"Unlimited Stacking"? Hardly. "Items of Quality" are limited by Form and Effect bonuses, and the only one I can think of that might help teaching is "crown" which adds to wisdom. Regular items of quality are not something mentioned in Canon, but seems a useful extrapolation for you in your quest to create quality classrooms. All in all, quite mild compared to "good student", "good teacher", and the writing circle silliness we have seen on this board.
Oh yeah I was confused I thought the Verdititus mystery was Items of Virtue. I was thinking Items of Quality was the term for well crafted items made by mundane craftsman. I think they're referred to as Superior and Excellent Quality items in C&G. (I'm guessing I checked out the table of contents online.)
Oh I know about the Verditius mystery just a bit confused. Crowns sure if you allow them as a teaching tool. Also a teachers a batton (wand/staff) control things (minds) at a distance. A room (transform things inside) if the verditius is clever on how to fit it in their lab. Anything with a sapphire (knowledge) set in it depending on how you read the rules. Plus any other bonuses your troupe adds. HoH:MC describes IoQs as minor magic Items so I figure they are added into the lab as the Magic Item virtue so they're still limited by the +3 limit.
I think well crafted Items are outlined in C&G. If I remember the rules it's name an item choose a bonus and convince the SG it's appropriate. I don't know if their was a limit that made it incompatible with a teaching bonus. (Like only providing bonuses to "rolls") But I do remember from previous experience they where cumulative. So as in my melee combat example if your shield, sword, plate armor, boots, helmet, gambison, shield all provide bonuses they add up fast. If a character can acquire ten teaching tools with an average bonus of +3 then they can get a +30 teaching bonus.
Yes, all of your examples require extrapolation, and having to convince the SG, and so are self limiting. It's going to be very hard to get past the SG comfort zone. "It's a +3 chalk of quality! That adds to my teaching score, right?". I think it's safe to say the response is going to be "Get Out......". Heck, I like the idea of pumping Teaching, but I wouldn't let you get away with "A baton is a wand is controlling minds is an aid to teaching!". Wow no.
As to the other bit, it seems clear that bonuses to people (Good Teacher, Good Student) add to the lab (even above the +3 limit), and "Items Of Quality" add to people. If you want to control that in your game, remember that there's not more then 5 or 6 people in all of Europe willing and able to make IOQ. The game is all about stories, and if you can make your players spend a year or so dancing to the maker's tune, then they've earned their bonus, just like if they had spent that time creating a "Good Teaching" mystery cult.....
Making items out of beechwood could work for the IoQ.
Yes. Otherwise, why would reality have such things as classrooms or training workshops?
Just make sure you set the rules before you use them, including wether you let there be a difference between mundane and magical bonus, if they can stack in any way and if their limits are the same etc...
Yes.
That's a very interesting paper. I'd known wax tablets had been in use since the day's of Cuneiform but it's amazing to see how elaborate they where. What I was more interested in was if slate tablets had made there way into Europe by the 13th century. I had thought they were as old as wax tablets but apparently they are a much more recent innovation. As they were first used in India I have a feeling they might have followed Arabic numerals into Europe.
Really I find a teachers batton to be the most obvious teaching tool on the S&M list. Teachers have been using batons as teaching tools for as long as there has been instruction. Batons and wands are synonymous in my book (literally in my thesaurus they're synonyms) and shaping young minds is undoubtedly an expression of control. Far less of a stretch then a crown of teachering. I'm not aware of crowns being a common teaching tool historically.
Yes but there are many more who can make mundane but well crafted Items. Heck I think it's pretty easy to make a Grog who can churn out +1 tools and they aren't limited by the S&M list. The rules for magic items used in the lab don't specify that only Items that directly effect the lab are included in the calculations. I would still expect that ones directly effecting the occupants still be incorporated as Lab Virtues.
Great! You have a good start on your Hermetic Alchemy project to add that form and effect bonus to the list. Until you have done so, No. You do not get new form and effect bonuses from telling a "just so" story.
They kind of do. The rules quite clearly state that the bonus to teaching from a Teaching Specialization cannot exceed +3. In no way are "Items of Quality" part of a lab Specialization. You could argue that they are covered by the Magic Item section of those rules, but "Items of Quality" are not magic items, in canon. You could make an IOQ a part of your lab, but that would be silly insofar as the IOQ bonus would then be replaced by the Greater or Lesser Feature stats......
What the heck are you talking about?
Items of Quality are minor magic items by RAW.
However, they do not get blocked by Parma. That's their real fun feature.
Hermetic Alchemy is a Mystery that allows a Mage to "find" new Form and Effect bonuses. You could, for example, use the Mystery to research if a Teacher's Baton has a Form or Effect bonus that could be brought forth to apply to Teaching. The current list is not a suggestion or starting point, it is the list of currently known Form and Effect bonuses for the Order of Hermes. If you want more, in canon, you have to use Hermetic Alchemy to find them.......
No, according to RAW; "Although produced through a magical procedure, items of quality are not magical devices per se.". Pretty dang clear. Also, as mentioned by BlackLiger, Parma doesn't affect them, and they don't detect as magic. Not even a hint of Warping either. I think the best way to think of them is as tools molded by magic to become Perfect Platonic Ideals. They are completely mundane, but Perfect. Implying that you could not stack a craftman's item with a quality bonus and stack that bonus by using the "Item of Quality" Mystery, for they are two ways to achieve the same end. Mind, that's not RAW, just my humble opinion.
Sorry to rain on the Items of Quality parade, but this isn't allowed under the RAW:
To quote HoH:MC page 124 "Once finished, the empowered item of quality provides a bonus to the user's roll when it is used in an appropriate manner. This bonus is equal to the bonus derived from the Shape and Material Bonuses chart, and may be added to any simple or stress die roll in which that power would be useful."
However, there is no die roll involved in Study totals, so the teaching Item of Quality won't help in seasonal Advancement totals. Likewise, a pen of +7 scribing won't add to the quality of books you write (we tried - Mr Chart says no).
A lot of seasonal total don't use rolls, so you need to carefully think what roll you will be affecting before you try making an item of quality. An item to boost your knowledge of Artes Liberales won't help you make better books or research astrological inceptions faster, but it could help you win your university degree or help with using rhetoric when speaking or draw up horoscopes quickly.
(as a digression - as it says any stress die roll, does that mean you could try and make an alchemical vessel with an Experimentation bonus, and have it add to the unexpected results stress roll? I know, any sensible GM will scream at you as it will result in many more "roll twice" results and possibly blow up the covenant, but it'd be fun)
I would have to saw canon does not support this because for it to be true canon must essentially not be canon. Note that in ArM5 there is a list. If we accept that as a complete list, then how do we find other already known bonuses in other books? Of necessity this implies the list in ArM5 is not complete. When ArM5 was the only book, saying that was a complete list of known ones would later be proven to be false by other publications. Canon rather says there is some finite set of bonuses known to Hermetic Magic and you can add to them using Hermetic Alchemy. However, no canon book contains that set. Rather, the books contain subsets which are all smaller than the full set of known bonuses. Until no more books are being published, we can only say we have some subset of the known ones. Even after no more books are being published, knowing that we've only been seeing subsets smaller than the full set, there is no logical implication that the full set has actually been published.
Chris
I know about Hermetic Alchemy, but I'm using a bonus right from the current list list. As I said batons are wands. The terms are synonymous. Even if you want to argue that point it's a shape and material bonus chart. I can't think of a Baton that isn't wand/staff shaped.
As far as the teaching=control bit, that's a pretty time honored connection. The term mind control has a lot of negative connotations which aren't entirely fair to attach to all teachers . Still, molding and shaping minds is as much of an expression of control as moulding and shaping anything else.
Sorry I never got that far down. I stopped at the beginning of the first sentence of the Items of Quality section.
So not enchanted devices. Not even magical devices per se. But Items of Quality are defined as Magic Items right out of the gate. I think thats "Pretty dang clear". By RAW they are Magic Items.
Thanks darkwing in the confusion I'd forgotten that. Though interestingly enough what I thought Saxonous was talking about at first mundane but well crafted items don't have that limitation. (Snagged my book.) So by RAW the bonuses are somewhat different in nature.
Also that creates a benefit for treating IoQ's as magic items when using them in the lab. With magic items it's another case of tell me the effect I'll tell you the bonus. So A magic item that provides a bonus to rolls could be fairly judged to provide lab with a bonus on a related activity. A Pen of Quality that gives a +7 bonus to scribing rolls might justify +1 or +2 to the texts specialization. A Cauldron of Quality +1 for vis distillation. A Hearth or a Lamp Ig. Making the whole lab a Room of Quality might be worth a Safety or General Quality bonus.
An excellent item doesn't specify rolls. In fact, it mentions being similar to a specialty in an ability. So you could absolutely add seasonal bonuses with one of those. You could probably get some pretty dang useful ones too. A excellent book to add to the books quality. An excellent pen to add to scribery (extra good with lecture notes.) Excellent bread to all flavors of health rolls. An excellent classroom could add to teaching rolls!
Also even if items of quality need a roll to add to, lots of seasonal activities require rolls. Like say... studying from vis! Or experimentation.
Not buying the Control = Teaching connection. Especially in the Medieval viewpoint. Your mileage may vary.
Ah, not defined as Magic Items, mentioned as magic items. Quite different. We have a formal, canon definition of Magic Item, and IOQ are not covered, and, indeed, do not suffer any of the limitations that Magic Items, and magic items have. No, I think it's quite clear that they are only considered "magic items" because it limits the House's power. "The House nevertheless views them as magical items and regulates their sale to mundanes.". I mean, really. Parma is the Penultimate test of Magic, and IOQ have no problem with it.........
Of course using IOQ to help with Teaching Scores is not canon, but then neither is the topic of the thread, Lab Style Teaching Bonus for other Classrooms. We are exploring various possible house rules and/or Hermetic Projects. Making a IOQ add to a teaching total would seem to be pretty easy project. It's not like it breaks or even bends any of the Limits. One of the things I like about Ars Magica, I can built a "house rule" in game.....
This is actually the first item in this discussion that I'd allow a teaching bonus:)
On a side note, a regular teacher could set up a "classroom" a.k.a. hermetic laboratory with the following
Classroom of the Mundane Teacher.
Refinement: -3, Teaching:+5, Safety: 0, Upkeep-3, Size-1
Virtues and Flaws: Elementary, Greater Focus (Teaching), Gallery, Spacious.
It takes three seasons to set up the classroom. If you take the time to remove the decorations and add something else, you can add undecorated and tack something else on, lowering the upkeep by one. If you want to go all out, you can increase size by one and grab something to up health. It gives a +3 bonus to the quality of teaching and training. No safety issues, so you don't accidentally turn yourself into a goat.
This came up earlier in the thread, before I'd posted so I hadn't asked then. Can you have negative Refinement? I thought it started at 0 and could only grow from there. Even if it is allowed, why would you do it? You need MT3 to set up a lab anyway. And Refinement of -3 would mean you need a Size 3 greater than what you want to put in it would normally require. So Size -1 would require 7 points of Flaws to fit a Greater Feature into it.
Chris
If I understand correctly, with a magic theory of 0,1, or 2 the starting refinement is MT-3.
Exactly. Although I listed a greater focus which is a bit different. Its -2 general quality. (Which oh so conveniently doesn't apply to teaching) for a +4 specialization bonus. Plus it counts as a major flaw.
One could make an argument that the teacher requires at least an xp in magical theory first, but their is nothing to prevent him from practicing for a season. (Which would up the total time for a classroom to 4 seasons.) Even so, spending 4 free seasons on optimizing your classroom is +3 effective teaching. A very good use of free seasons if you want to teach.