I'm not the one who should be chiming in on the cost of powerstones and the like, given my intense dislike of the rules for powerstones ever since GURPS MAGIC for 3e came out. Color me unimpressed with the formula for calculating the worth of a powerstone - bit it seems a bit odd that the use of mathematics that would be tedious without a slide ruler or computer, is being used to determine the worth of a gemstone on some given "value" for use in spell slinging.
Just as gemstones were given a specific value for a given locale based on local worth, one would expect that powerstone gemstones would also have had that same effect - a linear worth based on: A) how rare the stone is versus how popular it was for the location B) how hard it was to get a stone of a given size (in other words, the rarer the larger stones were, the more value they were given C) how much could the market bear In other words, if there were gemstones that could be as large as say, 100 carots - but only a king who mortgaged his kingdom's entire output for 10 years can afford it, then clearly, the gemstone is too highly priced. Also? If the ONLY people who valued a given gemstone at a given range are mages - the same gemstone wouldn't even be worth the amount calculated by the formula as given in GURPS, for its "Raw unenchanted value" for the mundane. As if that weren't enough? GURPS MAGIC for 4e, then proceded to permit the use of ordinary materials for use in powerstone enchantments - requiring four times energy cost to fix the enchantment into the item that was not the gemstone. That in and of itself, should have lowered the cost of the underlying gemstone as it no longer requires that the gemstone base be that one elusive and relatively rare item. But - that's just me ;) _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
