I have a question about elemental magic. It says that when at least one xp is gained on one elemental art one is gained in each of the others. So if I put 10 xps in ignem, would i get 10in each of the other 3 arts?
No, you get 1XP in each of the others.
OK. So say I want to creat an old magus, say 80, how do I work that out? In order to know exactly how much bonus xp I should recieve in each art I would need to create him season by season, which is a horrible effort. Should I just divide xp normally and then just give him an extra, say, 50 or 60 bonus xp in each elemental art?
According to RAW, you dont.
My own solution for this would be to assume that it triggers once or twice per year, meaning you get to place up to 2 XP/year after opening the arts for 3 of the 4 arts. And of course, you will have to make sure that for every such triggering, you also spend at least 1 XP on the 4th art as otherwise the trigger wouldnt have happened.
So, if we say he was 10 when opening the arts that gives you 70 or 140XP in 3 arts for spending 70-140+ in the 4th as minimum values.
To simplify, when using XP bonus virtues, i give 3-6 per year for a minor and 5-12 for a major depending on what power level is wanted and the exact nature of the virtue.
Also, by RAW you only trigger it when studying somehow.
Persephone in Magi of Hermes offers a method for doing this (although she has Secondary Insight rather than Elemental Magic). Assume an average Source Quality for the Arts of 8 each time an Art is studied. So calculate the scores of the magus without any extra xp, then divide the xp in each affected Art by 8, and apply that many extra to each of the other Arts.
For example, a magus after normal character creation has the following scores:
Aq 6(3) [24xp total]
Au 10 [55xp total]
Ig 8(4) [40xp total]
Te 12(3) [81xp total]
The magus has studied Aquam about 3 times, so +3 xp to Au, Ig and Te
He has studied Auram about 6 times, so +6 xp to Aq, Ig, and Te
He has studied Ignem about 5 times, so +5 to Au, Aq, and Te
He has studied Terram about 10 times, so +10 to Au, Aq, and Ig.
Final scores:
Aq 9(0) [45xp total]
Au 11(7) [73xp total]
Ig 10(4) [59xp total]
Te 13(4) [95xp total]
Hope this helps,
Mark
That's a fudge of the rules done by Persephone. If you want to have your XP-generating Virtues to have an effect, you need to advance the magus using the Extremely Complex Character Generation, ArM5, p. 33. You'd need to generate an entire library and political Tribunal (for book-trading) just for that character then, though.
Except whoever is playing can say screw that and use simple houserules like mentioned above instead.
+1
Whoever is playing will most certainly use those statted magi as NPCs. And NPCs don't conform to the rules -- except one: The Rule of Plot.
Not necessarily. You might want to play a game of old magi. In those cases you generate the PCs as old magi and you need some rule of thrump like this one 
Cheers,
Xavi
If you're playing older magi, you'd have the library and the tribunal ready. I once played in a saga, where we started out, had our first adventure, then the SG told us "here, you have 30 years to do stuff". That was interesting, as no-one knew we'd play old magi. That stuff is important, as if you'd know beforehand that you'd play old magi, you'd generate different magi. Skilled Parens is worth less then, for instance.
Ah, and "advance 30 years" is the Extremely Complex Character Generation I mentioned above 
Rules are not there to balance the PCs to the world and the NPCs. They solely exist to balance the PCs between themselves. That's why these "rule-fudges" are dangerous. If everyone agrees, and they don't change your player's actions (inducing them to pick different virtues, etc), then everything is fine.
The insert in Hedge Magic on page 19 gives an optional rule to approximate the effect in character creation:
"for Elemental Magic, take the total number of experience points spent on the four Forms and equally divide half that amount amoung them"
So you should give him 1/8 of the total number of experience points spent on the four Forms as bonus xp in each elemental Art.
Regards,
adumbratus
How does it work when you put xp in different elemental arts ? Say 1 xp in Ignem and 1 xp in Terram. Do you get as bonus :
1 xp in Aquam, 1 xp in Auram, 1 xp in Ignem and 1 xp in Terram (virtue applies only once)
OR
2 xp in Aquam, 2 xp in Auram, 2 xp in Ignem and 2 xp in Terram (virtue applies twice, once for Ignem and once for Terram)
OR
Nicolas
But how do you put 2 points in 2 different arts...
I see various ways of doing that :
a) simply by using different Elemental Arts in an adventure, and putting xp in those used Arts
b) learning a CrIg spell from a teacher as well as a ReTe spell, putting 1 exposure xp in Ig and the other one in Te
c) inventing a Ig spell with a Te requisite, and putting 1 exposure xp in Ig and the other one in Te (this one might not work as requisites are not taken into account with Elemental Magic)
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