The text of Practice xp regarding Area Lore is certainly subject to interpretation.
I'd probably go with 5 xp of practice if it's a nominally free season but he's described as running messages during that time. If he were "on leave", or if the Area Lore covers exactly the same area that he's working in, then I'd go with 7 xp. That's basically how I read that second bullet point in page 164.
When I say "exactly the same area", I mean that if the territory he is working in is "Morea", then he could get 7 xp in "Area Lore: Morea". If he wanted to learn more about Patras, but is still delivering messages elsewhere during the season, then I'd say he gains only 5xp in "Area Lore: Patras".
Well, it is a matter of definition of "nominally" vs "genuinely" free. To me, if he is spending only a small part of his time delivering messages (say two or three week over the season) then that would constitute "nominally free".
Since he is neither Wealthy nor Poor, 2 of his seasons are spent delivering messages, and 2 seasons "genuinely free".
Note that the last sentence of the relevant bullet point reads: "... while a character with a genuinely free, or working as a messenger, could claim a Source Quality of seven."
As I stated in my last message, I think a redcap working on delivering messages could reasonably claim 7 xp of practice in Area Lore for the exact same area that he is covering in his deliveries. If the area doesn't match exactly, then I could envision him getting 5 xp in a related Area Lore.
It might seem like this is giving redcaps a lot of xp in Area Lore. But it is, after all, one of their purpose in the Order of Hermes: keeping the magi informed about what's going on in the real world. So it's part of the job as messengers.
Okay, I was all set to come in and throw my hat in with Arthur's interpretation. But as I thought the matter through, I began to see that silveroak's interpretation has merit. In the second bullet on Practice Source Quality, the rules say that practicing Area Lore by traveling around or living in an area merits a Source Quality of 5 to 7, depending on how thoroughly the character can explore the area. They note that a character living in a city while working in a trade could claim one of his nominal free seasons as a Source Quality five practice in Area lore for the city, while a character with a genuinely free season in the city, or working as a messenger, could claim a Source Quality of seven.
At first I took Arthur's view of things, i.e., if someone acts as a messenger for a season, they could claim a Practice Source Quality of 7 for Area Lore. But then I started to wonder. That's a pretty big jump from 2 experience (what a normal person could get in Area Lore as Exposure experience during a season of work) to 7 experience (if that's what a messenger gets as Practice experience during a season of work).
I note that a character living in a city while practicing a trade does not get Practice Source Quality of five for a season of work; they only get that Practice Source Quality if they spend one of their nominal free seasons in practicing Area Lore. Thus, if a grog spends a "free" season learning Area Lore, he only gets five Practice experience, since that is only a nominal free season and not a genuine free season. In comparison, a magus would get 7 Practice experience for a "free" season learning Area Lore, since his free season is a genuine free season. (I think a number of us may have been doing this wrong.) If a grog wanted to learn Area Lore during a nominally working season, he should probably be able to do so, but would only get Exposure experience of two.
Getting back to the messenger status, however, I can think of a perfectly reasonable interpretation that makes a little more sense. When the rules say that someone working as a messenger could claim a Source Quality of seven, they may be referring to a messenger working in a location who spends a nominal free season in practice. This would be in comparison to a person practicing a normal trade, who would only get a Source Quality of five. This makes a certain amount of sense, since working as a messenger would allow you to travel around more, and give a better Source Quality during a nominal free season when compared to someone working in a trade. However, in each case, the worker in question would only get the Practice Source Quality if he spent a nominal free season practicing the Area Lore.
Another HR situation I would like to bring up- traditionally when a single character is involved in more than one adventure in a season I tend to allow the experience points to stack for adventure experience. I know this is not strictly RAW, and I can see reasons not to allow it (encouraging playing different characters in the season) so I wanted to see what everyone else thought of this as a house rule.
Also I do want to encourage others with adventure ideas to take the initiative and start off your own adventures as well...
(Not sure about the question of multiple story experience in a season. Gut feel, I don't mind.)
I was reading a thread on the Ars Magica forum, and came across this https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/how-much-does-a-teacher-charge/9339/1 description of "root" arts books being cheap. I am presuming that we are simply not using that informal "rule"? (I had never heard of it before, so I am just trying to understand.)
I was thinking about non-spell die rolls and stress vs simple rolls. In particular, the finesse roll used with a very safe spell casting.
When I cast a spontaneous spell at 1/5 of casting total, I do not roll a die to add. It can not botch. Now, if the spell also requires a finesse roll, that seems to normally be a stress roll. A botch messes up, even though it does not cause warping or risk twilight.
Given that the base spell is so safe, and if there is no time pressure, could the finesse die be a simple die instead (giving up the absurdly good results for getting rid of the 0 and the botch?)
Whether it is stress or not depends on the situation, as with any ability roll. Craft magic under non stressfull conditions, for example, would use an intelligence+finesse roll with a simple die.
Per the discussion in odds and ends, I had always assumed that Apprentices could use books in the covenant library where they were training, with the magi having priority of course. This enables the master to develop a stronger apprentice. Prohibiting that seems really odd.
(In character this will only get expressed when this goes to the council.)
p. 61 of societies states "Attempting to create a flourish adds 3 to the ease factor for the spell's intelligence+flourish roll", thus the roll for craft magic is intelligence. Where a roll is to affect the physical world more accurately (aim an indirect attack) perception would be used instead.
Im with you on that joel, Omphalos in particular could not possibly even if he wanted to teach an apprentice 4 seasons a year, thus books are generally a good place for them to start to get their learning together. Im very pro apprentices getting their time into the books.
Argg. I see what you mean. But that makes a mess of things. I had read other portions (apparently erroneously) as implying that perception would be what I would use with most craft related uses of finesse (such as shearing sheep, improving glassware or pottery, making clothing...). That's why I put so much into perception for him. And I liked it because it made him less of a lab rat.
I can try to make Evangelos work as is, but I am going to have to work much harder pushing his actual finesse skill MUCH farther (slowing down other things I wanted to be able to do).
Are there other alternatives that make sense?
One though is to have scribes make cheap copies at -1 to SQ that would not be so tragic if they are ruined...
or maybe have rules depending on the book- high level low SQ is less useful to students anyways..
Indeed, I was thinking along similar lines -- books copied quickly (-1 Quality), perhaps even without the proper illuminations (-1 Quality) and/or flap-bound (-1 Quality) to save time and efforts. Few magi would consider studying from such books, but they are perfectly appropriate for apprentices.
Completely OOC, letting apprentices study from a full library can produce inflated power levels as compared to what the core book rules produce. Now, I understand and accept that an apprentice played out through the 13-15 years of apprenticeship will be slightly more powerful. But unrestricted access to the same library of full magi can produce an apprentice who Gauntlets nearly twice as powerful. So my rationale is that most covenant would consider letting an apprentice lose upon the library something undesirable.
In-character, I had Maximilian explain some of the rationale against giving apprentices access to the library -- books are fragile and valuable, apprentices are young and careless, and the uncontrolled manifestations of the Gift can create incidents. And magi are proud in general, so they would view those books are theior exclusive purview.
Of course there is very little in the rules to indicate the danger of who handles the books, in my experience it is far less of a issue once basic literacy (artes liberals:1) is achieved- at least if my children are any guide. That opposed to how the magi might worry however are two different issues. I am not concerned with trying to keep apprentices to match what the character generation process produces. Especially when we are talking about in play development. The one thing you can be certain of is that books being used by apprentices will not be available for other characters. If we want to have a house rule about book damage I could see either requiring a simple roll against age+artes liberals with a target number of 14 each season to avoid damaging a book, or against int+artes liberals with a target number of 3. Either of these is trivial enough that an adult magi would not need to roll, bt children with int penalties might potentially miss the roll, if the troop wants to enact such a house rule to give some validation to the concerns of some magi and make such considerations more meaningful.
The key to my reaction is that anyone who is willing to take the time to play through 14 years of apprenticeship is welcome to the boost it gives them. Presumably, by then our Magi will be rather better. I wish that the learning rules and common view of book availability lined up better with the apprenticeship guidelines in core. But things are what they are.
Given in my TT game our covenant was rather hands on and ensured the best education for our apprentices possible...my apprentice at gauntleting could wax her master and likely another. Though when it comes down to it, getting that sort of focus produces results, ive seen apprentices who get dipped in vis, and squeezed out to get the stuff and a lovely twilight rating of 4-5 upon graduation. Im a firm beleiver in this game of Effort in ---> Reward out, want to make sure your apprentice has it better than you then yeah they probbly are going to be, but thats sort of the goal of alot of magi to produce a better next generation. No one wants to be known as Magus DumF#* who produced such a poor student.
I'm not trying to force the troupe anymore on the power level. This is not about that at all. It is more of a roleplaying thing, my character making his view of education clear. And it was the prevalent view of education at the time.
For example, Apprentices p.43 mentions this:
So I don't think my magus' view on the issue is outlandish. Of course, other magi can have different views, so that's why I approached it through a roleplaying thread.
I don't think we need a House Rule for book damage. Too much book keeping and, in any case, even full magi can cause damage to books. There is really no need to go there, IMHO.
That said, just because we don't have rules on book damage (based on die rolls), doesn't mean that book damage doesn't happen as a normal thing. It just happens. When the reader is careless, or young, or if he/she reads books in an inproper place (such as outdoors), it happens more often. That's one of the reasons why libraries (in real life) were so strict about who could access those books, and under what conditions. I'm just suggesting that some (or even many) magi shared that approach. Maximilian is simply one of those.
So, again, this wasn't an attempt to force the troupe to restrict access to the library by apprentices, or to implement book damage rules. It was simply a roleplaying thread. I expect Maximilian to be defeated if he brings the topic to council vote. 8)