Not quite, though the result can be quite close. The rules for magical items for the lab is that the item can either grant one or more Virtues or Flaw, or add to the Characteristics or Specializations of the lab.
Tireless Servant falls into the second category, so its usefulness on the lab (+1 General Quality, +1 Safety) are based on its effect level (20 levels per point of Characteristics, 10 levels per point of Specializations). If you want to use your Automaton for this purpose, then its usefulness would need to be calculated based on its effect level as well. So if your Automaton's effect level is exactly 40, then you can duplicate Tireless Servant or choose a different set of Characteristics/Specializations. If the effect level is higher then you get more bonuses, if it is lower you get less.
An item invested with Chamber of Summer breezes falls into the first category and (hopefully) simply grants the corresponding virtue (Magical Heating in this case).
Granting a specific Virtue (or Flaw) using the first category often requires a lower level than giving the equivalent bonuses using the second category, but it is less flexible.
Ok, I found the reference in Covenants (p. 121). The Automaton will have three effects: Movement (level 25), Mind link (15) and looks like me (20). This is a total of 60. I presume that I can make this Quality +1, Safety +1, and Aesthetics +1?
I'm going to create a Sun Disk. This is a piece of brass, the size of a large coin, hanging at the end of the chain. It has a CrIg effect, generating light as bright as sunlight. CrIg 18(Base effect 5, +2 Sun, +3 environment sunup/sundown) Calpurnia keeps it in a tight-fitting leather sleeve, so that she can decrease the light by partially/completely enclosing it in its sleeve. This may be enough for Superior Lighting.
Not sure if one is good enough to get Superior Lighting.
Ack! Craft Automata is really a pain. I tried to build my butler/lab assistant, and found that the powers it needed to have exceeded the capacity of the device. I then thought, I'll build a second item to free up the space. Now I've got to build a second item just to have use of the first. Automata cost an extra 6 vis over and above an equivalent invested item, plus they are terribly expensive (even more vis). Invested items can be added if there is still space available, not so with an Automaton. Finally, to effect their powers, you need to be quite competent in several Forms. They will require maintenance almost every year, costing more time and money. The upshot is that Automata are an inefficient way to achieve goals.
My big idea for later in the game, when I could invest the Creo Aurum 40 effect necessary to make something fly, was to make a drone. I'd cast invisibility on it, and it would respond to remote commands, and it would have a powerful ReTe effect to shoot an arrow at people. Unfortunately Automata are expressly forbidden to have powers that target others. (HoH:MC p. 130)
I'm venting. I'm so glad I didn't take a Flaw for this. I doubt I'll ever use this ability. Well, now I can save a year from my character.
Are you forced to have fully automated tech ? Vim can have meta-programmation spells, for instance. Having a spell that oversees automatons and sends a warning to you is not fully automated, but you would be able to have pretty inexpensive magic to supplement your spells, at a much lower cost. That could be the kind of engineering tradeoff that makes the idea viable ?
Automata aren't fully automated at all. They have a very restricted set of abilities, used only when specifically directed. The goal of this is to have someone represent me while I am physically somewhere else. In my case, here's the problem:
It needs to look like me, so I buy the Simulcra power with exact copy: CrIm 20 - 2 pawns.
It needs to be able to walk around: Base 25, +10 unlimited uses per day, 4 pawns
I need to develop an Arcane range CrIm spell to direct the creature, simultaneous with another CrIm Arcane Connection spell for me to see and hear what's going on wherever it is. Hm, those could probably be combined.
This is technically feasible, but building a level 35 effect when one of your Arts is a 7 (Mentum, required for the walking around) is tough. Likewise, spells with the Arcane Connection range quickly become high level. However, this doesn't look quite as bad as last night.
Can you give me an example of the Vim spells you could use? I'm afraid I'm not quite seeing it.
Let me state, again, that there isn't really any limit on the age of a character you can bring into the saga. So, if you find your particular build doesn't work at your estimated age, you can add more age.
Jonathan. I appreciate that, but I should be roughly the same capability of the other players. The others I've seen are all around +30 years, I don't want to be too far past them. I'm also new to the game, and am not sure about how to do this, so I want to see how other players develop.
Speaking of new, is this correct?
Blend in with the Crowd (MuIm 25) This spell conceals a group (up to 10). The sight, sound, and smell of the targets is replaced by the same of the surrounding area. This spell is broken by loud noises or vigorous activity. (Base 3, +2 Voice, +2 Sun, +2 Group)
For example, I'm playing in a saga with a pacifist Criamon, a drunkard Merinita, a Giant Blooded Merinita, and an unusually bloodthirsty Tremere. I'm playing a Tytalus weather maga, who is a fast caster, has multiple spells that fling lightning, sight range, T: Group, T:Group, Size +1, variations in between all below the level 55 ritual limit. She can clear armies. Even her single, standard Incantation of Lightning can be cast up to 4 times (multiple casting, under the RAW, not taking the ability multiple times) and can get over 50 penetration... So, there's a tremendous disparity of combat power in what the magi of that covenant can do...
IMO Having the illusion try to mimic the surrounding area is harder than base, given it would need to know who's line of sight it has to match to; unless it's more like camouflage patterns. Does it adapt to a new backdrop? How does the spell know to match to a person and not a pillar in a crowd.
If it's seeking to make the targets almost invisible I don't think it's as simple as base. Happenstance a spell from a few days ago - spell-to-hide-like-a-chameleon-or-in-woodlands. (edited to clean up phone formatting)
I'll be more clear the next time I put a spell up. The idea was to provide cover during an encampment or when characters are scouting a location - For the spell to be effective they have to be more or less where they stand. I get that needs a bit more, so that it can cover for moving around slightly, and talking softly.
I think the Magi of Hermes (?) has a spell called something like Ambush from the Road, which hides a group by destroying the species outside a border. Is that the kind of thing?
Ok, I probably had misunderstood what you mean by automaton
In any case, let's say your automaton is a comfort blanket to which you have an arcane connection. What do you gain from building an automaton, that you wouldn't have by simply casting all of these spells on the blanket at the beginning of any usage ? What if you put only the spells that are the most costly to you in the automaton, and then bridge the gap between what you have and what you would like by seting up temporary spells ?
For instance, let's say your automaton doesn't create an imaginem form of you by itself. Couldn't you just recast this spell with duration sun or moon ? If you want to be warned when someone interacts with it, couldn't you put a ward on it, which rings a bell in your lab or sends a mental message ?
The idea being that your maga intends to bridge that gap by further building her automaton, but for now, she uses temporary solutions.
Pyrale, I thought through it, and the basic thing that the Automaton gives me that I can't do myself is a mobile Arcane Connection. If I'm strictly doing lab work, it can give me a small bonus. I came to the same conclusions that you did: put only the effects absolutely necessary in the Automaton, and make up everything else with spells. I can have the Automaton travel, and then I can use Leap of Homecoming to go to where the Automaton is, and then go back to the lab, barring an Aegis of the Hearth, or similar effects. I think I have this resolved.
Another basic question, Devices affecting spells. I want to put a Wizard's Boost (Terram) spell in my Talisman, that increases the size or power of the objects affected. I have a level 35 spell that can make a boat fly, and I plan to make the Wizard's boost level 36, so that the size of the boat is increased 10 times, which would be enough to carry most everything I need to convey.
This is fine, right? Can I use the effect in the talisman to influence a device? I have a Hermetic Generans, does this now have 10 times the strength?
As I understand the spell described, Wizard's Boost, it adds 5 levels to the level of the targeted spell. As Group targets are +2 Magnitudes, or 10 levels, this would seem to fail. Further, the final level of the spell affected cannot exceed the level of Wizard's Boost, so the spell targeted becomes a level 36 spell.
However, unless I'm mistaken, Muto Vim spells in Talismans can only affect the power within the talisman, unless one has Consumate Talisman. Or am I not remembering that correctly? I'm away from my books right now, and will be until this evening.
As to the Generans, I'm not sure, it might be up for debate.
While looking at your character sheet, hoping to see more info on the Generans, since I'm away from my books, I noticed your bow. It has problems, since it transforms an object into an arrow, that arrow is, by definition magical, and subject to resistance, whether it uses the item's effect to launch it, any item it transforms into an arrow becomes subject to magic resistance.
Oh, and I think Wizard's Boost requires a specific effect, meaning in one case it would make the item bigger, but if you wanted to make something stronger, like your Generans, you would need to invent another specific version of Wizard's Boost for that purpose, unless changing the size would meet that purpose (I don't know).
You're correct - since you need Consummate Talisman to allow Muto Vim effects to go outside the talisman. I missed the reference in the Muto Vim block. No, I'll have to learn the spell directly, which will be a pain. For certain effects, it's easier for me to enchant into a talisman than to learn the spell directly. You are also correct that I need a level 40 Muto Vim spell to increase the magnitude of a level 35 spell by one.
The effect I'm looking forward is power. I can lift/control a larger boat. My wheel spins with more power. What I'm seeing from you, is that I have to separate the effects. I need one Wizard's boost to affect a larger sized target, and another to make something impact harder, or spin faster. I have to remind myself that Mythic Europe is non-Newtonian.
I'll fix my bow, looking more closely, I can't have Sight range on something that's pushed initially - I think I have to accept the range increment of the ReTe guidelines in HoH:S p. 37
Bow of the Deadly Strike ReTe 35 Pen 0, 24 uses/day (R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind) This bow propels an arrow at extreme velocity at a target, doing +20 damage. Range increment is 20 paces. User must make a Aiming roll to target. (Base 25, +1 touch, +5 24/day) The arrows are special, made solely of steel. [I'm extrapolating the chart on p.37 of HoH:S, and reducing the level of effect by one magnitude because I'm affecting metal, not stone.]
I appreciate your reviewing all this. Ars Magica has a number of rules, that seem minor, that have a profound impact on the game. The first one I noticed was characters may only have one Hermetic Major Virtue.
I haven't been in a huge hurry to review characters in detail, yet. It's something I plan to start doing soon as I nail down some story elements. A lot of these can be caught by players as they develop the character. And since I'm not in a huge rush to get underway, players have more opportunity to see their build develop and adjust it as they discover problems or adjust it altogether.
