Practice for Spell Mastery is supposed to be 5 XP per season. Is practicing a Ritual spell also 5 XP per season or is it 4 XP per season? (Some SGs say it's 4 XP, since you don't want to spend the VIs to fully cast it.)
I don't know of anything clear-cut, but we do have this about Fenicil's rituals:
So it's clear that you can develop mastery through practice with Hermetic Rituals. It's just not clear if this warrants the bump from 4 to 5.
I fail to see why practicing a ritual would give less xp. Spell Mastery doesn't stop being Spell Mastery when you move from formulaic magic to ritual magic...
The issue people bring up is "by casting it repeatedly," which doesn't apply here. But I don't see how casting DEO repeatedly without demons being present or similar with other spells is really so different than what HoH:TL describes for practicing Rituals. So I like it being a Source Quality of 5 as well.
Exactly.
Does one have some poor grog having early onset dementia when practising "The loss of but a moment's memory"? Only a classically stereotypical villainous mage in the tower is practising "Clenching Grasp of the Clutched Heart."
I've always considered it's spending a lot of time checking the notes to ensure the order of the words, the gestures, the pronunciation is perfect.
The magi finally works out it's Lev-ee-oh-sar, not Lev-ee-oh-saa. To get the fusion right, you have to touch your fingers just so. {I could go for ever, but I often write rambly too long posts anyway. Just imagine some more pop culture references}
I find that statement in canon a little too clear and unambiguous to handwave it away, but you are right in questioning if it really makes sense to other spells.
I once made a case on the Berk List that spontaneous spells should somehow contribute toward the creation of a Formulaic version, in game terms. Resulted in quite a lengthy discussion until someone pointed out to me that was already presumed to be part of the process.
I feel like what you've listed, plus possibly repeated "partial castings" or sponts of lesser versions of spells, are part and parcel of both creating and mastering spells. As always, YSMV.
Yes. See all the answers above.