To the best of my knowledge, we have not settled on lab texts.
I created a wiki for the saga. It can be found here: http://houseofmercy.wikidot.com/. Send me a PM with your email or wikidot username and I'll give you an invite to edit.
I was wondering that myself. I hope all the sturm and drang with aunguard didn't scare him off.
Sorry for late response but the flu got me badly. Anyway if you want to start do so as looking at my magus make me realize I'm future away from completing him then I was in January and I only had overtime free for most of Dec and Jan.
Together with the info that my boss took in a other urgent project what means looooooooot of overtime again I can't even predict any more when I can find the time to continue working on the char. (When I joined I hoped that I'm finished with my chars by the end of Jan. because I already expected that afterwards I would only have the time to post here 1x or 2x a week as mentioned that my limit is when I did apply)
Adauli,
The flu has been quite nasty over here. We have a bit to do with the remaining Lab Texts, and I'm also quite busy. No worries.
John
Just checking in to see how the players are doing. Is everyone still interested, and have time available?
interested, but not certain about time, mine seems to be fluctuating heavily, and I assumed I would have towards the low end of participation given other things I am involved with. I know we had talked about starting, I don't know if this is a general lull or if I am somehow holding things up...
Adauli had gotten busy, and needed time to finish his character. I'm not much further than I was a month ago, and Xandran seems to have moved on. Sort of a lull, I guess. Certainly, I've been busy.
Sorry for the last month I didn't manage to do anything for this game. But I also have to think if I'm suited as SG for a game this high power as someone who only played the game once where I was SG for only 2 short stories.
Also I suspect that earlier or later there will be a conflict with silveroak and me because to me it looks he is fixed on the official rules, mathematics and real history what means when I bend some rules for story reason or telling something that might change the history he will veto me even if I'm current the acting SG.
Beside that I don't have the slightest clue how you are handling the pre game VIS as my mathematic understanding is not enough for this! But without a alpha storyguide it means I would have to be able to check if all our characters are correct build but I can't do so thanks to this rule.
Edit: Beside after some thought I don't think we can do more then 2 story the same time, 1 with the magus the other with the companion, and even then there might problems if the covenant resources where changed. (i.e. one of the grog got bad wounded or be dead)
Do we have a house rule how we handle distraction pre game outside of the season where we trade the fixed 10 Exp. for a season of labwork?
I don't remember that we have one for this but that also means that during the time we taking the 10 Exp. there is no distraction allowed to my understanding of the rules.
Otherwise we have the problem that people who i.e. craft items in days instead of seasons like a Rustic can end up with countless magic items at game start.
The main reason I ask is that thompsja assume that he have enough time to invoke his Ars Notoria Rings regular despite each recitation need at last 1 day (and a roll that he waived because he assume he can't botch and so no roll is needed).
How did we end with ruling Ways of the (Land)? Although for me it would be OK in extending its effects for all things you make in the named area the rule clearly say "for rolls pertain to your area of understanding". If we are going for a more strict to the word ruling, as Trogdor prefer it, just going to your area to cast a lasting buff on your self won't give you the benefit of this virtue for the casting this buff. Anyway Ways of the Town don't work in our regio in my opinion as there is for sure nothing that can called town in it.
You're allowed one month during any season to a distraction, without penalty to development (ArM5 p. 165) The exception is the lab bonus from using Planetary/Celestial magic, which requires you to work at specific times, and so any day missed causes you to lose the bonus. So, if you have to take a break to craft a temporary arcane connection, you can, and can just squeeze a permanent connection under these rules. Because all recitations take only one day for me, I don't see them as interfering.
I see Ways of the Town granting me a bonus to affect people or animals in the town, whether by spell or a skill roll. Things having to do with a town itself, such a history, or construction would count. Our regio does have an old city in it, if it got inhabitants, I think it would count. How many people does a population center need to have to count as a "Town"?
As far as I'm concerned, if you are the SG for a particular story, I'll abide by your decision. Little things about math and Ease Factors for particular roll don't bother me.
I'm not trying to follow the rules for vis - I simply used Build Points to pay for the items I built and a few ritual spells, and assumed that I had the yearly fee for the Aegis resolved. I'd like to get one story under our belt and then we can talk about how we'll do multiple stories at the same time. To me that means that a character is in precisely one story at a time. So, Trogdor and I could have our magi in one, and Adauli and Silveroak would be in another, for example.
This 1 Month is only during game play but not during Character creation! After all there is no other distraction pre game then what the player set, in opposite to during the gameplay. Also because we cut the 1 season the normal game assume you are working for something that give no exp. I think that nearly all of our possible distraction time is used up with work for the covenant and tribunal.
Beside all Lab work only allow 10 days of distraction before it start to cut into your results from the lab. (ArM5 105)
Anyway your character is way more powerful then my first character that in my opinion complete stayed within the ArM5 rules but was shoot down by 2 other player. So I had to accept that we made a house rule how fast we can do initiations and that Christian had no numberology based sub group. Even if we rule botch is no issue for your Ars Notoria rolls pre game you for sure have no unlimted time to cover up for failed rolls. Also I'm personal opositing that you can using the fasting bonus on the roll pre game because you also can't get the malus from sin despite you for sure will be tempted and tested by angels and demons during this times.
I personal think permanent residence of at last 50 or 100 people + to count as town for this virtue but at last from my knowledge to be really called a town was a special right that only the higher nobility could grant to a settlement. (i.a. people living in a town are free and no longer serf) Anyway no matter the way we will define Town for this virtue the only people our regio ever will have as resident will the magus and the magic humans because the magic aura is simply to high for normal humans to live there so No our Regio will never count as town. Even our magus are supposed to stay in the city regular or our urban and road covenant flaw are worth 0 points instead together 4 points.
But I think the most important question we have to face now are we realy plan to continue with this or say it was nice to build a high powered magus together but end it here?
After all that both Trogodor and Silveroak also stepped out for 1 month hint that they not realy want to go on with this.
I am interested in going forward, I just feel like I have a bit of work to go and am worried about whether the game is going forward or not- of course my magus and companion are finished, just not up on the wiki, and I could finish up the grogs while we start the first game.
Aside from the initial recitations of a Ring of Solomon, which takes a season, you can perform a Ring in (10-) days. You can recite them to last more than a single season, so I generally did them to last for four seasons. By the time I was reciting the 5th ring, I had a 5 in Ars Notoria, meaning I could do two rings in 10 days. If you feel that I didn't have time to recite rings and complete a full season's work, we'll have to disagree.
I concede that I may have failed, even botched rolls. Trogdor commented on this, and I stated that it doesn't mean much in the pregame. The principal thing I got was a bonus to my Lab Total and improvement to the tractatus that I wrote. The bonuses to Int and Com are granted at the first two rings, and I thought it reasonable that I made those rolls.
I know the rule how much time they need but as said using the pre game creation rules of the core book you have 0 days of free distraction time you could use for this. Sure with our house rule when you working in the lab or writing books you actual use the rules for development during play and there you have the 10 free days per season when working in the lab. But as soon you take the 10 exp. in a season its a abstraction that use the full season without allowing you to do something other. So effective you are asking for a house rule that you actual could do this. But I see the problem here as soon we start to move the pre game abstraction rules even more toward the rules from the gameplay we need to question why we still use the abstraction and not some sort of simulated pre game play.
Anyway wondering if Trogdor is returning as he didn't login to this forum for this month and it look like he also said nothing about taking a break in the other games he is active.
(I will try to finish my character if he also say he want to continue but to be blunt I lost interest because it looks like we have 4 different understandings of the rules and I don't know how to find the needed time to actual finish my character. Especial the rules part is a big problem for us playing without an alpha SG as so far each decision needed days if not weeks to get the majority decision and some questions how we handle it from months ago are still unanswered to my knowledge.)
It seems that any initial interest has waned. I am still interested, but it seems others aren't, and there seems to be fundamental disagreements about character creation. I'd like to thank everyone for their time, and wish all of you the best.
There some problems with allowing distractions during pre game creation:
Agreed, but we assume that there are no distractions for learning for any other player. Poenitens, admittedly has less free time than a typical magus.
We have agreed that you can have a learning season (gaining 10XP), or do some other task. I'm not aware of any instance where players want both experience and a lab season. In addition, unless you've written a tractatus, you are considered to not have read the work in question, and thus can learn from it.
Seasons are not completely fungible/mutable. That there's a little extra time in a season does not mean that there's a virtual 5th season at all.
As said this things only come up because you assumed you are allowed to take distraction time during seasons where you take the pre game 10 exp abstraction that usually have absolut nothing to do with the chapter long term events.
Adauli, it seems you fundamentally disagree with the decisions I made during character creation, and that it's not valid. What change, if any, would be acceptable?
As said taking distractions is something that isn't allowed with the pre game abstraction unless there is a group decision to allow it and we only had the group decision to allow distraction during the times we work in the lab.
Even for the Lab work I asked Trogodor to limit him self to max 2 modifications per season because there is no SG send distraction during the pre game what could mess up the season for him.
For your Ars Notoria its even worse as there are distractions from both devil and angels any time you will just try something and a botch will have real catastrophic results. (The most simple thing is that you lose seasons of learning your Ars Notoria)
I'm accepting that you don't botch because of your virtue and that you did all the Ars Notoria Rings within a city and outside of infernal auras (This is already stretching the effect of the Virtue and could vetoed by the other 2 especial because many virtues have no effect pre game).
What I can't accept that with initiations we have to spend a full season for specific time and place while in game it probably just need 1 or 2 extra days and some planing but you say you can do your rings on the side in seasons you are taking the 10 exp. abstraction that not even allow you to take distaction.
Ok, initiations take a season, losing studying potential, while my reciting rings takes place with studying. I'll note that a Mystery Initiation gives a permanent alteration, while reciting a ring is a benefit that can last several seasons, it is not permanent.
I think we are at an impasse, and I don't see a way to resolve this issue with this character.