A few comments on the library being put together so far and, more important, how the copying is being planned.
Remember that the quality lost due to quick copying is lost forever, meaning it substract from the base quality of a book. Sure, that can be compensated by the craftsmanship bonus in a specific copy, but future copies may not be done by as competent a scribe, so may lose some of that.
You were apprentices when you were tasked to do the copying. At least for the first such season, you didn't know you'd get to keep those books for your library. Furthermore, your master wanted you to learn how valuable those books are, as well as learning the process of making a copy. So what do you his/her reaction would have been to a copy debased by quick copying?
I'm also not seeing much in the way of lab texts. Raw Art scores are not everything. It may be great for research, but formulaic spells and enchantments are a good way to make a difference in day to day activities. And stories. Again, your master would have reminded you of that.
Don't try to optimize too much and/or cover everything. As Bonisagi, scribal hospitality at Durenmar isn't hard to get. So you will be able to expand your library during play.
Why? Can you give an example? It sounds like you're using the 1st-printing rules before Bard caught and I explained the huge problem with Minor Magical Focus as it was originally written. The issue was that improving your Arts could make you worse. So it was corrected in the errata.
I think I'm the only one so far. Even in my case, I dislike most core-books spells anyway. I find a very large number of them to be poorly designed in terms of R, T, D. But I would still like to have texts for a bunch of them.
I think we were probably all focusing on comparing your two examples and considering writing them to take with us.
An interesting question here would be, whether copying includes copying the quality from raw vis. Because if it's a yes, permanent quality loss from quick copying can be gamed to never lose, or even increase the copied quality over time, potentially indefinitely.
Also yeah, I was focused on trying to do something similar to your given examples. I apologize if that wasn't your intention.
I am planning on copying more books from the Great Library as part of my play time. I am perhaps the only one that can do careful copies without help. Up to the group for the ability summas I have as copied. I can just get some lab text.
One way or another, I will be making more copies once play begins.
No, it doesn't. I think the House Rule was clear on that, you start back to what we could call Base Quality, which is the original author's Com + bonus for lowering the level. Quick copying reduces the copy's Base Quality permanently, because it introduces mistakes into the copy. Those mistakes are compounded over subsequent copying of the copy.
The examples were meant to illustrate the difference between a good scenario and a not-so-good extreme one that produced poor quality books. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Another thing the second example was meant to illustrate was the waste of time of having to infuse a copy with vis at a later time. When you do it while it is crafted, it add no time. If you infuse vis later (either from nothing or adding more), you spend a season for each book. It is more efficient to infuse 2 pawns right away. Also note that books on Arts use Art-specific vis. So some might not be easily available (or cheap if obtained through redcaps) during play.
You can all decide to settle on mostly quick copies without vis anyway, but I wanted you to understand the implications and not feel blindsided if it comes back to bite you later.
Based on what Arthur said and Jebrick said about doing some later copying, is anyone else looking at changing up some books?
Meanwhile, I've been looking at spells for those 120 levels. I'm mostly looking at Vim spells: Wizard's Communion, Circular Ward Against Demons, Aegis of the Hearth, Opening the Intangible Tunnel, and Suppressing the Wizard's Handiwork. If I already have one of those, I'm considering it at a higher level. A few other possibilities might be Leap of Homecoming and The Seven-League Stride. Mostly I'm expecting to average level 30-40, so just 4 or 3 spells.
Indeed, I don't know what I want. I can barely cast my spells right now and I'll fail them most of the time in hostile aura, so Animal seems fitting because those high level spells are spread into 3 techniques.
For spells and enchantment labtexts, I don't really know what I want, It should be something to use rapidly otherwise what's the hurry getting spells I can't learn ? Is it harder to get copies of spells from Durenmar than It is to get the opportunity to copy books ? (real question)
Enchantments can be very broad because you can change the parameters as you want, but we don't know much about the covenant ressources yet (the beer stuff ?)
Stone cutting knife in covenant p 52 could be nice in our environnement but we have a magus with rock of viscid clay already I believe.
Enchantement to make light could prove useful but again permanent light with circle/ring is quite low (lvl10-15 for cloudy day or direct sunlight) so It seems like a waste.
Not really. Finding the exact effect you are looking for might be the real issue. Durenmar's library of lab texts is huge, and many of them are probably the results of experimentation. So if you go outside the classics (meaning core book spells for the most part), you may end up with a spell that has weird side effects, a flaw, etc.
Usually, it's a good idea to go looking for enchantments that are outside of your specialties. Degensive items. Charged items for attack. Things for mundanes, either as trade items for nobles (with expiry) or to help your own mundanes perform their tasks more efficiently. Emergency effects, like a get out of dodge ring. Low-level stuff you might need in a foreign aura, like Rise of the Feathery Body or Bind Wound. Things you don't want to botch when things are stacked against you. Endurance of the Berserker, so you don't suffer from penalties in a thigh spot. Items that can be triggered without voice or gestures. The list goes on...
Edit: Comfort effects, like a fresh breeze in an underground covenant. Things for the lab, like that smokeless brazier or lamps. Items to preserve food for those long winter months.
Edit 2: For enchantments, you don't want to focus on your magus' strengths, but rather on his weaknesses. What item might help compensate for them? Even if you cannot enchant it, chances are that one of your covenant mates will, provided he/she has a lab text to help him/her.
Yup. This is a good suggestion. That's why I'm looking at higher-level spells. I can manage low-level spells spontaneously unless I really need a Momentary one in a bad situation, and maybe I'm low on Fatigue then. So I'm mostly looking at higher-level stuff, and it has to be really high in Vim to matter. But in ReCo, not so high, but still high.
To all, take a look again at the House Rule for book. I made a note there that I was considering making the amount of vis required to infuse a Hermetic book dependent on the Level of a summa (1 pawn per 5 levels instead of just a flat 1 pawn). Any thoughts on that?
If I go there, I would adjust how many pawns you have available when copying books, so that 1 point of resource = 2 pawns.
In this case I'd ask whether non-magical aura exposure kills all books with 3 or more infused pawns, or if it only kills books with 2 or more pawns in excess of their minimum infusion cost. For the record, the latter ruling would allow us to transport fully infused level 20 summae (that is, infused to have no Quality penalty, but without a bonus) with no issue, but the former ruling would result in such summa being untransportable in its "fully manifested" condition, only partially infused at best - in which case I'd love if this 'partial' infusion contributed to the book's Quality instead of a flat -3. Perhaps -1 or -2 for each missing pawn, so higher-level books have a higher Quality penalty for missing pawns and lower-level books suffer less from this.
I'd ask whether we can take the pawns with us to infuse the books at a later date, but I feel like that's pushing the given rules a little, so...
On the other hand I feel like contributing two level 10 summae would be a little bit less desirable. What do you think?
I feel like you want to make books costly because as vis is scarce, they become much better than studying vis.
The new rule makes books too costly in my opinion. 4 pawns to simply have no penalties 12 pawns to fully infuse a summae lvl 20 is an enormous amount.
This does move saga, from low ressource to low power imho.
Infused books would have 3 levels of infusion. First level (Basic) simply negates the penalty. Second level (Infused) gives +2 to quality. Third level (Acclimated, like a magical beings in RoP:M) gives another +2 to quality. Only the third level makes them vulnerable to foreign auras (and perhaps not imstantly). The third level is mostly reserved for the greatest books of the Order, true treasures that magi travel to study, instead of making copies of them.
The intent is not to make the saga low power. It is to explain why apprentices aren't given free access to the library - because books are simply too valuable to risk them damaging them through carelessness.
Perhaps 1 pawn per 5 Levels for each infusion level is too high. Maybe 1 per 10 would be more reasonable? Or an increasing scale, so the Basic infusion only costs 1 pawn, Infused costs 1 per 10 Levels, and 2 per 5 Levels for Acclimated? With Acclimated making the book immune to wear?
Just thinking out loud, trying to find the right balance with all of you.
I feel like each of us should be able to bring at least a good book in the library, so the cost or the starting ressources are too low for my taste (on first iteration)
After that, the availability of virtus, and the exchange rates makes the balance so that's largely on SG's side. Of course we'll try to find sources and solutions, trading books, teaching, creating our own collections maybe...
Of course It is, assuming It is not a lvl 20 quality 6...
It takes two seasons to copy and we get 4 pawns If we copy the last season alone so that’s fine we can get a good book and we can either labtexts of spells and enchantement or get a book on skills that we can offset remove penalty on.
Anyway, I’m fine with the new increased scale.
I’m confident your rule on durability was enough to explain the fact that apprentice don’t get access to the library.
I think I'll stick with the final thing I ended up with: 2 seasons careful copying level-20 Perdo with assistance and 2 points of Perdo vis in it, and 1 season copying 120 levels of spells: The Seven-League Stride (ReCo 30), Leap of Homecoming (ReCo 35), Suppressing the Wizard's Handiwork (ReVi 40), and Gathering the Essence of the Beast (ReVi 15).
