House Rules discussion (Unusual HRs and proposals)

No, rereading the proposal, it looks like I had misunderstood what you meant by doubling the level of the summa and what that meant "fluff-text"-wise. So, with the Q10 L10 summa. When studying Vis (and only when studying vis), you can use a summa in conjunction with the vis, and doing so adds Q/5 to the SQ, so the formula becomes Stress Die + Aura Bonus + Summa Quality/5. And one may use summa in conjunction with vis study up to twice the summa's level. This does not (as I had thought) entail additional information being revealed in the summa, but it merely enables the student to notice what he had not before. (A real-world analogy: it wasn't until the third time I had read a book that I realized that one character was related to another, which suddenly made some of the things that were said about them make more sense.)

If that's right, then I think I'm good.

That is why I would think of it as a Chemistry book as Magic, as done by ArM is closer to a practical science than history or any theoretical science.

The Summa would describe the action of an Art in a situation and experimenting with the vis would lead to practical knowledge of what the book is discussing rather than theory.

Think of it as Harry Potter in the 5th book when Umbridge gave the Defense Against the Dark Arts class a book on theory and expected them to make practical use from it. While actual practice in the art improved their skills.

That's something I forgot to ask. How do we handle twilight in teacher design. I'm planning on having Ealasaid with a couple of Scars by game time.

Mind you, I'd like to ask about the availability of Mystery Scripts as well. I assume as long as spend the appropriate seasons, I have access to House Mysteries but I was thinking of taking a common Mystery as well (Performance Magic). Might not get that far but worth asking.

Likewise if Ealasaid takes time off earlier in her career for 'stories' does that count as 'experience' for an appropeite Reputation or 'acquiring' something that is intended for use with the Story magic mystery virtue she intends to pick up?

Sure, take any scars you like, but any of the "positive" aspects of Twilight Episodes became experience points.

Regarding Mysteries, the scripts for Merinitae are well designed, so just point me at the script and advance your character, and if I want you to take more seasons off to account for the magnitude of the Mystery virtue, I'll discuss it with you in your thread. I think I had qcipher make some small adjustments to his advancement. As a guideline anything that requires a mystagogue to teach you requires a corresponding number of seasons of spent without experience, they have to teach, but no one says that they can't charge you for the privilege.

Noted, thanks boss.

Should have first decade and revised spell list up by tomorrow. Fluff might take another day or so.

When you get a chance, can you edit the Summa and the Tractatus rules into the House Rules post, please? (I'm a lazy sod, and like all my HR on one shelf :smiley: )

I don't recall doing anything to tractatus.

There's a penalty to the SQ for Arts tractatus if your (MT+Art) isn't at least 10, but if you read it with the penalty you can reread it later. For Ability tractatus, the penalty is (3-current score). (links in my previous post go to the rules posts in question)

Right.
I had it in my head that there wasn't any problem for staff. And I'm away from my computer so I couldn't look easily. I'll do some updates this evening as I have some unexpected free time.

What does everyone think that if your final spontaneous casting total before dividing by 2 could have created the effect when dividing by 5, that you don't lose fatigue? You must state the full effect you are going for, and cannot leave anything open ended, to try and get the best possible result when doing this.

That's really awkward, so on to the example.

For example, say Ambrose wants to create a wind that's a 5th level spell (Base 2 effect, R:Touch D: Momentary T:Ind, +2 Unnatural) and his die explodes, his total before dividing comes to 25. If he divided it by 5, it would still work, and he would keep the fatigue. IF he botches, he botches, with all the risks that it entails. Basically it gives something to the cases where the Arts are almost sufficient to divide by five and cast it automatically without fatigue, while still keeping the same element of risk.

I'd rather that were some kind of virtue or discovery to be honest. I like the fact that there is still the risk involved, but not without a Virtue or maybe a Mystery.

I agree - that sounds like an excellent minor hermetic virtue. besides, that way we can accuse Ambrose of being secretly a Diedne magus. :wink:

It is a pretty ineffective minor virtue, IMO. It's a virtue that only becomes available upon a roll of the dice, no other virtues work in this, and it's a pretty "expensive" proposition to trade a virtue for something that works only sometimes, and only if you're relatively lucky. Look back at all of the spontaneous spells you've cast qcipher, and how many of those castings would benefit from such a virtue?

My goal is to reward the exploding die roll above and beyond simply being able to cast a specific spell of a certain level. By and large this is a forgone conclusion that people will only cast spontaneous magic if they have a pretty decent chance of casting the effect. Spontaneous magic is generally unlikely in situations where your CS/2 is 3 less than the effect level, meaning I need to roll a 6 or better to get the effect off. This will only effect the low effects and those with superior Arts in their forms.

I have to agree that it sounds a bit itchy to have this be a virtue that only works some of the time and is entirely based upon the roll of a die to even work. And isn't there already a Virtue that allows for one to not become Fatigued when spontaneously casting?

OK, decent counter point. There has to be some give and take them IMO. How about for this to become an option, first you have to roll high enough, and then maybe say if you choose this option you can add nothing else to the spell that can normally be done with Spont. spell. Can't increase any of the spell's R, D, or T, nor add to its base power or Penetration.

Saving the fatigue would be reward enough i would think. How's that?

How about instead of rolling high enough it is exploding the first die?
I've already stipulated that the base and R/D/T and other parameters need to be fixed. Can't try for the highest possible effect or longest duration. Including penetration is fine as long as it is stated up front. All castings have no penetration unless specified.

Woops, must have missed that.

I corrected my DYAC post. I was doing it on the phone while on the treadmill. I'm surprised it wasn't mangled even worse than it was.

I think it sounds like a reasonable house rule.

I like the idea of it, for sure. Since I'm less experienced with the rule-set, I'll leave the balancing to others. The only reason I mention the virtue was that it's how I think - adding new options should have some kind of cost, unless people feel that the current rules for spontaneous magic are slightly sub-par in efficiency.