Yes exactly, base craft magic gives you one man-day of work in an instant for each casting. No tools or knowledge required on the part of the caster. Just a finesse roll. Miners don't leave the rubble in the hole when they dig it, they sort it, pile up and haul it away. Mind you if it's just a touch spell I would say the rubble can't go very far.
For me adding a perdo requisite to such a spell means it's still craft magic. Just that you have the added bonus of need to clean up. Giving you magically skilled labor with the bonus of a little destruction. A Pe(Re)Te could give you perfectly carved holes, straight sides, even shapes, exact measurements, but you wouldn't get a mine dug as a miner would dig it. Such a spell to me equals destruction with some added control.
(There is a spell suggested in Covenants (p 96) that uses this approach - turns an animal into its "base components" - a pile of meat, the skeleton, the skin, etc - and destroys the contents of the stomach/gut.
That is listed as a PeAn spell w/ a Rego req, but it's important to remember that what determines the base Arts vs. the Requisite Arts are the Guidelines - the highest magnitude to achieve the effects is the base, the lower are the Req's, and "Kill an animal" is Base 30. If you started with a dead animal, it would possibly* be a Re(Pe)An instead and have the same end effect.)
(* Don't know, don't care - not relevant to this discussion.)
OTOH, it was known that all three types of rock plus seashells turn into quicklime when burned. And quicklime + water -> slaked lime + time to cure -> lime.
And magi have all sorts of experiments open to them for the cost of a few sponts - eg. Rock to Viscid Clay what happens if you fire the clay (or craft spell equivalent) before the spell expires when it does? what happens when you Muto 2 different materials into mixable liquids, mix them then let the spells wear off? What happens when you subject materials to temperatures and pressures that RL scientist won't be achieving for 800 years? Aristotle never asked the question let alone gave a hypothesis so should we assume the RL answer holds?
It is much easier to make up results for experimentation into magic which is a pure game construct than results for experimentation into a mostly naturalistic but nonetheless other gameworld. And it is the sort of thing that's very logical to make an interest of a PC magus - they are trained in experimental techniques, they respect pushing the boundaries of knowledge and they have a game mechanical use for philosophiae which includes natural philosophy. (Plus it's totally something I'd be doing if I had Hermetic Magic so I'm constantly tempted to have my characters do it.)
Never looked at it this way. Sounds perfectly fine to me. If magi were not already grossly over the top in power level this would have the potential to break the setting real fast. Still it might require someone to start the experimental trend
Cheers,
Xavi
PSB_ together (quite appropiately talking about mixing substances and its consequences)
Sorry the idea was meant to include a bit more than just what i wrote(had it used in play), definetly a Re requisite, IIRC we didnt make it require an In requisite but i dont remember why.
Though i think we used a spell based on Muto instead, making all the parts of stone into liquids with different densities, ergo like modern refining of oil and other stuff, this allowing you to "harvest" all component parts of the stone you mine.
Ok, so we were crosstalking then. NP, i quite agree.
Because using magic, they can mine anyplace where whatever they want EXIST at all, magic can bring out the specific material relatively easy, there is no need for the material to be common enough as it would be for a mundane miner. A mundane mine needs to follow the best veins of ore to get enough material compared to the work needed(although rare exceptions exists, where someone is desperate enough for the material to heavily subsidise a poor mine). Magi intent on mining can make a few items for miners to use, relatively easily they can then do the mining silly much faster than a mundane miner could, meaning that they dont need to bother with following veins, they can still mine so much so fast that even if the gold, silver or whatever is just 1/1000 as much as would be needed for a regular mine, they will still make a similar profit without difficulty.
Ah, darned, i missed that... You´re absolutely correct though that mining was most certainly not unheard of or even uncommon.
First known mining operations are several thousand years before the regular game era.
Yeah, but as a requisite to a REGO spell, to achieve something permanent by temporarily using Muto together with Rego... Ie. the Muto part just acts as a temporary catalyst effect while the Rego effect is what makes the final effect permanent.
Why does rego need the help. Rego transforms it's target from one natural state into another natural state with out needing any intermediary stages. So craft magic takes raw material and transforms it into finished product instantly. It doesn't need to "do the work" except as a cosmetic effect.
The only advantage I could image is to change the raw material into a different substance, then use Rego Craft on that, and then allow it to return to the original - thus creating a highly unusual/unnatural end-product by using Rego Craft magic that could not normally be "crafted".
So, if you wanted to create a series of lacework glass balls within each other, you could turn a block of glass into soft stone, "carve" that using ReTe, and then allow it to change back to glass. (Probably some more powerful/impressive applications, but that jumped to mind.)
If you want to craft with magic, there's no point: just ReTe and be done with it. But here's a good example: You muto hardstone into clay, then let your crafter work it, then let it harden again. That'd prolly boost their productivity by a lot.
If you believe there is a "3-d glass carving" craft*, of course not, and then have fun with an Ease Factor in the 20's. Otherwise, that is the point, to get the material to where there is a craft for it.
Rego doesn't just "do stuff", nor does Rego Craft magic - it rearranges as a craftsman could.
Let's try a more extreme example. Let's say you wanted, for some reason, to "weave" 3 gems together into a braided finger ring - no craft to do that, so Rego is out. But Muto those 3 gems into clay for Diameter, and not only is it possible, but the Ease Factor to braid "clay" drops to single digits.
Even short of such extremes, Muto'ing one substance into another, one more friendly to a craft and the final product, could drop the EF to where it's not a bad bet.
As I said, other (more impressive?) applications will come to those interested in pursuing this line of thought.
(* "glass carving" was used for cameos and such, not 3-d balls within balls the way that ivory can be carved.)
Nice. I'm aware of examples like those, but nothing like what was achieved with "glass carving" at the height of the Roman era existed during the early middle ages afaik.
Regardless, the Ease Factor to carve glass at that level vs. to carve "soft stone" at that level would be significantly different.
This assumption of hauling as part of craft magic does bother me. My memory of Covenants is that the waste material is right beside the finished product; given that what we're really talking about here is everything being waste material, it's difficult for me to envision how it's going to become a small pile beside the finished product without simply moving the blockage of the cavern back slightly. I could see a second spell casting to teleport the pile of now-rubbled stone to the AC the magus has, but I think trying to get a non-trivial teleport out of a craft magic cast is a bit much. To me, following that train of logic implies that if a man can carry me on his back, say, 10 miles in a day, I should be able to teleport 10 miles with a Craft spell.
In summary: Craft magic can't move the object/waste; the ability to have them pile up nicely where the spell is cast is cosmetic; trying to have useful movement factored into the crafting spell would not be allowed in my saga, and would have to either be a second spell or a much harder "craft and teleport" spell, making it far less useful than a Pe(Re)Te or Re(Pe)Te spell.
For my saga, at least, I feel that way leads to madness. If someone wants to have fun playing with anachronistic technology in an AM setting, I'm sure that could be fun, but I think it doesn't blend well with more standard AM stories. YMMV, of course. I do not believe there is a RAW position on what "the truth" is on questions that the ancient philosophers did not touch.
Ok, let's see. This has been a really interesting thread so far, as was the amazingly apropos thread Cuchulainshound linked. What I'm gathering is that folks are suggesting that I model a ReTe craft magic mining spell much closer to what a mundane miner actually does, and probably make it a ReTe spell with a Pe requisite to dispose of the excess rubble or require that excess materials (all nicely stacked and sorted, to be sure) be manually carted out. For the finesse test, I would want to include risks/issues like support/aquifer/air, etc. as botch dice results (or potential penalties for failure in extreme situations), with an analog of the InHe spell "The Carpenter's Keen Eye" (only in InTe) to mitigate botch dice or failure ramifications. I'm still not sure about the finesse roll itself. The difficulty would base be set by the number of issues at hand and the circumstances of the mine (load or placer) and type of mine (stripped, quarry, or shaft). +3 for craft magic. The part that bothers me is the "day's work" factor. Mining isn't like making a sword that needs to be beaten and folded with layers of soft and hard iron/steel (processes that require time, attention, etc.). While mining "bedrock" might be extremely "safe" (represented by a low EF), it would be remarkably slow by mundane means. But ReTe spells don't care from one type of rock to another, so why should an ReTe mining spell suffer a +6 finesse penalty for doing the work of a season for a single miner?
Re: Cuchulainshound
From the linked thread where I think you said it's not very satsifying that a Magus with a Craft Architecture(Towers) 7 produces a tower of equal quality to a magus with no Architecture at all, I have to agree. The trouble is how to rectify it. The finesse roll covers, one might say, a multitude of sins. I could see adding highest relevant craft|lore/3 as a bonus to the finesse roll. I'm just not sure how imbalanced that might be. I would do /3 because most craft skills, in my mind, involve experience/practice with the actual tools of the trade which would not readily carry over to doing similar actions using Rego magic. I would include Lore skills because I suspect a skill like Architecture is more of a lore skill (or maybe a profession skill), than a craft skill (but still aught to help). This also begs the question of could an experience Rego craft mage develop skill specifically with producing certain sorts of things via craft magic. Or.. dare I say it outloud, a Craft (Magic) skill. Which sounds insanely OP. but a Craft (Swords with Rego Magic) or maybe a Craft (Swordsmith via Rego Magic) maybe isn't so bad.
Well, the "something humans cannot do" is a good point/question, but most stone is made from other materials compacted under pressure over a period of time or due to chemical or molecular rearrangement while under extreme heat (and pressure) also, typically resulting in increased density/compaction. So I would say far from being unnatural, it is a very natural state change. But, I do not know the Platonic theory of forms at all, so this may be well out of the scope of Hermetic Magic.
As for why the compacting idea, I was thinking it would be more stable (and less unnatural than, say, carving it up). Anything short of noble rocks can be compressed, and in fact typically is, which is where most other forms of "stone" come from. Not to mention, it's.. magic.. and stuff. But it could also be argued that is a very 22nd century outlook. Ok, 22nd century sounds odd to me. Nevermind... moving on...
Yes, but these were surface mines, originally in Asia Minor and SE Asia for tin and copper. Original metal collection was from ores in dried river beds, etc.--Surface collection. Then you have open pit mining of "placer" mines (relatively loose geological formations) and strip mines, then open pit load mining (in hard rock), which is, I believe as far as they got in the middle ages. What we (or I, anyway) was raised to think of as a "mine" as opposed to a quarry which happens to be digging up ore, is I believe called a subsurface or shaft mine. I don't think those came around much before the early renaissance? Then there is the whole issue of shaft depth which relies on steam pump technology, and access which has to do with advancing from hot/cold break up of stone to using black powder, etc. I'm far from an expert though, so I may well have many of these details off.
Assuming the above is correct, this would seem to impact the question of making/extending cavern chambers as well as the issue Direwolf raised about craft magic being about what a human can do [in the time period]. If humans couldn't make real progress through certain kinds of stone, can ReTe craft magic do it?
Well, or for clever base level manipulation. Use the Muto effect to change the material into something "cheaper" for the Rego to manipulate. Seems far fetched, but there might be an arbitrage available for a broad arts mage or an elementalist.
With a Moon duration or something? What if it is not all "one rock" but a mixture of sediment and rock veins, what does it turn back into when the Muto effect ends, and how would you know if it would bear any weight?
While I totally buy this line of thinking, again, what determines how the material "reforms" when the muto effect expires. How would you know if the glass might have developed impurities, bubbles, etc. I'm not an expert, but I bet clay is a lot more permeable to air then glass. A concept which (unlike the water in the clay to make it malleable) I think is probably beyond the platonic forms on which the magic is based?
Fortunately, none of my players are likely to push me on this issue. I say fortunate because while I'd love to be able to explore ideas like this, I feel like I'd first have to actually go read Plato's works on the subject to get a feel for how to extend them (The US does not believe in the Classics anymore). That's a bit more work then I'm prepared to put in at the moment 8). Fascinating though the idea might be, it is still "just" a game.
The advantage Ars offers over certain other fantasy/magic RPG's is that Ars magic has clear rules, where with some other systems magic just does "stuff". In those other games, a GM is supposed to weigh that "stuff" and assign a level, and that works well (or can). But in Ars, while there is much less guesswork involved, the nuances invite discussions like this one, and contradictions are more glaring.
In the end, whatever "decision" a SG makes, so long as it is consistent with other decisions and rules, and makes sense to them and the Troupe (and everyone still has fun), then it's the right decision. (Maybe not for me, maybe not for anyone else, but for them it's "right".)
The issue comes down to 2 things - first, where "Craft" stops and "Profession" starts*, and secondly, how much applicable understanding and "skill" is included when the Arts are opened? Does Form 20 imply an innate, perhaps unconscious understanding (if not mastery) of all Form-related Abilities, or no? Is there a difference between using ReTe to make a castle for a chess board vs. making a castle for a king? Or using ReHe to make a bridge for a violin vs a bridge across the Danube?
(* For purposes of this discussion, Craft:Mining vs. Profession:Miner. "Bridge Building" could be a parallel example, among many others.)
The key considerations are whether an understanding of Forms includes any equivalent Professional understanding of mundane applications, and then that as a context for the phrase in Craft Magic (p 49 of Covenants), "...even when limited by tools, time or skill", and then what any SG's interpretation of all that means regarding more complex efforts that may be more than mere "Craft".
I have always assumed more or less 1 level of broad knowledge in related areas per magnitude of Art. So a magus with a 35 in Terram would be a fairly accomplished arquitect AND miner, yep. Usual +3 difficulty to do stuff with Arts over doing the same with abilities. IIRC that is (was?) canon material.
I referred you to this earlier. 4000 years ago, dug with stone tools only (bronze available but actually not as good as the stone ones for mining stone). Massive caverns carved out of solid rock. Tunnels extending far underground. Yes, it took centuries to dig it and it has an extensive open-cast area as well as the tunnels. I've visited it and it is about the same size as a small village, above ground. Take a look: there were other 'real mines' around too. Even 'sapping' - digging tunnels underground to make castles and walls collapse - was commonly used, so the expertise in 'proper mining' was available to many mundane armies!
Shaft depth is only an issue when the mine reaches the water table - then steam pumps were essential. But if you start your mine up a mountain, you don't have ot worry about the water table.
Personally I wouldn't worry too much about the details of exactly how much a miner can mine of each type of rock - just use the size modifiers and assume that the guideline of 'stone' will cover all normal types of stone. Otherwise, go with what feels right to you. Re(Pe)Te seems to the consensus here, you can add muto to 'strengthen' the tunnels/caverns, and intellego spells to detect flaws/find useful stuff if you want. You could also make a ritual creo spell with a Perdo requisite to make an underground version of Conjuring the Mystic Tower which would make a 'perfect' underground mage tower, regardless of the original stone!
My main problem for this attempt at Craft : Mining is that most of the work isn't a craft. A master of PeTe could do some variation of Pit of the Gaping Earth that would take month for a strip miner.
Moreover, HoH:S p60 "Creo magic always makes a functional version" and what Jerbiton find hard to do and worth their efforts is making it larger than life, a king must sleep with his crown in their more-than-perfect world.
Most of a miner's job is brute force, what is left that requires craft? InTe does bettre than a skilled miner at following the vein. Reinforce the tunnels might require some skill, but a master miner could easily shore up 50 paces a day if others less skilled dig and clear rubbles.
In that sense, digging the tunnel shouldn't be a problem, failing Finesse only means you need a master miner or some extra InTe to fix it, and some ReTe (Sun) to immobilize the already created tunnel should guarantee you a safe exit.
This is not the same as crafting objects, it's a completely different ball game.
