Re: Magic Item creation: Notes D thru H. Diseconomy of scale

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Rob,
  I admit that there are diseconomy of scales.  But how would the
magic item notes support that idea?

  There are obviously economies of scale.  If I am doing a lot of 
small projects I might need 1 apprentice for one, 5 for the next,
then 3.  Unless I am with a big magic school or guild, it is a 
pain in the butt hiring and laying off them.

  If I have a 35 week project that needs 6 apprentices.  No problem,
I hire them and I'm set for 2/3 of a year.  Likewise ingredients...
if the big project need mandrake root every week, my suppliers know 
that and can set up a supply chain.

  Nor would the diseconomy of scale explain why the underlying 
value of the item be increased.  (I'm assuming it is a typo or a 
mistake as it just does not make sense to me.)

  I'm not putting the idea down, I'm just hoping that you can show 
some examples of how those notes, (D, E, F, etc.) are supported
by the idea of diseconomies of scale.

  Warm regards, Rick


On 2016-11-04, at 10:43 AM, Robert Ward wrote:
> Rick,
> The kind of pricing structure in the notes seems rational for a product
> showing diseconomy of scale, rather than economies of scale. 
> 
> Your examples all illustrate economies of scale, similar to big boxes of
> cereal that are cheaper than the same volume of small cereal boxes. 
> 
> There are many things that don't show economies of scale, in which
> expense increases rather decreases as the project gets bigger. For
> example, building a skyscraper gets increasingly more expensive with
> each successive floor, not less (I THINK). Similarly a 50-foot giantess
> would not have the same proportions as a human woman, as volume would
> need to increase faster than area. A rocket to reach 10,000 feet is much
> more than a 100 times more expensive than a rocket to reach 100 feet. 
> 
> I don't know how the magic item rules work anymore, but someone
> mentioned the cumulative probabilities of an 18 arising in a weekly
> progress roll. If creating an item simply required N weeks of work, then
> pricing should show economies of scale (just as the examples you gave).
> But suppose it required N weekly progress checks without an 18, then it
> would get increasingly difficult with increasing N, and pricing should
> show diseconomies of scale. 
> 
> Again, without knowing the actual rules I'm not claiming the Notes D..H
> are justified. I'm just trying to point out a potentially interesting
> type of creation system where diseconomies would be justified.
> Rob