Really? Where is that stated. Now, I do always stick to that myself to keep things simple.
Never mind, brain fart. I transplanted that from the enchanting we had been talking about over to spells.
"Sometimes you may wish to perform labo-
ratory activities that, though rewarding, are well
within your capabilities and do not each require
an entire season of effort. In this case, you may
choose to perform multiple activities within the
same season, splitting your time among them all."
Core rules, p 102
My reading of this is that you can only perform multiple lab activities if each can be done in at most one season.
Sure. You can rig it fairly and squarely, but RAW does not actually say.
Even if so, that does not imply that the combination must be accomplished in a single season. In other words, each may not require an individual season, but the sum of them may take more than a season. While the math doesn't work exactly this way for the lab, a straightforward analogy is that 2/3 and 3/4 are both less than 1, so they satisfy the individual requirement in the rules, but their sum is greater than 1.
It says you apply the lab total to the combination, right? Not that it applies to each one individually, right?
Sure. But if you have a lab text, you just need to exceed the sum of levels. If you do not, you count points. Hence you apply, as it is written, the lab total differently to the two components.
Having discussed with my group, I know that there are a couple of rules equivalent to yours, none of which are obvious interpretations of RAW. I agree it is reasonable though.
Look at how my example comes out. You exceed the total, so you learn from the lab text. You exceed the total by 5 points, so you pick up 5 points toward learning the one without the lab text. I only wrote the 0 points for clarity so people could think of it as one mechanism; but that isn't really needed. This follows both rules exactly, even though both rules are written out differently.
I don't think so.
ArM5 p.102, third sentence of the first paragraph:
A magus may reproduce multiple effects if they are all of the same Technique and Form, and the total of their levels is no greater than his Lab Total.
Wait a moment! Here's mine (2nd printing), 3rd sentence in bold:
Sometimes you may wish to perform laboratory activities that, though rewarding, are well within your capabilities and do not each require an entire season of effort. In this case, you may choose to perform multiple activities within the same season, splitting your time among them all. All the activities you perform in a season must be of the same type (learning spells, instilling powers in an invested device, creating potions) and must use the same Technique and Form. To perform multiple activities, simply add up the levels of all activities performed and apply your Lab Total to the total of the levels.
If you perform arcane experimentation, you add a single simple die + risk modifier to your Lab Total, but any results rolled on the Extraordinary Results chart apply to all activi- ties performed in the season.
Why don't we have the same third sentence?
Oh, you're quoting from a different spot. I'm not talking about reproducing multiple effects. I only reproduced one. Everything I wrote fits perfectly into that quote of yours. The total of the lab texts is less than the lab total.