Advancement by month rather than by Season

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi

I'm just starting a new saga in a setting where normal seasonal advancement fells very odd (party of novice magi are trapped in a magical realm with no resources). I was considering doing some sort of monthly advancement system while everything was in flux, and was wondering if anyone had tried something similar? If not do you think something like the following would work?

  • Exposure is 1xp a month
  • Activities that normally take a month (investigating a magic item) are unchanged
  • Other lab activities accumulate a total equal to lab total / 3 per month, and complete when enough is accumulated
  • Lab activities that must normally be done in one season require consecutive months, others do not

Not sure what to do about books. Maybe most books need 3 months reading as normal before they can gain xp, but very short books (pamphlets, area lore books) might give their xp in less than a full season?

2

I have not tried it in 5th edition but he Fourth Ed book Triamore by Charles Ryan does exactly this, and gives a fully developed system for daily, weekly and monthly seasonal activities as I recall. Might be worth picking up a copy: I own it but have not looked at it for a long time, but it struck me as a very well thought out system and a really nice covenant. I'll have to go dig it out and read it again - redcap.org/page/Triamore:_th ... %27s_Folly is the Project Redcap entry, which could do with expanding if anyone has the time to edit it.

cj x

3

Divide the standard quality by 3 to get the monthly experience gained?

4

You might even consider to allow power Sessions for the Long Therm Events like book reading to gain the exp for 3 Month in just 2 Month but any distraction will reduce the exp gain when doing this.

5

Or you could dig out that old 1st edition book and just use that?

6

Watch it, I might take you up on that :wink:

7

Certainly!

8

Thanks for the suggestion about Triamore, I am pretty sure I have a copy of that, unlike 1st Edition, which I know I don't have.

Dividing books by 3 is the obvious answer certainly, but it seemed like it would rather blur the line between Summa and Tractati. Then again the distinction often feels a bit artificial anyway (why do some books stop giving after a single reading while others last for ages) so it might not be a big issue.

I was wondering if there were any activities that really shouldn't be allowed to be monthly, or which would have to be done in consecutive months with no exceptions? Familiar bindings seem plausible.