Lab Work et Al
A few additions, a few bells and whistles to bring Lab Work more into line with my likings. Oh the power of the GM, the raw unbridled power.
Studying in the Field
Frankly, the set up of the Order as written always struck me as a bit circular. Magi learn magic by reading books written by magi who learned magic by reading books written by� you get the picture[1]. So I�m putting in the option to study magic at source. In the field as it were. To study in the field, you need to find a suitable way of immersing yourself totally in an Art for a whole season. Just keeping bunnies to learn Animal doesn�t cut it, but turning yourself into a bunny and living in a warren for a season would. This works just like studying from any other source with a couple of exceptions. Firstly, your study total is given by Perception + Awareness + Aura � 5. Secondly you need to make a Stamina + Survival roll of 6 + Aura. Failure means something bad happens, you waste the season and quite probably suffer some kind of injury. A botch indicates a serious accident, and a multiple botch could well indicate death. In addition, if you spend a season in the field, you roll twice for ageing that year, if you spend the entire year in the field roll twice, and with a +3 to the roll for conditions.
Quick Potions
IMO it takes far too long to make potions. So there�s this alternative option. You can make a potion or batch thereof in one day, but there are two costs. Firstly you can only work with half your lab total, just like casting a spontaneous spell. Secondly a potion must be drunk immediately (that is to say it lasts for momentary duration). Should you want to have a potion you can carry about you can increase the magnitude of the effect to lengthen the �duration� of the potion. So one that lasts for duration diameter before going off can be created at the cost of +5 to the level of the spell, and so on. Hedge Wizards, that is to say Alchemists and Herbalists, can make potoins along similar lines, by takinga Lab Total of Int + Skill + Bonuses + Aura.
Magic Items
A couple of house rules to make magic items more interesting (I hope).
- Number one. Everybody gets the Mage-Smith virtue for free. If you're a Mage, and a Smith, then you're a Mage-Smith, you shouldn't need to pay extra points for the privilage
- Number two. If you make an item to be enchanted out of vis (that is to say,you carve your staff from wood that is also vis), it counts as pre-opened for enchantment, effectively the Vis that went into its construction replaced the vim vis usually needed. Note that very roughly the amount of Vis required to construct an item is broadly in line with the amount of vim vis it would cost to open a mundane item, but you don't have to have vim vis.
[1]Yes I know its all part of the Dark Ages ethos, but it's a part of the Dark Ages ethos that has appeared in every damn fantasy game since Tolkein included it in Middle Earth. This is Mythic Europe dammit, and Mages are still powerful dynamic people who can learn new things by doing new things.