Enchanting Items (Standard Method)

This is the standard and related methods of Enchanting Items. This and alternatives are listed under Enchanting Items.

Note: Enchantment Costs is a hub linking to the colleges whose spells can be made into items via the default system.

Regardless of the method the effective minimum skill required for each spell to be enchanted is 15. A roll of 16 is always a failure (quirking the item), and a roll of 17-18 is always a critical failure (destroying the item) – even if effective skill is 16+ There is one and only one exception to this: Stable Casting. For that a 17-18 must rolled one after the other or 0.0086% chance rather then the 1.9% that ii normally has.

"To perform enchantments, the caster and any assistants must know both the Enchant spell and the specific spell being put on the item at an effective skill of 15 or better. Unskilled spectators cannot contribute energy to an enchantment."

The chance each spell will succeed with no quirks is 95.4% with not critically failing being 98.1%. However the more spells enchanted into an item the lower those chances become.

The chart for Powerstone quirks in roleplayer can be used for any magic item with multiple spells on it

There are two ways to do "standard" Ceremonial Magic enchantment: Quick and Dirty and Slow and Sure.

Quick and Dirty

This allows for the fast creation of magic items but has high energy requirements.

It takes one hour per 100 points of energy required (round up) and all the energy is spent at the end of the enchantment.

The caster and assistants can each have a powerstone as well as spend HP (given it lowers skill this is counter productive). However, the caster is at -1 to skill for each assistant and if his effective skill drops below 15 the enchantment will not work.

At a practical level the "standard" circle is six enchanters with each enchanter providing 10 points for a total of 60 points with the main Enchanter having a skill of 20 (20-5=15). Powerstones can improve this but generally items 100+ points will use the Slow and Sure Method. Unlimited Mana changes this somewhat (Very High Mana doesn't as the energy is replenished rather then energy cost actually being zero) with the "default" being 180 energy over 2 hours being the practical maximum (and the enchanter and his 5 assistances will be recovering for 3 days before the next enchantment). If industrial alchemy exists making high energy Paut Talismans available then the practical maximum for an 8-hour working day is 800 energy with a 16-hour working period capping out at 1600 energy as the limiting factor is no longer available energy but the effects of sleep deprivation.

Enchanting in Wild Mana is very risky as while if one succeeds insanely powerful items can be created quickly but any falure not only requires the full energy to be provided but a roll on the Calamities chart. For a single enchanter, if the energy needed is at or above Paut Talisman + Powerstone + FP + HPx6 than the enchanter is dead and if the energy needed is at or above Paut Talisman + Powerstone + FP + HPx11 than, baring unkillable 2 or 3, there isn't even a body left behind. In such a set up an enchanting circle isn't for energy but to lessen the chance that someone dies outright if the enchantment critically fails.

Slow and Sure

The low energy requirements is off set by the amount of time needed. It calculated in mage-days (a full eight-hour workday for one mage that produces 1 energy point) All members of the enchanting must be present for the entire process. Any missed day require two to make up and the entire project fails if a mage is lost.

Speeding Enchantment Up

As written, Enchantment takes a lot of time even with the Quick and Dirty method and as noted above even with nearly unlimited energy there is a practical limit.

• allow low-skilled/unskilled spectators to contribute energy.
• reduce time taken by 50% or 75% or allowing the Time Spent rules to variably reduce time for penalties.
• Magery energy per 8 hour work day instead of 1 energy.
• Skilled Enchanters: Enchant (spell)/10 = Energy per day
• Fast Enchantment: Mage-days become mage-hours
• High-Powered, Multi-Function Items: square root (total energy required) = Days required
• High-Powered, Single-Function Items: square root (energy required for each spell)= Days required
• Allow attempts at effective skill reduction under 15, resulting in low-power items that need bonuses from stuff like High Mana or Enchantment Boost

Slowing Enchantment Down

In some settings even the standard enchanting system is too fast. This is more relevant where magic items are extremely rare.

• Q&A is either banned or requires 24 hours per 100 energy instead of 1 hour.
• a basic -4 penalty and replacing -1 for anyone within 10 yards to -2 per person in 25 yards

Industrial

This method of enchantment first appeared in Classic: Technomancer and its mechanics "were later made generic in GURPS Magic Items 3, which expanded them to fit into any setting at any tech level" and was updated in the Pyramid 3/66 article "Thoroughly Modern Magic". The Industrial Enchantment page has more details.

Minimum Skill

Since Ceremonial Magic must be used for standard enchantment, the baseline rules are the same: a minimum skill of 15 is needed to attempt it by the mage leading the ceremony.

Enchantment is unique since it requires minimum skill 15 in two skills: Enchant and whatever spell is being used.

It is also unique because assistants also require a minimum skill of 15 in those two skills.

Ignoring Minimum Skill

These CM minimums are suggested as being relaxed in GURPS Thaumatology which "negates the usual rule requiring a minimum spell skill of 15 for ceremonial magic." If the usual rule applies then it might make sense to charge a perk or something as a rules exemption.

Boosting skill

Since the Enchant spell itself has no energy cost, presumably only the cost of the other spell is used when determining the 20% extra energy needed to get +1 to skill.

This makes it unclear if you can use extra energy to boost the Enchant skill itself, or just the 2nd spell.

Since Slow and Sure enchantment counts as time spent studying the skills (must be split 50/50) this means that enchanters using a variety of spells will probably raise it up higher than the other spells it is paired with, meaning that they're probably the only ones that would need extra energy to raise their skill level for higher Power anyway.

In the case where Enchant also needs to be boosted, the simplest solution might just be to use the cost of the other spell to determine the %.

It's somewhat unclear if the minimum 15 normally applies as "effective skill after % energy bonuses must be 15" or "effective skill before % energy bonuses". If it's the latter then even without a rules exemption, sub-15 casters might in theory be able to attempt it by throwing more energy into the enchantment.

Forbidden Benefits

Two benefits of normal non-ceremonial spellcasting do not apply here, unless the GM allows it.

There are optional rules to allow normal spellcasting to share ceremonial's benefit (extra energy = extra skill) so it might seem reasonable to have optional rules in the other direction too.

Lessening time and/or Energy

• As a form of ceremonial magic, enchantments do not benefit from halved casting times from high skill, unless the GM allowed some kind of rules exemption, perhaps for perks.
• As a form of ceremonial magic, enchantments do not benefit from reduced energy cost from high skill like normal spellcasting either.

Multiple spell success chart

The number of spell castings performed before the item was destroyed is determined by the failed survival roll. The higher the roll, the sooner the item was destroyed in the process. If a 17 or 18 is rolled, the item was destroyed on the first casting. If a lower number was rolled, check the survival numbers for the smaller stones; this will indicate how many castings had been successful before failure. If more than one power level has the same survival roll, pick randomly between the choices.

Once you have an item that survived, roll once to find the number of Quirks that the item has; if the number you roll is equal to or less than the number in the chart, the column shows how many Quirks were introduced in the process of enchanting the item . The number pairs, such as 18/xx, are for when you roll an 18; roll again and compare to the second number of the pair. Find the column in which the second number is greater than or equal to the number you rolled.

The Chart itself:

# of Spells	Surv. Roll	Number of Quirks. Roll
		0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
1	16	15	18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
2	15	14	18/18	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
3	15	14	17	18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
4	14	13	17	18/16	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
5	14	13	17	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
6	14	13	16	18/14	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
7	13	12	16	18/13	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
8	13	12	16	18/12	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
9	13	12	15	18/12	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
10	13	12	15	18/11	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
12	12	11	15	18/7	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
15	12	11	15	17	18/14	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
20	11	10	13	16	17	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–	–	–
25	11	10	13	15	17	18/14	18/16	18/18	–	–	–	–	–
30	10	9	12	14	17	18/12	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–	–
35	10	9	12	14	16	18/10	18/14	18/18	–	–	–	–	–
40	10	8	11	13	15	17	18/13	18/16	18/18	–	–	–	–
45	9	8	11	13	15	17	18/12	18/15	18/18	–	–	–	–
50	9	8	11	13	15	17	18/10	18/14	18/16	18/18	–	–	–
60	8	7	10	12	14	16	17	18/12	18/15	18/18	–	–	–
70	8	6	9	11	14	16	17	18/11	18/13	18/16	18/18	–	–
80	8	6	9	11	13	15	16	17	18/11	18/14	18/16	18/18	–
90	7	5	8	10	12	14	16	17	18/9	18/13	18/15	18/18	–
100	7	5	7	9	11	13	15	16	17	18/11	18/14	18/16	18/18

Quirk tables

Type

Roll	3-8	9-10	11-12	13-15	16-18
Quirk	Use Limit	Recharge Limit	Spell Effect	User Effect	Other Misc. Effect or Limit

Severity

Roll	3-10	11-13	14-16	17-18
Quirk	Minor Quirk	Moderate Quirk	Major Quirk	Severe Quirk

Examples

Minor: Smells Like Fish (Spell Effect), Not Usable by Hat-wearers (Usage Limit) or Makes User Thirsty After Use (User Effect).

Moderate: Only Charges in Bat Blood (Recharge Limit), Shrieks When Used (Powerstone Effect) or Very Attractive to Frogs (Spell Effect).

Major: Won't Recharge in Sunlight (Recharge Limit), Only Usable on Wednesdays (borderline severe) (Usage Limit) or Won't Work During Leap Year (Usage Limit) (even though this is only 25% of the time, the length of time is all at once)

Severe: Renders User Mute for One Hour (User Effect), Only Usable for Fire Spells (Usage Limit) or Only Usable by Green-eyed Virgins (Usage Limit).

Alternative Enchantments

• Enchanters use Unlimited Mana areas to do their enchanting when possible
• Craft Enchantment; The enchanter must personally make the item. These crafting skills replace the 10 spells needed for Enchant.
  Weapons must be of fine quality (very fine quality for melee weapons at TL7+). Equipment must be of good quality. Other items must be of similar quality, of the sort usually retailing for 4× normal cost; this might give a -4 to the skill roll to make the item.
  The enchanter gets a bonus to his skill roll to enchant the item equal to his margin of success in crafting it. He gets an additional +2 if he made the item from natural materials (mining and smelting iron ore himself to make a sword, or cutting and carving his own timber for a staff); this requires a roll on the appropriate skill. This can easily be combined with Craft Magic for fantastically powerful but rare items
• Reliable Enchantment: Enchantment is treated as a long task. Critical success no longer increases power for the item but rather speeds up its production. Conversely, critical failures are no longer catastrophic disasters.
• The Power of Enchantment: The power of an item is based on the higher of the enchanter's skill with the spell being enchanted or with Enchant.
• Enchanting Tools: Tools can be required or boost skill.

References

• The Compleat Powerstone Roleplayer #18, February 1990