character has been edited as you suggested. He now also speaks Kipchak. A polyglot poet indeed.
It's in the Perdo Vim guidelines box - "Dispel any magical effect with a level less than or equal to half the (level + 4 magnitudes) of the Vim spell + a stress die (no botch). (Note that there are a couple of errata affecting the exact wording).
You're using two of those extra magnitudes on the Voice Range, and Wind of Mundane Silence uses the remaining two on Room target, but if you're just using Tar: Ind you get to keep them.
Pretty much there, I think - just need to revisit the combat stats. They still say Long Sword, and I think some of the totals are wrong (the Init should be Qik 1 + short sword weapon bonus 1 =2 rather than +3, and the Attack should be Dex 1 + Ability 6 +1 + WB 3 = +11 rather than +10 - that assumes the a specialisation in Heater Shield is applicable to the Attack roll, but given a weapon speciality would normally add to both attack and defence it seems fine to give it here.
One thing I've realised I don't know - what's the nature of his disfigurement?
OK, can anyone cite examples of vis trades for Hermetic services, so that we've got a starting point?
Scott
Prices for Books (Covenants p.95) says a lot but boils down to Vis equal to the book's level. Unless the book is crazy high then you need to get a "gift" from a Bonisagus or buy it at an astronomical price from Tremere. I'd argue the last two should be a few quests at the least but your "Gain a virtue per decade" rule could slot in nicely there.
HoH:TL p.88 gives the prices Redcaps pay, typically, to have enchanted items made. About 2p per magnitude of invested effect.
Spells are invented at about the same rate as magic items are. so keeping that price makes sense I think? Even though a lab text would be easier to give out, potentially. It costs a magus almost nothing to cast a spell he already knows... so maybe the price is a bit lower for that.
A quote from you in another part of the game. Not sure if you had anything in mind for those prices.
A non-cannon source is the Andorra pbp game's economy using qpv (quarter-pawn-vis); its a fair abstraction, very detailed.
For spells specifically, there are some rules in Guardians of the Forest for studying at the Great Library in Durenmar. There are a few accepted ways of payment:
- Donating an original lab text in a readable form, a decent tractatus or a sufficently good summa (as determined by the librarians) - this gets you two seasons of study
- Spending a season copying for the library gets you a season of study (but is viewed as demeaning task fit for apprentices rather than magi)
- You can make a "suitable" vis "donation" - I don't think exactly what is "suitable" is defined, but it's designed so that for most magi donating
Whether a given spell is available is determined by a stress die against a roll of 3 for a "standard" spell, 6 for a specific level (up to level 40) of a general spell and then some other ease factor between 6 and 21 as determined by the SG for other spells. Failing an EF 3 roll generally means someone else is using it rather than that it doesn't exist.
Tablinum, the Tremere library has something similar (albeit not as good as Durenmar). There (for non-Tremere):
- Donating an original lab text in a form other magi can use gets you permission to copy a number of lab texts equal to the magnitude of the submitted spell.
- Alternatively, you can donate a number of pawns equal to the magnitude of the text you want to copy (again, the Tremere want you to go for the lab text option)
Tablinum contains all spells in the main book, and some in others (at the troupe's discretion). It contains relatively little in the way of original spells.
Andorra (I can say from personal experience) is notoriously overpowered, so I'd be leery of that one.
Scott
Ya, with the prices being quarter pawns I could see that getting out of control. At first I was looking at it as full pawns and I thought the prices were really high but probably ok for the character gen funny money. Spending 6 years of Vis income (30p) on a max quality Art book would be something I would probably do for my specialty and not much else (not even actually, I cold study from the Vis at about the same rate of return I would just have to do other things in the Vis less seasons. The quality would have to be pretty good to make it better than just studying from Vis for those 6 years.
Fun thing about basically being a penitent monk is that I can do demeaning things and take it as just another trial given me by the world.
You can only gain Artes Liberales or Language exposure XP while copying. Study would mean you could learn a spell up to the max you can learn or get a bunch of XP out of someone's Magnum Opus? Worth it for the spells probably less so for studying a book, unless it is Q20 or I am already capped on the default books.
Doing the MTx5 option for Vis you could study from vis every season for your whole post-apprenticeship career. I know you can't actually do that, but the math works out in a purely theoretical sense. Was mostly that I didn't think I was leaning on Studying Vis as much as I (maybe) should have.
Kyranos, the rhyme smith
Creation note: Next final version 
. Disfigurement detail added, bloody attack and defense numbers calculated once more - it always baffles me how someone who can do complicated Maths can fail at adding numbers smaller than 1000.
Str 3, Sta 1, Com 1, Pre -2, Dex 1, qik 1, Per 0, Int 0
Cuesots, Free Expression, Inspirational
Busybody (magi), disfigured, lesser Fairie malediction (cannot utter a direct lie)
Background: Ugly young man from Greece (a childhood accident left him with bad facial scarring and burned away half of his scalp permanently) who wanted to be a poet to win the love of a beautiful woman from his village. In a forest, he was offered a fairie bargain: to be given the talent to craft rhymes and inspire people in exchange for a "magical" (=fairie) compulsion to never lie.
He serves as a grog and likes making little rhymes of the magi and their adventures (that he doesn’t share with people outside the covenant, of course). Everyone knows his ditties to be true, and although magi do most certainly not care about the campfire tales of a grog, it still pushes everyone around him to be better people: Braver, more loyal, more generous…
Age: 30
420xp: 45 early childhood + 25 years * 15xp
Romaic Greek (rhyming) 5
15 Animal Handling (hounds) 2
15 Athletics (lifting weight) 2
15 Awareness (guard duty) 2
15 Brawl (Fist) 2
30 Carouse (stories) 3
05 Chirurgy (binding wounds) 1
05 craft: armorer (repair) 1
05 etiquette (magi) 1
30 Folk Ken (magi) 3
15 Music (sing) 2
50 Order of hermes Lore (magi) 4
30 Latin (Magi) 3
15 Ride (horse) 2
15 survival (set up camp) 2
05 swim (icy water) 1
105 Single weapon (Heater shield) 6
50 Living Language Kipchak (rhymes)
Equipment: Heater shield, Full Leather Scale (don't wear iron around fairies), Short Sword
Soak: +1 (+4 usually partially armored,+6 when fully armored)
Short Sword and Heater: Init: +2 or 0 (fully armored), Attack +11, Defense + 12, Damage +8
Encumbrance: 0 (partially armored), 2 (fully armored)
I edited my sheet back to him being 23. His Int is only supposed to be 1 I cross checked the spells I learned and I should be still good to learn them. My specialty combinations ReCo, PeVi are still at 16 max level.
Does anyone have a number to throw out yet for the cost of a characteristic-enhancing spell?
Scott
Is that for a lab text for it, or someone else casting it? My inclination had been to only make the former available (and then only at the levels available in the book).
The levels in the book I'm pretty sure limits it to only the +0 Int spell. This obsession with books spells is a little much. They are examples, not every common spell. They only needed to put in a +1 up to +0 spell to show how that type of spell ought to be structured putting other higher level ones or variants in Animal and Corpus would just be wasting page count. Same reason Unraveling the Fabric of Everything isn't in the book.
I realize this item is ridiculous, it is a thought experiment to derive pricing
A Mercer could have a Cap of Great Intelligence crafted
CrMe Level 77 [Base 55, +2 Sun, +0 individual, +1 Touch, +4level 12 per day, +3 for external Trigger]
Raise int by 1 up to +5
Keeping someone of int -1 at genius level all the time.
Opening the item takes 10 pawns, (it is a metal cap), A stone Skull would be cheaper at 8 pawns
It costs another 8 pawns to invest the enchantment.
Then another 8 pawns for his comission.
24-26 pawns of Vis. For a redcap character to buy +5 int on an item.
If they were built as a progression of effects they costs would be 30+3mag+1(2/d)+3(external) +1 mag per plus. I'm going to assume optimal use of the cost to open the enchantment just for easy math, that makes the mercer cost equal to triple the vis cost of the invested effect.
ilvl, Int, pawns=total
50, +0, 5+5+5=15p
55, +1, 6+6+6=18p
60, +2, 6+6+6=18p
65, +3, 7+7+7=21p
70, +4, 7+7+7=21p
75, +5, 8+8+8=24p
So if we base the pricing on what it would take to get an enchanted item made those are the costs. It's not perfect, it's not apples to apples. But they are based on canon and what I actually want is far easier and more beneficial for the supplying magus than creating an item. A magus casting this ritual would spend the same amount of time inventing a spell (less since the rituals are 3 magnitudes (2mags and 4 level w/e) lower than the enchantments). They get to keep the spell and could resell it. They are making 300-400% commission on the casting cost.
CrCo specialists are used to taking contracts I assume since buying longevity rituals are pretty standard. CrMe are less so, maybe ad another 10-20%.
That is the best I have. I think I'm on the more expensive side of the line, that is where I'm trying to stay since I am the beneficiary.
EDIT: Complete side note. For familiars, taking Monstrous Appearance should necessarily remove the need to buy the Inconspicuous advantage? A cat so black it appears as a hole in space and evokes existential dread by it's mere presence isn't setting people at ease by being a kitty. Right?
Can items do rituals?
They can if they are a ritual for no other reason than they are over level 50.
An item handing out permanent +1 int's is impossible (since it is momentary Creo magic). The item I described, maintaining a sun duration spell twice a day at dusk and dawn is valid. Like I said it's not apples to apples. I'm not using the item for anything other than benchmarking the cost.
Items cannot incorporate rituals, however they can have final effect levels above 50 if the level is higher than 50 only due to item effect modifications. A level 55 power cannot be invested in a device. Generally speaking the spell effect power is the base + RDT mods, and the item effect mods are the penetration, uses, selected wielders, etc.
That's not quite right - as Sir_Swindle says, if the only reason it would be a ritual is the high level, it can go in a device regardless of whether that's due to the basic spell or modifications (page 96 of the main book).
I don't think this would work to boost it by more than one level, as you shouldn't be able to make the spell "stack" with itself. You'd probably end up looking at an extra mag per degree above your base characteristics (this isn't needed for the rituals, because these are actually changing what your base characteristics are).
If we do decide to allow third party casting, I'd suggest going for Veditius pricing, i.e. 3 x vis cost. Less time for the caster after learning the initial spell (but that's at least two seasons assuming you take time to master it - if not, they're horribly risky), but a rarer service.
Ah, thanks for correcting - I thought it also had to include the RDT mods. That's kind of what I was trying to say; I should have checked the book.
However Sir_Swindle's example was Base 55 without RDT mods, so must be Ritual, so cannot be invested as presented. Yeah? Base 45 or 50 would be fine.