Creating magical beasties (Ritual magic)

I don't think there being nothing about might levels in that text is really a "however" - rather it reinforces the point that there doesn't seem to be anything in the Rules that I can find which requires you to increase the spell level for higher Might (and then the examples on the next page include creating a Might 50 creature with no adjustment for might).

By a drake without Might, do you mean a mundane drake, or a drake with Might 0? Up to your SG, but I don't think I'd personally accept a drake as a mundane creature (and it won't have any powers if you go that route).

I personally dislike such retroactive limitations rules-limitations.
If you're playing using only the core book, you could do this.

I think that this ruling is due to it being a mythic effect, like many of the ritual spells - they are rituals because their effects are really powerful...

Having a full-on dragon appear on demand can be classed as a really powerful effect - worthy of a ritual.

I also dislike retroactive rules-limitations.

However, it's not entirely clear to me if that passage, taken in context, means what we really assume it means. The entire section of HP talks about creation of animals that can reproduce, and before the quote passaged keeps referring to the spells involved as rituals. To me it seems the idea is that if you are looking at D:Mom effects that allow the result to persist after the magic has expired, then you need a ritual; not that the creation of magical animals needs rituals per se.

Probably. Then again, the ruling would also cover the creation of magic bee with Might 1... so I do not think it's a valid argument.

Creating a magical beast is a base 50 guideline, correct? Unless you cast such a spell with R:Pers, you need to add at least one magnitude for R:Touch, which makes any such spell a minimum of level 55, which has to be a Ritual. Doesn't it?

Yes, it's a base of 50, so it should end up above level 50, forcing it to be a ritual. However, the question was about making an item, and items get to ignore the ritual rules under a single circumstance: the level forces it to be a ritual. So you can't do it formulaically, but that doesn't rule out an item.

Pages 114 and 98, respectively, if I remember my half-written post from last night correctly. The rule about preventing it from items is Hermetic Projects, page 126, and honestly, I don't see it as a retroactive prohibition-- as long as the duration is greater than momentary, meaning the creature created is not permanent.

If the creature is permanent, then it would require vis, at least in my opinion. Creating anything permanent usually requires vis, and you can't stuff extra vis into the item for it to use, and you can't guarantee vis on hand to use, and items have no way to use the vis, so...

it makes sense that an item can't cast a ritual requiring vis, like the creation of a permanent magical creature. If you wanted one for a moon, sure, that could go in an item a my table. YSMV.

-Ben.

I was just discussing this with my SG, and we were talking about why such a rule might be in HP.

Yes, we agree. HP was talking about permanent magic beasts that can breed and be harvested for vis. An enchanted device creates a temporary thing, even if it is a permanent effect. Such a creature would not be useful for breeding or harvesting.

If we look at the great wyrm spell (probably mis-spelled it) it has a level of 80. If we do this as a magic item, it will need to be pushed up to either concentration or sun
Then add in the levels for uses, triggers etc. It easily becomes over lvl 90.

So, it is harder to do as a magic item, and only useful for some situations. Then we come onto the question of Might....

Does a temporary created creature have Might? Does it have magic resistance? Can it use powers?

To stop this being too powerful, I would personally say that it doesn't have Might, or that it cannot recover Might.

My SG is inclined to rule that such creatures don't have Might, as there was no vis used to provide the power for it.
Killing them will produce no vis, and Might Strippers won't work.

He hasn't made a firm ruling and is welcome to other people's views on the subject.

I'd also be content for such a creature to have Might up to what you were able to put into the device.

So if you managed to create a device that cast a CrAn effect to grant you control over a Might 10 drake (with appropriate requisites), then sure-- but that's a Fire-and-Forget Drake, in that it won't leave any vis behind. I would have to see how it affected play to allow the creature to recover Might over the course of its duration. To be honest, the effect makes a normal Might 10 drake, and such a drake would recover Might given time and the appropriate environment, so I'm inclined to allow it to do so, but it would need the proper environment.

If it came from a device, and that device had additional levels invested for Penetration, I'd probably add them to the drake for the purposes of its powers.

This would be a seriously powerful effect (for my table, I know others like playing at these levels, but I don't spend a lot of time at this power level), just eyeballing the level...

CrAn 50 +1 touch, +2 sun, (No change for size, so it's easier) +3 Requisites (Re, Ig, Vi, as the spell could just make a drake, but it is a significantly "less" drake without Might, Fire, and the ability to control the drake) +3 for +15 Might, and shoot, +1 for +10 Penetration...

That'd be:

Egg of the Expectant Drake
Cr(Re)An(Ig, Vi) 105
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind

This egg, when activated, creates a large drake (Size +1, see RoP:M, page 75), with the additional ability of Penetration (Corpus) 10. The drake obeys the commands of the person who activated the egg, existing until the next sunrise/set.

The device could be made a one-shot for a lab total of Cr(Re)An(Ig, Vi) 106, with no vis.

For that, let's just start with a CrAn total of 50, an Int of +5, a MT of 15, an aura of 5, an apprentice (or assistant) with an Int of +4 and a MT of 5, a familiar with an Int of 1 and a MT of 5. We'll say S&M of an egg (+5 for creation, which I can't believe wasn't defined before, but that's a solid number for me, if you hate it, do an egg-shaped container, and the dragon starts within it and pops out +5, ArM5 p110) and emerald (+7, ArM5 p110), which gets us to 102.

So, if you'd created a spell

The Stepping Stone Drake Summoned
Cr(Re)An(Vi) 75
R: Touch, D: Day, T: Ind
Create and control a Might 0 drake for a moon. No fire, please.

CrAn 50 + 1 touch, + 3 moon, (No change for size, so it's easier) + 2 Requisites (Re and Vi)

This would add +15 to the total. And then you'd be at 117, and if you did it for a 70 year expiration after the first use, you could have 5 uses. You could create that spell in 5 seasons.

You might be able to add a couple of laboratory improvements to hit it without the spell, or if you were willing to forego the Penetration.

I think my main issue would come up with dispelling. As a spell or similar effect, it should be no harder to dispel than another effect of similar level (except Aegis of the Hearth, which I accept as an exception since it is described as an exception). So let's say we have this level-90 effect to create a Might-50 dragon or its equivalent. I would think it should be as hard to dispel as another level-90 effect. But if that effect conjures a creature of Might 50 and the PeVi spell must penetrate that Might before dispelling this level-90 effect, then it seems this effect is far harder to dispel than other level-90 effects.

Dispelling will always be a touchy area - one I am not familiar with. Does a dispelling spell have to beat the penetration of the target spell?

One thing that my SG and I agree on is that either the dragon needs Might, or the item needs Penetration. Otherwise its attacks will not pass any MR.

One issue with having the dragon have a Might Pool is that when it is empty, you just cancel the effect and create another. Of course, you need to brief the new dragon on the situation and make sure that it knows who its master is....

But looking at Stellatus' powers (levels are approximate):

lvl 15 [tab][/tab] Human Form (MuAn(Co) base 10, +1 conc) turn into a human
lvl 35 [tab][/tab] Instill Loyalty 5 points (ReMe ?) Put a strong emotion in someone (R:Sight, base 10)
lvl 20 [tab][/tab] Fiery Breath 1 point (CrIg) - 15 damage (R:Touch)
lvl 20 [tab][/tab] Master of Ignem (CrIg) 1-4 points - any CrIg spell upto lvl 20

Making these as individual item effects would be almost as expensive. More so if we add Penetration to each of them.

The Great Wyrm spell has a lvl of 80, adding extra effects makes 90, then add extra for Penetration (50 = 25 levels).

The difference between 1 great effect and several smaller effects which can (almost) do the samething is that any magus can spend several seasons to make the small items. Only a really serious magus can do the single item. An enchanted item of level 100 needs someone with a lab total of over 100, the higher the better. To do it in the 4 seasons for the other effects, would need a lab total of 125 or more.

Sorry, I am starting to ramble.. :blush:

As for vis, I believe everyone is in agreement that a magical beast will only hold vis if it's created via a ritual. There are many ways to justify this "in game", but the main reason is one of balance: if we assumed a temporary dragon held vis, even temporary vis, creating magical beasts with a D:Sun, unlimited uses device just to harvest them for their vis (to be used by the next/sunrise sunset, e.g. as aid to certamen or spellcasting) would be an issue.

As for giving a "temporary magic beast" Might and MR, why not? I honestly don't see any reason why a temporary magical beast should not have them, either in terms of "makes sense" or in terms of balance (I am not saying there's no such reason, I'm only saying I do not see it). Maybe there's some clever way to exploit this to bypass the limit of MR, but I fail to see it.

As for giving a magically created beast powers, I would allow it... with a few exceptions unless the beast is created through a ritual. First, I would not allow Ritual powers, for obvious reasons. Second, I would not allow Focus powers, otherwise "create a magical beast with focus powers" becomes a relatively easy way to have access to spontaneous magic through items, something that even the authors of TMRE were (justifiably) quite wary about.

So, if a dragon created by an item has Might (and a Might Pool), does the item need Penetration?

A mighty helper
Cr(Re)An(Ig, Vi, Me) 90
R:Touch, D:Sun; T:Ind; 1 use per day
Creates a large, fire-breathing dragon of size +7 which completely obeys commands.
The dragon has a might of 50 but does not contain vis. It has two powers:
Fiery Breath, 1 point (+15 damage per round)
Instill Loyalty, 5 points
base 50, +1 touch, +2 sun, +3 requisites, +2 size

I would rule that all such magic creatures have to be statted fully according to ROP:M, without: Focus Powers, Gifted, Vis Mastery, Acclimation Prone, Temporary Might or any ritual type powers which sacrifice Might.

This is all up to SG discretion.

See, you are just giving away the Might for free. I would require magnitudes for every 5 Might, because it just doesn't seem right to not require a cost. The bump for size has its own benefit (and is it 100x from size 1 to 7, I don't recall?) which justifies the cost, IMHO.

And I would require Penetration be incorporated into the item, or it wouldn't have any.

-Ben.

Why would the item need Penetration? If the creature has Might, it's Might will provide Penetration if the Dragon physically attacks something with MR. The powers will have their own Penetration scores based on MR.

I think that if the dragon has Might the item it doesn't need Penetration. If the dragon doesn't have Might, the item does need Penetration.

I would give such creature Might "for free" subject to the only stipulation found in the corebook: that the Might given cannot exceed the level of the effect (actually, I'd rule it can't exceed the level of the Base effect, unmodified by duration, range etc.).

However, I fail to see why this would obviate the need to penetrate in the case of a temporary beast. If I create a mundane wolf through magic, either it's a temporary creation and it needs to penetrate so as to bite a target, or it's a D:Mom ritual creation that does not need to penetrate. Same for a magical wolf.

The tricky part is about the penetration of the supernatural powers of the magical wolf. The standard rules apply if the magical wolf is a D:Mom ritual creation: the power has its own penetration that must exceed the target's MR. In the case of a temporary magical wolf, I'd say the same holds, and in addition (just as in the case of a bite), the effect creating the wolf must exceed the target's MR. A temporary magical beast using a supernatural power must then effectively penetrate "twice".

I would be extremely wary of only banning "ritual powers which sacrifice Might"; because by spending mastery points (I believe, though I might be mistaken) one can always bring the might cost of ritual powers to 0; more generally, I'd probably be conservative and say that a magic beast created without a ritual cannot have any power that breaks Hermetic limits.

Would you please read the quote from the core book above? I'll repeat it here:

Emphasis mine.
So yes, you can effectively add might at a rate of 5 per magnitude. But please notice how the book says level of the spell - there's no reference to guideline at all. Now, I agree that there probably should have been, I would have prefered it that way myself. But that's not what the book says.

I'm on the fence on this a bit. Beings with might do already have their own system for penetration, but it's still an effect created by a device.
I think I'd agree with Fafnir on this. Though I'm hesitant.

OK, you have both convinced me, I was forgetting about temporary vs. permanent.

So, an enchanted device which creates any type of beast needs Penetration if the beast is to effect anything. If the beast has Might, this will give it MR, it still needs a Penetration modifier on the effect so that the beast has Penetration.

A mighty helper
Cr(Re)An(Ig, Vi, Me) 90
R:Touch, D:Sun; T:Ind; 1 use per day, +50 Penetration to match Might
Creates a large, fire-breathing dragon of size +7 which completely obeys commands.
The dragon has a might of 50 but does not contain vis. It has two powers:
Fiery Breath, 1 point (+15 damage per round)
Instill Loyalty, 5 points
base 50, +1 touch, +2 sun, +3 requisites, +2 size, +25 levels Penetration

Without the Penetration from the effect the dragon still has MR, and can still use it's powers, but they have 0 Penetration.

Question, should we treat the Powers and their penetration the same way as ward levels and penetration?
I mean that when the beast uses a power it generates it's Penetration total as usual - the lowest value of the two values is used against the target - power penetration or device penetration.

That's for faeries from RoP:F. Magical beings can only reduce the cost for rituals to half with mastery points.

Consider these two together:

Some people are thinking of allowing such a temporary being to be able to have and use powers.

In TMRE you can pick up a Virtue that allows you to summon magical beings (spell spirits specifically) to cast a spell (effectively, use a power) for you. In this case each power requires its own spell. You only get the one casting of that spell, having to summon the spirit again if you want more. You also cannot put this summoning spell in an item.

So, are some people saying that by the core book we could put an effect into a magic item to summon a being to cast a bunch of spells for us all day long (or really forever with maintained D: Concentration), but that by gaining and using a Virtue with exactly this intent we cannot do most of that? This suggests two things to me. First, if it's considered too much for the Virtue then it shouldn't be generally available without the Virtue. Second, things like this were probably ruled out of the Virtue because of their potential game-breaking nature, so allowing things like this seems quite risky.