I don't disagree, but for one pawn and one season of time, getting +3 or 4 to your area of focus isn't a bad investment. Enchanting effects into it can come later.
Although I'm not entirely certain that you can just open it up with 1 pawn of vis. My understanding is that you have to first prepare the device for enchantment during one season using the most expensive item that makes up your talisman, then you attune it as a talisman.
So if you have a ruby ring as your talisman, say, you would have to first prepare the ring for enchantment using 15 pawns of vis, and only then can you attune it as a talisman.
I don't disagree that it can still be worth it. But it actually takes two seasons, and I don't believe that it can be done for just one pawn of vis.
I'll look it up when I get home, but I'm fairly certain one of the advantages of a talisman is that you can open it as you go. As memory serves, it even mentions going a pawn a season if you so desired.
It does say: "Unlike other items, the capacity of a talisman may be opened a bit at a time. A magus could open one pawn’s worth every season if he wished, although that is inefficient." But the rules also provide that you must first prepare an item for enchantment, then you can do one of two things with it: (1) attune it as your talisman; or (2) instill powers in it. The way I've always understood the rules, that means when you are first preparing for enchantment the item that will one day be your talisman, it's not yet a talisman, and doesn't get all the nifty talisman bonuses. It's only after that second season of attunement that it becomes a talisman and becomes eligible for having its capacity opened bit-by-bit.
That's when I see the one pawn per season language coming in. Unlike another item in which you have to put all the vis in at once at the beginning, you can add points to your talisman even after it's been prepared for enchantment.
In any case, that's always been my interpretation of how the enchantment/talisman rules go.
That's my interpretation too, aye: two season affair, need to open the item up for enchantment (paying in full) before you can attune it and turn it into a talisman.
When I do get around to it, it'll probably be a glove. Manipulating things at a distance (which interpret to mean most Mu/Pe/Re spells) will cover a lot of Frederika's magic. At a later date, I can enchant it a bit and open the touch range bonus too. I would like to sew a gem of red coral into the back of it for reasons. But coral is a semi-precious gem at best...and during the 13th century, probably more precious than that. So it will balloon the cost something fierce; from 1-4 pawns for the glove to at least 12 pawns, and possibly 15.
It's one of those nebulous grey areas I s'pose, but I'll gladly go with whatever the group feels. Good thing my character isn't done yet, can make that tweak to him!
That is my interpretation, as well: one season to open the item for enchantment, one season to attune it (which can be done with an item that already has effects in it, as long as you did it yourself). Attuning only takes one season and no vis, near as I can tell.
That seems to be a rather broad interpretation of "manipulating things at a distance." Would you interpret that as any spell that has a Range of Voice, Sight, or AC?
No clue, really. "Manipulate at a distance" is just a very broad phrase - compared to the much more restrictive words used by some of the other bonuses (control, destroy, transform, create, etc). So I'm not really sure how else I can interpret it. The other bonus seems to apply to everything at touch range; perhaps the glove is just strangely over broad?
I would interpret "manipulate things at a distance" as moving or lifting things without actually touching them. Unseen Porter, Lift the Dangling Puppet, etc. I wouldn't include changing things from one to another (e.g. turning a cat into a tree or water into poison).
Here's the thing about Talismans "The capacity of a talisman is independent of its shape and material, and instead depends on the power of the magus to whom it is attuned. The maximum number of pawns of Vim vis that may be used to prepare a talisman is equal to the sum of the magus's hightest Tech/Form. Unlike other items, the capacity of a talisman may be opened a bit at a time. A Magus could open one pawn's worth every season if he wished, althought that is inefficient."
So, going back to my first argument, it seems like, in theory, you could open the Talisman with one pawn of Vim Vis.
It's an order of operations thing. An item isn't a talisman until you attune an item as your talisman (no arguments there, I trust). And you can only attune an item as your talisman if it's already open for enchantment. And to open an item for enchantment, you need to spend a chunk of vis that must be paid in full at the time of the opening.
Open item for enchantment (one season, chunk of vis that must be paid in full) > attune as talisman (one season) > get those nice talisman bonuses.
Yeah, I've been pouring over the rules for Talismans now for almost two hours and I'm thinking that I'll be forced to concede the point here!
However, in theory I've found a workaround. I could open a part of a sword fully, IE lets say there's some ornate silver work on the hilt or something, correct? I could then turn around and attune the sword as a Talisman the next year, despite having never opened the whole thing.
See, that bit confuses me somewhat too. There's the example about opening only the, e.g., gem on top of the staff, and then effects put into the gem also potentially getting the shape bonus of the staff (although not the material bonuses).
And then there's also the bit that says there are two methods of determining the vis cost (and you have to choose one!): either taking the sum total of all the individual costs and using that, or just using the highest individual cost among all the components. Though for the life of me I can't seem to find what advantage you get for going with all the costs together instead of just the highest one (unless it's related to my first paragraph in some way).
The advantage for opening the sum of all components of a compound item, compared to just the capacity of the largest component is more room for enchantments. For a talisman, this is almost moot. For a ship (not attuned as a talisman) though, it's probably 10-20 pawns of Vis capacity, or 100-200 levels of additional effects. Other items would have different capacities, and the differences might not be as large. But that's the reason. Make sense?
One would open a part, as opposed to the largest capacity component, if the Vis capacity would exceed the magic theory Vis allowance. This is suboptimal, for the limit it places on the material bonuses of the item's other components.
For talismans, it is indeed an order of operations, you can only attune something as your talisman if it has been opened and created by you. Since it must be opened, you have to put in Vis, based on the compound item rules. If you only do the part, your not actually getting the full benefits of a compound item, and are thus limited to the possible attunements, xc lauding all of the material bonuses of the other components.
That would certainly work. But you have to pick the most expensive part of the talisman, i.e., you can't pick the silver inlay if the pommel has a ruby in it. But if the silver inlay is the most expensive part, then yea, that's totally legit.
There is clearly an advantage in some circumstances for picking the whole cost rather than the cost of the most expensive item. If you know you're going to need that many pawns anyway, then you save time by adding all the vis at once. And can you even add vis to an already prepared item that isn't a talisman?
Also, consider a simpler item, one that's small with very mundane items. Say you had a leather bracelet inlaid with some carved bone and glass beads. (Not sure what you'd use that for, but bear with me.) That has leather (2), bone (1), and glass (3). If you wanted to put a level 30 enchantment in the bracelet, you'd need all 6 vis to make your enchantment. Likewise, if you planned to put in two level 15 enchantments in it.
Ugh, there's nothing like realizing your concept won't work after you've finished stating everything up. Unless I get my MT to 8 (not happening), I just can't make his Sword a Talisman. Given that the whole concept of the character revolves around using said Talisman to deliver touch ranged attacks... I'm thinking that I'll have to revise the concept!
I'll be keeping him a member of House Tremere obviously, but the question becomes what to do with him? I love the history of the house, especially the Necromancy lineage that they share with Tytalus... so I'm leaning towards that.
Ahhh...! Right, of course. Silly me. I kept going back and forth between the Opening for Enchantment rules and the Talisman rules - completely blinded me to the fact that the amount of vis you use to open an item affects how many spell levels you can contain within it. Talismans circumvent that, obviously. Ok, makes sense now!
You should still be able to do it! Per the rules, you can enchant one discreet element of an item, and the entire item will become open for enchantment. Relevant rules text:
It is possible to enchant only part of an item. For example, you can enchant a ruby on the end of a staff. Because it is on a staff, the gem gains bonuses appropriate to the shape (but not the material) of the staff (see the Shape and Material Bonuses table), and you don’t have to enchant the whole staff. - corebook, pg.97
So ordinarily a sword is a size 3 object made of a base metal (15 pawns of vis). But if you had the sword, and made - e.g. - the pommel out of human bone (for maximum killiness) then you could choose just to open the pommel for enchantment: only 3 pawns required. But the entire item itself is still open for enchantment (i.e. you get the material bonus for the bone, and the shape bonus for the sword), and the whole item would then become your talisman when you attune it.
That's my reading of the rules at least.
I see where you're coming from, the downside to that being, human bone doesn't really lend itself to making a good pommel (from a structural point of view), baring some enchantments. I like the idea, but from a practical point of view, I don't see it working. I'm going to play around with the idea for a bit though.
That said, I'm probably going to work on the alternate take today too, just to have options.
That is, perhaps, a generous reading of the rules. Keep in mind that if you open it on a smaller part, and if you were making an enchanted device with multiple effects, you wouldn't be able to access many of the other material bonuses available as if you were making a compound device. Since talismans are basically really compound and highly personalized enchanted devices, it follows that any talisman would be bound by the same limitations of a device where only part of it has been opened. The partial opening example is bad, because it has a high capacity item, and it makes it appear to work the same as a compound item. A tiny ruby has a value of 12 or 15, while a staff has a value of 8, it could be opened as a compound item for the 12 or 15, just as easily as it could be opened as a partial component.
Swords and armor are hard to enchant because they are metal, and usually medium or large, so 5x3 or 5x4 pawns for opening.
Let me also add a caveat to consider about the idea of delivering touch range spells via a weapon: botching the attack (or even defense, if you survive) roll could very well leave your talisman in the hands of your opponent. A player in another game was fighting a demon and attempted to deliver a touch ranged DEO via his talisman. He botched the attack. Now Marko and the rest of the troupe may not rule you need to make a full on attack to cast touch spells, but it's something that needs to be discussed as part of the character concept. Or any alternates (based on your last post, Nithyn).