Hi,
In my current try to turn the Tremre house from the foundation of the Order as a powerhouse, I noticed they can't really have "young" magi have no LR, but at the same time can't ask parens to do poor LR's each for their apprentice. An idea sparked when I noticed the LR specialist could do a 10 magnitude LR for 3 to 4 young magi in one season with so much ease. Obviously she could do a -30 version but:
a random big roll would cancel it due to the crisis, and it's not worth the risk
they can die in the operations of the House, and it would be a waste of time, better to use future time for those who survive and become worth of it (maybe all, but I expect that later, there would be more available time for the LR specialist when she has formed 2-3 filii also able to do good LRs)
the LR's bonuses would benefit from all the young magi helping to do their respective LR.
I see nothing in the rule preventing the fact to do multiple time a LR; multiple season activities is already covered, and for LR the limit is the vis (but that's a personal casting of the LR, so for each one its cost) and the presence of the person for whom the LR is designed.
Do I miss something making this impossible?
If the LR specialist can do a 10th megnitude LR, that gets divided for each one, even if they all contribute to the Lab total, so that might be 4th or 5th magnitude for each, not very useful, or impressive.
His MT determines how much Vis he can use in a season, so it might still be a limiting factor, though someone with 46-50 Lab total is likely to have MT of 5+.
I think most LR Specialists would consider it a waste of their talents.
I probably wasn't clear: as it stand his basic CrCo LT is around 170 so a LR 34. I wanted to go for a LT 200 with 4 helpers, so 50 for each.
The vis use is independant: you can invent the LR, the vis is only used when the LR is cast and that's not the same thing (it was clarified in a recent thread here where it was questioned) (for some participants, it will be later, they still want kids). And obvisouly each casting of LR is independant of the other. Any way, her vis use limit is well above the age/5 of the recipent pawns required (and by design, Tremere magi must have at least 5 in MT so each of them is able to cast his own LR).
For the last comment: the Tremere house is not about "wasting their talent" (which I don't think the LR specialist here would see as this: on the opposite, she is quite proud that she can help 4 younger magi of the house in one season, and concentrate on her research for the house with 3 other seasons).
If that argument wasn't enough for the specialist, she is his filia and under Tremere orders, and he is a real leader she is proud to serve. So if he says "do it for 4 persons", she will answer "I can try to become better and do 5 next time Sir".
If each magus is age 35 at the time of performing their LR, that will cost them 7 pawns, and they obviously have more than 7 in their TeFo (often CrCo since they use default combination for their LR).
Then for the difference between the invention and the performing of a LR : "You can perform Longevity Rituals for others, even for nonmagi. To do so, you need a Creo Corpus Lab Total of at least 30. A Longevity Ritual made for another magus or a character with a Supernatural Ability functions just as if made for you (–1 to aging rolls for every 5 points of Lab Total). Non-magical people, however, are not as resilient as magi. The ritual you create for a mundane therefore only subtracts one from the character's aging rolls for every 10 points (round up) in your Lab Total. A Longevity Ritual performed for someone else also fails when the subject suffers from an aging crisis. If the subject is a magus and has access to the Laboratory Text, he may perform the ritual himself. (Vis usage is limited by the magus's Arts, as for a spell, which may make it impossible.) As the magus was present for the original creation of the ritual, and quite possibly assisting in it, he understands the shorthand. A subject who is not a Hermetic magus may not repeat the ritual. Any magus with access to the Laboratory Text may do this, no matter what his Lab Total, but a magus who was not involved in the initial creation needs an accessible Laboratory Text.
So if you do a LR for a magus, and he has access to the LT (which you gives him), he may perform the ritual himself. That’s raw.
Even in the case where the specialist would perform for the LR herself four at once (why not? ... I'd rather ask why?), that means her vis limit is : Vis usage is limited by the magus’s arts. So if you have 40 and 40 on both, that means your vis limit is 80. For 4 persons of age 40, that means 4 x 8 pawns. 32 is quite under 80.
So I don’t see where there is any house rule.
If you are speaking about the part where I wrote "Tremere magi must have X [and I only spoke about MT, forgetting to add they must have 5 in every art (I blame my successive edits where I withdraw a lot of context information because I found them useless)]" then we are not speaking about the rules, those are facts of the story as it currently is - where the house Tremere is under direct control of Tremere who wants to take over the order after the disappearance of every other Founder and it will lead to the sundering in game.
What you forget is that part of making the Longevity Ritual, is actually investing the Vis, and creating it in that same season, by the Magus conducting the research.
That means that your Tremere LR specialist, will need to spend the 21 pawns to create the LR for the 3 magi assisting him, requiring that he has MT 11+ or 10 (Creo, Corpus, or LR specialty).
Ok that's not a problem but I'm still curious, where do you get that from?
Because when I read the part: "The longevity Ritual takes one season to develop and perform, and the subject of the ritual must be present for the whole of that season."
and the part I already quoted, the "performance" is dependant of the TeFo limit.
The LR has a cost when it's performed stated as already quoted.
Nowhere is it said the vis cost is paid twice so if it's limited by TeFo ("as a spell"), it cannot be limited by MT ("as a lab activity").
And from that previous topic (Longevity Ritual Vis Use - #45 by ArthurWynne ) I read that the MTx2 is not limited due to David Chart's comment later: Longevity Ritual Vis Use - #25 by David_Chart and this first one: Longevity Ritual Vis Use - #3 by David_Chart that the MT x2 is not limiting any way because the initial poster was using the MTx2 theory and the answer of David Chart was "keep reading" and refering to the TeFo limit later in the text, then adapting it for not only for re-performing for some one else, but also for performing one for the magus himself.
To be clear from what I read in the book and from that topic:
you spend 1 season to develop a labtext for your self or a present person (you can add vis for potency, that vis will be added in the vis use requirement later)
you or the person, or anyone reading the labtext can perform it (a mundane cannot missing the arts required)
the performance is vis limited as a spell (TeFo limit, often CrCo but not always), and vis cost is age (at the time of performance) /5 round up
the LR lasts until a crisis occurs (which is when rolling a 13 or 22+, or decrepitude score 4+ as stated in ArM5D p392 : "Characters with a Decrepitude score of 4 are extremely frail, and must roll on the Crisis Table if they undertake stressful activities, such as long journeys, or any combat. Characters with a Decrepitude score of 5 are bedridden and will die within a few months at most"), assures survival but still you are bedridden for the duration of the crisis
The original creation invests vis, and this is limited by MT. So this lead mage needs enough MT to handle all four LR's at once. If they each need 7 pawns, that's 4x7/2=14. Now, some of that 14 could come from specialization or Puissant MT. But that matters.
What is this MT 5 thing they all need? If they need to be able to make their own LR's, MT 4 handles 7 pawns to create them up to age 35, even to 40, the Lab Total being irrelevant. If you're talking about renewing a failed LR, that's based on Arts, not MT.
Well for the first bullet point I just refer to the topic I quote previously. Personaly I don't get how something can be performed as a spell but still subject to a lab activity vis limit the first time it's performed... but it's performed as a spell in any case. It makes no sense for me.
When you invent a ritual spell, you do not check if your MT will allow the vis the spell uses when it's cast. So even with MT3 I can invent a level 100 spells if I have a LT of 200 and I can cast that if TeFo arts > 20 and I have the matching vis.
I thought the thread I quote already clarified this.
But in either case it's not a real problem because either we'll house rule this or simpler, it means she has to improve a bit her MT for 4 persons at once and will restrict herself to 3 at once for the time being and have a nice rp goal.
Edit : for the MT, it's to give MT5 to future generations. They also need to have teaching 5. The MT5 makes them use the full potency of the labs of Coeris who are bigger than normal, thus requiring a bit of refinement. It also allows everyone to learn wizard's communion 20 which was invented and passed along in the covenant, so that any magus has the level 20 (with MT+artx2+aura) required to invent the spell from the labtext or learn it from their parens, even if they are just normal in Mu/VI. That means the house has always enough members to cast the max wizard's communion spell to make any spell level 5 in case of need, at home or when groups of Tremere go on the adventure. Since there are lot of mundane teachers recruited and educated since the fundation of Coeris, the MT5 requirement is little by little becoming less adequate but it was an order from the start (1st generation), and those magi were in the 2d generation so still in it.
The explanation in TMRE was more thorough, and maybe the whole thing should have been copied in.
When a Longevity Ritual is designed in the laboratory, the enchantment requires one pawn of vis for every five years of age (rounded up). The magus designing the Longevity Ritual can handle twice his Magic Theory in vis in a season-long laboratory activity. This places a ceiling on the age of the magus for whom the potion is designed.
When rebrewing the Longevity Ritual after an Aging Crisis (or to prepare a dose as base for the Lesser Elixir), using the Lab Text for the ritual, the process takes no significant investment of time — in practice, it takes about 15 minutes per magnitude of the Lab Text of the Longevity Ritual, as if casting a ritual spell. The limits on the vis handling for this process are those of a magus casting a ritual: Art specific vis is used, limited for each Art by the magus’s Art score.
DE was trying to edit the existing LR stuff based on MT in the core book to let you know that if you later rebrew it from a lab text, you use the Art limit instead. David's comment you referenced in that thread is noting that the Art limit is regardless of rebrewing it for yourself or someone else.
You're not doing the same thing in both cases. In one case you're creating the whole thing with its anchor. In the later case you're just reactivating what already exists. You don't need to reactivate it at the end of the the season when it's created, as it's already active and hasn't failed yet.
So does it mean you cannot "invent the labtext now but perform it later"? that was a point of many players in the games I played with. (They often used an opportunity when they were in the presence of their parens (who lived in another covenant) to do so, but still wanted kids or grow a bit older before stopping the age process.)
Edit: and does that mean that you HAVE to perform the LR even if you are not satisfied with it and spend the vis? (since the vis is spend in a "ritual" .. what forces you to perform the ritual?)
The Longevity Ritual takes one season to develop and perform, and the subject of the ritual must be present for the whole of that season.
Notice the "and perform" as part of this, which is a laboratory activity. That means it's performed. It also puts this first performance as part of a laboratory activity, the vis being limited by MT rather than Arts. Note how this agrees with the quote from TMRE.
I'm confused why you're treating them like spell rituals while simultaneously not doing so. With a spell ritual, no one else can perform the ritual just by having the lab text. But it is enough to reactivate the LR. So clearly they are quite different. I would never try to equate things I know are so different.
Well it's part due to what I explained, that it doesn't make sense to have something have 2 limits at its first iteration (one limit to invent and one limit to cast), the post I quote (where the MTx2 limit is not even considered... although it's quite more problematic than the art one.. i just don't get why nobody did say that [I was sure that was what OP was saying and Chart and other posters said he was wrong... turns out he was right so... I'm quite puzzled how his arguments were thrown away when I find them really good]) and this quote of the rules : "If you reinvent the ritual to take advantage of increased Art scores, you can choose not to use extra vis."
If the magus has aged, why didn't this say "increased Art and magic theory scores" because being older, the magus will need to use more vis, meaning if he has not improved its MT, it's useless if you can't invent its second version first iteration due to a lack of magic theory.
Later again: "Any magus with access to the Laboratory Text may do this, no matter what hi Lab Total, but a magus who was not involved in the initial creation needs an accessible Laboratory Text"
So if the magus re-casting your LT has enough TeFo to cover your new age, we wouldn't care about his MT. So it brings to this absurd situation where someone with Arts 100 and 100 and MT 3 must make the first LR for you when you are 30 years old, destroy the longevity ritual on you with a powerful PeVi ritual (i'm not even sure about this but let's go with it so it's undebattable) to destroy it, avoiding that it will warp you, then give you the big LR formula and let you recast it (or ask him to recast it) when the time feels right. Sure it will cost him the vis of the PeVi ritual. But it will still be better than to warp you or force him to do it at the time where is MT is good enough.
And certainly it gives you a "free to use formula" on the side you can provide to anyone with high enough scores in the art, and a very high value.
That's... a lot of complication to just arrive at the normal result I expected that is the fact that the limit is just TeFo.
But creativity is finding solutions to problems, and while thinking about this topic, I found one. A PeVi ritual seems thus a very good thing to do since it respects the RAW but still gives the flexibility I wanted and I'd have to check with the numbers if it's not better to have LR- formulae given to every young apprentice/magus of the house around 30 if needed, broken, thus re-iterable without the limit of MT in the long future when the labspecialist will either be dead (as he has difficult LR himself) or unavailable.
The issue itself being quite almost fixed in RP: i went from 4 candidates to 3 and the MT x2 limit worked perfectly. It gave an idea of breakthrough (automatically gain puissant TM in the house) or mystery (probably the root of some vexillation, I'll check those remaining by 1220 if one fits, or create a new one. The advantage of playing in the foundation of the order is that Tremere has not been sundered and is quite powerful by their skilled leader weight on the house actions)
Remain the problem with kids, but that is already a breakthrough to do already canonly done easily so not a real long term issue.
Finally, it confirmed my own impressions: LR are not bad, but better have good labs and life standards, those are cheaper for younger magi and I had already envisionned some magical items ordered at house Verditius and replicated by the most skilled apprentices in the item enchantment section for the labs.
Hey just pointing out the current rules as presented state that "This involves simply making a new investment of vis (of an amount based on your current age) but no significant investment in time."
The problem is that you are limited to 2*MT for vis expenditures. I think I remember somewhere that this got ruled that the MT is only for creation of the original ritual and any recreation uses Creo+Corpus+Vim for the limit.
How is this not considering the MT x2 limit? That's pretty much all it's considering, asking if it's still the limit when a failed LR is restarted or if it's only the limit for a new one. Yes, the OP's memory was correct. And note that this extra bit that was requested is what was added to DE.
David Chart never said the OP was wrong. He just said to keep reading to get to the rest of it and said he would add a note of clarity that the TeFo limit on restarting (not creating) and LR applies to both restarting your own and restarting another's.
What??? How is this useful? Why does dispelling help? Yes, you're better off with an LR done by someone who can do a really high-level LR. Why would anyone think a weaker LR is better? But why dispel it to restart it? That's just basically saying you want to waste a pile of vis for no significant reason. Sure, you save like 5-10 warping points v. spending an extra dozen pawn of vis and needing to invent an otherwise pretty useless dispelling ritual. Let's say that ritual takes you 2 seasons. Which is worth more, 12 pawns of vis or -7.5 warping points, even neglecting the lost time for the dispelling ritual? Or, consider it differently: anyone with two Arts around 100 probably has better MT than the minimum starting value, so at least MT 4. So everyone who wants to save the Warping Points can just get the ritual when they're 35 instead of somewhere between 25 and 30. Now you've saved the Warping Points as well as over a rook of vis. Doesn't that sound much better? So the real answer becomes: wait until you really want it to delay Warping Points (and this allows longer fertility, too) and then pay someone to make a great one. Shocker!
There was mention that some of the prospective LR recipients want to have children, but if the only way to create a LR means that it must be used and takes effect they would thereafter be unable to have children. Presumably, dispelling the LR would be assumed to allow them to have children and could then re-enact the LR after they have done so.
Yeah I know that but as I said, there is a breakthrough to prevent it.
The dispelling idea was from the point of view that it's cheaper to pay some vis (which is plentiful) when the recipient is young (and easy to make a big LR for multiple persons at once by the current LR specialist), let them grow up until they are 50-60 with normal living conditions bonus and no warping during that time, then allow them or any other specialist still available and live at that moment to recast their LR (because I didn't expect those specialists to reach the level of their parens here). The current LR specialist envisionned she would have been dead (due to LR difficult in those 50-60 years) but that's not how the story progressed.
First I did some maths and noticed I forgot the LR specialist has imbued with corpus which, happily, reduce the vis cost of any labwork when used, and allowed the 4 persons in once as I discussed... but then I finished my math, and if it was better for her breakthrough process on the sterility to do multiple little LR than one, sadly it took so much time and was a waste of potential.
So I decided she'd rather do one breakthrough season on a Level 40 LR, which in one time gave enough Breakthrough points for the sterility thing an a discovery*... but for good measure I added some seasons with spells as suggested in the Aurelientus section of Magi of Hermes.
And in the end, she gained 40 (almost, it was iirc 40-simple die with 6 + simple die 5 when in twilight) points of warping but the comprehend twilight SG side was a joke (like a +3) since she had almost no warping score vs her high intelligence (+4) and it succeeded at comprehension so I had to find what to do with those and came with an idea for a major virtue which encompassed the roleplay... and the whole "she might not be alive at the time" issue disappeared by itself.
note from before: for a subsequent season I faced something rules are not very clear: you select a bonus from 1 to 3, limited by MT/5). She selected +3. She rolled 5, that means 8. You see if you can vary from -3 to +3 to reach a discovery: answer is yes, with +2.
And then you play the normal result. Normal 8 is "complete failure".. which produce nothing.
So subquestion here: does a complete failure still allow to make a discovery for the breakthrough (following the rules of arcane discovery) or as in "normal experimentation" text, complete failure produces nothing, and the rules of arcane discovery didn't say that it's always impossible to reach a discovery by using +2?
Bear in mind that dispelling a longevity ritual is a ritual effect and would require a spell of half the magnitude of the LR (5 pawns to target a -10 LR), so you're not actually saving vis here by doing it earlier, you're actually spending more vis than you would if you simply waited to perform the LR until you were ready to benefit from it. Additionally, I don't know how advanced your games have been but my experience is that you don't get to 50-60 without accrueing a fair amount of aging points if you don't have a longevity ritual. So I suppose waiting longer than 35 is fine if you want to have kids but you're also going to play with a character who likely lost several attribute points and may have gone up a decrepitude point or three. Unless you've got Strong Faerie Blood, anyway.