study bonus & study requirement

I have a question regarding these 2 virtues/flaws.

Would it be a contradiction to take study bonus & study requirement?

My reasoning is if you have to study in the presence of techs/forms, why not get a bonus doing it OR it is the point that a flaw is just that ?

what do you folks think?

I think it is entirey appropriate to have both, and indeed a character in a campaign I am running has both.

Bob

I think it's even mentioned in one of the books somewhere to do it...

On the description of both says that are compatible. You must study with requirements, but you are really good on that way.

They are compatible, and it's right there in the core rules.

Very flavorful. Both the virtue and flaw suffer, imo, in that they are either extreme or insignificant, depending on whether a magus is able to take books to an appropriate environment.

Now, you cannot take the covenant's auram text into the eye of a hurricane, you fool!

But can't I have my apprentice copy the auram text so I can take that?

(That's what I mean. If a magus can never take a text from the library, the Flaw becomes "You are unable to study from texts." If a magus can easily do this, this becomes a Story Flaw.)

But the eye of a hurricane is the calmest place! :smiley:

Well, it's meant to be a Hermetic Flaw. And, the Cow and Calf as described merely restricts the distribution of copies of the text, not the making of actual copies.

Sure, but you (usually) have to travel through the hurricane to get to it... :smiley:

It isn't that much of a flaw until your Art scores get high. It's tough on specialists but not a very restrictive Flaw for a generalist.

Being a generalist is a flaw in its own right. :smiley:

True :slight_smile:

But for some character concepts it doesn't hurt that much. I have a Character with the Study Requirement flaw who focuses on making stuff with Rego Craft spells. Most of his spells are relatively low magnitude, and he's mastered them to boost his finesse. His few combat spells are indirect spells where he doesn't need to penetrate MR, so it hasn't really hurt him much yet because he hasn't needed high Art scores to accomplish what he wants to do. It will be a long time before he gets around to boosting his Arts high enough that the flaw becomes more than an inconvenience.

I have a character with Magic Addiction (and Flawless Magic), which almost necessitates that he is a generalist.

j

That's my point. If the requirement is trivial to get around, it's an awesome flaw to take, acting more like a Story Flaw for the few times it is going to matter. That's not necessarily a bad thing.... :stuck_out_tongue:

Not to mention that if you study from vis, finding a place that meets your study requirement AND has a good high aura can be problematic.

Although studying from vis is usually madness anyway...

The payoff at Art scores 5-10 isn't bad, and if you are a young magus, a possible twilight episode might result in just as much beneficial knowledge, so not entirely madness.

In many sagas, young magi struggle to have sufficient vis just for the basics.

At a canonical cost of 1 pawn for a usable tractatus, that's probably the way to go.

The canonical cost of a sound tractatus is two pawns (Covenants, page 95), and goes up to three if you are in a rush. Although trading for other sound tractatus is common, too.

And who said anything about young magi?