Talisman Components

I said even IF you "COULDN'T"...I was not saying that you couldn't.

Caribet...work me through this...

"You can only attune an item as your Talisman if you prepared it for enchantment yourself"...
(simple enough)
"A magus may attune an item with instilled effects as his Talisman, as long as he instilled all the effects personally."

"Finally, your Talisman becomes very easy to enchant,"....

...."every time you prepare it for enchantment, or instill an effect."
(2nd column, 2nd Paragraph)
Making a point here that Enchant and Instill are two diferent operations...

Okay (follow my lousy example closely), back to the first example..

"You can only attune an item as your Talisman if you prepared it for enchantment yourself"...

It does not say you can only attune and item that IS enchanted. It say you can only attune an item that you PREPARE yourself.
Now the second:
"Finally, your Talisman becomes very easy to enchant,"....
Enchant is the process by which you instill the Vis.
This implies that the item is already (assuming you are not attuning an item you made before) your Talisman BEFORE you start instilling the Vis.

The last part kinda backs up what I'm thinking here...

...."every time you prepare it for enchantment, or instill an effect."
(2nd column, 2nd Paragraph)
They are talking about instilling attunements here, but the point is that they are saying you can do that while you are PREPARING it for enchantment. You can't attune an item that isn't your Talisman.

I don't follow your statement that you couldn't put the 20 pawns in yourself...The entire operation breaks the rules of enchantment...why should the MT rule apply here???
:confused: [/b]

because, as you quoted "You can only attune an item as your Talisman if you prepared it for enchantment yourself"...

That means the item has to be prepared for enchantment before you make it your talisman. That "prepared" is in the past tense.

the clear corollary of which is, that before you can spend the season to attune an item as a talisman, you must first successfully prepare it as an invested device of some sort.
You must, in one season, open it for investment, limited by the normal rules.
It is not yet a talisman - it is just an opened device - your plans for it do not change it.

after you have attuned it, which is after the season of attunement, which is after the season in which you opened it (prepared it).

Instill is placing the magical effects into an already opened/prepared device - not relevant here.

Since this section immediately follows "Preparing an Item for Enchantment" it is clear that we should be referring to an item which has been prepared by opening - this is perhaps one of those bits which should have been edited to make clear consistent use of terminology.

You Open/Invest/Prepare a device by spending a season and vis.

but it also backs me up too - The season of attunement changes the talisman so that you can now invest more and more vis. You still have to start with an invested device, and to attune it.

they talk about the seasons when you work in the lab on the talisman, either to re-open it and invest more vis, or to install an effect;
when you work in the lab on the talisman, you get a chance to attune a S&M bonus, too.

simply that when you start with the mundane device, you can open it for investment with upto 2*MT pawns, and no more.
In that first season, you can only invest 20 pawns if you have MT 10.
It is not a talisman at this stage.

2 seasons later, it has changed into a talisman, and you can start re-opening it, and can then fill it up to the 20 pawn limit with no problem.

if you wish to say that you can start attuning a talisman before opening it as an invested device, then I disagree (but you can make your own saga so). If you are right, then you can invest 2*MT pawns in any season, up to the limit of max(Te+Fo).

You are assuming that the rules are written in the order that you must perform them.
(Pardon me if this comes out incorrectly)

Let us follow your logic to its conclusion...

Magus with the following high scores
Creo:20
Corpus:20
By your process, the magus would need a MT of 20

:open_mouth:

To enchant his Talisman...

Just by glancing at the experience chart, and playing a bit, I can tell you its a LOT easier to get a 20 in an Art, than in an Ability.
:question:
Can ANYONE tell me of a old Magus that had a 20 MT ?
Can anyone tell me of a Magus with 20 in his/her arts?

I think your interpretation is TOO severe.
You would not be able to make a Talisman.

My interpretation:

When you take the item and "Prepare" it, you are attuning it to YOU, and instilling the Vis (Opening it). Normally, you are limited by your MT score. Talismans though, are PART of you...you are placing part of your 'magic/soul' in it (hence the connection it has to you. This is also why you can't have more than one...). Since this item is 'part of you', it is limited by your magical ability, not your knowledge of magic. Once you have the Vis in the item, you can then attach powers to that Vis. Because you have part of yourself in the item, your magic resistance covers it...because its part of you, you can take the magical properties of the forms and materials and link them to your magic (bonus).

:wink:

I understand you very well. I think that I also understand your motivation, and certainly could accept your ruling if I played in your campaign.

Just that your view to me does not appear to be supported by the rules as written, while Urien's does:
The written rule on ArM5 p. 98 distinguishes clearly and unequivocally between enchanting a talisman and enchanting other devices. So the specific rule on talismans supersedes the general rule on enchanted devices with respect to the amount of Vim vis which can be spent to prepare a talisman for enchantment.
So of course preparing an item for enchantment as your talisman is a process different from preparing it for enchanting as another type of device. No explanation is given in the rules how the processes differ, but their different effects are spelled out.

Kind regards,

Berengar

As I see things,

  1. you open the item with the amount of vis required by material and size, you are limited to 2*MT. 1 pawn for a glass bead, 8 for a staff, your choice of 8 or 9 for a staff with a glass bead...

  2. you attune it as your talisman in a subsequent season.

  3. you can now add more vis in the item up to your Te+Fo limit, but no more than 2*MT at a time.

Intending to make it your talisman doesn't suddenly enable you to open the Great Pyramid of Kheops by just spending one pawn of vis.

The rules on page 98 are additional restrictions: you won't be able to attune an item as your talisman if it has been manipulated by somebody else, meaning that you can't go buy proto-talismans from your Friendly Local Verditius Store.

This, I think, supports the notion that the rules are intended as a restriction, and that the attunement step is separate from the preparation step (ok, you can very well argue that it only says it 'can be separate', I'll grant you that much) and that the preparation is no different for a talisman than for other invested devices.

You wouldn't be able to enchant the pyramid, since you didn't build it yourself. And it probably already involves Sacred Architecture anyway.

:laughing: Just imagining the guy who succeeded in getting it as a talisman after pouring hundreds of pawns of vis into it, and then tried to magically lug it around ...

ArM5 took care to remove previous rules that made a player character think twice before committing early in a campaign to character defining, near once in a lifetime, investments of time and vis like making a talisman or a binding a familiar.
In this light I also see the full separate chapter on enchanting talismans on ArM p.98 and its clear and explicit: "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 highest Technique and highest Form. Unlike other items, the capacity of a talisman may be opened a bit at a time.", which would need to be errataed to make caribet right.
A beginning character shall not have to spend years or decades bringing up his Magic Theory before getting a meaningful talisman, like the one planned by Erik Tyrrell, to use over the campaign. AFAICS with respect to the power gained - not with respect to character definition - most boni from attunement are not worth their lab season anyway: early in a campaign most young magi would better raise Arts or Magic Theory instead, and later older magi would better invent spells and make items.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Berengar,
I stand firmly by the interpretation that

means

  1. a talisman must be prepared as for enchantment" before you can attune it
  2. you must do the preparation yourself

(there is an ancillary part which is that you may use an already invested device, and this is further limited that you must not only have prepared it yourself, but have been the only magus to invest effects in it.)
Also, note that you cannot make an LED into a talisman.

Secondly, when you attune the talisman

That is, in the attunement process, the talisman changes: the limit on the pawns investable increases...
It also becomes a talisman, something it was not previously.

Throughout the entire time I have been playing 5e, there has been no sense of ambiguity in this: you are the first person I have encountered who has interpreted this as allowing you to start enchantment after attunement - I cannot see how you reach that conclusion from the words printed.

If the item must be prepared before enchantment then there is a limit on the actions in the first season.

Also, you mis-interpret me... there is nothing to stop a junior magus making a talisman with 20 pawns stuffed in it, they you have to start with 2*MT in the first season, then attune it, and then stuff in the rest.

(There is a limit, unavoidable, of "number of components" which is limited by MT. If you make your talisman when you have MT 4, you can only include 4 components. Full stop.
If you reach MT 10 after some years, and want to have more components iun your talisman, you need to destroy the existing one, and make a new one.)

Berengar,
I guess I would have to disagree with that one. Many Magi benefit from making a Talisman early. With the +5 bonus, it enables you to get a higher lab score...You can use this lab score to boost the penetration of the power...or the number of times you can cast it....not a bad deal.
The attunements can be real important to younger magi too. An extra +5 to your casting total can be a BIG boost....especially if you have low scores.
By creating a Talisman, you could also stuff quite a few powers in that you don't have spells for...(and don't want to learn).
I guess the best reason for doing it is the fact there are a few magi out there that can't cast Spont magic well (or at all). An item that can do a bunch of things and gives you a bonus to do things is a good deal.
Of course doing it TOO early is a problem, but unless you are in a Vis poor game, you can easily destroy it and start over when your skills increase.
:slight_smile:

certainly they do! The Lab bonus of +5, yes, that matters when your lab total is around 20!

also those - if casting total is 20 or less, then +5 is a large bonus.
Yes, increasing Arts or learning spells is important, but that bonus stays with you always - it's like a narrow range Puissant Art!

Yes - again, a young magus is very limited in what they can open in one season - being able to return again and again to open more Vis spaces is extremely useful.

Of course. There are many good reasons to get a talisman.

I was referring to the boni from magic attunement, based on the talisman's shape and material, about which Erik Tyrell started this thread, but this time I did not make that reference explicitly.
Why? Because the only factual difference we appear to have here is: when can talismans with certain shape and materials be enchanted?
You get your +5 bonus to enchantment from every talisman, even a lowly wooden ring. Everybody appears to agree also that you then can open your talisman piecemeal for enchantment with Vim vis up to the sum of your highest Technique and Form.
So the issue of this discussion are the boni from shape and material you can get. These boni from attunement AFAICS are mainly window dressing and character definition, especially as you can get them from one item only at a time.

Kind regards,

Berengar

I agree with both your conclusions.

If you have a book on how to build radios, and then get a kit to assemble a Mark 123 Super Ghetto Blaster: do you then ponder at which step of the assembly process the parts of the kit have become enough of a Mark 123 so you can put the book aside and rely on the assembly instructions?
Just when a talisman starts to be one is simply besides the point.

You have on ArM5 p.98 an entire chapter on talismans: how to prepare them for enchantment, how attune them to you, how to instill effects into them and how to use them in spellcasting.
For talismans this chapter overrides more generic rules.
And this chapter includes an unequivocal rule - often enough quoted by now - about how much Vim vis you can use when preparing talismans for enchantment, and how many seasons this preparation will take.

How did you come to the conclusion that I misinterpreted you about this?
We always agreed that the final Vim vis limit for a maga preparing a talisman for enchantment was her highest Tech plus Form.

This rule (ArM5 p.97) carries over to talismans as well, as there is nothing in the chapter on talismans to override it.

Kind regards,

Berengar

then that tiny morsel may be where we have been snipping away.

Sigh!... So actually we have been agreeing all along?

It may not matter In Character when it becomes a Talisman - in the mind of the magus, probably when he started on it;
however the game deals with and defines abstractions, and for those abstractions there are finite, distinct states, and state-changes.
In particular, an "item prepared for enchantment" changes and becomes something different, with different rules applying to it: a talisman.

One considerable significance of this is that it limits the materials you may choose for your talisman. For example, even a tiny gem requirs 15 pawns, so if you include a ruby in your talisman, it will likely be the "single highest cost" and you must open the item with 15 pawns (* or fewer if a Verdi - they have advantages!) in the first, pre-talisman season (and have MT 8+) - or fail, and have to choose some other materials.

If you insist on trying for a Skull carved from a huge ruby (material 15, size 3) then you need 45 pawns, and since MT23 is "unlikely", some other way to reduce the vis handling requirements.

This to me is significant.

I have been particularly interested recently in the rules which govern "that which will become a talisman" before it has become one;
these rules are the rules on p.97, not the rules on p.98

Once you have attuned the item, then p.98 kicks in and overrides:
you can re-open it, in variable amount (up to 2*MT per season), and with an increased total. I have no difficulty with the rules on p.98 as they apply to an attuned talisman.

I think that one bubbled up in the mixed threads, and may well not have been you...
I was waiting for a program to link, several times over, while posting previously.

Caribet,

I guess I have to first clearly summarize the point of contention once - even if that may appear pedantic, especially since I am in a hurry again:

You claim that the chapter on talismans on ArM5 p.98 only applies once the talisman has been prepared for enchantment.
I claim that the same chapter treats all stages of the enchantment of talismans.
I assume that we both agree that the chapter overrides more generic rules pertaining to its scope.

In evidence to my claim, I give you an explicit, unequivocal rule from the chapter in question on the amount of Vim vis usable when preparing a talisman for enchantment.
In evidence to your claim, you argue that a talisman is different from another invested device only once it is attuned as such.
To counter this argument of yours, I used the radio assembly example above, which makes clear that instructions or rules about a specific subject can apply even before that subject comes into existence - thus showing that it is irrelevant for our argument just when a talisman becomes one.

Kind regards,

Berengar

As regards the original intent of the rules, Neil is right and Berengar is wrong. The rules on page 97 apply to opening an item for enchantment initially. The rules on page 98 only apply to talismans, which means that the item must have been attuned as a talisman before they kick in.

So, the initial preparation for enchantment must be done in one season, following the rules on page 97. If the magus then so desires, he can attune that item as a talisman. He can only attune an item after preparing it for enchantment. There is nothing forcing him to do so, however, which is why the page 98 rules do not kick in earlier. If they did, the rules on page 97 would never apply to magi without talismans, as they could always 'plan to open this thing as my talisman', and then change their minds. Hermetic magic cannot read the future to stop them, after all.

David,

thanks a lot for the speedy clarification of intent.

Will we some time see ArM5 p.98: "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 highest Technique and highest Form." errataed then?

After all, there are simple ways to take the phrase as is literally without having Hermetic magic read the future: e. g. if an item prepared for enchantment as a talisman - at least if more Vim vis than possible for another invested device was used - would have to be attuned as a talisman before an effect could be instilled into it.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Berengar,
you still don't get it quite clearly.
There is a multi-stage process, and in the first stage the magus prepares an item for enchantment, just like any other item, using only the rules on p.97.

The magus then follows the process in the rules on p.98 and spends a season to attune it, and changes the item from "non talisman" into "talisman", which allows the item to use new rules (the rest of those on p.98).
In the 3rd season, they can perform special actions like re-preparing a talisman for enchantment, working with the new, increased capacity.

Once you accept that you have to start with a non-talisman, and that it changes when you attune it, then the rules become clear and unambiguous.

It seems you are alone in this particular interpretation/problem, as other people indicate that they understand/accept the rules as written.

Actually, he is not the only one to interpret the rule that way. My thought was that the attuning as a Talisman AND the initial investment of Vis took place at the same time...
This method would prohibit David's "I INTEND to make this my Talisman"...
...But David has spoken.

I'd just like to add that I was terribly confused by the talisman rules until I sat down with the book and planned out making my character's talisman. If anyone else is reading all this commentary and left with questions, seriously, just take it step by step and it eventually becomes clear.

Caribet,

be assured that I understand your ideas very clearly, and do so since the last 20 or so posts on this thread.

They are AFAICS just not - yet - expressed by the text of ArM5 p.98.

So perhaps David's intentions were that clear to all the playtesters and proofreaders, that they just did not notice how a rule put into the talisman chapter was phrased in a way that it concerned preparing a talisman for enchantment, and not just extending such preparation after attunement?

Wouldn't the chapter of ArM5 p.98 be improved if instead of:
"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 highest Technique and highest Form. Unlike other items, the capacity of a talisman may be opened a bit at a time."
we would read e. g.:
"After initial attunement, a magus can continue to expend Vim vis on the preparation of his talisman and further increase its capacity for instilled effects, up to the sum of his highest Technique and highest Form. For each season spent for this, he can add a number of pawns up to his Vis Limit."?

Kind regards,

Berengar