snort Nice.
It's true.
Rings are broken because they last too long
Books are broken because they allow too much advancement
the RAW is broken because it allows a character with affinity in ability and puissance in ability to have a score of 11+1 at age 49 (max 9 for age 49, plus 2 for affinity, plus 2 puiessence)
You wanted to change the ways auras work...
Is there a rule you don't think I broken?
I mean I can certainly understand not wanting ring duration to mean permanent, but breaking the ring because light crosses it? Look at what the ring is made of- if it is drawn with a finger I take it to mean it is in the dust and even if it is well cared for dust will accumulate within a month. Who cleans the lab? Chalk doesn't last forever either. Even a circle of stones falls eventually.... meanwhile to boost the duration requires a lot of work.
Personally driven the guidelines I would simply rule that long term ring spells subtract from safety instead of adding to warping, because when things go wrong the rings will probably break mid-disaster.
Wow. Way to bring what is essentially private disagreement into a public forum. I'll let all your comments stand unchallenged, because it frankly isn't worth it.
How is this a private conversation? These topics are all ones which are on the game board, not the temper tantrum you threw in private posts.
Silveroak, private or not, I'm pretty sure no one else in the forum wants to see this argument.
Scott
I do 
I love this stuff. I really do :mrgreen:
Probably not, however there was an actual point in there- namely that "It's broken and too powerful" is a very different point when the person making it seems to feel that way about every aspect of the game, which then indicates there may not be anything especially broken or imbalanced about it, that is simply how they feel about the entire game.
I never actually said anything here about rings being too powerful and broken. MTKnife said that. I think they are, too, but I didn't say it here.
Whether rings are too powerful and broken or not, has no bearing that the RAW for spells in labs is clear, Ritual spells may be used without worrying about warping and safety, but other spells (be they permanent rings) should add to warping or safety scores for the lab. Let the magus doing the spell pick whether it is warping or safety.
You presented some very good examples about circles that are less than permanent, say in the dust or with chalk. Certainly one would have to recast ring spells on these on a periodic basis.. Gleam of the Freshly Polished Glass is cast about 3 times in a season, and it grants a warping score. I don't think, to use Covenant's phrasing, that casting a formulaic spell once a month is especially tiring, but it still grants a warping score.
I would agree that the wording of the rule is also a bit wonky, if someone wishes to address that. A non-ritual spell that is infrequently cast increases warping or lowers safety. However, a Ritual spell that is cast daily on the boundary the lab is in does not suffer this drawback. I would suggest that the thought behind the rule, other than TANSTAAFL, is the stability of the magic. An enchanted device has the magical flux grounded in the item. A Ritual spell grounds it in the methodical way the vis is handles (or rather, is used for a Momentary naturally permanent effect and involves no magical fluctuation).
Or, you could go with the simple rule as written as an IF/THEN logic statement.
I think the point is 'regularly' cast, You could cast a spell with momentary duration once a month that is PeTe to clean away dust and I (personally) wouldn't have it cause any effect to the lab score. It's when you are routinely using spells to avoid the vis cost of simply enchanting something. I also think it needs to be looked at on a case by case basis. Keep in mind that warping also adds personality to the lab, and in some cases may act as a bonus, so if you are casting wards on your lab every month the lab might start to become protective, and give bonuses to protection while having warping effects as written...
That's an interesting take on it.
I for one have been contemplating enchantments that boost the Health bonus to my lab, as to stave off having to take Longevity for as long as possible. Magical Heat is an obvious one. Perhaps an enchanted boom for the cleaning lady? And a constant Auram effect to keep the air fresh. I figure if I stack them all up in various items, I can gain a +5 bonus or higher in a short time. No spells or any such. I am putting off longevity in order to delay the inevitable warping process. I also gotta move my living quarters out of my lab. That is a big one :mrgreen:
Also, I for one favor building the device from scratch (along with Magical Light) in order to customize the bonuses provided. For example, I think having magically generated heat and light that requires no mundane fuel should possibly lower Upkeep.
The warping effects are minor. Roberto is also probably not going to botch a spell very often with Flawless Magic, so unless he wants to settle down and have kids, warping shouldn't be the sole reason for waiting.
Magical heating and Magical lighting don't reduce upkeep, unless the lab has Superior Lighting and Heating, which would be replaced with the magical versions.
As to casting a spell regularly, I have no problem with it if when players do it for fluff. Casting the PeTe momentary effect to maintain an appearance of fastidiousness and not expecting a bonus from the Spotless virtue is fine. It's when you expect that a spell casting should give bonuses similar to a virtue, then you need to incur some change to the warping or safety score. That's pretty much intent of the rules, regardless of the wonkiness of wording.
Yes, that is the character I speak of. And reproduction is a concern for him. But still, Longevity Warping is nothing to sneeze at. Putting off taking that potion until around age 50 instead of 35, that skims around 15 Warping points off the top. And once one starts on a LR regiment, the Lab's Health score stacks with the Living Conditions modifier, which in turn stacks with the LR bonus.
As for custom designing the enchantment, I mean more along the lines of something like this. Every ten levels can add +1 to a Specialization, every twenty can add +1 to a Characteristic (or in the case of Upkeep and Warping, let us presume the benefit is to lower that score (since that is what it means to "Improve" that aspect).
Now we are not duplicating the existing Virtues, not exactly anyway. Tweak it just enough. We will figure that out in a moment.
CrIg(Au) 60 (insert name here): In some reasonable acceptable way, this item lights up the environment and provides a steady breeze of fresh, warm air.
20 levels +1 Health
20 levels +1 Aesthetics
20 levels -1 Upkeep (because you no longer need to use consumables such as candles and firewood).
The Health bonus doesn't stack directly, it's divided by two then added. Warping isn't a problem until you get to high levels, more often than not you're not going to go into Twilight, with a familiar and mastery on spells, you're going to avoid a lot of botch dice, so checking for Twilight is going to be an extremely rare event. 15 points of warping is nothing since you need to get to Warping scores of 8 and 9 to start worrying about Twilight. Roberto is more than likely to die from decrepitude than Twilight.
That probably works.
Roberto will most likely meet his end in a blaze of glory.
:mrgreen:
Hopefully after he has children.
This is why I need a storyguide. I can't play him to the hilt like I want to as an NPC. I have played him straight from gauntlet through two different sagas and now as an NPC in a third. The experience is lacking...
But anyway, stack several multiple enchantments together, such as 120 levels dedicated to Health divided amongst several items. That is a +6 to the Health Characteristic, which translates into a +3 bonus to resist aging, that stacks with Living Conditions and a LR. So thease Health Measures do drastically reduce the potential accumulation of aging points and decrepitude.
And yes, Spell Mastery will lessen the odds of Twilight (though if you cast spells twice as often as the next guy, that becomes moot). And a Lab Rat that only makes items and rarely cast spells, the odds of Twilight are cut even more drastically. Rutting off LR cuts down on the consistent steady Warping, then stacked with safety measures and other advantages, this can potentially slow the warping rate a great deal.
It depends upon where one is casting spells much more with a lot of Mastered spells and a strong Golden Cord. His Gold Cord with Cidito means he needs to face four botch dice situations before he has to be concerned about twilight for his least mastered spells. That's casting a spell in an adverse aura of 3, or "Fighting in driving rain while in running water up to your ankles." to make a comparison. He will almost never botch with a Pilum of Fire, since he can negate up to 5 botch die, and would therefore need 7 botch dice to risk Twilight. That's doing something equivalent to "Climbing a sheer wall of ice in a blizzard" or an adverse aura of 6. And that's now, not considering any additional development.
Flawless Magic is the virtue you take to live to a nice ripe old age...
If you want to sit around and do nothing but work in the lab and teach. I chose Flawless Magic so the character could go out and do stuff. He is designed to be able to cast spells while fighting in a pitched battle while torrents of rain fall down upon him and the pools of blood rise up to his ankles. He does things like casting life or death spontaneous spells that require him to roll a 1 followed by a 0 and spend all his Confidence points (he really did that in Novus Mane, ask Jebrick). Regardless of Mastery, reckless adventuring and relying on Sponts mitigates the benefits of Flawless Magic as far as Warping goes. The Gold Cord is a new feature, I haven't had a chance to really test the guys limits for a while now.
To bring it back to the topic at hand...
Warping is always an issue. It can nickle and dime you to death. That is why, IMO, Lab Characteristics such as Warping and Health are essential (lowering the one and raising the other). Other things too, such as Quality (which adds to all Lab Activity), and etcetera.
Spcializations, not so much. The Activity specializations, yes. You can quickly get around +7 to all your Enchantments or Spellcraft and whatnot. But the Arts specializations, well, they are not really worth it unless your Art scores are pretty well up there. I looked at it closely, and ittakes two or more seasons (on average) just to raise a Specialization by one point (one season Refinement, one season to instal a Minor Virtue). The same time spent stydying that Art would raise you up one or two points (unless, as I said, your score is already very high).
That didn't sit well with me, and I like to make things simpler for my players. So I rules that ittakes only one seaon to instal &/or rearrange the Virtues & Flaws of a Lab to equal an exact balance of Refinement + Size. This did not have a drastic impact, because players tent to organize their lab in an ideal fashion and just leave it that way for years (or forever).
As for Magical Heat and Light, I ruled that there are enough loose items lying around, as well as lab texts, that every player can have Magical Heat and Magical Light for free, and if the take both it reduces upkeep by one. A bit of a fudge, yes. But it does make some aspects a lot easier to deal with. And it seems just so very reasonable. It is an old covenant, and magical heat & light exists in many several rooms besides the laboratories of magi.
Sure, and Flawless Magic lets him do it easier than most. If you want a resilient and versatile combat magus, can't go wrong with Flawless Magic, IMO.
Alright, I'll let you...
Warping score for a lab <> Warping for individuals. A lab with a warping score produces unpredictable results (spells with side effects as if done with experimentation. These results can be good or bad, but it's the discretion of the SG. 
There are lab routines which do inflict warping upon the magus, so one should be cautious with those.
At some point the advancement is going to slow down enough where you can't advance a score very quickly, but you could modify the lab. This might happen sooner if the library has few books on a subject and acquiring more is difficult. But yes, to add a minor virtue takes two seasons, one for refining the lab to make space (presuming space isn't available) and one for installing the minor virtue, for major virtues, it's three seasons.
I'll point out that you need to consider virtues that add to General Quality, because those simply rock. For example, Roberto's Living Quarters do add to GQ, at the expense of health... It seems that there are more flaws that penalize General Quality than virtues that add it, but that's to be expected.
So, if I have a lab that can take 5 points of virtues, I can install them all in a season?
If the intent was to allow for reconfiguring the lab frequently, this doesn't seem to be doing it, if they leave their lab the same for years (or forever).
Not sure how making them essentially free makes anything easier to deal with... Sure, give them the lab texts for the items necessary to provide magical light and magical heat, but make them take the time to create the items. Creating the items is the time and vis sink, installing them into the lab takes a day, since these are Free Virtues, as in take up no space in the lab, not that they should be given freely 
.
You are right. I was thinking of improved Safety, witch cuts down on botch dice. But a low Warping score is also advisable.
GQ bonuses certainly do rock, and there are few Virtues that offer this. So I am woe to 86 it. But Health takes precedence. So I am imagining inventing some sort of Thaumaturgical Regulator (ReVi60; base 40. +1m Concentration; +5l Item Concentrates, +10l Unlimited use). Adds +2 GQ and adds +1 Farety (or lowers Warping one point, not sure yet). But that is down the road a ways still.
As for your question about the five point lab, yes i would allow you to set that up in one season. This meets my actual goal, which is notactually to encourage multiple lab reconfiguations. The intent, and it has been quite successful in that, the intent was to allow new players to get set up and going as quickly as possible. And yes, I do see potential for abuse of that HR. But no one has as of yet, so everything works fine so far. Same deal with the free heating and light. Not only does it make glaring sense that this old covenant would be well equipped this way, it also knocks a time waster off the list. The Upkeep bonus, well, that is a reward for conforming to my PoV I suppose. But it mainly makes accounting easier to knock a point off of upkeep times however many magi. And the way I set it up, the covenant covers upkeep to a certain point, and above that the magus has to pay half out of pocket. But all members of rank receive a generous cash salary every year, so it is no hardship. It really is little more than a psychological barrier.
As for Roberto...
Flawless Magic is a major component to designing a magus that is to be active and adventure oriented. But another important part of that picture is Self Confidence. That makes a major difference in the lives of any character that goes out and does stuff requiring suspenseful die rolls. A third component, one that rarely comes up but is a lifesaver when it does, is Life Boost. Having as many miscellaneous resources to draw upon as possible is the theory behind the crunch. Most of the rest of that design is fluff and individuality. What impresses me most about the character is the way I have been able to develop his personality and story. Which is why I need to find a storyguide and get him out of NPC purgatory.
I have a simple story waiting for him.
It's just going very slowly, arranging things and stating NPCs. I know what happens, why and by who, but need to clear things up, and that's happening at a very slow pace (didn't touch it in 2 weeks).