Echo of DurendalCrTe 40
R: Touch D: Momentary T: Individual, Ritual
This spell creates an excellent quality steel longsword, granting the wielder a +4 Attack & Defense in combat due to its uncanny craftsmanship.
(Base 5, +1 Touch, +6 complexity)Designer's Notes: Rather than requiring a Finesse check against an EF 30 for such a sword, I am instead obliviating the roll altogether and setting the spell's crafting total to a flat 12+(3*complexity) against an EF as per the Rego Craft Magic guidelines set forth in Covenants.
MementoMuMe(Te) 35
R: Personal, D: Sun, T: Ind
Req: Terram
The caster's mind is made physical as a small pendant bearing their sigil. The pendant has the same Magic Resistance as the caster, both acting as an Arcane Connection to each other. The caster retains the ability to control their body, even when physically separated from the pendant. If it is destroyed, the caster will die, as their mind has been destroyed. This spell is primarily cast as a means of protection from Mentem effects by casting the spell and placing the pendant somewhere out of reach.
(Base 25, +2 Sun)
CatfallReCo 4
R: Personal, D: Momentary, T: Ind
Negate any falling damage.
(Base 4)Designer's Notes: Due to the parameters of this spell, this spell is only used while the caster is falling. Therefore, they must endure the fast cast penalty and need to make an EF 9+ Concentration roll. Increasing the duration will naturally permit the caster to use the spell proactively rather than reactively.
For completeness, you probably want to explicitly state that the caster can continue to control his body as normal even if the pendant is physically separated from the body. Also, should address what happens when the spell expires. Including what happens if the pendant and body are physically separated at time of expiry.
Not sure which guideline this is intended to be based on. There are several ReCo 4 guidelines. None seem to do this.
I won't argue that the fast cast penalty and concentration rolls are not appropriate, but they do make this spell unlikely to be useful. Perhaps the effect should be bumped a magnitude, for range Touch, and enchanted into a device, always on, so that any fall is slowed to be harmless. That will require additional design features, of course.
Ah, yes, I forgot to include the Ritual qualifier for Echo of Durendal. Thanks.
The guideline I was operating under was "Control the large-scale physical movements of a target." It's also the same magnitude for direct levitation, so the 'power level' seemed appropriate. I had considered using Base 3, as I'm only moving the body on a surface that can support its weight, but that seemed harder to justify.
For Echoes of Durendal, you should decide in your troupe if the created item would be resisted by the Parma or not-- on its base, I would say that it most certainly is resisted (and so you would want to record the Penetration of the ritual when cast), but you may wish to treat it as some people address the Pink Dot issue, and have the sword work as a sword but any other magical aspects would be resisted. Otherwise you end up with something only usable against totally mundane foes, which might be ok, but might rankle some groups. Not a big deal, just something worth considering-- for me, the idea that a conjured sword couldn't affect things as a sword (but not getting any bonus to attack and defense) just doesn't sit right. That's how I treat it in my games; I record the Penetration, and if it penetrates, then the whole effect goes through, and if it doesn't, then the essential sword-ness still works as a sword without being resisted. This does require some adjudication on a case-by-case basis, and I know there are some corner cases to the paradigm, but for the most part, it keeps things doing what they're supposed to do without too much strangeness.
IIRC, as it's a momentary ritual, the sword won't have any magical properties once created and will therefore not be subject to Parma. The inherent bonus is due to its 'mundane' quality of craftsmanship, and is as nonmagical as anything created by a master craftsman (with a 12+ Ability). It would technically be a deviation from the written rules for it to be otherwise. One could make the setting argument of there being an inherent ceiling of quality before it stops being mundane, much like human characteristics going beyond +5, and be subject to similar restrictions.
I would not allow to use "complexity magnitudes" to have a bonus to finesse. It seems like a cheap way for powerful magicians to become legendary craftsmen, where normally finesse would be a specialty in its own merit.
Why? Now consider this spell:
ReTe Vilano sling improved. ReTe 50. I have a 51 casting total and can cast it in most circumstances.
The damage are (say +15+die) which leaves like +6 complexity magnitudes for finesse. I start any attack with a 18+finesse + per + roll (+ bonuses from virtues). Since it is indirect, I'm almost killing any opponent without considering RM :/.
The worst being, I'm not even good at finesse, but my finesse specialist friend starts with a 9+per + bonus.
Considering how easy it is to attain high labtotals (lab rules, assistants, labtextes, experimentation, shape and material if you do a charged item, etc.) it feels cheap.
(For what it's worth, since finesse is not here used to aim, I would not allow the "higher size means bonus to finesse" thing either.)
However, if the spell is temporary, any "excellency" from the finesse score would be a mundane example of the item, and not resisted. This point is clear for me.
A magus is already a legendary combatant and font of wealth compared to anyone mundane, given the proper use of magic, so worrying about Guild competition isn't something I'm going to lose sleep over. Even then, it's eight pawns of vis per sword and at least a season of dedicated lab work to develop the spell; so the investment isn't zero.
Your Vilano counter is a bit of apples-to-oranges in comparison. Echo of Durendal is a Creo crafting ritual, of which there is an established precedence for using complexity modifiers, not a Rego aiming formulaic of which there is none to my awareness. And while there is no precedence for 'complexity modifiers' improving the finesse roll with indirect magic, there is justification for higher level spells being more accurate. It's objectively harder to dodge a bridge , so a sufficiently powerful Vilano sling spell could represent that with a bonus to Finesse. End of the Might Castle & Earth Split Asunder don't even bother with finesse, and in fact abrogates even the option to dodge with the first.
I think your spell echo of Durandal is fun. But it have some limitations. Once the sword is invoqued, unless it's protected by magic, it will corrod and lose its sharpness.
If you use Muto Terram level 20 edge of the rasor, and a Rego Terram to protect from rust, the sword will be subjet to magic resistance.
If you don't want to use magic for that, you will need a blacksmith to repair the sword. The blacksmith unless he had a very good craft ability (more than 6) the sword will lose progressively it perfect shape and the inherent bonus.
Maybe this sword is perfect only for you and your fighting style.
We could imagine than the blade had a high quality representation of your sigil. The sword had a nearly perfect shape, the sword could be beautiful.
Have fun with your sword !
I'm curious as to how you came to decide on the formula "target Ease Factor = 12+(3*complexity)" for Echo of Durendal?
The EF of 30 is supposed to represent - Base EF of 15 (Base Excellent item of +1) + 9 (to get from +1 to +4) +3 (Craft Magic base modifier) + 3 (Craft Magic time modifier (of 1 month in an instant))?
Technically, the EF formula is for Rego magic. I wanted a base Creo spell to produce an Average piece of craftsmanship without any "complexity modifiers", for which the minimum Rego Ease Factor is 12. This lines up with the +3 modifier on Conjuring the Mystic Tower if we assume it's of average quality...at least as average as you get with a 80' tall piece of cylindrical stonework.
There is a guideline in MoH which allow reparation of material with Creo, and iirc without even vis. Think of it like bonus to recovery in corpus guidelines.
That's a fun one.
If you use it without Vis, you need to give it a duration, and the target will be repair for the duration of the effect.
If you want to make something fully whole again, it's still Ritual Creo magic, because it would be Momentary.
If a craftman can repair with its art, anyhow, then rego magic can do it, just as the rego corpus guideline can perform surgical operations and magi who still use creo corpus spells (with vis, thus ritual) are just magi of the past. The future belongs to the rego surgeon magi! (It is described in A&A.)
So, you may consider that guideline to belong to rego (but iirc it's well a creo one) but it's not more disturbing than giving recovery bonuses without ritual spell. yes the recovery spell take the time, but your item can have all the time it needs. (And if you think that unlike a human, "item" cannot repair itself, just muto it for the duration to give it the property to do so, with that guideline to do so.)
Hi Exar-kun you can use magic to repair your sword
A spell like this :
Creo Terram
Base 15, +2 Sun, +1 2/day, +3 environmental trigger: sunrise/sunset Level : 29
It will repair continously your sword but it will be subject to magic resistance. Or you can enchant an item maybe a hammer
and the item will repair your sword. Of course catastrophic damages (sword broken in many fragments, a bath of lava...)
would be out of range of the spell.