Notice how Cautious Sorcerer doesn't allow the botch dice to drop below one. Yet Cautious With (Ability) allows you to wipe them out entirely. This is a pretty strong clue that Cautious With (Ability) can't apply to ritual/ceremonial casting - aside from the fact that spellcasting isn't an ability roll, it's a casting score roll (just as spellcasting is not a Stamina roll either).
grin Of course it's a Stamina roll! It has Sta in it, right there. Indeed, all those virtues that talk about bonuses to fatigue rolls explicitly exclude casting, because otherwise they'd be included.
So Mythic Stamina is a solid virtue.
IMO.
Hmm,
I suppose two issues are at work here?
-
Does X break the game?
-
Does X offend my (your) sensibilities?
Nothing to be done about 2. As the commercial said, sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Cat people, dog people, cactus people. Etc.
Easier to talk about #1, or at least my perspective. Pu+Aff in TeFo + Focus + Strong Parens for 6vp is completely legal. That's PoF with > 35 Penetration for Ms Flambeau, huge XMentem for Guernicus/Tremere/Jerbiton/Bjornaer, all of whom have room for either Deft Form or Subtle/Silent, etc. That Criamon who (in fine House tradition) lumps angels and demons together can put together a big, multicast to shred powerful beings in a round or two. These magi are surprisingly versatile too, being capable in a full form and full technique.
We started off calling MM a lousy virtue; does it really break the game to append virtues to it that remove botch dice? We have one poster observe how rarely these virtues affect botches; does it really break the game for a magus to spend his virtues on being able to cast reliably under adverse conditions rather than on being able to obliterate Sepheriel in 2 rounds?
Oddly enough, the things I have problems with in terms of game breakage seem rarely discussed: The game as written is balanced in most respects but the breakthrough rules undo that; some of the spells in supplements ignore Hermetic limits; etc.
But, whatever. MVs.
Anyway,
Ken
I just did some looking at puissant art versus affinity with art by comparing the levels per xp assuming that the affinity doesn't ever round up. Of course the affinity explicitly does round up so, in play affinity will come out as significantly stronger than shown in this comparison.
Here is the comparison
xp, how they compare
<44 puissant is better
44 they are equal
45-51 puissant is better
52-54 they are equal
55-60 puissant is better
61-65 they are equal
66-69 puissant is better
70-77 they are equal
78-79 puissant is better
80-101 they are equal
102-104 affinity is better
105-113 they are equal
114-119 affinity is better
120-126 they are equal
127-135 affinity is better
136-139 they are equal
140 -152 affinity is better
153 they are equal
153 affinity is better
here is the same list with more information (the above list is an edit I made to this post after I saw how hard it was to read the list below)
Puissant is always better below 44 xp
on each line below I'll write unadjusted xp, level with affinity, level with puissant, level with neither
44,11,11,8 with the least advantageous rounding for affinity it begins to draw equal to puissant at an xp total where that character would have level 8 in an art with which he or she had neither virtue.
45,11,12,9
52,12,12,9
55,12,13,10
61,13,13,10
66,13,14,11
70,14,14,11
78,14,15,12
80,15,15,12 at 80 xp and higher puissant is never better than affinity even without taking rounding into account. In a real game this would come about substantially earlier due to rounding up with affinity. This is equivalent to level 12 in an art with neither virtue
91,16,16,13
102,17,16,13 102 xp is the first time that affinity pulls ahead of puissant
105,17,17,14
114,18,17,14
120,18,18,15
127,19,18,15
136,19,19,16
140,20,19,16
153,20,20,17
154,21,20,17 at 154 xp and above puissant is always worse than affinity.
I like that right through the levels where most play takes place the two virtues are always within one point of one another. So while I think that affinity is the slightly more optimal choice for arts, it doesn't really make a big difference. Choose whichever you prefer and play without remorse.
Characters tend to take these virtues in arts that they intend to use a lot. this means that they'll frequently do lab projects with them. Assigning one point of exposure experience to an art where the character has an affinity and getting two exp due to rounding is perfectly legal although some people feel it is cheep. Certainly this would make affinity the more advantageous choice one or two levels earlier.
I very much like that there are two separate virtues; one that describes a character who picks up knowledge especially quickly and one that describes a character who performs beyond their experience. They mean different things in the game characters with the different virtue feel different in play.
I don't think anyone has mentioned what I consider the best Virtue in the game: Independent Study. While it doesn't generally give as many points as Book Learner, it does something much better than Book Learner. It encourages the character to be involved in the game. Since it's comparable to the other learning Minor Virtues (which are all great or nearly so) but also encourages getting involved, I find it the best Virtue.
Meanwhile I disagree with a lot of people on Improved Characteristics and Great Characteristic. Just get something that gets you Vis. In canon it's always worthwhile for both involved to sell castings of rituals to raise Characteristics, and you don't need to charge a lot more than the casting cost to make a hefty profit as the caster. This is why I like house rules such as not allowing over +3 via momentary CrCo or CrMe; they help restore the value to those Virtues.
Nope, that's not the logic.
Spell casting is a roll that will cause fatigue if failed which is why every virtue that talks about fatigue explicitly mention not affecting spell casting. That has nothing to do with stamina being in the total as well. Stamina rolls are not automatically fatigue rolls.
It's certainly not the worst virtue around.
I thought learning virtues in general had been mentioned?
Their worth are somewhat saga dependant, but that mentioned I would tend to agree with you in placing them among the best virtues around.
Independent study obviously has the advantage of encouraging activity, so that's always nice.
Well if it's a Stamina Roll, it can't be a Artes Liberales roll as well, can it? Oh, and a Philosophae roll at the same time? 
Fatigue rolls don't happen in magic/combat at all, they have their own rules that specifically replace those for Fatigue rolls. Thus the exclusion in Long Winded (and which other virtues, I don't recall?).
Is it broken? No, not really. Not when for a single point of mastery you can cast in calm conditions without botch dice at all (including those due to vis and foreign auras - even rituals*). It's more of a trap option, really.
*Rituals must be cast on stress die. Mastery spells are always cast on stress die, with no botch in calm conditions. Whether or not your and your troupe agree if rituals can be considered 'calm conditions' is up to you.
Yup your right totally got my systems mixed up shoulda checked instead of gone from memory.
Independent Study is good, though you can't Practice Arts. But it turns 4xp into 6xp for everything else (and 6xp into 9xp if you have an Affinity, and more if you're doing something that gets more than 4xp regularly with Practice). If you want to ramp a non-academic Ability up past 5 (academic Abilities will generally have Tractatus), it's a great virtue.
This argument could be made for a lot of virtues. Why take Cautious Sorcerer when you can get a Gold Cord Score by bonding a familiar for a few pawns of vis? Why take Book Learner when you could hire teachers for far more XP/season? Good Teacher when you could buy up your Communication with rituals? This only really holds for magi, of course. Companions and Grogs won't have the vis to get these spells cast (a few Redcaps might, but they're almost magi anyways). Also, delayed gratification isn't the same thing as gratification. Do you want to be +5 Stamina NOW, or 20 years from now?
When you're a young and weak magi, those high characteristics are a big deal. When you're an old magus, even negative Stamina isn't such a big deal; you've got enchanted items, high arts scores and mastered spells to rely upon.
When I look at the whole 'cast for profit' model, though, I tend to eye the Verditus magi very carefully. They charge a LOT (3:1), and the concept of sell-low sell-often is a very modern one. Magi will charge as much as they can get, especially given the amount of time and effort involved. Is your specialist close by? Maybe it takes a season to reach him, and another season back. Suddenly you're willing to invest 2 seasons for +1 in a stat. How much do you charge someone willing to go through that much effort? Suddenly 11-12 pawns for the ritual could become 20 pawns, 2 seasons of your time and maybe a favor on top of it all. Would competition reduce the price? Maybe, but competition could also cause magi to resort to Wizard's War to avoid price drop.
And you can bet lab texts of these spells are carefully hoarded. The Mercere Cult of Heroes has these spells. Oddly enough, the Archivist of Durenmar is a Mercere. Co-incidence? I'd bet these spells would be VERY hard to find at Durenmar unless you do a lot of favors for the Archivist.
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I love Independent Study. I agree about its greatness. It's just not necessarily what I'd point a newbie to first, or necessarily great in every saga, which is also why I didn't mention Book Learner as a Must Have.
Independent Study is incredible for an adventure-heavy saga. It is also incredible for magi with Flawless Magic and weird spells: IS gives +2xps for practice which FM doubles, for 14xp/season. That's... nice. You don't need books, you don't need a teacher, you don't need vis, you just need a saga. If there's no downtime, you win. If there is downtime you maybe also win. But in a saga with solid books and much downtime, I think BL is better. Of course, the saga has to last long enough to make either better than Strong Parens...
Why can't it? It can be all three, the same way my Kia Soul can be an import, unwashed, mostly metal, a motor vehicle and black all at once, though one can argue about whether it is truly black since the headlights are clear, the taillights are red and the bird poop I'm behind on is icky bird poop colors.
For me, a roll that is Sta+Phil+AL+Cr+Me+Focus:Improving Mental Characteristics is all of the above, and for a bonus is also aligned to the magic realm (and if you're a Merinita it's also Faerie-aligned). And if the magus is using Performance Magic, it also can satisfy a Special Circumstance and/or Faerie Correspondence involving "while playing music."
Things have more than one attribute, sort of the way I can be chubby, aging, smelly, obtuse, obscure, obstinate and annoying all at once. :/29
Anyway,
Ken
Saga in a Box!
Pretty much. I had a large argument with a fellow player because he wanted to include (all!) those spells in our new covenant's library. Our GM gave us 800 Build Points (we were tribunal sponsored) but those spells are way, way too expensive to include in a starter library. We have two Mentem specialists and neither of them would be able to learn the CrMe stuff for 30+ years (because they were Re/Pe specialists with other plans), and I'm playing the Creo specialist (with other plans). The player who wanted them was a ReTe specialist.
His argument boiled down to "It will take too much time to find these spells later on when we can cast them." Mine boiled down to "If you want these spells, be able to cast them yourself. No? You have other plans?" 
Level 55-60 isn't a big deal if you're a specialist (in both required arts). It's a huge deal if you're not. Assuming random distribution and 800 magi, there are 16 specialists for each of the 50 Te/Fo combos (in reality, less, given some magi won't specialize at all). There's probably a slight skew towards CrCo specialists for fairly obvious reasons, but to assume that there's 1-2 magi per tribunal (1-2 for Corpus, 1-2 for Mentem, there may be overlap) who can learn/invent these rituals isn't too far off base in my mind (though the similar spells bonus may bump those numbers a touch, but many magi will be too young to learn them regardless, even if they are Te/Fo specialists), and just because they can doesn't mean they will. There may well be 3-4 magi in the entire order (for either corpus or mentem) who specialize, advertise and cast the high level Characteristic boosting spells. HoH:TL pretty much pegs a few Mercere magi as capable (the senior Creo specialist in the Cult of Heroes, that's 1-2 magi at most) - and with a Pagan agenda. The other few magi who can do it are free to charge out the yin-yang.
Running this way can be fun and "correct," but no more or less fun and "correct" than starting off with the spells in the covenant library so that the PCs can buff themselves, and having the saga be about something other than a Mercere mafia running the Order, corrupting House Bonisagus into betraying their oath, etc.
Yes, I was thinking magi. Much better for non-magi.
Gold Cords stop at 5, right? Even if not, the extra +3 becomes prohibitive, so if you need even further reduction you have to look elsewhere. High Communication cannot replace Good Teacher. This would be true (spells replacing them) for a lot of Supernatural Abilities, though, which is why people have already said they're generally not worth it.
I'd rather start with Stamina +3 and Strength (or something else) -3 NOW for free, allowing me to put several points of Virtues elsewhere. In my main area a single Puissant could get me +3 to my casting totals and also allow me to pick up better spells. Two Puissants would give me much more immediate gratification than two +1's to Stamina. I didn't say they're so terrible people would be stupid for taking Great Characteristic. I was just saying it's one of the few you can acquire later, plus there are alternatives that seem to pay off better. I would go the same way with readily available Mysteries (such as via Mystery Houses): why use up one of my initially limited 10 points if I can get it relatively inexpensively later. Again, not a wrong choice, but if we're talking about optimal, I wouldn't rank doing so so high.
On the whole Cautious with Artes Liberales thing: If my magus has Spirit Famliar and a Hekate Cord of 5, would you let the spirit spend 5 from its Might Pool to add 25 to any of my casting rolls, including fatiguing spontaneous magic? The bonus applies to Stamina rolls.
Others:
I think Puissant (or Affinity) Magic Theory's full strength gets overlooked. It naturally covers a huge amount of what two Virtues would give via +2 Intelligence, at least for magi. But when it comes down to the lab, it's actually even better than that. That +2 also means you're closer to 6 or 11, which are so valuable for Original Research. That +2 also means two more points of Refinement, which gets you more Safety and should get you +2 in your main area or something comparable. These are not available via Intelligence nor Inventive Genius. So I consider Puissant Magic Theory's effective bonus to be more than just +2 in the lab.
Strong Faerie Blood has already been mentioned, but I don't think it was pointed out just how ridiculously good a buy it is. You can see in the dark (Minor Virtue, though a weak one, in another book). You get Second Sight (Minor Virtue, and one of the few Supernatural Abilities that are worthwhile for magi). You get some bonus from the type of blood, which is generally about equal to a Minor Virtue, and is exactly a Minor Virtue when including -1 of the -3 to aging. Then there is the full -3 aging bonus. The easiest way to evaluate that is to say you could start 15 years older and still be in better shape (still have -1.5) for aging than someone without Strong Faerie Blood. 15x15=225 experience for those years. 225 is over four 50-experience Minor Virtues, but closer to two of the best experience Minor Virtues for magi. Let's call it three on average. Noting the remaining -0.5 to aging to make up for the Minor Virtue to see in the dark being weak, we get Strong Faerie Blood being worth about 6 points, all paid for via 3 points. Yes, there are signs you're odd, but those are easy to hide if they even end up mattering.
As I remember, when you had a magus who tried pretty much exactly that (with a lower cord score but a magical variant of Fanning the Infernal Flames which effectively meant you could get the bonus every single round), my response was a definite No, partially because of the "what counts as a 'Stamina' roll?" issue, but mostly because I considered it to be horribly broken.
We've stayed pretty close to main book but what about virtues that grant Faerie Sympathy? A potentially large bonus to a broad range of abilities set to a single unifying concept. A concept that can be almost anything. Beautiful for companions or even Grogs since they tend to be built around a theme themselves. So you can have Faerie Sympathy Knight for your character who is a knight. Making her better at everything a knight is supposed to be good at anyway. So good it's probably broken?
That's why I brought it up. Way back when was when I'd first seen the Stamina roll thing and thought that would be really useful. You overruled it, when I thought through it afterward rightly so. I figured based on how others react to that, they'll probably know very quickly how they want to rule on lesser versions of the same thing, like letting Cautious with Artes Liberales apply to ritual spellcasting rolls.
Yes, it can be quite powerful. But watch out for the Warping! This is a great place to use Cautious with Ability. I also house-rule it to always cap it via Warping Score with adjustments. Without that cap I can get hundreds or thousands of experience into it via 1's fairly safely with a magus in a single season. With the cap I don't find it so bad because you also have to deal with the Warping--a real pain for the unGifted--but it certainly is still one of the strongest.
For a Verditius (or other lab-rat really), these 2 virtues together are just silly strong.
Good point - even better than I'd thought.
Have you read the Bee King blood virtue, in GotF?