Alternative enchanting system revisited

[Whitewings]

I don't like the enchanting system presented in GURPS, and never have. The times are ridiculously long, but I've never quite come up with a good alternative. I think I just did. Here's how it works:

First, total the energy costs of all the enchantments to be placed in the final item.

Second, divide this by the number of mages involved in the project. As usual, all participants must known all relevant spells at 15 or higher, and the circle's leader must know them at 15+the number of additional participants.

From this total, determine the per-person "energy cost." Divide the cost by fifty, retaining fractions, and square the result to get the number of hours the circle will need to perform the enchantment(s) desired, to a maximum of 1,920 hours (a year's work, assuming eight hour days and five day weeks). These times are minimums: The enchanter(s) must also make the actual, physical object, which requires a rating in the relevant skill of at least 12, preferably higher given that a failure on the roll to craft the object means, naturally, that the project fails. The actual time needed is thus the longer of the enchanting time or the crafting time.

You may be asking, given that the time needed is capped, what's to prevent an enchanter from loading an object with a vast array of enchantments? Nothing at all, except for the risk of failure; if any of the enchantments fail, the entire project is ruined. Naturally, given that the item's creation and enchantment are effectively a single process, upgrades are all but impossible. Powerstone and Manastone are *not* exceptions to this rule: Each casting requires the cutting of a facet on a gem, or the carving of a tiny glyph on an existing facet, or the careful attaching of a bead to the shaft of a feather, or whatever the GM deems appropriate. Because of the risk of failure going up with each enchantment, the cost of really powerful items can be sky high.

Oh, and yes, I am aware that *really* powerful items do not benefit from multiple creators. I consider that to be a feature, not a bug. I like the idea that the greatest wonders are produced by individual masters.

For an example, let us consider an item with Tell Time and Power 1, the equivalent of a wristwatch. This item requires 750 energy, meaning for a single enchanter, 750/50=15. 15^2=225 hours, about five and a half weeks. For a team of six, the time needed is only 750/6=125 per person. 125/50=2.5. 2.5^2=6.25 hours, less than a day's work. Using the costs from GURPS Magic 4e, that translates to $900 for the lone mage's pay, or $175 for the circle's pay, plus the cost of materials in both cases. That's using TL3 pay scales; at TL7, that works out to $525 plus materials, quite comparable to the lower end prices of high quality watches.

[gilbertocarlos]

Instead of time, try huge wealth sacrifices plus risk of failure, so, the wizard will spend money instead of time, but the adventurers with a vast wealth may try some crazy thing.

[Flyndaran]

I always preferred the hard to get magic ingredients decreasing time to enchant.
Yeah, the mage could spend decades making a magic item. But he'd rather hire a group of adventurers to bring back toe nail clippings of dragon to make it in a week.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I always preferred the hard to get magic ingredients decreasing time to enchant.
Yeah, the mage could spend decades making a magic item. But he'd rather hire a group of adventurers to bring back toe nail clippings of dragon to make it in a week.

That can easily degrade into what I call a "hoop". Some arbitrary thing X that must to be achieved in-world in order to do worthwhile thing Y, and which the GM can make easy or hard to get or do, on an absolutely ad hoc basis, depending on whether he wants the individual PC or the PC party as a whole to achive thing Y or not (which usually has to do with whether or not thing Y can be used to pursue a goal that the GM does not want pursued).

Note that as soon as you have generalized currencies, the hoop factor drops sharply.

For instance the vis of Ars Magica's setting. You don't have vis that is specific for Enchanting Swords with +2 Puissance. Instead you require a fairly general flavour of vis, Terram vis, to affect earth and stone and metal effects.

Sean Punch presented a very vague outline, some years ago, that was somewhat similar, in that you did not need very specific ingredients to achieve permanent magical effects ("if you want to Enchant this particular effect, there is exactly one ingredient in the entire world that can enable that"), but rather general types of rare items, so that each such effect can be achieved from a variety of thematically related items, and each such rare item can be used for a number of different but thematically related effects.

Or you can use a system similar to Sagatafl, where each character is born with a certain amount of non-renewable Essence, derived from relevant Primary Attributes (Constitution, Will, Faith and "Magic Talent), and if he learns the "Enchanting" skill, or if he is fortunate enough to be born with one of the Item Crafting Powers, then he can spend that Essence to make magic items, or affect permanent magic upon the world in other ways. Or if not then he can't spend it and so its only use is to prolong his life if he's plagued by a "level" draining Undead.

In either case, the time factor can be reduced, in some cases (e.g. Sagatafl) drastically, to the point where it is best described as perfunctory. There only because its complete absence would be harmful to verisimilitude.

(Note that requiring long periods of uninterrupted time is also a "hoop".)

Of course, if "hoops" merely decrase Enchanting time (or vis cost, or Essence cost) instead of being something that you absolutely truly need, then they aren't really hoops at all.

[Whitewings]

Well, the point isn't to make enchanting useful to adventurers. That's merely a side effect. The main purpose is to bring enchanting times down to something more reasonable, so that enchanting can actually be a viable career for people who are not terminally cracked, and enchanted items can be more than mostly showpieces for the ultra-rich. The enchanting rules were created, so far as I can tell, to support the Yrth setting, in which enchanted objects, barring the most minor, are extremely scarce.

[Anthony]

I have no idea why you have squaring in there. In general I think that a basic enchanting system should just say "enchantment X costs Y, use the general crafting rules to figure out how long that takes".

[Whitewings]

I originally had a system of steps, but found the squared term yielded a smooth function close to the stepwise results and without the weird break points. Basically, it keeps the cost of low end items low enough that they can be somewhat common, but the cost of higher end items high enough that they remain relatively scarce even with a good-sized circle, which appeals to me. And if the energy cost is high enough, meaning over 13,200, then the item is best made by a single master, which also appeals to me.

[Whitewings]

What I'm mostly looking for is more along the lines of how this might impact a setting. Beyond the obvious "enchanted items will be more common," that is. My assumption is that enchanters with Enchant above 20 are vanishingly scarce, and so the the practical maximum size of a circle is 6. Also, a regular enchanter earns a Comfortable income and a master enchanter a Wealthy income. This is reasonable, given that both professions require extensive training, more than almost any other job around.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

Well, the point isn't to make enchanting useful to adventurers. That's merely a side effect. The main purpose is to bring enchanting times down to something more reasonable, so that enchanting can actually be a viable career for people who are not terminally cracked, and enchanted items can be more than mostly showpieces for the ultra-rich. .

That's what the Q&D rules are for. You do need to ignore the silly note that Q%D Enchanters don't use Powerstones but after you do there are many utilitarian magic items within the reach of Q&D.

There are also many more ways to aid Q&D and Q&D circles of 500pts are not hard to achieve. See Thaumatology for things like Paut.

This does result in S&S being ignored but that doesn't mean changing S&S and then ignoring Q&D is the solution.