De Moribus (OOC)

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Et Postestatum Magnam...
41

I just didn't explain it well, then. Sorry.

The changing size guidelines consistently let you shrink double as much as grow for the same guideline. For example, Preternatural Growth and Shrinking (ArM5 p.141) allows +1 Size or -2 Size, -2 being the same difficulty as +1. Another example is Muto Animal base 4, where Beast of Outlandish Size (ArM5 p.118) allows +1 Size while Beast of Minuscule Proportions allows -2 Size. Being consistent with that (each Size being a multiplicative shift), I did exactly the same pattern. So if the Base allows x8 weight (and volume), then it allows /64 weight (and volume) (or x2 length and /4 length).

Written another way, that guideline doubles each length of the object, so I was going with a quarter each length because shrinking consistently uses the same factor again. 1/4 of each dimension is 1/(444)=1/64 of the volume (and mass).

I had wanted an additional scaling, such as increasing a person's Size by +2 instead of +1. I don't think there is an example in the core book. But Assume the Stature of the Giants of Eld (MoH p.49) adds +1 magnitude to bump it up to increasing Size by +3. I don't know if there are other examples. I was going less extreme, figuring an extra magnitude would be lengths x2x2= x4 (mass and volume x64) for increasing and lengths /4/4=/16 (mass and volume /[strike]4048[/strike] 4096) for decreasing. Using Assume the Stature of the Giants of Eld as an example would actually push bigger to lengths x2x2x2, and correspondingly /4/4/4, but I thought that was too much.

Weight goes by volume, which goes by length cubed. That's why x8 weight is double each length in Object of Increased Size. So /4 length yields /64 weight.

As for the level, Base 4, and then another magnitude for shrinking by another of the same factor goes to level 5. From there each magnitude is 5 levels. +1 for Touch, +1 Concentration, +2 metals/gems is +4, or +20 levels, for a final level of 25.

Yes. I'd assumed that, but I can write it in explicitly.

Magnitude increases are +1 level up to level 5, then +5 levels afterward. I actually used the same Base, but I wrote it in as 4 instead of 2+2 because I was comparing it to wood which is also 4. The extra 10 levels are from adding the two requisites.

42

I can say what the books do, and that's to vary it. With most Rego spells, most spells in general really, they write it as Perception. Sometimes with items it's been moved to Dexterity for handling the item that has the effect. There are also instances of Intelligence, perhaps entirely for Creo.

I was suggesting using it for a cap on the product because exploding dice can produce some ridiculous stuff. C&G caps the bonus at +1 per 3 levels, rounded up. That way no matter how much bonus you can get, you can only make something so good.

43

callen, thanks for the answers here. That helps explain what I was having trouble with, and I'm now good with what you've got there! Just don't forget to account for time spent inventing these post-Gauntlet.

44

As for a simple system of Hermetic Economics...
Keep in mind that there is no currency. Vis is a commodity, not money. QP is a unit of account kept only on paper in a ledger. Much like the Pound or Mark. It is measured relative to the value of Vim Vis because Vis is universally valuable to magi, and Vim is both the most plentiful (you can siphon it from a magic aura) and most in demand.
But no actual Vis changes hands.
You trade a stack of books valued at 30ish qp for a 25th level Lesser Device.

Off the Top of my head then...
Tractatus: qp = to Quality
Ability Summa: qp = to Level + Quality
Art Summa: qp = to thrice Level, plus Quality
Lesser Device: qp = to Level + Magnitude
Invested Item: qp = to twice (level + Magnitude), plus 12 per remaining open space
Lab Texts: qp = to one fifth the sum of the levels involved in the transaction
Charged Items: qp = to half the level

Follow the math and you will see it works out to three times the vis needed to make an item. Except Charged Items which do not require Vis. For books and texts, it equals the build-point cost from Covenants.

45

Now I'm really confused. How is it that no vis actually changes hands when services are rendered or given? Your economic model was great...until you posted the above. Why would no vis changes hands?

46

Dice explode for regular craftsmen too, just because I can try again 30 times in a day because magic is no good reason to put an artificial limit on something. I'm still using a skill (potentially two skills) to replicate the workings of a skill.

47

He has them keeping accounts in a ledger. I'm sure if you keep buying and not selling, then they'll come to collect, maybe break some fingers if they need to. :slight_smile:

48

Well, no, not really. The craftsmen get a total like a lab total, no dice roll. So there is no exploding. However, with a good Leadership score you could have a high enough total that in theory you could make a much better item than you understand how to make. This is why the limit was placed: to make sure you can only make as good as you understand. Not that the math works exactly this way, but its roughly like saying you cannot have a great leader who can barely paint lead another hundred people who can barely paint and together end up with a better painting than Michelangelo could manage.

49

That's not how economy should function. It shouldn't be "Just take what you need and we'll write down what you owe and may be required to pay at some point". Especially not in the middle ages when one could pretty much just leave the country without so much as a good-bye and never be found again. I may not know everything about the mechanics in Ars, but I know you can't just look someone up with an Arcane Connection.

50

Except with Rego craft I don't understand it really at all, I know what I want and I have material so I put it in the right shape. I don't need to know how to use a chisel to teleport a statue out of the middle of a block of marble.

51

Cool. I suspect from this statement that you want out-of-the-book spells for apprenticeship. Or can we vary at least one of R/D/T or similar? For example, Maintaining the Demanding Spell with a new duration, or Circular Ward Against Angels (instead of Demons).

52

I'd prefer out-of-the-box spells for Apprenticeship, but I won't hold you to that. Just be prepared to have me ask a bunch of questions. :slight_smile:

53

I'll give a specific example. You want a sword. So long as you don't botch, you get a perfectly functional one. No need to know anything about hammers and anvils. But do you know what will make a brilliantly balanced blade with just the right balance of sharpness and flexibility while being just the right weight and how all those should be tailored to a specific wielder so that you can make an excellent +20 sword, way better than anything that can be managed even with today's materials and the best smiths ever? And do you really want to introduce an excellent +20 sword into your game?

54

It's impossible to create an excellent anything. We don't have City and Guild...

If you are only talking about excellent items (moot since they don't exist) I could see limiting the excellent bonus to craft/3 being a decent rule interpretation since the limit is specific to Excellent quality items, otherwise basing the limit off of your Finesse/3 seems just as legitimate.

But to be slightly less pedantic. Covenants came out before City and Guild. C&G didn't really care to take magic into account (damn Tim did Trade not Craft so we can't just ask him how it should work.

But anyway it seems pretty straight forward. Finesse needs to hit the ease factor = craft level and you need to modify the ease factor for time if it would normally take a while (something that produces 1/season would be at a +6 per covenants, adjust up and down as appropriate based on C&G)

Either way to make an excellent +20 sword I would need to roll 15+60+3(for magic)+3(for time) = 81 finesse roll. If I have 35 finesse and 35 mastery in Phantom Blacksmith and roll real good, then ya, I guess I deserve to make a +20 sword...

Even a superior round shield 12+3 = 15 is actually a pretty hard roll to make, you can do it sure, but it is going to take you casting the spell like 8 times to do.

Otherotherwise you could have to call your shots on Excellent. If I get a 1024 on my exploding stress die but was only trying to make a +2 then I only get a +2.

55

Gotcha. I'm going to post some more potential spells soon. It's not that these are all for apprenticeship. Rather, I know what I plan to do, and it's all pretty much core book stuff, maybe with a few clarifications elsewhere but no special rules I can think of. But I do want to double-check levels and such ahead of time so I don't really mess things up.

I'm more focused on a raison d'être right now, though. I had had an idea beforehand to go with Madres & Matrones and the earlier just-out-of-gauntlet plans, but then I realized I was on the wrong side of modern France, Madres & Matrones being in Faith & Flame. I still like a lot of what I'd though of with that first idea, so I'm going to keep much of it, but I'm working on why the character has chosen to come to this covenant. The itinerant Verditius with a wagon/lab makes a lot of sense - go wherever and you still have your lab. But why would someone abandon their covenant and their lab? I think I have a reason that leaves some good RP stuff open without forcing any hands: hunting a dragon (faerie) into a regio and emerging a season later to find out it was a decade (give or take) later and the small home covenant had fallen. That was 3 years ago, so a new home was needed while this covenant was being founded. And what happened to that covenant? Who destroyed it, or did it disband? Was the collapse caused internally or externally? I'm not dead set on this, just where my thoughts have headed recently.

56

I think you missed my earlier questions which brought this up. We have rules in two different books we're using for making "hard" to create versions of things (rated as "Superior" in C&G), "very hard" to create versions of things, "impressive" versions of things, "remarkable" versions of things, and "almost impossible" versions of things (that last one extending higher with the same name). What do those mean? For example, how good is a sword that has been made to so well that is considered "almost impossible" to make?

Really? If you've got some relevant skill, such as a weapon skill or relevant Craft for a weapon, that's +3 (see HoH:S). Since I happen to be focused on Finesse, I've got Puissant for +2. Add in specialty for another +1. 15 experience in mastery will give another +2. So now we're looking at (Perception) + (base Finesse score) + 8 v. 15. Though I haven't written everything out, it's likely my character could pull that off on average with fewer than 2 rolls coming out of gauntlet. Even coming out of gauntlet, a roll around 21 would still happen about 10% of the time. (Note, this is probably for a non-sword weapon like a spear or axe or dagger; I have to double-check how long a sword takes to make.)

Doesn't help: you try for +20 until you get it. Sure, that +24 you rolled doesn't happen, but you still got your ridiculous piece.

57

That is not the read I get from that chart at all. A sword ISN'T Almost impossible to make, we make them all the time, I imagine it is Hard or Average to make a sword.

Seeing as that is literally the exact same scale as Page 7 in the Core book, I imagine it is just a rehash of what ease factors are supposed to mean.

If you are shooting for an 81 Finesse roll then you will botch and bad things will happen long before you make it. In any game I was involved in my ST would probably make you stab out your eye since you botched fishing for a triple explosion.

58

Can someone point me to the 2 conflicting sources please?

59

City and Guild 67
Covenants 49

Since C&G isn't an approved source I assumed we weren't using it's craft system. Just like we aren't using Lords of Men Combat or The Mysteries (Revised)'s custom mystery cult generation.

60

Correct. So what's the issue?