'Rapid' enchantment in GURPS (c) Dec 1998, by Anthony Jackson (ajackson@iii.com) The enchantment system in GURPS Magic has its good points, but sometimes it isn't really what you'd want -- in particular: a) Items get _suddenly_ more expensive once you pass the 'quick and dirty' stage -- in general, the utility of items is moderately linear in energy, so having 300 energy cost 75x as much as 100 energy seems a bit off. b) The cost of mid-sized magic items may then be higher than you want -- a '+1' sword (from magic) is $12,000. c) Caster skill really isn't all that important (the ability to control a larger circle just allows pawning off the work on apprentices, it doesn't intrinsically make the work faster). d) Items tend to be fairly bland -- most likely they work perfectly, there's a small chance that they fail badly. Very few 'flawed' items are created. e) Sometimes you don't _want_ enchantment to take mage-years -- but you still want to keep it somewhat under control. This 'rapid' enchantment system makes an attempt to address all of these points, while still remaining somewhat balanced. As compared to the standard system, it is faster than quick and dirty casting, but _much_ riskier. Procedure: like slow and sure enchantment, rapid enchantment is done day by day, and generally follows the same procedures as slow and sure enchantment. However, the time required, and the nature of the rolls involved, is somewhat different -- unlike regular enchantment (which requires one roll when the process is completed), rapid enchantment requires rolls at intervals during the process. Choose the interval at which rolls will be made: 'monthly', 'weekly', or 'daily'. Note that one 'month' is in fact twenty days of actual work, one 'week' is five. Most mages don't work more than five day weeks. Base rate of enchantment: 100 energy per month for monthly rolls, 50 energy per week for weekly rolls, 20 energy per day for daily rolls. Increase by 60% of the base for every assistant (this reduces the skill of the master by one, like normal enchantment). All assistants are required to have skill 15+. If this makes magic items too cheap, you may wish to halve these rates. Speeding the process: the caster can add 20% of the base energy per time unit for every -1 to final skill taken. Assistants may add 10% of base energy for every -1 skill taken -- you may wish to limit them to a skill reduction equal to the master's skill reduction, though this isn't really all that necessary. Low-skill enchantment: at the GMs option, the modifiers for 'speeding the process' may be reversed (maximum bonus is +5). If you allow this, you may require _everyone_ in the circle to have an adjusted skill at least equal to the level at which the item is being enchanted, or you may choose to disallow a leader with assistants from using this option. This makes assistants of skill less than 15 usable. This may be an appropriate replacement for the 'power for skill' rules in Magic. Apprentices: At the GMs option, a master mage may choose to have assistants who do not know the spell being enchanted, provided they know _all_ prerequisites for that spell. Treat them as having skill 2 lower than they would get for putting one point in the spell (which then can be boosted as per low-skill enchantments). This might give a slight bonus in enchanting an item, but is mainly beneficial because the apprentice is considered to be receiving instruction (as below) in the spell during the enchantment process. Learning while enchanting: you get a base of 4 hours per day of study while enchanting; this is considered to be 'self-study' _unless_ you are an assistant, and your base skill is lower than both your master's base skill _and_ his adjusted skill, in which case you are assumed to have a teacher. You may wish to require the master to take a -1 skill penalty to act as an instructor. This corresponds to the standard slow and sure enchanting rules, if you want a bit more reasonable results you can either drop the study rate by 20% per point of skill above 15 (on the theory that once you're good enough to succeed, you don't bother learning all that much more) or increase the # of hours of study required to gain a point (say, +50 or +100 hours per point of skill above 12). Enchantment rolls: at the end of every enchantment period an enchanting roll must be made (for computing the number of enchantment periods required, always round up). This works basically like a normal enchantment roll, but is done _slightly_ differently, to allow somewhat more variance in results. This roll should _always_ be done by the GM, and should not be shown to the players -- flaws will not normally be evident until the enchantment is actually activated, and may not be evident even then (analyse magic might help, though frequently flaws are fairly obscure). Base the results on the following rules: Roll of 3: normal work done; in addition, the item has some noticeable improvement (usually a 10-20% enhancement). Other critical successes have no special effect. If you want, you can make a normal critical success do double work for the time period (or add +1 to the skill of the item, or something similar), but bear in mind that critical success are going to be rather common. Normal success: normal work done. Normal failure: normal work done, _but_ the item acquires a quirk. This is a limitation -- typically worth about a 10% limitation, though some variation is possible, and multiple flaws can be combined into one bigger limitation. Critical failure: normal work done, _but_ the item is fatally flawed. This is a good source for 'cursed' items, though in a production setting it is frequently easier to simply assume that critical failures are simply destroyed. Roll of 18: immediate disaster. Roll 3d (+1d/assistant) and add 1 per 100 energy in the item (this includes _old_ enchantments). This energy is available to cast whatever spell the GM desires, or may just be converted to direct damage to the caster (and assistants) on a 1:1 basis (divide the damage up, but the caster should take a double share of any damage). The item is generally destroyed or rendered unusable, though this is subject to the GMs malice -- if you're enchanting a magic weapon and summon a demon by mistake, it's more entertaining to have the demon become the new owner of the weapon than to simply destroy it. Note that if the weapon does survive, it is still fatally flawed. Prices of items enchanted in this way: Realistically, the price of magic items is highly dependent on the market for them. However, for contracted work, assume a 'basic' mage is $25/day and has skill 15; this cost will rise significantly if you want higher skill or rarer spells. A master enchanter (skill 20) with a circle of five apprentices is about 8x this cost (if available at all), and enchants 4x as fast. Increase these costs to $30/day for weekly enchantment, $50/day for daily -- the higher risk of critical failures makes these forms of casting worth hazard pay. This works out to a base cost of $5 x energy for monthly casting, $3 x energy for weekly, $2.5 x energy for daily casting. A circle is $6 x energy for weekly, $10 x energy for monthly. However, these costs assume that you don't care if the enchantment actually _succeeds_ -- if you do, you may need to modify the cost. See the table at the end of this article for the cost multipliers assuming the item is required to actually work, based on # of castings. Odds of success: While you can roll every roll, this is complicated, plus it doesn't give much of an intuitive feel for success. This chart gives actual odds of getting various levels of success -- the 'X flaws' columns are the odds of getting an item with a particular number of quirks, the 'botch' column is for items where you got a critical failure (cursing or destroying the item), the 'disaster' line means an 18 was rolled, with possibly dire effects on the caster and everyone else involved, and is the reason 'daily' enchanting is so expensive. The 'cost1' line assumes flawed items can be sold at 80% - 20% per flaw, the 'cost2' line assumes they cannot. The odds of any item having a _bonus_ effect is the same as the odds for a disaster effect; it is perfectly possible for an item to be flawed and still have a bonus effect. This chart can be used for powerstones as well, without modification (the # of flaws is the # of quirks). Note that the percentage chance is listed first, followed by the number which, if rolled <= on d100, generates that particular result. Due to rounding issues, percentages may not add up to 100. Cheapest options for casting: in general, daily is cheapest up to 200 energy (-1/5 the $ cost of the item being enchanted), weekly enchanting up to about 1700 energy (-1/5 the $ cost of the item being enchanted, again), monthly up to around 6000 energy (-1/10 the $ cost), slow and sure above that. If available, weekly circles are roughly comparable to monthly enchantment, and monthly circles win from about 3,500 to 12,000. Note that daily enchanting is usually more expensive than quick and dirty enchantment, and thus is probably only used if q&d is not available (typically due to lack of a viable circle; PCs are reasonably likely to use it). If you use half rate enchantment, halve the above numbers, except that the limit for slow and sure being better is about 1,500 energy. #cast 0 flaws 1 flaws 2 flaws 3 flaws 4 flaws botch disaster cost1 cost2 1 95%(95) 3%(98) 0%(98) 0%(98) 0%(98) 1%(00) 0%(00) 103% 105% 2 91%(91) 5%(96) 0%(96) 0%(96) 0%(96) 3%(99) 1%(00) 106% 110% 3 87%(87) 7%(94) 0%(95) 0%(95) 0%(95) 4%(99) 1%(00) 109% 115% 4 83%(83) 10%(92) 0%(93) 0%(93) 0%(93) 5%(98) 2%(00) 113% 121% 5 79%(79) 11%(90) 1%(91) 0%(91) 0%(91) 7%(98) 2%(00) 116% 126% 6 75%(75) 13%(88) 1%(89) 0%(89) 0%(89) 8%(97) 3%(00) 120% 133% 7 72%(72) 14%(86) 1%(88) 0%(88) 0%(88) 9%(97) 3%(00) 123% 139% 8 69%(69) 16%(84) 2%(86) 0%(86) 0%(86) 10%(96) 4%(00) 127% 146% 9 66%(66) 17%(82) 2%(84) 0%(85) 0%(85) 11%(96) 4%(00) 131% 153% 10 63%(63) 18%(80) 2%(83) 0%(83) 0%(83) 13%(95) 5%(00) 135% 160% 11 60%(60) 19%(78) 3%(81) 0%(81) 0%(81) 14%(95) 5%(00) 139% 168% 12 57%(57) 20%(76) 3%(80) 0%(80) 0%(80) 15%(95) 5%(00) 143% 176% 13 54%(54) 20%(75) 3%(78) 0%(78) 0%(78) 16%(94) 6%(00) 147% 184% 14 52%(52) 21%(73) 4%(76) 0%(77) 0%(77) 17%(94) 6%(00) 152% 193% 15 49%(49) 21%(71) 4%(75) 1%(76) 0%(76) 18%(93) 7%(00) 156% 202% 16 47%(47) 22%(69) 5%(73) 1%(74) 0%(74) 19%(93) 7%(00) 161% 212% 17 45%(45) 22%(67) 5%(72) 1%(73) 0%(73) 20%(92) 8%(00) 166% 222% 18 43%(43) 22%(65) 5%(71) 1%(71) 0%(71) 21%(92) 8%(00) 171% 233% 19 41%(41) 22%(63) 6%(69) 1%(70) 0%(70) 21%(92) 8%(00) 176% 244% 20 39%(39) 22%(61) 6%(68) 1%(69) 0%(69) 22%(91) 9%(00) 181% 256% #cast 0 flaws 1 flaws 2 flaws 3 flaws 4 flaws botch disaster cost1 cost2 21 37%(37) 22%(60) 6%(66) 1%(67) 0%(68) 23%(91) 9%(00) 187% 268% 22 36%(36) 22%(58) 7%(65) 1%(66) 0%(66) 24%(90) 10%(00) 192% 281% 23 34%(34) 22%(56) 7%(63) 1%(65) 0%(65) 25%(90) 10%(00) 198% 295% 24 32%(32) 22%(55) 7%(62) 2%(64) 0%(64) 26%(89) 11%(00) 204% 309% 25 31%(31) 22%(53) 8%(61) 2%(62) 0%(63) 26%(89) 11%(00) 210% 324% 26 29%(29) 22%(51) 8%(59) 2%(61) 0%(62) 27%(89) 11%(00) 217% 339% 27 28%(28) 22%(50) 8%(58) 2%(60) 0%(60) 28%(88) 12%(00) 223% 356% 28 27%(27) 22%(48) 8%(57) 2%(59) 0%(59) 29%(88) 12%(00) 230% 373% 29 26%(26) 21%(47) 9%(55) 2%(58) 0%(58) 29%(87) 13%(00) 237% 391% 30 24%(24) 21%(45) 9%(54) 2%(57) 1%(57) 30%(87) 13%(00) 244% 410% 31 23%(23) 21%(44) 9%(53) 2%(55) 1%(56) 31%(87) 13%(00) 251% 429% 32 22%(22) 20%(43) 9%(52) 3%(54) 1%(55) 31%(86) 14%(00) 259% 450% 33 21%(21) 20%(41) 9%(51) 3%(53) 1%(54) 32%(86) 14%(00) 267% 472% 34 20%(20) 20%(40) 9%(49) 3%(52) 1%(53) 32%(85) 15%(00) 275% 494% 35 19%(19) 19%(39) 9%(48) 3%(51) 1%(52) 33%(85) 15%(00) 283% 518% 36 18%(18) 19%(37) 10%(47) 3%(50) 1%(51) 34%(85) 15%(00) 292% 543% 37 18%(18) 19%(36) 10%(46) 3%(49) 1%(50) 34%(84) 16%(00) 301% 569% 38 17%(17) 18%(35) 10%(45) 3%(48) 1%(49) 35%(84) 16%(00) 310% 596% 39 16%(16) 18%(34) 10%(44) 3%(47) 1%(48) 35%(83) 17%(00) 319% 625% 40 15%(15) 18%(33) 10%(43) 4%(46) 1%(47) 36%(83) 17%(00) 329% 655% #cast 0 flaws 1 flaws 2 flaws 3 flaws 4 flaws botch disaster cost1 cost2 41 15%(15) 17%(32) 10%(42) 4%(45) 1%(46) 36%(83) 17%(00) 339% 687% 42 14%(14) 17%(31) 10%(41) 4%(44) 1%(46) 37%(82) 18%(00) 349% 720% 43 13%(13) 16%(30) 10%(39) 4%(43) 1%(45) 37%(82) 18%(00) 360% 754% 44 13%(13) 16%(29) 10%(38) 4%(42) 1%(44) 38%(82) 18%(00) 371% 791% 45 12%(12) 16%(28) 10%(37) 4%(42) 2%(43) 38%(81) 19%(00) 382% 829% 46 12%(12) 15%(27) 10%(37) 4%(41) 2%(42) 38%(81) 19%(00) 394% 869% 47 11%(11) 15%(26) 10%(36) 4%(40) 2%(42) 39%(80) 20%(00) 406% 910% 48 10%(10) 14%(25) 10%(35) 4%(39) 2%(41) 39%(80) 20%(00) 418% 954% 49 10%(10) 14%(24) 10%(34) 4%(38) 2%(40) 40%(80) 20%(00) 431% 1000% 50 10%(10) 14%(23) 10%(33) 4%(37) 2%(39) 40%(79) 21%(00) 445% 1048% Cost of items: for a singly enchanted item, add up the cost for enchanting the item and the cost for the base object, and multiply by the cost multiple for the # of enchantments (use cost1 if flawed items can reasonably be sold, cost2 if they cannot). For a multiply enchanted item, choose an order of enchantment, and go through this process for each enchantment, using the computed cost for the previous stage in each case. Note that this will result in slightly lower prices than you get for simply enchanting in one batch, and changes the ratio of flawed, botched, and destroyed items (some of which will have been flawed at earlier stages). The % of unflawed items will be the same, however. This can be complicated, particularly for items which are likely to be multiply enchanted. A few typical items are below: Magic Weapons (usually start with a 'fine' weapon). Accurate +1 or Pussiant +1: x1.16 + $870 Shatterproof: x1.27 + $1,525 Accurate +1 and Pussiant +1: x1.35 + $1,880 Shatterproof & Acc+1 or Pus+1: x1.47 + $2,640 Shatterproof, Acc+1, and Pus+1: x1.71 + $3,935 Shatterproof, +1a/+2p or +2a/+1p x2.17 + $9,760 For a flaming +1a/+1p weapon, add $1,085. For icy, add $4,340. Shatterproof, +2a/+2p x2.76 + $17,160 For a flaming +1a/+2p or +2a/+1p, add $1,380. For icy, add $5,520. Shatterproof, +2a/+2p, flaming x3.51 + $28,320. For icy instead of flaming, add $5,265. Staffs (typical) Staff (fine quality hardwood, with staff spell) $63. Fireball staff (includes $500 ruby) $4,770. w/power +1 $8,500. w/power +2 $12,800. Fireball staff (includes $500 ruby) x90134