Mostly that the Craft DC's in Covenants don't correlate to actually making anything? Where does a sword (for example) fall on the difficulty spectrum? Those ease factors aren't given in any book.
EDIT: no I can't stop calling Ease Factors DC's, Abilities Skills, or occasionally the ST a DM. Pardon my shortcomings.
Except that is sort of how it did work in the middle ages. It is sort of how it works now. Currency is something used mainly by poor people. The rich just exchange units of account and such.
But do not despair!
In this era, merchants and bankers were starting to develop a better system. I figured the Redcaps were copying the Italian bankers when they came up with the qp system in my saga. The Templars were also developing systems. The Hermetic system, in my imagination, sort of resembles modern day electronic banking. Everyone has an account with House Mercere. You included a system for characters to earn vis in your house rules. The value gets recorded in a ledger, which magically gets updated across the continent. Vis can change hands. It can be taken "out of the bank" through a Redcap Pawnbroker. You can put vis in the bank to cover expenses. Or whatever. Handwave it. Don't allow any overdrafting. Only senior magi may take out lines of credit. We young ones must pay in full.
I'm not saying any given sword is almost impossible to make. Just like painting isn't incredibly difficult. But is painting the original in the Sistine Chapel as easy as painting the ceiling of a room in my house? Or are they at different levels of difficulty? So to can other things have different levels of difficulty.
Eh, Cautious with Finesse (which I keep debating v. other valuable things for a Finesse-styled character) and Mastery with Precise Casting very quickly gets rid of botch dice for something done in the safety of your laboratory.
It had come from my question earlier. Since Rego Craft Magic appears in two of the half dozen books we're using, if I try to make such a well-balanced, exceptionally sturdy, etc. sword that it's "nearly impossible" to make (or similar), what does that mean? I had asked if we should use the numbers from C&G for consistency even if we're not using C&G. I'm fine if we're not. But how would you rate that sword against a standard sword of its type? The original question disappeared in our flurry of posts:
Heh! No kidding! I think lots of us fall into those. Games try to differentiate themselves, but more words for the same ideas just leave us forgetting which words go with which game. 
Sure, if you say you want to make something more fancy then of course you should be able to increase the DC. But you don't get any mechanical bonus for using a sword that you made with a higher craft roll since in this iteration of the game no such rules exist.
EDIT: no bonus aside from social I should say.
Back to some spell ideas for the moment. These are two I'm working on but haven't written out as fully, partly because there are more questions to gauge both of them.
The first one is developing a variant of The Treacherous Spear (ArM5 p.139). I don't want to steal someone else's spear (or whatever). Rather, I want to cast it on a spear I'm holding and send it to attack someone. The Treacherous Spear uses the combat Ability and Strength of the target to make its attacks, which makes little sense to me and even less so if it's not being stolen from the target. I would propose using the caster's Perception+Finesse for attack/defense and counting it as Str 0, which is more consistent with spells like Circular Wall of Shields (MoH p.50) and all sorts of other spells that use the caster's Finesse instead of the target's Ability. I don't think it's over-powered since you have to both penetrate as well as making attack rolls, while nearly all other magic only has to succeed at one of the two of those. The other question that goes with this is if it can be done with a ReTe spell (probably with casting requisites), or if this only works with Herbam, where the guideline is listed? Circular Wall of Shields has similar animation and uses ReTe, so it would seem to fit both, and I could look at Circular Wall of Shields to figure out if the level is the same.
The second spell is like Yondu's weapon in Guardians of the Galaxy. I'd more likely use a spear. But the idea is the same, taking a spear and guiding it to hit targets at command. The basic idea is essentially the same as Piercing Shaft of Wood (ArM5 p.137) and The Crystal Dart (ArM5 p.154) without doing any Muto. Without the Muto, it shaves off a magnitude. Of course, you have to have the weapon available instead of creating it out of a nearby object. So ReHe or ReTe or ReTe w/ He casting requisite would all be level 5 for +10 damage, needing to penetrate, assuming a large enough weapon. The zipping around (not nearly at the speed or deadliness of Yondu's) to make new attacks each round would use D: Concentration, bumping it back up a magnitude (so level 10 for a +10 damage limit). Presumably an extra magnitude could provide and extra +5 damage, as that shows up all over the place. But therein comes the question: what size weapons for what damage? ReTe does a little better, a dart doing +10 v. needing something a little shy of a spear for +10 with ReHe, but they're in the same ballpark, perhaps allowing +5 with an arrow or bolt, +10 with a shortsword, and +15 with a real spear? But what if the weapon has Edge of the Razor (ArM5 p.154) on it? But just because you could hit with a bigger weapon doesn't mean you have one. So there will be a practical limit to this. I'd like to find a simple method that fits so we don't have to think about it if the spell is used on a previously unused weapon due to the circumstances (e.g. escape and grab a guard's mace).
Thoughts?
To highlight why I'm asking the question, I'll ask why there would be a social bonus? We aren't using A&A, and that's where the rules for things being aesthetically pleasing. So using all this same logic, the very hard to make sword versus the fairly simple sword is what? It can't be functionally better. It can't appear better. But Covenants explicitly says high Finesse rolls can produce "high-quality work." Covenants also provides bonuses in the lab for other items of high quality. All I'm doing is asking ahead of time what the SG would like "high-quality work" to mean. The Finesse roll will happen at some point.
I just wanted to give a heads up ahead of time so it's not a surprise when it happens. I'm not trying to argue to a point meaninglessly right now. When it happens, if it's not at all what I expect, maybe I won't be happy with having taken the route with the character. If it's not what someone else expects, maybe they won't be happy not having taken that route themselves. Etc.
Because it seems perfectly reasonable for a ST to say it is just using the core book I suppose. If I were running a game before A&A came out I would still have people admire art and I would still have people respect good craftsmanship. Someone having an appropriate personality trait would be enough to lend a fair bonus for a well crafted item.
Even magic can't give you a +1 to hit with a sword in core so I would have no reason to think that is even possible.
I'd prefer we skip the correspondence option. I know its extra Xp, but really, its a book keeping pain. If they are permitted I'll use them though.
Let's continue that way. The core book does, however, use magic to give a sword a bonus to Damage as well as armor a bonus to Soak. So at least some part can be enhanced. As for stuff we have no evidence of, the core book doesn't give bonuses to lab work from magic. But Covenants then introduces higher quality items and shows us that higher quality construction and items can provide bonuses even in the lab (e.g. Superior Construction, Superior Equipment, Superior Tools, Flawless Equipment, and Flawless Tools). So we have evidence in the core book of being able to enhance weapons, and we have evidence in Covenants of high-quality things giving bonuses even magic in the core book doesn't provide for. So why wouldn't someone wonder what bonus a superior weapon or a flawless weapon might provide?
If I were to have designed Superior and Excellent items myself, I would have gone more gently. E.g., for a weapon each successive improvement would be +1 to one part (Damage, Attack, etc.), and not allow stacking of bonuses until all the parts had been increased. Then you still get something out of it, but not nearly so much.
I think it's amazing how many of us share this sentiment. You and I said nearly the same thing independently, and another player echoed my statement, while no one seems to be strongly in favor of them.
Huh, well would you look at that, yet another instance of it never crossing my mind to look at the sample spells. Edge of the Razor only gives a damage bonus, so still technically correct, I'll take a pedantic victory.
Either way, since the core book is the only one we have it's up to Ghost on weather he wants to allow mechanical bonuses for craftsmanship.
City and Guild has the rules for Shoddy, Excellent and High quality gear, around page 67.
It’s not one of the books included in the texts for this game (strictly speaking) but it is in core.
What does "in Core" mean?
If it ain't in the game it ain't in the game. Ghost already dropped in saying as much regarding C&G. Of course it was like two pages ago now...
I just meant in the books. I’m very happy to keep to the main book, just thought the ref was interesting to the discussion. No big deal.
OK, I didn't know if there was a body of work that the forum community considered to be more canon or if I needed to pay real close attention to copyright dates for a set of books released with the Core book. Similar to D&D's PHB, DMG, MM1.
Yup. That was the point of my initial question. There are mechanical bonuses for different quality craftsmanship for stuff in the lab that we're playing with. How would Ghost like to handle different quality craftsmanship elsewhere. There is no right answer. I had only asked if we should use the scale from C&G for consistency, rather than trying to use all of C&G rules.
Since I'm considering putting 75 or so experience and probably 2 seasons inventing a spell, plus later effort, it would be nice to know ahead of time if this will be all for naught or if there is some benefit, what that benefit will be. I do envision trying to improve our grogs' equipment with spells and crafting and the like, so even a relatively small bonus is likely to be worthwhile. Using C&G rules, my bonus would cap at +2 in all likelihood, so it's not like I was targeting something really big to begin with, but +2 is still far from nothing.
Wouldn't your whole concept be easier if you just summoned a whole lab each time? It's not even that hard. And you get spotless and Platonicly ideal equipment for free.
Mine? It wouldn't make the non-magical items, but...
For the Verditius, it could fix fitting things in...
Cool idea! No problem in moving about between different sites then. I wonder how you would make additional improvements. Maybe you'd need a new spell. I expect it would have a Warping score, but that can be OK. It won't work well for my character, with a focus in Rego and Finesse and a lack of much Creo. But it's still a cool idea!
C&G is not an approved source, so we won't be using any of the rules from it. As I've stated before I'm trying to keep the ruleset easy enough for myself to wield instead of going down these rabbit holes with this rule in this book, and then pulling that rule from over there.
If you're looking for a firm answer on whether or not you'll get bonuses for crafting, I can't answer that. It will all depend upon the exact situation in game, how well you roll the Craft ability, the material you use, what the purpose is, the ease factor, etc. I'm not going to pull a specific set of rules from one source that isn't allowed in character creation for one character concept.