What is the average Tractatus Quality?

The fact is that even those with a lower level in an art can find something to write about that someone with a higher level was unaware of and can learn from. Sure Magus Insectus only has animal at 5 while magus Verdant has animal at 30, but perhaps Verdant has never stopped to consider the wonderous properties of the nocturnal luminescent beetles that Insectus has written so passionately about...

Thanks, I obviously missed the page. Reading page 54, it seems pretty clear that this is really strongly indicated to be used on characters with a might score. Characters without a might score who do have an essential trait should probably have them developed in play as a story event related to traveling to the magic realm (suggested in the text). So, the essential trait acquired in that manner probably wouldn't have anything to do with writing. But sure, I take page 43 as being authoritative, and while I didn't cite it here, I have cited it for him previously.

Surely the point of "Essential traits" is that they are only applied to beings who have it at their very essence, and while many animals may have an essential trait to reflect their nature most humans don't, and what sort of magical humanoid would have essential trait writer? A ghost of a librarian or an immortal scholar possibly, but there won't be many of them and they have difficulty gaining more skills to write about. Someone with Essential trait (writer)+6 is probably an incarnation of Thoth or Odin or another deity that gifted writing to humanity. Certainly if you can find a book written by Thoth about magic, it can probably have a quality that breaks the normal limits.

Yes, exactly! Your example is an entirely appropriate use of the trait and/or virtue granting the trait. But stacking Com 5, Good Teacher and then this virtue on a character without a might score, IMO, isn't really an intended use of the virtue/trait.

The virtue modifies the characteristic for the appropriate activity so having a major essential virtue (writer) would be like having com +6 when writing a book (assuming you don't have a negative com score).

Why would it be like Com 6 when you're starting at Com 5? If anything it should be like Com 8, or even potentially 11 if it is the major virtue. The bigger point in what I said is that without a might score the virtue/trait isn't appropriate, unless there is a really good story reason that the character acquired this in the magic realm. But that's story. And in a saga where this happens, I'll accept it as implicit that such a character would be presumed to write better than anyone else. Again, that's part of the character's story. If you want it at character creation, though, you should, based on the discussion on page 54, really have a might score.

Essential virtues replace traits, they don't augment them. a Major virtue gives the trait at 6.

That's how they created the virtue. It's a characteristic specialty and not really a bonus. If you already got +5 com this virtue ain't that great, but if you only want to crank out good books you can get this virtue and keep com at 0 which is pretty good.

You don't need magic might to pick essential virtue (or any of the virtues in RoP:M), you only need some form of association with the magic realm as pointed out on p43.

I'll have to reread it again. I know that's not Lamech's view from previous experience.

Well, after a saga starts, yes. Before a saga starts, that's really unlikely to happen in any games I'm running as an SG, it's certainly something the rest of the troupe is going to have input on and equal opportunity, and instead of opening that can of worms, I'd rather have it develop in play.

Yeah, there's no problem houseruling it, but there's nothing in RAW forbidding someone to take it at character creation. Overall I don't think the virtue is very powerful either. For three virtue points you could've raised the stat in question from 0 to 4 instead. In the case of writing books you basically need to combine it with good teacher as well since it would be pointless otherwise (with 2*improved characteristics and good teacher providing the same bonus for three points with a lot more utility).

If you're building a very specific character who absolutely needs to be the best at a very specific task you need it, but otherwise i wouldn't even bother personally.

So, I'm having trouble following your interpretation.

If it doesn't apply to just rolls, and instead applies to Totals, A Com 5 Good Teacher with an Essential Trait that applies to writing is writing Q11 or Q14. I'm not following that it only adds +1. It is decidedly not a characteristic specialty, I think you're confusing Essential Virtue with HoH:TL's Mythic Characteristic. Although, I'll note that it says roll for the Characteristic when the specialty applies for the Mythic Characteristic, too. I'll note that there was ample discussion about whether Mythic Characteristic applies to writing, too, with the example for Com being prolific authors. The discussion came up in Doctorcomic's Let's Design a Folio thread and ended up derailing it a bit. Out of respect to Doctorcomic's I didn't engage in the debate there, but I take the same view as ezzelino does.

I'm only exploring the possible implications of making an Essential virtue grant such huge bonuses to writing, and it's entirely appropriate to a thread that discusses an average tractatus quality, since these bonuses would certainly affect what the average is...

Essential virtue is about as common as transformed human. Its a major virtue usually tied to transformation. And it needs to coincide with good teacher. It means a top tier (and very rare) writer can get Q15.

Which is besides the point because between com boosting rituals and inner mysteries members of House Bjornaer can get com+6. Also ablating. Also Cthonic Magic. Also Vitkir (sp?) runes. (Well, not com+6, but they can explicitly get bonuses to totals.)

If you let bookbinding and illumination apply to book quality, and use the City and Guild. Quite frankly there is no excuse for pretty pictures or book binding to improve quality. "Oh you got one of Verdi's works that he himself etched into solid metal? That's -3 to quality. Should have gone for the mass produced version". But really skills of 12 are a rare thing, especially among non-magi. And you need good leadership and good support staff. Twice. And most notably, it doesn't translate to copies.

Also in all honesty you should really HR that extraordinary bonuses can't stack. No "I combined 5 extraordinary items together. Claiming a +5 bonus now." But yes, if you use optional rules I dislike and abuse the extraordinary items you can get silly bonuses. These items are quasi magical. Extraordinary bread is a level 20 longevity ritual in terms of power.

If you're going to be a transformed human, you can get the essential virtue. Transformed humans have might. It is strongly implied that the Essential Virtue comes along by either being a magical human (being) or by visits to the Magic Realm.

And I have no idea what is beside the point (or precisely what you think is beside what point). Stat boosting rituals may or may not be common, may or not be the province of House Mercere, and may or may not be prohibitively expensive or risky to cast. I'll stipulate that the principles to increase stats are part of Hermetic Magic Theory, but only the most powerful Creo Mentem and Creo Corpus specialists are going to be able to learn them without the benefit of a lab text. And then casting those stat boosting rituals is a huge value proposition to explore, it's probably not worth the risk.
A lab total of greater than 50 isn't out of the question, but let's say it's a lab total of 55, to create the spell that will increase a stat from 0 to Com 5. That's 10 seasons of study, only 2.5 years, but it's also a spell that costs 10 vis, and comes with 9 botch dice. He has a familiar that drops it down a few. Or he's mercurian. Or he has flawless magic and practices for many seasons. The amount of time involved in creating the spell without a lab text is huge. And then once it's learned whether it is easy with a lab text or not, you have a lot of time involved in casting it safely, or specialized skills (Mercurians) to cast it with significantly reduced risk. Be prepared to pay, and maybe you'll make it back by writing a dozen Q16 books...

I'm not really following you. You're kind of all over the place and your terminology doesn't match City & Guild or what's been discussed. What are extraordinary items, superior or excellent quality ones? Why can't copies be made by these excellent scribes?

Page 54 dude :slight_smile:

Sure, but the Essential Virtue grants traits that are +3 for Minor or +6 for Major. Even the example on page 54 shows bonuses greater than one. So, I'm not following your assertion that it only adds 1.

Ah, gotcha. If you have +5 com already, getting a major essential virtue writer which will act as a +6 com when you write a book will only net you a +1 increase. If your com is 0 the difference will be +6. In the first case the virtue will be like a +1 bonus and in the second a +6. These two will write tractatus of the same quality though of course since both of them will use a score of 6 in place of their com score while writing. Combining essential virtue with a high com score is pointless when it comes to just writing books since they don't stack and you simply use the highest value (unless your com is negative that is).

Why is it limited? Where are you getting that from? Why does a person with Com 5 not get +6?

You've missunderstood. When you have essential virtue and a characteristic score that is either zero or positive you use whichever number is the highest, you do not add them together in any way. So when using the (basic) formula for calculating tractatus quality, author's communication + 6, the two people in my previous example with com 5 and 0 would both put in 6+6=Q12. Without the virtue the guy with com 5 would write a Q11 tractatus while the com 0 guy would only write a Q6. So the relative benefit of the virtue is greater for the guy with com 0.

Seems the discussion has moved forward.

Going back to my corner, and posting about tractatus again, I posted that on a whim, without looking at the in depth repercussions such a move would have. So book learner and the like were not even thought about. :slight_smile: Easy. I would reduce Book Learner to a +1XP or so, I suppose.

Hunting down tractatus or any other kind of book is something that has never happened IMS. In fact books are treated pretty much how you treat your bank account. A nice resource, but you do not go there, get the money out and caress the coins on a regular basis. It is just a number that gives you a rough iea of what you can get out of it. For us the excitement of the vis (boar) hunt is much more interesting than the discussion on the benefits of applying Ignem or Herbam to the study of Vim in a humid environment discussion that you need to have in order to get a silly criamon granting you access to his vim book. Troupe style has a lot of impact here.

Oh, I would also reduce book trade to story based stuff only: so no book trade. No story = no new books for you. So yes, you need to talk to that criamon. :wink: Large libraries need to go from my sagas as well. The general idea is that right now there are too many accesses to cheap, easy and powerful XP spources for magiu to study their Arts. That skyrockets their power level. Books are the main issue for us here. Been there, built something akin to the library of Alexandria. Watched the world burn and mountains being used as ballistic missiles (literal). Was very funny, but quite silly as well. We were testing how far we could go with the system and decided to go for hedgies for the next saga.

Xavi

You're right, I did. But you've made an error, don't forget all books get a +3 to Quality, so a Com 0 Essential Virtue Writer (Major would be cracnking out Q9, and with Com 5, he's cranking out Q14

Ahh, I didn't really understand this when I first read what you wrote, Faern. I was reading something into it, or reading it poorly, thinking that you meant a Com 5 + Essential Virtue Writer (Major) was like Com 6. I'm clear now. Essential Virtue Writer (Major) + Com 0 is like Com 6 is what you were saying that I was too dense to pickup on.

The concern here is when someone tries to stack Com 5, Essential Virtue Writer (major or minor) and Good Teacher all in one bundle, and they start cranking out Q14 and Q17 without skilled professionals or resonant materials, and you've effectively moved the cap on quality to 23, not 17. But to be honest, I don't think such a character should exist, certainly not as a PC, and as an NPC that need a huge impetus to write on the character's behalf.