Is it too late? Can we reasonably (ie relatively painlessly) trade off points above for this "new stuff" of legend? Remember, we're not buying everything, just some stuff- the rest is all SG designed.
What did you have in mind? (since I don't have access to that book.)
Don't over-think it. It's not there to be a red carpet for your mage's personal growth. It's a library, for the covenant. You can add some for one, and some for the other, and some that just makes sense for a covenant to have.
"Waiting to see" is a bit too meta for what we're trying to do, I'd think. Whenever.
There are 13 "Wizard's Boost" spells- which one did Glendower add?
Similarly with "Wizard's Reach" - that requires that you specify a Form.
Nice list. The "Tower" certainly falls into the "Ritual" type category- did you not have any "Item" text you wanted to submit?
What exactly is the diff between the 2 Terram spells? One uses only hot metals, the other can handle cold? (With the 2nd, why would any magical smith bother with the 1st? With ReTe, I'd think either would be within easy reach.)
I'm not sure what you mean by 'Item' text, but if you mean some magic items and lab texts, yes, I'll be coming up with a few minor ones, I understand we're not going to have much. Besides that leaves more for me to create.
With those 2 spells, the first takes raw ore (of any metal, the original was only 'pig iron') and turns it into wrought metal bars, ideal for crafting, storage, and transport without smelting it in a forge. Then once you have the wrought metal bars, you cast the second spell and create a finished product, like a pot, anvil, horse shoes, axe head, etc. It could probably all be done in one spell at a higher magnitude and likely a higher Finesse roll. Since we have a copper and tin mine, i figure we would want spells that affect those metals. With the first spell you might even be able to make alloys with the ore of proper metals. Or maybe (probably) you'd need to make a new spell.
"Most" lab texts describe the lab activity during Spell Invention, but some will describe Item Enchantment. (Others activities, like Longevity Potions and Talismans, are probably not going to be of general interest.*) I suggested that each Player toss in one Item with their spells, just for variety (about 6:1 Levels worth or so)
*Krys-
Angus might have a longevity potion documented in with the Lab Texts, which would be about Level 40. Me, I didn't want to toss 30 or 40 Levels at an NPC, but that might be another SG fiat addition?
Angus' potion (and he does have one) was bought, through the venditores. It's level is undisclosed. He has yet to take it, but probably will here soon enough.
OK, so include a lab text for magic items? Sure, I could drop the 7 league Stride and put in a 30 item text. I'll post it in a bit. I think a charged item text would be a good idea.
For my contribution, drop the 7 League Stride spell and include this lab text for a charged item.
The Rod of Inspiration ReCo 30
This device is often invested into items of correction and coercion; a rod, whip, even a leather glove. It is typically actived by a hard whack onto the target's face or back (not enough to cause a wound). Once struck the target will feel invigorated, angry even, and immune to the effects of pain and fatigue for the rest of the day (like Endurance of the Berzerker).
R: Touch D: Sun T: Individual
Base 10, +1 Touch, +2 Sun total 25
This lab text would allow the creation of a rod or suitable item to have 6 charges (lab text/ 5).
Chuck says : His share of the points for lab texts and items can be split amongst those of you who can use them. Number crunching makes his eyes glaze over, and then he begins to drool...
Just wanted to bring up the idea that the library should show a bias to the previous members particularl interests. Hence, Corpus, Ignem, Creo should get more emphasis than, say, Aquam, Auram, and Mentem. Steve, if you could guide us on that, please.
Also, if we want to stretch the build points a bit, I recommend that mundane, arcane, and other Ability texts should largely be tractatus (since the summa cost for Abilities is Quality + 3 TIMES Level), plus it brings our book count up.
Finally, I am of the school of thought that there really aren't a whole lot of high COM writers with the Good Teacher virtue out there. This covenant is a late Summer one with a good rep so if we have, say, 20% of our books in the higher Quality realms, I'm OK with that, particularly in the Arts and interests of the previous members. But I'm of a mind that most of the rest of the books would be in the Vain or Sound categories (~70%). The remainder could be of higher POTENTIAL quality, but are damaged, or juvenalia, otherwise have physical reasons for a lower Quality which could be recovered if time is invested in repair and other improvements.
So, to summarize,
High-end (top 20%) part of collection
Summa Qualities
Art: (28 to 35 minus level)
Ability: (28 to 35 minus (3 X level))
Tractatus Qualities
14-17
Mid range (70% of collection)
Summa Qualities
Art: (25 to 31 minus level)
Ability: (25 to 31 minus (3 X level))
Tractatus Qualities
~6-13 with average of maybe 8 or 9
Bottom end (the 10% needing repair or replacement)
Same as top-end (otherwise, why even bother getting it?) but with a -2 to -8 penalty due to other deficiencies.
Yeah, I brought that up in the original [color=blue]"Open Call" request, one page back, where I listed the prev members by House/pursuit. So far, it's seemed reasonable to me (see Spell list below, by Art).
One of the previous magi was, specifically, a mariner (died in a shipwreck, crow's nest on his domus, etc), and a Jerbiton, famous for their Mentem.
("Mentem"? There's only 1 Mentem spell in the whole of lists, and that by the SG! And a good general one at that.)
The other spells, esp the Rituals, seem approp for any dynamic covenant concerned with general self-maintanance.
Right now we have:o 3 Animal spells (one healing, one travel, 1 library/ utility)
o 4 Aquam (1 utility, the rest relate to the local lake/fae)
o 2 Aurum (both maritime)
o 5 Corpus (3 healing Rituals, 1 travel, 1 "misc"/utility)
o 1 Herbem (utility/mariner)
o 1 Ignem (combat/utility)
o 0 Imagonem
o 0 Mentem
o 4 Terrem (1 Combat, 2 Verdi/smithing, 1 Utility)
o 4 Vim (Aegis, & 3 Meta)To me, those seem like a reasonable mix from the previous occupants.
As for the SG's list, those mostly all seem like solid "core" spells that, while not all specialized/personalized, nor are they undesirable by any mage/covenant. Not every Lab Text would have been sought out or produced by those magi specifically - some might have been gifts or legacies, or "extras" gained in a trade/bargain. Or left over from some mage beyond our immediate storyline, from ages past.
However, we still have a bunch of slop points for "group decision" spells (inc. the ones listed in italics - comments/additions on those would be appreciated, as I didn't want to just usurp the authority to spend the points simply because I'm acting as scribe, tempting as that is.)
???
If by "stretch" you mean "sheer number of texts", then yes. But a Tractatus can only be read once, so that Quality adds once to a skill for one season spent, and then it's useless after that (except for reference.) A Summa can be studied season after season, its Quality adding to a character's Ability each time until the Level is reached.
So, to stretch our Study potential, Summa are the way to go. Tractati are only really good at higher ability levels, and/or when no Summa is available.
Ah, very good point*, but this was brought up already as well, last week, two pages back (Wed April 11, 7:01 GMT), before we went forward with the Mark III points effort with the Table for all the books. Truly high Quality comes not from Communication but from extra original Levels that an author does not write about, and our Library has only a couple texts that would require exceptionally high original Ability Levels (and both are "classics".) But see chart, below.
[i](* The standard counter-argument is two-fold, that people who are natural authors tend to be more write more than people who are not as good at it, and that the best texts are the ones that get copied and disseminated, rather than weaker efforts, which would get ignored and eventually fall into obscurity or even extinction.
No librarian is excited about a Qual 5 book, when they could get one of Qual 6, or much higher.
However, with 5th Ed, a -3 Comm author can easily write a Quality 20 Summa if they have a strong enough grasp of the subject (high original Ability score) and write at a basic level (extra-low Summa Level)!)[/i]
(As far as "repairing" texts, I've said repeatedly I only have the core rules available- if anyone has the Covenants book and wants to suggest something by those rules, great, just tell us how to do it! And how to pay for it, natch...)
Uh... those formula are not very useful as stated. Are those Arts Level 20, Qual 8-15, or Level 10, Qual 18-25? (the top end of both of which are illegal by the build rules, btw.) Sim w/ the Abilities.
And I have no idea where you're getting those Tractatus Qualities, esp given your comment on Comm & etc., as they break both the Covenant Buy rules ("Tractatus Quality Limit: 11", p 71) and also the section on Writing Books ("Tractatus Qual = 6+Comm", p 166).
But "reasonable/rational limits" such as what you generally suggest have already been factored into the library as listed. There are only a few exceptional authors (and likewise a couple disasters), most of the books assuming a max Ability Score of 10 (rather than 16!), and a Comm of ~+1. (Similar limits were applied to the Arts Summae and the Tractatus list.)
Working backwards w/ the Abilities Texts, we get a rough approximation of the Author's original Abilities and Comm*:
(* With/without Good Teacher is a diff of +/-2 Orig Levels.)
So, while we have a few [u]very[/u] good texts ("the classics"), we mostly have nothing special, except that they were written by people who, usually, knew what they were talking about.
Since Tractatus Quality = 6+Comm, a spread of 5-9 seemed reasonable (with one 11, and one 3).
The Arts are a bit larger, assuming that most of the authors have a score of around 36-48 in the Art they are writing about, with a few around 30 (as opposed to something around "50" that the book sets as a max for any/all Arts Summae.) We DO have an exceptional Arts library, despite everything. We can drop that if it seems too much.
(Don't forget- thoughts on the group decisions on the Lab Texts list???)
(I've got a few minutes at work, but no books, so take this with a grain of salt)
To C-hound's point, I do have a copy of Covenants, which is where I based the formulae from. Tractatus quality goes higher in that rule set so it's all legal in that regard. Secondarily, he correctly points out that taking the formulae to the extremes will give you "illegal" books.
So:
Max Quality for a summa = 2 x (3 + Author's COM + Good Teacher bonus + Resonance bonus(es) + physical quality bonus(es))
Max quality for Tractatus = 3 + Author's COM + Good Teacher bonus + Resonance bonus(es) + physical quality bonus(es)
Without the correct Boon for the covenant (and we don't have it), the max Level for a summa is 22 if it is about an Hermetic Art or 8 if an Ability.
I think that C-hound and I are largely in agreement and he, again, correctly points out that summa have plenty of "restudy" potential. However, I would argue that since the previous magi of the Lost Lake were more mature (I think), they would get more tractatus in thier Arts of interest to go with one really good summa in a partiular Art specifically because a summa has a Level limit and I would bet that most of them had exceeded thier summae at least in thier primary Art.
Having said that, I can see that none were Archmagi, so having they would have no motivation to sell original copies of summae since they still might have wanted to study non-primary Arts.
So, given the information that my magus, Stephan, has been able to glean, I would bet that the covenant's library has put emphasis in the following:
Hermetic Arts:
Creo
Intelligo
Rego
Corpus
Animal
Terram
Aurum (maybe)
Abilities (given the reputation for scholarship):
Phil
Artes Liberales
Medicine (with the healer, there)
History and related Area and Organization Lores
Languages are probably pretty eclectic, but most of the Ability books are probably in Latin with some maybe in Greek and Area Lores in Norma French, Italian, and English (maybe).
I would recoup the points spent on the level 1 summae and simply say it is a tractatus and spend the points gained on another tractatus or two.
Some particular points, and I fully recognize that I may be alone in this, follow.
It has been a while since I studied my Plato and Aristotle, but I don't remember him being a particularly good communicator. Though, I admit, I am not the best of scholars and the translations may have been poor. I'd like to RAISE the level of the Phil. summa to 8 (yes, 8) but drop the quality to, say, 7 or 8. If it is in the original Greek, perhaps a quality of 10 would be more appropriate. A close friend of mine does a lot of translation work from Greek, Latin, and Hebrew (ancient classics scholar) and he is of the opinion that something is ALWAYS lost in translation. Thus:
Phil summa: Level 8 Quality 8 (10 if Greek). Since Aristotle is an Authority, we might make a HR exception and change it to L10Q3 (Q5 if Greek). Just a thought.
I'd like to tweak the AL summa as well. Say, Level 6 Quality 10 (glossed by, say, an expert in Cermonial Magic) and add a couple Commentaries as tractatus of quality 7 or 8.
I would like, also, to add a couple unusual "books" such as Realia and Phenomena (sp?). As one proposal, since Ireland is (or was) abundant in mineral and natural riches, how about a truly spectacular collection leading to a realia collection of quality 7 in Terram or Herbam. The realia rules allow, if I recall correctly, a particular person to study the collection for XP as many times as it has Quality levels. And, the build points only cost as much as a Tractatus for the given quality. Cheap, multiple, tractatus!
A Phenomenon would have to be discussed with Steve, but an idea would be, say, a Fae birth every 5 years studies as a 10 XP source in Faerie Lore. It would count towards library build points but might make an interesting alternative.
Anyway, I have to get back to work, but I would like other folks thoughts on this.
C-hound, you're doing a truly great job of keeping us all on the up and up. Thanks much for stepping in on this!
OK, so it looks like this can give a solid rationale for higher Qualities- cool. We don't get "Resonance Bonuses"- what are Physical Quality Bonuses, and how does an author put those into a text? (And are the costs to buy them up with that the same?)
We haven't labeled any of those 12 Tractatus to any specific skill/Art yet, so if we want to go mostly Arts we can. (We can also raise the average Qualities somewhat, tho', as always, we'll need to figure out how to pay for that increase. And, it won't help all that much- +1 Quality is only 1 more XP for that lone season of study. Meh, maybe, sure.)
We can easily label any of those books as being in a different language than Latin, but should make those choices with good rationale - maybe the Local Church/Nobility Lore, or one of the two "Law" texts, or conceivably the Scribe or the (throw-away) Level 1 Great Weapon text - the rest seem to be either Hermetic, or centered around educated "Latin speaking" topics. (Any Text in Greek would be "useless", and (hopefully) translated long ago. Such texts would be white elephants, and one has to wonder why the covenant library bothers with such. But maybe, sure. Having to get it translated would make a good side-plot.)
Arts- hard to say. Those sound good, along with Vim (the Boni' was studyng Vim when he twilighted - altho' that might have implied a lacking Text as well!) Ignem too (Diedre), and Mentem (Jerbiton???), and the other 2 Techniques to a lesser extent- always popular, regardless. (Likewise, I've never seen a Covenant where Mentem wouldn't be sorely missed.)
As for...um... Aquam, Herbem and Imagonem, well, Herbem and Imagonem can certainly be popular with Merenita, depending, and the local Lake would create a perceived need for Aquam, even if no one mage specialized in it.
In short- it's a crapshot. Imo, some weighting should be used, but some randomness/non-optimalization as well.
As for topics, the Phil and AL are covered. Medicine I would fully support- makes sense for a variety of reasons. History- that's tougher. The (weak) Local Church/Nobility Lore touches on that a bit.
The whole point of that book was that it is so bad- it's "one of those things" that one would not get excited about, but is there none the less. Easy to turn those 11 points into something more useful, easy to optimize the entire library- but I thought we wanted to get away from that sort of thinking, just a bit, no? (And, if any one (an apprentice?) wanted, they could get a "1" in Great Weapon (i.e., staff!) in a season by self-study, even a poor student @ -3.)
We can do that. Works for me, cost is the same or close enough. Greek is a bit rough- no one will ever use it, certainly not the apprentices that were mentioned in an earlier discussion of this topic.
But why drop the Quality at the expense of unusually high Level? You do understand that, using a Qual 8 text, it would take 4 Seasons, 1 year of study for the average student to reach a Level of "3", another 6 seasons to reach Level 5, and another 3 years to reach the Summa's level of 8? With Quality 10, those are only fractionally better, while the original high Qualities cut those numbers in half.
Unless we're using it for Reference, a book with a high Level had better have a good Quality, or it's just a tease.
Maybe split the diff?
o Phil 6, Qual 14?
o AL's 5, Qual 15?
(I'm unfamiliar with those - that would be up to the SG, I'd think, but they sound appropriate, esp given Mab etc. Krys'?)
As an example, a Rego summa may get a +1 quality bonus if the covers are (somehow) made out of, say, a dozen used iron prison shackles that have been hammered into two rough plates (still showing thier origin). Refer to p87 of Covenants. Note, more bonuses are allowed if the resonant materials are attained through adventures.
Other examples might be parchment made from fetal dragon skin for an Ignem text, or perhaps an animal text illuminated with inks made from different animal bones.
First, I probably should have said "physical bonuses/penalties"
Physical quality is due to a few things. One can get a +1 to Quality if it is well illuminated. If it is damaged, perhaps a -2 penalty has to be assessed.
I include in this book type (again, refer to Covenants). There are a number of book types that, in thier form, thier quality is reduced becuase they are harder to read. As an example, an 'exemplar' is a miniature copy of a book that much more transportable and very much cheaper to make. These suffer a -3 penalty to Quality when compared to the original.
The nice thing is that someone (or several someones) with the appropriate skills can take an exemplar -- or damaged, or over-illuminated (e.g. Book of Kells) -- and reduce or remove the penalty by essentially rewriting the book and addressing the particular issues.
So if, for some reason, you have a magus on staff with an interest in scholarship and books in particular and this hypothetical magus knows a bit about book-writing and manufacture is able to put together a good staff for the library, one could arbitrarily take 20% of the texts, assess a -2 or -3 physical quality penalty, spend the points on other books and just plan on that magus, perhaps as his act of service to the covenant, reinvigorate the these book for the expenditure of money and time instead of Build Points and end up with a higher quality library then one would otherwise. Just a thought (heh heh heh)...
Did I mention that the hypothetical magus speaks and writes Greek? Perhaps I didn't. Let's just say that the hypothetical magus speaks Greek, um, well enough...
I just chose those particular Arts on the theory that the Covenant would pay for any good book that any two magi were really interested in and otherwise would rely on the generousity of the the individual specialist. I'm OK either way.
I see your reasoning, and I like the idea of having a few "you have a book on what?!" kind of books. Adds flavor. I'm simply saying that we can get the same value by calling it a tractatus at Quality 10, take the BP and add it to the quality of something else. Same flavor, improved plate. Up to you.
You raise a good point. And I am aware of the mechanical difference, but t should be re-emphasised for those that are following along.
Yes, you are absolutely correct in that it would take longer for someone to "max the book" and was aware of compromise that I was asking. What I wasn't clear on was I was (a) trying to keep the Build Point cost the same {3*L+Q for Abilities, as you know} and (b) trying to address the question of what constitutes an "Authority"
So, for item (a):
L5Q18=L6Q15=L7Q12=L8Q9=33 Build Points
I shaved a couple quality points to buy another tractatus or two.
For item (b), and my recollection here may be poor, in 4th ed and Authority could be studied for profit again and again. There was no level limit BUT Quality was low. ther is no rule for this in 5th ed. so I tried to split the difference and buy a couple high quality tractatus for those that want a high XP boost towards the goal of gaining two or three levels and still keep the book useful to someone who wants to be one of THE premier philosophers and ritualists in the Order.
Consider this example:
Magus 1: starting Phil level 3 (30 XP)
Magus 2: starting Phil level 8 (180 XP) + BL + Affinity
Scenario A:
One Phil book (summa L6Q17 -- max allowed by core rule for Ability)
Magus 1 pops two levels in 3 seasons
Magus 2 does not realize any benefit
Scenario B:
Three Phil books (summa L5Q10, one tractatus quality 11)
Magus 1 pops two levels in 5 seasons
Magus 2 gets 21 XP toward level 9
I like the idea of splitting the difference so that the text is broadly usable, but, for the record, that book is not usable for my magus. I'm OK with that, but I was hoping to expand the Phil and AL part of the library so that all could use it, that's all.
Finally, I was also asking for more tractatus so our library had more actual books. A flavor thing. No biggie.
Steve, if you could chime in, here, that would be great. Please refer to pp101-102 of Covenants. Pretty fun. Definitely different.
For all our burnt electrons, I think we're getting close. Thanks again.
[color=blue](Getting close, need to think about what makes an "Excellent" Library.)
Okay, I (finally!) grok your point about the Great Weapons book- if it's only going to Level 1, and that in one season, why not make it a Tract' of same Quality and save the points? Um... because I was braindead? I'll make it happen.
Re various Tractati- yeah, now that you mention it, we DO have a Lib that is great at lower levels, but no real scholar would ever get excited about it in any subject (a dozen Tract's don't cut that.) So, yeah (sigh), we better shift back that way a bit... somehow... (ugh)
Seems like we've been patting ourselves on the back for our "excellent" library, but have focused only on breadth, not depth. (sigh) (again)
(But how?! Where do we scrape up another 85 points for another dozen tractati???)
But we need a special Covenant Virtue for that? Sounds like great color! Couldn't we just... fake it on a book or three?
Great color, but more book-keeping- that's ultimately up to the SG and Troupe whether it's worth it, but I could add another column to the Summa Table and add it in, np. (I'd be up for it.)
Sounds good for maybe a book or two, but too many would take too big a chunk out of our Lib. (Sounds more like something to be found on an adventure?)
(If my last mage was here, he'd be all over these rules!)
My mage almost spoke a different dead language enough to read, but that's more something for a private library, not the covenant's. But that's one way such a book could have gotten there. (Maybe our late Bonisagus Glendower spoke Greek? (But which book? Philosophia?)
Your magus is a Philosphical Animal.
Yeah, Abe (of all people!) brought up that same point in the main Forum, re the Bible. (You should mention those 4th ed rules in that thread). So... maybe we don't have "an Authority"...? OR, I DO like the 4th ed rules you quoted- they certainly don't break the game, but... how much would that cost??? (And do we then want a more focused Summa on a lower level? more points, more points...)
Well, that's the trade off- do we go "depth" on one Ability, and forego some of our Breadth? (Personally, I think the Covenant has all the "basics" covered- that's not a necessity, but it's a highly "functional" Library as opposed to one that actually attracts scholars.
Which do we want???
(Me, as a Player, I'd like a bit of both, tho' my Mage would want the generalist's lib with Realm and Area Lores. From an objective story perspective, I'd think this Covenant would not be set up to attract a lot of outside attention, considering the Mab problem and all. Maybe the Lib would be more "problem solving" than focused???
Krys'? What sort of Library does Loch Caillte have? General? Focussed? Mixed? (and if focussed, on what Ability?)
Generalized Library, given that the specialties of the previous magi cover nearly all the techs and forms, and a wide range of skill. Mundane scholarship is a tradition in the region, I would suspect that Arcane scholarship for magi would be as well. Chances are, you've got one of the better libraries on the isle as it stands, though there might be a few books in the numerous monastic collections that are better on the classical subjects.
So if, for some reason, you have a magus on staff with an interest in scholarship and books in particular and this hypothetical magus knows a bit about book-writing and manufacture is able to put together a good staff for the library, one could arbitrarily take 20% of the texts, assess a -2 or -3 physical quality penalty, spend the points on other books and just plan on that magus, perhaps as his act of service to the covenant, reinvigorate the these book for the expenditure of money and time instead of Build Points and end up with a higher quality library then one would otherwise. Just a thought (heh heh heh)...