Necessary? No. What I am currently trying to do is figure out if it would be easier to, and if there are any established guidelines that come closer to what we are trying to do. I don't have all the guidelines memorized either, which is why I keep throwing out new ones. "Is this one more relevant to what we're trying to do?"
True. And there is a whole subset of rules in Animal Guidelines for making one animal into a mythic animal that can get applied. I thought there were some rules for partially changing one animal into another (referred to in our discussion about Theraphosa's Pendant, when we briefly tried to figure out how to give her multiple arms in human form), but I haven't found them yet.
While this is all an interesting exploration of the theoretical considerations for what we want the mechanics to look like, I don't see any actual mechanical suggestions here -- which is puzzling to me, because you seem to imply that Fixer's mechanics are similar to yours.
I agree that the process we're still looking for is a useful mechanic for breaking down a single large ease factor into a number of smaller ones.
I would argue that an artisan would have an earlier step, Seeing The Final Form, wherein they make drafts and determine how they want the final product to look.
Note that if you are making spontaneous Rego Craft spells, then this makes sense. However, for memorized spells, RAW suggests a spell with +1 to flexibility allows you to do all the things a craftsman could do, as a single spell (eg, everything a blacksmith could do). It also suggests that you can add up to +2 flexibility -- presumably a +2 flexibility would let you do anything that anyone could do with that material, or would let you work with a variety of materials. Different spells would still be needed for Ind, Part, Group and size adjustments.
TANGENT: Given the relative low magnitude of craft spells that work on the Individual scale, perhaps you could make some kind magnitude increase which adds to the precision of the spell? +1 magnitude for +1 to the roll? Phantom Blacksmith (Cov 51) is target Group, and does whatever a blacksmith could do to iron, for ReTe 20. Add three magnitudes, and the spell becomes ReTe 35, with +3 to the Finesse roll, and it goes up to ReTe 50 for +6 to the Finesse roll.
I don't understand why you feel like we've lost the element of failure. Perhaps you're worried that the nigh-impossible EF 24 task gets broken down into a series of easily-beaten EF6 tasks? Do we want to place some kind of limit on EF reduction using this system?
My frustration with the system that Fixer proposes is that the ReCrafter knows how long each step will take along the way. I would rather see a RegoCraft system that comes closer to the Original Research rules, with the accumulation of points towards a goal.
I would argue that a Rego Craft spells alone are incapable of making a David-like quality statue at all. Truly amazing acts of creativity and art-making are beyond the scope of magic. Creativity is a divine force. I order to create an artistic masterpiece, one must spend time using the art skill. I say this for two reasons:
It would explain why the Jerbiton aren't all Rego Crafters.
An essential part of the art-making process is the time it takes to make items. Returning to the work, putting it down for a bit and then coming back to it with new eyes. You can't make art any other way. You can churn out crafts like this, though. A potter who makes 100 pots a day will be making better pots than the potter who makes 100 pots/month.
I think we're talking about different goals for these spells:
On the one hand, we have Viscaria, who wants to make buildings, castles, and fortifications out of the raw materials at hand.
On the other hand, we have Praxelites, who wants to engage in artisan work that achieves a supernatural level of perfection.
Does that sound right?
At any rate, while a useful discussion, none of this is mechanical. Fixer proposes a mechanical system that would suite Viscaria's needs, but not the ones I assume Praxelites has.
What about a system based on the Original Research system? Each roll adds to a total which needs to beat the target number. There's a cumulative penalty for casting the same spell on the same project repeatedly (The project has fatigue levels?), without intermission. Perhaps the target goal can ALSO be approached by spending time using the actual craftsmanship skill?
It's a rubric. It's not meant to create a hard and fast guideline to replace what already exists. The idea is to break up the craft/artistic/artisinal tasks into component pieces to be tackled individually.
There isn't a hard and fast break down, except to get it to the point it becomes reasonably possible to do for the crafting magus. There may be some SG fiat, if a crafter has a extraordinarily low finesse score.
I thought about a spell to determine the finished product. Can still do it. Chances are this is where some artistic ability would come in and the Rego Crafter might complete a model, first.
Precision is handled with finesse skill, or precision mastery, only. If you want a spell to create a final product, all the time, we can back in some complexity and have it of fixed design. If you want to vary the components, you need to finesse it, or bend your magic to what your mind sees.
That's precisely what I don't want to prevent, breaking it into automatic (except for botch) checks. As your finesse grows, you are drawn to do more.
That's clearly not in RAW. Not all Jerbiton are interested in art, or making art. Some just appreciate it, no matter how it's created, but they are more inspired by those who make it without magic. And for your second part, I'm trying to bake some of that into the process, you can't get to David in a day, unless you're finesse is just so darn good that you could make the finesse roll, which is unlikely. The process is slowed down.
I think this could be applied to Viscaria's buildings. It takes time to build a building, just like it does to make art.
I'm not interested in using a Craft skill to make the process easier.
Yup, I ran into the same problem. Serf's Parma doesn't help either.
I'd say:
Base speed = man walking (this is mostly the Unseen Porter)
1 mag = man running
2 mag = horse running.
I read that bit "I’m also inclined to treat all finesse rolls as not stressed" as such. It they aren't stressed, they are normal rolls, and thus can't botch? Or am I wrong?
And how can you have botches, but not failure?
Yeah, sorry, I did one thing, then another, and it all got confused.
I initially went with multiple rolls. But not only is that difficult to quantify, that in itself is an abstraction. If you make 5 rolls to do a statue that'd take a month to sculp, would you only do 5 for a bridge that would occupy entire teams for a year?
So I figured "what the hell", and went the "abstract all to a single roll" route.
I’m absolutely not trying to suggest something that different from you. Your initial text was a fine draft, IMO. So, just following along, doing some number on how it could work and why, which lacked in your initial proposal.
Answering, also, the lingering questions in your initial proposal, and what I perceive as flaws: You consider that, instead of doing it all in an instant, the magus will do it “in a day”, adding a “one day limit” to things to limit abuse. You also stop the magus from breaking a year-long project, without any special reason. To take back the ME bridge process, under your initial proposal, Viscaria couldn’t say “I take a season to Rego Craft it”, for exemple, which is something that can happen in play, and should, if you allow breaking down Rego Craft.
=> I abstract things up further, considering that the magus will cast a lot of spells, doing it as a multiple of a mundane craftsman spell: At worst, he’ll cast a bazillion non-stressed spells to do all the minutes details. At best, he’ll cast one single spell. The roll I make him do is just an abstraction for his “average” work”
If you want to keep multiple rolls, here’s what I’d do:
Roll x number of dices. Maybe more rolls the more you lower the EF: 3 rolls for lowering it by 1 step, 6 rolls for lowering it by 2 steps…
If succeeding by 3+, each block of 3 lowers the next EF: If base EF is 15, rolling 18-20 would lower the next EF to 15. Rolling 21-23 would lower the next EF to 12.
If doing a shoddy work, the next EF goes up by 3.
If failing, go back one step to fix it.
If botching, keep the base rules: The item appears fine, but is instead flawed.
Am I clearer now?
I’m not trying to detail specific spells and such, just abstracting the whole process so that it comes down to this:
“Base EF for doing it in X time with all required materials is A. How many time do you want to take, with what materials?”
I also introduce the mundane skill a little, which encourages all the viscaria of the world.
Oh. I thought I had explained that. Ah, I have, but it isn’t clear to you.
In covenants, the finesse EF is listed as being 3 higher if you dispense with the items a mundane craftsman would use.
I was working from notes taken from covenants, which list the base EF of a mundane artisan, and add the further +3. This comes back to the same thing, since, IMO, this +3 shouldn’t be taken away.
IIRC, in MOH.
My problem with this is that this should also apply to any mundane craftsman.
Also, if you use craft magic to separately craft each finger of a statue in order to lower the total EF, doing extremely well on one finger won’t speed up the overall process. It’ll just mean that finger is particularly beautiful.
It also tends to break down things: “I do it in little details, taking a lot of time to lower EF, which means I can succeed a lot, thus doing it faster”.
Also, speeding up is limited by the Ars system. Sure, you do it in 2 months instead of 3. Your season is still wasted.
This, IMO, means 2 things:
High success, so that the item is excellent or more
Using materials a mundane craftsman wouldn’t work, or or not like this. For exemple, using muto to fuse cristal and silver with wood.
Yup.
Going by the proposal above, that could translate in any spell between:
Rego craft a house in an instant
A lot of different spells (probably low level) to do all the minute tasks required, which would occupy me for a month of continual casting.
Botch doesn't equate to failure, it equates to spectacular failure. Say I set the minimum success to be 70%, that means a roll of a 1, 2 or 3 will fail, which will make the next subsequent finesse roll a stressed roll (at a higher ease factor, probably) and is a stress roll. Go back and read what I said after "I'm also not inclined..." A botch is a catastrophic failure, I only want the chance for that to happen when the artist/builder/crafter attempts to fix a previous mistake. I didn't quantify the percentage of failure, but I am/was thinking ~30%. Good rolls throughout the process will produce a generally good result. A failed roll has a chance to be corrected at the following step, with a stressed finesse roll. This walks the fine line between having enough time to redo something (non botch failure) and success. It makes a meaningful, IMO, distinction. Also, keep in mind, when it becomes stressed it's an opportunity for outstanding success. A high enough roll might finish the project ahead of schedule as the crafter is filled with inspiration from his previous failure and insight into the work.
I think we're saying the same thing, basically. Or something really close to the same.
Well, where the mundane skill comes into play is being able to adequately design the magical process to brake it up into a reasonable number of component steps. The mundane skill might also satisfy the intimate knowledge of the item being created part (which adds +3 to the roll). I can see that.
Or if you do it in 2 months instead of a year, you've saved 3 seasons. Yes, low finesse scores will take a lot of time to do stuff. However, I'd probably be generous with experience in this instance. Don't know haven't come to that point.
Even the spell that makes the house in an instant isn't particularly high level.
Exactly, which is what I don’t understand.
You state that you have suppressed the chance of failure, but not of botch. How can you have a spectacular failure it you can’t even have a normal failure?
Further, how can you botch if the rolls aren’t stressed?
You say Say I set the minimum success to be 70%, that means a roll of a 1, 2 or 3 will fail, which will make the next subsequent finesse roll a stressed roll (at a higher ease factor, probably) and is a stress roll
So you’d introduce yet another mechanism?
Isn’t it easier to just keep the regular rules anyway? I mean, having a high ease factor is very similar to this, yet, IMO, is better, in that there’s no “autofail”, so a talented magus will fail less, while a novice one will fail more.
And this contradicts your previous statement: If you fail on a 1-3, then there is a chance of failure.
So when I read you, it seems that what you want in fact is rather to supress the chance of a botch, but keep the chance for failure, to reintroduce botch if one fails a previous roll? This seems overly complicated IMO.
Really? I think you’re complicating your life needlessly. You’re trying to think about it in detail, whereas, sooner or later, it gets down to an abstraction.
Imagine building a house.
Standard Rego craft magic will have one spell to do this. High EF.
You can have a few specific spells, to craft the walls, to the craft the roof, to put them together. Lower EF. It’ll mean, maybe, 10 castings. I can conceive one rolling them all, although it gets boggy.
What if this is still too high, and the magus wants a spell to craft the bricks, another to assemble them one by one, another to craft the tiles, and another to put the tiles one by one, ensuring that no failure is too problematic, and that each EF will be low enough? This is the “almost mundane” craft magus, but, without being too hard to imagine, this means a lot of spellcasting rolls. It makes no sense to have him roll all of them, just as you wouldn’t make the mundane craftsman roll more than one, for the general quality of the house.
=> Don’t try to determine how many rolls are needed. Say that you roll x times, with each roll determining the average value of your work, and you’re good!
Yes, totally.
You have a good idea, I agree with it, I'm just trying to propose a workable set of rules for it.
I would very much advise against such a time reduction.
Take my house exemple above. A magus is using the “brick by brick” approach to have a very low EF, which allows him to do a thing he couldn’t do normally. Fine. This is the goal we’re seeking here.
Assuming, as you did, that 30% rolls are failed on average, but he succeeds at them all (which is statistically quite improbable, since we’re talking about hundreds of rolls being abstracted here). Would it cut down the time that much?
He’s emulating a mundane craftsman as much as possible. Unless a mundane craftsman can do it in 2 months instead of a year, there’s absolutely no reason why he would do it that much faster. If he wants to be faster, he needs to do things faster, by taking shortcuts, such as method 2 or 1. However good his results, there’ll still be a minimum number of spellcasting rolls he has to do, and this time can't be compressed indefinitely. It shouldn’t, either.
The magus is trading time for a lower EF / better result (which, btw, is quite medieval in approach). To allow him to use that lowered EF to actually take less time is both circular and self-defeating. This is a player getting a lower EF at the cost of nothing.
IMO. At best, one should not allow a good roll to permit both an excellent result and a faster process, but even then, this feels like a cheat.
If there's a failure if a finesse roll a stressed roll is necessary at the next botch. That premise has been there from the start. You and I are operating from different premises. I'm trying to make possible the do a year's work by an artist in some amount of time less than a year. That is impossible for almost anyone and the chance of failure on that is in excess of 90% for almost everyone. Finesse score of 12 with affinity +2 for Puissant and Per +5 gets you to 19.
To do the finest work by the grandmasters of an art is an EF of 24, to do what they do in a year adds another 9, for a total of 33. 19 + die roll< 33 more than 90% of the time.
You come up with a system then, instead of picking holes in mine. Keep in mind, this influences what Viscaria is going to do, too. My goal is to empower players to do the things that they need to do/want to do. Amul/Viscaria has taken on the bulk of the work for the Tribunal. What I've presented is for him, primarily. I never stated I didn't want there to be no risk of failure, indeed, I wanted failure to be a part of this from the beginning, so I really want you to go back and read what I said (and what you quoted) because I never said anything about not wanting there to be no chance of failure.
Again, you figure something else out and submit it to Viscaria for her approval. If you want to modify what I've presented, it might be easier to take what I've written and make changes to it, and note those in colors, and strike through parts of mine that I don't like, so I can respond to your suggestions in total. Again, keep in mind that this is for Viscaria, so she can complete her tasks necessary to have a grand showcase for the Tribunal.
I have no doubt that I'm complicating things in the game, I don't think I'm complicating my life[1]. Of course, I'm changing it from a spell cast with one chance of failure to multiple chances of failure, and also chances to correct that failure at a following opportunity. So, yeah, it's complicated. This is Ars Magica. I could instead make Viscaria invent all the spells (as in multiple spells) necessary to do whatever it is she wants to do, and then she casts them and I rely on one finesse roll to see what the finished project is ignoring the rego craft rules altogether. Make that final roll a stress roll and call it done. I did think about that, but it seemed too abstract/arbitrary.
[1]In the interests in not complicating my life needlessly, I'm done with this discussion. Present your alternative in full to Amul, if it's based on mine, copy mine, strikethrough what you didn't like and put your clarifications in a color to differentiate between what I'm proposing and you're proposing. He can pick the one he likes best. As it is now, I really don't understand how what you're presenting is all that different from what I am. I think you're picking mine apart and suggesting alternatives and not thinking about the whole process, but I could be wrong. Amul was correct in pointing out that my goals here are for Praxiteles and being an artist (he used artisan, I think incorrectly). Viscaria is intending to build things from multiple subcomponents, but even still I think what I've done can still be a rubric for Amul to follow in figuring out how to build the spells necessary and get Viscaria's finesse score up to the necessary level. If you can present a coherent method that Amul and I can follow, and Amul likes it better, and it preserves elements of failure, sure, go for it. I'll even offload the SG duties for this to you. See how I can uncomplicate my life?
But... That is the thing, as Amul noticed, you don't really have a system!
You have ideas written as fluff text, and some bits of mechanics here and there, such as "I want failure to be about xx%", but absolutely nothing workable. This is why I've had trouble with your text and understanding what you meant exactly
What I did was take your basic idea and fluff idea, and implement a mechanics on it. Let me state it again.
(Reference: Covenants)
This assumes he does one roll, which is the average of all the rolls he would have made.
This also assume he has spells suitable to enough subdivisions: If he wants to build a castle brick by brick, he needs a spell to craft a brick.
If you want him to do more rolls, this can be adjusted. I'd suggest 4 rolls.
Exemply Gratia:
[i]Say, Viscaria had Int +3, Dex -1, Finesse (Rego*) 4, Prof: Architect 3
She wants to craft an tower for the covenant. This would take a year to a craftsman and his team of workers.
She does a simple, crude design, nothing fancy, so base EF is 6, +3 for Rego = 9.
She plans things carefully, acquiring all the support materials needed (such as contruction beams), draws plans, and easily succeed an Int + Architect roll on EF 6. She suffers no additional penalty
Since she has the spells for this (Group creation of bricks, Group moving and placement of bricks), she can try to do it in a season. She would have liked to do it in a year, but lacks the minute spells needed. This adds +3 to the EF.
Her final EF is this 9 + 3 = 12. If she rolls a 9+, she succeeds. On a 6+, she does, but her tower is Shoddy. Lower, and it is just a mess**
On another hand, a magus not knowledgeable in architecture and doing it in an instant would have a base EF of 6 + Rego 3 + No mundane support 3 + Year-in-an-instant 9 = 21. Almost twice her EF.
[/i]
*BTW, this is a much larger specialty than the usual ones for finesse, but, meh.
** I can do rules for salvaging a mess, if need be. It's easy.
That's been my understanding from the start of this discussion. That you two have been violently agreeing with each other about the mechanics. I make the same comments about this system that I have had for a while:
It seems perfectly functional to me, even if it is abusing the Dur: Instant thing a bit.
As your system stands, it's a simple Craft roll to know what additional materials would help (supports, etc). I'd prefer a higher Craft roll to allow you to achieve levels of competence that mere magic alone can't do. See example below.
I think that this system mirrors Viscaria's desire to engage in craftmanship very well, but doesn't handle Praelities' (sp?) desire to engage in art-making as much, in that the magi knows ahead of time how long his creative process will take. On the other hand, since we've abused the Dur:Instant thing so much already, we could just hand-wave this issue by saying that the CHARACTER doesn't know how long he'll take, but the player does.
So, here the Architect roll is negating a possible penalty. What I'd prefer is is for her Craft:Stone to negate the penalty (familiarity with the raw material) while the Profession: Architect allows her to achieve greater complexity. Referring to Covenants 49, in this example the EF 6/9 represents an "Easy" task. Her Int+Architect roll would determine whether her design was actually Simple, Easy or Average, etc -- the target number remains 6/9, but now her professional competence has come into play.
In the case of my example, the design of the tower and the quality of manufacture are two different things. If an "easy tower" was a basic round 3-story archer's tower for example, then perhaps the Architecture roll means the entry level is designed defensively. The actual construction of the doors and stairs might be a wonky if I rolled a Shoddy on the finesse roll.
It would just be a +3 EF, judging by your system. Possibly, negated by spending some significant amount of time relative to the project using the craft/profession skill to figure out how to make your mistakes work.
And the Finesse speciality was originally just shorthand for "finesse for that one spell that I have which requires finesse." The specialty will get updated on the sheet when the skill does. But thanks for reminding me.
Indeed you are. And what I'm doing, or what I have suggested is based around that. But now you want to know how it works for whatever you want to build/craft. So, I need to see some specifics from you on what you're doing and how we can develop the framework for it. You can move any reply to a more suitable thread. What I've described is probably going to work well for Praxiteles, but may not work at all for Viscaria or building a house/villa.
Well, as the RAW system stands, quality is determined by the EF you achieve.
Finesse-based EF are higher, but the core mechanism stays the same: If you ReTe a tunique, a low roll might give you a shoddy one, which will reflect badly on you, whereas a good roll means a finely crafted tunique that will impress people and give you a +1 on Charm rolls.
I see what you mean, I think. The artist engaing on some work of art, spending time on it...
I'd say 2 things:
The RAW has no mechanism for this beyond the base "good total = great work of art" one, which, for most intents and purposes, works well (it implies that great artists usually do great work of arts)
There is some flexibility in the durations involved. If 2 sculptors are making a statue and doing their best, the time they'll make will be similar, but the one made by the best sculptor will be just better. The corebook already assumes the craftsmen are taking their time to produce the best work possible, IIRC. I seem to recall a discussion about the difference in outlook between medieval and modern on this.
=> Yeah, handwave!
I can do that. Going back to the drawing board.
Lemmesee… Ok, I got it. Warning: this is counterintuitive, but it works like you want, in a way.
We change nothing to the RAW rules when doing the work in an instant. You’re drawing on the realm of forms and all, this is fine, and the EF are insane anyway, so if you succeed, you’ve well earned it.
But when you begin to emulate mundane craftsmen more closely, your real skill and knowledge come to the fore, as you rely less and less on the realm of forms.
=>
When trying to take more time to lower your EF, you must succeed at an appropriate Int + Profession roll to plan the thing correctly. If you fail, you’re just not skilled enough to do this with that much detail, and must make more parts if the design "en masse", by letting the magic guide you, rather than your mundane skill. You quickly see if you're able to do this or not, so if you lose, it takes not much time (at most 1 week for a year-long project), but if you succeed, the plans, reflexion and schematics you do are part of the time required by the project.
You must roll an appropriate Int + Profession against the Base EF (not modified for Rego or anything else) of the work you’re attempting.
If you succeed, you can do it with any time dilation you want.
If you fail by 3 or less, you can slow down by 2 steps (ex: doing a year’s work in a season)
If you fail by 6 or less, you can slow down by 1 steps (ex: doing a year’s work in a month)
If you fail by more, you’re just not skilled enough to attempt this work as a mundane craftsman, and must rely on the RAW and the Realm of Forms.
EF is by Covenants p49
3 for Rego Magic
3 if the mundane craft would use many temporary substances to process the work. This can be eliminated if the Magus has the needed substances, and succeeds an appropriate Craft roll of EF - 6, save for instant craft magic, where you can't do this.
+9 EF: Doing a Year's work in an instant
+6 EF: Doing a season's work in an instant. Doing a year's work in a month
+3 EF: Doing a season's work in a month. Doing a year's work in a season
+0 EF: Doing a season's work in a season, a year's work in a year, a month's work in a month.
If "going slower", the Finesse skill is limited to [Appropriate Craft skill + 2 + (Time modifier)/3]. Combined with the Prof roll above, this ensures that only those that have some knowledge of the appropriate craft can do efficient work.
Exemply Gratia:
[i]- Viscaria wants to create a magnificent tower, with much details and particularities. She has Int +3, Dex -1, Finesse (Rego*) 4, Prof: Architect 3, Craft: Stone 2
Due to the complexity, the task is Hard: base EF is 12, +3 for Rego = 15. This would take a year, for a final EF of 21 + 9 = 30.
This is really difficult, so she wants to stick as close as possible to mundane craft, in order to lower the final difficulty. She must succeed a Prof: Architect roll of EF 12 for that. If she rolls 9-11, the design is too much for her skills, she has to take shortcuts through the realm of forms and can't go slower than a season. If she rolls 6-8, she can design the rough outlines, but is at a loss for most things, so can't take more than a month to do it. Lower? She has to do it in one go, crafting the tower in an instant.
She rolls a 14, and can go on. She could do it in a year, but will try to go for a season. This adds +3 to the EF, which goes to 18.[/i]
Nope.
This would mean that starting over would be easier than salvaging a mess. I don't want this.
If you botched, sure, there's nothing to do (the foundations are a mess, the statue broken in 2...). Else, you can roll the base (mundane) EF using any appropriate Craft skill. If you succeed, you get +1 on your next roll for the same project, if working from the remnants of your failed attempts.
Why +1 and not +3? Because it would mean that going for a month/season and failing 3 times gives you the same difficulty that if you had tried for a season/year in the first time, which is already generous enough IMO.
Very good remark. So we can go and see what it would take for her
Just to throw the obvious into this discussion, I saw somewhere in another thread this phrase "Roll Per+Finesse, vs EF 12 - Craft." I think Peregrine may have said it to somebody. It was late and I was using the forum as bedtime reading.
Maybe we're overthinking this? What about simply subtracting up to all relevant Prof and Craft skills from the EF? (I suggest all Relevant ones because I think that skills are underutilitized in the system relative to cost. I would also be fine with up to one Prof and one Craft skill.)
Exemply Gratia:
Viscaria wants to create a magnificent tower, with much details and particularities. She has Int +3, Dex -1, Per 0, Finesse (Rego*) 4, Prof: Architect 3, Craft: Stone 2
Due to the complexity, the task is Hard: base EF is 12, +3 for Rego = 15. This would take a year, for a final EF of 21 + 9 = 30
Her knowledge of mundane craftsmanship and structural engineering her. EF 15 - Prof:A 3 - Craft:Stone 2 = 10 to do a year's worth of work in a year.
She must roll to avoid the +3 penalty for not including intermediate materials, as before.
She wishes to go faster than that, and could attempt to do a year's worth of work in a season at EF 13, or a month (EF16), or even in a day (EF19).
As we've appointed system design to you, and I'm just adding input, then I'm fine with messes being easier than starting from scratch, even if it does go against my mundane experience.
Fixer, could you react to my suggested complexities and mundane-required-times in the OOC Tribunal Field thread?
Judging purely by the looks, I love it. Mechanics-wise, not so much
The problem I have with this is simple. If the sum of relevant skills is 4 or more, it means Rego Craft magic is, all things being equal, more efficient than mundane work. And the more skilled you are, the worse it gets.
It also become becomes better than Creo Magic, which I don't like.
There's an added problem, too. This lowered EF will mean that Rego Craft magi will better items.
And these are things I've tried very hard to avoid :-/
The problem is for my formulation for Prof: Architect, isn't it?
How about this:
Roll Int + Profession against (Base EF - 9). Each 3 points of success allow you to diminish the "Time EF" by 3 (min 0), if also following the time constraints below:
+9 EF: Doing a Year's work in an instant
+6 EF: Doing a season's work in an instant. Doing a year's work in a month
+3 EF: Doing a month's work in an instant. Doing a season's work in a month. Doing a year's work in a season
+0 EF: Doing a Day's work in an instant. Doing a month's work in a month, a season's work in a season, a year's work in a year.
I like your previous iteration better than the one you just suggested, in terms of creating an effective flavor. At this point, I'm solely looking for ways to streamline the mathematics. I actually like the Fail By X factor in the Profession roll because it mirrors the success system of Rituals.
Fractional value of the skills? Average of the skills? I would argue that a magus who has spent 100 xp on abilities plus Finesse plus Rego and related Forms plus spending time in lab developing the spells should be damn good at it. I mean, these abilities aren't generally useful the way spending points on AL and Philo would be.
Hum... Thing is, as it is, the skills are already useful.
Without a good enough Prof: Architect, you can't to the more complex projects "step by step", and more and more have to do it in one go, with the insane EF that entails.
Likewise, without a good enough Craft skill, your finesse is limited.
Of course, the numbers can be adjusted to make them less or more of a requisite (+/- 3 to the Profession EF, +/- 1 to the Finesse ceiling)
And yes, a magus who spends time developing Finesse and all will be good at it. And at everything.
Of course, XP by XP, a blacksmith will be better at what he does than the magus. But the magus will be able to do the simpler works faster, sometimes in an instant, if he doesn't seek excellent or better quality.
But the magus will also be able to stand in for the tailor, the shipwright, the mason, the spinner, the bookbinder the glassblower, the cook, and what have you. If you have mundanes skilled in Finesse, with appropriate items... You win!
Anyway, I'm of the impression that the Rego Craft rules are there to allow most magi to do simple, usable items, those done in a day, maybe those done in a month but no more, so as the covenants still need mundane workers (or vis! Always the big tradeof) to do the work and can’t rely on a few Rego spells cast here and there
With Viscaria returned to Phoenix (and Amul in apparent retirement, as he's not been on since just before Christmas), I'm at a loss as to who can work on the project. Does Fiona know any other Verditius?
Well, I don't believe it has to be a Verditius, unless it's to achieve cost savings of vis, or the size of the device and opening it for enchantment limits.
Also, Viscaria isn't unavailable, but she is more difficult to get to, and may have some different requirements than she did before, and I can run her as an NPC.
Present your alternative in full to Amul, if it's based on mine, copy mine, strikethrough what you didn't like and put your clarifications in a color to differentiate between what I'm proposing and you're proposing. He can pick the one he likes best. As it is now, I really don't understand how what you're presenting is all that different from what I am. I think you're picking mine apart and suggesting alternatives and not thinking about the whole process, but I could be wrong. Amul was correct in pointing out that my goals here are for Praxiteles and being an artist (he used artisan, I think incorrectly). Viscaria is intending to build things from multiple subcomponents, but even still I think what I've done can still be a rubric for Amul to follow in figuring out how to build the spells necessary and get Viscaria's finesse score up to the necessary level. If you can present a coherent method that Amul and I can follow, and Amul likes it better, and it preserves elements of failure, sure, go for it. I'll even offload the SG duties for this to you. See how I can uncomplicate my life? 
