Quickness is very important for table games, but totally unimportant for forum gaming. The reason is that on the forum the order is determined by when you post.
Strength can provide you with great soak boni - all you have to do is put on armor. The problem is that there is no punishment for negative strength.
Verditius Magi, by the way, don't need Stamina as urgently as other magi. Why not create an item instead of inventing a spell?
Probablky it is me, but IMS books move very little, and there are really fgew copies of them. MOst of them are under calf & whatever-it-is-called agreement.
Books are valued and treasured, nnopt given away for a few pawns of vis. If you have a good book you have an asset and you do not want others to have it. You can share its CONTENTS (for a vis fine), but not the book itself. Only under certain circumstances will you get your book out of your own covenant grounds.
That means that the really good books are spread out between covenants, and most covenants have only a few copies of great works. You need to use your feet to get to the good books, get on the cue for reading them and pay the fine for doing it.
IMO that works better than the dozens and dozens of volumes that otherwise we would have (as this thread already showed) and that would look much more like a modern university library than a medieval one. I do not buy that.
IMS the work of the Bonisagus IS worthwile since they publish a book that is widely distributed. That is quite a thing if books are not circulated so easily. Another reason why the bonis are important is because they get to be the first ones to read the new books and as a consequence give the author and his book a reputation that is widely spoken of: you have a great book, now you need the bonies to read and advertise it, otherwise you do not get the benefits: so, there goes a copy to the great library.
This system differs A LOT from what people is posting, but IMS people do not act like modern university scholars, but like medieval monks: access to libraries is restricted and books looked at with awe and respect. Your library is one of your most valuable resources, not only because you can study from it, but because it is also a source of income for the magi.
That also means that magi travel quite a little bit, and that you can place them in weird covenants far and wide when they spend a season studying. That means A LOT of adventure potential in uncharted territory, something we usually appreciate from a narrative/story POV. The order is cohesive because of travelling magi, not because redcaps need to be strength +10 to carry the stacks of books that they would need to carry as per the RAW.
YMMV. I think the mileage of 100% of the people in this forum varies from this in fact 
Cheers,
Xavi
Xavi, that is a very different and very interesting angle to take on all this - just one point you seem to have neglected - like for like trading - trade a copy of one good book for one other.
And on the whole cow & calf thingy - I alter it slightly so that it only applies to authors books while their alive - once their dead or into final twilight, the 'copyright/patent' is cleared - makes life a little easier - but it does remove the concept of inheirtence rights to parens book rights - which could make for interesting stories in themselves....
Kal
Hi,
RAW, you don't get the bonus. And that makes sense. Stuff is happening in the lab even outside of work hours. Maybe a solvent is dissolving something, or a potion is fermenting or whatever.
Anyway,
Ken
Hi,
The history of the House, complete with human sacrifice, which brought back memories of the heyday of 3e demon spew.
The spells! Aura of Inconsequence is just broken, not in terms of power (though that too, yet that's not important), but because it violates the usual spell guidelines. You normally just don't get to cast spells that keep recasting themselves; and who is the Target anyway; what is being Regoed? Then there's the trust me spell, whose fluff says that this counteracts the Gift. Um, no: It's a Rego spell that compels trust. The spell guidelines. The rules for how magic fades; very silly.
I'd have to pull out my book to be more specific, but essentially, I find this section to be pernicious. That's rare for me in this edition.
Anyway,
Ken
Hi,
I am doing neither; I am combining the viewpoint of a die-hard Flambeau with modern idiom. To him, both connotations of gay could easily apply to Imaginem, the art of pansy Merinitas and Jerbitons.
Anyway,
Ken
I would probably put your pick & shovel away and stop digging a bigger hole before the forum hoplites march i a close this thread down for all of us.
That happens, only that on a small scale. It is the most usual way to increase your library with good books (average books are quite easy to get by since there are way more authors writing at that quality).
Besides, if we talk about powergaming, the easiest way to break the system is to invest all of your book points in vis stocks. Then you go out to the market and in a 10 year period buy books using said vis stocks. The 450 points that ovarwa put in his example library easily turn to 1500-2000 points of good books doing that. Even paying an extra cost for flooding the market. Even a weak spring covenant can raise to "legendary" status in a decade or so with this system. With brings again the point: IMO the system is so rules heavy that you need to disregard a good portion of it if you want any consistency. It is a usual problem with rules creep.
Cheers,
Xavi
I agree wholeheartly with Xavi. In our modern culture, we see no problem in sharing information of any type, a thing that would be impossible in a medieval mentality. I think that in medieval times, all knowledge was restricted to a few (the ones who knew to read, for example ), and the people who knew things like geometry and mathematics extracted service and money from that. If they shared knowledge freely, they would lost their means of living. So they only sold the products of their knowledge (for example, design of buildings, healing of diseases, etc), not the knowledge by itself. They only did that if it was necessary (to train an apprentice), although that was starting to change in 1200. In Ars Magica, with magic, it wouldn´t be different. Although the potential would be great, the Order of Hermes in general isn´t ready for the level of trust that sharing knowledge implies, because, in the end, they also have a medieval mindset.
There are many things i could say about this, a pity i don´t have time, but the Cow & Calf Oath, magical accidents, the possibilities of magical theft and forgery, the assault of another covenant with Wizard's Wars to get their books (or the threat to do so), even the threat of other occult forces (the demons would be very interested in spreading knowledge.. in the wrong hands) makes the possibilities that mention this thread very very unlikely.
But that would mean that a character affects everything in the lab despite being somewhere else or regardless if s/he is involved with it or not...
Otherwise the bonus wouldnt apply anytime at all.
Thats way beyond not making any sense.
If that was true there would never have been any universities started, no trade of books, no "scholarly debates"... All of which happened.
The big stop sign wasnt mentality, it was the slowness, risk and costs of creating, copying and moving books around. Something which is quite seriously understated as the rules stand.
Knew how to read in any form or knew how to read latin or some other language commonly used?
Big difference in commonality between the two, probably(as shown by archeological finds in the last 15 years, pointing towards the common people having a simplified writing system used for everyday tasks).
Knowledge was restricted more because it moved slowly rather than people trying to restrict it, even if the latter also did happen.
By your definition of that, the OoH wouldnt exist then.
Now THAT is the one thing that really would restrict the spread of knowledge somewhat, however in reality it would also mean that soon someone who read it would write either their own "version" of it or a major commentary about it, essentially reproducing the knowledge but in a different form bypassing the restriction.
Hi,
I think quite the contrary. The C&CO can be used to stifle the movement of books, but also to protect the movement of books. An author can sell many copies of his book, all of which are protected. And why shouldn't he? Sell copies of a book, and reap financial rewards and a great reputation.
The idea that medieval people with books spend all their time keeping the information to themselves comes of founding one's medieval expertise on having read "The Name of the Rose." Especially in this period, but also earlier, people wrote books to be read. Mundane scholars of various kinds attended the great fairs to exchange books and conversation. Books are being written, copied and disseminated at an ever-increasing rate, to the extent that it has become an industry.
(Ooh, an idea for a Mystery Cult: Even mundanes know that writing a great book grants a kind of immortality, but a magus who writes great books can have real immortality! Perhaps he endures only as long as his books are read, or perhaps he must literally continue to publish lest he perish...)
Anyway,
Ken
Yeah, DireWolf, i coincide with you opinion also 
. I think the most important thing in this case is the matter of degree. Evidently, if it was so, there wouldn´t be universities, or Order of Hermes to speak of. Really, the matter is very convoluted and complicated. Certain type of knowledge was very restricted (theological, medical) and others not (certain histories, basic mathematics), and even in medicine, well, it fringed in offending God if you delved too much in His Works, but not for an herbiary, or common diseases... The region is also very important, if we are speaking of the Levant, or Germany. And also the period, as i said 1200 is important because the information is starting to being discussed and shared, not anymore the province of abbots and bishops. Suddenly having books (even if you can´t read) is seen as fashionable. Yeah, books were almost a work of art, and always a luxury, but their sudden interest in them (and demand) causes that people start searching for ways to copy them faster, cheaper, etc.
And yes, although the rules understate the difficult costs of them, it shows the plethora of ways to transport information around in the safest, cheapest way possible.
I refer to reading books, mainly in Latin that was the most common, although many old texts in other lenguages start to get traduced, infusing new ideas.
I hope nothing that extreme! . There has to be some middle ground between information highways and the inexistence of universities! 
. I only think that the values of Qualities given in Covenants could be the most balanced from a gaming perspective, and that there are numerous reasons to keep at that levels. Heh, i even think that medieval nobles and princes (those who had the real power) thought that book were useless and expensive, when they were mainly interested in making war or tourneys :mrgreen: . At least until this period. And well, when they and everybody started to see how important the books were, human inventiveness made the rest .
I think it´s a thing of a mixed blessing. Yes, you can sell copies of a book, but only if you authored it. Perhaps a movement in the right direction, in the long run. But far from "i get a book, then i copy it as i wish" mentality of today.
Yeah, that industry was birthed more or less by 1200. Before, well, Dark Ages and all that . In this period it started to be seen much less occult, and started appearing books in Great Fairs.
At purpose, i loved "The Name of the Rose" .
Buf! Wall of text!
Is there any actual precedent for the Cow & Calf oath? I don't think medieval folk had copyright laws...
I'm with Xavi in that I agree that you need to ignore a great deal of the rules (or change them) to get a consistent setting, and a fun setting. If the rules would be followed to their logical conclusions, we would have Hermetic copying machines, communication, and travel networks established in short time and totally changing the setting. I think the key question is what setting is fun, and to play it like that regardless of the rules. It's fun to have small NPC libraries, but with rare high-quality books scattered here and there to give your characters incentive to travel, trade, and adventure.
Yep, in Ars Magica generally there aren´t any anti-power mongering rules, as it seems. It starts with the premise that you aren´t trying to exploit the systems at your favor, or only a little. Quite the contrary with games like Dungeons and Dragons, that in later editions even babysit you
Hi,
Cow & Calf is an actual ruling about a text from the sixth century.
I see game rules differently, especially in a game like AM, where the characters are trying to push the limits of things in character.
Anyway,
Ken
Certainly yes. Exactly how widespread its use was, hard to say.
Yeah, one of the things i dont like is how easy it can get to teleport around on a whim once the proper preparations are done. (my "fix" for that was to make any teleport using AC ritual...)
The instant travel was once a beef with me, but I really don't mind it anymore. The main problems I had with it, was back in 4th ed when people used some generously interpreted guidelines to make it extremely easy to fly. A simple Co spell to reduce you in weight, and a low level Auram spell to blow you forth In the following campaign we fixed this, and ruled such solutions to be useless, since you'd only whirl around as a fuzzy seed carrier. It then took higher magnitudes to fly, like Wings of Soaring Wind. Eventually this was spoiled by people always 'casting from text'. We made a bunch of copies of the widely used spells, and caster could make up for defecits in casting total with additional fatigue. Who cared if you lost 2-3 fatigue levels forf casting a Dur: Sun flying spell. It was simply for travel, and you'd make sure you were fresh the next day for the quest or encounter. Still, we did have a lot of good travel adventures, since the magi often brought grogs and companions along.
These days, i play a Tremere who just about managed to teleport properly. Good for being a scout type magus, and for staying in touch with the Domus Magna. It's not too easy, it does take some focus and prioritizing to cast a ReCo 7th magnitude spell. It did cost him a lot of fatigue and lots of warping from botching. I think I doubled my 27 year old magus' warping points during a story lasting 14 days game-time.