Actually, I think that's a pretty good idea. Anything we can hammer out as done would be great. When I'm messing around with bigger Ars projects I tend to have a 'working' doc and a 'final' doc - It actually takes minutes for the current doc to fully load on my browser, so it would be nice if we could have a smaller doc with what we're currently focusing on to make it easier - or at least removing ones that are done (or pitched).
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Minutes?! I thought it was bad, but I am working on a computer that is basically a small server merged with an entry graphics workstation on gigabit internet. For me it was taking 10~15 seconds to load and I noticed it.
I do agree it would be better breaking things about between a 'working' and 'final' document. Itzhack does not even have to share the 'final' document but can just save it on his computer. Cut everything out of the 'working' version that is not maybe two or three TeFo combinations.
At the very least it would cut down the massive wall of comments which makes it hard to do anything.
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Well, it's loading the early part quickly, but it takes like 4 minutes to load the end of it.
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I have moved all the spells we've currently agreed on to a separate file, so it would be easier to focus. There are some spells in Muto Animal which have no comment on them, and am not sure if that's a good sign or not.
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I started doing a first pass review on the CrAq spells. Few notes I wanted to put out.
There are several spells designed to create a suit of ice armor. I am a little over halfway through and have already come across three of them. All are very different and I don't really like any of them. A wide range of protection and bulk, all sorts of special case rules, finesse roll creation quality, etc. We will have to reach a consensus on things like the protection and bulk from ice, cold exposure, finesse requirements, and so on. This is a discussion that having here on the forums would most likely be easier.
All of TheIronboundTome ice creation spells (there are a lot) use feet instead of paces. His math is also off in at least a few places. A Base Individual of Aquam is a pool that is 4,350 gallons (TME, p.119) using the most exact method I could find in RAW, compared to the pool 5 paces across and 2 paces at deepest description which gives variable results with how the bottom is curved found in Core. That gives us 21.53742 cubic paces or 581.5104 cubic feet. He uses a smaller 560 cubic feet (no problem, less efficient). I believe we should covert all of his numbers to paces and his inefficient design gives us a little fudge room to get nice round numbers. Also his Size modifiers need to be checked.
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I agree on generally using paces. I think it's much better for the international community so that people can choose to use meters rather than yards and have everything work out pretty much the same.
I don't know why someone recalculated things for TME after we had reasonable and much nicer values for years beforehand, and placed in a convenient box entitled "Volume Conversion Guide" (A&A p.76) rather than hidden in a spell. I would use the Volume Conversion Guide for everything; and that spell isn't so far off. There we see the Base Individual for water is 20 cubic paces (which rounds pretty nicely to 4000 gallons, though it's slightly bigger).
I agree on ice armor. There was a thread somewhere here where this was examined not too long ago... Ice Armor?
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Thanks, I knew that conversion guide was somewhere but couldn't remember where. Going with 20 cubic paces is a touch low but it is a nice round number that is easy to work with which is I'm sure the reason it was selected.
So 20 cubic paces is 540 cubic feet, meaning his numbers are high. I'll start going through my comments and correcting them to that.
As for that thread on Ice Armor, I am pretty sure it is one of the spells in the document.
EDIT: There are also several spells that create "Boiling Oil" and use the 'natural liquid' for calculating size. However boiling oil is an "otherwise dangerous" liquid (it causes damage touching it) so should use the same size calculation as Corrosive per ArM5, page 121. Any liquid that does damage on contact should use that same size scale.
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Re: Ice Armor - we could leave those harder to balance spells for the end when we've worked out through the 80-90% of the spells that can easily be validated.
On measuring... I'll have to disagree. I agreed to calculate the math behind to ensure the measurements match guideline limits, but I don't think we should rewrite description to move everything that's measured in foot to paces or to gallons. It's not as if the base book all use pace measurements everywhere, roughly half the spells use paces, the other half uses foot. If the original writer wrote his in foot, I'd rather not change the measuring to paces, and stick to verifying overall measures.
I believe one of the ice armors is mine, which I made because I wasn't happy with existing ones, and one of my players really wanted ice armor, even if it was worse than normal armor.
As you may have discerned, I don't think non-metal armor conjured should be as effective as equivalent metal armor would.
... now I want to make a new ice armor spell... Damnit.
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I have been only noting the numbers in comments, not actually changing anything since no one else has commented on them yet.
However there are several in which his math is wrong and even the ones his math was right are wrong because he was working from a 560 cubic feet Base Individual when it is actually 540 cubic feet (20 cubic paces). He also often list numbers for yards in brackets and gets those wrong. Feels like in many he was using meters but called them yards. Things such as calling 300 feet about 90 yards, when it is actually exactly 100 yards.
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I finished all the CrAq spells. That only took... nearly 13 hours today plus a few hours yesterday. Considering that is only 7.5 pages I was moving at a brisk rate of a page every two hours. Most of that was dealing with the spells from TheIronboundTome. I marked the three ice armor spells with "Ice Armor spell. This should be moved to later review per the discussion in the forum thread" since those are going to be a pain.
At the end I quit calculating the exact math since my brain is getting fuzzy. Will spend a couple hours tomorrow doing the exact math. Should I move on to InAq after that or wait?
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Sorry for commenting from the side of the playfield, but 
We play Ars as an international team. It is a pain in the ass for us to convert all the foot and pace and inch to any standard, internationally understandable measurment unit. (The Imperial System is basicly used only in the US)
The PACE is a nice thing, bc it feels somehow medieval and it is easily convertible to meters as roughly 1 pace=1meter.
All in all it would be a great help for all the people outside of the USA if the spells use pace and cubic pace. If I calculated well 1 pace is around 0,76 meter, and 1 cubic pace is 0,44 cubic meter. Maybe one sentence in the prelude about spell size conversion, like: "You can easily graps the size of effects if you convert 1 pace to 1 meter, and 1 cubic pace to 0,5 cubic meter."
Keep up the great work! I am waiting for this Grimoire like a little child before Christmas 
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Things slowed down with the holidays but I know I have really started cranking on getting stuff done. I am most of the way through a third TeFo in three days. Not sure how long I can maintain this pace but I will need to slow down so others can review my comments anyway.
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1 pace in Ars Magica is exactly 3 feet = 1 yard = 0.9144m
So 1 cubic pace is 0.765 cubic meters.
If you want to round the pace off to 1 meter, then 1 cubic pace would of course be the same as 1 cubic meter.
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@Red-Shadow-Claws Hi! I want to say thank you for the great initiative of this Fan Grimoire!
If you or the group need an extra pair of eyes to check the spells please feel free to add me.
Now I have extra free time and I would happily use it for help to get this epic project done!
PM me if I am needed.
Thank you for the correction @ErikT ! In that case it is easier to convert things, bc we can use a "1 pace3 is roughly 1m3" conversion - I think this 0,25 m3 difference means not a big deal.
But the other part of my opinion is still valid I think: those gallons, inches, feet, etc (cowboy hats multiplied by cubic racoon 
) are kind of alien to the SI trained european mind.
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Don't get too excited, since I don't see us calculating everything out to metric.
Just be glad we are not using things like Hands. The amount of people who know and use that measurement is pretty much limited to horse people. Even the way it is written is confusing since the number after a decimal place is showing quarter hands. So a horse that is fifteen and a half hands high would be written as "15.2 hh".
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@InfinityzeN : Yeah, I can imagine it is an enormous amount of work to check all those spells. That's why I wrote to the OP. I gladly do the calculations for every spell in the would-be grimoire and rewrite that part which contains the units of measurement.
I can totally relate to this story about horse people. My fater was a farmer and they used all kind of near-esoteric stuff to measure field, animal and different kind of crops. Like: "handful", "golden kroner", "stone", "fathom". Maybe that is the cause why I hate non-SI measurement bc I never really got those units.
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Don't apologise for commenting. It's fine.
Although I'm going to have to disagree with everything you said. 
First, I'm outside of the USA. Most of us are. As a Canadian, I'm stuck with a dual system. Stuck being taught both the metric system and the imperial one because Canada uses metric but our economy's so tightly integrated with the US that I need to know it too or I'll be dysfunctional when buying consumer products (most things measured in liters and then a recipe talks about ounces and pints, some things are measured in meters, others in inches and foot... it's a pain). I'm pointing this out to illustrate that I'm not arguing for my parish because I enjoy the imperial system and don't want to deal with learning the metric system - I know the later and I don't enjoy the former either. And definitely converting everything to paces doesn't help me, it makes my conversion job longer.
Also, although the game appears to use the imperial system, it doesn't really, or at least not the full US imperial system, it's an odd ball version that feels more medievalish and includes things like:
- A pace which is worth 3 feet. This is known as a yard in the US. The US also has a pace unit which is 2.5 feet. The pace in ancient rome is 5 ft. Which means a 3 feet pace is specific to ars and is likely to confuse anyone in the world because the references to it in the base book are obscure and google and wikipedia will actually give you wrong values for it if you try to look it up;
- Something called a league which isn't used anymore in any countries as far as I know, but which thankfully you can look up online;
- A ton that weighs 2420 lbs according to City & Guild when a short ton (used in the US) weighs 2000 lbs and a long ton (used in the UK) weighs 2240 tons. Where does 2420 lbs come from? As far as I understand - nowhere, it looks like a deliberate decision to make something up, much like the pace is a made up measurement, although I can't rule out that it was initially a typo for the british ton that stuck with the game line because it was used for price calculation.
The reality is that when you're saying it would be a great help to people outside of the US to convert everything into a pace because you can conveniently decide it's really a meter and it saves you time on converting units:
- You're missing out the fact that americans have to convert the game measurements too, because the game doesn't actually use their imperial system. Paces, Leagues and tons makes no sense as is to your average american, even if feet feels intuitive;
- Assuming everyone who uses the metric system has agreed on the same 1 pace to 1 meter conversion your group has decided to use for convenience, when it is in fact house rule territory and another group might be using something else. My group makes volume conversion calculation if we need to.
At some point, using paces and feet was an editorial decision for the game line. If it was my decision, I wouldn't use paces and leagues anywhere in the game, or if I did, I would ensure their definition is clearer. It's not my decision - I'll accept the measurements offered by the game line, whatever they are, and I'll calculate the conversions I need to make when I use it in my games if it's important to me. I'm not planning to change paces to feet, even though if I use it in my game, that's most likely what I'll do if measuring is important. I hope you won't mind if I expect you to do the same calculation from feet to paces if it feels neater to you because a pace is a meter in your group, and not ask us to impose your measuring house rule on the game line and everyone who plays it.
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Putting this here rather than going to comment on a LOT of single spells.
Now that we've started into Josephine's section of the Grimoire we're getting a lot of additions of +1 Herbam requisites. I've been under a possibly mistaken assumption from my (admittedly brief, maybe an hour) research that the majority of clothing in the 13th century was leather, wool, and silks. How common really was linen or herbam fabrics outside of underthings?
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