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Re: Magic Item creation: Notes D thru H. What? What???

I think you were thinking that someone's previous post about status was from me.
I myself would think that yes status would be a separate social status/market status not necessarily determined by attributes or spells. Especially, as you say, not before they've actually used their IQ to make things and established a status by their actions.
Though once they have done that, if higher IQ leads to better items (as in our house rules) then that might (or might not) lead to higher status. The DX would be a big factor too, especially in games where the GM doesn't have all strong wizards have DX 14+ just because "everyone competent can & should get their DX up". But I would think it would be (more realistic and interesting if) based on actual results rather than a straight formula based on knowing actual attribute values, which I like not to do for immersion/logic reasons.
I'd expect different wizards to charge different rates for their time, but as you wrote in the bit I quoted, I agree that it might not be a multiplying factor to cost, but likely instead to be a higher cost per effort spent. And if a wizard is so good they tend to make items faster (through more interesting enchantment rules, or just making their rolls more often), I'd tend to expect that might cost more rather than less, or be a combination where maybe it is based on the time actually taken, but the rate is higher because the time tends to be shorter than others (and because the resulting item may be better). In the real world, various types of contracts and pricing trade-offs exist for example for engineering work (e.g. some charge based on time & materials, while others are a fixed amount). Again, cost & quality vs. time and risk, where any of those might be somewhat unknown and based on reputation.
Another thing that happens in the real world a lot is people charging a lot as if they were better than competitors even when they're not, or vice versa. 

PvK



At 10:31 PM 11/14/2016, Jeffrey Vandine wrote:
"Status," then, equals IQ? That was something you didn't make clear at all. I assumed "status" was something earned somehow in your campaign. 



From: Peter von Kleinsmid <pvk@oz.net>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2016 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: Magic Item creation: Notes D thru H. What? What???

At 03:09 PM 11/4/2016, Jeffrey Vandine wrote:
>Hmm.  I can see the status of the magician in question figuring into
>the base price -- that makes absolute sense; when you hire the very
>best, you PAY for the very best.  But I'm not sure I'd agree with
>factoring that in as a changing cost factor like this.  It's almost
>like you're saying the guy's status goes up based on the magic item
>he has yet to create.  Now AFTER he creates, I could see something
>like that applying ("Wow! You got Heironymous the Truly Active to
>create your +5 Magical periapt?  Remember the job he did on that
>Ring of Wishes?  Amazing!"), but BEFORE doing it?  Not so sure I
>follow that logic.
>
>Not saying you're wrong, just saying it doesn't seem logical to
>me.  But thanks for explaining it.  That helped.

When we added magic item breakdown rules, the IQ of the creator was
the base reliability of the item, so it did matter who created it.
Even if it didn't, it would make some sense that it would cost more
for more competent creators (for the failure checks) and important
people (because their time is worth more because they could be doing
other things).

As for the underlying item costs going up by the rate of risk of
rolling 18, it seems pretty clear that's about an 18 destroying the
underlying item.

It seemed pretty clear to us too that these costs were the minimum
costs, and that actual prices would tend to be higher because a
Wizard's Guild that can create magic items would tend to have more
demand than it could supply, as well as many competing demands, needs
and interests for the attentions of powerful wizards, which get more
and more extreme the more powerful the person you're talking about.

As for using a Charm, I would tend to think that a Charm should not
apply to rolls that represent two entire weeks of work.

PvK


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