Intellegence may or may not be related to the gift, however any child with a low intellegence is very unlikely to be trained as a magus.
Remember that the child starts out with a big minus in all stats for being a child, and that you need a positive int+MT total to be any help at all in the lab.
It is unlikely that anyone with a negative com would have the good teacher virtue, but that only means that less people will have it... And it still doesn't mean that the good authors will be writing any signifigant number of books.
As for the rituals - I would imagine that if a magus wanted to develop such a spell, he'd aim for the intelligence boost. This would be a good bonus to himself, and a valuable enchancement to any apprentice. Boosting your com would be somewhat further down the list maybe as high as 3, after stamina...
I'll accept that Magi tend to have above average intelligence but I don't see that extending to Com. In fact, it might be negatively correlated, given the stereotype of the socially withdrawn or awkward wizard, kept from normal interaction during childhood by the effects of his Gift. I also don't see a necessary correlation between high Com and Good Teacher. We've probably all had at least one teacher in the past who was socially hopeless but had a real gift in teaching.
There's the problem, stat improvement spells don't cause sufficient warping by the RAW. How about if we treat them as powerful continuous effects, like Longevity Rituals? You might go even further and treat them as powerful continuous effects not specifically designed for an individual if the ritual is learned by lab text rather than by pure invention.
Good point. I'd go further in limiting the topics you can write about by my suggestion of assigning levels to each tractatus. Right now someone just out of apprenticeship with a 5 in an Art can write a book that rivals the masters. Fifty years later, when he might be expected to write something that rivals Aristotle, his next book is of exactly the same quality, assuming he hasn't used a stat booster. I don't like that.
First, you are mistaking the house for the group. It includes many of the Mercere magi, but not all of them. But it also includes magi from a number of other houses. Also, this is not a secretive group. Then it should also be remembered that there are two related groups doing similar things, not just one group, though the second is fare more optional. However, the second also initiates Mercurian Magic.
Regardless, it should be noted that the one group that extensively likes to use these also typically gets to use them for half the vis. Let's say you can cast a ritual spell for 6 pawns of vis. I'll pay you 7 pawns, the 6 for the spell plus 1 more. You're earning 1 pawn of vis in a few hours. Even for 1 pawn, that's great income. And yet you might be able to get people to pay you an extra 2 or 3 pawns. If you develop a better Target version, you can charge less and make much more profit. So what's the point in just about anyone outside of the group knowing the spell? It's typically cheaper to pay someone for it.
Is there a market for it? Well, let's say I'm a Good Teacher with Com 0. I pay 40 pawns of vis to get a Mercurian to raise me to Com +5. I'm now writing tractatus that are considered beyond price instead of tractatus that are selling for 1-2 vis (they were just below "sound"). Let's say they were selling for 1.5 pawns and now they're selling for 4.5 pawns (probably a pretty low estimate based on the beyond price thing). If I can sell 3 copies of any given of these tractatus, I increase my income by 9 pawns for every tractatus I write. I only have to get to my 5th tractatus to start raking it in. At that point the only disadvantage is 5 points of warping. 5 points in the grand scheme of getting near a score of 10 is pretty minor. Plus you can do more than write tractatus with it: improved negotiations, teaching, etc.
Now, if it were only for Communication, maybe a magus wouldn't think there would be a market for it and wouldn't develop the spell. But if you develop one of the other spells, then you can develop the Communication one more easily (+12 to your lab total, assuming the +5 limit). Would any of the other spells be useful and trigger the creation of such a market? All we need is one popular one for the Order to get the basic business going and magi considering the magical boost approach. How about Int +5? Its even pointed out and exampled in canon that Int is highly valued. One point of Intelligence will add +1 to all your lab totals, all of your lore rolls, some Finesse rolls, initiation invention, etc. No wonder it's valued. How much is +1 to Int worth? Well, it's certainly worth a noticeable amount more than the investment in your lab to get a general +1 to all your lab totals. That investment typically requires a season and some money, sometimes a lot of money. How much is a season worth, especially later on? (As in, you might not get this right out of apprenticeship, but how about years afterward?) Or compare it to increasing Magic Theory by 1 (which does also allow more vis to be used but doesn't provide all those other benefits). At higher levels of Magic Theory, say around Magic Theory 7 or so, you're typically looking at 2-3 seasons to increase your score by 1. Again, how much is one of your seasons worth, especially later on?
In canon these spells exist and are more than just available to magi of a number of houses, they're somewhat of a goal. As you can see, there is a market for the spells, too, and it's generally better to pay a Mercurian for it than to invent it yourself. So even making a non-canonical absolute restriction that no one except a Mercurian can invent the spell (stronger than anything you suggested) should do relatively little.
That's not my saying, so quote accordingly Although I like the idea of "house specialties", like Tremere Necromancy and Tytalan Spirit Magic.
Yet, the question remains, with yet another contradiction between rules and setting: If you make assumptions such as yours (and no one is saying they don't make sense mathematically), how come no published magus flaunts +5 in most to every carac, especially the older/more powerfull ones? Or even +5 in Int? In fact, I'd be really curious to see how many published characters have stats that differ from their base + virtues.
Trying to solve this problem goes a loooong way towards solving the books one. If it's a problem for you, of course. If it isn't, assume published magi are all rare dumbasses that don't embrace the magical transhumanity movement
From personal experience I found it's not worthwhile to do 5 different versions. The problem is that, for example, inventing the +5 after knowing the +4 versus knowing the +3 only provides a +1 to your lab total. The time (at least one season) put into the +4 only gives you a minimal bonus and saves you 1 pawn of vis. I'm not disagreeing with the invention of a few, but not 5 versions.
If you're inventing it and you can pull it off, it's better to go with Target: Circle or Group. You can market that very widely. It saves tons of vis. You could invent a single level 60 circle version for +5. That costs 12 pawns, but if you're Mercurian only 6 pawns per casting. Let's say you find 5 magi who are willing to pay you 3 vis per casting (3 vis for +1 to a score is pretty cheap). You spend an extra season mastering it for safety. It costs a total of 30 vis for all 6 of you to advance from 0 to +5. You'll bring in a profit of 45 vis, too, even with the really cheap price. 45 vis ought to cover quite a number of seasons of investment. (In our saga we have a Mercurian with Imbued with the Spirit of Corpus, so her rituals will cost her almost nothing, but that is an exception. Still, it shows non-Mercurians can do it more cheaply, too.)
I had considered the same thing. Here's what I considered. To train an apprentice you should have 5 in every Art. 6 in every Art isn't much further and provides a lot of benefits (plus so many canonical sample summas bring you to 6 in one season anyway). So that's 30 tractatus in Arts alone already for a weak magus (barely able to train an apprentice). Let's say the magus has four 11's. (That's not super). That's another 4, so we're up to 34. Magi start with at least 3 in Magic Theory. By late careers I would expect everyone to have at least 5 in Magic Theory and at least 2 in Penetration, Finesse, and Parma Magica (our saga's order frowns on PM books). Plus there are other useful things (Spell Mastery, Cult Lore, Leadership, etc.). So our more reasonable but still relatively unskilled magus (considering we're looking at the later end of the career) can write 40 such tractatus that magi will desire. Most magi end apprenticeship in their 20's. So, do we consider 4 11's and 11 6's in Arts, MT 5, Penetration 2, Finesse 2, and Parma Magica 2 stretching it for a 100-something year old magus? Using common stuff in canon that would only require about 4-5 years of study to obtain, so I hope we don't consider that stretching it for a 100-something year old magus. Maintaining an average of 1/2 years for a little over 100 years should be trivial. If 1/2 years is trivial, then I would expect a dedicated writer to write with a slightly higher frequency.
I'm not sure what happened to your Tremere. I'd hazard a guess at two things: 1) You used the known-to-be-wrong elder magus creation rules. Consider that 4 seasons of lab work nets you 8 points of exposure, nearly what those guidelines give you with 2 seasons of lab work and 2 seasons of study. They work to cripple elder magi to make them less challenging for younger magi or so different age magi may be played together and be more balanced, but they blatantly contradict everything else written about the advancement process. 2) You probably effectively min-maxed for simplicity. (I'm not saying this as a bad thing; it's worth it as a storyguide.) For example, you probably decided that if the Tremere can train an apprentice, you'll give the Tremere 5 in most Arts. But that is at the absolute extreme of using experience in such a way as to not be able to write books. Anyway, as I said, I'm just hazarding a guess.
Sorry, I'd quoted your message and realized I was only responding to what you quoted, so I erased what you added. But then I erased the wrong name. Sorry.
Oh, I agree with your comments here sooooo much. Getting rid of those rituals solves so many book problems (if they are problems). There are other problems. For example, why would the Mercere be so stupid as to repeatedly waste vis on rituals for transportation when they could make a few enchanted devices that would work a lot better for them for a fraction of the price? In our saga Mercere's portals are not used much at all; only a few are maintained in heavily trafficked ways/routes. Transportation without such portals is general quick and cheap. There are other inconsistencies, too.
And, yes, generally speaking the published magi are just about all dumbasses.
Writing tractatus is one of the few times you don't round up in this game. You need 5 in an art to write 1, you need 10 in an art to write two. Same with abilities, you need 6 in an ability to write 3, with a score of 7, you can still only write 3.
I'm terribly and profundly offended. I think I'll condemn you to the direst firepits of hell once I manage the 30-years of study I'll need for that.
By the way, this made me curious, so I checked the Mercere Chapter.
This comes from the insert on p96:
So at least that part seems to confirm Ulf's memories.
I'm fast-checking the rest.
Aren't "true" mercere portals permanent?
Of course, for the others, you're desperatingly right.
EDIT: Ok, it seems True Mercere Portals are, in fact, kinda infinite-use items, only with a ritual strapped after.
Possible advantages:
If you require casting requisites for Teleport spells (as I think one should, but YMMV), these become all the more difficult. Mercere Portals working differently (they seem to make the 2 places as one), they bypass this, and thus are MAYBE easier to create that an equivalent ReCo(An, He, Te) item
If it can fit through the portal, it can travel, which inludes size +2 characters and beasts.
You can send goods alone, like water (which'd add another requisite to a normal item)
It is possible these don't cause warping, since you're not subjected to the effect: The connected places are.
That's not much, but that's all I could do to try to rationnalise it.
I can appreciate your neverousness, and I'm not sure they should ever do so in canon, but I think such things become important if you want more verisimilitude in your game, as opposed to a game where you mostly-randomly decide what is and isn't available to your covenant.
I think this is more a function of what magi are and are not willing to accept in apprentices, rather than an implied correlation between intelligence and the Gift. I also think the average intelligence of published magi is probably right around +2, depending on whether you mean every magi statted out in 5th ed, or something different. I could probably do an analysis when I get home.
I certainly agree that pretty much any saga where magi are inventing spells to boost a 0 Com to a 5 Com so that they can write their uber-books is powergaming. Not my cup of tea, but it seems to be a taste of a non-trivial portion of AM players. In an average Normandy tribunal, that definitely wouldn't work... but by the Tremere in Transylvania, which is sparsely populated, vis rich, and well harvested? Probably not out of the question.
I've been off-and-on working on a more complete regression of the Order of Hermes, given what I consider reasonable assumptions about the world and the RAW, to get a sense of what sort of writing would be reasonable. It tends to cross pollinate with my medieval simulation software... hopefully, whenever I finish the world-gen component of it, I'll get such a regression, and the constants I used to generate it, for free.
I think there's only a possible book problem in a high-vis world... and, I suspect, though I haven't run the numbers, that it probably has to be a high-vis, high-proportion-of-good-writer-virtue world. (I must admit, this now gives me the idea of a secret Hermetic society that's formed with the goal of collecting vis so they can boost their stats so they can write cool books so they can collect more vis... with plans of world domination. It has to be a secret society, rather than just the Tremere, so that it can be a mystery cult that initiates the proper writing virtue and the great characteristic virtue. Self confident, too, so they can always have a good twilight experience.)
The default situation for story seeds is “This child may have the gift. He could make a good apprentice.” The story seeds don’t caveat it with “This child may have the gift and is pretty bright, he could make a good apprentice.” If Int +2 or higher was not correlated with the gift and stats followed a bell curve, Hermentic Magi would be a small fraction of gifted folk. I don’t think that is the default understanding. That magi with intelligence less than +2 are vanishingly rare does seem to be the default understanding.
Hmmm... Let me give you a situation. My Mercurian creo mentem specialist decides that to make an Int+5 spell. I make it with Target: Circle. You're a lab rat in my covenant. I tell you I'll be casting the spell one time each on a certain few days. You are welcome to participate at a cost of 3 vis, at least one of which is Cr or Me. Your familiar can be included for 2 pawns of vis. I make the same offer to the rest of the covenant. Are you a power-gamer if you accept?
Knowing how much vis my Mercurian can earn, I now offer my services to other covenants. Since I can now invent the other three spells a lot easier (+12), I check around to see if anyone would be interested. I'm good at two things: CrMe and rituals. I'm trying to use those to earn vis for my character so I can do all sorts of other things. Am I power-gaming? If so, then doing the thing your best at for profit is power-gaming?
Compare these to the Flambeau who makes sure he has great penetration and can fast-cast. Or how about the Verditius who excels in one Craft: X and so can now build really good items of that type, saving tons of vis and providing huge benefits? How about the Holy Magus who can cast so many rituals for no vis? How about the PeVi specialist who can fast-cast?
Note that one of the books even suggests the use of the CrMe/Co rituals and that the spells show up in two different books. It's not like we're even inventing a new spell or using it in a bizarre way.
Perhaps I should phrase it another way? If we were playing an athlete RPG and a bunch of characters used steroids and the like, would you consider that to be power-gaming? But that's what happens in the real world. Many persons push themselves to be as good as they can at what they're good at, even when it means breaking the law and other rules. See, it's not that we're building athletes a strong as superman for our game, we're just dealing with things as real society does. That's why I don't understand this idea of power-gaming.
From experience, even though the warping point hit is small, that still is what prevents the ubermensch. If a magus starts with Int +3, he probably starts with an average +1 split between all the remaining Characteristics. To raise all 8 to +5 would require 36 warping points. That's a lot more than the probable 2-4 you would be perfectly happy to accept in your primary area. As a result, those who are undergoing the rituals tend to restrict themselves to Int and only one or two others if they're really interested. For example, some might think 'I don't really need to be strong. I'll use my magic. I don't want to pick up 6 warping points to go from -1 to +5.' So what happens is people tend to only hit +5 in about two areas (typically Int and one other for magi), and those are usually the two areas in which they already had positive scores.
Why not? It can cost less than a pawn per person if you have one clever Mercurian. Considering a single casting could effectively generate 0.5-1 pawn of vis for every time those magi distilled vis (0.1 pawns per person each time), it will pay itself back in distilled vis, and then there are the other benefits.
Well, we tend to run below the medium level in canon. We have tons more vis than we need for those rituals. Sure, we don't cast them the first few days after our gauntlets, but the rituals are so inexpensive that it doesn't take long to accumulate what you need.
Certainly my understanding is that the Gift is rare enough that almost anyone discovered with the gift (and who has managed to avoid acquiring enough supernatural abilities to make it impossible) is likely to be wanted as an apprentice by someone (why else would folks fight over apprentices - and why else is the Bonisagus ability to seize apprentices seen as a big deal),
Maybe it is simply that the printed characters are "notable", and that "notable" magi tend to be the smarter magi,
Yes,absolutely! He's a CrMe specialist who uses less vis. There's pretty much one reason for that build: to boost mental stats. How will you boost them? In the most vis-efficient way possible, of course... why boost a person when you can boost a bunch for one pawn more? Why cast CrMe rituals at full price when you can do them at half price? So, once you cast your ritual, you'll have a pile of vis, 1/3 of which will be useful in casting this ritual more... one can safely assume, I believe, that you'll be casting said ritual on yourself. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that you'll make a Com version. So what will you have at the end? A +5 Int, +5 Com magus with a large pile of vis, in an Order of Hermes now much higher in proportion of +5 Int, +5 Com magi.
If that process doesn't seem to meet the criteria set forth in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powergaming to you, then I think we just have basic semantic differences.
Also powergamers, but of a different scale. Those powergamers are happy to change their small part of the environment... they blow up a thing, they make a magical artifact. You, sir, are a man of vision. You are not satisfied to have your powergaming just effect this one dragon, or that one magic sword. You want your powergaming to affect the entire Order! You want an Order of +5 Int, +5 Com geniuses, ringing in a new world order of Lab Totals of 100 and Books of quality 30.
Nope. I don't think I've suggested that you are misinterpreting the rules, or even the spirit of them.
I think steroids are different, mainly due to them being considered cheating in the vast majority of sports... it is forbidden, and covered up when done. But part of the problem here is a difference in scale. Mercurian Magic, for example, halves the amount of vis you use in a ritual. Creating a ritual of target circle rather than target individual can easily cause the effect to increase by a degree of magnitude. If there were a steroid out there that could make the faster runner cover 100m in 0.99s, or allow someone to bench press 10 tons, or throw a baseball 1,000mph, then, and only then, would steroids really be on the same level as what you propose.
Well, the warping becomes the major hurdle once you reduce the vis need to near nil and assumed that The Prophet (what else could we call this magus who will bring mankind to its platonic ideal one circle at a time?) is willing to spend the time to learn these CrMe spells? I suppose, since we haven't defined him to be a CrCo specialist, we'll have to wait for his little brother to come along before we can turn the covenant into physical superheroes. But, as established recently in another thread, all you really need are confidence points and self-confident, and those 36 warping points aren't much of a concern... they just cut down on the XP you can safely get from Twilight experiences.
Yes, I stand corrected; for a nominal fee, you could go ahead and make a circle at the next Norman Tribunal Meeting, and let everyone have Com 5 and Int 5.
Here again, I stand corrected.
Given all this, I think you should probably suggest in your saga that all magi be assumed to leave apprenticeship with Int +5. After all, why would a magus not pay such a nominal fee to ensure that his lab assistant is +5 Int. And it's probably also reasonable to assume that fresh magi should always start with MT 5... after all at least one tutor in the covenant ought to have been well paid for the warping he took to get to Com +5 and the time he's taken to get his MT to at least 5 so he could get paid to train the apprentices. Heck, he doesn't even have to be at the covenant... I'm sure most magi would pay a nominal fee to hand their apprentice off to the apprentice assembly line, getting back a +10 lab total at the end of the year that they could keep for the following 14 years. Heck, do all of that before making the kid officially an apprentice, and get 15 years of at least +10 lab total!
I think you mean Target:Ring. Circle is a duration, and obviously not one you want for this spell.
I think I speak for most when I say that it doesn't matter what anyone says about your game, as long as everyone in your game is having fun. On the other hand, if you start making pronouncements that this is how the economics has to work, people are going to take that as "If you really understood the math, this is what you would think to." Which can raise hackles. People are going to point out all the assumptions that are different between their world and your world.
Nor in the first few decades out of guantlet. Unless you specifically designed a character to do specifically that, it seems like this spell is going to be hard to invent. The spell is L60. To invent this within two years is going to take a Lab Total of 68. I think you said Magic Theory 10 for your character (which even with Affinity with Magic Theory, is hard to reach) , and lets assume an aura of 5. Lets assume a familiar with low Magical Might so that you were able to teach it up to Magic Theory 10 and even a positive Intelligence, and you still need scores in the mid 20s in each art to reach. All of those things take serious investments of time. Taking the canonical 30 XP per year, that is a serious investment in time. I don't know how long your game has been going on or at what age you started, but if your character is able to invent spells like this, I have to think your character is at least 50 years past guantlet and has had an uneventful life.
Note, that the most important part of that is "uneventful life" Eventful lives tend to encourage players to spread their abilities more on things like Parma Magica and inventing spells earlier in their lives than it would be optimal to do otherwise. If I had my druthers, I would read all the summae the covenant has before I started inventing spells and designing items, but of the first three seasons, I will spend two of them inventing spells. I can't wait until I raise my scores, I need the spells now.
Finally, (and this is something I have convinced myself is a feature, not a bug in my current game) magi would have a lot less control over their starting situation that the rules currently allow. When I joined my game, I found a library with 5 summae, one of which was a primer in Herbam. The covenant has only four summae with levels above 6,those being in Intellego, Rego, Corpus and Ignam. No books of any type in Creo, Muto or Perdo 13 of the 16 pawns of vis sources we have are in Creo, Animal or Vim and we didn’t have books of any sort in any of them. We have two different summae on Magic Theory, one level 6, the other level 8. (!!!) When I learned this, I was appalled, but really, it is realistic, real life is often that sort of mishmash.
(Of course, in general, you can argue characters only join covenants that are able to support their needs, if your character specializes in learning from vis and your covenant has 6 pawns total a year, why would you stay? In my case, it is because my characters had visions telling me to come. Now that the monastery figured out we were magi, Zaccheaus is hoping it is to help bring the church and the Order closer together. It is either that or one of the players characters is going to become a diabolist and I need to stop them. Zaccheaus doesn’t remember many details .)
IIRC, in House of Hermes, Societies, it was worth mentioning that the Jebiton are so interested in focusing on those with the Gentle Gift that they would take less able students, such as ones with Int +2.
When I suggested that my verditius magus would be interested in teaching an apprentice for the first five years and then spining him off to another magus to complete his apprenticeship, and I used +2 as his proposed intelligence, the comment was made that this seemed low.
Those issues can be cleaned up pretty quickly with a few assumptions:
Focus on the part of the inventor... "human improvement" or some such. Inventive genius optional.
Lab text existing for the inventor to use. (Some old magus of yesteryear already invented this, the Mercere have been doing it a long time, etc, etc...)
The conversation about what a properly one-trick-pony magi can do straight out of apprenticeship has been done time and time again, and I've seen people's builds sufficiently often to develop a basic rule of thumb: what a non-power-gamer imagines an experienced middle-age magus to be capable of, a power-gamer can brew up a legal build that does it at gauntlet. (My corollary is: what a non-power-gamer imagines a powerful old magi of being able to do, a power-gamer can brew up a legal build + outside assistance person who can get the magi to that ability in five years or less.)
Seriously, I point optimize with the best of them. I thought I explicitly said that you could design a character that could do that. What I was trying to show is that it is not obvious that in any reasonable saga, magi would arise that would inevitibly do that. I am not claiming it is impossible I am claiming it is hard. It is perfectly reasonable to say that when something is hard to do, it is not inevitable that it happens.
Which lets my character be the first one to do it.
Thats actually a rather interesting possibility. I dislike and disagree with most you´ve said(if you want a power cut, then have one as a house rule, that doesnt change how things were written), but this has the potential to actually fix the issues with tractatus without applying nerfs that are arbitrary and so hurting that it becomes better to use the time for making items and get exposure XP instead. Which would instead eventually flood "Mythic Europe" with hoardes of magic items.
Why not? Thats a purely arbitrary limitation on the same level as "elves cant go beyond level x like human PCs can".
One thing though, i think you very much underestimate the mobility and tradeability of books. 20 existing doesnt meant its 20 you can actually get without negotiations and a lot of payment of one sort or another.
And IF a character wants to sit around in their library until they´re high as a kite on XP, well why not?
The interesting thing will be what they do NEXT. And if that particular character does NOT use the power for anything, well thats one PC that´s easy to keep track of and simply doesnt appear much(some players DO like to stick to the background and just become powerful, or make the ultimate collection of items, or books or... etc etc). No harm done. Or do you think a bunch of medieval scholarly wizards would say "he doesnt have any field experience so he cant become an archmage"?
Me neither.
Yup, though that will make Q10 and Q9 tractatus far more worth at the same time. And there will be (relatively) plenty of Q9 at least(either Com+3 OR GT).
Which means that if you can find the book Aristoteles wrote on the subject(if it exists, hint, hint) it might be a better still.
0 isnt the base normal average for humans. If it was, the standard character creation wouldnt give you points to go above 0 with.
With 7 points and 8 stats that means the potential average could be 0.875 or 0.75 or 0.5 depending how you spread those points without taking any negatives. There´s lots of possible averages you can get from it but its hard to place it at 0 or below.
So +1 will be common, far, far more so than -1. And you can even argue that +1 should be more common than 0 as well.
I tend to assume 0 as the baseline rather than the average though, it makes more sense with the rules.
:mrgreen:
REALLY few i would hope!
It allows yes, but how many will bother? Most wont. Those obsessive with writing though, they WILL get that and they will do all they can to push the limits.
Which really isnt THAT hard. Its usually rather ineffective when it comes to time but for some that is an expense worth paying.
Considerably more i think is likely. Highend items tend to go up in price very nonlinearly.
Yup, but then you wont be the magi who wrote that dazzlingly superb book on some subject which eventually got you famous all over the order!
To take a real life example. It is possible for practically everybody in a developed Western nation to have a good diet and get plenty of exercise. However, many people don't.
Likewise, just because it is possible for magi to all have +5 COM, + 5 INT, etc, doesn't mean that they all do, or even that very many of them do.
Although I like the idea of "house specialties", like Tremere Necromancy and Tytalan Spirit Magic.
Sorry.
