Original Research - too easy?

[Alexios_ex_Miscellan (Alexios ex Miscellanea)]

Salvete, Sodales!

Agnar wrote:

maybe I've read it wrong but dont you have to roll for a discovery in two consecutive seasons to get a breakthrough?
Which gives you 1% chance of a breakthrough...seems sufficiently difficult to me

Well, actually you read it wrong.

In the first place your chance for a discovery is by far greater than 10 percent, because you can use your risk modifier to modify the result on the discovery chart, so with a risk modifier of 3 it is somewhere between 30 and 40% I guess (I did the math quite some month ago and don't have the rules here to redo them, but you will find most essentials in older posts).
Risk factor three is no real danger for a research lab, which usually has a safety factor that just leaves the one minimum botch dice.
The stabilisation experiment just mustn't end with a complete failure or disaster, but needn't result in a discovery itself either. I thing the propability was somerwhere above 40%.
4th ed. rules to the contrary made OR a horrible gamble.

So, yes, or is far too easy now, at least if you prefer a saga style, where your PC mages are about an equal footing wih any NPC mage their age.

Vale,
Alexios ex Miscellanea

P.S.: Here is a link to the last time I started this discussion, and if I remember correctly, Yair had already beaten me by some mont:

Is Original Research too easy?

Salvete Sodales! While working on an experienced lab rat magus I was wondering whether the rules for original research do not make the process too easy for the background scenario to be realistic. A researcher probably has Puissant Magic Theory or an affinity in MT, so he won't have problems in achieving MT 11 and use a risk modifier of 3. Statistically this will lead to a discovery in about 1 of three seasons of research (rolls of 7,8,9, 1-4, 1-5, 1-6, 1-1-2, 1-1-3). Such a risk modifier sou…