of $0.40 up to 100 energy and the bumped up TL4^ or TL5^ magitech we decided the world had been improved to by all these common 100-or-less enchanted items everywhere was still pretty close to $1/thaum.

We never used gems for powerstones because the prices for the stones Magic requires is designed to keep them as just barely less than a straight energy-enchanted one would have; once you use even one or two tricks to save on labor a labor-only powerstone becomes cheaper than the alternative and you don't need to worry about that difficult-to-parse maximum capacity calculations.

trooper6 · 10-04-2015, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Yeah, I think his problem (and mine) is that the rules in Magic for Enchanter pay is far, far, far and way too low. Enchanters need to possess a very rare natural talent (Magery 2+) as well as a high degree of training (skill 15+ in a number of spells) and assumes a higher degree of risk for his job (even if you disregard the demon summoning, critical failures at magic are almost certainly more dangerous than at mundane jobs like Scribe or Tanner). Enchanters should almost certainly be several pay grades higher than Magic assumes for them, which makes the default values used in Magic almost worthless for anyone who puts a modicum of thought into what Enchanters should be paid in their gameworld.

And as I said in my post, the book tells you that Average journeyman/Comfortable master is just the assumption they went with, but that you can change it to whatever you want for your game...and then tells you how. Just decide what wealth level you think journeyman/master Enchanters should be in your world and adjust the enchantment costs using the formula they provide you. It took me 5 minutes to go from average/comfortable to comfortable/Wealthy.

Maybe in your world, you think that journeymen Enchanters should all be Very Wealthy (which would equate to Status 3...i.e. Guild master), and master Enchanters should all be Filthy Rich (which would equate to Status 4...ie a Lesser Noble). If that is how powerful and rich you want Enchanters to be...that is easily done. Follow the formula in Magic pg 22.

If that is where you want to place your Enchanters then
Slow and Sure would be: $666 per point
Quick and Dirty would be: $25 per point

The book gives you the tools to adjust as you envision your world being. I'm actually okay with the journeymen Enchanters being Average Wealth and Master Enchanters being Comfortable. I'd also be okay with bumping them up one level of wealth each. But if you want enchanters to make more money and enchantments to cost a lot more...then the books tell you how to do it. It takes less than 5 minutes to do.

10-03-2015, 01:06 PM	#1
dwightemarsh Join Date: Jul 2009	Powerstone calculations I expect that others have already started threads on this topic, but I can’t seem to find them. I have been considering Powerstones in Quick and Dirty Enchantment, and I have to say, I think the calculations for prices of Powerstones in Magic seem off. The assumptions used in Magic is that energy used in Quick and Dirty Enchantment is valued at $1 per point of energy, and energy used in Slow and Sure Enchantment is valued at $33 per point. The system looks at creating items with Quick and Dirty and provides a maximum level of energy for Quick and Dirty of 60 points, saying that using Powerstones to increase level is uneconomical. That can’t be true. In a normal mana environment, a powerstone can recover a point of energy a day, assuming it is drained on a regular basis. The assumption of having 60 points available is based on a six man enchanting circle. If each person in the circle had a five point powerstone, that would increase the range from 60 to 90, or if you droped the available power per enchanter from 10 to 9, (assuming that the average HT is 10 and they don’t spend so much FP that they fall unconscious) that provides 84 points of energy for quick and dirty enchantments.. A five point stone is valued at $595, and if a point of energy is valued at $1, if you harvested 300 points of energy which you valued at $1 a point, you have received over a 50% return on capital. Once you have more than 80 points of energy available for Quick and Dirty Enchantments at a cost of $1 per point of energy, the economics of creating powerstones totally changes. Now, the cost of a flawless powerstone of power n will be $80+216/206(cost of flawless powerstone of power n-1), if you assume a powerstone with a quirk is totally valueless (a simplifying assumption) . Assuming that you start with an unenchanted object of power 0, a twenty one point powerstone would cost $2848. Assuming that energy is still valued at $1 per point and as a stone would recover 300 points a year, that is still more than a 10% return on capital. Thus, now we have (21+9)6 =150 points of energy available for quick and dirty enchantments. That is assuming that I am only willing to pay $1 per point of energy and that I need a 10% return on capital. What if I was willing to pay $2 per point of energy for quick and dirty, that would still be a lot cheaper and faster than $33 per point for slow and sure. For instance, a 33 point powerstone would cost around $6300 each, six would cost around $37800. With six such stones and with 9 points each from enchanters, we should be able to get 42 points per enchanter, or 252 points for a quick and dirty enchantment. IIRC, it takes 250 points to create a basic golem. With the recharge rate on the powerstones, , you should be able to create 11 golems per year. With slow and sure, the price of a golem should be $8250, lets assume the market is generally able to support selling 11 per year at $2000 each. That would give you gross revenue of $22,000, If you pay $1 for energy from the enchanters, you pay 9 energy per enchanter11 enchantments 6 enchanters$1 per point of energy=$594 to the employees, and you have $21,406 as a return to capital. That seems like a really nice return That assumes that we treat any ordinary failures that quirk the stone as making the stone worthless. 60% of the time, this only quirks the stone rather than destroying it, so the formula for powerstone costs is somewhat overstated. When you look at Magic, there are all sorts of explanations of what factors might be applied to make magic items rarer. Obviously, those things still apply, the above calculations assume that markets are stable enough and magi are common enough so that you can set up magic item creation on an industrial scale, which may or may not be true. However, I think the baseline presentation of magic item creation is already incredibly difficult and expensive, and then mentions that you can make it harder. Showing how it is not quite as bad as all that, (but can be that bad if you want it to be) seems more in the GURPs spirit.

10-03-2015, 01:52 PM	#3
weby Join Date: Oct 2008	Re: Powerstone calculations There have been several threads over the years on the magic economies surrounding enchanting with power stones. The biggest problem I have is the idea that $1 and $33 are reasonable costs for enchanting. Why would anyone work that cheaply in such a dangerous profession when comparable work would be easier to learn, as well paid and no demons being summoned.. That $33 gives less than $1000/month. If you include the failures and the need for work space and such you are fairly close to a likely $700 or thereabouts salary and that is only if you have full time work available. For that salary you need skill 15 in many hard skills(everything you wish to enchant) and several other skills at lower levels to get the enchant spell. And occasionally you summon demons.. Compare that to the basic scribe who needs Professional Skill (Scribe)-12 and Writing-12. And will not summon demons on failures.. Already the skill level requirement should cause a salary difference, not to mention the dangers.. So I would say that maybe double would be more reasonable. Now quick and dirty enchantment will require even higher skills if you want assistants. So really at the base skill level or 15 you are limited to your own power. you will need skill 18 just to have 3 assistants and 20!! for 5 assistants. After that you cast the spell taking likely an hour, and then you need to rest maybe an hour if they have one more skill at skill at 15 (recover energy). Thus during a day you will be able to produce maybe 4 such sets. That corresponds(without power stones) to about maximally 124$1=$48/day for each participant. This is slightly better than the slow and sure.. but still bad pay for someone with a requirement of skill level 15 in several skills, not to mention a skill 18-20 person to lead the thing. So, if I were to use the standard enchanting rules I would start with the enchanter monthly pay and work things from there (the costs of power stone enchanting included). I thought about all that, and the strange costs for enchanting spells and all that and decided to create totally new rules instead.. __________________ -- GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/

10-04-2015, 12:29 AM	#6
simply Nathan formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans' Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Wyoming, Michigan	Re: Powerstone calculations In a gameworld I was collaborating on we wound up with circles of 4 enchanters using both a continuous cycle of one 10- or 20-point powerstone per enchantment and a doubling of the number of castings per day by using Lend Energy to skip the rest period (four assistants whose only job was to refill the enchanters per enchanter). We had several basements of the wizard tower with holders spaced out perfectly to make sure the powerstones were all a minimum of 2 yards from each other and a cycling procedure to make sure each one was fully recharged before it got used again. Master enchanters were Wealthy, journeyman enchanters were Comfortable, and energy slaves were Poor but had benefits (including access to magical training and a future in the industry). We wound up with TL3 Q&D enchantments costing something on the order of $0.40 up to 100 energy and the bumped up TL4^ or TL5^ magitech we decided the world had been improved to by all these common 100-or-less enchanted items everywhere was still pretty close to $1/thaum. We never used gems for powerstones because the prices for the stones Magic requires is designed to keep them as just barely less than a straight energy-enchanted one would have; once you use even one or two tricks to save on labor a labor-only powerstone becomes cheaper than the alternative and you don't need to worry about that difficult-to-parse maximum capacity calculations. __________________ Ba-weep granah wheep minibon. Wubba lubba dub dub.