Multiple Summae - thoughts?

Dont you mean the level of the highest summa +1? Otherwise its impossible to get any use out of this with anything except summae of the exact same level.

Otherwise, if you have a (art) level 10 and a level 15, the two combined becomes a level 13...
And i would rather make it =(combined quality divided by number of books)-(number of books*2), or something, otherwise any low quality summae is always totally useless because the combined quality gets based ONLY on that worst one.

Thats actually a very good compromise i think. Basically make an otherwise useless summae equal to a low level tractatus or thereabouts.
Perhaps give it a Quality rating based on its level(and/or quality?) compared to your own current level in that skill or art?

Long ago i added the variant of Greater Tractatus, which gets a bonus to quality based on the writers score in the art or skill(with this included in the limit on the number of tractatus of course) but taking twice the time to write.
Its actually a great thing because on the one hand it allows finding some much higher quality tractatus and on the other hand it makes young characters wary about wether they will want to "spend" that limit on the number of tractatus they can write now and write "crappy" books or try to wait and not get the bonus of being able to trade books as easily.
Has worked very well.

That assumes learning to be 100% linear and "building block" styled... Thats never true about any knowledge or skill that i know of.
My friend can write a computer program in C++ or C#, if i can write the exact same program in QBasic, which one of us has the greater skill score in programming?

IIRC the idea of the comprehension level is to add to quality total but if you read it with less in that skill you get a quality reduction.
So its pretty much just what you say.

Except that at least i would prefer an always positive quality, maybe bottoming out around 5(ie you will always get at least 5XP from spending a season with a relevant book, but get more the better the book compared to your skill), yeah something like that.

This is an excellent idea. What about dead simple rules like:

If a character studies in a "community of scholars" for a season, there is a +2 bonus to the effective Source Quality of the book (or other study source).

To qualify as being part of a "community of scholars", the character must be able to informally interact (sharing meals, participating in discussions, etc) during the season on a semi-daily basis, with at least two other characters who have a Score in the Art or Ability that he is studying. The other characters do not need to be studying the same Art or Ability (or even studying anything at all). The other characters need only be available for conversation.

A character also qualifies as being a part of a "community of scholars", if (during the study Season) he can continuously consult a Summae of level at least equal to his current Art (or Ability) Score. The consultation Summae may not be the Study Source, and a character may not consult a Summae if another character is using the Summae, either to consult or as a Study Source. If the main Study Source is a book, the consultation Summae must be written by a different author.

The effect is basically that you get an Exposure XP bonus to the Source Quality, if you can converse with other characters, or have access to other books. This seems worthwhile, without being either too unbalancing or too tedious for the players to calculate.

Although it is a nice concept and I like it - in game terms its just going to pan out as a flat +2 XP per season for every magus player.

Good catch, the formula would yield 0 or even negative gain in some cases. There should be a minimum gain, and 5 sounds about right. It should be compared with practice and other self-powered expereinces, but better than exposure. And most 'real' tractati should be better. It's simply meant as a slightly usable method for having multiple redundant summa.

Hi,

I would take it in the opposite direction, that just having a book isn't all that useful.

I would also redo the book rules entirely, to make them less complicated.

I would place a greater focus on the scholars; losing a particular Terram tractatus ought to be of much less concern than losing a Terram archmagus to Final Twilight.

I would abstract, or at least simplify, the rules pertaining to the kinds of books that are written, so that a troupe need not keep track of them all. considers I have concerns about the whole summa/tractatus system, both in terms of playability and in terms of making sense. Playability.... covered at length elsewhere. Making sense: Technically, there were no summae in Bonisagus' era. Many of the real world books that are described as summas are not summas at all. Many of the real world books that are described as tractati are not tractati at all. The Bible is not a summa, nor is the Koran (grin and never mind the ludicrous Quality assigned to the Koran). The Talmud is not a bunch of tractati. A system that can be so way, way, way--I need another one--way off-base about describing real books and how they were actually used, while increasing complication ought to be revised.

considers I see the following distinctions as useful, but I'm probably off-base on some things; feel free to correct or elaborate.

Distinction: Some books are read once, or until the reader "gets it," and that's it. Other books are read and returned to, because there is no end to their usefulness. Many of the most important books of the age fall into the latter category, but not all! Once you understand some Aristotelian idea, do you really need to read the book again?

Distinction: Some books that bear continual rereading are references containing authoritative data. (I'd probably place Sentences, Mishne Torah, Summa Theologica, etc. here.) Other books that bear continual rereading contain inexhaustible truth. (I'd probably place the Bible, Koran and Talmud here.)

Distinction: Some books can apparently be read alone, though often gain by being read in conjunction with other books. Other books are commentaries or glosses on another book, and are not very useful without the original. These "parasitic" works can be critically important, transforming the way the parent book is read and used.

Or maybe not that useful. Hmm.

Anyway,

Ken

Much as I see the logic to abstracting libraries and teaching rules, I'd rather not go there. I like the atmospheric effect of finding a named book by a named author and learning secrets from it. My changes would be more limited. I'd rather have:

Limits on the ability you can get from a given tractatus

Many fewer books floating around. The magical libraries of a secretrive group like the OOH should be smaller than mundane collections, not larger.

Some system allowing you to learn faster when studying with the author of a book or another expert than when studying alone with the book. This system shouldn't require hugely high teach skills the way the RAW does.

I have a simple solution. If you want to improve the study total you have from studying from a book and an expert/the books author...

Apply the teaching and communication scores to the study total of studying from the text alone... simplistic...but thematic

There is a comment repeated a few times in this thread. Some players would prefer a much simpler library system than that offered in the RAW, and I guess in particular that extended in Covenants.

Perhaps someone should write it up in one of the ars magazoines like sub-rosa or even offer it up for PDF here if Atlas like it. There does seem a wide group of people that want it.

I should add, I am not of that school - so it is not something I would do myself.

personally, I like the detail of the book rules. One book truely is different from the next and wear and age play such a factor on book statistics as to be worthy of attention by players.... lets face it, it is difficul for us to appreciate just how valuable books were in the 13th century