Poenitens of Jerbiton

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: What if we joined them
41

Ok, let me go back to the original intent. I wanted an item for superior heating and light. I thought that would be useful to be portable, so I enchanted my talisman to have the feature.

Now, to have a room as bright as daylight, it would be CrIg 30 (Base 5, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +2 Room). This is sixth magnitude, so it will cause the room to be warped, right. On the fifth casting in a particular place, the room gets a minor flaw. I didn't want the lab to be warped, so I restructured it to light up a point, which make the effect base 20.

What am I missing?

42

I think you're missing that the light doesn't have to have a Room target. If you have enough charges, you can get away with an Individual target. Each individual you light creates light 10 paces in diameter. A few of those should light a +2 Size lab quite nicely.

Heating the lab is an entirely different story, Then, I think you do have to target the Room.

43

What I'm not sure about is whether you've even allowed to have both effects in a single enchantment. My gut tells me no, though I'm willing to be told I'm wrong.

But as I read it, you can't have a single effect that both lights your lab and heats it.

Anyone else want to chime in?

44

Given the age of Poenitens, he's probably predoing some of the work that Daedalus will do. The question is whether he can wait for Daedalus.

45

Trogdor, I agree that they need to be separately enchanted effects. I have corrected it in my items list. I was simply trying to explain my original thought processes.

46

Oops, sorry. I must have grabbed the wrong end of the stick on that one.

47

The thing you are missing is that while the target is described as room it is not- it is the thing created, which is either light or heat. The light gets a warping point then dissipates and more light is created. Similarly with the heat.

48

That's an interesting point. I've reread the spell Lamp Without Flame, and it clearly states that you're creating a steady light. True, that light is centered on a point you indicate. But I think silveroak is correct, you're creating a light, not enchanting the room or even any object in the room. Just like a summoned illusion or a summoned fire would only exist for the duration of the spell, then go away, so too does the light only exist as a transient creation. And since each light is only under the effect of one powerful spell before it disappears, there should be no warping of anything with a light spell.

I'm not so certain about the lab heating spell, however. The base guideline for heating your lab would seem to be the one at level 2: "heat an object to be warm to the touch." This would be extended by the Room target to warm the entire room that makes up your lab. Notably, the spell does not create "a heat" that warms your lab. It operates on the room to make the entire room "warm to the touch." Based on that, I would say that a sufficiently high warming spell would have the potential to warp the room/structure that it was applied to. Thankfully, at a Touch range, Sun duration, and Room target, the warming spell still only reaches level 15. You could make it Moon duration and it would still only go up to 20. So it should be pretty easy to develop a heating spell that won't cause warping.

In the alternative, you could design an effect that creates a fire (not sure what damage you'd want to make it, +5 is probably sufficient), and use that fire to heat your lab. It wouldn't be nearly as efficient, I'd imagine. but then you'd be creating a fire that would only have a limited life, just like the light you create with a light spell. You'd have a new fire each time the spell was cast and so it would be impossible to warp it.

49

To me the heat is simply the "other part" of the fire besides the light, and you are creating the two separately. Otherwise you could simply designate it as the air in the room being warm to the touch and the air would cycle enough that warping should not be an issue.

50

I just noticed something. Poenitens can't read any of the books we have in the library, since he only speaks Classical Greek at the default level 3 from his Romaic Greek. He never took Classical Greek as an ability.

I get where that was coming from. The limitations of learning Ars Notoria are steep. The rules say that you need to have level 4 in Artes Liberales, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldean. Of course, they were sloppy in this description by only stating "Greek" and not specifying Classical or Romaic. I tend to think that they meant Classical, since that's the language the bible is written in. But you assumed that Romaic Greek was good enough and went with that. I get where you're coming from. Even with Skilled Parens, getting all the points for those abilities is hard at gauntlet.

But even assuming that Romaic Greek was good enough to gain Ars Notoria (I'm leery of that interpretation), a 5 in Romaic Greek only gives you a default 3 in Classical Greek, which is not enough to read books effectively. Technically it means that you're also behind the curve at any tribunal meeting or talking to other magi, since they tend to chat in Classical Greek as well. You get around being totally screwed by the fact that most magi in Thebes speak Romaic Greek as a native language (though not all). Still, in order to read a book in Classical Greek, you'll either need a Romaic Greek ability of 6 (+30 points) or a Classical Greek ability of 4 (50 points). I know which I'd choose. :slight_smile:

In fact, that make me wonder, why does any magus in Thebes who speaks Romaic Greek ever learn Classical Greek? To get a 4 in Classical Greek costs 20 points more than getting the default 4 from Romaic Greek. Even if you;re going for a level 5 in Classical Greek the default is (30 +35 = 65) versus buying it solo which is (75). Unless you plan to go to level 6 in Classical Greek (possible, but rare), you're better off just upping your Romaic Greek.

51

The problem comes when you want to write a book as then you need Classical Greek 5 what no long is possible to substitute with Romaic Greek from what I remember.
At last I somehow remember that when you use a language to substitute for a other language the best you can ever reach is 4 no matter how high your language skill is.
Also there is the age limit when you first can have a skill at 7, beside that the difference is only 10 exp. when compare one ability at 7 to two ability at 5.

52

Good point. I'm not sure what language the tractatus that Poenitens wrote are in.

At last I somehow remember that when you use a language to substitute for a other language the best you can ever reach is 4 no matter how high your language skill is.
[/quote]
Can you find citation for that? Things are so spread out in ArM that it's hard to find that sort of rule wherever it's squirreled away.

Very true. You'd have to be 30 years old when you finished your gauntlet to have a 6 in Romaic Greek.

53

So, I've been toying around with Ars Notoria, trying to figure out how it works, and frankly, I don't see how you did it. You glossed over the numbers for reciting the rings, so I can't check them. But I really don't see how you got to the ease factors for reciting the rings.

You have a base of Int + Ars Notoria + Modifiers for reciting a ring. At the start, you have the following numbers:

Int: 2
Ars Notoria (as of first recitation: 5
Modifier for Optimistic: +3
Modifier or Compassionate: +1
TOTAL: 11

The EF for reciting a ring for the first time is 6 + 3*ring + 1/season.
We'll assume all first recitations are for a single season to keep the EF as low as possible.

The EF for reciting first ring = 6 + 3*1 + 1 = 10.
You have a +11, so you should be okay (unless you botch; you really ought to post die rolls where you can botch).

The EF for reciting second ring = 6 + 3*2 + 1 = 13.
You have a +11, so you should be okay (unless you roll a 0 or a 1).

The second ring also ups your Int to +5 when in effect. We'll assume you manage to keep it in effect for all future recitations. That ups your total modifier to +14.

The EF for reciting third ring = 6 + 3*3 + 1 = 16.
You have a +14, so you should be okay (unless you roll a 0, 1 or 2).

So far so good. You've rolled well and managed each ring on the first try.

At this point your Ars Notoria goes up to 6, which raises your total modifier to +15.

The EF for reciting fourth ring = 6 + 3*4 + 1 = 19.
You have a +16 (+1 for specialization), and it's starting to get tricky. You need to roll a 4-9 on the die, which is only a 60% chance.

The EF for reciting fifth ring = 6 + 3*5 + 1 = 22.
You have a +15, and it's really chancy now. You need to roll an 8 or 9 on the die. It seems like you'd have to try a lot to get this to work.

At this point, your Ars Notoria rockets up to 9. That makes your total modifier +18

The EF for reciting sixth ring = 6 + 3*6 + 1 = 25.
You have a +18, and it's still really chancy. You need to roll an 7-9 on the die. It seems like you'd spend more than one season trying this.

The EF for reciting seventh ring = 6 + 3*7 + 1 = 28.
You have a +19 (specialization in 7th ring), and now you need to roll a 9 on the die. That's a 1 in 10 chance, with the possibility of a botch on each roll.

Now, perhaps you were fasting (I saw no indication of that, nor no rolls), or you were chaste (again no indication and no rolls), but I can't be sure.
All of this also assumes that Poenitens never committed so much as a venial sin during all this time, which is really quite impressive. (Though I'll admit that there's no way to easily track sin during pre-game times.)

Am I missing something? Are there some bonuses I haven't accounted for? Because right now it seems like the chances of success on all seven ring on the first try would be vanishingly small.

54

Finaly found it again TSE 29 say:

For me this read like you can't be fluency in a language you not direct have and resulting from this not write a book when just substitute a other language for it.

Also thanks Trogdor for having a closer look at our character and point out where we made mistakes. Although its annoying it is better to have this sorted out before the game starts.

55

I fear this may cost us our really good tractatus as Poenitens looks to find seasons to learn Classical Greek.

56

wrong with his way of towns we can send him to our school
with https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/father-gabriel-grog-eastern-priest/11684/1 this language problem could be solved via teaching. (although he can't expect 1 to 1 education with our main teacher a teaching source of 16 is still top level)

57

I don't know what you mean "with way of towns we can send him to our school." Do you mean to imply that the +3 bonus from Way of Towns would somehow counteract the negative social effects of the Gift? If so, I don't think it works like that. First off, it only applies to rolls, not to SQ calculations. Furthermore, I imagine that even if it negated the -3 SQ by making the teacher like him (which doesn't seem to be the case based on the description of the virtue), I think it would still impose a -3 to the SQ of anyone else in the class from having that "creepy" guy in the class.

Second, there are numerous places in the various source books that note that a mere bonus to a roll does not counteract the negative effects of the Gift. Yes, it can counteract the -3 penalty that occurs sometimes. But people will still treat you as if you're strange and unlikable. For example, when referring to the +3 bonus from Aura of Beguiling Appearance, the spell description says "The social penalties caused by The Gift are not negated by this spell; the caster merely seems to be suspiciously over-friendly." Throughout the books the authors have emphasized that the social penalties for the Gift are notoriously hard to overcome. If a simple virtue or a spell could overcome them, then then it would take away a central conceit of the game.

Also, having him learn the abilities after the game starts doesn't address how he learned Ars Notoria or wrote his tractatus.

58

I agree its still worse then someone without gift but it should improve the general acceptance with town-folk-

yes for this Poenitens need to learn Classical Greek earlier. Although the Education virtue could help him as it is stated in TSE 29 that with education you can take Classical Greek as your mother language but I'm not sure if he can free up a virtue for this.

59

Of course that seems like a terrible virtue tax for learning Ars Notoria.

60

One must learn Ars Notoria after the gift is opened but before gain the 2nd point in any one art or the source quality from The Book of Solomon and The Keys of Solomon is not enough.
(the openend art alone reduce the training source of 20 from this book by 15 so a apprentice might learn it right at the start but never later)
Because you need to be a expert of dead languages to read this book it is nearly impossible for a hermetic magus to actual have Ars Notoria unless you become a apprentice after study in a school or university.
With his paren Linguist from HoH:TL 25 could be a alternative virtue to educated but it still need some rebuild for the apprentice time.

Side note: I personal suspect if a paren invest so much time to educate the apprentice in different languages that he can learn Ars Notoria I suspect the paren hope that the apprentice find a way trough initiation to teach Ars Notoria to his paren.