Another Alteration HR:
Monthly activities.
To avoid the silly event of "i go out and about for a week of high adventure then i spend 12 weeks doing nothing".
All things giving XP remains seasonal, except that you can get single XP per month(ie Exposure XP is changed to 3 per season) and that minimal XP for Practise is raised to 4.
Beyond that, it´s an open choice what activities you want to make possible as monthly instead of seasonal, for example Vis extraction, fixing ACs, new spells/items through labwork, improve/change lab...
Personally i use all the above, since it feels more realistic and lets magi do a lot more things per year. If there´s a question over what XP source is valid, the single highest for the season is used. OR you reduce the amount of XP gained from adventure and allow them to stack.
An Addition/Alteration HR:
Labwork uses Vis.
Depending on what you do, any inventing spells or creating items uses a fraction of the total levels in Vis, like say 1 Vis per 20 levels. If you use less than that but still use some, you get your lab total reduced by 1/4. Using zero Vis and you get halved Lab total.
If you use 1/15 and at least +1 Vis, you get a +3 Bonus to labwork, 1/10 and at least +2 more than original you get +6, 1/5 and at least +3 more than original you get +9. Use at least one Vis of each primary Arts you´re working with and you get an additional +3 for each. (I´ve also used multiples of 4 for the bonus and it´s not a huge difference so it´s a matter of player preference, with 2 more suitable for a very lowpower game(there´s lots of potential variations on this))
What it does is make Vis truly valuable. It makes a Vis-based economy for the order much more realistic, because anyone who has lots to spare can burn through labwork faster.
Another Addition/Alteration HR:
Library can boost Labwork.
The basic idea is that if you have books on the relevant subject, you may be able to get a bonus to labwork from having access to them while doing the work. (my own version of this only allows it with Greater Summae/Tractati, which takes a lot more effort to write)
Downside is that this uses up 90% of the characters normally free time during a season of labwork.
Give bonus based on having at least X number of relevant books, where you base X on either Art or Ability XP progression(depending on how big effect you want).
Another Addition/Alteration HR:
Use patterns to boost spells. (this is based on the classic cliche of magic users drawing or otherwise creating complex patterns around them on the ground before casting, you basically trade time of preparation for a bonus to casting, simply adjust time and bonus to suit the current game)
A pattern is only valid for a single spell. A specialised pattern is only valid for a single casting of a spell but gives an extra +3 bonus and takes an additional(or only) 2 rounds to make.
A minimal pattern, 2 rounds to make and +2 bonus, a basic pattern, 4 rounds to make and +4 bonus, a good pattern, 2 minutes to make and +6 bonus, a complex pattern, 10 minutes to make and +8 bonus, an exceptional pattern, 1 hour to make and +10 bonus.
If a pattern is made defensive, it instead adds to Parma.
reduce the ability level requried for fluencies by 1, so that 4 is fluent, 3 is functional, 2 is haultingly function, 1 is basic communication and 0 (with at least 1 experience point) is basic questions and answers. Coupled with specialities based on dialect, this allows a "foreign" character to be functional in a local dialect for only 15 exp, allowing multi-lingual characters without overly burdening them on expending experience points. (note, this also means you can write a book at 4 and read at 3).
Sorry for the delay in responding - my ArM time is mostly used to help with the move to the new wiki-site. The new version of the big list is now online, at :
I don't get it. Every ability has a score of 0 anyway. Except things like Academic Abilities and such - is that what you mean? At any rate - feel free to add this to the wiki page!
Ehm... well, you can affect absurd Sizes, and also...
...you can also combine BOTH high scores and sympathetic connections/life-linked magic etc.
Let's just say I call this breaking the system and you don't.
You will take Book Learner because (a) this fits your character concept better, (b) it is more effective if you're not focusing on a single Art. And you will pick an Affinity if you wish to have that for the Art, since it's better than Book Learner for one specific Art.
Denying both Puissant and Book Learner is indeed absurd. But Puissant and Book Learner don't stack with each other to affect the XP and hence the expected power-levels (Art scores) the way Affinity and Book Learner do. At least, that's how I see it. See my (upcoming) thread on recalibrating virtues for more discussion on that topic. Until then.... I won't change the text, but you should feel free to!
I can see that. The demon cracking the dome of force with his fist... Yeah, that works. Please do consider writing a final version of this in the wiki.
Mmm, good question... Yeah probably mention it AND perhaps still add a line about mixing the options as preferred. It was certainly not an obvious "option" as written now.
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OK, I'll both add it and add a general line about combining options.
Yeah, -1 looks much more reasonable. Then if you´re skilled with Finesse you can still boost a decent amount without automissing.
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Added.
Added.
Sounds cool, but I don't really know precisely what you mean. The entry in the wiki should be more explicit, I think.
Irrelevant. They stack just as BL/Affinity stack in regards to power, that was my point. And for lower powerlevels, Puissant is more powerful even if it does not add to ability of writing higherlevel books.
Hmm... Ok an example, you´re doing something CrHe in the lab, you run off to the library and snatch every book on either subject you can, and keep them with you in the lab while working, spending the majority of the normally free time on using the books as a resource for your work. If you have 15 relevant books, you get 5 added to Lab total for this, if you can manage 28 relevant books or texts you get 7 extra. If you´re running a very lowpower saga, you instead use Ability progression, so 15 relevant books would be a bonus of just 2 instead of 5.
Essentially it makes a big library much more useful, it is suddenly not nearly as certain that it´s better to trade off tractatus that everyone already read, because they can still be useful as reference. Together with my "Labwork use Vis" rule, it adds power to covenants that have lots of magical resources, which is by far not enough as i´ve seen it in canon.
Though as i said, in my own version, the above can only be done with "Greater" texts, which are basically a regular book that you spend a lot more extra time on and in return get a small bonus to XP worth on.
I´ll see if i can post at least some kind of version of those book HRs later(my current (most finished) version just doesn´t work within canon rules).
Abstracted (and fairer) as Greater Feature (Library) from Covenant. Specimens too could be swapped out as needed. Much better flavor than the crazy overtime bonus.
At the risk of being Marched for threadomancy... a new House Rule I'm experimenting with and it's working pretty well: Ferocity for Grogs.
Rather than not getting Confidence at all, Grogs can have Confidence that can only be used under limited circumstances, like Ferocity for animals. We've expanded beyond just combat... we have a scholarly grog who can only used Confidence to recall facts. It gives the grogs a little extra umph within their area of focus but not beyond what Companions can do.
It's basically the same, but better formatted and with a few minor changes. I don't think anything was actually added since this necro-thread - everyone is still very much invited to edit the wiki and modify the list!
