Greetings and Salutations, dear friends of the ars magica forum.
While researching an effect to instill in magic item, I came across the following question:
Is an ‘effect’ (as in AM5e Core p.98, Laboratory) the same as an ‘effect’ (as in AM5e Core p.114, Spells)?
Consider a more specific example.
The Crystal Dart is a spell that has a 2nd-kind requisite (‘[…] adds an effect to a spell. In this case, the base Arts and level for the spell are those for the highest-level effect it has.’) and thus is a single spell with two effects.
A lesser enchantment is a type of enchanted item that can only contain exactly one effect (‘Lesser Enchantments: Need not be opened, cheap. Can only contain one effect, and the creator must be able to make it in a single season.‘).
This would indicate that a (Lesser) Wand of TCD would be impossible, which is obviously somewhat silly.
Of course, the same section also contains ‘[…] before a power is instilled […]’ so enchantment is instilling of powers not effects? And a bit later ‘The effects instilled in enchanted items are designed like spells, but they are not spells.’ So what exactly is instilled in the item?
(a) An enchantment effect is the same as a spell effect.
(b) An enchantment effect is a spell by any other name.
(c) An enchantment effect is any power.
Please advise.
Note: The ultimate consequence here is whether or not complicated multi-effect magic usually reserved for invested items can be instilled in a lesser enchantment as long as a complicated multi-effect spell can hypothetically be invented. This would probably be harder to enchant due to requisites but possibly cheaper in terms of vis.
Consider a ‘Ward against Malicious Men’ menhir.
If (a), this’d have to be an invested item at ReCo ~25 + InMe ~25. Easily enchanted for a cost of 8 vis.
If (b), this could be a lesser enchanted item with a Re(In)Co(Me) 30 effect. Difficult to pull off (but easily doable with lab boni), and costing only 3 vis baseline.
Intuitively, I’d go with (b), but am still unsure because of the linguistic confusion.
And in this case, what stops a magus from throwing together a dozen effects into a cheapo lesser item at one magnitude per? The requisites would usually stop field-casting of such a spell but given an assistant or two etc, enchantment would be quite possible.