In the DE, it is said that "After you have achieved your Discovery, you must stabilize that process through exact repetition. You must repeat the experimentation, continuing for the same number of seasons and using the exact Lab Total and risk modifier that you used to find your Discovery. If you used vis during your process you must repeat the amount used."
but next to the possible BP and labtext of stabilization, do you actually produce something.
Example: if your process was on a previous creation of a lesser item, do you produce a new lesser item for the vis used in the season of stabilization?
I personaly always thought that not, the only "result" of the unique (or multiple, if the process leading to discovery was multiple) season(s) was the labtext of stabilization and giving the Breakthrough Points but the phrasing is confusing me.
Also, and that is a question I asked in another topic, is it possible to stabilize at +2?
What I mean is that in order to stabilize at +2, it means, eg, that you rolled 5 with a risk modifier of 3 (because you have MT11) = 8 in the experimental phase of a previous season which is a complete failure.
And "complete failure" is defined in the experimentation process as: " Complete Failure: You get nothing from your efforts, and your season is wasted. If you were working on a familiar or enchanted item, roll a simple die."
Since I can't consider a season leading to a discovery in the cadre of a breakthrough research a "waste" of a season, I don't know really what this would mean.
Personaly I think the complete failure +2 to stabilize leading to a discovery is possible, because if a +2 was never possible, the rules would have said so (DE only say: "you may choose a risk modifier of 1. Thus, to chose a risk modifier of +2 your Magic Theory must be 6 or higher, and a risk modifier of +3 requires a Magic Theory of 11+.
*RISK MODIFIER: +1 per 5 points of Magic Theory or fraction thereof, up to +3 * Consult the Extraordinary Results Chart as normal to determine the effect on your spell, including adding your Risk Modifier. However, you may also add or subtract all or part of your Risk Modifier in order to get a Discovery in addition to the normal effect of experimentation. Thus, if you had a Risk Modifier of +3, and rolled an 8, you would get a Modified Effect (from a total of 11). You could also subtract 1 to get a Discovery in addition. The effect of the spell is still modified. ")
Thanks for your opinion about those questions.
if you were enchanting, and you need to do a season of exact repetition of the prior one, I fail to see how you could do something else than spend the vis and get an extra item of the same design, really.
That's exactly what I thought for the first question (but would have loved an explicit say of it in the rules), but then there are processes you could have done but only one time:
enchanting a familiar (how did Bonisagus integrate that into MT? by killing/disenchanting its bond and the one of Merinita again and again? How did Quendalon and its lineage develop the faerie bonding if they could not experiment on the familiar bonding in the first place?)
opening an apprentice.
For the apprentice, I can see the answer being "you can open another apprentice while stabilizing" and it becomes a problem of access to 2 apprentices which may or not be hard, but for the familiar, I fail to see.
You can reproduce it theoretically, etc. but having a practical reproduction for the familiar seem impossible.
Creating a familiar bond isn't the only labwork that could lead to Breakthroughs about familiars: bond enchantments, spells that affect familiars, enchanted items that affect familiars would all be potential options.
What Breakthrough do you think has been made to improve Opening? Many (most?) magical traditions have some sort of Opening, even if they don't have a native Magic Theory. So, it doesn't seem like a tradition develops its Opening from integration and/or original research.
There is nothing preventing you from forging the cords anew at the same exact rating they previously had, or to enchant the same Mind Speech power twice in the cords. That being said, there are also ways arround that. Experimenting with tunnel-like effects, with spells analysing the gift and magic might, with mentem effects protecting from emotional control, and globally effects that are aligned with the kind of things the cords actually produce might yield insight.
Okay. From this discussion I get the stabilization is a repetition. Yet I don't get for the "complete failure" and stabilization at +2 what you are repeating. I understand that you need to re pay the cost of vis (if any), no problem.
I understand that the Level you need to double with your Labtotal is the same as during the "discovery" season, no problem (ie, you may still need the assistants, etc.).
But it do not really answer my whole problem: is it even possible to have a +2 stabilization season to do in the first place.
In the lack of a clear answer or even consensus, I decided that yes.
The "complete failure" experimentation season means that the product of the season didn't work out, but the "discovery" part using a +2 modifier as per the rules means that the fact that the product didn't work out gives you information on the breakthrough you are attempting to reach.
A complete failure is a complete failure. If you failed to produce anything, there is nothing to replicate, and since insight is based on the magnitude of what you're replicating, trying to replicate zero results yields zero insight.
So you are of the opinion that a +2 risk modifier after initial roll is not possible (since to reach 10, a +2 requires a 8, complete failure). So why do the rules speak about the risk being added from -3 to +3 to reach discovery (absolute value being limited to MT/5, rounded up), and not explicitely say that +2 is never an option and thus the options are in fact -3,-2,-1,0,+1 and +3?
The text has been errata'd: "Seeking the Unknown (p. 27): Replace the paragraph immediately after the Risk Modifier formula call-out with the following text: "Consult the Extraordinary Results Chart as normal to determine the effect on your spell. However, you may also add or subtract all or part of your Risk Modifier in order to get a Discovery in addition to the normal effect of experimentation. Thus, if you had a Risk Modifier of +3, and rolled an 8, you would get a Modified Effect. You could also subtract 1 to get a Discovery in addition. The effect of the spell is still modified. You cannot use the Risk Modifier to get a supplementary result other than a Discovery."
So the risk modifier has multiple impact. You can pick a +2, use to get closer to 10, then use part of that modifier to get to your true target. Since it's a stress die, sometimes you explode and you use it backwards. But the initial result remains. Since breakthrough mechanics depends on the magnitude of anything you produce, if you don't produce anything, there is no breakthrough.
Temprobe, that I know. The main issue remains that if with your initial risk (let's say 3 because you have MT 11) you roll a total of 8 (5+3), the only way to get the discovery is to add a +2 in the "try to get a discovery". But 8 is the complete failure. Hence the "+2" of the variable for breakthrough seeking experiment is never usable since it always requires a 8 prior.
Hence "the variable" risk you can add can NEVER be +2. It can be +3 (no benefit), +1 (story event), -1 (modified), -2 or -3 (rerolls) but never +2.
Hence, "why say it's from -3 to +3" if it cannot be +2. Therefore I was asking myself the "does a complete failure in the experiment process means a complete failure for the breakthrough?" question, since you can learn from failure like you gain exposure XP even with a complete failure, so you have learnt something and I concluded the authors wanted that you can have a breakthrough discovery from a complete failure, and I provided my own explanations of why.
Michael answer is "the authors didn't think about this" but I cannot think that in any playtest with breakthrough processing during HOH TL phase, this has not happened (rolling a 8 is quite common, especially with a +2 risk that young Bonisagus magi are often able to choose, giving a range of +2-2 to +2+2 which is wider than +1-1to +1-1, and trying to get the famous +3-3 to +3+3 asap, hence the fact that I'm questionning here, and still thinking the "it is not a blocking result for the breakthrough itself".
Okay, you cannot think that. I can. Or, if you prefer, it happened but they decided not to complicate the book by pointing out exceptional cases. It's a rule book, not a computer program. You are hanging an awful lot of logic of one casually written sentence, which you are not allowing any redundancy.
I really don't know why you feel like taking this issue like that.
I presented both options. I don't know what the authors thought. I presented the fact that both answers have merits.
Your position is clear, nobody says you are in the wrong since there is no right.
I'm just waiting for people to bring either an example in the rules giving a definite answer in one direction (there is none that I know of someone doing a breakthrough rolling a complete failure in the RAW) or more reasoning in the sense of one or the other option.
Both have merits and can be explained. I just feel like, at the moment, the +2 being unusable in breakthrough research is a bigger oversight than a complete failure providing a breakthrough discovery which can be stabilized.
Look, if you want to house rule something, go ahead and house rule something, more power to you, it's your game, enjoy it. But please don't argue the RAW is not RAW because you think an unwritten example somehow breaks the general rule when it doesn't. There's a lot of things in ars rules that leave space for things to be written in the margin, and a lot more that are open to interpretation, but frankly, I think you're the only one who sees ambiguity in this one.
I have thought about this, it's a fair question and I don't want to give offence. But I think part of the problem is that we approach the text in a fundamentally different way. I think about what the authors meant, and I think you see it as more of an artifact.
Which means I just don't see the ambiguity that apparently you do. This isn't a case where I come down on a different side of an argument, I just don't understand what generates your opinion that there is ambiguity. Sorry.