I play in another home-grown game that has used Ars Magica as its framework for its magic system. We're always having difficulty raising enough power to cast high-level spells. Which started making me think of the Aegis, and the argument of Penetration with the Aegis. Assuming your Aegis has to penetrate and you aim for it to be nigh impregnable, people have to hit casting totals of 80 to 100 or greater (40 pt Aegis, 40 pt penetration as a minimum in a high fantasy magic world).
Now, much like there are Longevity Ritual specialists, are there Ritual Booster Specialists out there? Let's say you can hit a Muto Vim Lab total of 60 (assuming Aff/Puis Muto, Aff/Puis Vim, Puis Magic Theory and a specialized lab - not even that hard for a mage aged to around 60). Would it be worth it to spend a season create 4 charged Items of Wizard's communion at Level 40 each (Level 40 Wizard's Communion, no penetration because everyone is working together, 5 points over per item so 4 one charge item). So with one season's worth of lab work, a group of 4 magi could conceivably cast an Aegis of the Hearth with 160 points of power, and that's not even counting the power the caster is adding in. That level of penetration would even affect dragons or angels, I would think. Hell, you wouldn't even need 4 magi. Just one magi with an insane level of Aegis known and a bunch of custos to activate the one charge magic items. Or if I create Charged Items of Wizard's Communion, can I activate them and charge myself? Or a massive "Winds of Mundane Silence" to nerf down the power of an Aegis by stacking Wizard's Communions to penetrate it.
Has this been done before? Am I missing something that stops a crazy, paranoid wizard from pre-preppin' these one-shot rocks of penetrating power?
"You may only put a Muto Vim effect into a magical item if it is to work with another effect in that item. All Muto Vim spells require some tailoring to the specific use, and a magical item effect cannot be so tailored."
Is this not the point of Wzard's Communion? Your Rego Vim specialist gets his lab total as high as possible to create/learn the highest Aegis possible. Then everyone gets together and casts it at twice the level for sweet sweet pen?
I knew I was missing something! Haha - thanks. Was pretty sure someone had to have thought of it before.
That is the point of Wizard's Communion, but the exercise was how to generate the power of a full covenant of mastered Wizard's Communions with only one or two magi.
Artes Liberales (high value on ritual casting)
Philosophae (high value on ritual casting)
Mastery (high value Mastery with Penetration Mastery effectively counts double)
Vis Boosting (high arts score = lots of vis to throw at it)
Talisman S/M bonuses to Rego, Vim and Wards (high Magic Theory allows lots of this)
An 'old' magus could conservatively have Artes Liberales 5, Philosophae 5, Mastery (Aegis of the Hearth) 3 and +10 in S/M bonuses, that's +23 casting total and another +3 on Penetration, on top of Penetration 5, so for calculating Penetration a +31 bonus on top of Rego and Vim plus stress die. Assuming you can learn/cast (and master!) Aegis of the Hearth at 40, you probably have a Re+Vi score of 30, so 61+stress die for casting. Add one other magus for Wizard's Communion means Penetration is 61+stress+aura -(40/2)= more than enough. And that's without using Vis boosting.
I agree with the rest of your analysis but you can only apply one talisman attunement at a time. It is unlikely that a magus or maga would have a +10 bonus that applies to the Aegis.
What about finding/learning a Potent version of the Aegis? I don't think it's unreasonable to posit a "dabbler" of House Bonisagus with the necessary Potent Magic virtue providing Durenmar with a variety of Aegis lab texts of various Level and Potency combinations having existed.
Edit - Question - How does a Potent Casting Tablet work? The Potent Magic virtue doesn't really address this, I don't think. It says you need to have a Magic Theory equal or greater to the Potency to learn a spell, but not necessarily to cast it(at least not explicitly). So does this mean someone could invent a Potency 15 spell and create a casting tablet that anyone can use with the full bonus, am I missing something, is it something implicit or is this something that could benefit from a clarification?
In my Saga, I would never let Wizard's Communion work on Casting Tablets. That, and you'd never find a casting tablet with a real Aegis of the Hearth on it. Because, the last thing you want is one of those Ordo Odin Viktir types getting a hold of it, and using it as insight to integrate his own version. Although to be honest, I hate casting tablets with a passion, and never really let anyone have them.
It just takes a ritual botch on a 7th magnitude casting tablet, and then PCs will hate them, too. And if you believe rituals can't be cast [strike]without a stress die[/strike] in a relaxed state, you're looking at a lot of potential warping points, 5 at the very least: 4 from missing the level of the spell by 31 or more +1 because it's a botch and it covers the standard botch die scenario, and then you add 1 botch die per pawn of vis in use, and other botch dice depending upon situational factors, finally subtracting out Golden Cord.
Edit: Wording. The wording states that rituals are always cast with a stress die, but the mastery rules are ambiguous enough that you could theoretically cast any ritual with virtually no chance of botch. This has been discussed several times before. And the only clarification is that David Chart (5th Edition Line Editor) thought it was the intention to allow "relaxed" casting of rituals, but no errata was issued. Stressful rituals can tamp down on power levels of a saga, a lot, and some people find that the power magi can exert to be extreme enough with just formulaic spells. YSMV.
Ironically this same thread has the statement "Is this not the point of Wizard's Communion?" to which the answer is, "Sort of, that spell was originally written to allow folks to use spells that they had in their library but couldn't cast because the level was too high. With the advent of fifth edition and with it the removal of casting from texts, getting high penetration on some spells became the only use left for it."
Don't casting tablets have fixed penetration (noble's parma)?
While I've no strong feelings on casting tablets, ever since I came up with the idea I've wanted to play a character with a personal vis source in mentem and the memory palace skill. the character would frequently use the Creo Mentem "add a room to your memory palace ritual" (I forgot the name) to memorize casting tablets thereby effectively learning (but not really learning) a whole mess of spells.
Which, I really don't understand, since spells don't have penetration bonuses built into them. It's much easier to presume that the penetration is calculated in the standard fashion for the spell. Alternatively, one could treat casting tablet as something like an item, and each +1 in level is a +2 bonus in penetration, but then the vis costs would quickly escalate, and the final spell level makes it much more unlikely that it would be cast. An Aegis 30, with 30 levels of penetration built into it, using the rules for items, would be equivalent to a 45th level spell. So does it cost 6 or 9 pawns of vis? Is the level of the spell 30 or 45? How does one build penetration into a spell?
i dont know about penetration but we IOS use it as standart casting to see the penetration total. But i think the target of the spell in a casting tablrt is fixed when created. You can create a casting tablet to create a determined aegis somewhere from a casting tablet but you cant use the same tablet to perform the ritual elsewhere. Am i wrong?