Say you wish to make a spell that creates a "Mighty torrent of water" (create a fast flowing spring), but with acid (adding X damage)instead of water. How high level would such an effect be?

I was thinking about adding the create acid effect (level = damage) to the level of the spring, and adding the size difference between created water and acid (IIRC 3 magnitudes).

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Also:
I want to make a spell to create a proper wizards staff. Since the main part of the staff is oak, this becomes He. However, I would like it to be shod in iron, and have several small gems as well as some red coral. The iron and the gems require a Te requisite, but how do I figure out how many magnitudes to add? And is coral Te or An? (I know it's an animal in our world, but what is it to the medival wizards?)

"Say you wish to make a spell that creates a "Mighty torrent of water" (create a fast flowing spring), but with acid (adding X damage) instead of water. How high level would such an effect be?

I was thinking about adding the create acid effect (level = damage) to the level of the spring, and adding the size difference between created water and acid (IIRC 3 magnitudes)."

That _sounds_ reasonable to me but I've no book with me to double check the guidelines

"Also:
I want to make a spell to create a proper wizards staff. Since the main part of the staff is oak, this becomes He. However, I would like it to be shod in iron, and have several small gems as well as some red coral. The iron and the gems require a Te requisite, but how do I figure out how many magnitudes to add? And is coral Te or An? (I know it's an animal in our world, but what is it to the medieval wizards?)"

If a requisite allows a spell to do something that it could not do without the requisite; then each requisite adds a magnitude.

If the requisite is required to create the effect then there is not an additional magnitude

A Re Co (An) spell that repels both humans and animals would be one magnitude higher than the equivalent Re Co spell that just repels humans.

A Mu Co (An) spell that changes a person into a whelk does not have to be raised a magnitude because the spell would not function without the requisite

The intention of the guideline system is to give levels to every effect (such as the whelk metamorphosis spell). However by adding requisites a magus can develop spells that have wider effects than the effects listed in the guidelines (such as the repel all critters both human and otherwise spell) these sorts of spells are raised a magnitude for every requisite.

In my opinion your staff spell does not have wider applicability than a spell that creates a staff with no steel or coral in it. I would not raise the level at all.

You might say, “Hey wait a sec, I’ve created a better staff without a higher level spell. Where’s the game balance here?” A spell with a requisite is inherently harder to pull off than a spell without a requisite.

My opinion is that corals are terram.

"If a requisite allows a spell to do something that it could not do without the requisite; then each requisite adds a magnitude."

- While my magus wishes this was true, the statment is end with "...each requisite adds one OR MORE magnitudes."

My biggest problem here is that it allows me to create several gems (which are real gems if this is done as a ritual), with a lower level spell than usually required to create a single tiny gem with a CrTe spell(level 25).

In that case, are you not doing a CrTe spell with a He side-effect (and therefore requisite)?

In this sort of situation, if creating a gem is harder than creating a staff, then you should arguably take the harder spell as the base. The staff may be bigger, but that doesn't make it the core bit of the spell. You make a gem with a staff stuck to it, rather than a staff with a gem stuck on.

I confess I do not follow why you wish to use a spell to create a staff. It would seem easier to me to go into the forest with an axe chop down an oak tree, go to the local smith get it shod, and then have several gems added to the metal parts by a tinkerer of some sort.

If you make this with a spell then unless you expend vis, which is worth far more than the object itself, and requires a ritual to boot the staff is a temporary object.

It would be far easier in this case to create a CrIm Illusion of an impressive staff which you cast on your ordinary staff. Or as people have stated the staff becomes CrTe(He) due to the gems being harder to create then the wood in terms of magnitude.

But at the end of the day I don't see why a mage would invest a great deal of time and effort (at least a season in the lab) for something that a grog could get him in a week or two, not to mention spawning a story as you would need to go to the town/city to get the gems.

And I am not trying to insult you here, I am genuinely puzzeled.

From PELLINOR:
>>In that case, are you not doing a CrTe spell with a He side-effect (and therefore requisite)?

In this sort of situation, if creating a gem is harder than creating a staff, then you should arguably take the harder spell as the base. The staff may be bigger, but that doesn't make it the core bit of the spell. You make a gem with a staff stuck to it, rather than a staff with a gem stuck on.


-- The core of it is the staff, the gems are merly windowdressing... ( if the point had not been making a permanent item, then it might have been considered a cosmetic effect...)

From PaulM152:
>>[...]If you make this with a spell then unless you expend vis, which is worth far more than the object itself[...]
This is similar to the magi who make their colored ink by spells. The materials can be hard to get, and making a good staff out of this is tricky unless you're a Vertius... Could however be that I should look into making a crafting spell (with Rego...), to form a good staff.

>>>The core of it is the staff, the gems are merly windowdressing...

Are you sure of this? If the gems are much harder to make than the staff, why is the staff the core?

Reductio Creo Animal ad absurdum: I shall create a flea which is riding on the back of an elephant. I declare the flea to be the core of the spell, which will therefore be of a very small magnitude. The elephant is secondary and so would only add an Animal requisite, which of course has no effect on the difficulty of a CrAn spell.

It's a good question. Certainly on one level you can call it a staff plus gems. How you and I perceive the combination, though, may not be how magic does. it's all rather subjective.

Perhaps what we need is an extension of the requisite mechanism. To create a staff with iron and gems takes a terram requisite, which potentially limits the casting total; maybe one should also apply that to the level of the spell, potentially increasing the level required.

So if making the staff alone would be CrHe5, and making the gems would be CrTe10 (numbers purely for illustrative purposes), then one could argue that the bejewelled staff should be CrHe(Te)10 - take your Cr score , add the lower of He and Te, and achieve the higher of 5 and 10.

To do it the other way round, gems with a staff attached, might be CrTe(He)10 - take your Cr score, add the lower of Te and He, and achieve the higher of 10 and 5.

This gives exactly the same result whichever way you look at it. If the "level requisite" is lower than the core level, like He in the second case, there is no effect. If it's higher, though, you don't get the free gems just because the staff is easy.

Not an obvious way to interpret the rules, though.

I agree with Pellinor, that the CrTe level of effect would set the basis for the spell. This is illustrated in the 5th Ed. book (pg. 114), when describing the second type of requisite:

"The second adds an effect to a spell. In this case, the base Arts and level for the spell are those for the highest-level effect it has. For example, a magic item that changes a picture to show what is happening at a distant location is an Intellego Imaginem spell with a Muto requisite, not a Muto Imaginem spell with an Intellego requisite, as the Intellego effect is of much higher level."

The argument that the gems are merely "cosmetic" I do not believe is valid, and takes a very liberal view of what "cosmetic" means in this regard. First off, page 115 explains that effects that are purely cosmetic do not add a requisite at all. If that were the case, the argument wouldn't be whether the spell should be CrHe with a Te requisite, or CrTe with a He requisite, as the "cosmetic" effect would not be a requsite at all. The spell would thus be simply CrHe.

Adding the gems to the staff does however add to the effect of the spell. I don't believe anyone is disputing that a Terram requisite is necessary, just how the spell level should be calculated. If the spell effect is to create a gem-adorned, iron-shod staff, then the higher level would be based on CrTe with an Herbam requisite. However, I think this would count as the first type of requisite, which is simply necessary for the effect to take place and does not significantly add to the effect, so the Herbam requisite would not increase the level of the spell any further.

If conceptualizing the Herbam effect as being the core effect is important (and thus maintainging the spell as CrHe), you could simply add additional magnitudes for "elaborate effect" (like Conjuring the Mystic Tower), and simply make the final spell level equal to what the underlying CrTe should be.

In my opinion, a purely cosmetic effect would be like stating the created staff is highly ornate and carved. I would not think this should require a Rego requisite, as it is within the bounds of Herbam and a carved staff is not significantly different from a plain staff. However, creating iron and gemstones is not within the bounds of Herbam and could not be done without a requisite.

Thanks Nzld, I had entirely missed that entry on requisites. This does make designing such spells far easier...:)

I think I'll look into crafting the staff using Re spells instead...