Haestus ex Miscellaneous, Societas Mechanus

True. Great Talisman will allow you to do that.

It appears I a seriously misunderstanding shape and form. I was under the impression that the shape (scale) and form (iron) were not changing. The only thing intended to change were what attunements were available for that specific shape and form. If this is incorrect, I'll go ahead and define a bunch as part of chargen.

If you define two of your shapes/forms as "iron" and "scales" then you'd get access to the benefits of those shapes/forms. "Iron" allows you to choose "bonds" and "harm or repel faeries." I'm unaware of any bonus gained by "scales."

You could not gain access to a new shape/form after crafting the talisman by etching something onto the scale. That would have to be done at the time of crafting and would count for its own shape/form.

Very well, I'll be skipping the Craft Magic designs and inscriptions and just going with the normal ones previously listed.

Upon consideration, I think I'll skip the talisman route, disregard the prior posts.

added familiar in the reserved post, will be posting his advancement along with Haestus'

I'm super busy right now, so I really don't have time for a thorough examination of things. But a few observations/questions pop to mind:

1.) You have a 5 Refinement on your lab after Cycle 4. I didn't see the five seasons of working on refinement. When was that done?

2.) I see six lab magic items, but no seasons spent crafting them. How were they created/obtained? I note a number of exposure seasons undefined. Was this done in some of those?

3.) In cycle 2, season 6, cycle 3, season 4, and cycle 4, season 4, you have an adventure of gaining transformational vis. Please note that unlike all other adventures, you do not gain xp when you gain transformational vis. Gaining the vis is in lieu of gaining xp.

4.) I seem to recall you mentioned that your familiar was a beaver. However, there's nothing on the writeup that indicates such.

5.) Dobran has several "Grant Puissance in ..." powers listed as Lesser Powers. First, the duration is momentary. That's not going to make it very useful. Second, I don't believe that you can split up Lesser Power into multiple powers. The description says that "the character has 25 levels of powers designed like a formulaic spell." It does not specifically note that you can buy multiple spells with one Quality. It says you can add up multiple Lesser Powers to make one bigger power, but not split up one Lesser Power into multiple smaller powers.

6.) I note that Dobran has River Regio Network as a Virtue, but has no Area Lore. Without Area Lore, the regio network is useless. Perhaps that will come with xp.

7.) Dobran can't take both Improved Powers as a Quality and Reduced Powers as an Inferiority. Also, where did he get 25 Mastery Points to lose?

8.) I'm not sure Close Family Ties is an appropriate flaw for a familiar. It will not come up in stories.

9.) I'm not sure that "Slow Power" for a Ritual Power is really a Flaw.

10.) Do you think a 5 Might for a familiar in a high-powered game is wise? That makes him very vulnerable.

It's accounted for in Dobran's seasonal advancement, it will balance when I have everything up.

Craft magic allows making charged and LEI items without spending seasons. It costs 1 vis per 5 levels, twice as much as normal enchanting. There are some time limitations based upon my craft totals.

I missed that; I'll adjust xp to account for that.

Hehe, forest for the trees and all that. I'll add it.

Hmm, I'll have to re-think that. It affects his Personal Powers as well and is pretty central. I suppose I could eliminate the Lesser Powers entirely and add these powers to the Bond instead. The momentary duration was a typo, the level was calculated for sun.

I gave him the virtue before I was aware of the Lore requirement (didn't read the virtue closely), but due to the discussion for Silveroak's character I have been adding in more Lores.

Is this a rule I am unaware of, or a house rule that I can appeal? :slight_smile: . They affect different parts of the spells (Improved Powers is dedicated to reducing the Might cost, with a few left overs converted to finesse xp. Reduced Powers is used exclusively to reduce the initiative of most powers). Each power specifies how Improved or Reduced Powers effects it. Specifically the 25 Mastery points are from Reduced Powers

I was hoping to establish a thriving population on Atlantis, but I can do that even if it is not appropriate as a flaw. I'll swap it out for something else.

I freely admit this one is a stretch. I'll swap it for something else.

His Might will be higher at game start. I am trying to get him a Might point or two each cycle, but don;t want to abuse the transformation rules too much.

As I read the Refinement rules, a maga/magus must do the refinement. I don't think that a familiar can do it.

They state:

I see two potential problems with that:
1.) Does Craft Magic allow you to use multiple Craft skills, or is it limited to one? The description of Craft Magic seems unclear to me, though it implies a single Craft ability.

2.) Craft Magic only allows for the creation of magic items without lab time if the base object being crafted contains vis. That's a big limitation. You can't just walk down to the corner chemist and buy an item containing vis. Where did these vis-soaked items come from?

it seems like common sense to me. In theory, the two should balance out. If they don't, then there's something wrong with the build, in my opinion.

I still don't see the numbers, though. 25 Mastery points is the equivalent of 125 levels of power. I don't see where you lose 125 levels of power.

I can understand this interpretation, although ArM5 uses mage/maga as a general term whenever referring the magical activities. I always interpreted this to allow any character to refine up to MT-3, assuming familiarity was met. I suppose I can have Dobran increase the size instead of refinement to keep the substance without conflicting with this interpretation.

The Craft Magic write up specifies that the item must be used in an appropriate manner, so I intended it to be used across several craft skills, supported by xp and virtue investment. How specifically do you see this as a potential problem? Maybe we can address your concern while keeping the ideas behind the build.

Magi can transfer vis from one physical receptacle to another as a lab activity that takes a day, and may be done at the same time as another lab activity (ArM5 pg94). Note that Craft Magic is not a lab activity and therefore cannot be done concurrently, nor can it take advantage of lab texts (it's biggest limitation).

I think the common sense breaks down because they are written to not be opposites of each other. Improved Powers, for example allows a mastery point to be equal to 5 spell levels, but Reduced Powers does not; mastery points are limited to increasing might expenditure or reducing initiative - you can't lose levels of power.

In this build 7 improved mastery points were used to reduce might cost and 3 improved mastery points were used for 15 xp in concentration. The 25 reduced mastery points were used to reduce 25 points of initiative down to zero. Without the reduced powers, initiative of all powers save Sight Beyond Sight would have been +3 (SBS would have been +2).

I'm willing to go with the troupe's interpretation on this one. What do people think? Can familiars refine your lab? If so, that'll mean hugely refined labs, I imagine.

My concerns with it are the fact that over six cycles, it can lead to a staggering number of 'free' magic items that could potentially unbalance the game. I want to give you the benefit of your Virtue, but I don't want to unbalance things. It becomes an issue given the 168 seasons of advancement we have. Things that wouldn't be an issue if you only had 30 seasons to work with can rear their ugly head when you have over a hundred.

Once more my players have found the loophole. I bow my head in defeat again. I think that the intent of this ability was to allow you to use vis-enchanted items that you acquire, not to use in anything at all. But that's just my feeling.

Hardly a limitation, given the number of seasons required to be spend out of the lab.

Admittedly, that's a real limitation.

Wow, that seems incredibly cheesy to me. None of those powers are combat powers or at all time-sensitive. Reducing their initiative to 0 imposes no cost at all. I tend to think that a Flaw that isn't a flaw shouldn't be a Flaw.

I don't think they are meant to be opposites. Hell Improved Powers is just the Lesser Power or Personal Power virtue completely converted to mastery points. However the reduced power inferiority is worrisome for balance if taken in large numbers. Its pretty easy to make it so each power lets you take more than one iteration of reduced powers.

I've always assumed that familiars or in fact any mundane can refine labs. It doesn't feel like it should require the Gift. Although Trogdor has a valid interpretation too. Maga/Magus is sometimes used for "Hermetic Maga or Magus" and other times for "anyone". I do note that installing virtues just requires someone with an appropriately high Magic Theory if I read and remembered that section correctly.

I do note that I ended up with a hugely refined lab without having the familiar help!

It takes two vis to make a level ten item with craft magic. Buying the same item from a Verditius mage would take three pawns of vis.

On lab improvement

  • I was intending on having my familiar improve my lab. Perhaps also the apprentice. Also intending to have the lab assistant perform copy activities and training activities too in seasons where their bonuses wouldn't apply to my totals, which is why I wrote the npc assistant up. I understand the reservation on allowing it though.

On the Craftable Magic items

  • it's a boon which requires a virtue to access, so I'd say be generous but apply a cap of some sort if the character goes beyond where you are comfortable. 15 seems very reasonable, 25 is a bit far?

A cost change from 2 to 3 vis isn't trivial if it's used a lot, so don't prohibit it; cap the use instead. Consider too that you can't do too much which is game breaking with an item power of level 10 (are they limited to level 10 power total?).

On the powers limitations

  • if it has no real tangible negative effect then it's not a flaw and can't be selected.

On the "items with vis"

  • I always thought these were specially imbued items of some sort not just items which happen to contain vis; but I've never seen these rules used in play. No idea what is fair use in this case.

Lab Improvement
It seems like the consensus among the troupe is that anyone with the required familiarity and MT can refine a lab. We'll go with that then.

Craft Magic
Likewise, it seems that the general consensus is that it can work for multiple Craft abilities.

Items with Vis
I'd like to hear from some others on this one. So far IBT and I are in agreement that the vis-imbued items are intended to be more than just items that a maga has transferred vis to.

Balance wise its not a big deal IMO. Compared to buying them its not a huge savings. Effectively you have 50% more vis for buying stuff. Getting the Personal Vis Source Virtue would allow for a bigger effect. However Craft Magic is still really good since you can make charged items. That said, I do think the intent was more than just something a magus had transferred vis too.

I've been thinking on this and am at a bit of a loss. Obviously this cannot intend to refer to items that are opened for enchantment, because that is an hermetic process to create Greater Enchanted Items and Craft Magic is a non-hermetic holdover that is stated to make Lesser Enchanted Items. A second reason why this cannot be is that it takes seasons, and the whole point of creating LEI's in this manner is that it does not take seasons (else why not just spend a season making the LEI to begin with, and save vis also?).

If not this, then how else would a maga get an item with vis in it? A "trophy" from a critter would qualify, but would be so restrictive as to eliminate the use of the virtue in this manner. I cannot expect that the writers would expect this without specifying it. Not to mention that a "trophy" is no different from an item the crafter put vis in.

So, if it is intended to be more than just items the maga transferred vis into, what would qualify and how would a maga get these items?

I understand your desire to make the items with vis requirement more woundrous and less pedestrian, but I cannot see any way to do so that actually works.

Perhaps instead of focusing on the vis, we should focus on the item? C&G defines that any item that can be enchanted must be Superior or better, meaning crafted with a total of 12 or higher. Would this work for you?

My 2c - great summary KI.

yep, requiring the thing to be somewhat special, either from a beastie of legend (magical/infernal might, etc) or a high quality item is a great idea. And having them in game feels more mythic.

That seems a workable compromise. (Though I can't help but notice that it really imposes no restriction on Haestus, since he already has the Craft skill necessary to make 'impressive' items for other reasons.)

True, but he has spent a fair amount of the character's development to get to that point of high skill. And he still needs to spend the time to craft them, which is time that other Magi will be advancing.

Was there an upper limit on the effective level of the powers?

The mechanic poses a pseudo upper limit in that it is a casting total, therefore no lab texts, and lab virtues/flaws cannot boost the total. I am finding I can make L30 items fairly easily, but have not been able to make a L40 item (trying for the Tireless Servant, but totals are not quite there).

I see it as a trade off of losing raw power but gaining great flexibility.