We have a player who would like to use a ritual to create a herd of horses. Due to the non-canon setting, there are no other ways of procuring horses. Its magic or not at all. Its clearly a momentary duration ritual to make non-magical horses.
I'd like a little advice on spell design. Haygar's Herd of Horses
CrAn?? (Ritual)
Range: Touch, Duration: Momentary, Target: Group
The spell creates a herd of horses.
(Base 15, +1 touch, +2 group.....)
Now my questions. Animal affects up to size +1. We will need size +2 to create a horse at individual. Group allows us to create ten times that amount. So with group I could get 10 times size +1. Adding size reqs multiples that by ten again (e.g. 100, 1000, etc).
So how many horses can I get for a group target with no size reqs? how much bigger, mass wise is a +2 animal compared to a +1. The rules have ponies at +1 and horses at +2 size. So how many horses is that?
If I add a size req to my group target, do I get 10 animals at size +2, or 100 times the mass of size +1 animals, but in the form of size +2 animals?
I wouldn't worry about animal mass and all that jazz, it's too complicated and not worth doing the arithmetic.
Take Wizard's Mount, which creates a horse and accounts for the size increase by +1 size as an increase in the size of the created animal. Take away Sun Duration and make it momentary -2 magnitudes, add group for +2 magnitudes, and it is still a 35th level spell and creates 10 horses. Add another size modifier, affecting the Group (or however you want to apply it) and a 40th level spell can create 100 horses.
The more interesting issue is why can't the procure horses, and if they can't procure them, do the characters even know that horses exist? Can't create something without some familiarity with the item being created.
Ultimately the answer depends on the size of horse you (or rather your player's magus) want.
The spell outlined above would result in either:
1000 ponies with a Size of +1
100 standard horses with a Size of +2
10 war horses with a Size of +3
EDIT: I misread the spell as having 2 magnitudes of Size added. My apologies ten ponies constitute a standard group, as do five average horses of Size +2, or two +3 sized horses.
Every +3 to creature size means a tenfold increase in "mass" (not a proper medieval term, but ...), so every +1 in creature size means slightly more than a twofold increase (the easiest way to think about it is that out of every three increments, two are x2, and one is x2.5 -- yielding 2x2x2.5=10).
So, the basic Target:Group for Animal would yield:
1 animal of size +4
2 animals of size +3
4-5 animals of size +2
10 animals of size +1
20 animals of size 0
40-50 animals of size -1
100 animals of size -2
... and so on.
Every +1 magnitude you add multiplies those numbers by 10. So, assuming size +2 horses (some really big ones probably qualify for size +3, which roughly halves all the numbers below)...
You need at least a level 30 Ritual (base 15, +1Touch, +2Group), which creates 4-5 horses. Probably too few.
A level 35 Ritual (base 15, +1Touch, +2Group, +1size) yields 40-50 horses. This seems a pretty good choice.
A level 40 Ritual yields 400-500 horses, a level 45 Ritual yields 4000-5000 horses etc.
There is, of course, an alternative. Muto Animal is temporary, but its "side effects" are non-magical.
A level 20 Muto Animal non-ritual spell (Base 5, +1 Touch, +0 Circle, +2 Ring) could be used to change every animal larger than an insect in the target Circle into a horse. The change lasts until the circle is broken, or the "horses" leave... so they are not good animals for transportation. But if you make the Circle largish, say a hundred yards in diameter, you can keep the "horses" there almost indefinitely, and have them sire a new generation of non-magical foals. This saves you the vis and the need to research a Ritual (note that with some care that level 20 MuAn spell could even be cast spontaneously) at the cost of having to wait two or three years to get your "real" horses.
Thanks guys, Ezzelino, that little list was perfect and just what I needed.
I've gone with this
Haygar's Herd of Horses
CrAn35 (Ritual)
Range: Touch, Duration: Momentary, Target: Group
The spell creates a herd of 50 horses.
(Base 15, +1 touch, +2 group, +1 size)
Now, further questions.
Can the caster specify the male to female ratio amongst his new horde of horses, if so is this ratio set by the creator of the spell or the person that actually uses it? Can it vary between castings?
Jonathan.link, brief background to assuage your curiosity, the player characters are exiles from their home planet, which did have horses, and have taken a portal to a new planet (which does not). The only horse prior to this spell was the intelligent (albeit rather dim, int -2) horse of virtue that one of the PCs was a long term friend of (magical animal companion and future familiar). Needless to say, this magic horse is delighted with the number of new female horses since he is somewhat of a lothario.
I don't know if there's anything specific in the books on this issue, but my group play it as "If it's fixed in the spell, you don't need much finesse in the casting, and probably don't need to roll. If it's controlled in the casting, you need a (harder) finesse roll"
It allows you to pick between a more general spell (make a corpse; hard finesse roll to make it look like someone) and a specific one (make your own corpse, easy finesse roll to make it more convincing, get your current hair etc. just right)
This might depend on the casters casting sigil too.
Generally, I would say it created "whatever the natural ratio for a herd of horses is" --- Wikipedia seems to indicate that a "herd of 50" would consist of 1-3 separate bands, with each band containing a single male (maybe two).
Alternatively, I would certainly allow the caster to instead create a "herd of mares" or a "herd of stallions" spell at design time.
ten ponies constitute a standard group, as do five average horses of Size +2, or two +3 sized horses.