What does it mean to have excelent quality in lab construction?
Full quality bonus to both safety and aesthetics
full quality bonus to aesthetics, but not safety
Throw away city and guild, same as superior, +1 to each,
full quality bonus to safety and aesthetics and other construction related virtues
full quality bonus to each plus other construction related stats
construction bonus distributed amongst various stats and specializations that are appropriate
0voters
RAW seems conflicted on this issue:
According to covenants there is a free virtue, which can be taken once, for superior construction, which gives +1 safety and +1 aesthetics
in City and Guild, superior items are described as having a workshop total of 12 or higher, and allow a +1 to one aspect of an item's attribute. City and Guild also describes an excellent item as once where the workshop total is above 15, where the bonus varies according to the actual total, and applies to all inherent aspects of that items use (for example, a superior sword gets either +1 attack or +1 def, an excellent sword can have +2 to both or higher...)
So the question is how we define excellent construction in games terms. Please vote on your choice:
Depending on what is chosen, they could mean a lot of different things, but some further explanation I can do
full quality bonus to safety and aesthetics and other construction related virtues
this will give full bonuses depending on what other virtues are chosen, but without overlap- so for example if someone chose to have a gallery it would add a +1 extra to aesthetics and safety but the full craft quality bonus to teaching.
full quality bonus to each plus other construction related stats
If this is selected the troop may vote on other stats that will gain from the full quality bonus- for example we might decide that well made labs should be easier to maintain and thus have a decrease in upkeep equal to the construction quality bonus- if this is selected we will simply poll for each and decide what meets the threshold of an included stat
construction bonus distributed amongst various stats and specializations that are appropriate
this gives a total bonus equal to the bonus for high quality craftsmanship, to be distributed amongst appropriate stats- so for example, safety, aesthetics, he, books, teaching, etc. hat the individual magus could spend. This could also be 2x bonus points, which would fit better with the default superior giving 2 +1 bonuses instead of 1.
(Changing my post to take the most recent info into account)
So my understanding/examples of each choice:
Full quality bonus to both safety and aesthetics: So the labs would have +7 Safety and +7 Aesthetics (equivalent to Superior Construction taken 7 times)
full quality bonus to aesthetics, but not safety: So the labs would have +1 Safety and +7 Aesthetics (equivalent to Superior Construction taken once, plus 6 bonus points to Aesthetics -- or the equivalent of having 3 virtues such as Grand Entrance for free)
Throw away city and guild, same as superior, +1 to each: So the labs would have the Superior Construction virtue once, period.
full quality bonus to safety and aesthetics and other construction related virtues: So one could pick any relevant contruction-related virtues such as Superior Construction, Grand Entrance, Studio, Dedicated Building, Defenses, Well Insulated, Gallery, Auspicious Shape and perhaps some form of Lesser Feature. How many would there be? I would suggest that Free Virtues are purchased for 1 point (including Superior Construction), while Minor Virtues would be 3 points.
full quality bonus to each plus other construction related stats: So we would need to collectively decide what stats are modified by Alexander's skill. (I expect that this will lead to a protracted discussion of how much and what...)
construction bonus distributed amongst various stats and specializations that are appropriate : So each magus would select up to 7 points of in any stat or specialization, such as +1 Safety, +3 He and +4 Item? Or even more than 7 points, if the troupe wants to go that way?
EDIT: I must say again that allowing a large number of choices skews results. If, for example, I think that only choice #3 is fine for me, I get drowned out by those who find all of the other choices acceptable. Multiple choices stack against my position.
6 would be either 7 or 14 points total to use, including safety and aesthetics. So it could be +1 safety, +2 aesthetics, +3 texts and +1 item
personally I think it is fair that everyone be allowed to indicate which of multiple choices they find acceptable. If you only find one acceptable that is your position, but others should not be constrained so that you may triumph more easily.
Just to be clear to everyone, because of the way the poll is constructed I am only voting for option 3. If it had been built differently I might have also found some of the other options acceptable.
But I consider the poll skewed towards allowing bonuses to stack (and stack, and stack some more). I find that exasperating, and it is making me to take a more extreme position than I usually would.
My apologies for "forcing" another debate (or the same debate again) upon the troupe.
Since none of us are experts in the science of creating fair polls, and we do not want to take the time it would take anyway, I am not inclined to worry about small biases in the poll. Silveroak picked something, so as to get this unstuck. Which I for one appreciate.
Lets get the votes in (I voted) and see how it comes out.
To be fair Arthur, part of this may be due to the fact that the solution you have been pushing for completely emasculates my mythic companion and reduces his effectiveness to something on the level of a grog. Which tends to make me a bit irritated. I'm going to stop commenting now before I say something personal.
I wasn't pushing for a single position, and was open to compromise (I think) in allowing additional bonuses due to your companion's high skill. But some of the options you propose make any other improvement a magus can make to his lab laughably weak and time-ineffective. This is a game about magi, so I feel like non-magi shouldn't be able to influence lab activities to the level you are proposing. It is nothing personal, and certainly not aimed at "emasculating" your companion concept. There are many ways in which Alexander can express and display his unnatural skills at woodworking. I just feel that expressing them through stacked lab bonuses is unwarranted and unbalanced. A very slippery slope that leads to labs giving +20 bonuses without the drawback of having magi actually invest multiple seasons improving those labs.
On another level, I repeatedly mentioned that creating a poll with a wide variety of high-powered choices (which I feel are only small variations) and only 1 or 2 lower-powered ones, while at the same time allowing players as many picks as there are choices, would skew the poll. But you seem to have ignored my comments on that. So I felt I had to restate it. Again, this is not a personal attack on you.
Just playing what you described as my role as the "lower-powered anchor" for the saga. The harder I feel you pulling towards high power, the harder I pull back. I can and will meet you halfway. I just haven't seen any halfway positions offered here, sadly. I suggested one, but it's not been included in the poll.
Again, my apologies to everyone for the lengthy debate.
The one you offered was essentially to allow him to include additional free virtues which can be included anyways.
Keep in mind as well that the only reason the numbers we are talking about (+7) are so high is because this is the major focus of a mythic companion we are talking about (normally considered equivalent to a magus, in this game a short rank down), not some grog who happens to be a good craftsman.
You are basing the pumped up bonuses on the premise that a general rule (C&G's crafted item bonus increasinh with the craftsman's skill) supercedes a specific rule (Covenant's lab rules that states lab virtues can only be taken once amd have set benefits).
Where does the power inflation stops, if we use your (IMHO flawed) interpretation? Will every item crafted by Alexander provide 7 times the bonus if used as a Feature in a lab? Throne, desk, wheel, and more, all providing huge specialization bonuses?
In a thread on the general Ars board, one of the authors of Covenants even said that the lab rules had been written that way specifically to avoid that kind of inflation. Can't quote it right now as I am posting from my phone.
The problem for me isn't that it's a +7 bonus, it's that it's a +7 bonus on the wizards' labs. I also think it's a flawed interpretation of the rules, for the reasons Arthur explained. Nothing in Covenants suggests that the bonuses can go that high, and I think that's because bonuses that high would be unbalanced. Granting this high a bonus to lab quality isn't just allowing the mythic companion to shine, but allowing the mythic companion to overshadow the whole saga.
Most things that the mythic companion could grant a +7 bonus to wouldn't raise these concerns. Surely there will be ways for the mythic companion to shine in future?
There are ways to get bonuses that high, which is why the teaching bonus and books bonus have actual written limits, though neither safety nor aesthetics do.
