[POSSIBLE SPOILER] Dies Irae - high lab totals

Is there a requirement that a lab project be conducted by a single mage for its entire development? Can an effect be developed by Mage A for a period of years (who then dies), then by Mage B for another few decades? Perhaps this effect was a long term project, for decades or even centuries, by a series of magi, each contributing a few points?

If each lab team contributed only one point to the lab total each season, development time on an effect of 130 would be a mere 33 or so years.

Although, yes, getting to an LT of 131 is something of a challenge.

I guess if you assume the helpers are all magic theory experts with high IQs then you can get there. It's just a crazy high number. Can you PM me the other Virtue you are talking about. It's been a while since I played Ars, so my memory of what they all do (especially the less common ones) is fuzzy.

I do not have DI, but off the top of my head I can think of a few possible bonuses you overlooked...

  • An Aligned Aura, can double the potential bonus from the aura for an activity that falls within the scope of the alignment
  • Lab Bonuses: can go much-much higher than +10. Any chump can build a +10 lab if they put effort into it. A lot of work and dedicated specialization can bring you up to well over +20 or more (Major Feature/Focus for each Art and the Activity plus a ton of other little bonuses)
  • A Similar Spell adds the full Magnitude and Mastery (Lab) adds a bit more
  • Other Virtues such as Inventive Genius and more
  • Don't underestimate Experimentation. In fact, the Lab can be specialized for such, ramping the potential Lab Bonus up to +30 or more.
  • Countless other ideas I am not remembering.

Also, you do not owe the players a full explaination. In fact, an old D&D trick, you can just make stuff up and gamer-munchkins will deduce how it must have worked for you.

"Reasonable time" is open to reasonable discussion; although not sure how that fits into the scenario.

An NPC (or group of NPCs) might easily be willing to spend a decade (or even more) doing this. So, you don't necessarily need to have a Lab Total significantly over the spell level. If the spell level is 130, a Lab Total of 135 can get the job done in about seven years.

And if that 135 Lab Total doesn't include experimentation, you can probably half the time by experimenting (even without doing anything tricky with Lab customisation).

A +8 bonus per helper is reasonable. However, considering the magnitude of the project, it is also reasonable to assume that the mage optimised his research. With Failed apprentice as a minor virtue, it is explicitly said that the failed apprentice can still work and assist in labwork.
So if said magus was able to recruit a few of those, let them soak in a library with enough good MT summae and tractatus when he was training his leadership skill, asked them to specialised in Spell invention, with paiment of longevity potion, minor magical items and gold (I am assuming that this mage is moderately concerned about breaking the Code - I do not have Dies Irae, so my assumption might be wrong), then he could have several assistants providing bonus higher than the +8. If it is only just 3 points more than your assumption (Int of +2, 8 MT + specialisation) , the labtot goes from 132, to 147. That's 8 seasons of work, only two years for such a powerful spell.

MT of 8 requires 180 XP, with tractatus of quality of 10, that's 18 seasons, 4 years and a half (starting from 0, which is not the case of failed apprentices).

I still don't know how he is going to cast it, but the spell is discovered.

Of course, that means five people who can spill the beans regarding the amazing spell he worked on. And they will know what the spell does even if they cannot cast it.

Lab specialization and experimentation- you can get +13 from experimentation and risk, and if you get lucky rolls they may have been trying to invent a weaker spell but rolled a 4-6 on modified effect...

If you have 13 in MT, and only 13 in form and 15 in technique, you are not really balanced.
A character with 13 in MT should probably be a magus who has spent more XPs in arts, unless he is a labrat. Considering XPs allocation, such magus should have scores of at least 20 and normally more like 25-30 in his main arts, which I assume would be those of that "big invention". No sane magus would invent such a big project out of his main area of expertise.

If you have 13 in MT, you should have a lab with more than +10. In a RL saga, my magus has 16+2 in MT, and his lab contains enough laboratory magical items to provide (in addition to his familiar) a full bonus of +31 in GQ, without even counting additional +6 in spells and another +12 in experimentation.

Expermentation bonus should have been taken into account, which could be averaged to a +7 to lab bonus (+3 risk, +5.5 average die, -20%failure of season - i'm not doing exact math here, just having a rough idea), even if at the end he fails the first spel invention after X seasonsl. That first failure gives a neat additional +MT to the reinvention of such spell, which in your case translate to a basic +13 to labtotal, even if not re-experimenting.
In addition, inventive genius means +3 or +6 if experimenting.

Experimentation always seems to backfire (perhaps I'm just bitter as it has not yet worked to my advantage and I've been playing since 1988, albeit I tend to now avoid it). It seems to me that it steals seasons and wrecks projects more often than it gets you an advantage. A 4-16 bonus to one's lab total at these levels is rarely worth the chance of disaster, failure, unwanted side effects, and effects modified to the extent of no longer being appropriate for your needs.

On the other hand Marko is spot on with his description of the power of bonuses from the laboratory. It only takes a season or three to get a +5 in a relevant laboratory number. With +5 or +6 each in general quality, in inventing spells, in the relevant technique, and in the relevant form one could get a +22 pretty easily.

With the 119 lab score from the first post the character could spend two seasons and develop a level 81 spell that is closely related to the final spell. This would give a +17 to his or her lab total in just two seasons.

If a higher lab total is still desired they could take their 136 lab total and develop a level 101 version in 3 seasons and get a five more points by raising the similar spells bonus to +21

(Yes, Marko also said this in his earlier post but I thought to be more explicit)

In fact that's 132, there is +13 due to the focus missing in the lab tot.

And your suggestions are still valid, it only makes it more plausible to proceed that way. A first iteration for a similar spell level 65 (one season), to gain a +13, or 85 in two seasons for a +17 bonus, which will bring the final labtot to either 145 (9 seasons for 130) or 149 (7 seasons). All in all, a bit more than two years of dedicated work.

Hi,

I noticed this too, from the very beginning. The bonus from experimentation is random, so it is often either insufficient to make a difference or more than enough, with some of it going to waste. Even if a season is gained, it is almost certain that you will lose it again, either through mishap or through needing to start all over again to get the effect you really wanted (you know, the spell that makes you invisible to dragons rather than the one that makes dragons invisible to you or the one that makes you invisible to dragoons or the one that makes you irritable around dragons or the one that makes you attractive to goats, or the one that makes all you invisible to dragons at range touch or the one that turned your lab equipment into a dragon (but it was only for duration Fire!))

Oh yes. I did a character whose lab pretty quickly gave her bonuses in the 20s, for what she wanted to do, at surprisingly moderate cost too. You can even get someone else to put in the seasons on your behalf.

Anyway,

Ken

If you have a lab total of 132, you can easily create a level 60 enchantment in a single season that will give your future lab totals a +6. Do this twice and being at 140 you can create a level 70 enchantment for an extra +7, which then puts your lab total at 150.

This can certainly work but I feel it is fairly easy to use this rule to exceed the bounds of good taste. You can get a lab bonus of 19 with three seasons work just as Silveroak suggests, but whether you want to have that sort of a thing in your setting is, for me at least, a different matter. Yes, we can easily exploit lots of different rules but this one jumps out at me (I don't presume to speak for others) as being moderately more painful to my suspension of disbelief than most.

Sigh No.

Time to re-read p. 101 of the core book.

Thus the bonus from knowing a similar level 60 spell is +12.
Knowing 2 similar spells of each level 60, is still +12, as you only get the bonus from a single spell.
Further inventing a level similar 70 spell is now a total +14, for a +2 advantage over the single level 60 spell.

Silveroak is talking about creating enchanted devices to improve laboratory specialization bonuses not getting a larger similar spells bonus (I think).

Possibly.
From his post, I couldn't tell.

Create an enchantment, not create a spell...

Somewhat OT, but I thought there was a limit of level 100 for spells. Is that just my imagination or is it something from previous editions?

There isn't any limit like that in 5E. There is a limit on formulaic spells, if their level calculation exceeds 50th level, they must be cast as rituals.

Before this forum thread starts to get misunderstood:

Its subject, DI p.31 box, describes a lab task with extremely vast resources in a unique situation, with some limitations imposed by that situation.

Read The End of Time from DI at your own risk, knowing that you will not be able to play that specific campaign afterwards.
But until you have read it, don't speculate. And best avoid references to

Cheers