Copy Spell - Illustrations & Illuminations

[Hyrneson]

The Copy spell (M116) is explicit in that it copies 'writing'.
If the mage wanted to copy illustrations and/or illuminations as part of the document how would that be done?
I'm thinking allowing the Copy spell but at 5 times the cost for illustrations and illuminations. Prereqs would include special inks and materials for illuminations. For tech drawings a familiarity with the technology being illustrated would be needed. Both would require an additional roll against Artist (B179) skill for accuracy.

Thoughts please??

[johndallman]

That seems a reasonable way of stretching Copy, although I'd allow simple sketches in the same ink to be copied at lower cost.

Creating a new spell with Copy as a prerequisite would probably be better if there was a lot of copying to be done.

[RogerBW]

This feels like a somewhat pettifogging distinction. The spell doesn't require the caster to understand the writing, so why should it not copy any ink-on-paper?

I suppose, because you then have an art forging spell.

But "a single ink" doesn't work, because a manuscript in black and someone's annotations in red should be reasonable fodder for the spell as it stands.

How about "an imprecise copy" - i.e. what you'd get if you (or a random demon) wrote it out by hand, clearly not an exact duplicate of the original, but having all the content (without necessarily the artistic value)? So doing Copy on a patent application would still give you enough information to build the invention, but a printed circle might be less precisely round in your Copied version.

(And dump the digital media thing completely. If you cast it on a floppy disc, you get the disc label.)

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I suppose, because you then have an art forging spell.

Which is why I've always limited the skill of the copy to the caster's skill. Yes, this means highly skilled forgers can quickly reproduce impeccable forgeries, but so what, it's magic.

If ti matters, have a lingering magical aura that makes identifying it as a Copy easy enough for anyone who can cast Aura or even just handle it with Magery/Mage Sight (as though authenticators wouldn't already be casting History...).