I think it is quite clear. If I leave out the parenthetical note for Flexible Formulaic Magic it makes it a much different and more powerful virtue.
If it is meant for all spells, why say EITHER spontaneous or formulaic in the sentence? Why not leave out the parenthetical note?
I like JL's greater Rituals in that they are made for a Covenant or area. You could not pick up a AoH form Harrco and cast it at Mistridge because the boundaries are different.
Sure it (the parenthetical note making a difference) does. But does allowing Cautious Sorcerer to affect Ritual magic make it that much more powerful of a virtue than it is already? Sometimes parenthetical notes clarify, and sometimes they exemplify. The use of FFM is to clarify, and I think the use in Cautious Sorcerer is to exemplify. It's such an odd thing to include two things that are similar and slightly different with a third thing that is totally different and exclude ritual magic which has more in common with spontaneous and formulaic casting than lab activities do that I can't really come to terms with excluding ritual magic from the virtue.
I did have something really cool, but the posting got fkd up. I will write it again latter. Too heartbroken about it at the moment...
Jebrik,
By what stretch of the imagination does Cautious Sorcerer not work with Ritual spells? Nothing in the text says that. If you are stuck on wanting to see the words "Ritual Spells" in the description of what recieves the benefit, I would suggest you are being silly. It specifically states "Formulaic Spells" and Rituals are a type of Formulaic spell.
Hate it when that happens, which is why almost all of my long posts go into a text editor. The forum got wonky last night, ran a bit slow for a while.
No, absolutely not. Ritual spells are not a type of formulaic spell. They are like, or alike, or similar, but they are different, which is part of my basis for understanding that the language around Ritual Magic means that they are always cast under stressful conditions (not a stress die). It seems just as silly to me to accept that the RAW allows rituals to be cast without risk by learning getting the Mastery level to 1, except in situations which the SG wants the ritual to be risky.
I disagree in that when a parenthetical note is used for an example in the Ars5 book it says for example. Cyclic Magic (positive) uses this wording in its parenthetical note. Cautious Sorcerer says either. Last time I checked either means this or that. Not for example.
There are no reasons I have yet, as an SG, encountered where I would want to make rituals more risky. I almost always want to make things easier.
The situation with Ritual spell categorization. It just seems obvious to me and requires purposful twisting and selective interpretation to try and claim Rituals are not Formulaic. Not wanting to steer this debate that way though. I know what I would do in my saga and you do what you want in yours.
Easier isn't the same as less risky. But, I share the same general goal, make it easier, make it more consistent in application and practice, and make it less risky. As I said, the RAW (or interpretations of RAW) leave huge gaps between the standard practice of ritual magic and the actual practice of ritual magic. If the SG decides, for whatever reason, that the situation surrounding a ritual casting is stressful, you have a huge difference in the calculus for risk. I think there should be some risk for working a ritual in the field. I think the degree of risk should lie closer to formulaic magic in stressful circumstances.
My rubric is making a lesser ritual about as risky as casting a spontaneous spell in combat, which starts at two botch dice, I would add botch dice for every 5 pawns of vis used, or fraction thereof. Mastery and virtues would reduce that, but not take all risk away (even if your Mastery would normally allow you to remove all botch dice), the only way to remove all risk is to do it in your sanctum without any possible impending threats. Kind of tough to do the astrological calculations necessary without having the tools we assume are in the sancta, so you can't use AL in the field (unless circumstances would allow it), but you can use Philosophiae, relying upon principles of Natural Magic and what you can take advantage of in the present environment. Although, I dislike the conditional determination of whether AL applies, it makes it a bit more fiddly than I generally like.
I'm kind of thinking out loud with how lesser rituals, because Ive not really found anything that I'm happy with.
I think the real problem is that the SG do not want a ritual botch to interfere with their story. That is why I like JL's greater Rituals to be used for AoH or Bountiful Feast. Basically, anything with a boundary range. All the other rituals can behave under the normal rules.
It also includes D:momentary rituals that create something out of whole cloth (Conjuring the Mystic Tower) and the stat boosting rituals.
Requiring a Season is very much more difficult than an hour or two. I just plain don't like it. I much prefer the status quo (even with the handwaving).
Do what you want in your saga. I am not a participant anyway so my opinion has little impact.
Mark, no. Just simply no. You aren't even reading what I'm writing. If you're going to end all of your arguments with do what you want in your saga, you're not really trying to come up with anything better. Why bother getting involved at all?
Under the RAW, one must learn Aegis and then one must cast the Aegis, learning the Aegis takes how long?
Under my scenario one casts the Aegis, and it's done. It gets maintained annually. The first casting takes how long? The maintenance takes no more than an hour or two...
If you want a higher level Aegis, you have to learn a higher level Aegis, that takes how long?
Under my scenario you invent a higher level Aegis and cast it at the same time, it takes how long?
In all cases one must spend the time of a season, period.
Mark, let me also add, that if the lab text for the Aegis were properly translated from shorthand, anyone could do it for that location, so long as they had the Rego and Vim scores necessary to handle the vis.
I would only include Rituals with a boundary Range are greater rituals. Basically anything that would be cast for a Covenant. Anything else can go with the normal procedure.
Creating something from nothing, IMO should be important. Further, I don't like the idea of saddling a character with Conjuring the Mystic Tower as a spell. How much use does a spell like that have to a character? Same for creating gold or other commodities. Stat boosting should be a lab activity, because part of the process is studying the body or mind in great detail and figuring out how to accentuate the desired characteristic, and raise it. Subsequent seasons are needed because the person is changed from the previous season. It is something of a flaw, in that it takes a long time and requires really high CrCo and CrMe totals to get it done in a single season. Of course, that's a feature, not a bug... 
Actually, there are 2 differences:
I don't think those differences have any real impact in most saga. The impact might even be positive.
That is why Casting Tables are used 
Precisely for CtWT.
IMHO, a line must be draw so as to not pull in the CrCo and the CrMe stat improvement spells.
Where do you find this? Because inventing/learning a spell from a text requires a lab total, and a lab total, by definition indicates an activity undertaken in a Hermetic lab.
Yes. But I'm not sure how much it would actually be done in any game, or even the setting as described that one would learn something once and then cast it in many places.
Let's take the example of Durenmar, which has 3 Mystic Towers, the Tower of Bonisagus, Notatus, and Trianoma. In (more than?) 450 years they haven't raised another tower, even though the top was blown off the Tower of Trianoma. They haven't even bothred to repair it in the nearly 400 years since it was damaged. Could they use another library tower? The setting suggests that the library is a bit overcrowded and it takes time to find the requested materials, organization does require some space. If the ritual only requires someone to cast it, then it could have been easily hired. If it's risky, then the person hired might have mastered it. But the long and short of it, is that while it's an amazing spell, it's a very limited spell in utility, just like any spell designed to create something from whole cloth. And even the stat boosting rituals are of limited utility. If done for personal character/player reasons they would probably come later in life, when other sources of bonuses have been exhausted and/or become expensive.
As you said, the differences probably won't have an impact in most sagas.
Casting tablets are the debbil. It also involves someone who spent a lot of time inventing the spell and then mastering the spell, why wouldn't he want to capitalize on learning it by casting it for covenants, rather than having covenants by his casting tablet to do it for themselves? And then, there's the same issues as knowing the spell; the casting tablet is a one-shot item that cost a lot of build points to acquire.
And why shouldn't those spells be pulled in? Do you think they get cast with impunity? Is it because the highest level ritual spell, the 60th level spell requires 12 pawns of vis, and a Magic Theory score of 6 under my system? Does it seem more mythic that a magus goes away for 6 (or more) months and comes back with +5 Int (or other relevant stat) rather than a few days of travel there and back again? All I need to know about this person who works the ritual is that he can do it in a season, which means a lab total of ~120 in CrCo or CrMe.
I think, perhaps, that there is a method for one of these Greater Ritual lab texts to be useful to the casting of another similar ritual, somehow.
In my mind, I have this picture of a spring covenant pulling itself up by their bootstraps. 3 or 4 magi in the covenant, their first order of business is building a crude but functional lab, takes 2 magus seasons, possibly different magi involved, another magus is designated as the Aegis caster/inventor. Starts in spring, then it goes up on the Winter solstice. They have a functioning Aegis, but now they need some buildings, one of them is really good with Terram, so he spends some time inventing the rituals to create the buildings while the other magi scour for Terram or Creo vis. Now they have buildings. These are important spells, no doubt about it, but I'm not sure that they are important enough to be included in a Grimoire of any magus, at any age. One just doesn't go around casting Aegis, Conjuring the Mystic Tower, or Physical/Mental Characteristics of the [Heroes/Followers].
So a ritual spell designed to conjure a meal or a set of cloths will also take a month? What about one single sword? What of my strategy to set up a tower like a mundane pitches a tent? What of my plan to set up a small circle of them overnight and surprise the enemy? What of my (real) planned strategy of casting a Level 20 Aegis in the field while on expedition?
And that Tower. 7 pawns of vis is worth at least 70lbs silver in most sagas. How many men can I hire for just 30? Save the rest for materials. How many? 30? 100? Mabe more? They cant finish in a month?
Or if it takes a season and 4 pawns to make a dress, how many dresses can be made in a month for 40lbs?
Just don't like it. I won't use it nor would I desire to play in such a saga. More so, and this is what irks you, I so dislike the idea and honestly feel it is detrimental, that I feel obligated to discourage others from supporting it or agreeing with it.
No offense
Of course some things cease to be useful, but the use cases you cite seem to be edge cases, in any event. It probably wasn't useful to conjure a meal or clothing, or a single set worth. Hermetic Creation rituals create a lot of a thing. And if it only created a single sword, it would be a really awesome sword.
You can always create spells which pitch towers for a duration. Such spells would also be higher level, and the only useful Duration is Moon, which makes it a 50th level spell for creating a tower. But casting rituals around your enemy overnight in an attempt to surprise them sounds like a stressful situation, so one doubts you could be relaxed while doing it, and then each spell which takes a little [strike]more[/strike] less than 2 hours, so if you want to burn 28 pawns of vis, and 8 hours, acquiring long term fatigue each casting, sure roll the dice, a botch is not going to be pretty, and you will be exhausted the next day due to no sleep and ritual magic casting. Are you making stuff up on the spot to counter why my idea is bad? Creating a single meal or a set of clothes? Trying to encircle your enemies with towers?
The field Aegis, I obviously don't have an answer to that. But that's a feature, not a bug to me. You are safe at home, in your covenant. You are not ever really safe in the field. If your Aegis can be easily taken with you, and easily cast without risk then you are never really in danger, are you? But then your Aegis also doesn't need to penetrate, so even high level Aegides can be cast without a problem as long as you get within 10 of the level, and if you have stalwart mastery, it's short term fatigue, rather than long term fatigue. Win! That being said, if you could be in the place you wanted to protect with an Aegis, I'd be perfectly fine with someone who could Leap to and from the intended location creating an Aegis in the lab at home and then casting it at the end of the season. So, yeah, a satellite location does become possible, it just requires the investment of time and vis. It also represents how important the location is to the covenant for an extended campaign.
For your answer about how much of a thing can be created with a ritual, I invite you to do the work and come up with an answer based on the guidelines. I'd expect no less of any player who wanted to make something, under the standard rules or my proposed house rule.
Edited to make a correction in the time of the ritual, and added some clarity for long term fatigue.