Suggestion for crafting mage needed

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

Yes, I also found it.
Here is my take on the longer Duration Rego Craft-magic - as you suggested - the magus is quickly assembling the pieces in front of him. The way I picture it is the following: the magus has in front of him a big pile of LEGO bricks (figuratively speaking) and tries to fit them together into the objet he wants. Thanks to magic, he can try and redo it until he is happy with the result instead of a single one-shot attempt (regular Rego spell). Thus he should be able to reduce the difficulty of the Finesse roll.

There is no rule (by RAW) supporting this approach, so I am open to discussion how to make a few rules which are not broken but also reasonable.

Here are the elements I believe support this approach:

  • Trading spell level for improve accuracy sound balanced (it is a bit like adding +1 magnitude for finer control, higher complexity)
  • This trade-off comes with a drawback of longer duration. True, in most of the case it won't be an issue, but when it matters (emergency), it will really be a drawback, secondly, Concentration roll add another risk of failure.

The way I could see it is that knowledge of the appropriate craft will allow the magus to more quickly assembled the pieces in the right order (basically reducing the number of trial and error attempts, hence the time required to performed the construction).

  1. By default, and to keep it within the intention, I would say that to benefit from the -3 difficult reduction on the Finesse roll, every round of Craft magic cannot perform more work than a day of work (Cov, p49 "A day's work in an instant is just normal magic").
    Hence, the shorter building duration time is a number of rounds equal to the number of days needed to build the items.

  2. Knowledge of the appropriate Craft will help achieve this optimal building time. Based on HoH:S p62 - Finesse bonuses and Penalties for Familiarity, a skill of 5 gives a +3 Finesse bonus, so I would say, if a magus has a skill of 5, he should be able to Craft the the items in the optimal time. I would be tempted to say, the total duration to maintain the concentration is Based time x (6- craft skill).

  3. Concentration roll will be based on the usual rule (Core book, p 82, Concentration table), and "For a continuing situation... <...> ... you must make a roll every two minutes. And "you can maintain concentration for 15 minutes for every point you have".
    15 minutes is the equivalent of 150 rounds, so 150 days of works, 5 months. So to perform a year's worth of work with one single spell casting you would need a Concentration of 3 (worth 15 months of work) and a Craft skill of 5.

  4. If the magus cannot build the item in one single casting because of the Concentration limit, he must make a Finesse roll for each spell casting and resume his work. The final quality will be the average (or the lowest ?) of his rolls.

What do you think ? Broken ? To harsh ?

42

The problem with this approach is that Craft Magic works like regular crafting, in that the pieces are worked, and once you've trimmed/sanded a part away, you can't put it back if you've got it wrong. Remember that failing a Finesse roll does NOT produce an inferior product, it produces a mess. If you try to make a chair and blow the Finesse roll, you don't get a crappy chair, you get kindling (unless you botch, then you get a good looking chair that turns to kindling at the worst possible time).

In a few limited cases this isn't true; for example, if you wanted to create a perfectly cubical block of wood, if you failed the first try, you can try again, your cube will just be smaller with each iteration. With some substances you can always retry (most metals, as metals can be melted down and recycled easily), but with many substances you cannot.

There's no advantage to the approach of longer duration over casting the spell repeatedly in the cases where you can re-use the materials.

Now, to reduce the Finesse target, you could simply reduce the amount of work done with each casting (i.e. a single casting doesn't go from start to finish on a project). There's nothing to prevent someone from making a spell that does a day's work with each casting then casting it 30 times to get a month's work - in this case you're doing 30 Finesse rolls and risking numerous botches, but if you had Cautious with Finesse and were doing something equal to or less than your Finesse bonus, success is basically automatic.

I took this approach with my Craft Magus with regards to a masonry spell when he built his own villa. It's far easier to erect a section of wall at a time than to erect the entire structure at once (and you can even hand the really tricky parts off to a mundane mason).

43

Can I Rego-build my villa one (section of) wall at a time, rather than in one shot - so that each spell I cast does only a day's worth of work rather than a year's (making my ease factor that much lower?). This is a question I've seen asked many times, and I believe the answer is (to a first approximation) no.

Why? Because I know nothing about architecture. The reason why I can build a villa with only Finesse, is that I'm pulling the template out of the Realm of Ideas. I don't know what the ideal villa is, but in some sense my magic can reconstruct that. It's a little like flipping through Vogue, and saying "There! I want that dress". I may know nothing about tayloring, but if my taste is good enough, I can get a great dress.

If, instead, I build my villa one wall at a time, I'll be making "perfect" walls - but there's no guarantee those walls will work well together. It's a little like flipping through a catalogue of luxury cloth, and saying "There! I want that for my dress". I might well select the smoothest silks, the softest velvets, the finest lace... and then? I still have to put them together. I could use magic for that too, but unless the cloth was chosen, cut etc. with the final dress in mind, the result may well be terrible.

The "one wall at a time" only works if I suck at Craft:Masonry, but I have a great score in Craft:Architecture. The wall-crafting spells act like a highly qualified team of masons (if my Finesse roll is good enough), that I can direct properly if my Craft:Architecture roll is good enough. If I'm not, I'll build walls that are great of themselves, but are too thick or too thin or improperly positioned etc. for my villa.

44

No, you're not. That's Creo magic pulling from the Realm of Forms. Rego Magic is about making changes that could occur naturally - including through natural human effort. That's why you DON'T always get something relatively useful regardless of your Finesse roll - you fail, you screw up, you get a mess. With Creo magic you always get something that does what it's supposed to - bread might not taste good or look nice, but it's still edible.

Also, who is to say you don't have an architect advising you? Or a mason, for that matter (I had both on hand when my magus did it, including diagrams)? There's little difference between using Craft Magic to gradually build a structure than using a Craft Magic spell to shape individual blocks (one at a time) and then levitating them into place with another spell. The labor savings is huge either way, and the Finesse roll is harder assembling a whole wall at once rather than one block at a time, so that's reasonable. It's inferior to doing the whole structure at once in terms of time constraints (you move from nearly instant to a seasonal activity) but it's far easier to manage the Finesse totals.

To repeat, building a structure gradually with Craft Magic should be no different than building a structure gradually without Craft Magic, save Craft Magic goes way faster and requires Finesse rolls instead of Craft rolls. There are penalties in place for not knowing what you're doing (HoH:S), but magic does have an easier time with it because of the lack of need for intermediate substances/equipment (no fire required for blacksmithing, no supports required for architecture). That's why a magus can make a sword out of a pile or iron even without blacksmithing skill - force the metal into the desired shape without regard for construction technique.

45

If Craft Magic should be no different than building a structure traditionally, then you most certainly do need supports for architecture. Mind you, I don't object to the premise, of being able to break down the Crafting into sub components, but the more you move in this direction the more it should cost time and other effort, such as having laborers (which might be part of the reason for going the Rego Crafting route in the first place). Taking time is always hard for a magus, it's the most precious commodity a magus has.

46

I see what you are all saying about long duration Rego craft magic.

John Prins summarised nicely my view on this topics

Hence, it will be a house rule of our campaign. The reasons agreed by our GM are the following:

  • it is not leading to broken things;
  • it is not breaking any fundamental magic rules or limit;
  • it is balanced to trade higher magnitude for better quality/lower Finesse rolls (at least for Craft magic);
  • it still requires strong investment in many abilities if you truely want to maximise it (getting good ligature bonus, getting familiarity bonus for high craft skills & so on), abilities which don't have much synergy with other broken application;
  • the concept of a magus willing to dedicate time for less "wonderful" spells but more craft demanding skill to allow vis-poor or even simply poor covenant/magus to have decent housing is also quite nice: he won't be know for great spells but popular for being helpful;
  • it will allow to craft truely magnificient buildings and items, which gives a nice "flavour" to the campaign.

Thank you for all your inputs, they helped me to find mistakes and gaps in my initial assumptions.
... but I still find that having to go through eight books to get bits of rulings was a bit too much. :stuck_out_tongue:

47

Well of course certain things might well require supports, if your spell can't manage some elements. If you can do an arch in one shot, no supports should be required. If you can't complete a dome in one spellcasting, yes, you'd need supports. And yes, a magi's time is valuable, but so is vis. A craft magi with mundane support (mostly to bring in materials) could build a castle in a remarkably short period of time, far shorter than the time necessary to distill equivalent vis necessary to conjure it with a Creo spell - but never as fast as someone who just conjures it (barring the unlikely event of all the raw materials being in place at once). Raw materials are a big limiter, and conceivably a Craft Magus could do construction gradually as materials became available (a few castings a day), which wouldn't interfere with lab work but would put up the structure very slowly over several seasons. Making a whole castle with one Craft Magic spell could well be impossible due to lack of available materials on-site at one time.

The point being that yes, a Craft Magus doing things gradually would take a lot of time to complete the structure. That's the trade-off for lower Finesse totals.

48

I used this ideas to help to make one Verditius, the mix of Farie Virtues are a cool thing but there are need to specialize on one.

49

To repeat, this is your interpretation, unsupported by any rule or example.

I think you are seriously underestimating the amount of knowledge necessary to design an object, even one apparently as simple as a sword. Suppose you, John Prins, were a superhero with the telekinetic ability to assemble individual atoms with absolute precision and amazing speed. Do you really think you could create a half-decent sword, tower, or ship just by "forcing stuff into the desidered shape"? I was about to add "without knowledge of engineering/metalworking etc.", but it seems to me that if you had that knowledge, you would not be making such a comment.

50

It could be argued that Faerie God Faerie Blood increases an appropriate Sympathy Trait by 1 point beyond what you buy with experience points, or by 2 points if you take Faerie Legacy. In this character's case, a +6 Trait instead of a +5 would be very useful, since the character is so specialized, and at that point Faerie Legacy is taking the place of 30 xp, not 10.

51

You may want to re-read HoH:S, p.60 (the very same passage you are citing). First of all, the reference to the Realm of Forms being used for "templating" precedes both the Creo and the Rego sections, so it applies to both. Second (emphasis mine):

Note that a horse, a tree, or a rock are natural objects. A sword or a loaf of bread are artificial objects created from raw, natural materials.

Well, as I said, if an architect is in charge (including if the magus is an architect), and uses Craft:Architecture to determine the final result, that's ok. It's the very example I made. But note that this will limit your versatility when making big stuff. In addition to Finesse, you'll need Craft:Architecture, Craft:Shipwright, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean with "gradually build". If you mean with a single, D:Mom spell, the difference is huge. Making a cathedral that does not collapse under its own weight requires a lot more than simply "levitate blocks into place". Honestly, what do you think civil engineers today study for years in college?

52

Hi,

Technically, Conjuring the Mystic Tower requires a Finesse roll, but does not require Profession: Stonemason or Architect or whatever else. The actual spell does not require a Finesse roll, but has 3 extra magnitudes for "Complexity." I think that is a good direction to consider when trying to deal with Craft Magic, the rules for which currently seem intended to prevent magi from being competent crafters, perhaps to preserve niches for mundanes.

Designing a spell with extra magnitudes to improve Finesse rolls seems pretty reasonable, 1 magnitude for each +2 or +3.

I also think that a magus with a good understanding of Rego and Terram has deep insight into the manipulation of Terram objects in the real world; Finesse represents his ability to translate his knowledge into practical applications. He does not need to acquire a mason's or sculptor's understanding of stone, just as mundane workers of stone are not penalized for not having true understanding of what they do, which is reflected by their knowing no Terram, Rego or Finesse!

Anyway,

Ken

53

No, the likelihood of doing this is LOW; -3 penalty for lack of appropriate skill, and probably an Ease Factor of 12 for an 'average' sword, +3 for a month's work in an instant (the average sword surely takes more than a day and less than a season). So a target of 15 with a -3 penalty on top. You'd need a Finesse + Perception of +13 to do it reliably 1/2 the time. One point in the Craft: Blacksmith and you need a Finesse + Perception of +10 for reasonable chance of success, so knowledge is a big deal.

But if I can design and assemble an entire structure at one go with Craft Magic, why cannot I design and assemble a structure gradually with Craft Magic? If your answer remains 'realm of Forms', why does 'realm of Forms' not apply to the gradual use of Craft Magic? In both cases you'd have a template to draw upon. In both cases you have a vision of the final product. In both cases your Finesse roll(s) determine how well you do (and botching any roll during gradual construction could be disastrous).

You can even use Craft Magic to make additions to finished products - because often a regular craftsman could do so. An embroiderer could add more detail to a piece of embroidery. A mason could chisel an inscription on a wall. How can I not build a wall or even an entire structure gradually, then? Could I not engrave a message one letter at a time? There are many possible examples where the idea makes perfect sense.

And yes, gradual building of large constructions requires extra considerations. I don't expect structures erected in incorrect order to stay standing between castings.

54

Yes, that's true. Giving a +1 to Sympathy, as opposed to Puissant (Ability) which gives a +2. Since that Sympathy does apply to more than a single Ability, it might be worth it.

It's not written the same way as Brownie or Dwarf, and the only other use of "point" relating to Sympathy is for experience points, which would be silly. Oh, and here's another "principle" to fix for the pdf.

55

What about this example using the D: Concentration idea? You are creating a very large painted and stained-glass window. You could do it all at once with a single Rego spell. But what if you create each pane, one at a time. This can be done without much different understanding. But now it takes perhaps a hundred times as long, perhaps much longer. (The windows I've seen, while not nearly from long enough ago, have panes about 4" (10 cm) on a side.) So maybe it's done with D: Concentration instead of many D: Momentary spells. Since the process has not been shortened so much, the penalty should not be as large, right?

56

Again, I think you are citing as RAW what I think are, to say the least, some very stretched interpretations of RAW.

Where does it come from that if you have Craft:Blacksmith at 1, you gain no penalty, whereas if you don't, you gain a -3 penalty? I'd guess you are (over)reading HoH:S, where it says that, to avoid the penalty, you must be "familiar" with what's being created. For me, being "familiar" with an object by no means implies having any knowledge about how to create one. I'm familiar with cars, TVs, and refrigerators, but my relevant Craft skills are all solid 0s. Similarly, a knight is certainly "familiar" with swords and lances, but has typically Craft:Weaponcrafting equal to 0.

No, there's the rub. I tried to give you an example, but I evidently failed. When you create an item piecemeal, you don't have a magical "vision" of the final product. Sure, as a human, you may have an idea that you want to create a cathedral. But when you cast a spell to create a stained glass window because you are assembling your cathedral piecemeal, you can only draw upon the Realm of Forms to get a glass window that is ideal if considered in isolation, not a glass window that is ideal for your cathedral.
Or think of creating a dish, by creating perfect ingredients one at a time without knowledge of cooking. "I want the perfect boiled onion!" you say. And bam! The perfect boiled onion is there. "I want the perfect chocolate glaze on top of it!" And bam! The most delicious chocolate covers the onion. After adding whipped cream, cured salmon, roast beef and papaya... you are left with something inedible even if made with the finest components.

Sure, in some cases upgrading or modifying an existing item makes perfect sense. But it's a fallacy to assume that if you can do it in some cases, you can do it in all cases. A swordsmith would certainly be able to add an inscription on the blade of someone else's sword. But he'll have a lot of trouble to add an extra two inches to the length of the blade.

57

Strictly speaking, you're right in that Craft: Weapons isn't necessary for familiarity, but I don't expect the average magus to be 'familiar' with swords in the way a knight would. No one can argue that someone with the Craft: Weapons is familiar with swords; everyone else, perhaps, perhaps not.

That's where we're going to fail to agree.

58

I will tend to agree with John on that. Here is my reasoning:

  1. There is no need for mages to have prior knowledge of Medicine to use healing spells. There is no need to have competencies in Philosophae to be able to transmute an animal into a frog. There is no need for any prior knowledge of architecture to cast Conjuring the Mystic Tower. No need for psychology knowledge to create fear. Yet, any mage can do it just based on Hermetic Arts.

So somehow, mages are able to use symbols that magic can "translate" into something functionnal: creating a table, a fire or a pig. Magic is pulling from the Realm of Forms the information that the mage is not able to provide (that's my interpretation of the process).

  1. Obviously, there is not one single definition of a tower in the Realm of Forms, otherwise, all towers made by Conjuring the Mystic Tower will look alike, yet, through Finesse a mage can customise the tower.

Based on these two points, I could see Rego magic with longer duration than Mon working that way: the magus is slowly "sifting" through the many representations of what he wants to build until he finds it and then order the magic to build it according to the "template" he has identified in the Realm of Forms. Since I am sure it is possible to use magic to build "on purpose" ruins or incomplete structure, it should also be possible through Rego magic to perfom partial construction with the caveat that when the spell end, the result should be self supporting otherwise it will collapse.

The way I see how knowledge of the ability (Craft: Architecture, Blacksmith...) will help is that the magus is able to form more quickly and more accurately in his mind what he is expecting from the spell.
A way to illustrate that is instead of flipping through the "phone book of Forms" page by page, line by line, he knows the city, the last name or even the first name of the template he is looking for. (Sorry for this very non-philosophical illustration).

By the same token, since I consider that the mage is playing an active role in the spell by coordinating the magic at work, he needs to remain focus on the spell and I would not allow Rego craft magic spell of other duration than Concentration (and Mom): the building process will stop without the mage active involvment. So a Diam Rego craft spell would not work - it will be as described in the Covenant "longer duration spells tends to reform the same item again and again with the same starting material" (serf parma, quoting from memory).

59

I agree :slight_smile: From my point of view, a spell that creates a single wall can't access the "Realm of forms template" for the entire cathedral. From your point of view, it seems it can. So I think there's not much point discussing this further.

We agree on that.

Agreed. Even though Conjuring the Mystic Tower may not be the best example, since it predates all the stuff about craftmagic. For example, according to HoH:S, since the Mystic Tower is an artificial object, it would require a Finesse roll equal to that necessary to create it with Rego.

Note that, as you yourself cite:

So a D:Conc spell does not allow you to mold and adapt etc. It just build and rebuilds the same wall, crafts and recrafts the same sword. I guess that, for material that can be recycled over and over (like metal, but unlike wood) this allows you multiple Finesse rolls, stopping when you have rolled high enough.

Ah, here's the problem. As I was telling John Prins (and I think we now understand each other, even if we disagree), the catch is that (in my opinion) you can certainly build a wall at a time, but if your magic is designed to build walls, it won't guide you in the construction of a cathedral out of individual walls. Having magic that builds individual walls is like having a team of miraculously good, impossibly fast masons - who have not a clue about Architecture. Get a rough idea of the wall you want to build and bam, there it is, even if you have no knowledge about stonework and mortar and stuff. But if you have a team of perfect masons, and no one has a clue about Architecture, your cathedral will be a horrible jumble of perfect walls.

Or think of a wondrous kitchen spirit, to which you can tell "get me a perfect onion" or "slice that onion in perfect, paper thin slices" or "fry that egg to perfection" or "procure me a bottle of the finest Barolo". You can give him any order on this scale, and it will carry it out to absolute perfection. Do you think you get out of him a perfect meal (without adequate knowledge of recipes)? I don't, because you'll make a chocolate souffle toppled with perfect onions and filled with perfectly fried perfect eggs; and you will serve a cocktail mixed in perfect proportions of perfect Barolo, perfect olive oil and perfect milk. Weirdly disgusting!

Note that what hinders you, according to HoH:S, is not lack of the Craft ability in question, but lack of familiarity with the object in question. If you've never seen a boat, or maybe you've seen a boat once tucked away in a shed, then when you create a boat, you'll risk "grabbing" a bathtub instead, or a coffin. Or if your Finesse is high enough, you'll grab a boat sure enough, but maybe a riverboat rather than the seagoing fishing boat you'd want if you knew anything about boats.

Now, I do agree that, if you have a good knowledge of Craft:Architecture - good enough that you could coordinate a team of good masons, a team of good windowmakers, a team of good carpenters etc. into building a good cathedral - then you can use individual spells to create walls, windows etc. (relying on your Finesse for good individual results) and produce a good cathedral in record time (relying on your Craft:Architecture for the good "global" result). Maybe, if the only type of "large" projects your mage is involved in are Architectural ones, that's the way he can go: reasonably high but not excessive Finesse, reasonably high Craft:Architecture, and many relatively small scale spells for masonry, carpentry, glassblowing, blacksmithing, digging (foundations!) etc.

60

I did envision something with regards to making a sculptor. I was going to make his crafting spells T:Part, so that he could work on parts of the sculpture. The work is done in an instant, but it is broken into more manageable pieces from a finesse perspective. It took 3 years to craft David, as I recall, and the finesse total to do something like that is something like 30 (serf's parma, from recollection).

The trouble with Concentration Duration is that you're working on the same discrete piece, over and over again, you cast your spell to move a block into place with concentration duration, you have to end the spell and cast it another time to affect another block, and so on. I don't believe you can use D: concentration to build a wall, because, when you start the spell, the wall doesn't exist, and so you have an invalid target.

I do think, perhaps, that you can use T: Group in some fashion to assemble components into a finished whole. This makes the spells +2, rather than the spells that are proposed to use concentration only adds +1. Although, 10 items is probably not enough for a while, you might need a Size modifier to increase Group to 100 or more items.