Or maybe just one, copying books treat art levels and ability levels as equal, while original authoring has three points for an ability equating one point for an art. The same conversion should be used in both, but this is clearly correcting a misprint IMHO, and not overruling the design.
By and large I think ArM works well, and house rules tend to create more problems than they solve. Particularly, it is difficult to keep them consistent, and once you start house ruling you may be forced to rule more.
That said, it would be delighted to see more complete house rule sets posted, simply because when the rule sets are complete, it is possible to gauge their consistency. Fragmented rules remain ideas only ... one cannot know how they work without knowledge of the other house rules in play.
I have one simple house rule that helps a lot: experience from botches and 1s is limited by Warping just as all other experience is with Sympathy Traits.
Yes they are spreadsheets. The redacted one we have access to has several of the tabs removed and then the remaining data cut down or replaced with "???". For example the only OR and Integrations we know of at VR, I, or N level of spread are ones we have created ourselves.
Many of the ones we know are being researched are through House Bonisagus politics. There is also the assumption that many of the Hermetic Virtues are being studied for Full Integration (especially ones that can easily be explained by a refinement of Hermetic Theory like 'Adept Lab Student'). The varies example OR scattered throughout the line are also on the redacted version (Parma Folds, Aristotle/Plato Magic Theory, LR w/ Fertility). Several of the Supernatural Ability granting Virtues are being studied for Integration. SG said all the non-Core Spell Mastery abilities we use should be on the list, but we added them to the game before the list was created. I am sure he has a few being studied on his full list.
There are a few completed ones on the list that have caused interesting changes in the game. The LR w/ Fertility is one (though its spread is only Rare) and Refined Arcane Connections is Common (it reduces the time to ~ a week, you can produce your MT total in a season).
There are also the ones we have created or are working on. My Magus permanent version of "Awaken Plants" is Rare (it is niche). Our "Blood of Hermes" OR/Integration is also on our list, though it is currently only being researched.
This is very cool and I may steal it. Would you or your SG be willing to share a copy of the spreadsheet as it stands, so I can see the form fields involved?
The redacted copy is fairly simple, since it only has things that the PCs know. It list the Subject, Success Total Needed (which will of course vary by game), PC total (if any of us are researching it), NPC Name & totals (which are all '?' for totals since we have not done any espionage), Source location (book & page), Description (which covers a rough description of its effect), and Notes (odds and ends, like that the Aristotle and Plato research is being done by groups). It is split out between an OR tab and an Integration tab, with related things grouped. There is also a tab which defines the Spread levels (which I posted earlier in the thread).
I don't think my SG would give me a copy of the full version to share. He is an EB and has things in it which I am sure he does not want any of us seeing.
Oh, I just remembered another rule I have as an automatic.
You can add levels of Complexity to spells instead of having them require a Finesse roll. This super applies to Creo but can also sometimes apply to other Arts as well for all that its mostly focused on Creo.
Basically, you conjure something with levels of Complexity and the magic works, no need for what I consider to be bad design Finesse roll.
My group specifically allows added Complexity to reduce the time modifier. We also allow Creo ritual creation effects to take a number instead of rolling, which when combined with enough Complexity to reduce the time modifier to 0 lets it always succeed with a Standard result. This allows several Core spells to be used as written.
Are you talking about Spontaneous Magic here? Cause if so I don't assume that Complexity can be added out of nowhere in order to bypass Finesse there.
This is mostly in terms of creating things out of nowhere or using magic to craft things, and it mostly applies to formulaic spells. Basically, in my view, the magus does the research ahead of time, and puts that research in the spell's laboratory text and so when it comes to casting they don't have to do things on the fly.
But if you are doing things on the fly then yeah, Finesse as an ability makes perfect sense.
Not at all. When speaking of combat spells you usually (for my best knowledge) choose if you want your spell to try to penetrate but otherwise always find their mark, or to roll finesse to guide the attack in one way or another. Now if you can choose the finesse option but then decide that you don't want to roll that finesse, instead just add +5(+10? +15?) to the spell's level and get the best of both worlds... thats kinda cheating.
Still, combat is not a huge part of the game so it might not break anything, but it could in a very obvious way. Assassinating a fellow member of the Order is now trivial. If I'm right then you basically just removed magic resistance from the game.
In fact, it is not a house rule. As Philippus Niger is fond of saying:
"Pfft! You only need one season to set up a laboratory.
A simple, honest laboratory, that does its job.
(and has the Basic Lab flaw, giving -3 to the lab total, until a 2nd season is spent to improve it).
Now, you want all the fripperies that today's magi seem to want, to compensate for their poor understanding of the Arts? Athanors and astrolabes and all that ridiculous junk that redcaps are constantly hawking? In that case, sure, you'll need seasons and seasons more!
But in the days of my youth ..."
I don't have a problem with complexity magnitudes providing a bonus or decreasing the easy factor of finesse rolls. That seems to be a valid interpretation of canon, although I am not sure how well the wording supports it, and it certainly does not provide guidelines as to how big the bonus ought to be. This would work with both combat and craft magic.
Avoiding the finesse roll altogether feels like cheating. In a sense, if there is no risk, there is also no chance of making a brilliant piece of art, as you often attempt with craft magic.
