The variabikity will surely be high. I noted so in my original post. My purpose, however, was just to get a scale of what making a breakthrough entails.
For the record - I wouldm't allow OR in my game rifgt now. Stories are better generated by integrating hedge, ancient or rival magic IMO.
I agree in principle - but would remark, that OR can be necessary to complete research started by integration.
Cheers
Part of the problem is that OR is too easy, as written. We have a poor idea of why the Order has not produced more breakthroughs, unless we figure out how hermetic magic was less effective than before. In another thread someone was talking about lowering the difficulty of all spells to 1 before parameters. Implying that say, in the past hermetic magic cast the same spells at higher levels. It would be IMO a Major discovery to lower the difficulty of just one TeFo combination - and I would require all five combinations done for an Art before it could properly understood and distributed across the Order.
Part of the problem is that OR is too easy, as written. We have a poor idea of why the Order has not produced more breakthroughs, unless we figure out how hermetic magic was less effective than before. In another thread someone was talking about lowering the difficulty of all spells to 1 before parameters. Implying that say, in the past hermetic magic cast the same spells at higher levels. It would be IMO a Major discovery to lower the difficulty of just one TeFo combination - and I would require all five combinations done for an Art before it could properly understood and distributed across the Order.
What's the definition of Easy?
It takes a fair amount of time. It causes a fair amount of warping. Not every magus is going to be interested in pursuing research because of the warping. That is unless I'm reading the table improperly. 2nd magnitude effects used to discover a minor breakthrough would grant 13.59 wp, right? And it takes 47 seasons, which is nearly 12 years. Like the theoretical maximum lab total of a magus, you can easily add half again as much time to the discover when you factor in other things that pull him away from invention, so 18 years for a minor breakthrough is not at all unreasonable. Right?
Am I missing or misreading something?
Agreed.
I also don't like other aspects of the rules, however, especially that Intelligence and Inventive Genius don't add directly to it. It would also probably be cooler to reward higher-magnitude spells, high Arts, and high auras. I once tried to come up with alternative rules for OR; I'm not sure how well that succeeded. I fear they only made OR easier 
Not every magus, certainly, but enough for things to start to get weird. You have an entire House (well, half a House) devoted to this kind of thing, after all. And other magi, from other Houses, will surely join the fray. Given the long Hermetic history, and the number of magus-years devoted to OR this entails, I think we should have lots of Discoveries. By these rules. Which raises all the troubles Heaven's Thunder Hammer raised.
Yair
Maybe a number of minor discoveries is reasonable. Major and Hermetic breakthroughs very possibly not. And it is possible that these breakthroughs have been made and not shared, especially the bigger one. Someone, somewhere speculated that the control of apparent aging part of the Longevity Ritual could be a recent addition to Hermetic Theory.
If guidelines are something that requires a breakthrough (not saying they are) then that's OR. Or if guidelines can be discovered without OR, that's another pursuit of researchers from House Bonisagus or any other house. Something else to consider is that the numbers listed are guidelines to the necessary research points for a breakthrough, they could, if you think they are too easy and it's a problem for your saga's back story, be changed. Or, you could just add the listed breakthroughs in many supplements to your saga's back story, among others.
The solution I used was to start my game in 790. PCs study from vis or other Magi for arts. They have to invent their own spells or copy out their lab notes for another wizard to use. If anyone wants to make a discovery - they can. Also, I can just periodically have a discovery pop up and the PCs can make sure hilarity ensues.
Why not?
Let's say half the researcher's time is spent on actual Original Research (this is a highly dedicated researcher, after all). A long-lived magus accumulates something like 220 Warping Points in his career (as per the implied guideline in the core book page 32), so this means he invested some 110 WPs into OR. Using 2nd magnitude inventions, this single researcher can produce 2 Hermetic breakthroughs, 2 Major breakthroughs, and 1 Minor breakthrough (or some other combination thereof).
Now multiply that by the number of Bonisagus researchers over the centuries, plus others who have done OR (and shared it). Yikes.
I'd advise anyone seeking to use the OR rules as they are to significantly increase the numbers, at least if they're after verisimilitude. Otherwise, Bonisagus should have long since been eclipsed by numerous other brilliant Bonisagus researchers with their Hermetic breakthroughs.
Though as I said, I think both the setting and the gameplay are better served by denying the option for OR entirely. Bonisagus cobbled Hermetic theory together from ancient and "hedge" (non-Hermetic) magic, and this is how you should improve on his work too.
YMMV 
Yair
I would reject a strategy from a player adopting a strategy of using only 2nd magnitude effects, exclusively, and would definitely increase the number of points needed for a breakthrough. Maybe what's needed her is some kind of handicap that favors higher level effects and those more warping is accrued period.
You're rejecting OR because it doesn't fit with the supposed history of the Order, is fair. But as a game construct, it does give players something to do, "to prove" and generates characters with motivations and purpose, and for that reason it is useful. Not everything has to be about verisimilitude. Indeed focusing on verisimilitude can kill any game.
We're on total agreement on the versimilitude aspect - that's why I said, above "at least if they're after verisimilitude".
I find that the goals OR allows players to pursue are essentially the same as those needed for integrating hedge, ancient and rival magic. In all cases the Breakthrough is sought, and the researcher needs to spend lots of time in the lab and be a theoretical genius (more so for integration than for OR, actually!). The only thing OR adds on top of that is the ability to pursue all these goals without generating adventures from them, which I think is counter-productive, and also incogruent with the setting's description about how prior OR was conducted (by Bonisagus). So I don't really see the benefit of employing this game construct. I'd only allow it as a "desparate move", an option to be adopted to finish a research project that is otherwise impossible, a way to ephasize the sacrifice and special efforts the PC is investing to gain the breakthrough.
On changing the rules - yes, I think increasing the points and requiring higher-level effects can work well. Again, I prefer the integration model where the troupe can dictate what the effects and their levels are so that it can set them as high as they want them to be. The need to gain new Insight sources also means the pacing is up to the troupe, regardless of points.
Integrating ancient and rival magic has the same problems of verisimilitude, though. It's either been done before or it hasn't. OR and whether or not it is too easy doesn't solve the underlying issue you and Heaven's Thunder Hammer appear to have, IMO.
Integration has the advantage that it's adventure-based, and thus SG controlled. No NPC has ever managed to develop the Breakthrough because no NPC has ever located the Lost Temple of the Hersaparaids before, nor used the Secret Hymns found therein to beseech the Gods from the top of Mount Olympus, nor was granted his wish by Zeus for he bore his Mythic Blood, nor.... There is a good rationale for why the PCs are the ones doing all the amazing progress, and it's the same rationale that sets PCs apart anyway - "PCs are Special" in that they're a whirlwind of adventure.
That said, the points total for Breakthroughs may need fiddling with even under Integration. Nevertheless, it is overall more controlled by the SG and better rewards high intelligence, inventive genius, and (assuming the SG picks the effects to be invented well) higher Art scores and aura. It's just a better model, IMHO.
Yair
This makes no sense, really. You're effectively imposing a preference of how new things get discovered on players, only because you think the story way is "better." There's absolutely no reason that NPCs haven't located the Lost Temple, used the Secret Hymns, or sought out the Gods from Mount Olympus. If PCs can make amazing progress on integrating ancient and other magics, then they can certainly do the same with original research and establishes the reason within the game, whether using OR or adventure and integration, that everyone else is lazy and the PCs are the only ones capable of moving the order forward. Frankly, you've just now countered earlier argument for verisimilitude.
And the SG does control the process for breakthroughs in OR. He determines the points necessary, and beyond the listed, meager guidelines for selecting what kind of breakthrough it is, decides what level of breakthrough a proposal is. It is even suggested that if a character is extraordinarily lucky at inventing the breakthrough that the SG add some additional points necessary, if I recall correctly.
I disagree that it is better controlled, I honestly don't know if it favors high int and inventive genius characters. Higher Art scores and aura can benefit OR, when you don't try and impose a player optimised strategy on a character who wouldn't necessarily know what's the best statistical method for getting to his goal the fastest way possible with the fewest warping points possible.
I am really going to regret wading into this, but Yair makes PERFECT sense.
The idea that NPCs are all "Lazy" is a straw man argument. No one is suggesting that. What we are saying is that cool stuff is for stories, and stories are for Player Characters. Now, I am NOT saying that only PCs can do Original Research. Rather, what we're saying is that a GM and his or her players should encounter Original Research -- personally or through NPCs -- when it suits the story that the table wants to tell. That may mean that we use Original Research performed by an NPC. A good example is the fella from Magi of Hermes who has invented Longevity Rituals that don't make the magus infertile. He's an NPC. He's made a Breakthrough. But this Breakthrough is irrelevant unless and until it introduces into an in game story.
It might be useful -- and again, I'm gonna regret this because it will inevitably get pushed too far -- to use Ars's own attitude towards history as a good analogy. In Ars Magica, medieval history proceeds as it did in the real world unless and until the Saga requires it to change. And so it is with Hermetic Magic. It stays pretty much the same until and unless the Saga requires it to change. That may be a PC doing the changing, or it could be an NPC. But the point is that change, just "because it would happen" or "because it makes sense", is ultimately a thought exercise. Without the context of a campaign or a story or some kind of actual Ars Magica play, Breakthroughs aren't going to happen. And just as how the ultimate answer to the question, "Why hasn't Hermetic Magic changed the world?" turned out to be "Well, it should have. But it hasn't. Because... well ... just because." The exact same answer applies to "Why aren't there more Breakthroughs."
Well, I was going to an extreme, much as Yair was saying that every Hermetic researcher under Original Research rules, discover 2 minors, 2 Hermetic and 1 major breakthrough in their lifetime, and then multiply this number by the number of Hermetic researchers ever in the Order. Of course, NPCs aren't lazy. There is absolutely no reason that a saga can't be built on the premise of integrating ancient magics or Original Research and use those developments to shape the saga.
Exactly, I agree with this completely. There's nothing to say that OR hasn't created any of the examples already for a saga at the start of the saga. This isn't always discussed when a saga starts, and it's often a player who says, I want to do OR and discover a suggestion in one of the particular supplements. OR is just an appropriate storytelling device for a character, shaping the narrative of that character than is doing integration and the stories that stem for that. It very well may be that the troupe might decide collectively that a certain integration or OR has already been made by an NPC, and that's perfectly fine, too. Your point and my point are the same, that it's all about the story. In Ars Magica, the story is a cooperative venture between at least the player and the SG, if not the player and the rest of the troupe (including the SG). If I go to the troupe/SG, and propose an OR path and character arc for my character, the last thing I want is to be told, no, you have to do it through integration (which may not even be appropriate to the proposal). There does need to be some common ground between player and the SG about the kinds of stories that are told. Original research, despite its reliance upon mechanics, is a perfectly valid character development path for a character. I mean, when I have a character actively pursuing OR and I get pulled out of the lab due to a story or personality flaw or covenant hook, you can be sure I'll make him grouse about all his lost research time...
My two cents to add here are:
a) Not every researcher is researching something possible. In-character, the Bonisagus researcher doesn't know what can be done or not. He just has a "Fantastic Idea for How Hermetic Theory Can Be Improved". So, maybe out of a dozen Bonisagus researchers, perhaps only one is actually researching something possible (or whatever balance you like). The point is that it is possible that the majority of researchers, whilst "doing research" and perhaps generating interesting side-effects and minor discoveries, might have an ultimate purpose that is futile. Perhaps, it just isn't possible to "find a way to use Herbam and Animal vis interchangably", or whatever. The PCs are different, because the troupe/storyguide usually negotiates out-of-character to find a project for the PC to work on that is possible (albeit, perhaps very difficult). So, PCs don't usually "waste" their time on impossible research projects.
b) The state of vanilla Hermetic magic in 1220 is the result of numerous improvements to Bonisagus' theories via research. Perhaps, the capability to use horoscopes as Sympathetic Connections was a breakthrough made 20 years ago. Perhaps, the ReCo guidelines around "teleportation" were only developed during the Schsim War. Maybe the target Group was introduced by one of Bonisagus' apprentices, and so forth...
Some good points here that I agree with - again, with my game in 790, it's really becoming quite clear to me that Hermetic Magic in the base rulebook - a good chunk of it should just not be possible and the capabilities of the magic system reduced considerably.
Yup, that's the way I like to think of it.
Previous hermetic magic just couldn't do some guidelines (say, CrIg couldn't make light without flame), some range/targets weren't integrated (say, no "voice" target), some guidelines existed but were harder (like, all CrIm to create illusions were 2 magnitudes higher...).
It also gives a nice way to introduce new guidelienes to players IMO: Instead of telling them "Oh, now, you know you could do this all along", you say "Bonisagi found how to do that"
I find this approach to be still incogruent with the rules in that it cannot accomodate the many Hermetic discoveries I'd expect. But more broadly, I just don't like this ever-expanding nature of Hermetic magic. Not only am I having problems seeing how this knowledge is being constantly disseminated throughout the Order, but I don't want it disseminated. I don't want wizards to be like scientists, always needing to keep up with the latest research in the field.
I also don't like the picture of the Order this creates, especially of those ignorant hedge-wizard Founders. Even digging a few generations back, to the founders of the covenant, can prove problematic (what items or lab texts have they left? Suddenly, you need to decide whether they had fireless light back in 1097, or does the item use higher base levels. Hermetic history becomes something of a mess.
And I much prefer Hermetic theory to progress using tie-ins to long-lost secrets of magic rather than sheer lab work.
At the end of the day, I remain convinced that integration generates more and better stories, is more under the SG control in both pacing and required scores and resources, and is overall just a better option. The OR rules were great for their time, but their time has passed.