Empowerment

Originally posted by Saxon:
The cost of empowerment is based upon the already existing magic skill. I am in the office, so I can not check this quickly, but does the cost get determined by the actual level or the level modified by any items?

Actual level.

As a follow on, does it make sense to hand off any magic items when empowering, then getting them back the next turn. Alternatively, I think that if you have zero skill, the cost of getting level one is higher than the cost of going from one to two. Would it make sense to give someone with zero an item, so as to empower them?

When you have 0 skill it doesn't give you any additional paths, it still costs 50 Gems to empower in your first path rank.