Hi,
In another thread, Marko revisited a change he made to the cost of texts in the order back in 2014, in which he introduced the concept of the "quarter pawn" of vis, and priced Hermetic books in that new currency. (Search forums for "quarter pawn" for conversations about that.) This was an intriguing innovation that I noticed only now. Unfortunately, it is bound to the book valuations described in the core rules for covenant creation, which I don't think convey anything close to the actual value of texts.
Here, I combine his idea with an earlier post (posts?) of my own (searchable), in which I suggested that texts rather than vis or even Parma are the foundation of the Order. I try to refine both ideas and get closer to an economy for the Order. I don't intend to compare the value of different Arts, either for vis or texts. I don't think the books get this right either: Animal and Herbam vis are likely the most abundant in the wild, with something like Mentem rather hard to get hold of and Corpus probably more useful to more magi than, say, Aquam. For this conversation, generic (or Vim) vis aligned to the Magic Realm is assumed. I also expect that the prevalence and value of vis can vary across Tribunals and sagas, so I will talk about Fractional Pawns rather than Quarter Pawns. I personally think that Marko nailed it with qp, but that's a postscript to this conversation. So fp it is.
Finally, I stay with the core rules as much as possible. I won't refer to the vis extraction rules in RoP:M or the detailed book rules and correspondence in Covenants, except to note that the former are great if you want to make sure that a sane magus will only extract vis in his own covenant in extreme circumstances (and that if the other magi in the covenant do not agree, he is committing a crime against the Code), and that the latter add complexity and extra optimization. We can disagree and talk more about those rules in another thread.
Now, on with the show.
Both vis and tractati are interesting in that pretty much every magus can use them, and their function is relatively generic. Either can therefore serve well as a universal medium of exchange for the Order. A pawn of vis is easier to consider as currency, like an ounce of gold. But tractati are less tractable because they come in various denominations. A tractatus is not quite the real unit of currency here, but the xp it provides. More specifically, the extra xp it provides.
A magus can gain 2xp from Exposure during a season in which he does something quite valuable. He can extract vis, he can train an apprentice, he can invent Formulaic spells, enchant an item, intrigue against his fellow Tytali, deal with some Faeries or Hedgies (and take their stuff), search for a Familiar, initiate a virtue or do something else. A tractatus that doesn't provide at least as much value as that other activity (minus 2xp!) is worthless to most magi.
For example, a magus is likely to have a lab total of at least 50 in his specialty 10 years past Gauntlet, if not earlier. He is likely to muster 30 in wide applications not utterly alien to that specialty. That's a lot of spell levels, especially if lab texts are available.
He can also Practice. This won't work for Arts, but any Arcane Ability (Finesse and Parma are rather useful) or Spell Mastery or Concentration or MT, all of which are useful. Mundane texts cost mere silver, and a magus can read AL, Phil, Latin, possibly some Realm Lores.
Here's another thing a magus can do if he has an apprentice but doesn't want to spend precious vis on Art books: His very ordinary apprentice has Com 0 and no virtues. But he can be taught an Art to level 5 as part of his 15 seasons of training, and then be tasked with writing a Tractatus about that Art during one of his 45 seasons of service. That tractatus is q6, which is pretty crummy. I will go so far as to say that it has no vis value. Fortunately, it can be copied using mundane means, so it has some value, and can be treated like any other mundane book, with a value in silver rather than vis. The cost to the master is insignificant: He has to train his apprentice in Arts anyway, and apprentices often have wasted seasons. An Order where the cost of tractati is not reasonable might be flooded with these things. Com +1 is also very common, so a similar argument can be made for the value of a q7 tractatus. An archmagus desperate for books about the Art he has leveled up to 40 can get 3 or 4 tractati in that Art out of an apprentice. Or Magic Theory. Not Parma, unless you stretch the custom (like Tytali who don't believe in rules, or Bjornaer who insist their apprentices are peers after Got12Y, etc), but those books will not enter general circulation.
We can come back around and ask whether the value of those other exposure activities is worth at least 4 or 5 xp (we subtract 2xp from both exposure and the tractatus) as a sanity check, and because the apprentice tracati serve as an example rather than the sole foundation. I think they do, other than obligations and penalties. Invent 25-50 levels of formulaic spells? Read a good book about Astrology? Attend Tribunal? Kill a diabolist? Make some vis of your own? 4-5xp as a minimum seems reasonable.
I feel less comfortable suggesting that q8 tractatus has no vis value. In a sense, only special people can create these, since Com +2 is three Characteristic Points, which is a virtue. If the value of a tractatus lies in the extra xp you get, we have the following:
Q FP
8 1
9 2
10 3
11 4
12 5
13 6
14 7
We cannot do better than 14 which maxes Com and virtues.
Does this make any sense? Let's try a few. I can buy one q13 or two q10. In two seasons, I get either 15xp+something or 20xp. That seems fair. What about 7Q8 vs 1Q14? In 7 seasons, I get either 56xp or 26xp+6somethings. That's kind of reasonable too. A Good Reader might prefer more, lower quality books, but lab rats might prefer the higher quality tractati.
Covenant building can be done in this way too, though fp and covenant bp are not that compatible.
What about summae? Level+Quality does not measure utility, whether in build points or fp. But we have a framework to assess their value.
These are less valuable than tractati. The magi who are most likely to be able to have spare vis to pay for these are the ones who will get the least use out of them, because they likely already have Arts above 0. Worse, a magus is not likely to ever need more than one summa in an Art, maybe two. If I write an L6Q21 Creo summa and you write one too, we split the market, which is already relatively small because magi who have read yesterday's L5Q15 summa or who were taught by their parens really won't be interested. Tractati combine better with Book Learner, there's never wastage, and any magus can benefit. Summae do combine with tractati, but tractati also combine with tractati. Summae can have much higher quality, but the above rules can account for this. Writing a summa probably attracts attention and provides a great reputation, but is less valuable, xp for xp.
So we value them similarly: A summa has value based on the extra xp it provides beyond 7 per season, and then scaled down by some factor. I'll go with 3. For example, L20Q10 summa provides 210xp over 21 seasons. Using the numbers for tractati, we get a base value of 63fp. Then we divide by 3 and round up, for a value of 21fp. Is that summa worth 7 q10 tractati? Does that make more sense than the canonical covenant creation rules?
A summa for an ability is assessed similarly, but where an L5Q15 Art summa provides one season and is worth 3fp (8fp/3), an L5Q15 Parma summa provides 5 seasons and is worth 14fp.
This does not work for summae that probably don't belong in the game (though the canonical system doesn't either), either because the level or quality is too high. For example, L10q55 would cost 16fp, which seems crazy good; L10q11 costs 7fp, which seems reasonable. L20q21 costs 47fp, which seems ok.
Better scaling for summa would involve a bit more math, since as L approaches infinity, the value of a summa equals that of tractati.
But level 20 summae barely belong in the game.
Anyway,
Ken
) or whatever) holds all the secrets of the universe, you are really best off reading the commentators (LinfQ5!) But maybe you mean something else and I just misunderstand?