stabilization season : do you produce something / can you stabilize at +2?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi,

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.

Exar.

2

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.

3

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.

4

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.

5

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.