I have two doubts about enchanting devices using more than a season, that is usual. Let's talk about a lesser enchanted device, to simplify the example:
Suposse you are creating a lesser enchanted device and it is going to take two seasons to be done according with level of the effect and your skills. These two season should be consecutives? Can you expend the first season on the magic item, next season do something else and in other season finish the item?
When you create an enchanted device you obtain a lab text too. This lab text involves your actual magic theory level. But... what about if the magic theory level changes between seasons? Suposse you have magic theory on 3 and you have 3 experience points on it. With only 1 more point you'll have magic theory on 4. So you start with the enchanting device and in your frist seasson you have a magic theory on 3 but you gain an experience point on it and on second season you have 4. What value should the lab text record, 3 or 4? Remember you started the enchantement with 3 and ended it with 4.
Lesser items must be enchanted within a single season. You can't, as I recall, spend more than one season on the effort. You can't create the item if you don't have a high enough lab total to complete the task.
So, for a device to cast a level 15 spell once per day, I'd need a lab total of 30 in order to create it in a single season.
As for lab texts, well, no matter what the Magic Theory score of the original creator of the device, when using one you only need to reach the effect level. So, if someone had already created the device I need and I was lucky enough to get hold of the lab text, I would only need a lab total of 15 in order to create my own version of the device.
All the above is predicated on using fifth edition rules, of course.
I take it from your second question that you are using fourth edition. I don't think tht this question was ever resolved (lab texts are handeled completely differently in fifth edition). I'd use the higher value just because it would probably make the player more happy.
I believe that lesser enchanted devices need to be completed in a single season so I don't belive your example is valid.
A lesser enchanted device can only be made in a single season. If you require 2+ seasons to finish it, it means that it is beyiond your abilities to do it as a lesser enchanted device, and you must spend the whole time to do it as you would for a greater enchanted device.
Are you playing the 4th edition? I ask that because of the XP you posted there
I would say 4, but I invoque serf's parma here since I am at work and cannot check exactly.
You are right guys! Lesser enchanted devices should be created using only one season. So, let's talk about a common enchanted device. The question is still valid. Can you hold the work on a device for one or more seasons and then continue with it?
And yes! I'm using 4th edition. I'm a spanish speaker and my english is not good enought to read an entire book on english. And 5th ed. is not translated yet...
I think as the fourth edition rules stand the answer is still no... IF you are talking about a single effect.
What you can do is open the device for enchantment in one season (spring). You could then enchant it with your first effect in the second (summer), you could decide to take the third season off (autumn) and then return to the device in the fourth season (winter) in order to instil the second effect. But, as mentioned above, once you start work on the effect you need to see it through to completion or you waste the effort.
That, I believe, is situation in the rules as written.
Without checking the actual rules, I would say that, yes, you could leave the device unfinished ... so long as it is left undisturbed. Simply put, you can't do anything else in that lab until the enchantment is completed. Nor can you move it to another place to store it, since the enchantment process certainly requires an elaborate setup in the lab itself which cannot easily be moved. It's not as if it just lies on a table in a corner and you just stare at it for a couple seasons until it's done.
