Two of my players, willing to have an efficient transport, came up to me with the following enchantment. It seems mostly acceptable to me, but a few parameters in it made me willing to have the community's opinion.
The base object is a massive stone statue of a griffin, whose body is a bit larger than an average horse, and with proper sized wings.
Rego Terram.
Base 4: Move Stone in a very unatural fashion
+1 Concentration
+1 Size (up to 10 cube meters)
+0 (Self)
+0 (Individual)
+1 (Cosmetic: the griffin actually waves his wings while flying)
+5 lvl: Item maintains concentration
+4 lvl: 6 uses a day
Final level of the enchantment: 24
Is this enchantment realistic? It seems a bit easy to me. Would such enchantment offer enough control to the rider? Would this enchantment enable its user to direct it easily ("go up", "go down", "go forward", "slow down", etc...) or would that require additional enchantment?
I'd bump it a couple of magnitudes for two reasons. I would say that if you want fine control of the creature, rather than gross control, you need a +1 bonus or you're going to be making some very difficult Finesse rolls. If the character has the Finesse score, or doesn't care that he occassionaly slams the statue into a hovel, that's the player's call. Second, I would say that you burn a charge every time you issue it a new command, (1) fly up slowly, (2) fly forward, (3) fly faster, (4) fly right around that tree, (5) stop elevating, (6) fly left around that mountain, (7) fly right around that other mountain.
GM: You appear to be out of charges. What's your Soak Total with your Terram Bonus
Player: Oops, should have gone with unlimited charges. Maybe my next character will be Verditius?
I definitely agree on the need for either an additional magnitude for precision, or some high Finesse roll. The Unseen Porter, which uses the same base and no additional magnitude, requires 12+ Finesse rolls for any precise manipulation, for instance.
Regarding the uses per day, I would say rather than you use one each time you leave the object maintain the Concentration itself, and under its own Concentration it certainly just keep moving on its current speed and heading. So you can do a lot of changes as long as the user keeps making the Concentration rolls, and the moment he relaxes he uses one charge.
I might be missing something but i thought it would be Base 3 and +2 for affecting Stone? So a combined total of Base 5 rather than 4.
That really is just cosmetic AND it can actually be a negative so im not sure the +1 is needed.
Still, its very low overall so let it stay i think.
Overall looks mostly fine.
I would probably add +1 or maybe +2 for complexity to allow good control. As JP said, unlimited charges is probably a good idea as well.
OK, I'm going to be the spoilsport and say a big, resounding NO to this, unless all you want is a glorified "flying carpet" with some cosmetic upgrades.
First, Rego allows a caster to move an object as the caster directs. Rego on a statue, even if "highly unnatural" does NOT, ever, give it Cunning or Intelligence. Stone does not ever naturally possess these characteristics. Rego won't cut it.
If you want a Griffin that acts for itself, you have four options:
1.) Muto
2.) Automata
3.) Mechanica of Heron
4.) Animae
Muto can change an aspect of stone with an aspect of Animal, making the equivalent of an Animal Muto'd to stone.
Automata uses a unique mystery to create Enchanted Items with limited auto-motivation, able to act as automotons and perform basic tasks, complicated crafts or even fight.
Mechanica are like Automata on crack. They are intelligent critters able to use magic powers.
A Merinita could turn the statue into a stone Griffon-faerie.
Sorry for being a party pooper. Your spell would allow you to move the statue around and make it look like it was moving under its own motivation but it would not have the capacity to move itself without a specific trigger to specific motion effect.
This spell would be useful for a Mount, used like a flying carpet.
I have to say that these were my first thoughts upon reading the description. (After reading the immediately subsequent responses, I just assumed that I must be missing something.)
A gloryfied flying carpet that is a big and impressive stone griffin sounds EXTRA COOL to me. Base 3+1, yup. It seems a fair and good spell to me. Something that bombastic magi (read: 80% of the OoH) would use. We have a PC travel in a water sprout after all (to the criticism of our more sedate PCs that want to avoid drawing attention).
Bah, i was looking under "Terram Spells" where Stone is +2(or rather, up to that), not under Rego where Stone becomes specifically +1.
Darn thats confusing, hadnt noticed before that they differed like that.
Rereading it, its kind of odd that the Terram heading gives one list and then 3 of the Techs specify a more compact version.
Vulcano, i didnt see anything about trying to make it intelligent or anything?
That i believe was the intention. Nowhere in the opening post does it say anything at all about making it an individual of its own in any way.
I'm quite prepared to accept that I'm the one who's getting this wrong, but it seems to me that without some form of intelligence or cunning, it won't know where to go or how to obey commands - so if the item is maintaining concentration, not the caster, then it won't be much use as a means of transport. How do you make it go from A to B?
Telling it where to go can be the preset commands integrated in the enchantment from the start.
Its not a matter of it understanding or obeying. Its essentially a verbal joystick.
Which equals 4.
Base 3+1, yup. It seems a fair and good spell to me. Something that bombastic magi (read: 80% of the OoH) would use. We have a PC travel in a water sprout after all (to the criticism of our more sedate PCs that want to avoid drawing attention).