Breakthrough rules

[macb3th]

Hi,

Last night we had little fight between players about discovery and breakthrough. Its about seasons. First season you make Discovery, then next season you make stabilizing: gain warping( if any) and breakthrough points. After stabilizing, next season you need to make new discovery and then new stabilizing. Or you just make stabilizing next season after first stabilizing.
So main question is about seasons:
Discovery Stabilizing, Discovery Stabilizing.....
or Discovery, stabilizing, stabilizing, stabilizing?

[Berengar]

From each Discovery you can get Breakthrough points only once. But should an attempt at stabilizing a Discovery fail, you can repeat that attempt.

Cheers

[Heaven_s_Thunder_Ham (Heaven's Thunder Hammer)]

You don't need to roll a second discovery on the stabilizing season, just don't botch or get a failure...

[Jabir]

@One Shot

From each Discovery you can get Breakthrough points only once. But should an attempt at stabilizing a Discovery fail, you can repeat that attempt.

Cheers

Hate to quibble, but I looked this up to see if I'd been doing it wrong. Stabilization can't be repeated if it fails.

If you do roll a harmful affect your stabilization
process fails. Your spell or magical enchantment
is unaffected, having already been created in the previous
season, but you have lost the chance to stabilize that
Discovery.

HoH:TL page 28

[ironboundtome]

@Jabir

@One Shot

From each Discovery you can get Breakthrough points only once. But should an attempt at stabilizing a Discovery fail, you can repeat that attempt.

Cheers

Hate to quibble, but I looked this up to see if I'd been doing it wrong. Stabilization can't be repeated if it fails.

If you do roll a harmful affect your stabilization
process fails. Your spell or magical enchantment
is unaffected, having already been created in the previous
season, but you have lost the chance to stabilize that
Discovery.

HoH:TL page 28

Does that mean that all the discovery points are effectively wasted? Yikes?

[Jabir]

@ironboundtome

Does that mean that all the discovery points are effectively wasted? Yikes?

Just from the Discovery being stabilized at the time, I believe. Existing point totals should be unaffected.

[Berengar]

@Jabir

@One Shot

From each Discovery you can get Breakthrough points only once. But should an attempt at stabilizing a Discovery fail, you can repeat that attempt.

Cheers

Hate to quibble, but I looked this up to see if I'd been doing it wrong. Stabilization can't be repeated if it fails.

If you do roll a harmful affect your stabilization
process fails. Your spell or magical enchantment
is unaffected, having already been created in the previous
season, but you have lost the chance to stabilize that
Discovery.

HoH:TL page 28

Compare this to

@HoH:TL page 28

If your stabilization attempt fails, you may spend another season and try it again. You may continue to stabilize your discovery until you succeed, providing you spend consecutive seasons until you succeed and you do not suffer some dire event along the way.

So "lost the chance to stabilize that Discovery" by its context refers to the stabilization process of one season only.

New season, new try - unless some unspecified "dire event", in detail adjudicated by your SG and likely derived from an ArM5 p.109 Extraordinary Results Chart botch followed by a very bad result there, stops your attempts. If e. g. your lab blew up or your covenant caught fire last season, you cannot spend this season for another attempt to stabilize your Discovery, hence have to abandon it.

Cheers

[ExarKun]

That contradiction is quite interesting because it was not something I had spotted before.

[Berengar]

@ExarKun

That contradiction is quite interesting because it was not something I had spotted before.

This shouldn't indeed surprise you.

If you read the entire HoH:TL p.28 Stabilizing the Unknown and thus have the context of all the quotes given here, there is no contradiction. Jabir likely just skimmed the text quickly and misunderstood it, which can happen to everybody and with any text.

Cheers

[Jabir]

@One Shot

@ExarKun

That contradiction is quite interesting because it was not something I had spotted before.

This shouldn't indeed surprise you.

If you read the entire HoH:TL p.28 Stabilizing the Unknown and thus have the context of all the quotes given here, there is no contradiction. Jabir likely just skimmed the text quickly and misunderstood it, which can happen to everybody and with any text.

Cheers

You may think so, but I'd say that "you have lost the chance to stabilize that
Discovery" is pretty categorical and in direct contradiction to "should an attempt at stabilizing a Discovery fail, you can repeat that attempt". I'm not sure which version is better.

It's probably the most confusingly written section of any AM5 book that I know and was thoroughly, but apparently not thoroughly enough, corrected in the errata years ago. We still have disputes on how discoveries can be taught to others after reading the section.

[Berengar]

@Jabir

You may think so, but I'd say that "you have lost the chance to stabilize that
Discovery" is pretty categorical and in direct contradiction to "should an attempt at stabilizing a Discovery fail, you can repeat that attempt".

Apparently, reading in context is not really a forte of some role-players. So let's for once as an example copy the entire paragraph:

@"HoH:TL p.28 [i

Stabilizing the Unknown[/i] (underscores structuring the text are mine)"]During the stabilization season you do not need to roll a Discovery to succeed. As long as you do not roll a harmful effect (Disaster, No Benefit, Complete Failure) you stabilize your discovery. Ignore any beneficial result you might roll. If you do roll a harmful affect your stabilization process fails. Your spell or magical enchantment is unaffected, having already been created in the previous season, but you have lost the chance to stabilize that Discovery.

The entire paragraph addresses what happens in the single stabilization season, with a single stabilization process. So "the chance to stabilize that Discovery" is the one accorded by that season - not any chance you ever can have: that would be at the verrry least "any chance to ever stabilize that Discovery".
From there we can read and understand:

@"HoH:TL p.28 [i

Stabilizing the Unknown[/i] (underscores structuring the text are mine)"]If your stabilization attempt fails, you may spend another season and try it again. You may continue to stabilize your discovery until you succeed, providing you spend consecutive seasons until you succeed and you do not suffer some dire event along the way.

This phrase addresses stabilization season by season.

In any case, isolating a phrase from its context and then quoting it as "the truth" is not a sign of reading literacy. Just imagine somebody claiming, that the above sentence "Ignore any beneficial result you might roll." applies to ArM5 in general. Isn't it from the rules, and "pretty categorical"?

Cheers

[Jonathan.Link]

You phrasing is so condescending.

[Marko_Markoko]

@Jonathan.Link

You phrasing is so condescending.

Agreed.
Game rules should not have to be "analyzed in context". That is an issue with Ars Magica, in part due to the complexity of the system, but moreso in part because it was written mainly by fans and amateurs. I was one of them. I am painfully aware of all the flaws my few works have.