What are your House Rules, again?

[Birbin_again]

The list of my house rules

Thanks from the good ideas. Are there any possible mistakes or drawbacks?

Balancing
-Enchanted devices receive a penetration bonus of +1,5 per additional level of power enchanted into the item rather than +2. Charged items receive only +1 per additional level.

-Magical Focus bonus gives only the half of the lower art. (I think with this rule focuses with item subjects aren't needed to restrict to be major.)

-Magic Resistance Spell mastery option doubles only the Form bonus and not the whole resistance.

Learning
-Quality of the book is Communication +3. Higher level books improve the characters too quickly and causing the SG more problems because the magi can easily surmount to commoners (e.g. mind reading). Bonuses of illustrator etc. from Covenants don't apply. This rule makes the talented writers more important.

-Book learner gives only +2 pts. Too good for 1 point of virtue.

-Secondary Insight gives +6 to forms and +3 to techniques. This is a major virtue after all.

-Elementalist should give +2 xps instead of 1. This is a major virtue.

-Learning from vis: if you get 1 vis for learning it gives the standard xp, 3 vis means you can double the result of the roll. Learning from vis is not profitable because it is risky and there are plenty of books. Thus vis is rarely used and has no real value.

-Skip Affinities. They support overspecialization, too. Puissant is enough.

Effects
-Reduce damaging PeCo base effect levels by 2 magnitudes. Other arts are more suitable for killing and making incapacitated.

-Increase the level of the Creo based characteristic increasing effects by 10.

-Effect against magic: gives magic resistance. Every 10pts gives +5 levels of MR. It can be a spell or an item effect. Companions became useless quickly against supernatural beings.

Adventure and Style
-The magi will automatically go into final twilight when they reach warping score of 9 (225 warping points). This way the oldest members can reach sometimes even the age of 200. This rule is especially for the setting. Base time in twilight at warping score of 8 is a stress die years instead of 7 years for the more uncertainty.

-Magi may spend 7 points to magic, hermetic and related virtues and 7 points to hermetic and supernatural flaws at most. House virtues aren't counted in the 7 pts. Hermetic related: I mean puissant parma magica is related to hermetic magic for example.

-Aegis of the Hearth protects against spells and effects only, it doesn't keep beings away. This rule gives more opportunities for SGs.

-When making Longevity Ritual the caster get know all the hermetic, magic and body-related virtues and flaws of the subject. This is only a story element the characters need to decide the magus well who casts the ritual on him. The aim is not to limit the players to have an own longevity specialist.

-Supernatural might of the beings must be higher especially for the most important ones.

-True Faith is a minor virtue. Anybody may have it even 2-3 people in every villages and almost every priests. Miracles should remain to the saints who have more faith points. Sometimes the SG may provide miracles to the common people with faith especially when they defend Christianity. This rule strengthens the Christians a bit, they might be opponents or obstacles for a longer period. Those with believer personality trait have magic resistance equal to the trait level. We need to differentiate believers and religious ones for this purpose, religious people are those who just suit to the religious customs.

[DIREWOLF75]

Hypernerfwarning...

-Quality of the book is Communication +3. Higher level books improve the characters too quickly and causing the SG more problems because the magi can easily surmount to commoners (e.g. mind reading). Bonuses of illustrator etc. from Covenants don't apply. This rule makes the talented writers more important.

Make sure characters have something ELSE to spend time on instead of shredding book quality and creating new, worse, inbalances.
Like how you just made Good Teacher go from one of the better minor Virtues for cooperative players to twice as good.
Personally i´ve never used the extra rules from Covenants either(illustrator, resonant...).

-Book learner gives only +2 pts. Too good for 1 point of virtue.

My standard for this has been to have the bonus at +4. At +2 its totally not worth the cost.

-Skip Affinities. They support overspecialization, too. Puissant is enough.

Say WHAT?

-Reduce damaging PeCo base effect levels by 2 magnitudes. Other arts are more suitable for killing and making incapacitated.

Ehm, not sure what you mean by this but for comparison, i´ve raised PeCo "kill a human" to Base 50 and the bases for causing wounds have also been raised exactly because they´re too good, if the spell penetrates, its automatic wounds, no resistance possible like against spells causing numerical damage rolls.

-The magi will automatically go into final twilight when they reach warping score of 9 (225 warping points). This way the oldest members can reach sometimes even the age of 200. This rule is especially for the setting. Base time in twilight at warping score of 8 is a stress die years instead of 7 years for the more uncertainty.

Autokill characters, NO THANKS.

-Heart of Aegis protects against spells and effects only, it doesn't keep beings away. This rule gives more opportunities for SGs.

Hear of the shield? The spell name is Aegis of the Hearth. I normally dont bother with odd spelling or language but this went so far off that it sounds like another spell.

-True Faith is a minor virtue. Anybody may have it even 2-3 people in every villages and almost every priests. Miracles should remain to the saints who have more faith points. Sometimes the SG may provide miracles to the common people with faith especially when they defend Christianity. This rule strengthens the Christians a bit, they might be opponents or obstacles for a longer period.

Huh? Since when do they NEED that? My experience is that christians already are the best equipped to resist magi.

With all the nerfing going on, why not just use Yair´s Arts as Abilities variant? Its a lot easier.
I might add that as written, you´ve made Teaching a truly superior tool of getting XP, and by RAW its ineffective to use for Arts, so, how long before players realise that they can use Teaching to boost their Parma Magica scores by group teaching, and with the overall nerfs, unless people have Arcane connections, how often will magi be able to have enough penetration against each other?

-Learning from vis: if you get 1 vis for learning it gives the standard xp, 3 vis means you can double the result of the roll. Learning from vis is not profitable because it is risky and there are plenty of books. Thus vis is rarely used and has no real value.

I´ve used similar ideas to boost learning from Vis.

[Birbin_again]

I know some people like super powers but not me. In a RAW game a rookie but specialized magus after gauntlet is able to make BOAF magic items with penetration of 62 while the most powerful supernatural beings in the game has magic resistance of 50. Yes, I would like some nerfing. Absolutely.
Using my house rules the same character's penetration is reduced to 18. I think it is still a nice bonus for a startig magus.
Casting the same BOAF spell his penetration will fall from 14 to 1. It is somehow closer to the power level I imagine for a beginner magus.
It is far from the setting it would be with Yair's advancement rules in which beginner magi aren't able to learn BOAF.

@DIREWOLF75

Make sure characters have something ELSE to spend time on instead of shredding book quality and creating new, worse, inbalances.
Like how you just made Good Teacher go from one of the better minor Virtues for cooperative players to twice as good.

I was thinking to make this virtue a major one. Or maybe to separate the teaching and the writing bonuses in 2 virtues.

-Reduce damaging PeCo base effect levels by 2 magnitudes. Other arts are more suitable for killing and making incapacitated.

Ehm, not sure what you mean by this but for comparison, i´ve raised PeCo "kill a human" to Base 50 and the bases for causing wounds have also been raised exactly because they´re too good, if the spell penetrates, its automatic wounds, no resistance possible like against spells causing numerical damage rolls.

Tastes are different. I think it is strange the PeCo is almost the hardest way to kill an opponent (following Imaginem spells).
Just to mention ReCo teleporting someone up to 50 paces - what I consider a deadly spell - is at level 20. And there are other, cheaper methods, too.

My experience is that christians already are the best equipped to resist magi.

Could you detail it?

I might add that as written, you´ve made Teaching a truly superior tool of getting XP, and by RAW its ineffective to use for Arts, so, how long before players realise that they can use Teaching to boost their Parma Magica scores by group teaching, and with the overall nerfs, unless people have Arcane connections, how often will magi be able to have enough penetration against each other?

The player magi are able to do this even by RAW. With these modifications they will have a bit less chance to get much valuable parma tractatus.
Maybe you missed it but there is a serious reduction in resistance with the modification of the magic resistance mastery ability.

Anyway are all the magi in your saga good teachers?

[DIREWOLF75]

Tastes are different. I think it is strange the PeCo is almost the hardest way to kill an opponent (following Imaginem spells).

You cant soak damage against PeCo, thats why. If you get hit by an "instakill" PeCo spell you die end of story no chance to avoid it. Same with causing wounds, you dont need to overcome a potentially lucky soak roll, if you hit, the target takes a wound.

I was thinking to make this virtue a major one. Or maybe to separate the teaching and the writing bonuses in 2 virtues.

The problem then is that noone will ever pick it. Its an excellent minor virtue but as a major, it becomes very lame.

Yes, I would like some nerfing. Absolutely.

Ok, so how about my suggestion in another thread then, cut away the "free ten" you get when casting spells.
Ie the upper table on p81 AM5 you would change the numbers by +10. So you would need to get spell level +10 to avoid getting a fatigue level. Hmm, probably not enough for you i guess...

Anyway, my point being that your nerfs(the ones i quoted with unhappy comments that is) are ones i would NOT use if i wanted to cut down the power level.

In a RAW game a rookie but specialized magus after gauntlet is able to make BOAF magic items with penetration of 62 while the most powerful supernatural beings in the game has magic resistance of 50.

Oh thats easy fixing... I give Might creatures a bonus to Soak based on their (fullstrength) Might. I´ve played with both 1/5 and 1/10, both works nicely, of course with quite a difference in power level for those nasties.

It is far from the setting it would be with Yair's advancement rules in which beginner magi aren't able to learn BOAF.

True, true. Thats why im not really a fan of them either.

Could you detail it?

Well, basically if the SG doesnt want a bunch of christians fried by a magi there´s an endless amount of ways he can simply say "spell failed".
Dominion aura is also very problematic, and all you really need is, is one person with True faith to really mess up things for magi. And that is before you look at what may happen if those magi still go ahead and trash mr True faith. And that is potentially being on the wrong side of a local crusade.

So in exact game terms and numbers, they dont look THAT powerful, but at the same time they essentially have a deus ex machina on their side.

The player magi are able to do this even by RAW.

Yes but the point was that with your nerf you UNBALANCE learning in a way that makes this very advantageous.

With these modifications they will have a bit less chance to get much valuable parma tractatus.

Will they need them?

Maybe you missed it but there is a serious reduction in resistance with the modification of the magic resistance mastery ability.

If you refer to this part:
-Effect against magic: gives magic resistance. Every 10pts gives +5 levels of MR. It can be a spell or an item effect.
I dont have a clue what you mean with it unfortunately.

Anyway are all the magi in your saga good teachers?

No, some are GREAT.
Seriously though, no they´re not. But i have a bunch of options for using extra time to write better books, as well as alternate types of books that have different good and bad sides.
I DO have a Major version of Good Teacher however(double bonuses, so you pay 3 points of Virtues to double the bonuses, thats too steep a price for most). And both Minor and Major Virtues only giving a single, but larger bonus.

[Lady_Merlina]

Wards do not need to penetrate: their level needs to be penetrated by the people wanting to act across them (like leaving the circle or attacking something inside the circle)

learning, reading, contact, laboratory work use INT and Concentration with quality
(so when working a season in laboratory, you get 2+intelligence, when you read a book, you get quality+int+concentration+bonus, le laboratory total gets concentration in it).

divided by 5 spontaneous spells gets a simple dice

mostly, we use stress dice even if it should be a simple dice

aging roll is with stamina

initiative is reroll each round in combat

...

[DIREWOLF75]

learning, reading, contact, laboratory work use INT and Concentration with quality
(so when working a season in laboratory, you get 2+intelligence, when you read a book, you get quality+int+concentration+bonus, le laboratory total gets concentration in it).

Wow, that makes Int REALLY superiorly useful! Im in awe of your daring!

Me i run it as getting Int# extra(or less if negative) XP spread out evenly over a year.

aging roll is with stamina

Same, but also with decrepitude as a negative modifier. And round down instead of up. So start out nicer, end up worse.

[maine75man]

@DIREWOLF75

learning, reading, contact, laboratory work use INT and Concentration with quality
(so when working a season in laboratory, you get 2+intelligence, when you read a book, you get quality+int+concentration+bonus, le laboratory total gets concentration in it).

Wow, that makes Int REALLY superiorly useful! Im in awe of your daring!

Me i run it as getting Int# extra(or less if negative) XP spread out evenly over a year.

The problem I have with going back to how Intelligence boosted your learning totals in 4th edition is that an Intelligence of 5 was freaking expensive in 4th. It was a +5 Virtue half your total virtues now it's only two minor virtues. Since other minor virtues help you specialize in Concentration you can actually make a character who is an expert learner super easy.

So for the cost of what it used to take to get just intelligence +5. You can get Int +5, Puissant Concentration, Affinity with Concentration, Faerie Sympathy in Concentration (learning). You could start with a concentration of 7 so your learning bonus for a starting character could be an 16 (Intellegence 5+concentration 7+Puisant con 2+sympathy 2{assumes you take a warping point as a flaw and raise the sympathy with experience}) 3-4 average tractati in concentration will bring your learning bonus to an even 18. Thats without adding anything like good reader or boosting the sympathy with the other half of your virtues.

Is this one sided for a starting character sure, but not much more one sided then a character with mythic intelligence from 4th. Furthermore the depth and breadth of his abilities will be anything but one sided given a little time.

Even if you disallow all the cheese just getting Intelligence 5, a Concentration affinity and Starting with the Max Concentration of 7 is worth every point. (No I do not consider it cheesy to max out a skill you have an affinity with at character generation) Even if you only benefit from learning every other season it takes less then a decade to start to show a profit on the points you invested in Concentration. Plus Con is still highly useful in its own right. The Intelligence points pay for themselves in about same amount of time if you compare them to other skill granting virtues.

And don't even get me started the value of Concentration texts in a library. Just think about how many build points you'd be willing to pay for books that raise the quality of every other book in the library.

reason for editing refigured sympathy as minor virtue opps

[Lady_Merlina]

Most of our librairies are made by players, writting one season a year.
Or finding a hidden library like my flambeau did (she made a covenant in a cave where an old covenant of diedne was, and repared most of the librairy. we decided there were around 350 books in state to be repaired and we had a specialist of book in the covenant... we even not yet calculated the value of that librairy...)
another covenant, in the Rhine, received a big summa book in concentration, and so each magus has now, 30 years after its creation, 10-11 in concentration.
It helps to make spells or to learn more in books... the seasons used for it are worth of time

[Christian_Andersen (Christian Rosenkjaer Andersen)]

@Lady Merlina

learning, reading, contact, laboratory work use INT and Concentration with quality
(so when working a season in laboratory, you get 2+intelligence, when you read a book, you get quality+int+concentration+bonus, le laboratory total gets concentration in it).

...

This would be 4th ed all over again. Don't get me wrong, I loved 4th ed and played it a lot. But when Int+Conc was used for Study, it really polarized PC magi a lot. Some of us hadseen the need for a +3 Int while others spread their attributes more. Some of us saw fit to raise Conc to be efficient, some dodn't. After some 27 game years we saw huge differences in arts and abilities between the two factions. I shudder to think what Labwork would be with Conc added!

Now as for Good Teacher, I'd rather see it split into two different Minor Virtues. One giving a bonus to Teaching and Training, making it good for Drill Sergeants, Craftsmen and non-bookish magi wanting to spread their knowledge orally rather than in writing (like Bjornaer?). The other giving a bonus to Quality of books written as well as allowing more levels of Summae to be written per season, making it good for authors/librarian types and academics.

[Birbin_again]

@DIREWOLF75

I was thinking to make this virtue a major one. Or maybe to separate the teaching and the writing bonuses in 2 virtues.

The problem then is that noone will ever pick it. Its an excellent minor virtue but as a major, it becomes very lame.

The goal is a setting where there are only a few useful tractatus at level 7 or more. If my house rules makes this virtue very desired or any other one they need to be changed somehow.
Maybe it would be easier to eliminate tractatus entirely. It would solve the situation when freshly gauntleted magi write tractatus for archmagi.

@DIREWOLF75

Yes, I would like some nerfing. Absolutely.

Ok, so how about my suggestion in another thread then, cut away the "free ten" you get when casting spells.
Ie the upper table on p81 AM5 you would change the numbers by +10. So you would need to get spell level +10 to avoid getting a fatigue level. Hmm, probably not enough for you i guess...

I find the main problem is overspecialization. I have read all the house rules topics before posting again and I know your house rule but it affects every magus.

Could you detail it?

Well, basically if the SG doesnt want a bunch of christians fried by a magi there´s an endless amount of ways he can simply say "spell failed".
Dominion aura is also very problematic, and all you really need is, is one person with True faith to really mess up things for magi. And that is before you look at what may happen if those magi still go ahead and trash mr True faith. And that is potentially being on the wrong side of a local crusade.

So in exact game terms and numbers, they dont look THAT powerful, but at the same time they essentially have a deus ex machina on their side.

I thought you have a story. I think the result is only the rookie characters cannot penetrate the priest's MR using any spells. And some other important christian figures. But the specialists still are able to do it on their field. And it provides some little chance against mass spells.

The player magi are able to do this even by RAW.

Yes but the point was that with your nerf you UNBALANCE learning in a way that makes this very advantageous.

I don't think so. Book levels will not change because I assume only good teachers wrote most of the books.

With these modifications they will have a bit less chance to get much valuable parma tractatus.

Will they need them?

How would the teacher improve his own parma magica skill?

Maybe you missed it but there is a serious reduction in resistance with the modification of the magic resistance mastery ability.

If you refer to this part:
-Effect against magic: gives magic resistance. Every 10pts gives +5 levels of MR. It can be a spell or an item effect.
I dont have a clue what you mean with it unfortunately.

-Magic Resistance Spell mastery option doubles only the Form bonus and not the whole resistance.

[Andrew_W]

We've a few house rules

1. No Penetration in Charged Items. This prevents creating a Beast-slayer arrow. Such as we did when we created a Fearie version of DEO in an arrow. Which stripped 30 might with a penetraion of 50 (or some such). Then in the next season created another dozen of these 'defensive purpose' arrows.

Fearie beings come knocking looking for trouble and they suddenly go poof as the arrow is flung under Rego-herbam to target.

2. We've made a few changes to our interpretation of magic resistance. An item which is fundamentally and intrinsicly changed IS resisted by MR. A burning sword can be swung at a target. The Sword gets through but the flames do not (if they don't penetrate).

A

[DIREWOLF75]

Maybe it would be easier to eliminate tractatus entirely. It would solve the situation when freshly gauntleted magi write tractatus for archmagi.

Do what has been suggested elsewhere, give Tractatus a level limit equal to that of the writer when they wrote it.
With this you probably dont actually need to nerf tractatus any more.

How would the teacher improve his own parma magica skill?

One way would be to locate the oldest magi with high parma and high teaching and then simply pay him was much as it takes to teach a group, once they have maxed out among themself.

[DIREWOLF75]

(No I do not consider it cheesy to max out a skill you have an affinity with at character generation)

Of course not. If its going to be one of the characters priority skills, then it will often be so from the start.

The problem I have with going back to how Intelligence boosted your learning totals in 4th edition is that an Intelligence of 5 was freaking expensive in 4th. It was a +5 Virtue half your total virtues now it's only two minor virtues. Since other minor virtues help you specialize in Concentration you can actually make a character who is an expert learner super easy.

Well, you also have to raise the characteristic to +3 with points first so you cant have as good in the others then.

But while the "Concentration adds to learning" is somewhat logical, its also very unbalancing(Concentration is very useful even by RAW), so the only learning i allow an Ability to affect is Studying from Vis. And it NEEDS it.

Letting Concentration add to Lab totals isnt as unbalancing though and even if im unlikely to use it, its a nice little bonus.

2. We've made a few changes to our interpretation of magic resistance. An item which is fundamentally and intrinsicly changed IS resisted by MR. A burning sword can be swung at a target. The Sword gets through but the flames do not (if they don't penetrate).

Yeah, that is a nice change.

[Birbin_again]

@DIREWOLF75

Do what has been suggested elsewhere, give Tractatus a level limit equal to that of the writer when they wrote it.
With this you probably dont actually need to nerf tractatus any more.

I know, it was mine, too.
I dropped it because the system would be even more complicated. Removing tractatus would mean all that much bookkeeping (libraries, which tractatus you read) would gone.

How would the teacher improve his own parma magica skill?

One way would be to locate the oldest magi with high parma and high teaching and then simply pay him was much as it takes to teach a group, once they have maxed out among themself.

What would be their price? Are there any valuable thing a beginner magus could provide for an archmagus?
Anyway I think there is no problem with the issue experienced magi teach young magi.

[Andrew_W]

I think that a newly gauntleted magus could write a tractatus which an archmagus could benefit from as this represents different forms of insight into the parma and different tricks, but by the same token I would say that an apprentice could not teach is mentor until he's had some form of external training. Once he has learned other tricks and incorporated it into his framework of understanding he can then go back and teach new insights to others including his mentor. However this would have to be from personal (i.e. story) Experience or from other Summa or Tractati.

I would extend this principle to all of the arts and abilities.

A

[Birbin_again]

@Andrew W

I think that a newly gauntleted magus could write a tractatus which an archmagus could benefit from as this represents different forms of insight into the parma and different tricks, but by the same token I would say that an apprentice could not teach is mentor until he's had some form of external training.

Will you record all of the npc magi who read what books not to mention other sources?

[Andrew_W]

I think that's what ST's are for right

I understand that it would involve handwaving, but I think that as a rough rule of thumb a teacher couldn't teach a person something from scratch such as the parma and then the very next season have the student write something the teacher could use in the 3rd.

A

[Lasse_Rohde]

@Birbin again

-Learning from vis: if you get 1 vis for learning it gives the standard xp, 3 vis means you can double the result of the roll. Learning from vis is not profitable because it is risky and there are plenty of books. Thus vis is rarely used and has no real value.

Although i agree with Vis being too ineffective in terms of boosting spells, as well as studying – I believe stating that Vis has no real value is stretching it. We still need Vis for making spells permanent, performing some lab work and Aegis spells. In our Saga we are adding the Aura once for each pawn used, when studying from Vis (max 3 pawns). Thus 3 pawns spent = Aura x3 + die. This effectively means that 2 spending two pawns still make sense, plus it lowers the randomness factor of doubling the die roll slightly.

On another note, i do believe in 'Affinity With ...', also when putting lots of Vis into an ability (or Art) at character generation. Especially since the Affinity virtue is most effective when used actively during play (since you round up your experience) – I always put an odd number of xp into my Abilities/Arts that have an affinity to get the extra ½xp
If you believe Affinity is used excessively at character generation, please note that for abilities Affinity doesn’t beat Puissant till it reaches a score of 10 or higher (in terms of efficiency). For Arts Affinity is not the better choice (compared to Puissant) until score 16 and above. And even in combination with puissant, a spoiler should choose Skilled Parens first as you would need to reach an Art score of 25 before receiving the same xp bonus (if you count in the spell levels that is). In my opinion Skilled Parens should be taken down a notch instead. It’s superiority over other minor virtues is only slightly justifiable through the argument that the ‘close relationship with a powerful magus’ creates stories.
In my Saga the Skilled Parens virtue is thus reduced to +50 xp and +25 spell levels. Furthermore, the xp can only be used for Arts - and must be spend on Arts which the Parens has scores of 10 or above in (if there are no such Arts, the virtue is not open for the character). Similarly, the spell levels must be spend on spells that the Parens has in his Grimoire, although they can be split over more than one spell or be combined with other spells level to add up to grant e.g. a level 35 spell.

[Birbin_again]

@Lasse Rohde

Although i agree with Vis being too ineffective in terms of boosting spells, as well as studying – I believe stating that Vis has no real value is stretching it. We still need Vis for making spells permanent, performing some lab work and Aegis spells. In our Saga we are adding the Aura once for each pawn used, when studying from Vis (max 3 pawns). Thus 3 pawns spent = Aura x3 + die. This effectively means that 2 spending two pawns still make sense, plus it lowers the randomness factor of doubling the die roll slightly.

I think in our covenant nobody used vis for anything except Aegis and there were huge stocks.
How can you make spells permanent? Do you mean rituals?

@Lasse Rohde

On another note, i do believe in 'Affinity With ...', also when putting lots of Vis into an ability (or Art) at character generation. Especially since the Affinity virtue is most effective when used actively during play (since you round up your experience) – I always put an odd number of xp into my Abilities/Arts that have an affinity to get the extra ½xp

How can you put vis into an ability? Anyway I don't think the best effect of an Affinity would be rounding up the xp. Getting 50% bonus xp from books and vis learning is far better.

[Lasse_Rohde]

@Birbin again

@Lasse Rohde

Although i agree with Vis being too ineffective in terms of boosting spells, as well as studying – I believe stating that Vis has no real value is stretching it. We still need Vis for making spells permanent, performing some lab work and Aegis spells. In our Saga we are adding the Aura once for each pawn used, when studying from Vis (max 3 pawns). Thus 3 pawns spent = Aura x3 + die. This effectively means that 2 spending two pawns still make sense, plus it lowers the randomness factor of doubling the die roll slightly.

I think in our covenant nobody used vis for anything except Aegis and there were huge stocks.
How can you make spells permanent? Do you mean rituals?

@Lasse Rohde

On another note, i do believe in 'Affinity With ...', also when putting lots of Vis into an ability (or Art) at character generation. Especially since the Affinity virtue is most effective when used actively during play (since you round up your experience) – I always put an odd number of xp into my Abilities/Arts that have an affinity to get the extra ½xp

How can you put vis into an ability? Anyway I don't think the best effect of an Affinity would be rounding up the xp. Getting 50% bonus xp from books and vis learning is far better.

1] Well if your Saga doesn't employ much Vis, the ST should probably not make Vis readily available - especially not in huge stocks! This would cause something similar to Vis Inflation, where people sell Vis for mundane wealth, items, favors etc.
By making spells permanent i meant Rituals, yes, but also lab work. Have you never bonded a Familiar? Created a charged Item? Made Arcane Connections permanent? Enchanted a Talisman? There are lots of uses for Vis, in addition to Aegis, studying from them, and burning them for +2 casting total.

2] Sorry, i meant "also when putting lost of XP into an ability" - my bad.
Every time i recieve story xp, i put 1 xp into Intellego and 1 xp into Corpus. This way i have advanced a long way in these Arts with a 100% bonus on the xp in them. Progress is slow this way, but it is steady and ensures cheap high scores in the long run.