Ok, all you rules hounds out there, please explain something to me.
I was just reading the Automaton section of HoH:MC and was extremely puzzled by the apparent inconsistent ruling on invested "spell like" effects in Automata.
According to page 130..
and a bit further down...
Now please enlighten me as to how a magus could enchant a wand or a staff or any other non-sentient lump of material (which certainly possesses no innate intelligence) with all manner of offensive spells, yet all of a sudden simply because the lump of whatever is constructed in moving form, he cannot so enchant his creation??
So to with the whole comment on the strange exceptional condition of automata that they "cannot maintain concentration". Is a wand or a staff or any other lump of whatever somehow uniquely gifted such that it CAN maintain concentration and thus be invested with Concentration Duration effects??? I think not.
I don't know about you but I find these distinctions ludicrous.
If a magus had sufficient magical skill to create an automaton of a dragon (yeah I know, maybe when he's got a mystery score of 10 + 10 in philosophiae and a lucky die roll), we are supposed to believe that he could not enchant it with Ignem effects so it could breathe fire? Very odd indeed.
Agreed. I'd like my Verditius to eventually go down the automata route but the Verditius mystery isn't very... rewarding. I think there's a lot to be done to make the rules a playable option.
But of course, then Ancient Magic comes out and there's a fantastic potted alternative.
Well seems to me that anything that sophisticated to construct should be capable at the very least of containing any effects that any other enchanted object could contain.
Has anyone ever had a noble in their saga who is happy to pay like, 300 pounds of silver for a singing bird?.. .. only.. it's not come up in ours.
I know if -I- had 300 pounds of silver to spend, I'd want something a whole lot better.. like, say.. a scabbard which heals all my wounds instantly while worn, or practically anything of -actual- use ^^
.. .. if you have, please tell me where you find them ^^
"The Fountain of the Owl featured about 20 birds, of different species, perched on the limbs of a bronze olive tree. These birds sang and moved. At the appearance of an owl (also of painted bronze) the birds would suddenly stop singing. When the owl departed, the birds would begin to sing again."
"My favourite automaton of this type is the one that belonged to Tipoo Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, who kept a mechanical, roaring tiger which was forever eating an effigy of a servant of the British East India Company."