I agree with Trogdor as the whole point of this campaign is tell people outside the nobility that we are mages and are now willing to interact with you in opposite to hiding as we did in the past.
Needed 1 more for a spell invention lab season because I still work with a aura of 3. To get it I used Planetary Magic and so I had to roll in chase a botch happen coyotecode.net/roll/lookup.php?rollid=192222
Also I use a free Me requisit for Rego Craft magic to change the roll from Per+Finesse to Int+Finesse because I think Exactly to Scale from HoH:TL 139 point this way and with Aq, He, Me and Vim at the same level for Paulos this is easy to do for him to get 3 more with the Finesse rolls.
For the player using Ways of the Town I think when we have our Labs in the Regio this virtue most likely not work there from my interpretation of the rules.
Edit: I think of take a apprentice by join the tribunal 1207. Is that 1 season lost for attending the tribunal +1 season lost each year 1208-1219 where I have to write out what is taught to the apprentice?
As the apprentice will stay for at last 3 years after start I suspect I have to full write her out as NPC char using the Apprentice rules.
So what do we have in the way of consensus on the value of work prior to the game beginning? Do we have a vis allowance with which to enchant items or bond familiars? Can items we enchant be used to enhance our labs? Do we need to spend build points on enchanted items we have made? I've put my character development on hold until these issues are discussed and resolved...
Silveroak, what I was thinking was that you could use your build points and buy an item, as requested. Or, convert some of the build points into vis (5 vis/BP), and spend one or more seasons creating the item. So, for an lesser enchanted item with a level 20 effect, you could spend 8 Bp just buying it, or 1 BP (3 vis left over) and a season making it, requiring at least a level 40 lab total. Cost is either time or money.
Let me try and address each of your questions in turn.
My understanding is that we can use our seasons to do lab work and gain the benefit of that lab work.
Yes.
My understanding is that the BP we are granted are meant to represent gathered resources, including the vis used to enchant items, bond familiars, procure a LR, etc. BPs can be exchanged 1:5 for vis of any flavor. So in answer to your question, yes, we have a vis allowance, but the more we use, the less resources we have for other things.
Of course, we still haven't fully addressed the value to be given to a PVS or Philosophic Alchemy in the pre-game portion of development. There has been some discussion that those virtues should not apply during character build, but no final decision has been made to the best of my knowledge.
I would say yes.
The real problem with this is deciding what an item does for the lab. We're given a few examples, but they don't get us far. For example, if I were to create a a magic distillation apparatus, would it grant a specialization bonus to Vis Extraction, Rego, Aquam, Items, something else? I'm not certain how we make that decision. It's easy to tell how much the bonus should be, but not exactly what specializations those bonuses should apply to. I've run into problems before in other sagas where people didn't agree with my assessments as to what a lab magic item might give bonuses. I'm eager to hear how we'd like to solve that conundrum.
No, but you can.
As thompsja said, you can spend either time + BP (for vis) or just BP for items.
this being the case, can we also spend lab time pre-game to get vis instead of BP? I would think yes, though again this comes back to Philosophic Alchemy and PVS and what they provide- or more realistically I suppose how much of each should be considered squandered since the rate they provide vis is well defined by the RAW.
That is the question, isn't it? I have nothing, in principle, against allowing pre-game lab time to be spent extracting vis. But I would be mightily bent out of shape to be told that extracting vis is allowed - except by me with my major virtue.
Now, I understand that Philosophic Alchemy extracts a lot of vis. Even a basic CrVi LT will extract 3 Vi vis a season. But it is a major virtue, after all. For that reason I'm willing to say that for play balance reasons some of that vis is squandered - spent for healing, given as gifts, used to enhance spells, used to learn arts, whatever. But it would be nice to get some benefit from it. It strains credulity to say that all of it was squandered.
So I'll make a proposal and see how it flies. I propose that
1.) a PVS grants 2 vis/year during pre-game development;
2.) HA grants 4 vis/year during pre-game development; and
3.) Magi can use a lab season to extract vis during pre-game development, gaining vis according to their CrVi LT, as per the rules.
That halves the benefit of a PVS during pre-game development and at the very least knocks HA down by two-thirds (in fact, it reduces HA by a lot more than that). What do people think of that proposal?
Also, while we're talking about vis, we ought to settle on what the exchange rate will be for vis. normally it's 1:2 Te-to-Te or Fo-to-Fo, 1:4 for Fo-to-Te, and 1:1 Te-to-Fo. Do we want to alter that since we're in Thebes?
actually PVS is defined as being 1/10 the covenant's yearly income, so 2 pawns/yr for PVS would be between 60% and 80% reduction depending on what we settle on for the vis income for the covenant...
as to the exchange rate, it is based on getting gifts from the redcap (who clearly made vis on the exchange) so it is probably not fixed and also likely doesn't apply to really small exchanges...
Ah, the interconnection of decisions. I suppose that means we'll have to settle on a vis income before we can address this issue.
I was just trying to think in practical terms for someone making their magus with a PVS, since the PVS would be only one Art. If they wanted to use vis of a different Art, they'd need to exchange it. And while it may be true that the exchange rate is not fixed, the player has to use some sort of exchange rate in accounting for pre-game play. I was just wondering what that exchange rate would be. I used the broad exchange rates posted on page 85 of HOH:TL as a starting point, figuring that over time, the exchanges would even out to that value.
Of course, this leads to the question of how we'll handle exchanges during play. Will we abstract them with an (admittedly imperfect) exchange rate, or will we require a story every time someone wants to exchange vis. I'd vote for the former, as vis trading stories could get boring pretty quickly.
maybe an exchange rate starting from the standard with variation based on charm, etiquette, or order of hermes lore, and maybe presence? say an extra 5%+best of these abilities and presence, capped at an extra 20%, but always rounding down? So with a presence of 3 and OOHL of 5 they would get 13% extra return on the trade, so if they are exchanging 50 Te for Aq they would get 31 Aq.
I have been struck by a thought regarding the accumulation of vis:
given the tradition of gifting vis in the tribunal, every magus will receive in gifts 3 pawns of vis per year. However whatever vis they have at the end of the year they will need to gift the square root of that amount to others (as wealthier magi are expected to be more generous). HA and PVS provide the full amount in this scheme, with the reductions coming in the end of year gifts. What do you think?
I don't mind it but given the warping they will get from it I'm not sure if it is this great. Also I think there should be at last some reason why a magus provided the LR for this companion or the redcap major virtue get to devalued.
For Jewish or a character with great connections to them Shinnui Shem (RoP:D 141) might be a alternative to a LR.
Edit: also we need to come up with a rule how good the LR / Shinnui Shem can be.
Mundanes who receive life-extending magic are useful to the Magi - either they have rare abilities, or they have have positions of power. I don't think it devalues the Redcap virtue at all. If a PC magus does it, he/she does it for good and sufficient reason. By definition, the effect is specifically designed for the recepient, but still counts as a continuous magical effect, so one warping point a year. The beneficiary gets a Minor Flaw in five years, After that, it will take decades for the Warping effects to really hit, and even a level 50 ritual only gets a 5 reduction on the roll. I don't see it as a big issue.
It's true that the Nephilim character will probably outlive the Magi, but it will take a long time, and if that happens, I'll see that we are having a successful game. I'm not worried about it.
I guess I have a reflexive opposition to starting with lots of vis. The covenant is prosperous, there's no reason why we couldn't have plenty. We need to come up with a decision about how we start, and this decision won't affect acquistion of new vis, since it's very clear about how we'll obtain it during the game. We have characters with PVS, which is supposed to provide 5/year (10% of income). Having Philosophic Alchemy turns your character into a vis factory. Rather than a formula, how about: How much vis would you like your character to have at game start? Is 100 vis ok? I just don't see value in having a long discussion on how to compute the vis obtained in the pre-game; let's just come up with a number. We're adults here, and I don't think people are going to be out of control in their requests.
I wasn't particularly worried about the Nephilim overshadowing the magi. They've got enough going for them. I was worried about a 100 year old companion overshadowing the other companions with the amount of xp 100 years gives you.
As said I only want a reason like how (s)he was useful to a Magi that did the LR.
With Transformed (Being) RoP 47 there is a major virtue that can easy outlive a Nephilim blood character. Although a Magic Might Score of 0 is kind of special as it isn't handled well with the core rules to my understanding.
So, have we decided how pre-game vis is going to work? We discussed it for a while, but I wasn't sure that anything really came of that discussion. I see that silveroak is working under the assumption that he'll have vis from his PVS. Does that mean that I'll have vis from my Philosophical Alchemy?
Also, as a side note, will the hearth of lab warming cause warping to the lab since it's a permanent magic effect on the lab?
I note that Adauli allocated two seasons to setting up a lab, while silveroak did not. Have we made a decision on whether we need to spend time setting up our labs? If yes, silveroak has to go back and allocate those two seasons. If no, then Adauli gets two free seasons to allocate.
I'm quoting myself, because I didn't see a response to my question: What would you like? Pick a number that would make you happy, and let's see if the other players. If you want me to have give a number, how about Silveroak gets 25 vis of his choice at game start due to his PVS, and Trogdor gets 75? (since it's a Major Virtue, and worth triple). The rest of us burn Build Points for vis we would like to start. Certainly you may have handled more, but it was spent in the pre-game. As I mentioned, I'd prefer that the players come up with a number they believe to be fair.
Because we have 4 seasons to our free use instead of just 3 with normal rules I can't see when the lab would have set up otherwise if we don't active spend the 2 seasons for it.
With just 3 seasons for free use you can easy say that someone 2 years out of apprentice time have spend 2 season to set up the lab but with 4 season of free use that no longer works.
Because we full simulate lab-work already I don't see why Philosophical Alchemy shouldn't give you some gain as long you spend all 4 season of a year with activities that can be done in the lab. Also I personal would disallow the use of any changes in Lab work that need you to work over time or who would break as soon there is a distraction (like planetary magic) during this year. (Not sure at moment if a magus gain warping points from spend a full year in a aura of 6 but if so you would gain this point also)