Would you count specializations towards book language requirements?
0 voters
My question is simple: would you count specializations towards the language requirements for reading or writing books. For example, would Latin 3 (medical) be sufficient to study a book on Medecine? Obviously it can lead to abuse with Latin (hermetic usage) and copyists, but I still like the idea of semiliterate people only able to deal with specific topics.
Characters have few enough experience points starting out. I've even suggested this to my players (along with sugesting creemonial magic as a specialization for artes liberales and philosophae).
Same here....
I don't see why not. A small bonus is fine...
shurely you mean
"Ceremonial Casting" for one eg Artes Liberales,
and Ritual Casting for the other eg Philosophiae?
You can only use one specialization in a given formula, so when you add both ability scores, you want only need one spec; but there are the two different magical methods which desire a bonus...
And yes, I do suggest this, along with a few other suggestions depending on the character's interests (astrology, scripts, writing books on X...)
I quite suspected you would, since it's astrology in TMRE that made me wonder about that. 
I think the notion is very flavoury - so my thumbs are rappidly jabbing at my ceiling 
I'd not thought of it before, and yet as the poll results suggest it's actually quite obvious!
Re: Latin (Hermetic Usage) I'd not allow this, as it is too broad. I might allow Latin (one Art) or Latin (Formulaic spells). I might even allow Latin (Lab Texts) but I'd be wary about that one.
How about Latin (Works of Bonisagus)?
This is (IIRC) one of the example specilizations for latin from the rule book.
If you could find many original works of Bonisagus, all credit to ya 
We house ruled that specializations count, but anyone more proficient than you (without the specialization) can tell. So yes, you can write a book with Latin (Hermetic) 4, but anyone with Latin 5 will think your language is a bit strained. It has no effect other than contributing to reputation.
We did this mostly to free up skill points. (I'm increasingly of an opinion that I disagree with asumptions made in the 240 points at character creation.)
Considering that specialities in languages are often dialects, it might be appropriate to note any work written with a dialect (that is, where a speciality was used), and apply a negative adjustment to anyone with a different dialect trying to decifer it.
ie: A work written in latin(classical) might count a readers latin(hermetic) as 2 points lower.
I like this alot, and intend to start using it in our saga.
Someone one took "Latin (writing books)" in our game, and we took exception to it, but it would certainly make up for the gross cost of being able to participate in the exchange of knowledge.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd allow that. But I also think that next time I start a saga I'm going to give everyone points in Artes Liberales and Latin for free.