The average magus can extract 2 pawns of Vim per season in the lab. On average. Maybe 3.
The average magus (Latin 4) can write out 80 levels of LT in a season. But the typical hired scribe (could be the magus or an apprentice, rarely a pro) can crank out 60 to 180 levels per season.
These seem like uniqu spells, not super common, so say another magus has to write them out.
My time is valueable...
One pawn Vim per 20 levels. Give me Technique vis and I'll sweeten the deal and make it 50.
Adjust the levels per pawn ratio by a bargain ability check. Bottom price is 3p for 80l (his cost).
May I suggest Shroud Magic? Given our problems with the Quaesitores, it may sure become useful.
So, for 320 spell levels, this'd mean 16 pawns?
Hum... And a Bargain roll gives 2 more levels/pawn per point by which you beat his roll, or you get 1 level less by point by which you failed.
So, for exemple, you roll 12 on Bargain, he rolls 6, you get 32 levels per pawn, meaning we'd pay 10 pawns for our 320 spell levels. OTOH, if the rolls were reversed, we'd get 14 levels per pawn, paying 23 pawns.
If it comes up in conversation around her, Tranquillina would second the idea of having a Shroud Magic lab text around. Her sigil tends to make mundanes feel more uncomfortable, so shrouding it could come in handy sometimes (not to mention the Hated By All The Quaesitors thing).
I'm still interested in the idea of paying someone to actually spend a season teaching me all the Rego Craft spells that they know. It's a set of rules that I almost never see used, and has interesting "lineage of architects" story aspects to it. Plus, then it isn't restricted to spells of a particular form.
Of course!
I'd suggest a lot of low level spells, of various forms, to craft simple items? Things that can be done in at most 1 month? Instead of vast, titanic projects.
Another MuVi spell that Tranquillina could probably find a couple of uses for is Wizard's Boost: Imaginem. Exactly level 25 would be ideal. But that's just if you're looking for an excuse to get a Lab Text - nothing to go out of your way for.
Coming back to this...in order to fine tune the pricing...
The real underlying cost here is time. Trying to equate a vis equivalency to a season is very difficult and leads to widely disparate results. So, I need another way to measure the cost of a season, or at least equate it to something that is fungible.
If lab texts and books and other items can be properly scribed by a scribe with Magic Theory, but isn't otherwise gifted, this could cheapen lab texts, as they can be handed off from a magus to a scribe who translates them and enters them into any covenant's library, as long as there is a scribe at the covenant. There may also be scribes who can be hired (for silver, maybe small amount of vis, they work for the Order, and if they want something from a magus, they need vis to buy it, save up for a lifetime, whatever).
Do we, as a troupe, want mundane scribes to be able to copy texts on magic. Say a Magic Theory score by a non Gifted person limits the amount the level of text they can copy, 1=10 (levels), 2=20, 3=30 and so on. For summa, maybe it needs to be a combination of quality and level (build points), for tractatus, it would just be the quality, so MT 1 can crank out copies of that Q10 tractatus, easily. Scribes now require an upfront investment of time from a covenant to get good at scribing texts on Magic. In my reading, I've never seen this well defined, or perhaps as well defined as I'd like it to be. In the above scenario, lab texts below of 20th level and below are cheap. Lab texts above 20th level are a bit more expensive. This may also solve another problem, but that's an exercise for the players if they agree with this.
I like the above proposal, because it makes scribes really useful. It makes a covenant who focuses on offering scribal hospitality less useful, though. Places like Durernmar are still going to require a magus to do the scribal work, it's just tradition there, and a magus is the only one who can understand the true value of a text and be expected to treat it carefully (not true, but people think it nonetheless).
Right now, I'm thinking Rego craft spells are going to be hard to come by, period. Craftsmen keep secrets, Magi keep secrets. Put the two together, those spells to me, are incredibly valuable. I don't see Praxiteles or Rhesus sharing them easily. Florum was the covenant that created magical machines to manufacture wool, they later had to destroy them by order of the Tribunal. I don't see Florum sharing this text with anyone for a number of reasons. And if a covenant is earning its livelihood from Rego crafting, they aren't going to want to share those secrets with the competition... Is that a reasonable understanding?
A caveat, though. For huge projects, craft spells fare badly compared to rituals. So I'd see specialized spells being kept from strangers, but more common/useless ones being available.
The argument could also, and then, in a way, be made about Creo ritual spells like healing spells, the one to create a tower... Although these are susceptible to be less used (making learning them prohibitive, and thus hiring a specialist worth it), and incur a vis cost
I don't necessarily agree with this. These spells have a slightly higher barrier to entry; they cost vis to use them period. Even if someone knows the spell, they may not be able to cast it, because they don't have vis available, or don't want to spend it. Creo spells that create new things, as opposed to healing, create quickly without available source material, using the vis to make it. They also have a significantly lower Ease Factor (Int+Finesse of 9, think about how many PC magi have Finesse of 2 and Int of at least 2), which many magi can achieve on an average die roll. Indeed, even a failure doesn't hurt the utility of the created item, it just affects how beautiful the end product looks.
Rego spells use more commonly available source material than vis: stone, wool, wood, etc. Rego crafting spells need high (and successful rolls on) Finesse to make usable or at least not flawed items. It's almost always a stress roll (unless raw material is unlimited, but when does that happen). Yes, they can perform the spell again if there is available material, but then they are wasting their material. Creo rituals never waste anything, they convert vis to the finished product.
This entire rego crafting vs creo crafting debate seems to be a huge pile of worms that creates more problems than it really solves.
I do think that scribes who have never had their Arts opened should have a more difficult time copying magical texts, whether they be summae, tractatus, or lab texts. Something in the mystical process of having your Arts opened creates a new...way of seeing or looking at things, maybe? Gives you a new perspective? And even if you lose your Gift somehow, you still have that new perspective?
I like the idea of a mortal's ability to scribe magic being capped by his "book knowledge" of Magic Theory, but I also like the idea of a Failed Apprentice coughClaudiacough being better at scribing the stuff than a "normal" person would be.
Agree. That's why I don't like Rego Crafting - it gives me a tummy ache) and my eyes tend to glaze over whenever I see a discussion on the matter. I just can't convince myself that Rego Crafting is worth it.
I think it's worth it from the point of view that there should be more than one way to get things done. A magus/covenant with vast quantities of raw materials should be able to use magic to make it into other things. Seems...reasonable. A magus with vast quantities of vis and little raw material should be able to manufacture that raw material, or the desired end product containing the raw material.
I just think that Rego Crafting hasn't been adequately thought out...it's been treated like an afterthought. It's a hodge-podge of inconsistencies.
I think that could be what bugs me the most. It's like a leaky rowboat that they keep slapping different kinds of wood on it, and it winds up looking uglier and uglier. I'm hoping that someday (before 6e, hopefully), they'll totally revamp Rego Crafting so that it makes more sense...at least to me.
Please, don't make me do this, this can turn into a useless argument. One can always argue that even the most simple "protect me from rain" spell is not useless, and, from here, one can always argue that magi would not share these.
I was thinking of spells that require an EF so high as to be mostly impossible for all but the most dedicated magi, but I'm sure that, from any point of view, any spell can be seen just as useless as it can be seen as great by someone else.
You want to say that any and all Rego Craft spells are useful and so precious that magi wouldn't trade them, although they'd happily trade any other spell? Fine. As I told you, I can see your point.
I'm just telling you that at least some spells should be traded, or else, you're putting Rego Craft magic above all other magic: it is The Spells that are so precious that, even though you'll trade your lvl 50 aegis and the construction rituals you took years to develop, you just won't trade these.
I don't follow you...
You're saying that creo rituals have a higher barrier to entry, as if this explains why they are traded nonetheless... And then you go on saying how they are easier than rego spells, which seems to contradict your previous statement.
I mean, if a barrier to entry is the reason why some are traded and not the others, who has the higher barrier? Creo rituals, because of the vis cost and high levels? Or Rego craft, because of the failure chance and high finesse required?
In both cases, this can be abstracted down to seasons of work anyway. Boosting your arts or your finesse, extracting and then trading vis...
I just don't see your point as clear.
Well, that was the point that emerged from the other discussions. It is good for small things, but, for huge projects, a creo ritual is much better.
The only advantages of rego craft is that you can set up mundaneness to do a lot of different crafts, and maybe save some vis. Or, as JL says, if you suck at creo.
It's just different.
I think it overall works mostly fine, the high EF stopping it from wrecking creo rituals while still being good at, say, crafting a sword or a tunic. The problem is that people keep wanting to use it to do Huge things while saving time and vis, and tend to usually get into arguments such as, munchkinized: "I have a few rego craft spells mastereda and I am relaxed, so no botch, so I break down my tower building into 10 thousand easy rego craft spells that I won't fail, building it in a day of continuous casting instead of using a season to learn Wizard's Tower from a text I'll have to acquire once I've bumped up my CrTe. And right after, using the same spells, I build a wall. And a house. And baths. And a road. And a bridge" This is also why I abstracted seasonal rego crafting.
