You are correct. I reread the posts and conclusion is it is only for experimentation that you add the extra botch die in an aligned aura.
So the hunt for the +16 aura is a valid option and carries no more botch chances than the comfort of the Covenant.... except of the story requires it.
W
My current mage likes vis study and experimentation.
I'm tempted to adapt Extraordinary Results and Disaster tables for vis study experimentation, but for saga reasons there'd be 10 botch dice from the aura.
I have Cautious Sorcerer, and will be focusing on the Golden Cord when Blic the Stormwoof becomes my familiar. But I want to look at the rules for improving lab safety again. And invest in ... I dunno, a granite bunker with rowan reinforcement? No, I'm an Au specialist, I want my tower. Add a floor made mostly of wood to house the lab, scatter sand buckets over the covenant grounds, and issue everybody pot helmets?
I'm in the Rhine Tribunal ... I bet the Durenmar library has the equivalent of an OSHA manual in it somewhere.
Sorry, thought I'd removed that. With the tractatus having a level, we don't need that restriction. Fixed.
Do any of those apply to studying vis? It is explicitly not a lab activity, which clearly rules out two of the three.
Cautious sorcerer is only for casting spells and lab work, neither of which applies.
Golden cord is “when using magic”, so may apply.
Lab safety is “all lab activities”.
Personally, I’d have no problem allowing those as a house rule to make vis study suck less, but I’m not sure that they do by RAW.
There are also Significato of which many are known by th Order. Since there is no actual vis involved, might be reasonable to remove extra botch dice for vis use, thus eliminating the risk of twilight in the event of a botch.
"A Significato is a magically occurring phenomenon which magi may utilize in their study of magic. They are described in detail in Covenants, page 101. Magical creatures or events in nature can grant insight from study alone. Resolve this as vis study with the event substituting for a number of pawns of vis equal to the magnitude of Might of creatures involved. In the Cursewood, events and places in nature — like a tree hit by lightning or a rock splitting from frost — have an effective Might in the range of 10–20 due to the Wyzwanie, The Spirit of the Cursed Wood."
W
I am indeed assuming that if you experiment while studying vis - already a HR - and especially if you might have to roll on the table that can blow up your lab, it can be a lab activity.
Edit: We have a form "significatos" - objects though. Magical "novelties." They're great story rewards for when you want to give the players something magical, but vis is too much or too boring.
The NPC "Signum Irruptus" from the Rhine book is at our covenant studying chopped up trolls.
This. Find high level auras or aligned auras and take an arcane connection for later. Stack Study Bonus on top of your Free Study - if you have an aura aligned to Herbam, chances are you can apply your virtue - while bringing a book in a tropical forest or in the middle of a windstorm isn't ideal. Study Bonus lasts longer if you study from vis on the field vs try to use it with a book. You'll find if you're willing to move from your lab that vis study pays more xp per season than studying from almost any book that isn't a primer, after a while, unless high level auras don't exist in your game.
According to covenants, for the purpose of the Safety rating, lab activities include studying from vis in your lab. The Golden Cord contributes to your safety rating just like a good building does.
" counts double when calculating the Casting Score."
" counts double when calculating the Lab Total."
Vis study would be nice, but it's not there.
And... you're apparently correct. Funny, I remembered mostly it as doubling the aura. So ok, I guess we're back to find a high level aura, and you'll rarely need more than one. I still think it's possible to get some good results from vis study, but it's not as fun as it might have been under the rules I thought I remembered correctly.
Yeah I'm definitely in the same memory of how that works.
Still, aligned auras are something not used often enough in my own games and experiences.
No! The average roll of a stress die (counting a botch as a simple 0) is 5.75. That's easy to derive.
Let's call a quality die a stress die where a 0 counts as a 10, and denote its expectation by q. Then q=(10+9+...3+2+2q)/10 i.e., multiplying by 10 and reorganizing, 10q-2q = (10+...+2) = 54.
So q = 54/8 = 6.75.
The expectation of a stress die is simply q-1= 5.75, because the single difference between a stress and a quality die is that - on the first roll only - there's a 10% chance of a result 10 points lower (when you roll a 0, it counts as a 0 rather than as 10).