Whereupon it becomes necessary to balance things and fill in the inevitable gaps that exist in any given ruleset, so shall this thread be made to deal with those inconsistencies and put forth rules that are fair, balanced, and in the interest of keeping the game flowing smoothly. As always, I shall try to keep a table of contents here in the first post so that things may be found a bit easier.
[center]Purchasing Books[/center]
While magi create lab texts as they perform research and other activities in the lab, and while characters may spend time writing their own books or copying existing ones, the best way to improve or expand one's library is to purchase books instead of spending the time to draft them yourself. And while the text in Covenants tries to lay out some ground rules for pricing, it does not do it in a way that eliminates guesswork or makes it easy on the SG or the players to do so. So we have house rules to deal with this.
Mundane Books
We will continue to use the text on page 95 of Covenants here in that common, mundane books cost 1 mythic pound per, while less common books cost the same but incur the cost of 1 season to locate said book. Again, this is no change from the text in Covenants.
Hermetic Books
Hermetic books, such as lab texts, require more than actual silver to purchase. Magi have the ability to generate silver almost at whim, which makes money almost unnecessary or trivial. So magi have to use a currency that has actual value and use: Pawns of Vis. To whit, the prices of books are dealt with in Quarter Pawns, or qp. The formula for determining the cost of any given book is as follows:
Books on Arts: qp = Quality + Level
Books on Abilities: qp = Quality + (3 x Level)
It should be noted that vis used to purchase books related to an Art should match the type of Art. For example, if you are purchasing a book on Vim, the seller would prefer you to pay with Vim vis. This is not a hard rule, but rather a guideline.
[center]Purchasing Enchanted Items[/center]
Much like with books, there needs to be a system available for purchasing enchanted items of some fashion. And as stated under books, silver is nearly useless to magi, so we have to resort to using currency that has value: Pawns of Vis. And we will continue to use the Quarter Pawn, or qp, as the standard measurement for currency.
The costs for purchasing enchanted items is as follows:
Lesser Enchanted Items: qp = Magnitude + Level
Charged Items: qp = (Magnitude + Level) * Charges
Note that Talismans and Invested Devices may not be purchased. Talismans are specific to a given magus/maga, while Invested Devices are too detailed and research-intensive for any magus/maga to just up and sell.
Unlike books, the vis used to purchase a Lesser Enchanted Item must be split evenly between the types of vis used to create the item (Vim plus whatever vis was used for the effect(s)).
Lesser Enchanted Items require the purchase to be entirely in Vim as that is what is used to open the item for enchantment. Furthermore, the total cost of a Charged Item may not be lower than 2 qp.