After improving his laboratory and getting a few more points of arts under his belt Ranulf turns to a lab text that he's probably had for over 30 years but he's never been able to learn until now.
His intellego ignem is lab total is
tech 10
form 34
int 2
magic theory 11
lab 12
aura 3
familiar 8
for a total of 80
then divided by 2 because of his deficiency in intellego gives him 40
Eyes of the Flame (p 141)is level 35. It will give him a change to see through all of the arcane connection fires that he's been learning to create and talk through, cast spells through and teleport through.
But can he cast it?
tech 10
form 34
talisman attunement 6
stamina 2
method caster 3
for a total of 55 +stress die
divide that by 2 because of his deficiency and he'll still get over 25 so he'll be able to cast it. His chances of casting it without loosing fatigue however are negligible even with a strong aura.
He'll want this one. With a similar spell bonus from Patient Spell his lab total is 68 he'll take a nocturnal lab schedule for a season to get his lab total to 70 and learn it at level 35
If patient spell doesn't apply, then his Rego Vim total is 64 so he can get a level 32 spell in a season. He'd take diurnal watching ward from earlier in the thread at level 30 so he can still load up level 40 spells in it (and take an extra four days for R&R because he can use the lower lab total).
I'm thinking that this is the same effect at a different duration but there is a triggering aspect to Watching Ward that Patient spell doesn't have. Is this enough of a change to make the effect closely related rather than the same?
While I think that this spell follows the guidelines as intended, if it were my game I might invoke the central rule and make it a bit more difficult to pull off. It seems too easy to collect a few hundred trapped spells to go all off at a specified moment for me to be comfortable with the balance of it.
I think (noble's parma) that the Watching Ward mentions something about the fact that its Ritual nature allows the spell to "sense" the condition without requiring Intellego or such.
That said, Lunar Ward and Watching ward use the same guideline "Create a container for a spell" so they should be considered closely related.
Two seasons expanding his transformation of fire spell adapted to animal products
Consummate Transformation of Fire
Mu Te (An, He,Ig) Level 40
R: Voice, D: Diam, T: Part (+1 size)
This spell transmutes an object of stone, wood, soil, metal, animal or plant derived material or part of some such object into a fire. The fire is still essentially the original object and will not be extinguished for lack of fuel but it can be doused or extinguished in other ways. The transmuted fire is no larger than 20 paces in size and it is hot enough to do +5 damage. Objects smaller than 20 paces in size will turn into fires of their own size when they are subjected to this spell.
(Base 5, + 2 Voice, +1 Diameter, +1 Part, +2 to affect stone metal and gems, +2 Herbam and Animal requisite, +1 size)
Going by the RAW, Erick and I are, AFAIK, right, and spells like that are perfectly legit.
Sadly, this was flamed down by Rival Magic, IMO exactly because of Moon Duration waiting spells. Serf's parma, but the last page of the ward guys makes that an impossibility. I don't remember very well, but, while speaking of integration, it states something along the lines of "hermetic magic can't do non-ritual waiting spells", and goes on to say that, with integration, non-ritual versions of watching wards would be possible (thus implying they aren't).
I'm sorry for my bad memory, so I advise you to check it, but, as far as I can remember (and understood), we're toast
Improved watching spells (RM p74):
"hermetic magic currently lacks a way of binding a watching effect and a spell together without a separate ritual, Watching ward, which requires vis
Minor hermetic virtue: watching spells
The magus is able to create watching ward spells that do not need to be cast as rituals. A prerequesite of the Form Vim is added to the spell, and vis is not required unless the spell would be a ritual anyway"
On the other hand there is a Non-ritual spell in MoH that functions as a duration concentration spell container(p113) . Turns out that it's Ranuf who knows it.
I could sidestep the entire ward issue by instead of making a new ward spell make a lesser enchanted device to cast maintain the demanding spell on Ranulf's patient spell which in turn is holding a copy of skin/hide of wax.
I'm not convinced that Hermetic magic shouldn't be able to do non-ritual wards in fact the core books says, implicitly, that it can. I'd mark down the restriction in Rival magic as a goof similar to the magic realm aligned spells misstep with one exception, that exception is that being able to que up an arbitrarily large number of spells to go off at a given time is a bit too powerful an effect for it's level. It might be that the author of Rival magic wanted to make a change in the rules rather than was oblivious to what was in the core book.
let's see about a rego vim item for Ranulf
Rego 13
Vim 22
Int 2
MT 10
Aura 3
Familiar 8
Lab 2
shape /material 0
that's 60 so he could get a level 30 effect
Maintain the demanding spell at level 20 +5 levels item maintains concentration + 5 levels 24 uses per day, that's doable as a lesser enchanted device.
There are now two new questions, namely if Artisano can target a spell cast by someone else as it is released and if the item can maintain concentration on 20 + spells at a time.
I figure after about three decades of (very quietly) searching for someone to craft an item of eyes of the eagle for him he'll finally find a willing partner.
Here's the lesser enchanted device he'll trade for it (I figure that the sort of magus who does eyes of the eagle wants to be able to see things, or perhaps has issues with faeries or demons who love darkness, or perhaps even Ranulf's fellow Flambeau from MoH; Tolidies).
Another use for that could be for someone who wants it for quick, basic measuring. Might be worth it to make it unlimited uses/day.
Oh, and possibly make it Conc+Item maintains Conc? Downside of not having multiple sets of light, advantage of being able to shift it around as wanted...
I wanted to make it unlimited uses per day. I just didn't have the lab total to do it as a lesser enchanted device.
As far as conc. + item maintains. You're right. That's almost always better than sun for items. I guess I just wanted to see D: sun used as an option for an enchanted item from me for once. Ranulf wouldn't share my desire for balance. I'll switch it.
Now that Ranulf can (when he needs to) see things far away he'll find a way to make use of this new ability.
He'll invent this one at level 30 (he has the lab total do level 35, which would allow wizard's boosted versions of Pillum of Fire to be given expanded range but that would hamper his penetration and he can't cast both boosting spells himself at the same time)
His talisman stall has oodles of open space. Ranulf's talisman also has seven effects instilled in it and it would take years and rooks to replace. I can't imagine Ranulf choosing to undergo an initiation that involves sacrificing his talisman.
I had considered instilling thaumaturgical transformation of plants to iron instead of Shadow of Spring Times Departed for the original version of Ranulf but I figured that it was a whole lot less interesting and it provided nothing new for the reader. The following effect is basically thaumaturgical transformation of plants to iron with an additional three magnitudes added for additional hardness.
I would add only one magnitude. In existing guidelines, "slightly unnatural" properties are at most +1 magnitude, "completely unnatural" ones at most +2 magnitudes. Making something that's hard as bronze into something "significantly harder then the hardest stone" counts, in my opinion, as giving it a "slightly unnatural" property (a "completely unnatural" property would be making it sing, or making it react to gold the way lodestone reacts to iron).
Personally I wouldn't permit this in my sagas, and if your aim is to be very rules compliant I fear you may be skirting the edge of that.
Serfs Parma, but when you cast a formulaic spell you need to have a valid target for the spell at the time of casting, which you must be able to sense or have an arcane connection to. Suppressing the spell doesn't mean you can change the target later unless you include a muto effect. Items can't muto vim on formulaic spells.
While I'd be fine with any spell whose target doesn't change (Pilum of Fire, for example), I'd not permit a spell like Skin of Wax unless you are intending on casting it on someone who was also present for that original beneficial-aura ceremonial casting.
YSMV, of course. Also - sorry to come to this one late.
