THE PHANTOM BLACKSMITH
ReTe 20 R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Group
The magus transforms iron bars (or other ready iron) into a crafted and formed result, as if a blacksmith had worked to the magus’s instructions. The magus must succeed in a Perception + Finesse roll substituting for the smith’s Craft: Blacksmith roll, with +3 to any Ease Factor. Failure means that the device also fails to function; a botch means it has hidden flaws.
(Base 2, +2 Metal, +1 Touch, +2 Group, +1 flexibility)
Source: Covenants, 51
Am I to understand that we can add magnitudes of "flexibility" to grant +3 to any Ease Factor for Rego Craft magic?
For exemple we could have 7 extra magnitudes to the effect and have +21 to the Finesse + Per roll allowing standard quality items to be produced with ease?
No, "flexibility" is to allow you to do more than one thing with the spell. The +3 to ease factor follows that standard format in the Rego crafting section of Covenants, so whatever the ease factor for a mundane blacksmith is 3 point higher if you are using Finesse. Therefore a difficulty 6 roll for a blacksmith would be a difficulty 9 Finesse roll to duplicate using this spell.
That's a common house rule. I always advise against it as it makes some things that should be difficult become trivial, and all sorts of craziness results.
No. Flexibility allows you to make any item a blacksnith would make, from any source of ready iron. The +3 to Ease Factor comes from the fact that you are using magic and Finesse in place of doing stuff mundanely through the appropriate Craft ability, which makes it more difficult to achieve the same result (i.e. it increases the Ease Factor). See the two columns in the table on p.49, and the comment on the same page:
As a baseline, [using Rego Craft Magic] has an Ease Factor at least 3 higher than the Ease Factor for doing the same thing by normal craft
Using many materials, or doing work that would take a mundane craftsman longer than a day, would increase the (Finesse) Ease Factors further. Neither is the case for typical blacksmithing work.
While some people use a HR that allows adding a Mag to a Craft spell to give +3 (or +5) to the roll, as Callen said it can easily be abused and result in crazy things.
If you are thinking about such a HR, I would instead suggest one that reduces the time modifier by 3 per Mag, down to a minimum of +0. This had the advantage of never having a EF lower than a physical craftsman doing it, while still allowing the EF to be lowered on some task.
The only flaw is the fact the book never gave any Ease Factors for crafting, as the crafting system was changed to laboratory total equivalent. This has pissed me off, as there is no guidelines for those Ease Factors anywhere.
The main rule book spells does use something which should be translated to the +3 EF per magnitude for intricate and complex creations, and due that I do have allowed it.
Could you make that a little more explicit/precise?
I, too, find fault in the fact that C&G sets "lab total" thresholds for achieving this or that when crafting, but crafting via Finesse only sets die-roll Ease factors for tasks that seem to have no clear correspondence to those in C&G.
For example: suppose a magus with the appropriate Rego Terram spells wants to make a sword. How high should he roll on Per+Finesse to make a good, serviceable sword? How high for a Superior sword, as per the C&G definition of Superior? How high for an Excellent sword providing +3 to all relevant rolls (again, as per C&G)? Can he even make a better-than-average sword simply out of Finesse?
To make a typical sword (assuming either longsword or great sword, short swords are faster) requires about 6 weeks. So we get
6 (Workshop Total for a standard item) + 3 (Rego craft magic) + 6 (more than a month's work, less than a season's) = 15
You can check that against The Swordsmith's Art (ToP .120) to see they agree. (Do watch out with The Armorer's Art if you want to check that as well, as that one has an erratum.)
12 (Workshop Total for a superior item) + 3 (Rego craft magic) + 6 (more than a month's work, less than a season's) = 21
15 (Workshop Total for a excellent item, assuming +1) + 3 (Rego craft magic) + 6 (more than a month's work, less than a season's) = 24
Technically there is nothing that ever overrules
Total Bonus Limit: Craft Ability / 3, rounded up (C&G p.69)
I also find this reasonable, as Rego craft magic is supposed to be limited by your own understanding. So I stick to this. I've seen people switch it to using Finesse/3, also. I dislike that as it makes high Finesse the single determining factor, and it also goes against some things written about Verditius magi who use Craft.
Now, something I think isn't clear is if the result is determine before or after the roll. What I mean by that, for example, is do you have to specify you want an Excellent +2 sword, or can you just make a sword and hope for a great roll. I prefer specifying ahead of time. With enough material you can still fish for a result. But at least you have to waste lots of material to get there instead of just getting it as a bonus on top of lots of great stuff.
Just to be clear, as I think I missed this, you're saying that without a Craft Blacksmith ability, a magi cannot make a ReTe Craft a Sword of Superior or excellent quality and that it would take a Blacksmith ability score of 4+ to start getting into the excellent 2+ bonus range?
I look forward to having a summary page dedicated to all this in the ARM5DE as it seems core to character building.
This value is for Excellent. Superior has no such thing.
What I'm saying is that there is nothing clear about the Rego craft magic rules on this except that their limits are based on understanding of what you're working on, and the Excellent bonus is also limited by understanding. So I see nothing that stands in the way of
The maximum total bonus an excellent item may have is limited by its creator’s Craft Ability score divided by three, rounded up.
But a lot of people ignore this for Finesse. I've personally witnessed huge problems ignoring this with Finesse, so I don't like to ignore it.
A sword is not more than a month's work. Per C&G, p.68 it shows you the monthly output for a skill 5 craftsman. For the long sword and great sword it is 2 per month.
Actual formula is (skill/5)*2
So all the EF are 3 lower than calculated.
Also me and Callen had a long exchange on the Finesse vs Craft Ability when doing Craft Magic and though we came at it from different directions (it initially looks like we are disagreeing), we actually both disliked the HR to use Finesse/3 since it leads to things like someone who doesn't know a sword from a stick making +5 swords.
But, yes, if someone has the appropriate Craft at 8+, I might be tempted to say that for that individual it's only a 1-month project and lower the EF by 3. I'm not sure. Usually the spells have a set value for the EF rather than varying by caster. You can already get +3 for familiarity.