Talisman from a partially opened device?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I have a very suspicious realization about Talismans, so I would like to ask your opinion and help regarding the question. Maybe my inner munchkin is playing with me.

Long story short: Transforming an invested item into a Talisman nearly totally rewrites it.

My Chain of Thougths - step-by-step:

  1. You can make your Talisman from an invested item as long as you opened it (and instilled all the enchantments into it if there is any).
  2. You can open a compound device as an invested item even partially by opening the most Vis-expensive part of it. (You can use the shape bonus of other parts, but not the material bonus,)
  3. After opening the compound device as an invested item you can work on it to attune it as your Talisman.
  4. As Talisman there are lots of different/new rules about this very special and personal item: you have a deep connection with the item, its capacity is independent of its shape and/or material; you can have attunements; you receive an extra +5 bonus to your Lab Total when enchanting your Talisman beside the normal S&M boni etc

This tells me that when you make something to your Talisman you fundamentally change that invested item.

My conclusion:
Eventhough a compound device was opened partially by opening only the most expensive part of it, after you transformed it into your Talisman the internal connection of the item parts is overwritten by your very connection to the whole device: all of it is metaphysically part of you.
Therefor you can use both the shape and the material boni, and potential attunements from all and every part of your Talisman. That is in line with ArMDE p. 262. last paragraph which explicitly mentions both shape and material boni from your Talisman.

My suspicion:
It seems to good to be true - but I can't find any contradicting RAW.

Example to demonstrate me problem (?) :
You have a M* Theory of 10. You can handle 20 pawns of Vis in a season and your Talisman can have 10 different parts at max.
You can have an

    1. iron chainmail (armor) with
    1. a solid human bone helmet shaped as a larger then normal (2.1) human skull and
    1. the face/mask part covering the face is made from elderwood with a layer of silver on it,
    1. having a piece of clear glass in one of the eyesockets;
    1. a piece of Amber carved as a small cross attached to the neck, and
    1. Mercury contained in the middle of the small cross,
    1. a small lead shackles runs around
    1. the leather belt made from bear hide (permanently connected to the armor) which has Ʊ
    1. a polished bronze mirror on it.
    1. As a final piece an eyeball sized Jade is in a socket on the chest just under the chin.
      The most expensive part is the chainmail itself: only a little bigger then large (but not truly huge), and base metal, so 4 x 5 = 20 Vim Vis to open.
      After I.) opening that part of the whole 'composition' II.) you can attune it as your Talisman and III.) live happily with all the S&M boni of all 10 parts of your Talisman. Right? (Here is a meme with Anakin and Amidala :stuck_out_tongue: )
2

It’s even more fun than that!

Symbolic representations count, and these do not take up slots of MT. From the box marked “standard Talisman” in TM:RE:

xample: Dolorosa wishes to make
a talisman in the form of a staff. She has
a Magic Theory of 6, so she can use 12
pawns of vis and open a staff with five
additional components. She chooses a
wooden staff shod in iron, with a quartz
crystal bound on top, set with an ame-
thyst and an agate, and with a golden
coin depicting a crown. The stones each
require 12 pawns of vis, the coin 10, staff
8, and the iron shoe 5; the highest single
component cost is the cost of one of
the semi-precious stones, or 12 pawns,
which Dolorosa can just manage. Her
talisman has 11 Material Bonuses and
10 Shape Bonuses that she can attune in
later seasons.

Note “Coin depicting a crown”. This gets the Shape bonus of a crown despite the Talisman not being a crown.

Bob

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3

That is, at best, controversial - this thread (Talisman Shapes) argues about it a bit. The key counter argument from my point of view is that:

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4

I don’t think this is correct - or rather, I don’t think this is unique to talismans. That being said, it’s more than possible that I’ve misread it. But I’ve been puzzling over the talisman and enchantment rules for two days, and I interpret it differently.

Specifically, I think you are conflating two different things:

  1. Partially enchanting an item
  2. Enchanting a compound item

In the first case, you enchant only part of an item. The example in the rules is that you have a staff with a ruby on the end of it, you can enchant the ruby but not the staff. You gain the Shape but not Material bonuses of the staff, and the material bonuses of the ruby (and shape, if there is a relevant shape). And you don’t need to open the staff. The important thing here is that you’re only opening part of the item, and to do that, “you must use the number of pawns of vis that would be required to enchant that part if it were a separate item.” It does not have to be the most expensive one.

Alternatively, you can enchant a compound item, “so that you get the shape and material bonuses from all the components for all effects.” In that case, you work out each individual component, and then either use the amount required for the most expensive component or for the total. In either case, you can use the shape and material bonuses for all components in the item. The limitation is that you cannot combine more components than your Magic Theory score.

As a concrete example: Take a leather tunic, (2x3 = 6 pawns to open), with a bone pendant (3x1=3 pawns) embedded into it. You actually have four possible ways to open the item:

  1. Partially open it, opening just the tunic. Costs 6 pawns, you can use the shape and material of the leather tunic. Can instill 6 pawns of effects
  2. Partially open it, opening just the pendant. Costs 3 pawns, you can use the shape and material of the bone pendant, and the shape of the tunic. Can instill 3 pawns of effects
  3. Compound open it, using the most expensive component. Costs 6 pawns, you can use the shape and material of both the tunic and the pendant. Can instill 6 pawns of effects
  4. Compound open it, using the sum. Costs 9 pawns, you can use the shape and material of both the tunica and the pendant. Can instill 9 pawns of effects

My point is that your idea actually would work for any enchanted item, not just for a talisman. If you had a MT of 10, you could compound open the armor you designed, and use the shape and material bonuses of it. The big advantage of a talisman over a regular enchanted item in this case, in my opinion, is being able to pick 3 instead of 4. If you’re creating an enchanted item, and you have a certain amount of effects you want to be able to instill in it, you might want to purposely pick the more expensive option, to be able to have more room for effects. A talisman, because you can continue opening it up partially over time, and are not constrained by the overall shape and material size tables.

I’m pretty sure of this, because I’m trying to design my magus’ talisman right now and I’ve been puzzling over the rules for two days, as I said.

3 Likes
5

for case 3, you only get shape bonuses from secondary components(ie pendant but not bone)

6

I don’t think that’s correct - “It is also possible to prepare a compound item for enchantment, so that you get the shape and material bonuses from all the components for all effects” (ArM p.97).

I don’t see anything that suggests that you wouldn’t be able to get both shape and material bonuses for all components if you compound open an item.

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7

It is rather difficult for me to understand what you really want to explain.

My guess is that you interchange ‘enchanting’ and ‘opening’. These are not the same.

You can partially open a compound device. That gives you a limit on how many levels of effect you can enchant into it.

My question in a nutshell:

If you only partially opened a compound device - so you receive S&M bonus for the opened part, and Shape only for the other parts -, is it possible for the talisman ‘transformation’ (AKA. making a talisman from that compound item) to change the rules and let you use all the material bonuses?

The question occurs bc that cannot be normally done for partially opened compound devices. One can use only the Shape boni for the non-opened parts. That is really clearly described in the relevant chapter.

8

thats not correct, AMde p254:

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), the whole staff.

9

with regard to the talisman-material thing, i think youve argued your case well but it sits on a shaky foundation. Personally, i think i would allow someone who made this arguement to use a material bonus if theyve added(through the usual talisman procedure) enough vis to pay for the component, but imo this is a house rule either way.

10

Read the next paragraph, though.

“It is also possible to prepare a compound item for enchantment, so that you get the shape and material bonuses from all the components for all effects. For example, you might want to enchant a wooden staff, shod in iron, with a quartz crystal bound on the top. There are two ways to do this, but you must select one when the item is first prepared, and the choice cannot be changed later. Work out how many pawns of vis it would take to prepare each component for enchantment. You may then either prepare it with a number of pawns equal to the sum of the pawns for each component, or with a number of pawns equal to the highest required by a single component. The example staff would take eight pawns to prepare the staff alone (a large wooden item), five pawns for the iron shoeing (tiny base metal item), and twelve pawns for the quartz (tiny semi-precious gem). Thus, the whole complex can be prepared at a cost of twelve pawns or twenty five pawns.”

Ars Magica p.97

It specifically says that you can use “the shape and material bonuses from all the components for all effects” if you open a compound device by only paying the vis to open the single highest component. That’s my point, that’s ‘option 3’ of what I said.

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11

The way I understand it, your question can be rephrased as

"Is there a difference between

  1. opening only a part of a compound item (so you get the shape, but not the material bonuses of the rest of the item) and then attuning that item as your talisman
    and
  2. opening a compound device for enchantment by opening only the most Vis-expensive part of it (so you get the shape and material bonuses from all the components) and then attuning that item as your talisman?"

An important question for me would be whether you opened the most expensive part, so the Vis cost of 1 and 2 would be equivalent, or a cheaper part because you could not have opened the compound item the second way - because that would give you a sneaky way around that restriction to a much more powerful talisman.