My beastmage took a magical wolf as familiar.
He has empowered the bond with mental communication, beast of outlandish size and is now looking to give steel of claws fo his wolf.
He is also concerned about having a good penetration so he can goes toe-to-toe with magically protected opponents.
In the core rule book, there is mentionned of granting steel claw as a CrTe spell with a final effect level of 35, which leaves little room for a good penetration score.
Since the wolf has obviously already claw, I see that as a MuAn(Te) spell.
I would like your comment on the following, especially the base level:
MuAn(Te): Claws of steel
Base: MuAn 3: change an animal's limb, Te requisit free as required by the effect, +4 for iron, +1 for magically sharp, MuAn 20
+1 Touch, +1 Conc= 30
+5 level for maintain conc.
Then add level for frequency and Penetration. My mage has better score in MuAn, than CrTe, yet it does not leave much room for Penetration...
Ironically, it is easier to create claws of steel than to turn normal claws into its steely version...
My suss: MuAn/Te 25 (base 3, +1 touch, +1 conc, +1 part, +2 metal, +1 sharp, with free requisite) seems more appropriate.
Then add effect maintains Conc +5. So that's 5 levels lower than your initial version.
Why are you saying iron is +4 mags?
you could argue that you don't need T: Part as it's written explicitly in the Base effect. That would save you another 5 levels.
So perhaps it's only a level 20 effect + Pen + Uses per day.
Two suggestions:
make the Duration: Diameter as many fights don't last much longer. You are paying for flexibility in D: Conc you can add with another use per day instead.
drop the extra-sharp modifier. Do that with another spell instead of this one if you have to.
Suggested:
MuAn/Te 30 (base 3, +1 touch, +1 diameter, +2 metal, with free requisite), +2 for 5 uses per day, +13 for +26 Penetration.
Best ask your wolf familiar first, just how he fights - and hear him growl "fangs, fangs".
Then you can ask your troupe, whether changing the tips of his fangs to steel is rather "a superficial change to a beast" (a kind of medieval dentistry) or "a major change to a beast".
Because Earth is base effect, then clay, stone, glass and finally metal (p152 core), and in the CrTe guidelines, CrTe1 is for earth (sand, dirt, mud) and CrTe5 is for base metal.
So I am guessing that the same rule apply when you turn something into metal - but I don't have anything to support that, especially when it is a requisit.
On the other hand, I am just reading that changing to or from metal is only +2 magnitudes...
There's the MuHe 15 spell, Rope of Bronze, which comes to mind. There's no +1 magnitudes for that, but the base 4 transformation is explicitly stating to turn plant into stone or metal. MuAn base 1 lists 'superficial' for products as changing color, MuAn2 major change to animal products is jerkin to saddle.
That said: These all allow for natural things. Giving a horse fangs and claws is base 15, giving it wings is base 25, and making its coat match your shield's coat of arms is base 5. My instinct is to give you base 5 to turn its claws and fangs into metal, suggest a +1 magnitude for hardened and sharpened.
My experiences with Ars Magica have found (mostly) that it's much harder to be subtle than obvious.
And now I want to try to do the math on a CrAn(Re) spell to sheathe my pet cat in gleaming steel armor that moves unnaturally fluidly around him as he moves so I can turn my familiar into a mouse-seeking missile of death.
That might how my mage will ask the question... but the wolf's answer will be more elaborate since he is based on the Magical Wolf of the core rulebook, and has Intelligence instead of cunning and speaks the local language better than my mage (who finally reached +4 in German 15 years after gauntlet thanks to Feral Upbringing) .
Also I was planning to give a +3 bonus to damage. Edge of the Razor gives +2, but it only sharpen to perfection, whereas Claws of steel gives something harder and sharper.
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