Relating to the "empowering " the Bond ability of magic, I have 2 questions for which I hope you can help me.
The questions are:
1- is it possible to put a +1 [characteristic] effect in the Bond.
2- what about penetration for effects in the bond. I mean: Let's say your familiar is empowered with 3x +1 in Intelligence. Nothing fancy up there (if 1 is OK). But let's say this effect has 0 penetration, and your familiar is under some circumstance where he encounters magic resistance (an aegis, a room ReVi spell, a parma restricta, etc). Does the effect affecting the familiar need to penetrate or not?
My answers - but I'm not sure:
1- why not. This is limited : either you, your familiar or both. But I could understand if not, because it's seems not thematic at all : if you want to be smarter, do it rough way and cast the spell.
2- i'd say that any effect has to penetrate. in the familiar case, the MR of the familiar is not taken in account, but if it's an outside effect, it should be. Analogy: if it was a "fire claws" effect, and hitting a target with Magic Resistance (a magus or a might creature for example), it should have to penetrate.
So if the "I'm smarter" or the "I'm wonderfully rich [an aura of ennobled presence effect]" effect is under some antagonist aegis, it should have. With no penetration, the effect would not work.
Yes, ONE (per characteristic) - they do not stack.
Absolutely yes. In fact, the "plain" familiar bond is a magical effect (like a longevity ritual - though it does not cause warping) affecting both you and the familiar. So if you have a familiar, you generally can't punch anyone protected by magic resistance.
Since there is 3 effects, why wouldn't it stack?
I could understand for bonus at recovery, for which it's already stated that they don't stack; but characteristics upgrade ...
Ok, maybe the reason is: normally characteristic is a ritual so cast momentary and definitily upgradind the characteristic. While, within the bond, this is a constant effect so only 1. It makes sense.
Direwolf, "no need for penetration": so you want to say, if for example there is a "fire claw" effect in the bond, that you can activate on your familiar, this doesn't render your familiar attack "magical" (in the sense it needs to penetrate)? I'm really curious because I never thought about the familiar bond before.
Of course any effect used would need to penetrate to work against a 3rd person. I meant that there should never be a need for penetration to have an effect work on either side of the bond.
So the Fire Claws effect would not need penetration to take effect on the familiar, but if it´s to be used against something with MR, then of course it needs to penetrate(at least i think so, you actually got me wondering now if one could come up with effects that doesnt need it...).
Sure you can put your +1 bonus in the bond; as for stacking, remember that each guideline as a 'to a maximum of X' in it. So if you want them to stack, you must make sure that all of the effects allow the final value. For instance, if you put three (+1 Int, to a maximum of 2) effects and the initial intelligence is 0, you obviously can't get a final intelligence of +3, you only get 21. And since they all need to be active at the same time, they all need to allow for the final value (unlike momentary rituals, where you can 'climb the ladder').
It's probably cheaper to just pay a couple of extra magnitudes to have a +3 in one effect, unless you are really borderline on your Lab Total.
Magus don't need to penetrate their familiar's magic resistance (and the reverse is also true). Since a Bond effect affecting the familiar is under the control of the magus, it doesn't need to penetrate.
So you'd say: a familiar with -3 int, but with 8x the level 60 (or 55) base for a max +5 is okay?
Here my point was more about an external effect: let's say your familiar is under a parma restricta effect (which is some kind of aegis around 1 individual) or under an enemy ReVi zone (aegis?).
I don't think there's anything very clear on this. We play the maximum is 5 above the baseline, which is 0 for humans. We use -3 as the baseline for animals that have become sentient since any animal cunning becomes Int -3. So we limit such familiars to +2 through such spells.
Yup. Plus, as an additional point to add to Aurulentus's, you'll spend more than half the vis that you would have on the ritual on the enchantment anyway. And with the time savings for not doing the enchantments, you could probably distill enough to make up for the rest.