How Much is POW Worth?

[tooley1chris]

So I know in MW it says no new items can be enchanted but my campaign is a bit more magical. My PCs have befriended a witch enchantress and asked her to create a sword with a permanent Sorcerers Razor. In order to make it permanent a sacrafice of 1 POW per level is required. POW being a sorcerers most important stat, what amount of Bronze would entice someone to sacrafice it?

[The Venomous Pao]

I'd say no amount of Bronze is worth the POW sacrifice, at least in any campaign I run. Or, I suppose, no remotely reachable amount (e.g., One Beeeeeeelyon Dollars). That's not to say that someone won't make the sacrifice, just that it can't be bought with crude metal coins... You want me to what? Well, ok, but first you have to clean the stables for year. Then you have to bring me the three cockatrice feathers I need for the thing *I* want to spend my POW on. Then you must write a song so sad it causes the mountains to weep. Then...

It just doesn't seem like a simple transaction. Unless you want it to be. In which case, maybe 2000-5000 Br? More if you're freer with treasure. It should definitely hurt the pocketbook.

 

[NickMiddleton]

A LOT - it could take her a LONG time to recover the POW she loses. To be honest, I'd expect her to want a lot of cash / mundane valuables AND a substantial, awkward favour - a task of some sort, perhaps even one might say a quest, fulfilled...

Nick

 

Edited October 2, 2015 by NickMiddleton

[muminalver]

Help in gaining more POW than she is going to spend(+50%), and a load of stuff....

[tooley1chris]

I like the idea of a quest on top of a monetary reward. Some rare ingredient the wotch needs like a purple blossom that only blooms on a mountain inhabited by (insert random monster).

There's a lot of great possible hooks.

Maybe she'll do it if you bring her the eyes of a merchant who recently ripped her off. The merchant happens to be shady and is always well guarded by mercenaries expecting trouble. 

AH the possibilities.

I use my treasure generator that is based off of  D&D monster manuals, exchanging Platinun for Gold, Gold for Silver, And Silver for BP. But it still tends to be generous so I'd have to up the coin value quite a bit as well.

 

 

[Sunwolfe]

How much might also depend on how she must go about regaining her POW. If the source of additional POW is reasonably accessible, she might offer her POW at a bargain rate.

Cheers!

[Simlasa]

If you tweak it so the POW doesn't have to come from the caster itself then that opens the door to all sorts of nasty blood magic... which always lends magic a nice bit of horrific atmosphere, "How many children died to make that sword of yours?"

Edited October 4, 2015 by Simlasa

[Aelwyn]

Would be interesting if the POW has to come from some difficult-to-obtain creature. "Bring me a live basilisk, and we will sacrifice it to power your sword."

[tooley1chris]

Would be interesting if the POW has to come from some difficult-to-obtain creature. "Bring me a live basilisk, and we will sacrifice it to power your sword."

Or even if that's merely her price

[Aelwyn]

"Bring me the youngest child of King Othelrod the Eviscerator, and we will sacrifice her to power your sword. And bring me a live basilisk as payment. And 50 silver pieces for shipping and handling."

[Chaot]

Great thread.  Love the implications.

I've run where an enchantment can be placed at a single point of POW by the caster so long as a willing individual pays the full enchantment cost as well.  I just equated MP to POW.  So somebody putting a 4mp spell on a sword, say, would lose 4POW while the enchanter only loses 1Pow.  If multiple spells are placed at the same time, I only charged the enchanter 1 point of POW while the recipient payed the full cost of MP in POW.  A 4mp spell  combined with a 3mp spell would cost the buyer 7Pow.  Leads to lots of magic weapons, which is not a bad thing in my book.

That being said, the suggestions in this thread are much more colorful.

[Sunwolfe]

That's an interestingly appealing idea, Chaot.

In my campaign/game, I have an sub-economy centered around minor magic items. These items are embibed with specific spells of a specific level and only so many castings. They are usually tailor-made by an expert for an individual whose ability to "release" the spell is based on their natural POW. While my experts gave up a point of POW to embibe the item, for some reason I never thought about what the user who requested the talisman might need to contribute beyond the silver (or other services) to pay for it. I wonder why (hmmm. It must come from NOT GAMING ENOUGH!--eh? Oh!--sorry; that last just sorta slipped out)? I'm gonna have to look into that.

Cheers!

[Chaot]

A nice trade off is that the character buying the enchantment doesn't necessarily have a lot of POW.  Buying an enchantment gives them an advantage in general but leaves them more susceptible to magic (due to lowered POW) and with a less successful Luck roll.

I also tend to make PCs spend the mp that they would need to to activate an enchanted item.  So if you have a PC with 12 POW buy a 'Hell's Sharp Razor (or whatever) at 4mp the PC's POW goes down to 8.  They now have 8mp in the day to activate Hell's Sharp Whatever.

[tooley1chris]

I love the idea of making the purchaser pay the POW price. And then on top of that having to pay the MP cost to activate. Wonderful ideas. 

[hdan]

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I'm new to MW and doing "archaeology" for ideas.

The idea of POW to "attune" an object to a user is intriguing, though because I'm that sort of GM, I'd also allow a player to relinquish control of the item to get the POW back. (I'm probably showing a D&D 5e influence, but 5e had some good ideas...) "Attunement" should take a good long time though, so players don't hot-swap items. (As if I'd give them enough magic for that to be a problem....)

Fueling the object's power with MP is also a nice way to make non-sorcerers care about their MP totals. Do you risk lowering your MP by "flaming up" your sword, when you know a sorcerer might have a Resist MP:MP spell to throw at you? This sort of tactical trade off is exactly what I like giving to players.

[Simlasa]

10 hours ago, hdan said:

The idea of POW to "attune" an object to a user is intriguing

I really liked how Earthdawn dealt with magic items... how you'd have to research and establish a relationship with them that unlocked increasing power. Paying some POW to get that going makes sense... but I like taking it beyond a straight up transaction and using them to spawn adventure hooks.