Table Talk - Development

Hmmmm...
Wealthy doesn't fit in with being a Hermetic empployee either. Is it possible to replace that with "Generic xp granting Virtue" a few times?

I note that in C&G a wealthy person can work one extra season in order to advance their economic situation more quickly (basically they receive the same income but double their labor points). Perhaps some variation on this can apply, where he works extra seasons towards the eventual 'payment' of a longevity potion supplied by the covenant?

Who what where?
Baker boy?

Yup, as I understand it, you should not take the Wealth virtues/flaw if you're on the covenant payroll, only if you're on your own. Just like Magi don't take these: Their costs are entirely paid for.

Which makes sense: If you're a poor knight but the covenant pays for your food and lodging while putting you on training courses, you've got 4 seasons, eliminating the flaw. Conversely, if you're a wealthy peasant but the covenant gives you a lot of money (for you, that'd be scraps for the poor knight) but asks you to work 3 seasons as a merchant, the virtue is useless.
You can see this frequently with companions that are actively played and get 4 genuine "free" seasons, despite having no special virtue for that.

"Baker Boy" AKA Yanni (previously posted as Jesus (Hey-Zeus)) is a very skilled baker whose bread is of such quality (according to the rules in city and guild) that it provides a +2 quality bonus to those who eat it in categories such as aging rolls and recovery rolls from injury. It doesn't specify what portion of the diet it would need to eb or how many people a typical baker can feed (it seems to me the easiest calculation for this would be to look at his covenant productivity- skill/2+1, total 6.5, and compare it to the overall cost of food for the covenant, though this also gets into book discrepancies, as his stat brings his productivity (according to C&G) to 14/6 typical productivity. Of course according to C&G he should have an income of 10 lbs with a private business regardless of productivity...

regarding Marius- there simply is no virtue or combination of virtues that is going to match wealthy for giving him beginning abilities- can we treat this as a special case of initiation where by coming to the covenant he has essentially traded wealthy for another major virtue? We can trade it for magister in artibus, for example, and ignore the loss of experience which attends?

Actually, checking in A&A, Doctor in Philosophae would be only 10 points difference, if we are willing to hand wave that?

I am willing to handwave the difference and allow the special case trade, just wanting to make sure it all fits neatly.

For the Dough Boy, Jesus is his baptismal name. John Jesus Joshua Jones :slight_smile:
post a link to his sheet so fixer can make an axamination?

This is where he is listed, is there somewhere else his sheet should be?

Thanx for the link and calling my attention. Now I remember why I dragged my feet so long on this guy. So, to give you what you want and satisfy aesthetics, I suggest the following...
Covenant Upbringing doesn't fit. Perhaps take Outsider as a Minor Flaw? The backstory I imporovised makes the kid part Jewish, part Christian, with Moslem relatives.
Balearic Lore instead of Andorra Lore.
Drop Latin, Brawl, and Stealth. Lower his age a few years. Lower his starting Baking score? Give him a few years at the covenant before he blossoms.
But this is all trivial, since as agreed he is a grog of the covenant and not a personal servant.
Still want Fixer to rule on covenant wide aging bonuses. But I can easily imagine a Fatigue Recovery and Healing bonus. We will pack his bread and meat pies in our provisions on expedition :slight_smile:
I also noticed other grogs on that page that I have long neglected. Feel free to add them to the wiki.

Mmmm, tasty ageing rolls...

This may be a British thing. Rolls are small round loaves of bread, individual portion sized for a single sandwich. Usually soft.

:laughing:
We speak the same language. Same meaning over here too

Ironic spelling snafu aside, my thought is this- any one specialist can only provide for 20% of the covenant's food needs, so, percentage of the covenant covered (in terms of points, not population) is equal to 6.5/(.2*covenant food expenditures)
I'm removing Covenant upbringing, replacing it with outsider, and replacing the covenant-raised childhood with traveling childhood.

I note provisions is 150 £, which means 20% is 30, 6.5/30= 21.66% of the covenant in terms of points of inhabitants, or 136 points. That would include all the Magi, Yanni (because obviously he's eating his own bread), and 28 points worth of companions...

I think this one got lost. Silveroak, can you bring up to speed on Adan's status?

he is generally there to copy books for the library, we did have several books developing from the pre-adventure to city of brass, though it was never clarified whether it was just Adan copying them... honestly I'm not sure where I should have been keeping track of his seasons as a grog...

Yeah, there's really no good place to track that kind of thing. I was originally handling all the scribes on an offline spreadsheet, but with Adan and Lucas's scribes involved we need something multiple players can see. For now, can you tell me in which season Adan was first available to work and how many levels of summae he can copy in a season?

He began about the same time as Fleur, so spring 1234, and he can copy 16 levels per season. He did take one of his free seasons to read a book on magic theory...

I have some newbie questions on the discussion Vocis and Antoine had over in Chapter IV.

This is an excellent idea (there are so many options in Ars, I haven't quite got the hang of spotting them all yet!). It looks to me like a talking-to-someone spell would be CrIm, base 1, +3 Sight, +1 Diameter (or Conc), +1 intelligible speech, level 10 (flexible to range: arcane by Antoine). Easy.

A listening spell is InIm, base 1, +3 Sight, +1 Diam/Conc... but I don't understand Target as it applies to InIm. The book only gives examples for Target: Room; what would Target: Individual mean? That I could hear only one person? Or only what one person can hear?

If the spells are Concentration duration, can I maintain both at once?

Despite the fact my lab total is considerably more than twice the level, I cannot learn both in one season, because they use a different technique - correct? However, I could presumably concoct a two-way spell as In(Cr)Im, at the level of the harder of the two effects, +1 magnitude for the requisite?

Why would the user of a communication enchanted item need Finesse?

I don't actually know Leap. In fact, I would require rolling 22 to cast it, even within Arans' 5-point aura! Some study is required there, I think.

Just a couple things to keep in mind. First, using CrIm means you're magically creating sounds, not 'throwing' your voice to the target. This means you must roll Finesse to make the speech reasonably intelligible. I'm not sure about the difficulty of the roll. The other thing is that this spell will create speech that can be heard normally by people in your target's immediate vicinity. You can avoid this by using 'miniatures', an Imaginem concept described in HoH: Societates. In brief, you change the Target from Individual to Part and create your speech directly in the target's ears, so no one else can hear what you're saying. This concept can also be applied to other sensory organs.

You would hear any sounds created by the target, but nothing in their vicinity. The only way I know of to hear (or see) what's happening around the target is to use Target: Room, which would then only work indoors. This problem irks me greatly. :confused:

You can, but it's difficult. The ReVi spell Maintaining the Demanding Spell will maintain the Concentration spell for you for a Diameter, or you could just invent Diameter duration spells. There's also a caveat somewhere that says you don't need to make Concentration rolls if you're performing the task the spell is designed to perform. In other words, if your Concentration duration spell creates speech, you won't have to roll Concentration just to 'talk' in this fashion. You would have to roll to cast another spell, though.

Correct, you can't learn both in a single season. As for the two-way spell, I've tinkered with that and haven't found a good solution. Vocis also has a couple spells from the Net Wizard's Grimoire that theoretically allow it, but I think the troupe has ruled they shouldn't work as described.

See comments above re: CrIm speech. You can avoid the Finesse requirement by using ReIm, but the spell level will be much higher.

Have I mentioned that I keep getting Antoine and Lucas confused for no reason at all? :slight_smile:

Ok. A plan is forming. My lab total for InIm spell invention is 33, and the covenant has a text for "InIm5 Hear the Distant Voice", which is exactly what I statted above. So I can learn that, then invent a further (33-5)/2 = 14 levels in a season. I propose therefore that I take Spring 1235 to learn or invent:

  • Hear the Distant Voice - InIm5 (Sight, Diam, Ind), from text
  • Prying Eyes and Wagging Ears - InIm 10 (Touch, Conc, Room). As ArM5 Prying Eyes, but for sound as well. FFM should make the uses of this fairly significant - spy on a room I could shout to; or spy on an entire Tavern I'm touching; or monitor a room until sunset.
  • ...and something else. See question after this list!

The InIm guidelines give as Base 1 "Memorise or perfect your memory about an image you have encountered". Anyone know how this works? Do I have to be in the presence of the image, or can I use it to pull minute details of a scene I saw once, but didn't recognise as interesting at the time? What do the Range, Dur, Tgt mean with respect to it? For instance, does the basic model work as Pers, Mom, Ind ("I personally improve my individual memory in a moment"), or does it need to be, say, Sight, Diam, Ind ("For 2 minutes, my individual memory of everything I could see is better")? If the former, what happens if I Flex the range or target - can I make the person I touch remember something clearly, or is it that I get to remember what they saw?

I'll then take Summer 1235 to learn or invent CrIm spells to be determined, including a talking-to counterpart. These could include defence spells - illusory guards! - at Arachne's suggestion and if within my capabilities (my LT is a touch smaller). Fall 1235 is making Solomon's rings, and I can book in Winter 1236 for Carmen's carpet (sorry Carmen, I forgot the lab rules on Form and Technique).

Also, note to self, I have 2xp exposure from Solomon's rings to assign; except that I'm also Waiting For The Ghosts, which may give adventure XP instead.

Finally, Marko - what is the Finesse roll to create intelligible (and variable) speech? Or is it assumed to Just Work because of the +1 magnitude in the description of, say, Phantasm of the Talking Head?

Sorry, won't have time to look at Joshua :frowning:

In Magi of Hermes, they use a Special Target akin to Room +1 (+3 mag) to spy on a room-sized bonus.

When moving one of your senses with ReIm, you target that sense, so if moving your hearing, that's +3 mag too.

Note that the first spell is more limited in range, but allow you to hear in 2 places at once, while the second, while theoretically limitless (You would hear a very big sound miles away, like a volcanic eruption), prevents you from hearing anything that happens around you while your hearing is out there, not unlike Image from the Wizard Torn*

Good question.
IMO, if it was a mentem spell, it'd allow you to pick up a forgotten memory, but would be of a way higher level.

As it is, for an Intellego Imaginem spell, I think it allows you to "get" an image perfectly when you encounter it, ensuring that you'll be able to "see" it whenever you try to recall it. I don't think it'd allow you to recall forgotten details, because it doesn't work on your mind, only on the species, and they're no longer here.
The Range is the range to the target, and the target is what you recall. The duration is a lot more fuzzy, because it may apply to how long you get this "photo", or to how long you "record" things. I'd just stack magnitudes.
For exemple:
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Room: You have perfect recall of a room's contents at the time of casting, for Sun duration
R: Per, D: Moon, T: Hearing, +1 magnitudes for length of record: Allows you to record everything you hear for a Diameter, recalling it for Moon duration

The first spell could not be gifted to someone else, but the second could, giving you the perfect secretary.

Ef for creo spells is, IIRC, usually 6+ (it's in HoH: S I think).
So, with Int +4 and Finesse 2... You can skip entirely on rolling, IMO, save maybe in extreme situations (like under enemy fire), to check for botches

Now, I get an idea of a spell that might be popular among apprentices: Image from the Wizard Porn

Boo, that would put it out of useful range to learn this season.

OTOH - I remembered people mentioning the Net Grimoire. I understand it's not canon, but it does contain: