If we're talking about votes, then I vote for "always a stress die."
I will propose a hard and fast binary rule for determining relaxed casting. If a mage is going to get Adventure experience for a session (i.e. role playing) then any ritual cast is considered stressful and can be botch even if mastered. If a spell is hand waved like Aoh and Bountiful Feast is often done then spells can be cast in relaxed situations.
There simple way of determining relaxed situations.
I saw this over in the Mastery thread.
I can generally live with this, with the stipulation that spells of the CrMe & CrCo variety are never cast relaxed.
Hermetic Projects (pg 37) lists the book, De Architectura, as the seminal Roman work on roman building and engineering. It counts as a Tractus on Craft:Mason and Artes Liberales, and includes building plans and street diagrams for the planning of whole cities and towns.
On pgs 30-31, they discuss the need for Architects to spend time designing buildings before construction is begun, and rules determining the amount of time spent. After that, however, they only refer to the head Mason leading the project, including the quote, "The main craftsman involved in building any tower is the mason. More than just a laborer or worker of stone, he is a learned engineer with knowledge of the Artes Liberales, an understanding of his raw materials, and the leadership to organize complex building projects..."
This seems to suggest that Prof:Architect (or, as I've seen elsewhere, Prof:Tremere Architect) is actually a redundant skill, which is modeled by skills in Craft:Mason, Artes Liberales, and Leadership.
What do you think?
From reading the craft magic I assume that it works if the caster knows how to do something. They must hold it in their head to make it. That is why making large complex things is very difficult. A mason would understand how to shape the stone but they also understood how to build the walls and arches. I think Architect is the same type of skill. The Roman's had Civil Engineers to build roads and buildings. Just different names.
Does this mean that you think a Rego Craft carpenter could use Int+Craft:Wood at the lower difficulty number, instead of Finesse?
I understand what you're saying, but what do you think this means for the skill system? Viscaria has skill points in both Craft:Stone, Leadership, Artes Liberales and Prof:Architect. Is there unnecessary redundancy there?
To me that makes sense. If a crafter must understand how to make something so that is a skill part. The way I see it, ( which is not RAW), is that you have all of the pieces of the thing you are going to make in front of you then you cast the Rego spell to assemble them. It does not make sense that the Rego crafting spell shapes the stones and puts them in place. Looking at the Creo "crafting" rules finesse is just used for making it look good. Could use the same for Rego craft skills.
At this point in history I think Architect is very much like stone mason.
Finesse is not, and will not be used to make something just look good for Rego Craft magics, in this saga. It is the element that shows how well the magus controls the magus and his vision fits his ability to construct. The Rego crafter has an advantage over the magus who uses Creo for his works, they do not require vis. I am trying to come up with something that maintains the difficulty or cost of using finesse or using vis.
Following this up, though, I find it a bit on the inconceivable side that, per Hermetic Projects, you need to get a Finesse+Perception roll of 30 to construct a ship such as a grain barge. I'm trying to work through some balance of time/finesse skill.
I've never noticed the Rego Craft rules in HoH:S (pg61) before. The table there gives a more explicit standard for the Ease Factors. Whereas Covenants just names the Ease Factor (Easy, Average, Very Hard), HoH:S actually gives one line blurbs about the difficulty, which really challenge the 30 for the grain barge:
Average, or Ease Factor 12 (after the +3), represents the work done in a day by "skilled artists," which presumably means Craft 5. By that chart, an Ease Factor 30 is only necessary to do a year's(+9) worth of work like unto exceptional work created by grandmasters of the art(21). Which is hardly what a grain barge is.
A grain barge is rarely of above-average quality. No one needs it to be. It might take a very long time to build, or a great many people to build it.
The text indicates it takes a year to construct a vessel. The quality is important, from a seaworthiness perspective. It doesn't have to look good, but the function is important.
It's the largest vessel indicated.
Also, throwing this out there, maybe building a bridge to the location is unnecessary.
A Hermes Portal will be cast wherever the hosting covenant indicates, so a bridge for easy transport of a lot of people is unnecessary. Of course, it could be a grand symbol of the covenant's power.
Um.....
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/e-mail-verification/172/1
You said "suitable" but never explained what made it suitable. I'm also still waiting to see if any specific "further information" is obtained from Viscaria, Vin, and possibly a host of others spend a season exploring the regio. If further information has been provided, I lost it in the shuffle between all my travel and mechanics kibitzing.
Viscaria is sure as hell going to build a bridge to cut the trip from 2 hours to 5 minutes, even if it isn't a grand design -- that's vital time away from her lab!
And after re-reading the description of Iosephus's sanctum and the path leading to it, she's probably also going to build a faerie staircase on the side of the covenant's mont, so that people stop tromping through the mulberry trees and other vis sources.
The Hermes Portal may be the historically used solution, but as things stand in 1222, we don't know that magi will trust each other enough to arrive with anyone else's assistance. Recall the spoiler information about Korvin's Trip to Phoenix, and how Viscaria's paranoia is likely to interpret that.
We should post final seasonal activities for everyone on the wiki somehow, or maybe in another Google Doc. This would help sort through what books everyone is using, and generally be more clear at-a-glance.
I'd also like to start using the Adventure Log on the wiki, but not if I'm going to be the only one. I was originally going to suggest using that section for the Seasonal Activities list, but I'd rather keep that as a sort of game log.
The site is suitable because it appears that there are some flat spots already to begin cutting into the side of the mountain, making the effort a bit easier. that flat spot happens to form at a good spot to build the bridge. The rock is of sufficiently good quality for building.
As to the matter of the Hermes Portal, well, it is a Tribunal matter, and Mons Electi doesn't have much of a choice, except to designate placement. Of course, Mons Electi can have the portal cancelled at the end of the Tribunal. The fees for this are paid by the Tribunal.
All I'm saying is, after this attack on our covenant by (apparently) Quaesitors, V is going to make sure there are a lot of exits from anyplace she builds. 
Possibly because said AC is reversible? Something that's given me pause.
~whistles innocently while thinking~
Let's see. MuTe base 1: change one property of dirt, like, for example, its transparency. +1 to work on stone, of course
+4 for an Arcane Connection. Must remember to grab one on the way out.
+4 for Boundary. An entire mountain is definitely a boundary....
+2, at least for Sun duration, maybe make it +3 for Moon?
So that'd be a MuTe 45 ritual, which sadly cannot therefore be placed inside a device....unless the cave system counts as a Structure....?
Nope. Would definitely have to ask someone to do it for me...
If you enchant an AC effect into an item, does the arcane connection have to be part of the device or part of the enchantment somehow, or can you make a device that can cast AC spells at different targets? My first thought when Fixer mentioned a box was, literally, a box with a little sliding drawer that you placed the AC into, and the device would use that to target the target.
But if the AC is fixed at the time of enchantment, that would also, I would think, also greatly limit their effectiveness.
Don't forget...size matters.