Newsgroups: alt.games.torg

Okay, I found the line that said that arcane knowledges are only used in
the creation and learning of spells.  Here's my first attempt at spell
creation.  I'm a little unsure of it all, so tips, pointers, and
criticism are welcome...

My campaign includes a "realm runner/scholar"-type.  He has very little in
the way of combat skills and weapons, but has spent time researching in
the Living Land, the Aysle, and as an ambassador in the Nile Empire.  I
offered to replace his weapons with Aysle or Nile counterparts (like the
Realm Runner's elven longsword), but he decided he'd rather have a cute
little magic item, useless most of the time but occasionally terrific if
used creatively.  (How can a gm say no to a request like this? :-)

We decided on a "beer tap", a permanently enchanted hollow wand and funnel 
combination that transports liquid from the funnel to the wand when within
range.  It was developed by a dwarven mage name of Hemdar, for the purpose
of making it easy to keep guests' glasses filled in a pub.  Here's the
enchantment spell:
Took about 5 hours, but I learned the spell development system (!).
A skilled dwarven mage who operates several pubs in Upper Aysle by the
name of Hemdar spent 7 months (!) and 3 Possibilities perfecting this spell.
He normally uses it for his pubs, allowing his servers to attend to his 
guests without having to carry all the glassware.  He occasionally makes
the enchantment permanent.  This particular enchanting belonged to <someone>
in London, who offered it to you (in trade?) after seeing your fascination
with it.

> Hemdar's Enchanted Tap
> 
> Axiom: 10 (17)
> Skill: apportation/water 23
> Backlash: 10
> Difficulty: 6
> Effect Value: 0
> Bonus to: duration
> Range: 10 (100 meters)
> Duration 25 (1 day)
> Cast time: 18 (1 hour)
> Manipulation: control, state
> 
> This spell is designed to be cast upon a specially constructed tap.  The
> tap is initially forged in one piece, and consists of a shallow metal funnel 
> going into a hollow metal wand.  During the enchantment, the funnel and wand
> pieces are separated.
> 
> The funnel is placed in a keg or other source of liquid.  It rests on the
> bottom.  The wand can then be placed placed inside a glass and tapped on
> the bottom.  The liquid will flow from the funnel inside the wand and into
> the glass.  A second tap stops the flow.
> 
> The wand and funnel must be within 100 meters of each other to function,
> and cannot be divided by an impermeable barrier (locking the wand in a
> solid metal case would prevent its function).
> 
> This spell is focussed and impressed.

Here's what I did.  Hemdar has Divination 14, Alteration 14, Conjuration 19,
and Apportation 18, with the Water knowledge at +5.  He knows the Control
and State process theorems at +4 each.  I chose Apportation as the pattern
skill (as it involved moving liquids), with Water as the pattern and Water
as the result.  Magic is the mechanism.  The spell is impressed and focussed
in the metal tap.

The state path goes Water->Inanimate->Magic->Inanimate->Water.  The additional
path allowing the spell to be impressed and cast by a folk without any skill
goes Water->Inanimate->Light->Living->Folk->Living->Light->Inanimate->Metal.
This makes the state cost 9, +18 for the additional path, +7 for the base
pattern knowledge of Water, +5 since the spell is impressed and focused, for
a total of 39 (!).  The Conjuration skill total (after spending a Possibility)
was 34, for a spell sum component of +5.

I chose Area 1 and Volume 1 to indicate the amount of liquid that could be
moved at a time.  I chose Effect 0 (I wanted the tap to affect about 1 liter
of water at a time, like the Sweet Water spell).  Magic is the mechanism, so
there is no result modifier.  I rolled poorly on the Pattern knowledge, though,
so I spent another Possibility to get a Pattern Skill of 15, making the
spell sum component -5.

No attributes are affected; I chose to allow the aspects of Form (to control
the stream of liquid), Effect (so the spell, once made permanent, could be
turned on and off), and Apportation (a straight line effect is not always
good in this case...); that made the difficulty of the Aspects +6.  The
spell is not illusory, so there's no Disbelief.  The pattern cost of
apportation spells is 10, for a control total of 16.  A fair divination result
of 19 gave me a -3 spell sum component.

Duration is base 25 (1 day).  A Possibility spent on the Alteration total
gave me 22, for a spell sum component of +3.

The apportation magic type is base complexity 19.  The process maximum is
easily the state process, for 39.  The spell sum ended up exactly 0.
The casting time is 1 hour (18), for a basic complexity of 40 (!).

Hemdar spent months applying the process theorems (a series of very poor
rolls, and no spending Possibilities).  He finally managed to spend a
full month (+3 to final bonus) on Control with a +3 rolled bonus and +4
adds for +10, and another month getting a +8 rolled bonus with State for 
a total bonus of +15 there.  That gave -25 from the Theorem Sum.  The final
complexity ended up to be 15, which was raised to 16 as the minimum complexity
for an apportation spell.  (All those high values, and I'm bumping against the
minimums?)  He divided this into Backlash 10 and Difficulty 6.

To enchant a tap permanently, the spell has to be cast twice on the prepared
tap, once to make the pattern permanent, and once to make the process.  Ecah
casting has to be at -15 (the modifier for permanent magic).  Two Possibilities
later, Hemdar had apportation totals of 16 and 12, enough to succeed both times
and create a permanent enchanted tap.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions for the knowledgable:

    - Did I do anything blatantly wrong?  I'm particularly concerned about the
      Area, Volume, and Effect values, which I had trouble with.

    - If a spell is designed to be permanent, won't the creator always assign
      the bonus number to Duration?  Then the -15 bonus number that you have to
      use to make permanent magic doesn't negatively affect the result.

    - Why use pattern theorems at all?  Spending a week using any theorem is
      a crap shoot, but at least with process theorems you can learn skill
      adds and skew the odds in your favor.  (I had planned on using Touch,
      Voice, Similarity, and Contagion, but it was so much easier to use the
      process theorems...)

    - What's the real affect of apportation/water?  Does a stream of water
      flow from the funnel to the wand?  If I wanted something more like a
      teleportation effect, would the spell become alteration/true knowledge,
      with a result of water?

    - Is it safe to say that most beverages could be "tapped" with this spell,
      or do I somehow need some component of Plant to pick up the extra 
      components in beer, wine, Pepsi :-)?  (I know I can't tap a bottle of
      mercury with the spell - that would require a result of Metal...)

Thanks --

Bob Ellison, HP Fort Collins
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg