Thoughts on Powerstones

[Whitewings]

For a specific setting, I’m considering some changes to the Powerstone spell. First, a Powerstone must be a gem; specifically, it must be a clear quartz crystal massing at least P/5 grams. Second, the crystal must be flawless, but a crystal that’s been, let’s say clarified, with Shape Earth or similar is perfectly acceptable. Obviously this means that Powerstones are less expensive, because the material is cheaper. But what else might change? The change is for two reasons: one, I really don’t like tying storage potential to dollar cost, and two, the planetary and zodiacal modifiers are extremely important in the setting, so Powerstones cannot be made of a material that resonates with any sign or planet, or to put it another way, must be made from a material that doesn’t oppose any.

[Varyon]

So, maximum points equal to carats? Do you intend to use the typical price scaling GURPS uses for gems - V*(C^2 + 4C), where V is a gem-based constant (LT suggests a typical value of 100 for precious stones; if mages with Shape Earth are common, your clear quartz will probably have a much lower cost... but then if mages are that common there's going to be a lot of demand for it as a powerstone material, which may balance out) and C is the weight in carats - or something else?

It sounds workable, and a slightly different price scaling shouldn't seriously break anything. I will note, however, that by not allowing for other things to be used as powerstones you're throwing away a potential world-building shortcut. Sure, it might sound ridiculous that the value magic places on an item (that is, how much energy it can store) would be dependent on how much people consider it to be worth, but I prefer to think of it the other way around. That is, an item doesn't store some amount of energy because it's worth some amount of money, but rather the item is worth some amount of money because of how much energy it can store. It's a built in "fair price" mechanism, and can be used to justify not having to deal with complex economics.

EDIT: If you want a little more flavor, you could allow for colored quartz to be used, but have it be restricted to a specific school - or even type - of magic.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

First, a Powerstone must be a gem; specifically, it must be a clear quartz crystal massing at least P/5 grams.

If you want powerstones to be cheap, another option would to make them be emeralds but have the setting have mines like India's or Colombia's and accept the grade which gemologists describe as "suitable for paving your driveway."

[SRoach]

Quartz is a component of granite, so if Shape Earth can "Clarify" a flawed gem, how about using it to merge several, seed-sized crystals from a much larger chunk of rock?

What about lab grown crystals?

Either of these things could greatly suppress the price.

That said, my reading of the spell is that ANYTHING COULD be made into a Powerstone. A chunk of quartz, a Brilliant cut diamond the size of your fingernail, an autographed baseball from your Little League years, signed by all your teammates... Just, valuable stones items are EASIER, and thus more popular for enchanting.
Presumably, you could enchant the diamond of an engagement ring, for the first couple dozen points, then "over" enchant it, at a cost of 4x, for as high as you were willing to risk the previous enchantment steps, to have an especially compact Powerstone. This from page 69 of "Magic". Last paragraph on the page.
(Actually, considering the value of a diamond ring, you should be able to pump it up as high as you dare. (($10*(P^2))+($40*P)) means an ideal item to turn into a 10 point Powerstone would cost $1400, and a suitable item for a 20-point one would cost $4800. Both inside the average cost of an engagement ring in 2023, of $5,500. Of course, this assumes, probably erroneously, that the costs are modern costs.)

Frankly, the costs of Powerstones fails my gut-check, because the value of enchantment, per Energy Point, is only $33 (in a TL3 setting), so the inherent cost for a single casting, into gemstone, of the spell, would be $660, and $2640 for casting it into, say, a random rock you plucked out of the road or stream. Somewhere, there is a breakpoint where it's cheaper to over-enchant the same, maxed-out, gem than it is to buy a big enough intrinsically valuable item in the first place.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SRoach

What about lab grown crystals?

.

t was rather a while ago (1998 and thus 3e) but there was some talk during the Technomancer playtest that synthetic opals were the preferred material for for mass produced Powerstoes on Merlin-1. David did not eem opposwed to it though it may not ahve made it into the book.

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by SRoach

Quartz is a component of granite, so if Shape Earth can "Clarify" a flawed gem, how about using it to merge several, seed-sized crystals from a much larger chunk of rock?

What about lab grown crystals?

Shape Earth to merge multiple small crystals, like grains of silica sand, would probably be possible, though I'd apply a penalty to the roll. Separating the quartz from a rock matrix is a different matter entirely. And yes, lab grown crystals would work. The main point isn't to reduce the cost, it's to reflect how magic works in this setting.

[Johnny1A.2]

I've always thought that Powerstones should probably be a specific, special kind of crystal. It should be something valuable, but not so valuable as to preclude use, and their origin should be something exceptional. Maybe they only crystalize in cooling lava flows, or something. Or maybe better yet, the crystals are a side-effect of something biological, just as staves usually need to be made of organic-origin materials.

They should, I think, also be readily recognizable. If I was creating powerstones for a specific game, I might say the crystals have an odd color or 'look' that makes them clearly recognizable as powerstones, and a charged powerstone glows a little. Not like a flashlight, but a faint light that shows the thing has power in it.

The recognizability makes them a potential temptation for theft, and makes it possible to try to disarm a mage without confiscating every crystal, jewel, or speck of glass. (Heck, if you use the 'anything can be a powerstone' rule, then the only way to reliably take away the extra power is to take every item away, and keep the mage in a sealed cell. That's why I wouldn't use the 'anything' rule.)

[ehrbar]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

t was rather a while ago (1998 and thus 3e) but there was some talk during the Technomancer playtest that synthetic opals were the preferred material for for mass produced Powerstoes on Merlin-1.

Well, yes.

Technomancer, in the sidebar on p.106, says "huge, flawless crystals for Powerstones" are being grown in labs in space, establishing Powerstones (in that setting, at least) can use synthetic gems (see also p.41, last paragraph, for enchantment using synthetic gems more generally).

At the same time, over in the 3e version of the Powerstone spell (Basic p.161, Magic p.47) , it explicitly says "A Powerstone must be made from a jewel (usually opal). Its maximum strength is equal to its weight in carats."

The natural conclusion of "they use synthetic gems for Powerstones" and "they use opal for Powerstones" is, of course . . .

On a general note, the 3e Powerstone spell, while it specified jewels of a minimum size (and favored opals), did not itself specify value of the jewels. The pricing of the gems for Powerstones as "$10×P^2 + $40×P" was, in 3e's Magic, an assumption in the sidebar on p.22, not a part of the spell text.

[benz72]

FWIW I prefer to generalize the Powerstone idea to 'item of appropriate value, form, and function' whether it is stone or not. Gems add value (and thus capacity) at a very light weight and are thus good choices for traveling magi. However, looking at things like sacred architecture, silver pentagrams, druidic groves, special dwarven alloys, the bones of a dragon, and all manner of other things that might make good repositories of magical power in a game means, to me, that a strict limitation to stones is not just unnecessary, but overly restrictive for a generic system.
I follow a similar thought process with Staff and Scroll spells. There is just too much storytelling potential being dismissed with those requirements. YMMV

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by benz72

FWIW I prefer to generalize the Powerstone idea to 'item of appropriate value, form, and function' whether it is stone or not. Gems add value (and thus capacity) at a very light weight and are thus good choices for traveling magi. However, looking at things like sacred architecture, silver pentagrams, druidic groves, special dwarven alloys, the bones of a dragon, and all manner of other things that might make good repositories of magical power in a game means, to me, that a strict limitation to stones is not just unnecessary, but overly restrictive for a generic system.
I follow a similar thought process with Staff and Scroll spells. There is just too much storytelling potential being dismissed with those requirements. YMMV

I agree---


With the caveat that they should all remain thematically appropriate and individual campaigns should have limits.