Oh, please tell me this isn't all coming about because you misread something way back in the posts and still haven't realized it after it's been written over and over.
Chris
I know what I'm talking about - my original comment about "massive" that prompted DW to respond that Level 17 is "such a low limit" and his comment about "the most basic of characters".
That's never changed.
What are you talking about? 
In my own opinion, except for the 6/q21 and maybe the 11/q17, there are no interesting books above q15. And serious magi would rather have a 20/q11. That being said:
The most basic character certainly has access to such a summae, but can he write it? The most basic character can certainly reach 30 in the Art, 40 years past Gauntlet. That puts him 5 points short of writing that book. Since we want him to be able to write a book 3 point short of this, liberal use of CrMe rituals is enough to bridge the 2 missing points. And not a single point of virtue was used to help him in his endeavour.
We have "just past Gauntlet", there's no point in defining "basic" the same.
The original context for this debate and the statements that precipitated it seem to have been lost. When explaining "How to learn from books", the audience is a newbie, and one can safely assume the character in question is, indeed, right out of gauntlet, or very close to. Therefore, anything extreme or pushed to the limit of legal or from a supplement or assumed common "by house rules" is probably not the best model for an example.
Different SG's, Covenants and Sagas have different "power levels", what is easily available to a starting character. It's certainly possible that my power levels have been consistently low - hard to say without more statistics than we can gather here.
But DW is stating that the extreme is basic, that the possible is the standard, and (as usual) picking only the RAW that supports his position, misreading others to fit, and ignoring the rest. And apologies to all, but this terrier can't let that rat go un-harried. 
Yes, I jumped the track a page ago, by 3 whole levels - but then everyone else bought it, reinforcing it.
3 levels does not make your argument. Nor does hammering the issue of those 3.
I did. Maybe you can rationalize that with what it says that I cited about the Great Library from GotF, and other passages?
No? Then we pick one or the other - and I lean toward the lower, more conservative, and you pick the higher, more extreme, as the example for the newbie - quel surprise.
And here is the actual nub of the problem, DW. Because, no, it does not say so. Not directly, not indirectly, certainly not "outright without the slightest doubt". (Do you know what "outright" means? It means there is a simple passage that says exactly this in clear unmistakable terms, somewhere from p's 68-74... if so, I'm sure you can cite it for us...we won't hold our breath.)
You say you are a professional proofreader, yet you seem to lack the ability to grasp the actual meaning of words that you (claim to have) read, instead blindly projecting your desired interpretation into them. Pretending that "basic" means "possible within the rules" is only the latest of these incomprehensible stands you take. Misuse and misreading of words doesn't make one right, only universal use and interpretation of those words does, and you are alone in many of these - I could quote specifics, but the list from your last post alone would be boring beyond endurance.
Beyond that, the rules of netiquette prevent me from expanding. Some of what you say certainly has merit, but imo the rest is a dealbreaker regarding trying to discuss anything more with you on this topic.
I see no need to repeat my points yet again, nor respond to specious tangents. CH out.
Again, please reread, especially following how you start that sentence. Yes, he said the level limit is low. But since when did we discuss level 17 summas? Sure, if he had said level 17 is low, you'd get some agreement. However, his point was that level 9 is low enough that an author with a lot of experience in an Art can improve the quality of summas by keeping the level low. Generally speaking, it's probably never worth writing a summa for a level below 5, and even then you usually are being wasteful not writing at least level 6. It can probably be assumed that level 6 is the practical minimum, meaning level 9 isn't that high above the practical minimum, especially considering the covenant library purchase system functions with up to level 20 summae, well above level 9. So in the context of canon, level 9 really isn't that high.
Right, so can we get rid of your house rules/ideas and go with what is termed "weak" and "powerful" in canon and use them? Doesn't that seem reasonable, using the canon for an inter-campaign discussion, especially when talking to a new player? Do you really disagree with this?
Also, we showed you that such a book can be written by an apprentice not even pushed to the limit. Do you really think that something an apprentice pushed to less than the limit can accomplish would be so hard for seasoned magi as to be any sort of a rarity?
No, it's really not hard to say. It's written in canon. You're free to adjust from canon, but "weak" and "powerful" are written there. The example given for a "weak" covenant includes a level 15 quality 12 Art summa and a level 6 quality 21 summa. Those have a cost of 27, which is 1 greater than the cost of the given level 9 quality 17 example. The example given for a "medium" covenant includes three level 16 quality 15 summae and five level 6 quality 21 summae. Those cost 31 and 27, respectively, which are 5 and 1 greater than the cost of the given level 9 quality 17.
So, in canon, even the "weak" covenant example has two texts worth as much as the level 9 quality 17 example. The "medium" covenant has a whole bunch worth as much or more than the level 9 quality 17 example. Thus in canon level 9 quality 17 is not "massive." That value text can be available in "weak" covenants and is abundant is "medium" covenants.
As for what is considered a "powerful" covenant in canon, we see a level 20 quality 11 summa, a level 18 quality 13 summa, five level 16 quality 15 summae, and ten level 6 quality 21 summae. That's 7 summae worth 31 points and 10 worth 27 points, everyone of them being worth more than the level 9 quality 17 example.
Chris
Uh, I think you misread that. Do you mean low levels having a typical quality between 6 and 15 with a limit of 24? And based on what is described afterward that would be levels 6-14, most likely. As making a level 6 quality 24 summa is silly since the author could have made a level 7 quality 23 summa, this is presumably a level 7 quality 24 summa. That same author could have made a level 9 quality 22 summa, 5 full points above level 9 quality 17.
Chris
Not if the student has a flaw that makes reading difficult, or if the reader is distracted during the season of reading.
A Level 6/Quality 24 Summa also has the advantage that you can copy it quickly (or, if you use the Quality rules in Covenants, scribed/bound/illuminated by a non-expert) and still generate a Quality 21 copy.
Except YOU are the one using house rules and supplements to argue a point you lost the moment you said it.
For the simple reason that you are wrong.
Yes and anything within the rules is still not houserules. I can play 100% by the rules and still start with L9/Q22, as i already said, thats 5 higher than your proclaimed "massive quality" and protest about houserules.
RTFM.
Excuse me, please DO tell where exactly i was misreading anything or ignoring anything?
You DO realise that your only RAW source is talking specifically and ONLY about one library, while Covenants is adressing "most of the summae traded within the order"?
Which means YOU are using a completely irrelevant text as support while ignoring both AM5 AND Covenants.
And lets repeat myself a bit again, according to RAW, the EXTREME is where you pick the "Exceptional book" Boon in Covenants. It allows a L9/Q26. THAT is where you have extreme.
Except of course that P94 in Covenants goes even further, but with the reservation that it has never happened sofar but might in your saga. Which is where you get the REALLY extreme.
If we were to use that as basis, the result could be a L9/Q32. Wow, just 2 points from double of what you claim is "extreme".
You DO realise that it actually doesnt matter squat? That a L12/Q17 is BETTER inline with whats stated in Covenants as the "most traded summae"? That what you argue as "massive quality" is too LOW to fall into that category.
Indeed it doesnt because you´re still wrong even with those extra 3.
Why ever should i? Your quote is irrelevant as it talks about one specific library, not whats available overall and in total.
Maybe you should learn what words actually mean before you use them incorrectly?
Now then, if we look at that, whats the most common thing we see? Oh yes, that "extreme" refers to the outer limits, or even beyond the outer limits of something.
Shall we compare that to RAW? Oh yes, 9/17 is 5 points away from the upper limit, not even close.
9/17 is furthermore TWO points BELOW whats considered the "most traded summae" values, ooops.
So sorry, but it seems im just as "conservative" here as you are.
Your brain run away from home much lately?
P71 clearly specifies the LIMITS. Both for books, and for Covenants as a whole. It also specifies that if you start with a "Legendary" Power level, you can pitch in as much build points as you wish.
Mmmm kets see now, you can use as much points as you wish if you use the top-most power level, and up until the hard limit there are no other limits on the books, nor even any recommendations against it.
Coming from someone who doesnt understand a simple word like "extreme", thats not much of a critique.
And you´re the one repeatedly trying to claim words according to YOUR PERSONAL interpretation.
dictionary.reference.com/browse/Basic
thefreedictionary.com/basic
More likely, you cant make such a list without making a fool of yourself. Again.
Realise that you seem to be the only one in this thread that had a problem understanding my very basic use of the word basic.
Maybe you should start by learning to read?
As in RTFM.
It gets outrageous when you argue against RAW by claiming it to be my houserules.
So just what fraction of students would fair better with a level 7 quality 23 summa? Most students who would encounter problems (as you mentioned) would only lose 1 point.
Let's look at the poor book learners. Anyone without a penalty would benefit by 2, or 4 if they have Book Learner. Figuring they're both virtues/flaws are minor so just based on genetics and no player input, we have an average of (-1+4)/2=+1.5 bonus per student with the virtue/flaw. For the average student the gain is +2. So on average the level 7 quality 23 summa is the equivalent to being nearly 2 higher quality than the level 6 quality 24 summa on average.
What about time? It's irrelevant until you've missed a month. Then the poor book learner actually will do just as well with the level 7 quality 23 if he loses time, so he's better off with the higher level. Others will lose a single point. Also, you say "the season," while the rules do actually say this can be spread out over the course of a year. It's a book-keeping nightmare, but the rules do say so. This makes the loss even rarer. And then you need to consider that if such losses are common a magus gaining 15 from the level 7 quality could use it again for 13 points the next season, even with a month of loss, providing 28 points over 2 seasons versus the 21 provided by the level 6 quality 24 summa.
So, assuming we house-rule everything to be cut-off by the season, for the level 6 quality 24 summa to be better on average, you'd have to expect at least twice as many readers to miss at least a full month as you have uninterrupted readers. But then if the losses are that common the level 7 quality 24 summa becomes better because of the second use. So lost time doesn't really favor either one so much.
What about the cap? All the above statements consider the magus to have a score of 0 in the Art prior to studying. The more points the magus has before reading the book, the greater everything shifts in favor of the level 7 quality 23 summa.
So, on average the level 7 quality 23 summa is effectively nearly 2 quality higher than the level 6 quality 24 summa for uninterrupted reading. For interrupted reading they're about equal. This means things already strongly favor the level 7 quality 23 summa. And then shift things in favor of the level 7 quality 23 summa due to the cap, making it win out by a long-shot. So, yes, making such a level 6 summa is rather silly.
Chris
OK, I'll grant it that one. But really, how expensive is it for magi to hire good scribes, etc.? Still, that's the only thing in its favor.
Chris
Since it takes a Scribe who has Magical Theory himself to copy it without error, it actually is expensive. There are never enough ! Remember, one season worth of copying at Durenmar is enough to buy one season of access to the library, half as much as contributing an original text.
On the other hand, a level 6 summa can be copied in one season by anyone capable of copying it in the first place, so unless you Troupe allows copying several summae in a single season, I'm not sure there is a benefit here.
I never talked of how many people needed aL6Q21 summa, just that there might be reasons for one to exist. It is the same with other disabilities: Not many people need wheelchairs, but they exist. That is no reason to call them silly. They are just books written by loving masters to make sure that even an impaired student learns what one can expect an apprentice to learn.
One more point:
Your pseudo-statistical approach is what is what some people might consider silly - because there is not a single teacher in Mythic Europe who uses your method to determine summa quality. They are characters that try to write primers - you are a munchkin who plays with rules the characters do not know (or how many xp in Ars Magica Lore do you - Chris - get when you read the core rule book?).
This statistic approach may be enjoyable for you, which is fine - but it hardly entitles you to call other approaches to the game silly. It is precisely because of people like you that LQs had to disappear for ArM5.
Um... Hire him for an extra season and sit him in front of just about any Magic Theory book? It's really not that expensive.
The formula is 6+Profession:Scribe. So with a Profession:Scribe score of 1 you can handle a level 7 in one season.
Chris
Whoa! I would never disagree with that. But that's not what we were discussing at all.
Do note, our "wheelchair" here doesn't work any better for most the people that it's made for than letting them "walk" would. It only works better for our "disabled" magus if he has an uninterrupted season and haven't picked up a single point from exposure or another source. The other one is better the rest of the time. Thus the wheelchair versus not making wheelchairs analogy is seriously lacking.
First, if you agree with this, then you must disagree with your own statement above. The reason is that your statement above is such that the author specifically knows this quality will serve exactly a certain kind of a student particularly well. So, which is it?
Second, if you really think this, then you shouldn't be allowing the lowering of level to increase quality. It is a game mechanic to represent what the character can do. Since ability to make this adjustment is a game mechanic representing a choice the character can make, then the character does have enough knowledge to make that choice. Yes, that would be canon, otherwise the character couldn't make the choice the book lets him.
You're welcome to change this, but let's be consistent at least.
Chris
in response to callen:
You find the wheelchair idea flawed. Let's take a cochlea implant. It only helps hearing impaired people, and only some of them. It only helps in some situations. Yet it exists because some people do think it is not silly.
You've never written a book, have you?
Somebody who is good at something can of course decide to focus more on understandability than on including all facts he knows. Like a computer expert that writes a book for kids - he leaves out some advanced stuff and tries to explain the rest better (and apart from talent, which is represented by teaching/good com, his knowledge plays a role even when writing a children's book).
That does not mean that the author thinks in xp in normal life (outside gaming).
Admitting that your calling a an l6q24 summa silly was hasty because it might be useful in specific situations to specific people would be the mature thing for you to do.
Still flawed. You need an example that will break down and have half the life-expentancy of an alternative. I think the best thing I can think of is prostate cancer surgery. In that case you have something that may or may not be worse than not doing it, and it still doesn't doesn't contain the time part. However, all these examples are still totally flawed because we need to think of something that is useful to someone without such a problem at all, too. Think of something a normal person would find very useful even though designed for a handicap and that will eventually work worse for the handicapped than the alternative.
My argument stands based on the ArM5 books. I've decided not to be baited. Let's just say I am very experienced with education, both mental and physical.
No, we think of the real-world thing it represents. How is that represented mechanically in the game? By thinking about xp. I already explained this.
Now, back to the point. Why was I making any sort of statistical analysis? Because there was a ridiculous statement about GotF making level 9 quality 17 seem massive. I made a very sound analysis. The best you can do is try to poke holes at a single point and have trouble coming up with any solid analogy? Fine, I'll grant you that point just to be done with it because it doesn't matter that much to the argument. You're working so hard to discredit 1 point, while you still have 4 more points to deal with. You object to statistics while we're talking about some sort of average? An average is a statistical value. How can you object to using statistics to obtain statistical values? You claim what I'm doing is being a munchkin? Fine, I'll use a different, perfectly valid method with no statistical backing:
GotF creates a break in levels between 14 and 15. They also make a break between low and high levels. So 14 should be considered a low level. Low level summas can have a quality of 24 at most. So the Great Library could well contain some level 14 quality 24 summas. Level 9 quality 17 is 5 levels lower and 7 quality lower. Even the far more common stuff, which can include level 14 quality 15 summas, can have things 5 levels higher and 2 quality lower than our level 9 quality 17 summa. Thus the level 9 quality 17 book is worth 12 less (close to only 2/3 of the value) than the best stuff and 1 point less than some common stuff.
Since I'm being a munchkin now to show you I wasn't earlier, let's continue. With 6 points of virtues and no points in characteristics I can make a newly gauntletted magus who can write level 9 quality 21 summas in two different Arts. At the same time, he has four other Arts at 6 and enough points for Magic Theory 3 and a few other things. So this newly gauntletted magus can write 16 quality 21 regular tractatus, 4 in each of his main Arts and 2 in each of his secondary Arts.
Notice the earlier examples and arguments came nowhere close to these. Why? Because instead of truly gaming the system we were looking at how easily reasonable specialists could get to the necessary point and because we were looking at things statistically instead of just figuring out how to maximize everything.
At this point it has been shown that it's not too hard for a writer to achieve level 9 quality 17; the writer doesn't even need to be that much of a specialist in writing as long as he's a specialist in his Art. (We haven't even touched on what the writing specialists can produce once they're older.) It's also been shown that ArM5 considers even a weak covenant to potentially contain multiple books of the value of the level 9 quality 17 summa. It's also been shown that level 9 quality 17 summa, while perhaps quite good, are noticeably below the value any of the better books in GotF (yes, even giving that 1 point). Thus level 9 quality 17 really isn't massive.
Chris
at callen:
L9Q17?
I didn't say a thing about that. I didn't even think about it. Frankly, I don't care.
What I care about is L6Q24, which you called silly although there are reasons to write just that.
So if you feel like replying to my criticism - do talk about L6Q24.
I've already pointed out how the loving master could have helped the an impaired student at least as well by writing the L7Q23 summa, and perhaps even better. It's all right there above. You haven't even bothered trying to refute it. Did you even read the part about exposure? If you did and didn't understand it, you could have asked.
You chose to call well-shown reasonable averages munchkinism. You blame people like me for a change in the game system you may not have liked. And for some reason you decided to start asking about credentials instead of just taking an argument on its merits. Why resort to such tactics, all of which are generally considered rude and/or condescending?
Finally, you want me to reply to a criticism I have already refuted in three ways to which you have not replied? First, see the exposure comment above. Second, you haven't replied to the point that your argument for the L6Q24 versus the L7Q23 summa relies on the magus understanding qualities in the same way you say the magus shouldn't when writing the L7Q23 summa. Third, I've shown the rather significant problems with your last analogy. So you've taken several personal shots at me instead of dealing with the three points I've made about the L6Q24 argument. And you ask me to continue the argument now??? Honestly, after you already started taking personal shots at me the hypocrisy is too much for me to take. My original point was made. I'm done.
Chris
Sigh of relief