Spell Mastery and Practice

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.)

@David_Chart

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...

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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.

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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}

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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.

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Yes. See all the answers above.

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