Magical racoon - trying to stat it

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Finally, I decide to bite the bullet and create a magical animal, future familiar for a young Verditius. I find the process quite complexe, so I would need some guidance.

I settle for a Racoon, possibly of virtue - depending how far from my initial concept it goes. I believe a racoon is quite dexterous and crafty and would fit the mindset of a tinkering Verditius. And then I had flashback of Guardian of the Galaxy and Rocket...

Base animal stats: I used the beaver template from Animals of Mythic Europe, and further decrease by one its size since they are quite smaller (adjusting Str and Qik in the process).
So Racoon characteristic
Cun: +2, Per: 0, Pre: -3, Com: -4, Str: -4, Sta: +1, Dex: +2, Qik: +3, Size -3

Qualities: Craftyx2, Sharp Ears and Skilled Climber (instead of Amphibious, Pack leader and Timid), minor adjustment towards a racoon: I found racoon "craftier" than beaver - which are already quite crafty - more adaptable and more able to improvise (like opening can/door, etc). Obviously, racoon are not amphibious, nor pack leader - they don't form family/community like beaver. Instead, I picked up sharp ears (they like to sneak discreetly and take stuff) and skilled climber. I believe these qualities are select to specify the strong suit of the animal, although I am not sure about the balancing system.

The stats I assigned:
Int: +1, Per: 0, Str:-1, Sta:0, Dex: +1, Qik: 0, Pre: 0, Com: +3
I selected these stats to have a racoon keen to discuss all kind of topics - especially those regarding mechanics and Artes Liberales - but more bookish than outdoory. Because of his small frame, once he became awaken, he found comfort and safety within labs and library, whereas the wilderness was loosing its appeal.

So aggregated stats:
Int: +3, Per: 0, Pre: -3, Com: -1, Str: -5, Sta: +1, Dex: +3, Qik: +3 Size: -3
Skills (base):
Brawl: +3
Survival: +3
Awareness: +3
Athletics: +3
Stealth: +4
For 170 XP

I decided to make it a Summer magical animal with 360 XP.

Latin: +4
Artes Liberales (mechanics): +2
Craft: mechanics: +3
Finesse: +3
Philosophae: +2
For a total of 310 XP - I am leaving some aside for fine tuning.

Then comes the tricky parts: Virtues, flaws, magic qualities and inferiorities
Might of 10+3 (size) for a total of 13.

Virtues I am considering:

  • Unaffected by the Gift (m)
  • Magical animal (free ?)
  • Educated (m) - not that I want him to have more XP, simply to justify that he has a lot of academic skills by listening to mages training their apprentices. He is so small that he could almost squeeze into mouse holes and spy in most rooms of a Covenant.
  • Inv. Genius - but since it is an hermetic virtue, it might not work
  • Puissant and Cautious with Finesse to use some of his powers
  • Apt Student or Book learner (or both) to fit his self-education background.

Flaws:
Small frame - which should further reduce his size to -4 (maybe dangerously small for a familiar, but within character)
Dependent (he is watching over his "normal" family or a community of semi-intelligent mouses that adopted him when he was smaller) or Enemies (some magical cat or falcon ?)
Anchored to Library (m) - to reflect that he only feels safe into libraries, universities and mage lab.
Hunger for vis (M)
Warped Sense (sensitive): don't talk in the library!

Magical qualities and inferiorities
This is were the wheels started to fall off the cart and I got lost.
He would definitely need Gift of Speech and I want him to have Powers related to handling (heavy) items and crafting, so obviously Terram oriented.
But this is as far as I went.
Any tips ?
I will reread RoP:M and try to get through that section... but any help is welcome.

I also realise during this process that it looks quite powerful for a familiar. Am I missing something ? Why would a mage bind a mundane animal ?

2

Raccoons aren't native to Europe, so European evangelists may take offense. As a beast of virtue, it could just have hopped out of the magical realm because of its "curious" personality trait :slight_smile:
I like your general setup. A good flaw might also be hoarder or kleptomaniac.

2 Likes
3

I love the idea, even if there were no raccoons in medieval Europe. Rocket is great!

I see the Finesse and Gift of Speech fitting so well. I would not give Inventive Genius.

4

One moment while I hide my personal biases...

There we go. Now, not every Magical animal needs the Story Flaw, especially if he is not being played by a player. A large number of magical animals have the Susceptible to Deprivation. I like the focus on Finesse, and think it having a power that can grant a puissant Finesse could be fun.
I agree that Inventive Genius is not very appropriate as a Hermetic Virtue. I also don't think Anchored to the Library is appropriate, unless he's actually bound there before the players ever meet it... Actually, the raccoon you've made is something that already is highly interactive with mortal society, based on it having Latin, Philosophiae, Artes Liberales. You're saying this is a future familiar for a Verditius but it is designed as a creature living within an educated library society already.

When I design magical animals for long term play, I actually generate them whole cloth, as characters, rather than just stapling magic powers onto a nonmagical creature.

5

Because he is a Summer magical being, I thought he could be older than the mage. But because he is small, and discreet - maybe he has a power that help him be even more innocuous than he already is - he was never noticed. He stole this knowledge, he was never taught.
Then, this young Verditius - also with small frame and Crippled - came around, they bound upon common interest: mechanics and tinkering. I still need to work out on how they met: how this mage was able to spot the magical raccoon that managed to escape many other, more skilled mages, companions and grogs. Maybe, the young mage was also looking for some knowledge out of his education, like initiation into Mysteries he was not ready to undergo. And he stumbled on this little critter that was trying to picklock some precious Summae kept under thigh lock, possibly starved from virtus. They made a deal; the mage would fed him and the racoon would bring him some "inaccessible" documents.

Inventive Genius is discarded.

Regarding Kleptomane flaw, I was thinking to give him a Drive and some personality traits in this direction.
The Drive would push him to go outside of his dear Library & labs, and would obviously clash with Anchored to...This is also the reason for potentially Enemy in the big wilderness.

6

Don't creatures without Intelligence start with -3 Int when becoming familiars?

7

I tried to find some European equivalent to a raccoon. It looks like many similar things are in the Americas. I did find the tanuki, but that's about as far east as the Americas are west.

Yup.

8

Magical creature/thing have human Intelligence nstead of Cunning (p30 of RoP:M) and he is definitely intelligent since he is a well-cultivated beast. That would also explained why he left the wilderness.

9

Ok, Cun: 0 is Int: -3 for familiar conversion.
You are saying it doesn't applies for race to specimen, which is completely different.
I gonna noble's parma on that, but I see where you're coming from.

10

For your basic build of a racoon, it looks pretty good. Don't forget to increase Per by 1 because of "Sharp Ears". You also need to set Racial Specialties for their Abilities, animals don't get to choose. Considering you dropped all the Qualities which grant abilities (they give the Beaver a 5 and three 4's), you total Racial Abilities might be high. Up to you, should be fine.

For learned Abilities, here are a few you might consider spending you remaining points on:

  • Folk Ken: This serves as his ability to understand humans. A very useful skill for magic animals that live around them.
  • Magic Lore: This is an important skill for Magic animals. This is their Folk Ken (for other Magic beings), Survival & Area Lore all rolled into one.
  • Area Lore: Speaking of, a point here focused on the Covenant to show how much of the layout he has learned.
  • Penetration: This one depends on the powers he selects. Any that could be opposed by MR, it would greatly help.

For Virtues:

  • Magical Animal: This is indeed a 0-cost/free Virtue. The Magical Animal equivalent of the Gift and required.
  • Unaffected by the Gift: Good pick here.
  • Inventive Genius: Hermetic Virtue, so it doesn't work.

For Flaws:

  • Magical Friend: Common for familiars, it directly associates them with the Magus. You could have it tied to a librarian who knows about the racoon when it first joins play. You need a Social Status and this will provide that.

For Qualities/Inferiorites:

  • Gift of Speech: This is a great one, fits with the character.
  • Second Sight(m): This is a very useful ability for a Magic Animal. Consider it.
  • Improved Powers(m): Reducing the Might cost of powers is good for low might beings. This can do that and more.
  • Focus Power(M): This might be your best bet to cover a range of Terram related effects. It is the Magical Animal version of Spont Magic. It gives you 25 levels but you are capped by your Might. Your best without taking Improved Power is trading 10 levels for 2 Mastery, using 1 to improve the maximum Level to Might +5 and the other for whatever you want. With Improved Power you can keep the full 25 and spend 2x of the Mastery points to take it up to Might +10.
  • Lesser Power & Personal Power(m): These two are your bread and butter. The only difference between them is Personal Power is "Range: Personal OR Constant" and has half the Might cost to use, so take it for those powers.

I would recommend looking at the Hermetic Cats section of RoP:M for similar sized animals build to be familiars to get an idea of powers. They get 13 points for free (equal to Might) and so should only take Inferiorities if you are short of something you really want.

For ones that grant powers, you can actually have more than one from them since they give a total Level. You can also sacrifice levels for Mastery (the same as you get from Improved Power) and it is often worth it to reduce the cost, especially on Powers you want to be able to freely use. My Familiar has 5 points of Lesser Power and devoted 60 of the 125 levels to Mastery.

Some to consider as Lesser Powers:

  • Trust of Childlike Faith: Rename it "Incredibly Cute" or something similar. Will let them get a good reaction from people.
  • Prying Eyes: You can do a Hearing variation or a slightly higher power that allows Vision and Hearing. Good for spying on lessons and making sure the coast is clear.

Some to consider as Personal Powers:

  • Veil of Invisibility: Rename it something like "Bandit's Mask", will let them move around without being spotted.
  • Beast of Outlandish Size: This will let them get bigger and stronger on demand, useful especially since you are considering making them even smaller than normal.
  • Trackless Step: Another really useful Power for a sneaky bandit.

Magical Animals have their Cun converted to Int, so this doesn't apply to them. This would be if a Magus took an animal that had Cun as a familiar.

11

Some points on magical animals:

  • They don't have Intelligence instead of Cunning. They can have either, as can be seen in the examples. That is a choice that can be freely made, as RoP:M p.30-31 and p.33 explain. The Cunning -> Int -3 conversion only happens if the Familiar did not already have Intelligence. Here I would think having Intelligence already makes more sense.
  • RoP:M does not give animals mundane Qualities. Instead you buy whatever Characteristics and Abilities you need. However, in other supplements we later see magical animals with mundane Qualities (as well as a whole other method of creating animals in Grogs). So there is a major lack of clarity about whether mundane Qualities should be used or not. But since RoP:M does not include mundane Qualities in its calculations, any Abilities gained through them would count toward the animal's season.
  • Spring beings are like 5-year-olds in experience. Summer beings are like young adults, roughly 20 or 21 years old. While this is younger than nearly all gauntleted magi, as long as the animal doesn't have Age Quickly Flaw, the animal can be of whatever age you want.
12

Some notes from me:

When designing Magical Animals, I do like to use the Mundane Qualities, since some things cannot be expressed with just virtues (for example, an Eagle has both the Keen Eyesight quality,. and the Keen Eyesight virtue, that means +6, and there's no way to replicate that with just virtues.
But, the qualities are there just for the bonuses to Abilities, or when they give new abilities, like the Poison quality. When it comes tot he Characteristics and Abilities of the creature, those have to be paid for fully. So if you have Crafty, which increases the Cunning, you still need to use the 7 characteristic points to buy that, or take the Improved Characteristics virtue. The same with Abilities. Abilities from the animal template and any Qualities it has, have to be paid for with the initial XP the animal gets. Otherwise, you've just given it a lot of free XP.

13

I am not sure about that one. But since the information is spread between HoH:MC and RoP:M, I could have missed a point. It seems that animal qualities are free - hence my initial question about balancing with inferiorities - but I see that they are used to better describe the animal, and are not balanced by inferiorities (some animals are clearly superior to other besides their higher characteristics). I know Virtues and Flaws of the mundane animal must be taken first before assigning any other one.

Although I miss out that Beaver have the Flaw Non-Combatant, which I must give to the raccoon - they can be feisty, but would rather run away than fight, they are no predator.

Regarding skills, yes, I took the beaver skills, and deducted their cost from the initial pool of Summer magical animal XP pool.

@InfinityzeN All valid points regarding social skills and magic lore - I knew I would miss important things like that so I kept spare XP.

I also like the idea that the raccoon could have befriended an old librarian. Initially, the librarian would have been able to find some Terram virtus to feed his good friend, but even as a skilled and important member of the covenant, he was only mundane and could not officially request precious virtus without disclosing the existence of the raccoon. So he looked for a suitable caretaker for his friend, that could provide for his expensive need - and found this young Verditius, struggling with some topics, that could benefit for personal tutoring lessons.

Better than invisibility in this circumstances - I just watched Puss in Boots with my daughter, and it reminds me of this scene where Kitty Softpawns and Puss are trying to outcute each other with googly eyes...

Other Personal powers fit also very well the theme, although I might gear it more towards tinkering and a bit less master thief - that would be another reason why he exile himself from the wilderness, it would be beneath him to steal items, far to common, vulgar for the educated raccoon he consider himself to be. Knowledge however...
Personality traits:

  • Snob +1 (just enough to look down at stealing food, but not to a level to be insufferable)
  • Thirsty for knowledge +2
  • Brave -2
  • Raccoon +3 - he cannot deny his origins, so sometimes he would steal food and feel ashamed about it, especially since he does not really need food, besides virtus.
14

Micrometon, the magical raccoon (before becoming a familiar)

Int: +3 (conceptual); Per: +1 (detail oriented); Str: -5 (puny); Sta: +1 (headstrong); Dex: +3 (meticulous), Qik: +3 (fast hands), Com: -1, Prs: -3
Size: -4
Mundane qualities: Sharp ears, crafty x2, skilled climber

Virtues & Flaws

Magical Animal (-)

Virtues:
Unaffected by the Gift (m)
Educated (m)
Puissant & Cautious with Finesse (2xm)
Apt Student (m)
Book learner (m)
Open slot

Flaws:
Magical companion (m)
Non-combattant (m)
Small frame (m)
Hunger for Terram vis (M)
Warped Sense (sensitive) (m)

Skills:

Athletics (running): +3
Awareness (predator): +3
Brawl (bite): +3
Survival (forest): +3
Stealth (hiding): +4
Latin (concepts): +5
Artes Liberales (mechanics). +4
Craft: mechanic (armillary sphere): +3
Philosophae (cosmology): +3
Finesse (crafting): +5 +2 (Puissant)
Folk ken (educated men & women): +2
Magic Lore (Terram vis sources): +3
Area Lore (covenant buildings): +2
Etiquette (covenant): +1
Guile (trigger compassion): +2

Magical qualities

Lesser Powers (4x):

  • Master Blacksmith (ReTe25, cost 0) (same as Phantom Blacksmith in Covenant, with +1 flexibility added magnitude to handle any non-noble metal) - allow to shape and form any metal already in ingot or bar, Improved Power to reduce the cost by 5 mastery level.
  • Master Masson (ReTe15, cost 1), Base 2, +1 stone, +2 Group, +1 Touch, +1 Flexibility - allow to shape and form any stones or group of stone, 2 level mastery to reduce the cost by 2.
  • Hand of Invisible Servant (ReTe 10, cost 0), same as Unseen Servant, 2 points of mastery to reduce the cost by 2.

Personal Powers (1x):

  • Aura of Disarming Charm (MuIm 5, base 3, +0 Self, +0 Ind, +2 Sun), Similar to Aura of Ennobled Presence +3 bonus to convince people that your are harmless, innocent or not worth their attention. One point of mastery to reduce the cost to 0.
  • Invisibility (PeIm 10, base 4, +1 moving image, +0 Self, +0 Ind, +1 Diam), mastery 1 to reduce the cost by 1.

I could not make work Trackless Step or Trust of Childlike Faith as personal power because they need to be personal or constant and could not seem to find a satisfactory way to build it.

Other Magical Qualities:

  • Gift of Speech
  • 4x Improved Abilities (150 points spent out of 200, in case I made a mistake or forgot something).

So I have one minor virtue slot left and 50 XP if I did not make mistakes.

1 Like
15

So Micrometon (he picked up the name himself based on his favorite Greek astronomer, Meton of Athen, but would never consider himself worth of being called Meton, hence Micro-Meton) is almost complete.

I left some buffer for Virtue and XP until I am sure everything is Ok.

My idea for the virtue would be to take Variable Power for Master Blacksmith, with the idea that with time, he would be able to handle noble metals, possibly gemstone and tackle larger projects. If found that fitting for a would-be engineer/astronomer, otherwise, Second Sight would also be appropriate.

I modified Aura of Ennobled Presence for something more fitting for a 10-inch racoon.
I was also considering a Personal power to sense virtus (InVi 5, Base 1, T: smell (+2), R: Per, D: Sun (+2)) considering his appetite, or even active magic (InVi 20, base 5, T: smell (+2), R: Per, D: Conc (+1) - without the possibility to distinguish Tech & Form).

XP from Improved Abilities have been spent on Latin - I loved the idea that Micrometon would speak better Latin than many mages, but no other language, somehow an archetype of the pure academician -, Finesse, Artes Liberales, Magic Lore as well as Guile and Etiquette.

Remaining XP would go on Greek - appropriate considering his interest in Greek philosopher and astronomer, 50 points would bring him directly to +4, such an educated raccoon. Since Rhetoric is handled by Artes Liberales, he would be able to present his idea in a decent way if is Com was not negative, but I did not have enough points left to make it positive.

16

Racoons are actually highly social, they just don't tend to form permanent groups, in places up north they often pack up for winter and disperse in the summer. mostly a fun fact, but also a response to the comment about beaver sociality upthread.

17

Micrometon, the magical raccoon, completed

[EDIT: taken in consideration feedback: remove some power cost reduction through mastery, corrected might score, replaced Improved Power with Minor Virtue]

Micrometon picked up the name himself based on his favourite Greek astronomer, Meton of Athen, but would never consider himself worth of being called Meton, hence Micrometon.

Int: +3 (+1)(conceptual); Per: +2 (+1)(detail oriented); Str: -5 (-1)(puny); Sta: +2 (+1)(headstrong); Dex: +3 (+1)(meticulous), Qik: +3 (0)(fast hands), Com: -1 (+3)(whiskers in his mouth), Prs: -2 (+1)(tiny bugger)
Size: -4
Mundane qualities: Sharp ears, crafty x2, skilled climber

Might score (Rego): 14

Virtues & Flaws
Magical Animal (-)

Virtues:
Unaffected by the Gift (m)
Educated (m)
Puissant & Cautious with Finesse (2xm)
Apt Student (m)
Book learner (m)
Variable power (Master Blacksmith) (m)

Flaws:
Magical companion – Old librarian (m)
Non-combatant (m)
Small frame (m)
Hunger for Terram vis (M)
Warped Sense (sensitive) (m)

Skills:
Area Lore (covenant buildings): +2
Artes Liberales (mechanics). +4
Athletics (running): +3
Awareness (predator): +3
Brawl (bite): +3
Concentration (ignoring sounds): +1
Craft: mechanic (armillary sphere): +3
Etiquette (covenant): +2
Finesse (crafting): +5 +2 (Puissant)
Folk ken (educated men & women): +2
Greek (astronomy): +4
Guile (trigger compassion): +2
Latin (concepts): +5
Magic Lore (Terram vis sources): +3
Philosophae (cosmology): +3
Profession (Scribe) (penmanship): +3
Profession (Illuminator) (astrological map): +1
Stealth (hiding): +4
Survival (forest): +3

Personality traits:
Raccoon: +3
Snob: +1
Thirsty for knowledge: +2
Brave: -2

Magical qualities

Lesser Powers (3x):

  • Master Blacksmith (ReTe25, cost 3) (same as Phantom Blacksmith in Covenant, with +1 flexibility added magnitude to handle any non-noble metal) - allow to shape and form any metal already in ingot or bar, Improved Power to reduce the cost by 2 mastery level.
  • Master Masson (ReTe15, cost 3), Base 2, +1 stone, +2 Group, +1 Touch, +1 Flexibility - allow to shape and form any stones or group of stone.
  • Hand of Invisible Servant (ReTe 10, cost 0), same as Unseen Servant, 2 points of mastery to reduce the cost by 2.

Personal Powers (1x):

  • Aura of Disarming Charm (MuIm 5, base 3, +0 Self, +0 Ind, +2 Sun, cost 0), Similar to Aura of Ennobled Presence +3 bonus to convince people that you are harmless, innocent or not worth their attention. One point of mastery to reduce the cost to 0.
    Aura of Disarming Charm is based of Aura of Ennobled Presence for something more fitting for a 10-inch racoon.
  • Invisibility (PeIm 10, base 4, +1 moving image, +0 Self, +0 Ind, +1 Conc., cost 1), mastery 1 to reduce the cost by 1.

Other Magical Qualities:

  • Gift of Speech
  • Minor Virtue (Improved characteristic: Per, Prs, Sta)
  • 4x Improved Abilities.

Micrometon will be a nice familiar for my Verditius. It requires a Labtot of 25 + 14 – 20 = 19 to bind him, so binding him will be her first act as gauntleted mage.

In case, somebody would like to use him, here is a pitch of Micrometon as an NPC, source of story plots.

Micrometon, the independent scholar

Micrometon has been living long enough in the vicinity of mages to understand the structure of the Order as well as what means being a familiar. He is not interested in this fate: he did not escape the wild and his den to be bound!

His deep understanding of the Magic Lore made him keenly aware that progressing further his knowledge will be difficult unless he gets help. But approaching openly mages is risky: they might want to investigate him, possibly find ways to bind him in servitude or just carve him open for vis (shudder, just thinking about it).

However, he befriended a Redcap that could help him: Micrometon could send mail, pretending to be a mage – who wish to remain anonymous because of rivals wanting to declare a Wizard’s War on him. He is willing to trade information, tractatus, Summae for vis – much needed for his own health, but also to advance himself and offset the inherent difficulty of learning when you are a magical being. Said information or tractatus would be discreetly copied, but possibly stolen directly from the library of the covenant he is hiding in.

Micrometon will start by discussing some philosophical topics – possibly having identified a mage in a Mystery Cult, so it is easier to explain the anonymity required in his correspondence. Once he has found a pen pal, he will open trade of some tractatus for virtus. Once he feels some level of trust is established, he will take more risks, offering difficult-to-obtained information for larger amount of vis (see long-term objectives), until his requests will become very personal and will start to hint to his true nature: finding information regarding initiation of a very specific kind: Gifted (Major quality).

Finally, the last favour he will ask is to have his Arts open, ideally without the Order being aware, and without swearing the Oath – he won’t mind learning by himself. He will be willing to trade seasons in a lab – since he will be able to act as assistant, promise of sharing discovery, etc. At this stage, a good level of trust should have been established between Micrometon and at least one mage, so long-term deals are possible.

He uses Sight of Active magic to navigate the various magical traps that could be used to protect the most precious documents. He would not normally risk entering a mage lab, but once he gets closer to his final goal, his natural caution will get overridden by the closeness of one of his two major objectives. His basic understanding of Magic Theory allows him to make educated guess regarding the information he is getting from the Sight and dodge most magical traps.

Note: Technically, getting a quality, major or minor, requires building up experience (through exposure or by learning from somebody else) while off-setting as much as possible the penalty from Might score. So finding a magical creature, Gifted, and willing to share this knowledge would be quite a feat: ghost of a mage, dragon-magician…

Story plots:

  • After some honest and profitable trades, the information Micrometon is trading becomes rarer or very restricted (notes concerning a major breakthrough, sensitive report from house Guernicus, location of forgotten covenant, initiation script of major virtue). It will take some time, but somebody will eventually notice that PCs show knowledge of something they should not be aware. Political intrigue, investigation including Certamen or even Wizard’s War might ensue.
  • If it occurs twice, the covenant the information is coming from will start to suspect there is a traitor or a spy amongst them. Micrometon could have to run for his life – if things look dire, he might be willing to become a familiar, but he will try to delay this as much as possible and later will try to work on getting back his independence (with or without the help of a mage depending on the relationship).

Adjustements
Additional magical Inferiorities and Qualities

  • 5x Reduce Might (from 13 to 8) – which as well decreases his penalty for learning;
  • 2x Lesser Power and Improved Power: Sight of the Active Magic (InVi 40, cost 1, 7 mastery level to reduce cost);
  • 2x Improved Ability:
    • Magic Lore from +3 to +5 (45 xp)
    • Magic Theory: +2 (15 xp)
    • Guile from +2 to +4 (35 xp)
    • Knowledge of the Order: +1 (5 xp).

Virtue substitution:
Great characteristic: Communication, going to up to 0 (instead of Variable power).

Flaw substitution:
Magical companion – Old librarian, with Magical companion - Redcap

Personality traits replaced by:

  • Independent: +3
  • Thirst for knowledge: +3
  • Careful: +2
  • Raccoon: +3
2 Likes
18

I like a lot of what you did here, and he looks pretty playworthy. In fact, he's quite powerful. I have a few thoughts:

First, I am always careful about reducing costs on any powers significantly. Micrometon has infinite instant forging, infinite Unseen Servant, infinite Disarming Charm. Reducing a cost to 0 feels to me like it should be a natural part of a Magical creature - No effort, repeated constantly whenever it might be wanted. Even his Stonemasonry is reduced to a single Might point, so he can do it 5-8 times a day without expending any worrying, it will just reduce the number of times he can turn invisible as this is written. Addendum, you mis-mathed his invisibility - as a personal power, it's cost is mag/2, which for level 10 means its cost is base 1, and spent a mastery to reduce it to 0.
Second: The Master Blacksmith and Master Mason powers are allow this raccoon to somewhat easily replace any average stonemason and average blacksmith (With a Finesse of +7, he's pretty expert at magical crafting - and can easily be considered an experienced journeyman in both fields.) The fact that he has infinite activation of Master Blacksmith, in any actual situation he can hand-wave permanent crafted items out of spare parts. He can probably build a castle in a few weeks without effort, including having to rebuild anything where he rolled badly on finesse.
Third: Your magical crafting skills feel like they could easily be a pair of Focus Powers, but they're much easier to pay for in Might.
Fourth and final: Your 'adjustments' suggest that you could take the 'inferiority' of reduced might - and you noticed it makes his XP easier. With a non-combat character who effectively can use most of his magical powers for free or very very cheap, reducing his might is a significant advantage not an inferiority.

19

Yes, I just thought that with such a low strength, I wanted him to move books and any useful tools as a human, so Unseen servant was a kind of extension of him.

The disarming charm was designed as a constant effect, but I am not sure I designed it correctly.
The Invisibility was designed initially with Diam duration and since it is not free, he was not supposed to have permanent invisibility, or invisibility at will.

Yep, you are right. I did not consider that. I was so focused on him being most of the time in a lab or a library that I overlook that bit. In fact, he is designed like he is on his path to build a Armillary, but it comes with unexpected side benefit. I think I could just loose a couple of mastery levels so he does not become the craftmen for average job. On the other hand, I know that he would not do that, because it is too common, too lowly job.
The Master masson power, I designed it with him building the most sophisticated raccoon den for his "relatives", with fox traps and what not. But obviously, he could slowly build a full size house.
When I was visualising in my head what he would be doing, it was at raccoon scale so I did not see an issue, but of course spell/power work at human scale and Ind. as defined in the rules.

Focus power is limited to his might in term of max level, and most crafting spell level are above that, so I went with Lesser power. It was my initial intention, but I could not make it works.

Agreed. It is not a bug, it is a feature :smiley:
This is why it is for an NPC. I designed him in such a way that it is reasonable for him to still learn things, but at a slower pace - otherwise he would a) given up on trying to learn anything, b) turn crazy for desperately trying to learn, without any success.
Secondly, if used in a Campaign spread over several years, he would be able to slightly evolve as the PCs progress, so he can show that he learn some news topics (he is pretending to be a mage of a certain power) and still be relevant until he achieves his goals.
Thirdly, it also means that once outside of an Aegis, he is very vulnerable to any spells, especially detection spell. A weakness that he will try to hide for as long as possible. With his size and skill set, it is easy for him to sneak in during the Aegis ritual of the covenant he is hiding in and benefit from it. So if the PCs tries some spells to locate him (which they should not do unless they are sure he is not a mage), they would only have a chance of succeeding if is outside .

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You can spend Mastery levels to raise that. It is a Mastery level per +5 levels above Might. With Might 13, 2 levels could get you to 23 (13+10).

The actual big drawback of Focus Power is that you cannot reduce the activation cost.