Rego Craft, Verditius, and Finesse

  1. Rego Craft effectively lets you substitute Finesse for Craft: Blah. However, say you're a Verditius with a high Craft. Is Finesse required, or can you still use your craft skill if it is higher? Ditto if, say, you're a skilled non-magus stonemason trying to use a Stone-Cutting Knife.

  2. Are there rules or guildelines to let you increase magnitude to get a bonus to Finesse rolls? I wouldn't think a +1 per magnitude would be overpowered - you're talking 30 or more levels for anything but the simplest stuff.

Finesse for any magical craft. If you are more skilled at mundane, do it mundanely.

Verditius need neither mundane craft ability nor finesse to make exquisite items for magical purposes.

They are able to defy basic laws of nature, in fact, when assembling their creations by virtue of the power of their Outer House Mystery, Verditius magic.

Their Craft Ability simply represents a deeper understanding of the materials of which they work, and thus the means by which these creations channel magic. The Ability is coveted in game terms NOT for artisitc purposes (though that's nice if, for some reason, you want to make an entirely non-magic item).

Rather Craft Abilities, for Verditius magi:

a.) Reduce the number of pawns of vis needed to "Open" an object by 1 per level; and

b.) Increase lab totals for magic items by the ability score.

This allows Verditius magi to make more powerful items for less. Which is awesome.

Careful. The rules aren't quite as clear-cut as people are suggesting. Look at the Finesse difficulties and compare them to crafting. You should see that the Finesse difficulties match up with the workshop totals very, very well. That works well by description, too. So it certainly seems the Finesse roll substitutes for workshop total.

But now let's take a look at the other limit. Anyone can make a Quality item. You must have Craft 1 to make an Excellent+1 item. You must have Craft 4 to make an Excellent+2 item. Etc. I don't think it is written that Finesse bypasses this limit. You can still make Quality items of any sort with the limit. Maybe Finesse does bypass the limit, though.

Perhaps more importantly, let's look at the results:

  1. With the Craft limit you can only build things as well as you understand them. Without it you could create an item whose functioning is beyond your ability to understand by a long shot, yet somehow you understood well enough to fabricate it. So the Craft limit prevents what is essentially a paradox.

  2. If you have the material, you can make lots of Finesse rolls. Master the spell to keep yourself safe and add a little more to Finesse. If you choose good methods (multiple spells), you can recycle a lot of material, too. You can make many, many rolls in a relatively brief time. Without the Craft limit this can very easily result in an item on the order of Excellent+20 or so. What sort of item would you put this effort into? Your talisman perhaps? Yay, +20 lab total to invest every effect in my talisman. My talisman is a weapon, too, so that's +20 attack and defense (without using opened spaces, either) - another yay. So the Craft limit prevents items from being so much more ridiculous than they already are.

  3. If you have Craft X at 7+, you're an expert/master at it. Shouldn't you understand how to make better items than someone with no Craft X and with the same Finesse? (You would get a bonus on the Finesse roll for the Craft Ability, but remember that you could roll a bunch of times.) The Craft limit provides for this more meaningfully. This helps the Verditius make nicer items while having diverted experience to various Craft Abilities.

So we have two points in the end: the Craft limit may well still apply to crafting via Finesse, and using that limit prevents some game and logical problems. This is why I have proposed this interpretation (that the Craft limit still applies) in every game in which I've done crafting and it has been universally accepted as a good rule. (Even with this limit my craftsmagi commonly pull of Excellent+4 or Excellent+5 items which are gross enough.)

Chris

I find it easier to put the extra seasons into Mastery instead of more magnitudes. Use Mastery to improve Finesse. Or just use the spare seasons on Finesse itself. If the spell is a really low level, then just invent another spell at the same time.

Chris

That isnt a magic craft, that is using a magic tool with a "normal" skill. So the mason would use his craftskill.

Is there any requirement for the finesse roll to use the same type of die as the casting roll? If not, one idea is to say that mastering a craft magic spell doesn't automatically allow you to use a stress die for the finesse roll - if you're under circumstances under which it doesn't much matter if things go wrong (e.g. if casting the spell a massive number of times until you get that +20 bonus is practical), you only get to use a simple die.

Even with such a general rule, the die can become a stress die. For example, if you have Faerie Sympathy in weapons (dwarf blood example) and you're crafting weapons.

Chris

  1. My understanding is that there is no provision in RAW for replacing Finesse with Craft. As a house rule, I would not only allow it but further drop the -3 difficulty in EF that magical crafting is burdened in, to encourage the idea that a wizard making fine towers should know a thing or two about architecture.

  2. I likewise don't know of any rules on adding magnitudes instead of finesse, but some spells (such as Conjuring the Mystic Tower) suggest it is possible. I'd be careful of allowing it too much, though, as it erodes the importance of Finesse (and Craft).

Yair

There are already rules for effectively dropping the -3 in RAW. Look at HoH:S, Jerbiton section. If you have a relevant ability (commonly Craft) at 5 (serf's parma) you get +3, which offsets the -3.

Chris

I don't recall that. And couldn't find that when looking. But if anyone else can point to it?

But I'm thinking that is a magus is skilled in a mundane craft, could he use Re[Form] to assist his craft? Or art?

Imagine a sculptor working with stone. This can be done by Craft magic - badabing badaboom - at a higher target number. Or by mundane means. But what if done by largely mundane means, however:
The stone is carefully selected using InTe so there is no risk of a flaw whatsoever?
The stone is made mallabale like clay for a while to ease the work for a while? Or make parts of it impervious to damage while working on other parts?
The stone is made larger in order to more easily do fine detail?
The stone uses careful, precise Re or Pe Te to shave or chip away small pieces almost surgically?

Does this warrant a bonus, or allow the scupltor to do amazing work? or even work impossible by normal means?

I'll see what I can do without my book. Go to the Jerbiton section. Skip past the first material on the House itself. When you're in the section on spells, it's in a big box at the bottom of a left-hand page. So if you just then skim the pages looking for a big boxed section, you should find it quickly.

I would grant bonuses for any of those. We have certainly done the malleable stone thing before. I would always reward clever things like this.

That would be craft magic itself - that's what craft magic is.

Chris

Craft Magic is Rego , not Perdo though. :slight_smile:

Except that this specific Magic Item (from Covenenants) specifies it uses a Finesse roll. I guess it does the cutting and shaping on its own. While being held in the grog's hand since it uses the wielder's finesse.

At least for enchanted items, right now I am leaning towards Finesse if the item does the work itself, Craft if the item is just an improved tool. So, stone-cutting knife uses Finesse, a Knife enchanted with Mu or Pe to cut through stone like butter would use Craft. Probably will be some edge cases where the improving spell would still use Rego.

First, the statement does include Rego. Second, I don't believe there is a rule limiting Craft magic to Rego. There are certainly statements about "Rego craft magic," but are there really any saying craft magic must use Rego? However, we should also note the rules for Perdo. If you can't craft this way with Perdo due to the lack of improvements issue, then you can't help craft the same way, either. However, regardless of this, to surgically chip away using Perdo should require a Finesse roll, and thus it would be following craft magic rules much more than Craft rules.

Chris

Yes, that sounds right.

Chris

Got it, thanks.
p. 62

Doesn't craft magic pretty much happen instantly, in the momentary casting of the spell. If so then it's not as if the Magus conscientiously goes through the motions of crafting the object when using Rego like that instead they transform the raw materials they're working with into the finished product directly.

Knowledge of the crafting process wouldn't be incredibly helpful then since it seems like the magic handles all those details in the blink of an eye.

If you go by the simile bonuses mentioned on page 62 of HoH:Soc it seems like knowledge of the final product is the most important thing to know. A Magus attempting to use craft magic to make a sword would get a +3 bonus to his finesse roll if he had sword in front of him to copy, even if he didn't know one end of a anvil from another. To get the same bonus from an ability he would need to have it at 5 or better.

Yup, page 62 - found it.

Yes and no. Craft magic as a baseline (which means at 3 higher targel number than mundane craft) does in an instant what a crafstman can do in a day. And fastre work is done by higher target numbers.
But I'm talking magically-assisted mundane crafting. Real-time work for an entire day, not a days work done in an instant. I was just looking for a way to avoid using Finesse vs. a higher target and rather using the mundane craft ability, but with a bonus.

So spells of the form:

The invisible CRAFTER/TOOL ReFo 15-30 depending on form specific guidelines
R: touch, D:Conc, T: Group
The caster may perform CRAFT on suitable raw materials with a perception+finesse roll of 3+ needing no tools. The task takes it's usual time and ability check. If the finesse roll is 6+ then the caster may add (finesse roll - 5) to the ability check or reduce crafting time by 10%(finesse roll - 5). Botches tend to damage the raw materials. Casting requisies are requited for raw materials of multiple Forms.
Base 3-10, +1 touch, +1 conc, +2 group

Where the base is highly unnatural movement of Fo.

Something like that? It's what I was expecting the craft spells to be.