Exposure: Limit 2 per season
Practice: Limit 3-8 per season
Tractatus: Limit once, limited by the writer
Did you even read my later posts? I am all in favor of giving the PC all of the experience, just spread out over the course of several seasons. There's only so much a person can learn at once.
In ArM5 Intelligence was the capacity to learn. In the errata that was modified to the speed and ease with which you can learn. I say Intelligence should play a direct role in how much a person can learn from raw vis during any one season.
My proposed total: Int + Magic Theory + Art. If the source quality of the vis is higher, then it isn't expended yet. You can continue drawing from it in following seasons until you have absorbed it all.
I read your later posts, but apparently you did not read mine, as I stated just before making the statement you decided to unnecessarily correct:
[color=blue]I'm assuming by gain limit you mean a maximum level to which an ability may be raised using that type of learning (that's the definition used in the corebook)
I assumed that you were using the definition given in the corebook instead of a home made one. Now I have extrapolated that you considered gain limit as the maximum number of XP you were going to get in a single season, in that case of course Vis Study is the only one, but is also the only one which can give you 0 experience points, and a nasty surprise, If you want to compare the number of XP's per season, you have to use [color=blue]averages not maximums and minimums.
I rather have 15-20 safe xp's per season, than the dream of 3512 followed that the cold harded reality of rolling a botch.
It's curious but in AM5 [color=red]none of the study methods are influenced by intelligence, so I really don't know where did you get that part from intelligence (and don't tell me the errata, because its in front of my eyes right now).
And let me tell you, that if I was the player who rolled the 3512 and was offered that learning method, I would feel utterly cheated. And would not consider this as giving me all my XP at all.
Say I have Rego 0, Int 3, and Magic Theory 3, I would be learning awooping 6 XP on the first season.
6,9,11,12,14,15 care to count how many seasons it will take learn all that rego?? It may just be a wild guess, but it will be a little more than just "several"
So the first 6 seasons I have gotten less XP that I would have gotten otherwise. Besides it makes absolutely no sense to use M.Theory for learning fom Vis.
Also using your method if I want to advance from Vis an Art in which I have 0 XP, my maximum XP would 6 or so????
So, I'd be spending vis, risking twilight, and getting a maximum of 6 xp per season??
Honestly I rather practice or much better read a book. If you don't like learning from vis just don't let the players use it, but the main reason anyone is tempted to use it is because of the open ended roll, if you remove it only the most desperate ones (or the ones living in an aura 7+) will use it.
Give him his lñevel 79-85 art level. Convert him into an asset of the covenant and play accordingly. he will be important in some adventures. In others he will be a background dude (out doiung stuff somewhere else). In others he will be a problem to be solved since his art makes him a target for good or bad. He is a strong asset of the covenant as well as a character from now onwards. Itg will influence some stuff and certainly (if he survives) will make a boost in the power of your covenant, but you need to exploit it wisely or you might just lose it.
I am Harvard University and you are the University of Malaga. However, you have a guy that just made a top notch research paper and won the Nobel Prize. I think I can offer him better conditions than you do: If I was an Autumn covenant I would right away offer membership to this dude, for example. What can you offer him to best my offer?
Feel cheated all you want... but if I was the SG, I would refuse to allow all the hard work I put into a saga to be turned into a train wreck because of one absurd roll. It would be a train wreck because the appropriate responses of all the NPCs would make the characters life a living hell. Anything else would be like ignoring a volcano in your home...
I refuse to believe that a magus could get all that XP overnight (and yes, in terms of the lifespan of magi, one season IS overnight!).
Here is the biggest key, how does anyone learn this person has rego so high and how high it is. Sure, he/she will invent some powerful spells but if careful about releasing such spells, it would be hard for people to know that art is that high vs just very competant.
Maybe a certamen might give it away but with vis, luck of rolls and such, it might not be appearant.
If I got such an art, I would be doing everything I could to keep people from knowing what I had and save it for crises and and lab such that no one knwos what is up.
Just to throw in my vote, I agree with those of you who want to give the guy the xp he won. There aren't any limits on this gain in the 5th edition rules, so it would be changing the system to cut him down, so of course the player would feel cheated by that. These arbitrary limits, like not gaining more levels than aura, or aura+MT, or intelligence, sound reasonable, but are still going to take something away from the player that he/she is entitled to from the RAW (I assume that means rules as written, you guys keep using it but I never saw it spelled out).
While I believe the player has a right to the xp, I also believe the storyguide has every right to make his life "a living hell." If no one has ever had this much power in an art before, maybe the SG could say that it has some previously unknown weird side effect, like giving him a glow, or unwittingly warping reality around him, that makes it hard to keep a secret. Once it is known that he has this power, he becomes a magnet for all sorts of unwanted attention (as I see is discussed at length) and the guy's life becomes completely different. I think a clever storyguide can do this without sacrificing the story ideas he already had for the future.
And then, seeing that this is all possible, storyguides should begin their sagas with a house rule such as "dice totals do not exceed 100" or whatever, from now on, if they really want to limit completely ridiculously insane totals like that.
So a storyguide should foresee all possibilities, and if he doesn't it's his sole responsibility to make the saga work, even with a "completely ridiculously insane totals like that." That's asking a lot.
I'd suggest that, in a Troupe style game (as most are?), all players shoulder some responsibility for making the game flow well. If it works for everyone, fine - if not, "being cheated" is not the most important consideration - the saga is.
I just realized how sad play may become for that character:
First he get his spotlight by using his impressive Re-score to penetrate a MR that others were unable to penetrate. Than he might use it again once or maybe his secret (if ever it was one) slipped out prior to that. As soon as others (even his convent mates) realize his potential they would do anything to keep this source of insight away from potential harm. That is, at least unless he wrote all those nice simmae! But again, summa source quality is at a max of (Com+6 )x2+vitrues-flaws, IIRC. So maybe he is kept from harm until CrMe rituals have raised his Com to 5 and he has written the books. Until then no adventure that might put the character at risk will be allowed. (just imagine a botch or a lucky punch from another character. So no dragon-slaying! This also means there is plenty of spot light for all the other magi in the convent even if these are freshly gauntleted. However, this character will have intersting adventures himself. And maybe he even secretly leaves his convent one night just like a teenager his overprotective parents' home to "see something of the world" which will create completely new stories.
Studying from vis that powerful would be like setting up a beacon. Anyone with any sort of magical perception should see this from thousands of miles away. This would be a miraculous event that has never happened before in the entire history of the Order.
The die you roll to determine the source quality from vis study does not make the vis more or less powerful, it's simply a measure of the understanding you get from that study, or how much you f*ck up with the vis (in case you botch). Getting a deeper understanding of the workings of rego by no means implies that every member of the order of hermes gets a red alert saying:
"WARNING, WARNING, spring covenant magus gets Rego 89, all hands on deck" or some other analogy
First off, unless you have cast a spell to detect magic of some sort, you aren't going to see it and it would have to be able to see through walls into his lab.
Second if you have casts such a spell and are using it to see into anohter covenant, you are scrying and prying into the magical affairs of the order and your spell has to break the aegis of the covenant.
Three, he has a breakthrough level understanding of the vis which resulted in the huge amount of xp, not that the vis is more powerful. The stars were right, the light hit it just right and used the right spell and analysis tool in exactly the right way to gain the enlightenment. THe vis is not more powerful and it is spread out over a whole season.
After a long discussion, we've decided to continue the saga with our new "master of rego".
The bonisagus magus took a major flaw (deficent thecnique for MU and PE), 8 twilight points and changed his name in Regulus.
The troupe decide to start a new, big and difficult project: create a University of Magic in "association" with others
young covenants and only for young magi. The idea is to contrast the traditional structure of power of the Order
(few powerful magi control younger magi, secrecy over condivision... and so on), with a colaborative and free way of study and
growth, create by and for young magi.
I liked this idea because is a continuum with the background of the covenant and give to all player's magi the same importance.
Ther are another Bonisagus (who will create some useful stuff for the project with Regulus), a Jerbiton (the one who know the
mundanes and can find the aproval of the nobility for such project) and a Mercere (who will run all over mithyc Europe to
create the initial red of young covenants). One of my player is going to create a magister as companion and I would give to him
the ability of theaching at more than one student the arts, as I discuss in another thread.
Regulus, following the suggestions of the other magi, decide to keep secret his new power till the new project will start.
The players still working on the idea, but the school and his "revolutionary" function, gave to me a lot of plot, that I can't
write here because some of my players read this forum.
A ) not as bad as you might think but might be tricky to handle, give somewhere between half and 1/10 the XP(depending on how "normal" you want to keep the powerlevel), and a Major Virtue personally i think i would go with 1/3-1/4XP and a major virtue(or even more than one virtue), that still makes him one of the true masters with the art, but NOT beyond all or nearly all others AND it still gives the player a good reward for the risk
B ) anyone and everyone with that art already high will want to study from him, there will be the hermetic version of a goldrush boomtown, with all its good things AND bad things
Probably not much. Oh the book will be desirable but how many will have good use for it?
If he has a high write quality and can write a superbly high quality summae at lower level, THAT will be something he can probably trade for ridiculous amounts of resources. Just make sure to only sell copies(or GIVE them away for influence and powermongering) and to make many copies, maybe make a deal with a magi, every 5 copies you make, the next is yours.
Thats very low if you happen to go from 0 to 3 for example...
Otherwise its just not worth risking the Vis to study if you dont get something for it.
A very stupid fix. What if its the first time a character studies from vis, and spends ONE pawn of vis? Would you then say, wow you got 2000XP, but 1999 of them are lost because you increase from lvl 0 to lvl 1...
And art scores of 50+ is easily possible even without even a single houserule, only thing you need is a covenant that cooperates well and preferably has as many magi as possible.
And many magi with multiple art scores of 50+ didnt break our game even if the ST had to take care a bit extra.
Yup, why not! It IS a fun occurence. Even if i would probably prefer a rule of some kind that cuts away some XP and gives you another goodie for it, most likely a nice virtue, or maybe a characteristic raise(BIG one), i think it would be outright bad to just set a cap or take away XP to any specific limit, "-oh my, my knowledge just hit the roof so i cant gain more now, no i promise im not a game character at all, real life has numerical limits on what you can achieve"...
I agree, and I reversed my stand on the issue. That roll is so bizzarly rare, that it seems that it would be more fun to live with it and see what happens
I don't buy the excuse that such an event would disrupt an sg's carefully laid out plot. Plots should not be built so meticulous and precise to begin with. Players are all wild cards, and they will always do something you didn't prepare for. The acts and actions of the players take precedence over the sg's plot. If the plot is spoiled, make a new plot
Me, I don't come up with hyper detailed adventures. I have setting notes and a few NPCs/Monsters. I have a vague idea and resources to improvise. It appears as if I have a meticulous supra-well detailed plot. But in actuality, I am reacting to what the players do with the elements I present them. They may never go to "castle x", and I will feel stupid for detailing every nook and cranny of a scenerio they never visit. Instead, I will have a vague concept of "castle x", which takes on more detail as they get closer to it, and even more so as they investigate it. These details adapt to the actuality of what the players do there.
How are they going to study from him? How much XP will they get each season? Why will he be wasting his time teaching people like this?
I think that the best he can manage is around Level 30, Quality 20-30ish, depending on his Com Score and whether he has any Virtues that help writing. Which is an excellent Summae, but it's not earthshattering.
More so than a lvl 42 at minimum quality.
If a lvl 30 quality 30 can be achieved, then in any RAW game that is pretty much earthshattering or about as close as you can get.
"Teaching" as in also potentially writing lots of tratatii, probably the above summae, and then the ability to learn above all their current limits... Why? Im sure a crafty person can come up with something gorgeous enough to make him really want to do it.
The XP amount wont be superb no. But maybe someone will introduce him to mr university teacher and get a teaching score of 10 first...
Possibilities aside, its likely to cause a big stir, IF of course it becomes common knowledge. Which i should have conditioned my initial text with, because thats far from automatic.
I could be wrong, but I think rekres is referring not to the act, but the end result, the jaw-dropping high score in an Art.
InVi spells can detect "the highest Art" of a Hermetic Mage (and other aspect, Hermetic and non-Hermetic). Base 4 would detect Score 15 or greater.*
(* Score/5 = effective Magnitude. This won't identify the Art, only the score. Nor whether the wizard is, in fact, Hermetic or not - all require additional magnitudes, sadly.)
And, yes, it's breaking the Code against Scrying - but if the mage never volunteers the information, who's going to find out?
