Good morning all,
in the 5th ed book it says that the source of a summae is "Level and Quality". If I am reading a lvl 6 qual 16 book what experience do I gain?
I think it is meant to be the second, otherwise all summae would be high level low quality, but the wording is a little strange.
You gain quality xp, unless that would bring you over the level of the book, then you gain enough to bring you to that, level and no more...
If you start at 0 experience in this art (I assume it is an art summa) you would gain XP as follows:
First season: 16 XP
Second season: 5 XP.
This is because 21XP (16+5) give you a level of 6 in the art, and since study cannot give you more XP than the level of the summa, in the second season you are severely handicapped in your study.
In fact, from ametagame point of view it is a rather dodgy book: the level and quality do not match well. A level 6 quality 11 book would be better from a metagame efficiency point of view.
Clear as mud?
Cheers,
Xavi
Brutus-
The section on "Books" under Advancement (p165) doesn't actually spell it out (why, I'm not sure), but refer to the bold general statement on p 163 under Advancement:
Advancement Total:
Source Quality + Bonus from Virtues - Penalty from Flaws
Combine that with the bold statement under "Writing Books" (p 165) to get your answer:
Summa Source Quality:
Author's Communication + 6 + bonus
Once the book is written, all that disappears into "Quality", a value doesn't change unless the text is damaged or poorly copied, etc.
(Me, I liked it better when a book didn't hand most every character the same predictable advancement progression, but we've all seen those discussions, and this is how it works now.)
Not if it's an Ability summa. (Funny how Players always make that type of assumption.) 
If Abilty, then the skill progression (from 0) would be...16 - Skill 2
32 - Skill 3 (and so far that makes it an excellent quality value!)
48 - Skill 3 (ooh! Missed by 2!)
64 - Skill 4
80 - Skill 5
etcOk, so 17 might be a bit better to get to Lvl 3, but in the end it all depends on what level you want to get to, and where you are starting from - in XP, not just Level. (Virtues/Flaws will change all the math, natch.) 8)
Thanks, I suspected that it was like that, but wasn't quite sure.
and my magus was proud to write a Lvl 5 Qual 11 Intellego summae.... 
That's respectable, and would bump a student to Lvl 4 in one season, Lvl 5 in 2 - what's wrong with that?! (Nicer if it had been Level 6, to avoid topping out for the same time studied, but hey.)
To shorten the study period would take a Quality of 15+, which would require your mage to have... um... a score of about 24 in the Art.
Qual 15 = 6 + 2 Comm + 7 bonus from extra Levels (12 max, -7 = a Summa of Level 5).
The humongous summae that can be "bought" during Covenant Generation* are, imo, practically (but not literally) impossible for PC's duplicate, unless they dedicate themselves to one Art/Ability and burn a decade or two in its pursuit, or are older than dirt and have accumulated more XP than they know what to do with. (as has recently been mentioned in another forum on these boards.)
Aristotle may have had the time and opportunity to do this, my magi never seem to.
(*Arts: Lvl 20/Qual 11, Lvl 15/Qual 16, Lvl 10/Qual 21, etc
Abilities: Lvl 8/Qual 11, Lvl 6/Qual 17, Lvl 4/Qual 22, etc.)
When evaluating a book, I like to consider the effect of the various learning virtues and flaws. So here for example, a character with the Poor Student flaw would still reach level 5 in two seasons (8x2).
You could therefore describe the book as an accessible introductory text geared towards students that are a bit slow. You have taken great pain to provide explanations that may yet seem rather obvious to most, "wasting" space could have been used to dig in a bit deeper (Q11 L6). Which is why average magi will find the book a bit unsatisfying. Additionally, the writing is clear enough that someone with an Affinity for Intellego will only have to skim the book to get a solid grounding (L5 in one season).
Anyone have the link to that discussion? I've been wondering for awhile now why a mage's intelligence doesn't affect learning.
And NO, I don't want to reiterate the argument now, I just want to read the previous thoughts.
I did a search, but the thread proved elusive.
--eric
Try adding "concentration" to your search parameters.
Doing a quick scan, the first thread along this line was found here, but I didn't do an in-depth read so there may be more/better material on it elsewhere.