Dat Puissant Magic Theory...

Doesn't Puissant Magic Theory apply to pretty much everything you do in the lab, since all lab totals involve active use of Magic Theory? And especially importantly, would Puissant Magic Theory increase the amount of vis you can put into a single project for a season, or does that not really count as "using" Magic Theory?

The +2 cannot count when Teaching, or you get issues like: I have MT6, I can teach you to 6+2; you have MT6+2, you can teach me to 8... from where does that knowledge come? This is the main reason for that limitation and there are little reason to extend it further..

But back to your point: you can apply Exposure (ArM5 p163) to "Abilities which were used consistently", Magic Theory is listed as a possible choice for laboratory work. Therefore laboratory work uses Magic Theory.

Almost everything, yes. But compare it with Inventive Genius, which gives you +3, and +6 when you experiment!

Absolutely, Puissant Magic Theory effectively allows you 4 more pawns of vis. It's one of the few perks it has over Inventive Genius.

Absolutely - for some things, like the Inscription on the Soul mystery virtue which requires a magical theory of 8, Puissant MT saves a stack of xp. For non-verditius who want to enchant things like flying boats or large stone archways, you really need large magic theory scores to open them.

I prefer p:MT to IG because of the vis limits, except for experimenters who get the full +6. Of course, why not take both? :slight_smile: After all, if Affinity MT is good, then a:MT+p:MT is better, and a:MT+p:MT+IG is better still!

Another benefit of p:MT is that the +2 counts toward tricking out your lab.

Unfortunately, Puissant MT is a general virtue (since it's Puissant ) else it'd be teachable. Oh well, time to look at Initiations :wink:

A few more advantages to Puissant Magic Theory over Inventive Genius:

  • It applies to all uses of the lab, which include distilling vis and working from a Lab Text.
  • You can get 2 higher Refinement in your lab.
  • It gets you 2 closer to those special values of 6 or 11 in Magic Theory when you're doing original research, which is more valuable than having a high lab total.

I've always assumed that Inventive Genius applies when working from a Lab Text, too (I assume that's what a lab notebook is, but I may be wrong). It certainly applies when working from an item Lab Text. It's true that ArM5 says it applies when learning "new" spells, but taken in the context of the sentence (particularly considering the reproduction of magical items) it seems to me that "invent new spells" should be understood as "invent additional spells".

I fixed it. I'm away from my books for a month.

So why say "new"? Just drop the word if its for any spell. It would be much clearer and simpler to say "invent spells" than "invent new spells" if the first were intended. Plus, by the name of the Virtue, you're really not being inventive when you're copying work.

I'll have to wait a few weeks to research to see about the certainty of item Lab Texts unless someone can paste the text easily. Oh, and from what I remember of the language, there are the hanging questions about familiar bonds and longevity rituals, right?

Ok, this is Inventive Genius, straight from the core book:

It seems pretty straightforward that it benefits you whenever crafting a magic item, even when working from a lab text. This debunks the argument that you really need to do "new" stuff to get the bonus, and suggests the bonus applies in general when learning spells.

It's unclear what "potions" are, though I suspect it's an old name for Longevity Rituals.

It certainly does not appear to work with familiars, as you say, which seems kind of odd to me.

I had read that as a old/odd name for charged items.