Fair 'nuff - I was thinking there was a description for books at that level above Branch, but it's not in that section. That being said, Covenents suggests that a set of Branches "costs" as much as the resolution of a major plot point (ie a major Hook) - ie, as a reward to a Spring covenant for doing a good job at X, where X is the reason for their existence.
In my last saga, for example, we got a set as a sort of "good job, don't tell anyone please" after we discovered what happened to the previous generation of covenant magi (Eaten by a tree, kidnapped by faries, trapped under the demon in the basement. Y'know, standard stuff.)
I've always taken that to mean that there are 9 "official" Roots, but that other primers are just as (or almost as good as) for the remaining slots - they just don't have official sanction to be called Roots. This allows the Storyguide to decide which one the official ones are, and which ones the unofficial ones are, in order to tailor the booklist to the playerbase. If a PC wants to be an author in Herbam, for example, the troupe can decide that Herbam doesn't have an official root, and the ones that are being used currently fall into the 5/15 or 6/17 or something like that.
Which seems to fit into what is described in that callout - it's not defining WHICH books are at that level, merely that summae at that level exist.
EDIT - my default assumption is that Roots exist for the 5 Techniques, As well as Corpus, Ignem, Mentem, and Vim. These are the 6/21 books - the rest have the 5/15's. (Or perhaps Q6, lvl 14+1d4, if you're feeling Gygax-esque.)
There is the Major External Relations Hook, Exceptional book. With L+Q <=35, with L not to exceed 25 or Quality not to exceed 20. That is greater, but it also fits the definition of Branch (the finest book on an Art). So...
This is the epitome of a distinction without a difference. If there are now books for every Art that will get someone to an Art score of at least 5 in a season, then it doesn't really matter, does it? Just say that there are Roots for all of the Arts, which is what it seems to me that you are saying that Thrice Told Tales does say. Going a bit further, if these books are cheap, and cost money, in your view, then why does someone want to create such a tome?
In game mechanics: yes. You are correct. In-game - a Root is defined by consensus and adoption via the Hermetic Order at large. As such, authoring something that will be known a Root is a goal for the aspiring PC author. Hence the level differences between 'official' Roots and unofficial ones (at least in my mind). For the unofficial ones, none of them have definitively risen above the rest to become a standard text yet.
Reputation, mainly: being known as the author of a Root is serious coin. And I consider them cheap because they consist soley of the quality of the words (as opposed to additional drawings and whatnot), and due to their level they can be copied by beginning scribes. And money is certainly useful - not as useful as vis, but something that still useable.
EDIT - huh. Just looked up the rules for copying. Assuming a standard Primer (L6/Q21) with a gloss (+1 to the level), a complete amateur (Profession: Scribe 0 - maybe a single XP point to grant a specialization, if needs be) can make three L6/Q21 versions of that book in a single season. (Fast copying reduces the quality by 1...which doesn't affect the end result at all, as that extra point is apparently there just to make copying easier.) Even if we assume that these are sold for 1 MP apiece, that's still 3 MP a season. Now, that does assume that there are exemplar versions of the Roots, and that "regular" versions are of slightly lesser quality. Still - it does suggest that it's pretty easy to find someone to make a copy for you. (And yes, of course. "Intrinsic value of the book, medieval paradigm of quality over quantity, etc." It's a rough copy made by an apprentice on his first day. It's probably not expensive.)
I would say no. Without specifically stating that something written in Covenants is now superseded this shouldn't be the case. this was not the intention.
These books are called 'Primers' and fill the function of quickly 'grounding' an apprentice or magus, taking him from 0 to 5 (or more), ideally in a single season. As a previous poster wrote the last 6 Arts for which there are no official Roots there is plausibly good enough books to fill that role. But none of them have been adopted by the Order at large as 'The Root for X'. I never figured out why, but I have no problem with this.
it would be cool though to have all the Roots and Branches officially named and statted and to have them in Metacreator. That would make library building a lot easier. If you don't feel like inventing lots of author names and book titles along with book stats you can always take a look at Through the Aegis. The covenant libraries in here are intended for inspirational use as well. And now that I think about it I remember having an idea a handful of years ago for a series of SubRosa articles with sample libraries for various themes covenants, where the focus is on some specific aspect relevant to the respective covenants. A covenant on a coastline and with shipping as a source of income would have a focus on Auram and Aquam. A covenant in the mountains with a mine on Terram. A Mercer house with focus on magic for travel, comfort, and safety on the road. etc.
Remembering the bonus to Quality for writing below your maximum Level, a magus with an Art of 12, Com +3 and Strong Writer could write a Level 5 Summa with Quality (6+3+3+3=) 15. I don't find this unrealistic for young - or even just-Gauntleted - magi. Sure, an Art score of 12 costs 78 exp (52 with affinity) so it's a specialized magus. And it requires a minor virtue for Good Teacher plus perhaps another 1-2 for Increased Characteristics - unless you min-max and invest heavily in Com.
Probably for exactly the reason you lay out: it's too "easy" to create a 5/15 Primer for any one of them to stand out as the go-to standard. As such, there are simply too many decent books at that level for any definitive text to really rise above the others. There are probably some which are slightly better (a few 6/18's, for example) - but readers probably can't tell the difference, in-game, enough for consensus to be achieved. And while you can probably find some cheap copies of those books (damaged or quick-copied, as the difference between a 5/15 or a 6/16(-1) really isn't all that much), they aren't officially "Roots".
In contrast? The 6/21 skill level actually requires a lot of innate talent (like your example), Archmage level skill (23+), or some combination of both. Now THAT is a long-term goal your character can shoot for - likely on their way towards writing a Branch of similar quality. And that quality of book would, in all likelihood, stand out against the pack, and in time be considered a Root - not the least of which is that it gets your Form resistance up to +2 in a season.
That being said, your math might be a bit off there - it looks like you're dropping the level from (12/2 = 6) to (12/2 - 1 = 5) so an author with Com +3, Skill 12, and Strong Author would be getting (base 6 + Com 3 + Strong Author +3 + reduction +1) From what I understand of the rules, (AM5th, pg. 165) The +3 per level drop is for Abilities, not Arts.
Consider the greatest author possible by ArM rules: Com +5 and Good Teacher. This requires (at least) 3 Virtue points and gives Quality (6+5+3=) 14. Deliberately lowering Level is good for +3 per point. If you aim for Quality 21 this adds up poorly, you either end up at 20 or 23.
Lowering level by 3 for +9 only needs Com +3 and Good Teacher to achieve. But to do this for a level 6 Summa you need an Art score of 18, costing 171 exp, or 114 with Affinity. That's quite concentrated, and you'd want some exp booster virtues to pull this off just after Gauntlet, like Strong Parens. For post-Gauntlet Book Learner is perhaps the most cost effective way to do it. Plus of course Affinity, Good Teacher (cheaper than Great Com) and perhaps Increased Characteristics.
But what if the specialist magus has no special skills as author (Com 0 and no Good Teacher)? Then the Quality 21 needs (21-6=)15 points from lowering the level, for a 5 level lower book. For a final level of 6 the magus needs an Art score of 22 to pull this off. That's 253 exp or 169 with Affinity. Again, for a recently Gauntleted magus that's hard to pull off even with Strong Parens. In a Rhine saga Gild Trained could help here. To save the normal allotment of character creation exp for the single specialist Art one could look for Arcane Lore, Educated, Well Traveled and Privileged Upbringing to cover the other abilities you'd need as a magus. Although I don't see any requirements for age etc. it seems to be stacking too much would demand some explanation of an unusual childhood, perhaps even a later start to apprenticeship.
But I guess you could have had well-off parents who sent you to the best cathedral school and hired the best wandering mystic money could buy, while bringing you along on travels.
I think it's fairly clear that the library build rules are a bit...under-designed? Low level high quality summae (easy to create, cheap to buy) don't cost much less in build points than high level average quality books, and laboratory texts of spells are generally vastly over-priced considering the amount of labor required to copy them (as opposed to copying a summae). For example, a L12 Q12 summae takes a Profession:Scribe 6 (professional) 1 season to copy and costs 24BP, while that same scribe could copy 360 levels of spells, valued at 72BP. There's no accounting for relative scarcity - L18 Q14 summae will be pretty uncommon, and 12th magnitude spells are equally uncommon. And Tractatus are ruinously expensive (Quality = BP) that you might as well just buy L20 Q10+ Summae and ignore Tractatus entirely.
I pretty much ignore these rules when designing a covenant. If it's an established one, the previous occupants will color its contents (unique spells!). If it's a newly founded one, they'll take the Roots and a few high level books in the arts they intend to focus on, and the spells they plan on learning in the next 10 years or so.
Trade rules also grossly undervalue tractri- once your art reaches a certain level they are effectively the only way to advance (aside from experimentation), and they take a season to copy regardless of the scribe's level, yet they are only worth 1-2 pawns.
With respect to build points, they are undervalued, sure. But with respect to experience points, and as you point out, is the only reasonable way to advance, measured against the vis costs of experimentation, let alone the risks, it isn't all that unreasonable. Let's take a magus who has pushed his Art score to 20, 210 xp, he doesn't have an affinity. To get to a score of 30 (465 xp) is going to cost 255 xp. Assuming a sound tractatus is ~Q10 +/- 1, that's 52 pawns of vis, and a total cost in seasons of 26. Those aren't unreasonable costs to me. Even assuming someone can pursue their advancement from 20 to 30 with single minded purpose, that's 7 years, and a relatively large amount of vis...
If they advance with experimentation it will be 4-5 vis per season for an advancement total of about 5-13, average 9, so with the tracti you get more advancement at a much lower cost, and a cost which is not likely to inspire much copying of the tracti by scribes given the requirement of a season regardless of quality or scribal level. at 2 pawns a tractus magi should be clamoring for them and scribes reluctant to produce them, which suggests that the price should be higher.
Who cares what scribes want? They are mundanes, magi rule, mundanes drool.
No. It's tractatus, really. Pick the noun of the link you provided. Your original link was: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tractus which isn't even the same word.
fundamentally whether it is the scribe or the person managing the scribe it is the same issue- the return for the use of a scribe's time is low for a tractatus and tractatuum for the listed price should be in high demand, the price should reasonably be higher.
Doesn't that kinda makes things worse?
As far as I can see, we have 2 possible models:
Mundanes with minimal training can copy books on magic (appears to be the official stance): Seriously, you expect 2 pawns of Vis for something you had a mundane do? Don't make me laugh! Even with [strike]copyright[/strike] the Cow and Calf implimented, why shouldn't every covenant hire a handful of scribes and mass produce copies of every book the own the [strike]rights[/strike] "Cow" to? Scribes don't make a full £ of silver each year, and they can make me how much Vis? Because the existance/ownership of one tractatus doesn' (significantly) lower the value of another tractatus, even within the same Art, Books could well be very widely circulated and easy for new covenants to get hold of. This ofcourse makes a mockery of the Power Level table of ArM5, p. 71 and presumably of the intended advancement curve.
Mundanes cannot copy books on magic. Far fewer copies will be produced of any given book, as it costs the only currency more valuable than Vis, namely the time of a magus. Prices will not go significantly below the amount of Vim Vis the copyist could extract in any given season and will indeed probably be a little higher. House Verditius likes to ask for twice the amount of pawns that could have been extracted in that season (HoH: MC, p. 114) for enchantments that cost no Vis, which would be a comparable situation. Twice what could've been extracted might be a bit high, but that still leaves an interval (of 1-2 times what that magus could've extracted). This price can ofcourse be mitigated by having apprentices copy books - their lab totals for extraction are lower, and apprentices gaining a single season of teaching and 3 seasons of exposure is the only way we've been able to keep apprentice-PCs anywhere near the expectations generated by the character generation chapter.
Invoking "paradigm" and claiming that the medieval periode doesn't have mass production, or that magi value their secrets highly and are loath to part with them could do something to move case 1 towards case 2 - or atleast towards the prices suggested in Covenants, but doesn't really seem to fit with either Covenants or the 'more open, less paranoid' OoH that have been presented in more recent editions.
The mundane didn't "do" it. The mundane copied a text, but what is being paid for is the knowledge that exists within, it's not altogether different than the concept of copyright nowadays. Yes, you pay 2 pawns for the tractatus, because it likely cost the magi who made that tractatus more than 2 pawns if you get into the cost of his time. Does he eventually turn a profit by selling many copies of his tractatus? Probably, but then again, so does the verditius, or anyone who makes an item and sells it to another...
I'm not going to go into #2, because, as you said, the line seems to support the idea that mundanes can copy books, and it is even mentioned in the core rule book, IIRC.
Tractatus are actually free, assuming you can sell them off once you're done with them for the same price you bought them for. The only person who makes a profit off a tractatus is the person who writes it (assuming Cow and Calf) or the covenant that copies it. The fact that you're down 1-2 pawns temporarily only matters if you intend to keep the book forever, which is more the case with summae. Though the same arguments can be made for summae as well; it's an investment that can be recouped if well maintained.
I'm not sure if tractatus take too long to copy. I sort of view them as PhD thesis papers (a lot of volume on a very specific subset of knowledge), where summae are textbooks full of examples and exercises. There's no particular reason that a tractatus needs to be a slim volume that's quick to copy.
Sigh
If mundanes can copy, there's no reason to assume the author will sell just 3-5 copies. Assuming house Mercere work as well as they seem to do according the HoH: TL, it's reasonable that a decent tractatus could well be sold (in copy) to every covenant in the Order. Are you going to let people have an income on the order of 100-200* pawns for a season's work? Yes, making that many copies will take a while, but it's still a pretty good Personal Vis Source I think, for very little effort.
Ofcourse, because Tractatus are so easily produced (Just the Art is required, with decent arts, multiple Tractatus can be generated, by the same person within the same Art) and reproduced (mundane scribes being practically free from the PoV of many magi), the market will glut and you're actually unlikely to sell very many copies of all but the best books, as mentioned in Covenants, except...
1a) While summae cap out, the usefulness of a good tractatus never does. Due to Arts being based on XPs and the nature of the tractatus, a tractatus on your specialist field is always interesting, even if you already have 27 others on that subject in your sanctum. There's no truly diminishing returns here. Yes, you'll need more and more XPs, but the sources are likely to remain plentiful. And even just an audience of 5 elderly archamages each getting a copy of your tractatus "for the collection" is still a pretty good return for a single season's work.
1b) There's no point in assuming a shortage of copies of decent books. Even a covenant that's not friendly enough to let you study from their library might well tell you where you can buy your own copy.
And without some form of "knowledge is power, hide it well", which really isn't the feel I get from this edition, there's no reason this should apply only to Quality 11 books. And suddently we have a situation where any covenant can simply order a copy of books X, Y and Z and expect redcaps to bring them for a few shillings as well on top of whatever the seller charges. Then these sellers will get competitive, because that what we as players expect and prices will drop.
And then the above-mentioned Power Level table (ArM5, p. 71) turns into a bad joke. 1250 build points for a medium-power covenant, which must be atleast 10 years old?
Most covenants I've seen have had libraries worth significantly more than 1250, within 10 years, and that's assuming model 2, not these cheaply reproduced books.
As well, the limit of Quality no higher than 11 for tractatus bought with buildpoints (still ArM5, p. 71) becomes less than meaningless, because why wouldn't you try to buy the best books available, and why wouldn't the owners make them available?
Absolutely! ArM5 p. 166 is extremely clear on the matter of mundanes copying books on Arts. Though it is somewhat less clear if mundanes can copy lab texts, I see no reason to assume they couldn't. I was merely providing model 2 as a contrast, and because I know some troupes play it that way.
And yes, I'm almost certainly blowing this out of proportions, but these are problems that I have encountered in my home games.
In the 2nd edition sourcebook Order of Hermes it was indicated the OoH had 770 members. At an average of just under 8 members per covenant, this makes 100 covenants. In my experience covenants are often smaller than that, and the assumed membership of the OoH appears to be larger in later publications, but 100 covenants makes for a nice round number. Now, if 50%-100% of these covenants each pay 2 pawns for a copy of this book, you get 100-200 pawns of Vis.
Same result from the opposite direction: assuming every magus has one and only one Art above summa level, that's {770 / 15 = 50} copies to be sold. Then we say the fraction interested balances out the fraction having 2 Arts on tractatus.