It looks fairly good in both level and difficulty. Fire is a very "everchanging" element after all so handling it is harder than dealing with wood or metal.
I'm a bit surprised that carpentry comes under Muto rather than Rego - is it a 4th ed legacy?
Normally, it IS Rego. But with the material youĀ“re shaping being fire, well thereĀ“s decent arguments for either.
Maybe Rego is better after all...
That was a typo. I was aiming for straight conversion of The Mystical Carpenter. The correct art is rego, I tend to edit text from older spells into newer ones so that I keep the formatting. this leads to typos when I forget to change something.
OK I did through age +90 (that makes him 114). I'm surprised , it was less of a jump in capacity than +60 to +75. Mostly just getting his to do list from the middle of page 4 done. I'm going to post it whether or not anyone cares to see it.
Does anyone have a preference for making this thread longer versus starting a new one?
Why not just going on, but posting summary and links towards good posts in the first on, so that reader can just come and click the link for the age interesting them?
This matches my personal experiences
this one, please.
Your experience that there isn't such a great jump in ability between gauntlet +75 and gauntlet +90 or your experience that I post things that no one else would care to read? 
I was surprised because to me the jump between gauntlet +60 and gauntlet +75 seems so huge for him with his increased combat capacity, his familiar boosting his lab totals and the fire teleportation spells finally allowing him a method to use ignem for transportation.
ditto
lol! first one, jump is likely to be small 
Good point, but weren't those basically his long-term project beginning to bear fruits?
And the, over the next 15 year, further benefits were reaped, but only from the same sources/projects? That's what I've usually seen anyway
Years 76 and 77 are basically used to fill holes in his spell list.
Season 1 (Mu An lab total 41 for spells)
Season 2 (Mu Vi lab total for spells 56, plus a possible similar spells bonus that I didn't bother to include) this is a spell that Ranulf can find a lab text for given his connections within house flambeau.
Now the more rules savvy among you might think that that preceding spell has no possible use seeing as duration of a muto vim spell has to last at least as long as as the spell it's affecting. I think however that more people ignore this and have a single muto vim be able to target any spell regardless of the spell's duration than play the game by the errataed rules (I know I do). If you you us the errata then by all means make this spell duration conc. and lower the level of spells that it can affect to 30.
Season 3 (PeVi lab total for spells 61, including a similar spells bonus for unraveling the fabric of terram)this is a spell that Ranulf can find a lab text for given his connections within house flambeau.
unraveling the fabric of ignem at level 45, he 's been wanting this since he was an apprentice. He really should be able to turn off his spells when he wants to. His lab total justifies learning it at level 50 but I figure that he might not be able to score a lab text for a spell that high (it would probably be more rare)
Season 4 PeIm lab total for spells 39
Veil of invisibility. This is one of the most common spells in the order I think that he'd probably be able to score a lab text for this one as well. I realize that assuming three available lab tests in a row might stretch the believability of text availability even for 100 year old magi in the minds of some folks. Ranulf doesn't use another lab text for 11 years and all of the other lab texts he uses are for spells that are very common in house flambeau as I imagine it.
Seasons 5 & 6 Perdo vim lab total for spells is 60 when including an 8 point similar spells bonus for Wind of mundane silence at level 40.
I'm thinking that something like a wall of flame bending around a protected target would suffice to show the exisitence of parma. Perhaps even Mein of Helios (MoH p110).
Season 7 ReVi Lab total for spells is 67
That's enough for now but I'm going to add the following spell as a spell Ranulf sponts because I don't see a good place to fit it into the fifteen year schedule, yet I think it will still cause some discussion.
Look at Light shaft of the night which does a similar thing, it uses target group, is target individual appropriate (an individual shadow)? Can an individual be targeted and their shadow effected rather than targeting the shadow? That seems more sensible but the spell could then use range personal while affecting something outside of the person. Is that OK? Are the ease factors sensible?
Season 8(ReIg lab total for unnatural fires + similar spell bonus of +8 is 90)
Then Ranulf goes and hits the books.
I think that spending 2/3rds of one's time out of the laboratory is about right. I'm going to run ten years worth of experience points. I'm thinking that giving a familiar 1/3 as many experience points as a magus is ok for older magi who presumably have a lot of resources. personally I'd like to see familiars be able to advance a bit more easily yet. ( I never had a problem with their advancement prior to RoP:Magic when their ability to advance was inadvertently stripped).
So here's 100 xp for Artisano.
Magic theory to 5 for 45
Organization lore Order of Hermes (personalities) at 1 for 5 xp
Are lore, Covenant (geography) at 1 for 5 xp
charm (first impressions) at 1 for 5 xp
Athletics to 4 for 20 xp
Awarness to 4 for 20 xp.
Is that too much for familiar advancement without taking any time away from Ranulf?
Are there really no thoughts on blending out the tell tale shadow?
Just let familiars advance normally, most people do anyway, it just gets messed up otherwise.
YouĀ“ve already balanced it decently enough, if anything you may have overbalanced it slightly. Well it seems fine at least.
One possible change would be to add an Intellego requisite and have the spell selfadjust brightness to the surroundings.
That's what I do for my games but I feel compelled to make Ranulf scrupulously rules compliant.
The non-lab time is when all of the actual activity happens for characters being advanced by this system. To me, this is how 30 xp per year is rationalized, that 30 xp includes adventuring seasons that gain only 5 xp. It includes exposure only seasons for writing books and lab notes, it has lots of spare time in it for other stuff. For Ranulf a bit more than a third of his time is spent in the lab. That means for every 30 xp gained a year I'd only need to justify about 25 (the other five come from lab exposure).
So this would be the time to look at updating his reputations and personality traits.
At 70 years out of apprenticeship, we had the following reputations; Hoplite +2 (Order), Deficient in Intellego (Flambeau) +1
These are still good but I think that more are appropriate. I see Ranulf as taking a leadign role in advocating for the ideals and the members of the societates milites, I see him trying to embody the ideals of the Milites (whic is much easier to do when you're a 100 year old magus then when you're only 30) I also see him being extremely free with the lab texts of his spells.
beneficent +2 (flambeau and societates milites) . Militie +2 (order), Crafter of ignem spells +2 (order)
At 70 years out of apprenticeship,we had the following personality traits;
Loyal (Artisano) +3, Inquisitive +2, Brave +2, Loquacious ā1
Now with the power of age I think that these are likely to change a bit.
Brave will go to +3 because, he's got a whole tom of power- that makes people more brave, Inquisitive might be toned down with age to +1, In addition I see him as internalizing the ideals of the Milites since he is acting as their advocate so I'll add noble +1.
ten years and 300 xp
penetration goes to 6 for 25 xp he's woried about penetration with spells that aren't ignem specifically his muto vim and skin of wax.
vim goes to 22 for 43 xp
ignem goes to 31 for 60 xp (with a 30 xp boost from his afinity)
finesse goes to 5 he's particualrily concerned with making The Carpenter of Flames a useful spell
Magic lore goes to 1 for 4 xp
Muto goes to 14 for 14 xp he's got a lot of muto vim spells that need to penetrate
Corpus goes to 14 for 14 xp he's particularly concerned with getting skin of wax to penetrate
Animal gets raised to 10 for 40 xp he's got some animal effects planned, also hide of wax might need to penetrate
spell mastery The Carpenter of Flames 1 (precision) for 5 xp he wants to be able to use the spell and -6 is a nasty penalty to have to deal with.
spell mastery skin of wax 2 (penetration and ceremonial casting) for 15 xp. I'd wager that being free with spell texts and being an advocate for the milites and the house would encourage someone to show him the exotic casting mastery for ceremonial casting.
That leaves 35 xp I'd considered raising penetration again or concentration (he has a lot of vim spells that need concentration rolls for casting while maintaining) but instead I decided that raising parma to seven was his best choice.
Well, thereĀ“s nothing about it in the main AM5 book... 
Something about being obsessive or "overly enthusiastic" with doing everything remotely possible with Ignem spells?
How about I replace "crafter of ignem spells" with "irrationally large repertoire of ignem spells".
Seems nice. Or you could have both as a ~depending on if its people who like or dislike him who says it~... :mrgreen:
Flaming Grognard. :mrgreen: