Me and my story guide have had a disagreement over the interpretation of a rather unclear rule on page 99 of the core rulebook. My Magi has harnessed magic, and so enchants all of his items with the "Stops working in 70 years" modifier. The bonus is nice, and he'll likely be dead by then, so they'll have stopped working anyway.
This season, however, he attempted to enchant a Level 40 effect as a Lesser Enchantment. His lab total was 70, so with the x2 from the modifier he easily makes it. However, the storyguide argues that "It does not allow him to instill effects he could not otherwise manage." Says that I can't make it as a lesser item if I couldn't do so already. I, on the other hand, would argue that since "effect" has been repeatedly used to mean the spell that's instilled in the item, this just means "You can't use this to enchant effects that are over your lab total. It makes things go faster, not more powerful."
We both admit this is badly worded. Any chance we could get a clarification on this?
The modifier you are using increases any surplus past the level of the effect. This allows you to imbue items quicker and could certainly let you makie a lesser enchanted device when it might normally require opening too.
I would actually rule with your SG. The option is clearly intended to speed up the production of things you can otherwise create more slowly. Alllowing you to create a LED is not "mak[ing] things go faster". It is as if your Lab Total was higher, as if you were more powerful.
Well, IIRC lesser enchanted items have only one restriction: You have to complete the work on them in a single season! If you do this by reducing the item's time to work, that is O.K. for me. Otherwise the rules for reduced time to work will only apply for greater enchanted items and talismans. The rules do not state this IIRC.
By the way there is this question I am pondering for quite some time:
If you work on a greater enchanted item and reduce the effect's time to work. What happens when the effect exspires? Are the slots used free for future enchantmens, again? Or are they used up even if there is no effect usable any more. I tend to use the second option, but I am not quite sure. What do you think?
I understood the "it does not allow him to instill effects he could not otherwise manage" bit to mean "This multiplier applies to the excess lab total, not the lab total".
So yes, I'd definitely allow it. Completing things in only one or two seasons is what that rule is there for. Otherwise, what's the point?
Her eit lists how diverse modifications add/substract to the effect's level.
Now, what you are searching for s this paragraph: last sentence of first column of p.99
Now, could you have managed to instill this effect WITHOUT relying in effect expiry? You say your lab total is 70 and the effect 40. Investing it as a NORMAL enchanted device you should have been able to instill it no problem in 3 seasons (opening + 2 seasons instilling the effect).
That makes me think that yes, you can instill it as a lesser enchanted device, since you are speeding up your work there by making it an expiry item (a worse item), just as the description seems to imply.
@Paris: Quite possible. I am not the SG for downtime activities, so my grasping of such issues is tenuous at best. I thought I was quoting things right, though. First part is from "lesser enchanted devices". The second about effect expiry periods.....
