I'm very surprised that the Great Tower section in Hermetic Projects doesn't delve further into long term Rego Crafting.
The published Rego Craft magic rules are all about what can be done in a Moment, but what about spending a season engaged in Rego Crafting? Even if we just try to take a Rego Craft spell and move the duration up to Diameter or Concentration, then the rules completely break down.
Given a mountain, and a season of work by a Rego Crafter with the appropriate ReTe Craft spells, what do you end up with? What are the Finesse rolls for that?
(and, tangentially, if that magus has Craft:Mason 5, does that come into play at all?)
The Rego Craft Magic box on page 49 of Covenants states that "Extending the duration of a Rego craft spell makes the spell perform the same action over and over on the same starting materials - it is always almost inappropriate".
My understanding is that there's a difference between using a Rego Craft spell, and using a Rego spell to move something about (for example).
Missed that line, Salutor. Thanks for the clarification.
However, it still doesn't answer how to adjudicate the amount of work that can be done in a season or a week.
Approaching the same question from a different angle, I wish there were rules for how to divide a high finesse Rego Craft target number into a series of smaller tasks. For example, building Peregrine's image in a single spell would clearly be somewhere in the Almost Impossible range. But what if I rego-crafted each pillar on its on?
If your stone mason mage used PrTe to shape the stones then ReTe to move the stones in place. Just like a real team of workers would do. Break it into smaller spells and it would work better.
An important aspect to note is that magic allows you to craft something without the appropriate skill (but only Finesse), because in some sense magic uses the "ideal" version as a template. However, if you break down a task into smaller tasks, then you'll need a mundane skill to make sure you are coordinating the individual parts properly.
For example, you can make a flawless wall in one shot without knowing anything about walls, but if you have a spell that forms flawless bricks out of clay (and perhaps even positions them where you want), one at a time, then you do need to know about how to build a wall -- roughly speaking, you are in the same position as a mundane worker with a supply of perfect bricks.
Rego craft magic only requires finesse, not the corresponding mundane skill; in fact, it requires the same level of Finesse as Creo. Because of this, and because the description of how magic draws upon the World of Forms to create things seems to apply both to Creo and Rego magic, I think what I'm saying applies to Rego as well. All this is from HoH:S p.61. Keep in mind that Rego, more than just "assembling", is generic "processing": e.g. you can create a "cooked" meal from raw food with Rego, even without a source of fire.
The cooked meal I understand. A ship, not so much. There are sections of a wooden ship that are carved to certain shapes. you are not going to take a pile of lumber and make it into a sailing ship without some knowledge of how to build ships. Unless they are pre-shaped I could not understand how a ReHe spell would do it without a Pr requisite to shape the wood. Same with a stone building. Either you are shaping the stone or pre-mixing the mortar.
And I thought I was reading in Hermatic Projects that Creo building uses Finesse. Even a failed Finesse roll still makes the building but it had flaws and much less beauty (pg 39 HP - Construction magic)
The rules are very clear about this -- you only need Finesse, no other skill. The World of Forms guides the processing of raw materials and serves as a template for the final product.
The trap that I think a lot of players fall into is thinking that Craft Magic works in a step by step manner like a real craftsman. When I read the descriptions of Rego magic in ArM5, Covenants, or HoH: S that is not the impression I get. I interpret craft magic as making the transformation from raw material to finished product in one step.
The discussion of finesse on pages 60-62 of HoH:S does still say the familiarity of the caster with the final product is important when making finesse rolls. If you use the chart on page 62 of HoH:S then a Magi could not create something he can not imagine, has penalties for things he knows little about and bonuses to things he is intimately familiar with. So a skilled sword smith (ability 5+) would get a bonus to create a sword but so does a sword fighter of equivalent skill. Even if the swordsman doesn't know one end of an anvil from the other. So the real importance seems to be an understanding of the finished product not the crafting process.
I think Amul is trying to turn Rego Craft magic on its head. What if one had knowledge to build, what if one were to break the project into component tasks, mimicking the necessary steps used in construction?
I have a strong dislike for Rego Craft magic rules as they are, mainly because finesse is becoming an overly utilized skill. It turns the Rego Crafter into an excellent combat magician[1], and I don't think those two things, as disparate as they are belong to the same skill.
[1] Invisible Sling of Vilano, or other spells that use finesse to target become quite easy for a Rego crafter. Also a Rego crafter probably has a relatively high Rego score, as working some of the spells are a bit high level. Those of the School of Vilano do not need a high Rego score, they just need good enough to cast their bread and butter spell and they rely on their finesse to get the object to their target.
I just think that the target numbers for Rego Crafting and Hermetic Architecture are absurdly high. But then again, I tend towards generalist designs even when trying to specialize, so that may be my own char-gen habits getting in the way of the math.
That IMO is not so much Rego craft magic as using magic to boost Ability rolls. Perfectly acceptable use of magic best handled on a case by case basis.
Well change them if you like. I think the high target numbers are the primary limitation on the usefulness of the magic. I have no problem with piece meal spells being used for large projects to keep those numbers down a little. There just gets to be some question on appropriate targets and size. If I cast a spell to attach a sail to a ship am I targeting the whole ship or just a part or a large group?
Well, I think it's more like using real knowledge to boost finesse rolls.
Being a bit of a hobbyist woodworker, I tend to design my projects with sub assemblies to make construction much easier. Like everything else, breaking down a problem into its smallest component. This isn't a modern phenomenon, it's been done since the beginning of time.
Depends on how you go about doing it. Since finesse rolls are concerned with the finished product, but the spells must target the component materials, using craft magic to piecemeal a project together is complicated. Throw in the finesse modifiers from HoH:S and it get's weirder.
Let's take a simple project like a rowboat. Let's for the sake of argument say that it's a large rowboat but that it's less then ten times the size of a standard herbem individual and can be built with only Herbam based ingredients. Also for the sake of the argument lets say it would take a craftsman working alone a full season to build one and this would be an average task. (Yes I'm pretty much pulling these numbers from my nether regions)
So you could craft this boat with the Mystical Carpenter spell from Covenants or one much like it. But it would require a perception+finesse roll of 18 or better. (9 for the average craft task +3 for craft magic +6 for a season of work) A daunting number but you could reduce it by using the same spell to do a day's or month's work per casting. After all a carpenter works a day comes back picks up where he left of and works another day.
The problem is IMO that since spell doesn't usually do the work step by step you can't just shot for the finished product and stop when your one third done and then cast again. The caster instead has to look at his starting materials then imagine what one day or one month's work would look like and cast the spell to create that. When he casts again the spell just treats the partially finished parts as raw materials that less labor to put together. Picking up where he left of just like a real craftsman. Rinse and repeat and you have a boat that took three rolls of 15 or around 72 at 12.
By itself that's a pretty complicated solution mechanically but then you have the rules from Societas on simile and how knowledge of your finished product effects your finesse roll. Lets take a couple of different characters all of which can cast the relevant spell but have differing knowledge of simile.
Nocluicus- A magus raised in a faerie regio he actually is a master of Craft:Woodworking at 6 but he's never seen a body of water he couldn't hop over much less a boat. Since he can't imagine what a boat looks like he can't use rego magic at all to make one. Step by step or other wise.
Bet Uricius- A magus who lives close enouph to water to see boats regularly but doesn't know how they are built. He could cast the spell to create the boat without penalty but since he has little idea what one day or one month of work looks like he would have a -3 penalty on an attempt to do it piecemeal. (At least until his final casting when he's taking a mostly done boat and the last of her raw materials and creating something he is familiar with)
Tof Lucius- A maga who has Craft:Woodworking at 3 and who grew up in a fishing village Area Knowledge of 2. She knows what a boat is has actually helped build one or two so she has no penalty for any roll full construction or piecemeal. Still since her knowledge isn't intimate as defined by the rules on page 62 of HoH:S she doesn't immediately qualify to get the +3. Though the troupe could rule otherwise based on her background.
Brita Filtria- A maga with no woodworking skill but who has Profession:Sailor at 5 and an Area Knowledge: Ports of Stonehenge tribunal 3. She's considered intimately familiar with the finished product as her profession includes the use of the launches on her ship and because rowboats are common in her Area of knowledge so she gets +3 on any roll that creates the finished product. (yes the rules rate area knowledge above other abilities for providing a bonus) Her profession skill doesn't cover building boats but she sees plenty of boats being built when in port. So she by the rules seems to qualify to get a +3 on rolls to build bit by bit as well.
The Hermatic Shipwright section of HP (pg62) describes this the way I've thought of it. Rather than Crafting the entire ship at once, devices are made to do small parts like planking and the ribs. All of which cut down on overall time. All of craft magic works on how long a single craftsman could do something and the shipwright and other large projects have crews to build the thing.
In the case of buildings, you could have one that shapes the stone and another that shapes the lumber. Another that puts the stone in place ( perhaps with mortar). all of those would cut down on the time it takes to make buildings.
Her profession skill doesn't cover building boats but she sees plenty of boats being built when in port. So she by the rules seems to qualify to get a +3 on rolls to build bit by bit as well.