Table talk (Bibracte)

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: In the Ruins of Bibracte
541

I've been struggling with this for a while. Creo can create a thing and they're done, and the spell can be designed sufficiently well to allow for elaborate design, see CtMT. It's a serious disadvantage to the Craft magician, on one hand, Creo needs vis + spell, on the other Rego doesn't need vis, so they still need a spell. So comparing the XP expenditure on Finesse to the "costs" acquiring the vis, I think Rego craft magicians kind of get the shaft. Unless the saga is focused on aquiring vis and it is an extremely scarce resource. In this saga, vis is not scarce.

So, as a way for Profession:Ability or any suitable craft skill to influence craft magic, I'm inclined to think that Profession:Ability allows one to look at a project and design it in the form of sequential spells, given the caster's ability score for finesse.

We'll use this case of Viscaria building a bridge to illustrate the example.
She has Prof:Architecture at 2 (not sure what the BPH specialty means) and makes an hard ease fator Int+Prof ability roll to determine the number of spells to construct the bridge in a significantly foreshortend time frame. Just pulling numbers out of thin air here, let's say that a successful roll gives her the fact that she needs to design 7 spells to complete the task, with Perception + finesse scores within her reach of being able to do this. A failed roll might suggest 5 spells are necessary given her finesse level, but still leave the bridge functional (it might not be beautiful) and a botch would indicate some kind of design flaw leading to catastrophic failure, with either 5 or 7 spells. Note any subsequent structures built with the same set of spells will all share the same critical flaws.

I like this approach of profession/craft skills being of some utility to the craft magus. It takes some of the burden off of finesse being the ultimate go-to skill, which creates some perverse situations. I find it difficult to fathom how a craft magician with an absurdly high finesse score is really good at responding to incoming spells (quick casting speed is quickness+finesse+stress die). I also find it equally difficult to understand how a Flambeau of the School of Vilano, also with an absurdly high finesse score, could just make stuff with Rego craft magic.

I might post this out to the Ars forum, too with a clearer example, less relevant to our specific case here.

542

BPH = Baroque Peasant Hut, the Mystic Tower variant that Viscaria has.

543

Gotcha.

I want someone to blow my idea up and rip it to shreds. I like it. It also gives Viscaria a chance (with low finesse) at being able to do stuff.

544

One of the things that often frustrates me is that there's no mechanic to create spells which enhance skill. All the spells replace the skill with Finesse. Going one step further, shouldn't a Dwarf-Blooded half-fae get his Crafting bonus to his Rego Craft efforts? Isn't Rego Crafting closer to the supernatural acts of creation that a true faerie would engage in? What about my Verditius Magic Virtue?

Put another way, there's no room in the system for EITHER innate skill, mystery initiation or hard-earned focus.

The Rego Craft spells often say "using Finesse to substitute for ___ at +3 difficulty." So the first part of my question is, must I make that substitution? Why can't I just use Craft:Stone when using ReTe Craft magic on stone?

Profession:Architect is definitely the pre-planning stage, but it is also the oversight skill. An architect doesn't just design the building and then walk away. He oversees the operation from start to finish. He examines each stage of the work, looking for the critical flaws.

But we also need to step back from the mechanical system and ask, "What should a grandiose act of Mythic Construction look like?"

I also really want there to be some way for Viscaria's familiar to be involved in this creation. Spider silk is one of nature's greatest tricks. Mankind has yet to create a substance that matches spidersilk in terms of tensile strength and extensibility. Quoting wikipedia, "weight for weight, silk is stronger than steel, but not as strong as Kevlar. Silk is, however, tougher than both."

Visual: marble, magically turned liquid, flowing across a spiderweb that spans two mountains, hardening into a bridge, gossamar-thin from afar and supernaturally beautiful.

545

I'm not quite ready to abandon finesse. Finesse is the ability to finely control your magic. The ability to work stone or silver has little with the ability to control magic.

Sure, and having a knowledge of architecture, how to plan a job is how I envision that you can take constructing some structure and breaking it into multiple spells. Note, some of these spells would have utility, time and again, some less so. I would even go so far as to say that the craft skill is the skill used to create a design, a change in your spell, and the finesse ability is what controls how closely your magic matches your vision.

I'll let you worry about the looks.. :smiley: Maybe you can describe the process you wish to use, and that will help inspire me to work out the kinks of the mechanics.

546

I'm not saying anything about abandoning Finesse completely. I just think that the Dwarf-Blood and applicable Craft skills should be applicable. Familiarity with a particular medium should certainly apply, in my opinion.

I think we're on the same page for what the dice rolls should look like. We're just trying to figure out how to manage the Ease Factors and determining the time requirements.

Also, I should point out that by the end of 1222 Winter, Viscaria will be able to spont ReTe 5 effects without fatigue (Re 10 + Te 15 + Pussiant 3 + Sta 0 + Aura 0 = 25). Rego Craft magic is Base 2 (+1 for stone or glass, +2 for metal or gems) (Cov pg 51). Ceremonial sponts would be an additional +5, so she can spont-with-fatigue for ReTe 15-20 pretty easily in Aura 5. Her Lab Total to invent ReTe spells would be a 45. She may just study Rego and Terram books, and spont everything.

In a profound oversight, she still has a very low Finesse score, though, and the covenant doesn't currently seem to have any resources for her to easily learn it.

EDIT: Given her Affinity, it will take her 14 seasons, or 3.5 years to finish reading her uber-Terram book and bring her to Terram 25+3.

547

The aura is changing...
And wasn't a finesse volume one of the ones on loan from the Tribunal?

548

Well, you can! IIRC, of course.
Note that, IMO, the reason why, for grand projects, Creo is much more efficient, is that, else, all magi would build great projects using Rego, thus saving vis: I am under the impression that this is quite intentionnal.

That being said, Rego craft magic lets you do, say, a day's work in an instant.
So, if wanting to excavate a cave, nothing stops you from doing a minor work in 1 day in an instant, instead of doing in an instant what he'd do in a year.

Thing is, this means a lot more finesse rolls (with botch risks) and time, but (unless I'm wrong), I can't see why this shouldn't be possible.

So you need to ask "how many time does the project requires" (say, a year), and separate into diverse projects. Maybe something like this:

  • "Ok, a bridge takes one year (+9), and is overall hard (15), for a total difficulty of 24, but some parts are easier, some parts harder, to you may cut things in different projects.
    Most of the bridge will be easy (dif 09), and take most of the year. You can cut this in three 1-season project (+6) meaning 3 diff 15 rolls.
    Then, there will be the tricky parts, namely 3 months (+3) doing average rolls (12) for 3 dif 15 rolls, and the really hard part, which takes 2 days, but is quite hard (diff 15)"

As a HR (and yes, I didn't follow this above), I'd say:

  • A year (+9) = 4 seasons (+6)
  • A season (+6) = 3 months (+3)
  • A month... Well, ready for those 30 rolls? And yes, there will be failures. It's ok, it happens to mundane craftsmen too. It's the botches you gotta be wary of. I'd say any failure requires 2 more rolls, any botch 4 more rolls per botch.
    You could combine with your rule of suitable Profession skills allowing one to eliminate the +3 penalty. I like it.

I'd be wary of a single Diameter spell lowering all the difficulties by 3. At least, a day's work accomplished in a day should have the same difficulty, period (yes, the +3 to Rego craft magic is a minimum.......).
Similarly, I wouldn't let the base ease factor get below the one for a mundane craftsman...

Going back to an exemple... Say, the Bridge is Impressive (base difficulty 18, +3 Rego magic = 21), and needs a year to build (+9).
=> You could cut it into 4 season long projects (+6). If managing 4 Architecture rolls, you would also eliminate the +3 penalty.
=> Instead of a single Diff 30 roll, you'd get to do 4 diff 24 ones.
You could also try to cut them into 12 diff 21 "month" long projects...

ANOTHER possibility is going the other way: The bridge is build using mundane means, assisted by magic. This could mean either a lowering of the EF (say, 1 per magnitude of the higher spell used) OR a lowering of the time spend (say, level % of the highest spell used?)

Should look into the Great Tower, maybe there'll be inspiration

549

After looking at the Table of Contents from the ArM main site, I think you've got a major point there. The Great Tower is 30 pages on almost this exact topic, with subsections like "Rates of Progress" and "Construction Magic." We should just stop discussing this part until I've read through it.

...which means ordering it online. So, defer this conversation for 5-8 business days.

550

I have it. I got it for the Shipwright character. If the Shipwright chapter is indicative, no. I'll look at it and provide some more insight, but my confidence level is not high.

For example, the ReHe(Te) 40 spell The Hands of Phereclus constructs a ship from component parts. The ships require the following per+finesse rolls: A River Barge is 15, A Coastal Buss 21, Large Cog 27 and Grain Barge 30.

Apollodorus has a Per of 5 and Finesse of 7. That's pretty good. A specialist (affinity) might push it to 15, maybe be puissant, and have a +3 perception without rituals gets to 20. Meaning the cog is on the edge of probability, probably a failure, and the grain barge is more than likely a failure...

<reading, report back later>

551

Grrr. Wish I had read this before buying the book. Well, maybe I will still get insight.

552

Seems to focus on it as a setting for a saga.
Most of the spells are CrTe rituals to construct the tower in pieces.
Some of the items do give bonuses to Craft:Mason. So there is something there.

Note, I skimmed that section of the book.

553

CrTe rituals might give some inspiration. What was the Rate of Progress section, pg 36? Any insight from there?

As things stand right now, she's got Per 0 + Finesse 1 (Rego). All of the target numbers we're talking about are woefully unattainable.

554

It's a discussion of using mundane craftsman to complete levels of the tower.

555

(I missed the Penetration Book. Will add it to the library now).

556

cough
Durenmar!
cough

557

Added my magic items to the wiki, and shifted all the magic items over to the Items tab, which will at least alphabetize them for us.

Also added the Penetration book as a Tropea to our Library, and Viscaria's Terram Summa (with a note explaining what sort of RP will have to happen for anyone else to get access to it).

Also added the heraldic device to the wiki somewhere.

558

You're not really suggesting she leave her lab, are you? That's like 6 vis she'd be giving up.

559

She doesn't have to leave. It was/is a topic of the council meeting thread.

560

You mean the thread that nobody's responded to in almost exactly a month now?

Sometimes, JL, I think you and I are the only ones really playing this game every day. And when I think that, I suddenly realize why I'm getting so little work done.

~duck~