Let's talk applied Magic

[flatline]

I just posted a story in another thread where the player character makes use of several Talismans made by her boss and, as it turns out, there is some ignorance floating about on the practical application of magic, so I thought I'd start an educational thread on the subject.

It hasn't come up yet in the other thread, but I'm sure that eventually someone will complain that it's hard to make as many Talismans as the characters seem to have.

Not true.

Let's assume two low level mages decide to make a bunch of Talismans. One mage is a Temporal Wizard who started with the spell, the other mage could be just about any magic practitioner OCC. Let's assume each mage has a base PPE of 100 and can therefore temporarily hold up to 300 PPE for as many minutes as they have PE.

If the two mages sit on opposite sides of a city street with lots of pedestrian traffic, each mage can draw from the pedestrians that walk by. The RMB doesn't explicitly say how long it takes to draw PPE from an unsuspecting pedestrian, but it does say the pedestrian must save vs magic attack, so let's assume that drawing PPE takes the time as a regular magic attack. I know that RUE let's low level magic attacks cost only one attack per melee, but let's take it at a more relaxed pace of two PPE drawing attempts every 15 seconds (8 attempts per minute).

Normal people have 2D6 PPE and you can draw half of that (1D6) on a successful draw.
If we assume a pessimistic 50% success rate, there will be an average of four successful PPE draws each minute for an average of 14 PPE per minute per mage. Please note that the mages are on opposite sides of the street, so there's no risk of the trying to draw from the same pedestrian.

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Using similar math, you can see that using more buddies yields even more impressive results (still assuming only one buddy knows the Talisman invocation):
3 buddies: 12 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 4.8 Talisman/hour, 48 per 10 hour day
4 buddies: 10 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 5.7 Tal/hour, 57 per 10 hour day
5 buddies: 8 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 7 Tal/hour, 70 per 10 hour day

Remember, these are based on pessimistic assumptions. Ambitious buddies could do far better than this per hour and could work more than 10 hours a day if they wanted to.

Of course the more buddies you have, the more pedestrians you need. 2 buddies could successfully work the streets of a small town. Large numbers of buddies working together might have an easier time in a large city (in Manhattan, foot traffic can average hundreds of pedestrians a minute on high traffic streets).

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

--flatline

[Akashic Soldier]

Lets say one is a Ley Line Walker and the other is a Mystic.

Now what happens?

[jaymz]

Why bother when you can absorb 10 PPE per melee on a ley line for 40 per minute?

[flatline]

Why bother when you can absorb 10 PPE per melee on a ley line for 40 per minute?

I didn't say that my way was the optimal, in fact I pointed out several times that it was decidedly sub-optimal. I just choose it because you can apply the strategy anywhere there are people.

Ley Lines are great, but they can be dangerous. Much less stressful to be sipping Starbucks coffee in the local mall.

That said, a Ley Line really makes this strategy hum. Two buddies sitting on a ley line can create a Talisman every seven minutes for a whopping 85 Talismans per 10 hour day.

--flatline

[jaymz]

Certainly makes you wonder why Talismans aren't more prevalent than TW devices....

[flatline]

Certainly makes you wonder why Talismans aren't more prevalent than TW devices....

Two reasons just off the top of my head:
1. it contradicts the idea that magic is rare
2. people either haven't bothered to do the math or didn't realize the implications.

-flatline

[jaymz]

But in Rifts magic is anything BUT rare.

[flatline]

Lets say one is a Ley Line Walker and the other is a Mystic.

Now what happens?

If the Ley Line Walker learns Talisman somehow, then things can play out exactly as described.

Claiming that Talisman is "super rare" just doesn't survive economic inspection. It just takes one person who knows Talisman to sell it cheap (say $100k per student) to make it the most common spell in the Game. That person would be rich beyond his wildest dreams and any of his students could undercut his price to get a piece of the action. Eventually, competition would drive the price of learning the spell down to the cost of the time involved!

--flatline

[jaymz]

I can see talisman being one of those spells that, if known, would be......withheld. It gives a Mage a tremendous advantage if used properly and making it readily available essentially negates that particular Mage's advantage.

[flatline]

I can see talisman being one of those spells that, if known, would be......withheld. It gives a Mage a tremendous advantage if used properly and making it readily available essentially negates that particular Mage's advantage.

Do some reading on the topic of "economic game theory" to understand the failure of that thinking. Start with the "prisoner dilemma".

--flatline

[jaymz]

You do realize "economic game theory" isn't really applicable to Rifts right? If you did that you'd never have millions of Old Sams in storage/reserve

[Killer Cyborg]

If the two mages sit on opposite sides of a city street with lots of pedestrian traffic, each mage can draw from the pedestrians that walk by. The RMB doesn't explicitly say how long it takes to draw PPE from an unsuspecting pedestrian, but it does say the pedestrian must save vs magic attack, so let's assume that drawing PPE takes the time as a regular magic attack. I know that RUE let's low level magic attacks cost only one attack per melee, but let's take it at a more relaxed pace of two PPE drawing attempts every 15 seconds (8 attempts per minute).

Normal people have 2D6 PPE and you can draw half of that (1D6) on a successful draw.
If we assume a pessimistic 50% success rate, there will be an average of four successful PPE draws each minute for an average of 14 PPE per minute per mage. Please note that the mages are on opposite sides of the street, so there's no risk of the trying to draw from the same pedestrian.

Well, the radius of the ability in the RMB is 10' per level, so the mages couldn't pull this trick at first level.
But yes, you're quite right.

As of RUE, it's a bit up in the air, though, as RUE does not directly address drawing PPE from people without their knowledge.
This might be an indication that it is no longer possible.
Although I can see (and would support) the argument that because it's not addressed at all in RUE, the previous rules from the RMB would still be applicable.

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Granted, there might be some logistic issues, and some possible problems from loitering, but yeah- I agree with the general strategy as being viable.

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

The economics of Talisman should make it one of the most rarely known spells in the game, because it's not only 13th level, but very powerful.
And mages are a competitive bunch, who hoard their secrets.

For example, say you're a mage living in a city, and you know this spell. And you open up a magic shop, where you sell a lot of Talismans.
If another mage, even a first level mage, in your city learns that same spell, suddenly you have competition. The new guy can crank out a hell of a lot of Talismans in short order, using simple techniques such as you demonstrated, and suddenly the shop-owner's profit is cut in half.
Lower, really, because now not only is his customer base cut approximately in half, both mages are going to compete with each other, and that means lowering prices.
So before, our shop-owner might have sold something like 3 talismans a week for CR 30k-60 each*, but now he's selling 1.5 per week, for CR10k each, or lower.
And that's assuming that the new competition has similar business sense and work ethic as the original shop-keeper.
A single rogue mage who doesn't mind working hard could flood the market, working 5 days a week, selling 100 Talismans a week for CR 100 each would be pulling in CR10k a week, and that's some pretty good wages by a lot of people's standards.
The shop-owner could match that, but he'd be making a heck of a lot less money for a heck of a lot more work.


*Just to pull out some randomish numbers

[Akashic Soldier]

Killer Cyborg is right again. As usual.

[jaymz]

The economics of Talisman should make it one of the most rarely known spells in the game, because it's not only 13th level, but very powerful.
And mages are a competitive bunch, who hoard their secrets.

Which i sort of said above:

I can see talisman being one of those spells that, if known, would be......withheld. It gives a Mage a tremendous advantage if used properly and making it readily available essentially negates that particular Mage's advantage.

[flatline]

If the two mages sit on opposite sides of a city street with lots of pedestrian traffic, each mage can draw from the pedestrians that walk by. The RMB doesn't explicitly say how long it takes to draw PPE from an unsuspecting pedestrian, but it does say the pedestrian must save vs magic attack, so let's assume that drawing PPE takes the time as a regular magic attack. I know that RUE let's low level magic attacks cost only one attack per melee, but let's take it at a more relaxed pace of two PPE drawing attempts every 15 seconds (8 attempts per minute).

Normal people have 2D6 PPE and you can draw half of that (1D6) on a successful draw.
If we assume a pessimistic 50% success rate, there will be an average of four successful PPE draws each minute for an average of 14 PPE per minute per mage. Please note that the mages are on opposite sides of the street, so there's no risk of the trying to draw from the same pedestrian.

Well, the radius of the ability in the RMB is 10' per level, so the mages couldn't pull this trick at first level.
But yes, you're quite right.

As of RUE, it's a bit up in the air, though, as RUE does not directly address drawing PPE from people without their knowledge.
This might be an indication that it is no longer possible.
Although I can see (and would support) the argument that because it's not addressed at all in RUE, the previous rules from the RMB would still be applicable.

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Granted, there might be some logistic issues, and some possible problems from loitering, but yeah- I agree with the general strategy as being viable.

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

The economics of Talisman should make it one of the most rarely known spells in the game, because it's not only 13th level, but very powerful.
And mages are a competitive bunch, who hoard their secrets.

For example, say you're a mage living in a city, and you know this spell. And you open up a magic shop, where you sell a lot of Talismans.
If another mage, even a first level mage, in your city learns that same spell, suddenly you have competition. The new guy can crank out a hell of a lot of Talismans in short order, using simple techniques such as you demonstrated, and suddenly the shop-owner's profit is cut in half.
Lower, really, because now not only is his customer base cut approximately in half, both mages are going to compete with each other, and that means lowering prices.
So before, our shop-owner might have sold something like 3 talismans a week for CR 30k-60 each*, but now he's selling 1.5 per week, for CR10k each, or lower.
And that's assuming that the new competition has similar business sense and work ethic as the original shop-keeper.
A single rogue mage who doesn't mind working hard could flood the market, working 5 days a week, selling 100 Talismans a week for CR 100 each would be pulling in CR10k a week, and that's some pretty good wages by a lot of people's standards.
The shop-owner could match that, but he'd be making a heck of a lot less money for a heck of a lot more work.


*Just to pull out some randomish numbers

Please google for "prisoner dilemma" to understand why what you're proposing is unsustainable.

It only takes one mage willing to teach Talisman to make the whole house of cards come down.

--flatline

[jaymz]

@flatline - by your logic then shouldn't pretty much every mid level Mage have this spell? Why bother making it a 13ht level spell, why not make a 4th level or lower spell that just costs a lot of PPE to cast?

[Ed]

Might work. Problem being in NA most of the large population centers are either in CS territory, where the Dog Packs will get you; or in already magic heavy areas like FoM or Lazlo. Neither will appreciate some enterprising mage siphoning PPE from passerby; in the FoM they'd probably kill you for trying this. I'll have to mark this down as an interesting, if impractical, strategy.

[flatline]

@flatline - by your logic then shouldn't pretty much every mid level Mage have this spell? Why bother making it a 13ht level spell, why not make a 4th level or lower spell that just costs a lot of PPE to cast?

By my logic, learning the Talisman spell should be a top priority for any mage in the game that can learn it (poor Mystics...).

The fact that it's a level 13 spell indicates the level of difficulty of the spell which effects how long it takes to cast.

The fact that you don't have to be level 13 yourself in order to cast it is simply the way Palladium magic rules work.

--flatline

[Bill]

Ironically, I was about to write up a list of commonly available magic trinkets for my demo participants to choose from.

I think it makes perfect sense for talismans, amulets, and what not to be very common in Rifts. They have been heavily used throughout history. Mummies, for example, have at least seven of them included in their wrappings and most tombs include several more. Rationally, in the game, I think fakes and burned out pieces are more common than anything else. The uneducated, illiterate, superstitious population carries them around to ward off evil, bring luck or love, but can't tell the difference between a piece of ugly costume jewelry and an actual magic item. And if they're common enough, it would just be another piece of contraband. CS enforcers can use possession as an excuse to arrest, but most of the time they'd just confiscate and dispose of them.

[Killer Cyborg]

Please google for "prisoner dilemma" to understand why what you're proposing is unsustainable.

No need- I'm quite familiar with it.
As far as I can tell, it supports my point- mages can't trust each other to have something over on them, and so are less likely to share information that could come back to haunt them.

It only takes one mage willing to teach Talisman to make the whole house of cards come down.

--flatline

It only takes one mage willing to teach Talisman to make one mage end up dead in a ditch somewhere.

[Killer Cyborg]

@flatline - by your logic then shouldn't pretty much every mid level Mage have this spell? Why bother making it a 13ht level spell, why not make a 4th level or lower spell that just costs a lot of PPE to cast?

By my logic, learning the Talisman spell should be a top priority for any mage in the game that can learn it (poor Mystics...).

And I agree.
But wanting something and being able to have it are two different things.

[Karen]

Box stores are an example of selling more quantity for less to be a successful concept. Shoes, Clothing and more are now made quick and cheap putting out of business the shop owners who used to produce such products the 'old fashioned' way.

[flatline]

Might work. Problem being in NA most of the large population centers are either in CS territory, where the Dog Packs will get you; or in already magic heavy areas like FoM or Lazlo. Neither will appreciate some enterprising mage siphoning PPE from passerby; in the FoM they'd probably kill you for trying this. I'll have to mark this down as an interesting, if impractical, strategy.

What I presented is a sub-optimal strategy especially if you already have access to a ley line, but it is completely practical.

If you can't find people or a ley line, you could use livestock or rats in a cages.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

If you can't find people or a ley line, you could use livestock or rats in a cages.

--flatline

There are some technical ethical questions, but a poster quite a while back apparently had his mage living in an apartment above a slaughterhouse, where he siphoned off PPE every time an animal was killed (if he needed it).

[DhAkael]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
*runs around clutching own head in obvious anger/agony/frustration*
-BOOM-
*Head ass'plodes*

How many times must the mantra be invoked until it is understood?
"The final ruling on any point of game mechanics is the purview of the GM. Period. Full-stop. End-of-line."

If a GM WANTS to have uber-powerful USEFUL magic common as a wikkipedia entry, then that is their game.
If a GM wants magi to be insular, paranoid, and VERY VERY uncooperative, that's fine too. Their sandbox, their roolz.
Arguing pro / con on either point will result in ANOTHER circular argument that will fill multiple thread posts above and beyond the actual subject POINT of the original post.

Just sayin'...

[jaymz]

That maybe Cyber BUT to come on here and present it without expecting others to tear it apart is a bit naive.

I make changes too that quite a few would disagree with. For instance in my games an average mid-high level LLW could cast the above Talisman spell just using his/her base PPE without having to absorb any at all. I also use PPE channeling amongst other things. However I do not try to argue that my way is right and all otehrs are wrong. not saying flatline is either but it does come across that way at times from both sides.

[Bill]

Um, as... odd as that was, he does prove a very good point. This isn't Hackmaster of KotDT, where der fuhrer... er, the gawdfather of gaming comes in and wuss slaps you for a minor deviation of the rules, it ultimately IS each GM's own game. Want to replace humans with Wolfen, fine by me. Want to make ley lines green isntead of blue? Go right ahead. Want to use the GURPS and Urban Arcana methods of using magic in the modern age... actually, this I damn well expect from myself as a palyer AND a GM. If you want to change the setting to that it fits your particular tastes as well as the tastes of your players, THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF PLAYING A GAME. Let Palladium have its default setting, for Rifts TRUELY, is limited only by our imaginations.

Five yard penalty. Attempting to be reasonable on an Internet forum.

[Grell]

Anything less than an alchemist's talisman is not worth that much effort to mass produce since they don't automatically recharge per 24 hour period.

[Killer Cyborg]

How many times must the mantra be invoked until it is understood?
"The final ruling on any point of game mechanics is the purview of the GM. Period. Full-stop. End-of-line."

How many times does somebody have to wander into a conversation, assume that everybody else is a moron, and state the blithering obvious as if it was either new or relevant to the conversation?

It's not that hard to get, dude- we're not talking about house rules or house setting changes.
We're discussing our views on the game as written and as intended.

I have no idea how exactly this is boggling your mind, and I have no idea why, but I'd simply love it if you could grasp that simple concept.

Just sayin....

[Killer Cyborg]

If you can't find people or a ley line, you could use livestock or rats in a cages.

--flatline

There are some technical ethical questions, but a poster quite a while back apparently had his mage living in an apartment above a slaughterhouse, where he siphoned off PPE every time an animal was killed (if he needed it).

Waste not, want not.

Doing it in a children's hospital might be pushing it though...

[Ed]

Might work. Problem being in NA most of the large population centers are either in CS territory, where the Dog Packs will get you; or in already magic heavy areas like FoM or Lazlo. Neither will appreciate some enterprising mage siphoning PPE from passerby; in the FoM they'd probably kill you for trying this. I'll have to mark this down as an interesting, if impractical, strategy.

What I presented is a sub-optimal strategy especially if you already have access to a ley line, but it is completely practical.

If you can't find people or a ley line, you could use livestock or rats in a cages.

--flatline

Very true. I never said anything was wrong with the technique itself; it's not however, patented or unique. As KC pointed out there have been variations discussed here before. Ultimately, in a setting where 13th level spells get passed around like grade-school Valentines, I'm going to have to say all the good spots are already taken.

[Ed]

How many times must the mantra be invoked until it is understood?
"The final ruling on any point of game mechanics is the purview of the GM. Period. Full-stop. End-of-line."

How many times does somebody have to wander into a conversation, assume that everybody else is a moron, and state the blithering obvious as if it was either new or relevant to the conversation?

It's not that hard to get, dude- we're not talking about house rules or house setting changes.
We're discussing our views on the game as written and as intended.

I have no idea how exactly this is boggling your mind, and I have no idea why, but I'd simply love it if you could grasp that simple concept.

Just sayin....

If I didn't already like my sig line, I'd have to give this serious consideration.

[Armorlord]

My main issue is that your aren't going to get away with playing PPE vampire on a busy street for long.
There isn't a busy street on Rifts Earth were you could get away with that.
Psychics, Dog Boys, DBees, other magic users.. If you're in an area where they aren't knowledgeable about magic, just staring at people all day is going to get you run off even before we get into standing around casting spells on a busy street and CS patrols. If you're in an area that knows magic, you're going to get called out on theft of PPE, or get beat down by trying to pick the wrong mark's lifeforce.
Sorry man, you're just going to have to pay them. No free rides.

[drewkitty ~..~]

As to the original post, yes, the math looks like it works out for making blank Talismans.

Spoiler:

From my reading of the Talisman text I found the following works best to fit the text.
There is a 500 PPE cost to make a blank T.
The cost for (re)charging a T is 50 PPE & the casting of the spell into the T, or the PPE being stored in the T.

However, I noticed another assumption the poster was that none of the pedestrians were not "repeat customers". Except that they might be in the 50% failure rate.

[Bill]

A better reason to not set up a talisman factory just occurred to me. Such a place would attract PPE vampires like an outhouse draws flies. Forget the coalition psi-stalkers and their pooches, the wild stalkers that answer to nobody are likely to show up and kill our erstwhile entrepreneurs regardless of where they've set up shop!

[Grell]

Anything less than an alchemist's talisman is not worth that much effort to mass produce since they don't automatically recharge per 24 hour period.

unless it is meant to be a booby trap or talismanic grenade!

This idea has merit.

[Zamion138]

What about communist. Mages that want to share the know how to all. One pinko mage teaches 20 some odd that the ruling class of higher mages dragons and such are holding down the working class mages. He makes pamflets and runs teach ins and other hippie practices, sure some one might shut him up but how many people did he talk to/teach before he was gutted in the street by the capatlist mages?

Then look at a magic nation at war, it would be your civic duty to give up ppe to the war effort. Andit would be like donating blood. A nation devotes its self to total war and school kids help the war efforts every other day when the nice mages come by with candy so you can be leached off of. How many ppe does an elementry school have in the it? No ones hurting the kids and they could be learning a vaulble skill or two........

[Nightmask]

What about communist. Mages that want to share the know how to all. One pinko mage teaches 20 some odd that the ruling class of higher mages dragons and such are holding down the working class mages. He makes pamflets and runs teach ins and other hippie practices, sure some one might shut him up but how many people did he talk to/teach before he was gutted in the street by the capatlist mages?

Then look at a magic nation at war, it would be your civic duty to give up ppe to the war effort. Andit would be like donating blood. A nation devotes its self to total war and school kids help the war efforts every other day when the nice mages come by with candy so you can be leached off of. How many ppe does an elementry school have in the it? No ones hurting the kids and they could be learning a vaulble skill or two........

Hey, now THAT'S something! Normal people aren't even effected by loss of PPE to the best of my knowledge, AND you don't need a needle stuck into you to get it out,AND kids are chock full of that stuff! Awesome!

So a cabal of mages construct a primary school as a giant PPE collecting device, like that slaughterhouse in Through The Glass Darkly, only without killing anything? Although I think there is mention of PPE loss causing problems, not sure where it was but likely in one of the books like the Nightbane series or Beyond The Supernatural where magic is more dangerous to users as well as targets. Since PPE is after all a product of life continuous draining of it should have some detrimental impact.

[Armorlord]

A nation devotes its self to total war and school kids help the war efforts every other day when the nice mages come by with candy so you can be leached off of. How many ppe does an elementry school have in the it? No ones hurting the kids and they could be learning a vaulble skill or two........

Considering that children's PPE is being burnt in their development and learning, I could see regular siphoning from them having very negative effects on their development.
But as far as adults, I've always seen 'Feeder' as a viable unskilled profession in magic societies, people that willingly feed PPE to mages for money or food or as a civic duty (or slaves).
On a similar note, I'm not sure what the sudden hubbub is about regarding Talismans, they're practically a requirement for major magical works in a large magic society. The thing to remember is that you still have to recharge them manually after use. Good for building up a supply, but it is still limited.
TW societies don't even need to worry about that spell, instead putting a premium on diamond batteries or similar energy reserves, then recharging them over time at pyramids, nexuses, and/or leylines.

Hell, why do you think things went nuts the way they did at the Fall of Tolkieen? They ruptured the PPE network and started a cascade failure that started releasing PPE in great quantities, causing a simulation of the Great Cataclysm in miniature.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I just posted a story in another thread where the player character makes use of several Talismans made by her boss and, as it turns out, there is some ignorance floating about on the practical application of magic, so I thought I'd start an educational thread on the subject.

*Raises hand* That was me. Don't fret. I can read.

It hasn't come up yet in the other thread, but I'm sure that eventually someone will complain that it's hard to make as many Talismans as the characters seem to have.

It's clear that it's SUPPOSED to be.

Not true.

Let's assume two low level mages decide to make a bunch of Talismans. One mage is a Temporal Wizard who started with the spell

Where'd the first level mage get the $1,000,000 to get the spell? I know you start with some spells but there has to be logic in there right? you can't just chose all million cretit spells with no explanation can you? Or are you ignoring that any spell over lvl 10 costs a million bucks plus to learn? Often 10 to 100% more... and there's a 10% chance of being able to find the spell to learn the spell when looking?

Isn't this akin to looking on an equipment list and seeing "one hand to hand weapon" and choosing a greater rune weapon for the hand to hand one. "Because it didn't stipulate and hey, it's starting gear"?

, the other mage could be just about any magic practitioner OCC. Let's assume each mage has a base PPE of 100 and can therefore temporarily hold up to 300 PPE for as many minutes as they have PE.

Note this part... be cause it indicates that doing so is hard to do. You can only cram it in as long as you have PE, thusly it drains your endurance and is hard on you. In short you can't do it all day long.

If the two mages sit on opposite sides of a city street with lots of pedestrian traffic, each mage can draw from the pedestrians that walk by. The RMB doesn't explicitly say how long it takes to draw PPE from an unsuspecting pedestrian, but it does say the pedestrian must save vs magic attack, so let's assume that drawing PPE takes the time as a regular magic attack. I know that RUE let's low level magic attacks cost only one attack per melee, but let's take it at a more relaxed pace of two PPE drawing attempts every 15 seconds (8 attempts per minute).

Hoooooooooooooooooooooold it. Wait wait wait. Now... I know up till last night I didn't look deep into this but I -can- read. You're glossing over some things here. To quote

RUE: Page 186, under Other sources for PPE

"Drawing PPE from an unwilling subject is difficult" Their italics.

"The unwilling participant must first be made aware of the mage's intentions, then the unwilling character gets to make a savings throw vs magic with a bonous of +4 to save. If he saves none of his PPE can be taken if he fails to save only 1% can be drained because he's fighting the process every step of the way. It doesn't matter why the character resists, only that he does"

So your entire 'Sittin' on the street siphoning from people walking by fails right here. Even trying it is hard. Know why? It says so.. in italics to make sure it's not missed. On top of that.. to even try it, you make the person aware of your intentions. They can FEEL you trying to rip their PPE from them. You're drawing out their life force. Even non mages can feel you trying to do something.. then they get the reflexive save. The save is at +4, and even if they fail you only get 1%. As most people don't have 100PPE (( out side of mages)) you won't even get 1PPE per person walking by.

More over, you sitting there chanting your spell casting and stuff to try and work this, will bbe noticed for the energy raper you are, and you do it to a few people and they're going to get the cops or the guards or who ever takes care of the town. Failing that they might just draw their laser pistols and shoot you in the face. Or throw rocks at your head.

You can't just unwittingly rape the energy off people. The description of taking it from unwilling people is clear. You must let them know and then they get a savings throw. Even if they fail, you only get 1%.

You go "Well if it's so frigging hard (( as it tells you it is)) and the returns are so low... why's it in the book then, Jedi?"

I'll tell you... ------ ITS TO STOP STUPID TWINKY CRAP LIKE THIS ENTIRE POSTED ACTIVITY FROM HAPPENING----- That's why. it's to keep people from just sitting on the street and raping people for their PPE and using it for self gain.

It makes you have willing donors... or SACRIFICE to get it. (( or use the normal ways which are alot slower. Meditation to recoup. Going to lay-lines and using them. ect))

It's right there in the book. Tells you it's hard then shows you just how hard it is.

Normal people have 2D6 PPE and you can draw half of that (1D6) on a successful draw.
If we assume a pessimistic 50% success rate, there will be an average of four successful PPE draws each minute for an average of 14 PPE per minute per mage. Please note that the mages are on opposite sides of the street, so there's no risk of the trying to draw from the same pedestrian.

There's no risk from any pedestrian really. With the bonus to savings throw and even if they fail you're only getting 1% of 1-12, you're gettting less than 1PPE per, and you're pissing off every one you try it on. Well. maybe not everyone. Drunk people or you know, emo kids might not freak but most people are going to.

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Using similar math, you can see that using more buddies yields even more impressive results (still assuming only one buddy knows the Talisman invocation):
3 buddies: 12 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 4.8 Talisman/hour, 48 per 10 hour day
4 buddies: 10 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 5.7 Tal/hour, 57 per 10 hour day
5 buddies: 8 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 7 Tal/hour, 70 per 10 hour day

Remember, these are based on pessimistic assumptions.

And ignoring the rules.

Ambitious buddies could do far better than this per hour and could work more than 10 hours a day if they wanted to.

Of course the more buddies you have, the more pedestrians you need. 2 buddies could successfully work the streets of a small town. Large numbers of buddies working together might have an easier time in a large city (in Manhattan, foot traffic can average hundreds of pedestrians a minute on high traffic streets).

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

--flatline

You are failing to factor in a number of factors.

1) That to use magic it takes actions and chanting of the spells.
2) that unwilling PPE draws alerts the people you're yanking the energy out of and they can resist and even if they fail you only get 1%
3) Trying to rip the living energy out of people is going to make them mad. Sure. most might no know WHAT you're doing but you're sitting there on the street doing mage like things and suddenly they start to feel drained and shrug it off, it's not going to take long to put two and two together.
4) You're 100% ignoring that the spell is VERY high level. VERY hard to get, and mages are NOT loving happy freely sharing individuals. Even the good ones are secretive and don't share with people just because. Not the big stuff. Over level 4 or so. Look at the costs to learn spells. They're huge. The spell you're looking for can only be found one in ten times, and that's in places that have access to that high level of knowledge. mage colleges or Lazlo and thhe like,, and it goes forr 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 credits to learn if you find someone willing to teach it.

Reading down through the thread you act like it's going to be shared around. No... it's really not. If you forked out One million to two million for something, youre not going to pass it out gratis. Much less if you're an evil Temporal wizard. That's just BS. If you have something worth a Million to two million the only way someone's going to learn it is 1) if they have one to two million and 2) They're not going to compete with you or ever ever use it against you. This is a very high level magic spell. Not 'summon water'.

Mages are in it for themselves. they might take on an appiritance... and after years if not decades of trust is built might teach them high level spells, but otherwise.. they get paid... and noone's going to just flood the market for the betterment of all.

Even if they wanted to.. the rest of the market would stop them.

Say you're mage Bob.. and you know the talisman spell... and Mage Darrel comes in and wants to learn it.. .and you look at him and go ... "That's a high level spell" andd Darrel goes "It's ok. I have money" and you charge him the going rate... 1.5 million for your neck of the woods... and if Darrel has it.. and you teach him. Now there's two people with the spell.

If Darrel starts passing it out for 100, He's not going to suddenly be rich. A) There's not that many mages out there that will just pour money on him to make up the difference between $100, and $1,000,000... and B) Bob is going to be all like 'DO WHAT? That fool is cutting into my profits. Noones going to pay me a million if he's passing it out for $100."

At the very least, Bob (( Who is likely more powerful than Darrel as he is the one that taught Darrel the spell)) is going to talk to Darrel and tell him he better cut that sh!t out. It's hurting the mages as a whole.... and Bob specifically. If Darrel goes 'Oh but Bob. the spells want to be free!" Bob is going to fry his ass.

If you start passing out very high level spells to level 1 idiots, the others in the magic community are going to self regulate. They're gong to come and stop you, as it messes with their status quo (( and cuts into their own profits of millions per)).

~~~


As a side note.. the entire premise you have here is pretty much the definition of rule abuse, if your gm let you do it. Not that you could do it the way you've projected but you're doing nothing but looking at numbers on the page and 100% ignoring the setting. Where this sort of stuff isn't that easy and they're not that easy to come by and the mages do NOT share their secrets and the things just aren't that easy to make. "by the numbers (if you ignore a rule or two)" You might be able to do it...

but 'By the numbers' you could 'hack' the SDF1 if you did enough rolls and trigger it to shoot earth with the main gun.

It's a twinky attempt to smoosh the rules. And yeah, if you try it, in world, any number of factors would stop you. If nothing else, someone's going to come knife you in your sleep to steal all your twinky made crap.

The entire premise might be cute, if it wasn't dangerous, in that some people might actually think, that playing and bending rules nad ignoring setting and 'getting rich effortlessly sitting on a corner at level one" is the way to be.

When in truth it's a perversion of the rules and purposeful twinking and 'gaming' the system.

As a side note.. all you have to do to get your twinky crap working is to have him form a cult of a few 100 people that would willingly give you thheir PPE. Seeing as you're an Evil temporal wizard to start with, and it does say they like to kingdom build... that would get you arouund the 'Unwilling PPE rape" difficulty and likely get you past the "Getting shot in the face for trying it" part too.

Not that I condone the behavior, but more just to show that it's not 'impossible' just the way you've put forth would get you stoned (( with rocks, not drugs)) or blasted or something in very short order.

Granted, forming a cult isn't 'easy' when you're an evil wizard.. but they tend to do it. Fear works I guess. Go squat in some rural town. Use your powers to blow away all the defenders, take it over and form your cult that way or something.

Even then if you start making a talisman factory someone's going to put a stop to it. be it a cyber knight or competitor.

[Lenwen]

I just posted a story in another thread where the player character makes use of several Talismans made by her boss and, as it turns out, there is some ignorance floating about on the practical application of magic, so I thought I'd start an educational thread on the subject.

It hasn't come up yet in the other thread, but I'm sure that eventually someone will complain that it's hard to make as many Talismans as the characters seem to have.

Not true.

Let's assume two low level mages decide to make a bunch of Talismans. One mage is a Temporal Wizard who started with the spell, the other mage could be just about any magic practitioner OCC. Let's assume each mage has a base PPE of 100 and can therefore temporarily hold up to 300 PPE for as many minutes as they have PE.

If the two mages sit on opposite sides of a city street with lots of pedestrian traffic, each mage can draw from the pedestrians that walk by. The RMB doesn't explicitly say how long it takes to draw PPE from an unsuspecting pedestrian, but it does say the pedestrian must save vs magic attack, so let's assume that drawing PPE takes the time as a regular magic attack. I know that RUE let's low level magic attacks cost only one attack per melee, but let's take it at a more relaxed pace of two PPE drawing attempts every 15 seconds (8 attempts per minute).

Normal people have 2D6 PPE and you can draw half of that (1D6) on a successful draw.
If we assume a pessimistic 50% success rate, there will be an average of four successful PPE draws each minute for an average of 14 PPE per minute per mage. Please note that the mages are on opposite sides of the street, so there's no risk of the trying to draw from the same pedestrian.

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Using similar math, you can see that using more buddies yields even more impressive results (still assuming only one buddy knows the Talisman invocation):
3 buddies: 12 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 4.8 Talisman/hour, 48 per 10 hour day
4 buddies: 10 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 5.7 Tal/hour, 57 per 10 hour day
5 buddies: 8 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 7 Tal/hour, 70 per 10 hour day

Remember, these are based on pessimistic assumptions. Ambitious buddies could do far better than this per hour and could work more than 10 hours a day if they wanted to.

Of course the more buddies you have, the more pedestrians you need. 2 buddies could successfully work the streets of a small town. Large numbers of buddies working together might have an easier time in a large city (in Manhattan, foot traffic can average hundreds of pedestrians a minute on high traffic streets).

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

--flatline

That is also .. not including the use the the Energy Sphere spell ..

That alone would make Talismen creation trivial PPE wise ..

[Lenwen]

It hasn't come up yet in the other thread, but I'm sure that eventually someone will complain that it's hard to make as many Talismans as the characters seem to have.

It's clear that it's SUPPOSED to be.

And it would still be .. even if this very instance was happening ...

Not true.

Let's assume two low level mages decide to make a bunch of Talismans. One mage is a Temporal Wizard who started with the spell

Isn't this akin to looking on an equipment list and seeing "one hand to hand weapon" and choosing a greater rune weapon for the hand to hand one. "Because it didn't stipulate and hey, it's starting gear"?

No its not. You are comparing literally game changing weapons .. to a talismen that holds 3 spells ..

They are no where near .. the same thing no matter how badly you wish them to be ..

, the other mage could be just about any magic practitioner OCC. Let's assume each mage has a base PPE of 100 and can therefore temporarily hold up to 300 PPE for as many minutes as they have PE.

Note this part... be cause it indicates that doing so is hard to do. You can only cram it in as long as you have PE, thusly it drains your endurance and is hard on you. In short you can't do it all day long.

You can if you use the Energy Sphere spell ..

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Using similar math, you can see that using more buddies yields even more impressive results (still assuming only one buddy knows the Talisman invocation):
3 buddies: 12 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 4.8 Talisman/hour, 48 per 10 hour day
4 buddies: 10 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 5.7 Tal/hour, 57 per 10 hour day
5 buddies: 8 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 7 Tal/hour, 70 per 10 hour day

Remember, these are based on pessimistic assumptions.

And ignoring the rules.

PJ, which rules are being ignored ?

Ambitious buddies could do far better than this per hour and could work more than 10 hours a day if they wanted to.

Of course the more buddies you have, the more pedestrians you need. 2 buddies could successfully work the streets of a small town. Large numbers of buddies working together might have an easier time in a large city (in Manhattan, foot traffic can average hundreds of pedestrians a minute on high traffic streets).

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

--flatline

You are failing to factor in a number of factors.

1) That to use magic it takes actions and chanting of the spells.
2) that unwilling PPE draws alerts the people you're yanking the energy out of and they can resist and even if they fail you only get 1%
4) You're 100% ignoring that the spell is VERY high level. VERY hard to get, and mages are NOT loving happy freely sharing individuals. Even the good ones are secretive and don't share with people just because. Not the big stuff. Over level 4 or so. Look at the costs to learn spells. They're huge. The spell you're looking for can only be found one in ten times, and that's in places that have access to that high level of knowledge. mage colleges or Lazlo and thhe like,, and it goes forr 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 credits to learn if you find someone willing to teach it. [/quote]
1)- Has no bering on the overall operation of the creation of Talismen .. Lets be real .. your not going to attempt to create a talismen in the middle of combat or anything stupid .. come on now ..
2) - So just put a sign up that states .. two mages are drawing 1d4 PPE from each person who passes by .. And now they know whats going on an the mages are able to draw upon said street walking people ..
3) - Very hard .. does not mean "can not get" .. For all you or I know in this instance the mage with the Talismen spell could be royalty from some where we have no idea where .. and already have the spell there their royal connections .. or have bought it with their weekly allowence of 1 million to 2 million credits ..

[Armorlord]

2) - So just put a sign up that states .. two mages are drawing 1d4 PPE from each person who passes by .. And now they know whats going on an the mages are able to draw upon said street walking people ..

People aren't just going to let them have something for nothing. Outside of the equivalent of a blood drive, people are going to want compensation for providing that PPE whether it inconveniences them or not. Particularly in a mage-accepting town where the relative value of that energy is known.
In a mage-fearing town, well.. good luck with that.

@Pepsi Jedi: Flatline is trying to use a rule from the RMB that was not included in RUE for taking energy without people's knowledge, not forgotten- the whole rest of that section is there except for that bit. Though it should be noted that, if he's going to go by RMB, it doesn't say anything about being able to store or hold any of that energy. Neither does RUE, for that matter. Only the RUE section on sacrifices mentions holding PPE for 6 minutes and then leaking it like a sieve. Which I could be willing to apply to the other techniques in the list, but I have no idea where his 'minutes per PE' is coming from.

[Pepsi Jedi]

It hasn't come up yet in the other thread, but I'm sure that eventually someone will complain that it's hard to make as many Talismans as the characters seem to have.

It's clear that it's SUPPOSED to be.

And it would still be .. even if this very instance was happening ...

Not true.

Let's assume two low level mages decide to make a bunch of Talismans. One mage is a Temporal Wizard who started with the spell

Isn't this akin to looking on an equipment list and seeing "one hand to hand weapon" and choosing a greater rune weapon for the hand to hand one. "Because it didn't stipulate and hey, it's starting gear"?

No its not. You are comparing literally game changing weapons .. to a talismen that holds 3 spells ..

No Lenwen. Not to a simple talisman.. To the -level 13th spell for free at level 1- That would give you, at first level, unlimited ability to make unlimited talismans as long as you sit on a layline and pick up rocks to turn into talismans.

A spell that -by itself- costs 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 if you can even find it. I'm comparing THAT ... to a rune weapon.

They are no where near .. the same thing no matter how badly you wish them to be ..

They're both very powerful very expensive things you're slippin' in at character creation..... they're pretty much the same way. "Oh it says I can have any 4 spells. I'm going to choose a few spells of legend, and this level 13 spell so I can make unlimited talismans. Cuz it doesn't say I can't"

Same thing as going "It said a hand to hand weapon. Rune weapons are (usualy) hand to hand weapons, so I'm choosing it."

, the other mage could be just about any magic practitioner OCC. Let's assume each mage has a base PPE of 100 and can therefore temporarily hold up to 300 PPE for as many minutes as they have PE.

Note this part... be cause it indicates that doing so is hard to do. You can only cram it in as long as you have PE, thusly it drains your endurance and is hard on you. In short you can't do it all day long.

You can if you use the Energy Sphere spell ..

That's nice, but wasn't used in the example at the time.

At 14 PPE per minute per mage, it take slightly less than 18 minutes for each mage to absorb 250 PPE and only the last 150 of that is above their normal PPE limit so as long as they have a PE of 10 or higher, there's no risk of losing it before they can use it. If it takes 1 minute to for one mage to cross the street and 30 seconds to cast Talisman (presumably out of sight in a dimension envelope prepared ahead of time), the two low level mages can create an average of three Talismans every hour working at this relaxed pace.

A relaxed 10 hour day would result in 30 Talismans.

Using similar math, you can see that using more buddies yields even more impressive results (still assuming only one buddy knows the Talisman invocation):
3 buddies: 12 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 4.8 Talisman/hour, 48 per 10 hour day
4 buddies: 10 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 5.7 Tal/hour, 57 per 10 hour day
5 buddies: 8 minutes to fill up and come together, 30 seconds to cast: 7 Tal/hour, 70 per 10 hour day

Remember, these are based on pessimistic assumptions.

And ignoring the rules.

PJ, which rules are being ignored ?

The one where you can't just sit there and energy rape people, because the book states it's hard and the person gets the savings throw at +4, and even if they FAIL the savings throw, you only get 1% of their ppe. 1% of 2 to 12 ppe is less than one PPE per person. Even assuming each person had 12, you'd need a goodly number of people before you could even scrape up 1ppe from this method.

Ambitious buddies could do far better than this per hour and could work more than 10 hours a day if they wanted to.

Of course the more buddies you have, the more pedestrians you need. 2 buddies could successfully work the streets of a small town. Large numbers of buddies working together might have an easier time in a large city (in Manhattan, foot traffic can average hundreds of pedestrians a minute on high traffic streets).

As food for thought, the economics of Talisman should make it the single most commonly known spell in the game even though it's level 13 and may cost Millions to purchase.

--flatline

You are failing to factor in a number of factors.

1) That to use magic it takes actions and chanting of the spells.
2) that unwilling PPE draws alerts the people you're yanking the energy out of and they can resist and even if they fail you only get 1%
4) You're 100% ignoring that the spell is VERY high level. VERY hard to get, and mages are NOT loving happy freely sharing individuals. Even the good ones are secretive and don't share with people just because. Not the big stuff. Over level 4 or so. Look at the costs to learn spells. They're huge. The spell you're looking for can only be found one in ten times, and that's in places that have access to that high level of knowledge. mage colleges or Lazlo and thhe like,, and it goes forr 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 credits to learn if you find someone willing to teach it.

1)- Has no bering on the overall operation of the creation of Talismen .. Lets be real .. your not going to attempt to create a talismen in the middle of combat or anything stupid .. come on now .. [/quote]

No but you're sitting on the street (( in this example)) Trying to ripp the mystical energy from people walking by. They notice that sort of thing. lol

2) - So just put a sign up that states .. two mages are drawing 1d4 PPE from each person who passes by .. And now they know whats going on an the mages are able to draw upon said street walking people ..

LOL ok. and you're there about 5 minutes before the cops come and move you along at best.. if you're not attacked right out for trying to rip energy from people. Smart one. "We're going to steal your very psychic essence! Thanks guys!" You deserve the quick death that will come your way.

3) - Very hard .. does not mean "can not get" .. For all you or I know in this instance the mage with the Talismen spell could be royalty from some where we have no idea where .. and already have the spell there their royal connections .. or have bought it with their weekly allowence of 1 million to 2 million credits ..

And again we're back to stupidly absurd type chars. If he gets a weekly allowance of 2 million credits... .... then why are you scamming the rules to try and make talismans for sale?

[Pepsi Jedi]

2) - So just put a sign up that states .. two mages are drawing 1d4 PPE from each person who passes by .. And now they know whats going on an the mages are able to draw upon said street walking people ..

People aren't just going to let them have something for nothing. Outside of the equivalent of a blood drive, people are going to want compensation for providing that PPE whether it inconveniences them or not. Particularly in a mage-accepting town where the relative value of that energy is known.
In a mage-fearing town, well.. good luck with that.

@Pepsi Jedi: Flatline is trying to use a rule from the RMB that was not included in RUE for taking energy without people's knowledge, not forgotten- the whole rest of that section is there except for that bit. Though it should be noted that, if he's going to go by RMB, it doesn't say anything about being able to store or hold any of that energy. Neither does RUE, for that matter. Only the RUE section on sacrifices mentions holding PPE for 6 minutes and then leaking it like a sieve. Which I could be willing to apply to the other techniques in the list, but I have no idea where his 'minutes per PE' is coming from.

Ahh... I'm jus' going by the most recent rules (( that I looked up last night. lol)) I didn't cross reference with the 20 year old book. I'll admit to that ignorance. Still, by the rules in the newest book, it doesn't work. But thank you for the explanation.

[Lenwen]

Still an easy fix .. simply head to a nexus .. and use the spell Energy Sphere .. create 4 of them 2 for your buddy 2 for yourself .. dependent upon your level you could make quite alotta talismen with just those 4 energy spheres.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Still an easy fix .. simply head to a nexus .. and use the spell Energy Sphere .. create 4 of them 2 for your buddy 2 for yourself .. dependent upon your level you could make quite alotta talismen with just those 4 energy spheres.

I already offered a way to 'fix' the twinkfest BS.... I haven't looked up the Energy Sphere, but if it works as you say (( if)) Then sure, there's another way.

[Lenwen]

Still an easy fix .. simply head to a nexus .. and use the spell Energy Sphere .. create 4 of them 2 for your buddy 2 for yourself .. dependent upon your level you could make quite alotta talismen with just those 4 energy spheres.

I already offered a way to 'fix' the twinkfest BS.... I haven't looked up the Energy Sphere, but if it works as you say (( if)) Then sure, there's another way.

It does .. work as I stated.

There is no doubt about it .

[Pepsi Jedi]

Still an easy fix .. simply head to a nexus .. and use the spell Energy Sphere .. create 4 of them 2 for your buddy 2 for yourself .. dependent upon your level you could make quite alotta talismen with just those 4 energy spheres.

I already offered a way to 'fix' the twinkfest BS.... I haven't looked up the Energy Sphere, but if it works as you say (( if)) Then sure, there's another way.

It does .. work as I stated.

There is no doubt about it .

I've dealt with you long enough to doubt everything you say till I verify. Got a book and page number so I can look it up?

[Lenwen]

I've dealt with you long enough to doubt everything you say till I verify.

I'd personally not have it any other way

Got a book and page number so I can look it up?

BoM, pg 140 for the "Energy Sphere" spell.

Rifts Ultimate Edition pg 116. for LLW's for the +20 per melee at a ley line and +40 per melee at a nexus PPE supplemental.