Understanding Enchantment and the DF Staple: The Wand of Fireball

[Gavynn]

A common staple of dungeon fantasy, especially present in Diablo, is the “Wand of [something]” (or Staff of something, or Rod of something] which has some number of charges of a single spell in it, like a Wand of Fireball. I have never spent a lot of time thinking about the Magic enchantment rules. They are just not something that has come up in the games that I have been in. However, they started to come up when I was thinking of GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy – Diablo and let me be frank – I don’t get it. Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

So far as is my understanding, a wizard who wants to create a Wand of Fireballs (and has Enchant at level 17 and Fireball at level 15):

1) Obtains a wand. Note that this is not a “magic wand” per se since it won’t have the Staff spell cast on, although it could if the caster later chooses to do so. It will take 800 energy points to enchant the wand with the Fireball spell.

2) Obtains a $400 ruby to set into the wand.

3) The Power of the Item will be 15 (the lower of 17 and 15)

4) The wizard will work alone.

5) He has got to expend 800 energy. He only has 10 FP to give. He does have Recover Energy-15 so can recover fully in 50 minutes. So in an eight hour day, he can repeat his ceremonial enchanting 4 times, for 40 energy a day. This project will take 20 (yikes!) days to complete.

6) At the end of this time, the wizard rolls against his enchant skill with a 16 failing and 17-18 critically failing because that is just how it goes with enchanting. He rolls a 9. The enchantment works.

Now a Wand of Fireball is in existence that can only be activated by mages who know what it is. She can now use this wand can cast the spell whenever she likes. There is no number of charges, BUT she must “cast” with the wand for between 1 and 3 second depending on the size of the fireball desired AND must pay the energy cost to cast the spell herself. The wand activates correctly on a roll of 15 or less (since that is its Power Level). Now this is a little limiting, and since she knows the fireball spell herself at least at level 15, why would she choose to use the wand? I don’t think she would. So our she decides to make this wand have a bit more umph, so the wizard wants it to be self-powered. There are two ways to go about this:

a) She could create and affix a Powerstone or Manastone to the wand and have the wand always draw energy from the stone. If it were a Powerstone, she’d have to let the wand recharge away from her other powerstones. This would make casting the fireballs more energy efficient, especially if she made them exclusive powerstones.

b) Put a further enchantment on the Wand – the Power Spell (M.57) which he has at level 15. Since fireball spells can take up to 3 points of energy, she decides to make it a Power 3 item. This has an energy cost of 2,000. Given his rate of work above, this will take 50 more days! After 50 days he makes the roll against his level 15 power spell. He rolls an 11 – success. The wizard can now use the wand to cast Fireball with a skill of 15 whenever he likes and never has to pay energy for it. However, it still takes three seconds of casting time to get off a 3d fireball. She has also invested about two and half months of time putting together this wand. And she’d better not lose it, as I think it would have a market value of about $92,400 in enchantments alone.

In Dungeon Fantasy, we are introduced to Power Items which store FP for the casting of any spell, but don’t hold the spells themselves and can be recharged at $5 per point of FP back in town. So if she just creates a nice expensive wand she can have it charged up with FP and cast Fireball or any other spell with them that she likes.

I don’t think either one of these replicate the Diablo idea of an item having lots of charges of a single spell in it. I also would like to use the Diablo idea that these items can be recharged in a field expedient manner but reduces the maximum number of charges a wand can hold. Say whenever a magic wand/rod/staff is created they can only hold 1d20+80, 1d10+40, or 1d6+19 charges. Otherwise they can be taken to town and recharged by someone with all the proper equipment to ensure there is no loss of maximum power.

So first off, do I understand enchanting correctly? I bet I don’t. Second, how would one simulate the Diablo-style Wands of Fireball in a DF setting and outside of it? Can Diablo-style items be balanced in a DF world where there are also Power Items?

[Witchking]

Warning- I do not have any of the DF materials nor have I read any. However by the Magic RAW for Enchantment you are making 1 huge glaring mistaken assuption. Mages do not enchant by the structure you were using (max number of fatigue points per day with multiple recoveries invested into the enchantment) rather you have 2 choices. 1- Quick and Dirty enchantment takes 1 hour you can invest the maximum amount of fatigue you can, mages who can enchant and know the spell being cast (both at skill 15 or better) can also add the maximum power they can to the enchantment. Drawbacks highest skill level enchanter is assumed to be the lead caster using his skill and making the roll, but he is at a -1 to skill for each assisting mage. Also the mages in the ceremony may only use 1 powerstone each. This tends to limit the size of enchantments that can be attempted with Quick and Dirty to an upper limit of about 100 energy (assuming a 4 mage circle and each mage having a 10-20 pt powerstone.)
2. Slow and Sure enchantment, fairly simple but lengthy the energy cost of the total enchantment (eg for Fireball wand with 3 levels of power 2800 pts) is the total number of mage-days that must be invested in the enchantment process. Again a circle may be used to increase the speed of the enchantment, and IIRC there is no minus to skill for helper mages, but there is no energy points/per day mechanic. The formula is time to cast = energy cost in days / number of mages. (for the example Fireball wand with Power 3 2800 pts / 4 mages in circle = 700 days) While there is no upper limit as to what energy items can be enchanted it is surely slow.

[Atreyu_Hibiki]

For Dungeon Fantasy, PCs do not enchant. Period. Thus, you don't need to worry about how the wand is made, rather worry about what it does, and how much it costs.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that a self-powered item that can cast a spell once is worth about 15% of the normal cost of the item (non-powered), increasing the cost by an extra +5% for every use it has. Someone else might want to run some numbers, that's just what I'd give off the top of my head.

Given this, a Wand of 20 Fireballs would be worth (16,400 * .15)+(16,400 x .05 x 19) = 2460 + 15580 = $18,040.
In order to recharge it, you'd have to pay an enchanter $820 per shot refilled.
Now, the nice thing about having the item is that it won't be a drag on your FP. The downside is, well, you've got 20 shots, pardner. Use 'em wisely.

[StevenH]

Gavynn,
Witchking has it about right. I also haven't read (or even seen) Dungeon Fantasy, so I can't comment on Atreyu's statement that there is no enchantment, although I must admit that it makes sense, given the assumptions and genre of the game.

What I can comment on is while there is no explicitly stated energy points per day mechanic, one can be considered to be implied: if you assume a standard enchanter mage has a 10 HT, and enchanted items are invested with a single point per day, then it appears as if the item retains 10% of the energy that the enchanter expends on it. This is, I guess, a "house rule" that I use, and I have a more expanded write-up here that I developed for an enchanter mage I was running, since I wanted to know what he was doing with his time. (Although this probably isn't what you are after!)

There is a Temporary Enchant spell, but it costs 15% of the total enchantment energy cost per use, and when they are gone, the item is no longer magical. Unfortunately, what this does is make any number of charges more than 4 or so uneconomical, and any item with 7 or more charges actually costs more than the standard item! (Which seems counter intuitive, if you ask me...an item with limited charges shouldn't cost more than one with unlimited charges!)

Warmest regards,
StevenH

[Gavynn]

Okay, so if the caster wants to enchant a wand withthe fireball spell and three levels of power, she will be doing her thing for better than six and a half years down there in her laboratory? Yikes. Assuming that someone wants to undertake that, spending another couple hundred days putting a limit on it so no other mage wants to steal it from her would be a good idea, but who wants to roll a critical failure and ruin seven and half to eight yeras worth of work. I think I hate that system.

But at any rate, that can't be right for dungeon fantasy.

Looks like we are going to need some kind of Arcane Ritual Skill that is Very Hard based off IQ+Magery. Specializations apply (and can be Religious Ritual-esque) for Holy Items. We'll call this the skill the NPC enchanters have in Dungeon Fantasy that they can recharge Power Items with. They have enough situational modifiers so the GM can basically ignore the roll.

The player may use this skill to to recharge an item in a field expedient manner and the penalties for doing so will be non trival. With the degree of success is the number of charges restored, failure indicates the maximum capacity of the item is reduced.

I am thinking a Wand of Fireball might have 20 charges and takes one second to activate. It can shoot off 3d fireballs ever second for 6 seconds and then a 2d fireball in the 7th second (or could go 1d fireballs every second for 20 seconds, or any such combination).

I guess you could also put another spell, like a cold bolt in the wand, but that is where making the wand gets tricky. The more options the wand provides, the more likely you are to screw up making it at some point and ruin the thing.

[Enoch]

Yeah I think think the Slow and Steady way too slow as well. I much prefer just having the caster pump as much as he can in a day. Maybe slowing it down by requiring 2 EP per EP of enchantment or some similar ratio to represent the energy lost when not being actively enchanted.

Of course I haven't actually ran a GURPS game yet so I don't know how it would work out in play.

Not to steal the OPs thread, but I have another question about enchantment.
Is there any particular reason for the minimum skill level of 15 for enchanting other than balance? In other words, what would the effect on the game be if I allowed enchanters to enchant an item with a Power of 10?

-Joshua

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

Okay, so if the caster wants to enchant a wand withthe fireball spell and three levels of power, she will be doing her thing for better than six and a half years down there in her laboratory? Yikes. Assuming that someone wants to undertake that, spending another couple hundred days putting a limit on it so no other mage wants to steal it from her would be a good idea, but who wants to roll a critical failure and ruin seven and half to eight yeras worth of work. I think I hate that system.

But at any rate, that can't be right for dungeon fantasy.

In DF PC's explicitly can't make magic items, they buy them or steal them. So the artificer NPC's might make them that way or not.

Also remember that most items assume a $33 per point cost, so mages make $33 a day.

Makeing slow and sure faster, then mages can really pump out magic items, as it is just a matter of time. You could introduce magical resources that count as energy for enchantment only.

Also the statement about fireballs being able to take 3 points per turn is wrong, they can take magery per turn in 4ed.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by Gavynn

Okay, so if the caster wants to enchant a wand withthe fireball spell and three levels of power, she will be doing her thing for better than six and a half years down there in her laboratory? Yikes. Assuming that someone wants to undertake that, spending another couple hundred days putting a limit on it so no other mage wants to steal it from her would be a good idea, but who wants to roll a critical failure and ruin seven and half to eight yeras worth of work. I think I hate that system.

I'm not fond of the enchanting system in Magic either, but it's mitigated pretty heavily by having partners. Unfortunately it's still hideously expensive and in general not worth the time trouble; I've toyed with mage PCs who can take Quick and Dirty enchanting to really high levels (being able to burn 100+ FP at a shot) but even then things like enchanted weapons or a basic Wand of Fireball are beyond what can be readily managed.

The best option I've found yet that works within the system is to get to a point where you can cast Manastone on a non-valuable item for Quick and Dirty costs (must be able to spend 20 FP at one go, and ideally recover them in an hour) and pick up Luck to avoid the Manastone crit failure that ruins several days' work (and maybe the failures that quirk the stone, too, because a Manastone that you can suddenly only use when you've swallowed it is unpleasant). Build a large enough Manastone, then Q&D your way to a large enchantment. This still takes a while, but it's faster by leaps and bounds than slow and sure enchantment.