Which rules do you think are hard to find in the ArM5 core rulebook? I am mainly interested in rules that are in the book, but that are not where you expect them to be, or not where they are often needed. Obviously, if there is a rule that is missing completely, please let me know, but we should have spotted that by now. (See the other thread for rules from other books that you think should be in the core.)
Please post here, so that other people can post agreement, and possibly be reminded of things that they find difficult.
I am afraid that I cannot, right now, say much about why I am asking about this, except that it is not purely personal interest.
Please do not post anything other than hard-to-find rules in this thread; I have created another thread for speculation about why I am asking this. If this thread gets cluttered with other posts, I might miss things, so I will move posts that do not belong here.
Directly creating Intelligence with Hermetic spells and effects
Guidelines for moving stuff by Rego
Rego Craft magic (IMO this is core enough to be in this list)
It would be nice to have these topics addressed in a supplement or revised core book. It might help to go through Guideline lists for those which should have been in the core from the beginning.
The following two topics are scattered around several supplements, and not even the most obvious ones. They come up a little too often to be so haphazardly treated. Collecting and completing the rules would make it a lot easier.
ships and navigation (HP, LoM, C&G)
familiar/animal design (HoH:MC, RoP:M, a few web supplements)
Penetration of special abilities for beings with might ( I can nevr find this quickly)
a list of what the modifiers to spell levels do (is touch +1, what level is smell?) The descriptions are there, but a table with numbers on would be nice
What is going on with the MuMe comment about applying Intellego senses to a group? It's the first full paragraph on p.114. It's never explained how this is done at all, so it's impossible to find. The statement only adds a level of confusion beyond saying nothing at all, and something like extra magnitudes also need to be included for Group would take as much space and be helpful.
Specify that "level" in a guideline is the guideline level rather than the spell level. That has confused a lot of people.
The ability chapter does not spell out all the rules governed by the abilities. i.e. Magic Theory of 3 is required to build a lab is in the lab section. Needing a language score of 4 to read a book, and a score of 5 to write a book is not there either.
I think there should be three categories of magical limits, Greater Hermetic limits, lesser hermetic limits, and limits of the magic realm such as the limit of the Infernal which is true of all powers related to magic which often gets lost being as it is in the infernal section of the realms chapter. I don’t think any of the other hermetic limits fall into this category but I may be wrong.
Bringing something from a post accidentally placed in the errata thread to here:
A lot of people get confused by "study one of these Arts (that is, gain at least one experience point from study)" under Elemental Magic. If you dig deep enough, the answer is there: generating an Advancement Total from which you gain experience. But that takes a lot of digging to find that Advancement totals only arise from "a season in study" and confirmation that exposure is "by being exposed to the thing to be studied" and that an example of study is given as "perhaps from Adventure experience." Simply changing the parenthetical note to be about Advancement Total rather than what it currently is would clarify it immensely for people.
A pace is actually a standardized unit of measurement. There are four variants consisting of: United States, Ancient Roman, Byzantine, and Welsh. We can ignore the United States (didn't exist yet), Byzantine (not standardized between Greek States), and Welsh (limited to an extremely small area) versions.
The Ancient Roman Pace is the most likely distance referred to in AM. It was standardized in 29 BC and consisted of two complete steps, roughly 5 Roman feet. That works out to about 1.48 meters or 4 feet 10 inches. The Roman Mile was 1,000 Roman Paces, roughly 1,617 yards (1,479 m) in length.
You just proved Heru Kane's point. We know a pace is very nearly equal to a modern imperial yard, three feet. That you did not arrive at this despite it being written in a bunch of places in the book illustrates that the rule is a fairly hard-to-find rule.
I would include that a round is 6 seconds as well as a pace being 3 feet. For the pace, though, it could be worth a comment that setting it to 1 meter is close enough and might work better for many troupes.
You're just proving the point further. Google is very unlikely to give you an Ars Magica answer. Have you tried using Google to find the rules for a Talisman? ArM5 itself specifies that its pace is basically a yard. So we have a bunch of people demonstrating that this really is a hard-to-find rule. Heru Kane was definitely right to point it out as one.
p.112: ten paces per round (five feet per second)
p.172: A single combat round, consisting of one attack from every party to the combat, takes about six seconds.
I think any ambiguity about "pace" is more that the players are being too 'smart' for their own good.
As far as I can see, there has never been any intent for "pace" in Ars Magica to be read as anything other than the common US definition. Ars Magica is written in standard US English. "Pace" just seems to have been picked because it sounds a bit more "ye olde" than "meter".
Likewise it is assumed that "minute" will be read in modern US English.
The difficulty arises when players realise that there are various archaic definitions of pace, and erroneously suppose that "pace" is meant to be read as part of an in-character measurement.
If you write «in-character standardised measurement» I am going to agree. Authentic in-character measurement is very rarely going to be standardised or as accurate as we are used to. And in this view there is no conflict between modern use and period use. The point is, sloppy measures work better narratively. And we who are brought up to think in metres, will treat a foot in the same way. It is the length of somebody's foot.
But you are absolutely right that this should be made clear in the core rules. And consistently treated. I have a feeling that some authors have been thinking in terms of accurate measures (ten rounds to a minute and a pace is a yards) and some in terms of narrative sloppiness (6-10 rounds to a minute and a pace is the length of a step).
Of course, if the players read the rules with the same sloppiness, it does not matter, but it only takes one engineering nerd to create tension in the troupe.