I thing they ere contemplating using an Effect Expiry to multiply that excess. I myself am contemplating using the 70 year Expiry, which doubles excess, on my next few Familiar Enchantments. If the character is still in a game at that time, he surly progressed to a point that he could replace it easilly. Unlimited enchamtment potential of the Familiar Bond 
Ah, yes. I missed that part.
Asliano, could you go over the math of the effect and lab total again? BTW, you do get bonuses for Shape & Material and Philosophiae, even though you didn' craft the item.
I think.
lemme look...
Nope. You get Shape & Material, but not Philosophiae. If you did craft it, other magi get your Philosopiae as a bonus.
You know what might help? Iberian Script Runes. That is the special Valdarian Mystery the Verditius seek.
Google it. "Iberian Script".
Then look up the languages of Celtiberian and Tartessian.
I will gift you in order to further fuel a story. You work in the very forge Vulcanus created, having made it your own. One day you find a Tractatus Vulcans left behind. Valdarian Cult Lore, Quality 5. Plus a script to Self Initiate Iberian Script. It starts with stealing the Phoenix Sword.
Nope, merely that I shouldn't try to remember complex rules at 10pm 
. As you were, everybody!
The effect maths isn't mine, it's Fixer's. To quote:
My Lab Total calculation is a bit higher up this thread, but is:
As for the sword, that probably falls under the Waddenzee story, doesn't it? I'll get in on it. What do the Iberian Script Runes give me?
In theory.
But getting 5 magi to give 2 seasons for the covenant at the same time? Even assuming we can get the lab total, I wouldn't count on it 
Tada!
andorra.wikidot.com/iberian-runes
Awesome.
We need to get that back, anyway. Especially as Rodrigo is bound to it.
Arachné didn't know him, but he was a friend of Antonio and Dimir Taar. That's enough for her to consider him a sodales.
Yeah. Lucas is very much like Wirth, only better, which is why Wirth respects and appreciates the man.
Ah, cheers. Do you happen to have any numbers?
...hmm, shame about the lack of runes for Im and Me; they're my best forms. Still, I suppose it's a "boost your weaknesses" kind of deal.
If you picked the right magi, you could do it with two. Just pick one with a familiar and an apprentice, and one with a familiar, and you have the five assistants right there. Make the device only last for 70 years and you cut it down from two seasons to one season.
Now you only need two magi to help for one season. Much more doable.
I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. This is all I have, though 
You should have played a demon. You're very good at tempting people 
I notice that, on the Seasonal Planner spreadsheet, under "Teachers", it has one name listed for each season (but only on the 1230s sheet - subsequent decades don't have a column for them yet). Does that mean that only that teacher is available that season? Or that that teacher is already booked?
Also, some tomes in the library have "Featurea" (e.g. Dominion Over God’s Creatures has the Feature "Didactic (Rego 3)", while Glorious Prometheus has the Features "+1 Glossed, +1 Minor Resonance, +1 Clarified, +1 Reduced Level"). I can't find "Features" in either Covenants or the core rulebook. Is that a holdover from a previous edition? And if so, what do the mean? (Especially with regards to SQ or Level when advancing.)
It means that is the teacher scheduled for that season.
I also noticed that while the population of Arans is under 300, the population of the covenant is over 205...
So, if I want Guiverna to learn from teacher, it has to be from that particular teacher?
(Also...our Linguist teacher doesn't speak Occitan/Catalan?)
And if so, who do we have that can teach her Occitan? I had penciled in Bashir, but he's nowhere on the teacher column.
It means that is the season that is covered by their work for the Andorran covenant. Side deals are always a possibility.
Some of our student teachers may have an ability in Occitain, depending on where they were recruited from exactly. I have been assuming those all have com 2, depending on where they are in their training they have a season free each year (I am assuming we retain one to develop at the covenant in 1242) the SQ will vary, but even after the first year they will have teaching:4 com 2, possibly a penalty for age of -1 or -2, depending on how old they were when the program started in 1236 and the year you ask for training, so base SQ:10-12, 16-18 for one on one. Of course that is their free season and penalties for the gift also apply...
So, Marius and Draganna each have two seasons of service per year to the covenant, none of the others do. But Bashir, for example, could conceivably trade a season teaching Guiverna Catalan in exchange for something else. The only skills I see that Guiverna has that Bashir doesn't, or doesn't have a higher score in, are Apothecary, Brawl (and she'd probably not be his first to learn that from), Egyptian Theology, Magic Theory (not sure why he'd need that, though), Order of Hermes Lore, and Scribe.
Trogdor, is Bashir interested in teaching Guiverna Occitan in Summer of 1237 rather than Training in Teaching? She'll try to make it worth his while. Somehow.
(And she can extend her Parma over him, so the effects of the Gift on his Teaching shouldn't be a problem.)
They're mostly in Covenants. Not listed as features though, but they're in there - mostly under "extended suggestions on the quality of books" I think.
Didactic texts can educate you on subjects other than the book's main message (you can divert XP from the main subject to the didactic subject - up to the didactic level). Glossing is someone with a higher communication score than the author writing in the margins to improve the book's SQ by 1. Resonance can get you up to +2 on your SQ: it's using magical materials to improve the quality of the book. Clarification happens when books get opened for enchantment and left in magical auras for some years - better SQ, but they turn to dust outside an aura. Reduced level, I believe, is from the corebook - where you write a text below your maximum level to improve the SQ.
All the additions and subtractions to the source quality appear to have already been factored into the SQ of the books in the library already.
Perhaps a large portion of our covenfolk lives in the village? They are employees after all. :mrgreen:
Okay, I'm heading to bed so I don't have a lot of time to write this all up, but I need some help on Solomon's "cerebro" spell. For the heck of it, I decided to try experimentation, and things didn't go quite as planned. I'll have to link the rolls tomorrow (or they can be looked up on the Coyote roller in Fixer's sig block), but here's the basics.
I was trying to make a Gift detecting spell, ala the example spells in Apprentices. InVi 55 (base 10, +4 Arcane Connection, +1 Concentration, +4 Boundary). I added +3 exceptional risk and rolled a total +12 to my lab total, which lowered the time down to 2 seasons. For my experimentation rolls I ended up with:
Discovery - gain 3 xp to an art
Modified Effect - The actual effect of your experiment is modified
Modified Effect - The actual effect of your experiment is modified
Modified Effect - The spell's range, duration, target or potency is increased
So, as you can see, I need some thoughts on what to do with those two modified effects rolls that actually modify the spell.
I would need to see your Lab Total and other details. I also see a flaw in the design I get the Range. You are searching Boundaries at a distance. But there is no discernment of detail. It just tells you if there is someone Gifted in that area or not. No information on number or location.
But perhaps that was by design?
Oh, language training is a good point. Phelippe could use some of that, any time after Spring 1236. At the moment, he can only really talk to Antoine.
Hmm, no, that wasn't by design, it's just that I'm poor at spell design. The goal is to identify how many people within the boundary are Gifted, and their location. Would a +1 magnitude be sufficient to include those details? If so, it still will take him two seasons. +2 or +3 would require three seasons.
His standard InVi lab total at the time of experimentation (taking into account stuff on the magi planner that hasn't be updated on his sheet yet) is 78. The season before, he invents basically a level 35 version of the spell ("Spot the Gited Child"), which adds 7 more to that total. And he rolled a 12 for the experimentation die. So his total lab total for the experimentation is 97.
Edit: Oops, I messed up my math. I edited the total above so it is now correct.
Re: Solomon's Cerebro effect.
Tricky and great rolls. Can you post the text of the effect you were intending to design?
Would think at base 10 you get a sense for (a) if there is a gifted person who did not resist the spell, and (b) perhaps a vague degree of population measured in non absolute terms of people who mean that criteria; scarce, plentiful, etc. any more needs a more granular search.
As increases to power level improvements I think the Tremere books have sub-guidelines for counting groups amongst crowds to get degrees of precision, but I can't find the guidelines at present. That would seem a useful change.
Perhaps also a sense of distance between the points?
As the effect is already at a high Range and Target, I think effect potency and Duration are good picks; so a free bump to Sun might be handy.
In terms of changed effect
(c) included personalisation for you as caster to avoid warping.
(d) allow for the degree of accuracy or resolution of the information to increase as you use the effect. I had a house rule about this when sifting through a target's memories with Mentem magic. It should take a while to find what you are after.
(e) perhaps you also get a sense of the closest target's range to you?
(f) if the effect is meant to change a lot: you gain knowledge of active magics (subject to their OoM) within the boundary instead?
Or you gain a sense of magical devices instead of gifted people.
p.s. Is there a desire to make this a ritual, as I think you could design several effects and combine them to get similar effect but avoid the vis cost.