Table Talk - Development

Customizing the lab is a challenging issue, and it's simply not cut and dried to say that there is little incentive to raise the refinement. Remember, Refinement also governs how many virtues you have installed in a lab. If you want a lot of virtues, and few flaws, Refinement is probably the primary method of gaining space for virtues, unless you ridiculously large labs, physically. I don't recall what Andorra's standard lab size is, +1 is my recollection, but even presuming it is +2, that doesn't leave a lot of room for a tricked out lab. Young magi don't need tricked out labs, as they can usually realize the same improvements in a season by just studying a sound tractatus or summa. When Art scores get to the 20s, though, refinement and improving ones lab begin to pay bigger dividends than spending a couple of seasons grinding on tractatus. If you play the long game, and spend a season out of every dozen or so improving your lab early in the magus's career, it's not very painful to advancement, and you have a tricked out lab, and decent Art Scores. Looking at it another way, improving ones lab, including Refinement, is a capital improvement, and takes time to pay dividends. One of the most useful things about Refinement is to scrub out Flaws that you took when installing a virtue, because you just had to have it.

What? Who? Me?

Use the statue as the beginnings of a Feature/Focus object, or perhaps a Specimen.
The cost for moving/building a lab is in quarter-pawns (qp). It may be too cheep. I based it on Build Points originally, then did something I forget. Vocis (Fight Master) was one of the few (or only) to use them, and we both made errors. So I revised it to make his lab legal. The situation at hand reveals it may need to be revised again.
Refinement is always a good thing.

An apprentice is limited in a number of ways. But if you wanted to play a Mercere apprentice, I can rush my plan to be capable of safely opening an apprentice's arts. I'm not trying to lure you in, just placing an offer out there if you do decide to play an apprentice. I also think some other magi in the covenant are looking at taking apprentices too. But a full-blown magus is good too, if you decide to go that route.

I was looking at a gifted Mercere as one concept too, due the invention aspects that the HoH book indicates and the wonderful lore on how hereditary they are. There are a few houses that I won't be able to do justice to: Bjornaer, Mertintia, Criamon, and Guernicus.
If we can flesh out how the progression will go for an apprentice (more reading for me), then I'm certainly open to that. Which are the other Magi seeking apprentices?

Welcome! Fairly certain you run the blog that I acquired two spells for my Necromancer from.

Just to put it out there, we have had five or six Mercere magi pas through Andorra and one still in residence. Off the top of my head they are Lucas (in residence), Deciumus, Mercuria, and someone else and another forgotten. They are supposed to be somewhat rare, but I have expanded that House to include at least twenty gifted magi in the year 1237. So if you go that route, work closely with Lucas.
An apprentice is an interesting option. I do not have that book, but if someone does and wants to play with those rules, we can try it out.
I always hold out hope someone will create another cool Flambeau magus, but that rarely happens. Carmen of Flambeau is currently ready to train an apprentice. Roberto of Flambeau is not, but he could take on a protoge and become a Mentor.
The covenant is not Diedne friendly, so don't even bother with that idea. Nothing overtly Infernal or Divine. A little bit for flavor is okay, but not for the driving concept.

Hah, poor Marko! I had considered making Thomas a Flambeau for a bit.

The problem with installing virtues is when you have decent arts is its usually better to enchant something to help in lab. When you don't have decent arts its better to just study. If you don't have any good ideas on what to enchant, just picture all the stuff a modern lab has that you don't. Bunsen Burner, running water (hot and cold), modern cleaning stuff, those spinny magnets, a heating plate, dry ice, incubators, centrifuges, microscopes and so forth. All of which can be done with magic. Tricking out the lab is still a good thing, but I think that enchanted items are a better way to do it.

Not really. Take something like Lesser Expansion which grants +1 GQ and +1 specialization would be a 30th level effect. To create something that does that in a season requires a Lab Total of 60 and a Vis cost if 3 pawns. If your lab total is less it needs to be a fully invested device, which requires more Vis and more time than a major virtue.
Like I said, around scores of 20 in favored arts you can advance your lab total faster by putting in virtues.

You need to refine before making a virtue. And it costs +2 upkeep. If your favored arts are around 20, you should be able to extract a couple pawns of vis and make a level 20 item. And then upgrade your lab with precious ingredients. Or superior equipment, or priceless ingredients. Anyway situations will turn on the details. :slight_smile:

You can install a virtue and a flaw at the same time to maintain balance. You can then come back later and refine your lab and remove a flaw.

And while devices can do a lot they can also cause warping issues in the lab, although it is entirely subjective where that starts. My guess, though if you spend time extracting Vis and then making magic items you will spend more time "refining" your lab than just tricking it out.

The lab HR I wrote up years ago, and which discussion has me thinking of reviewing, was intended to address this time issue. I also wanted everyone to hit the ground running when they started play, so we coud get right into stories.
Each step of Refinement takes one Season. It takes one Season to install a Minor Virtue and two Seasons for Major. Instal time can be reduced by Flaws, one for Minor and two for Major. Minimum combined time is one Season.
Fightmaster outright bought Vocis' Lab, and I had t rewrite the HR's to make it legls because the originals did not account for Size.
This way you equal and feel the benefits much quicker.

PoB has a point. A Premium Free Virtue is fairly balanced by a Free Flaw.

If you allow flaws to account for time savings, you should not allow those same flaws to account for space for the virtue, because you are double counting the flaw.

Understood. As you've had many Mercere magi I'll discount that for now, and a Flambeau is certainly still compatible with what I have in mind arts and specialization wise. I've done some sketching out, and now pondering what the characters long term motivations are and hermetic goals.

A few quick questions with regard to introducing an Apprentice - Will there be a story to find him, and how do you folks setup sub-stories like this?

Glad some of the spells will see some in-game use.

I'll throw out there that Solomon (my Guernicus) is going to be looking for an apprentice rather soon. His InVi lab total is rather high, so whoever his apprentice is will have the opportunity to keep one (perhaps more) supernatural virtues without them being lost or converted to hermetic virtues.

Would have said the same thing. This is a almost textbook definition of a realia.

I'd do it with pleasure, I'd like to see another flambeau there (I had this idea of a flambeau using solid flames to create weapons and armor), but I don't see myself having another character

I wasn't saying it 8was* realia, since the SQ is already defined in artes and academe and in this example would be 12. The question is how often it could be studied, for which we have 3 models- summae (studied up to a given level) tractus (studied for 1 season, which seems odd when it takes 2 seasons to create), and realia (can be studied for a number of seasons equal to it's quality, or technically as written we could just say there is no limit to how often it could be studied, and someone who wanted to completely geek out studying it could learn more from this statue over a few years than the artist who made it actually knew...
And yes, she was also planning to use it as a lab focus, but the difference between spending one pound on an unknown starting artist and 16 pounds on a well established artist who can sign their names comes down to aesthetics and the ability to learn the craft by studying the statue.

I don't think that is an issue. No complaints or contraversies there. The problem, as I see it, is the vestigi rue aing peple to spend qp to buy lab virtues &/or transfer thier lab.

I'm saying it's an unintended consequence of your action.
I have a size 0 lab, and want to install a Major Virtue, by RAW, I can install it with 3 points in flaws. By your rule modifcation, those same flaws can also be used to speed the installation of the major virtue into 1 season.

Actually, I think it is an INTENDED consequence. Marko wants to promote things happening in the game, and so introduced the rule in order to speed up lab modifications. So yes, it is different from RAW, but was done that way on purpose. At least as I understand things.