Very variant spell magic

[Whitewings]

Oh, I’m not saying such things won’t exist. I’m only saying that they’ll be relatively scarce and since they’ll be highly sought after, very expensive.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

Oh, I’m not saying such things won’t exist. I’m only saying that they’ll be relatively scarce and since they’ll be highly sought after, very expensive.

Why will they be scarce and why will they be disproportionately expensive?

Once a fellow gets the ability to make Halt Aging rings he can produce 3 and a fraction of them every year and do so with more certaintly of finding a buyer than for Wands of Fire Extinguishing.

Then after a mundane gets one of these things and wants more for the rest of his family he can take it to an Enchanter who doesn't know how to produce Halt Aging items yet and make deal for the new guy to make him the Items for a discount compared to the inflated price the first Enchanter charged.

The laws of economics will apply to Enchanted Items and there are no truly serious barriers to producing the most desirable types.

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Why will they be scarce and why will they be disproportionately expensive?

Once a fellow gets the ability to make Halt Aging rings he can produce 3 and a fraction of them every year and do so with more certaintly of finding a buyer than for Wands of Fire Extinguishing.

Then after a mundane gets one of these things and wants more for the rest of his family he can take it to an Enchanter who doesn't know how to produce Halt Aging items yet and make deal for the new guy to make him the Items for a discount compared to the inflated price the first Enchanter charged.

The laws of economics will apply to Enchanted Items and there are no truly serious barriers to producing the most desirable types.

The same laws of economics you reference. Halt Aging items would be in absolutely huge demand, far outstripping supply, which always results in higher prices. And how does the possession of a Halt Aging item do the second enchanter any good in terms of creating more?

Also, an assumption of this setting is that most mages create items for use in their professions, rather than as their profession.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

The same laws of economics you reference. Halt Aging items would be in absolutely huge demand, far outstripping supply, which always results in higher prices. And how does the possession of a Halt Aging item do the second enchanter any good in terms of creating more?

For the last bit, Fred's likely assuming some ability to reverse-engineer an enchantment from having such an item. As for the rest, you need a significant barrier to entry for demand for a service to markedly outstrip the supply for it. There's more demand for fast-food workers than for gynecologists, but the latter have much more significant barriers to entry (namely, the sheer amount - and cost - of education required), so they are much rarer (enough to outweigh the difference in demand) and thus make more money. If it is indeed rare to find someone who is willing to teach Halt Aging, that can be a significant barrier, but by the very nature of the spell those who know and are willing to teach it would be continually increasing (they don't die of old age, and thus are likely to stick around for a good while).

Originally Posted by Whitewings

Also, an assumption of this setting is that most mages create items for use in their professions, rather than as their profession.

You may wish to bake that into your enchanting mechanics. Perhaps that 100 energy per day figure is only for personal items that are either difficult or impossible for others to use, while a slower rate would be in play for general-use magical items. The economic reality is that a healing mage could likely make far more money (and far more of an impact) selling healing wands than personally healing those who come to him with a 100 energy-per-day rate of enchantment.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

The same laws of economics you reference. Halt Aging items would be in absolutely huge demand, far outstripping supply

How would the demand outstrip supply? Unless you're assuming that magic has just been discovered, that enchanter is making three every single year. And the rings don't wear out. Meanwhile, the enchanters live a very long time. If one pursues that career for a hundred years, that's 300 times as many rings as he needs himself. One out of 300 enchanters working on the item would keep up with population growth even with a lazy 20-year career. In the steady state, there's more rings of Halt Aging that they'll know what to do with. It's only the first few years where the early adopters will be paying a lot.

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by Varyon

You may wish to bake that into your enchanting mechanics. Perhaps that 100 energy per day figure is only for personal items that are either difficult or impossible for others to use, while a slower rate would be in play for general-use magical items. The economic reality is that a healing mage could likely make far more money (and far more of an impact) selling healing wands than personally healing those who come to him with a 100 energy-per-day rate of enchantment.

One thing you’re forgetting: most items are only useable by mages, and that includes healing items. Well... mages or in some cases physicians of exceptional or even extraordinary skill. As for Halt Aging, someone who wants to create such an item needs at least two exceptionally demanding skills at 15+, Enchant and Halt Aging, which is master level, and at least nine other skills (Scroll and the eight other healing spells) to a level of reasonable competence. Add to the that the need for a fairly rare aptitude (Magery 2) and you have a meaningful barrier to entry.

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

How would the demand outstrip supply? Unless you're assuming that magic has just been discovered, that enchanter is making three every single year. And the rings don't wear out. Meanwhile, the enchanters live a very long time. If one pursues that career for a hundred years, that's 300 times as many rings as he needs himself. One out of 300 enchanters working on the item would keep up with population growth even with a lazy 20-year career. In the steady state, there's more rings of Halt Aging that they'll know what to do with. It's only the first few years where the early adopters will be paying a lot.

300 rings, and a population of... how much? Think of how much it costs to hire a skilled tradesman, and consider that an enchanter is an extremely rare and extremely highly skilled tradesman. That ring has to sell for enough to justify his devoting just under a third of a year to the very gruelling work of making one. Remember that enchanting doesn’t allow days off. Actually it does, but that lengthens the time by two days for each day off.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

300 rings, and a population of... how much?

That's not 300 rings total in the setting. It's 300 rings from one enchanter that's not even trying all that hard. Per century, since we're talking about Halt Aging. Multiply by the number of mages in the setting (which was specified to be common).

The setting is going to have to stipulate both very recent magic and a low rate of appearance of Magery in the population to have any scarcity of permanent items at all.

If you want rings to be as scarce and remarkable as, say, billionaires in the modern US, then you need enchanters to be so scarce as to have only one one, ever, in the entire history of medieval England -- and for that one's life to have been tragically cut short when they were about 35-40. All the "billionaires" get one of the scarce rings, leaving lots of unmet demand and high prices. But that's not going to be a common magic setting, and no PC can be a mage. (The only mage ever already got used up in the backstory to make those rings. The GM could wave their hand and say that one PC is a startling re-appearance of the ability long thought lost -- but then the entire game is the story of the one magical resurgent trying to be recruited, influenced, or enslaved by the powers that be and how they choose to use their influence.)

The alternative is of course to make magic items either expendable (anywhere from unrechargeable D&D staves to potions / RPM charms), or better yet, personal idiosyncratic creations that only work for the creating mage. "Laws of economics" need not apply when the items aren't tradable or producible in quantity. Of course, then you can't find any kewl magic items as phat lewt.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

The same laws of economics you reference. Halt Aging items would be in absolutely huge demand, far outstripping supply, which always results in higher prices. And how does the possession of a Halt Aging item do the second enchanter any good in terms of creating more?

Also, an assumption of this setting is that most mages create items for use in their professions, rather than as their profession.

The law of supply and demand act to bring the two things into equiibrium. Demand that outstrips supply is an incentive to increase supply and cash in on that demand.

As to taking the item to a second enchanter you had finding such an item being a barrier. I assumed from that remark that copying existing items was a major way of learning to make new items.

Making enchanting a secondary activity to some other profession isn't helping your problems. Professions that let you live forever are much more attractive than ones that let you cast mundane utility spells.

Even if _all_ magic items only work for mages they must be able to work on things (and people) besides mages. A Wand of Extinguish Fire that could only put out mages who were on fire wouldn't be of a lot of use.

So Healing is still an extremely attractive career for mages unless this is an ultratech setting where scientific healing works like magic.

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So Healing is still an extremely attractive career for mages unless this is an ultratech setting where scientific healing works like magic.

Have I claimed otherwise? I've only said that the supply of Halt Aging items is likely to be smaller than the demand for various reasons addressed in other posts.