[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one. [X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
Yeah, gonna have to wait until I see how this schedule thing looks in action.
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one.
It's our little sis. Even if she did something wrong, which she didn't, we can't stay mad at her.
And can I just say that there was so much potential for drama with the book and then people were boring and reasonable and instead went with not being angry at our dad! I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that we'll never get to see that path.
I would like to investigate spells that enhance ourselves, especially our studying abilities.
The closest spell in the pdf is the Skitter Charm which raises an attribute by 1 for a specific thing (finesse for initiative rolls). The spell creation says to compare requirements for similar spells when creating a new one. Skitter charm has a requirement of C4 DADA3. A "scholars aid" charm would obviously not have DADA requirements but could have astronomy (the stars are often associated with wisdom) divination (knowing things) or arithmancy (as a very cerebral form of magic) requirements. The charms requirement would likely be higher probably around six maybe as a consequence of the broader applicability of enhanced study . The resulting spell would probably have a difficulty of around 17. If I assume a charm requirement of 6 and no other reqs then it would take (150+20*1+10)-20*2+(150+20*2+10)-20*2+(150+20*3+10)-20*2+(150+20*4+10)-20*2+(((150+20*5+10)-20*2)/5-1d10)*5-1d10=900-1d10*5 hours to learn (-10 per gallon up to maximum of 4) taking around 25 weeks of study/research to complete while also raising our charms credit to five
This would result in a charm that's totally worthless (as a consequence of it's short duration) on it's own, but might be highly useful as an artefact.
If the most advantageous interpretation of the rules is used than making an artefact which gives us +1 to int for the purpose of studying would take 6 hours and have a difficulty of 17 to create. To actually learn enough to make the item would require an 17-10-2-1=4 credits in relevent skills, taking a sum total of 50+10-40+50+10+10-40+50+20+10-40+50+30+10-40+50+40+10-40=200 hours and a subsequent 3*20+3 hours for an almost guaranteed 99+% final completion (which wouldn't cut into study time)
The entire process would take 1160-(1d10*5) hours aprox 200 of which would be spent on the actual spell and artefact and raise charms to six and astronomy to 4. Doing it would take around 30 weeks
The resulting artifact would give us an additional 52 hours of study per year and make every credit gained from self-study cost 10-20 less
Is this idea acceptable, Puttermurr?
Also, could we use some sort of dark magic ritual to permanently or temporarily raise our stats or attributes, like gathering blood from fifty teachers or sacrificing 20 pigs etc?
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one.
[X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
I think we need an example of how a week's schedule works before attempting to create one ourselves.
@PutterMurr
Could you provide a couple of examples of how the "Study Requirement" formula works?
Perhaps, an example for Charms since that is already Level 1?
Perhaps, an example for transfiguration since that has an obscurity level of 10?
Perhaps an example for a subject that has an obscurity level not equal to 10?
Also, what is the mechanism for raising our attributes (power, finesse, spirit, intelligence)?
We can raise one attribute per a year (at the end of the year) according to the info in the second post.
Also is the system connected to Academagia: The making of mages (or do they share the same origin) in any way? That is do we gain bonuses if we learn at specific places (like getting a Astronomy bonus if we learn it in the Astronomy tower, or Charm bonus if we have personal tutors for it).
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one.
[X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
I'd like to get the essay done as quickly as possible to free us up though
[x] Put the book under something heavy and get some rest. You intend to talk to Dad about it when the sun isn't peeking through the window, and when Maggie isn't around to get scared.
[x] Put the book under something heavy and get some rest. You intend to talk to Dad about it when the sun isn't peeking through the window, and when Maggie isn't around to get scared.
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one.
[X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one.
[X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one.
[X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
Just a bit of advice on that, from other quests with a lot of moving parts in their vote, you'd be seeing unique votes drop to 0-2.
Nearly killed Alien Invasion Quest. Only one person was willing to try and make votes, and the one day they were offline the quest just stopped moving entirely.
Really? I actually didn't think the schedule system was that intricate compared to some other quests I'd read with hard mechanics involved. Maybe if people don't enjoy planning out the schedule themselves, I can implement some kind of priority voting and then make it myself. Either way, that vote would only happen once an in-game week, so there would still be plenty of normal quest votes in between.
Yes, if you'd like to put in the time. But teachers might not be terribly happy that you're using an artifact to enhance your studying -- kind of a grey area of academic morality. You'd either have to negotiate with them about it, or avoid getting caught.
Also, could we use some sort of dark magic ritual to permanently or temporarily raise our stats or attributes, like gathering blood from fifty teachers or sacrificing 20 pigs etc?
Could you provide a couple of examples of how the "Study Requirement" formula works?
Perhaps, an example for Charms since that is already Level 1?
Perhaps, an example for transfiguration since that has an obscurity level of 10?
Perhaps an example for a subject that has an obscurity level not equal to 10?
Also, what is the mechanism for raising our attributes (power, finesse, spirit, intelligence)?
To raise Charms to level 2, you would need to plug the appropriate numbers into the formula. That would be a base time requirement of 150 hours, plus 20 for already having one credit, bringing it to a total of 170 hours. Afterwards, you would multiple the Intelligence mod (10) by your current Intelligence (2) and come up with 20 hours you can knock off the study time, bringing it back down to 150 hours. Then, you can either spend one galleon to negate the 10 hours from Obscurity or opt for a zoomed in scene of you somehow acquiring advanced study materials, or you can accept the additional 10 hours. That would bring your total to 150 or 160 hours, depending on your preference.
Raising your Transfiguration level will take less time. In fact, you'll have it automatically raised to 1 at the end of this year, but if you'd like it raised in advance, you'll start with 150 base hours. No additional hours, since you have no credits, with the same -20 hours from your Intelligence mod, bringing it down to 130. You've already got your text book for all core classes for this year (Astronomy, Charms, DADA, Herbology, HoM, Potions, Transfiguration), so for raising your skill to 1 in those areas, you don't account for the 10 Obscurity hours. So 130 total hours to get you up to 1 in Transfiguration before the rest of the class.
Let's say you wanted to start working on your Artificing skill. The base cost for each point in Artificing is 100 hours. You already have one credit in the subject, so that's an additional 50 hours of study -- however, you can knock 30 off of that from your Intelligence Mod, leaving you with 120 hours before Obscurity. You don't have a text on Artificing, so you'd either need to spend 3 galleons, have three zoomed in scenes of gathering study materials, or some combination of the above to negate the 30 hours. Depending on how much you spend, you're left with 120-150 hours for that next Artificing credit.
You get one attribute point to spend at the end of the year. Should something in the story merit it, I'm willing to grant additional attribute points, but that will be very rare. No base attribute may be raised above 7.
Nah, that would make things even more complicated, lol. You'll get certain bonuses or penalties from actions you choose to zoom in on, however.
Later, when I'm done with class, I'll make a spreadsheet for all of Astrid's current skills and the time required to bring them to the next level. I'll also use this to keep track of her progress in advancing those skills.
Really? I actually didn't think the schedule system was that intricate compared to some other quests I'd read with hard mechanics involved. Maybe if people don't enjoy planning out the schedule themselves, I can implement some kind of priority voting and then make it myself. Either way, that vote would only happen once an in-game week, so there would still be plenty of normal quest votes in between.
Mechanics overhead in voting does a lot of damage to voter participation. Don't underestimate the number of people sneaking an hour off work/school/lunch to get online and post, the more choices and planning going in, the less votes. The more math, the less votes. The more system knowledge, the less votes. Open ended write ins, less votes
It's how Puella Magi Lucina Magica became known as the Megaolix Quest, because Megaolix was the only one willing and able to make sense of the combat system. Yugioh quests lose 3/4 of their participation when it comes to the card duels. Alien Invasion quest went from 3 people writing action plans to 0.5 people writing action plans once personnel had to be assigned to tasks.
So while it's not a hard and fast ruling, it pays not to overestimate voter investment of their time and attention.
Point taken, although I think most of this system outside of the scheduling is actually pretty simple. If there's lack of interest in constructing a schedule, like I said, I'll try and think of an easier way for players to vote on general priority, which I'll then use to make a schedule.
I am going on the assumption that our current skill ratings are the "Credits held" value. Also going to have to assume that the first half of our skills list (Astronomy through Transfiguration) are the basic subjects that we have books for (and thus don't get the obscurity penalty).
Int is 2, so 2*Int Mod will be subtracted.
Starting with the easiest class, Astronomy:
50 + 10*credits - 15*Int = 50 + 0 - 30 = 20
It will take 20 hours of time to get a credit level in this class. 15 hours are available at night (18 if you include Saturday), so the last handful of hours would have to be general studying during the day.
We have a theoretical maximum of about 60 hours to work with (4 time blocks for 12 hours per day over 5 days), however that's not actually true because Astrid herself has a limit of 36 hours per week, with another 14 hours at half production, giving her an effective max of 43 hours of actual credit advancement.
Anyway, dropped it in a spreadsheet. Here's the list of subjects in increasing order of hours til next credit improvement, after accounting for current skill, and which subjects we have books for. Could get further reductions in Charms or the advanced courses if we can get an appropriate book from dad.
Astronomy
20
Flying
40
Herbology
70
History of Magic
70
Arithmancy
80
DADA
80
Magical Creatures
80
Ancient Runes
90
Alchemy
100
Muggle Studies
100
Divination
110
Potions
130
Transfiguration
130
Artificing
150
Charms
150
Dark Arts
150
Persuasion
210
Note that only two subjects are less than 60 hours. We could theoretically hit the threshold with flying, using 3 time slots per day (no flying at night) for 5 days (45 total hours, the last 9 of which are at half productivity because of crossing the 36 hour threshold).
So, other than Astronomy and Flying, nothing we schedule for can cause a change in skill value.
Next, look at what development we're looking at just for the basics.
Hogwarts homework will be 1-3 hours per week, per subject. There are 8 subjects, so between 8 and 24 hours will be spent per week on normal homework, leaving between 12 and 28 hours of 'free' study time. Assuming 5 hours of class time and an average of 2 hours of homework per week, that's 7 hours per week per subject. That's probably overestimating, because some subjects won't have much class time per week.
Anyway, each major subject would then get about 90 hours per 3 month period; maybe 100 hours between start of school and Christmas. We should have about 15 weeks between start of school and the middle of December (Christmas break).
From the table above, that's average-ish, but we'll need to put in extra hours for some of the more difficult stuff. If we want to stay ahead in stuff like Charms, we also need to dedicate time. 5 hours per week would put us at 2nd year by the end of the first year; 10 hours per week would put us at 2nd year level by Christmas.
We could get a jump on that by studying that this week, and getting a book or two from Dad. If we put in ~20 hours this week, that will give us a bit of a buffer, and if we get a proper 2nd year book that will reduce the time by another 10 hours. (Actually, the above table might be off; the book we have would be for year 1, so it should be 160 hours, dropping it to 150 with a proper book.)
Anyway, anything under 100 hours we don't have to worry about. It will be part of normal class development without extra work. Potions and Transfiguration are going to take extra out-of-band studying. And Artificing and 2nd year Charms will require self-study. Dark Arts as well.
Potions and Transfirguration will each require an extra 2 hours per week to keep up with finishing their requirements by Christmas (assuming 5 hours per week of class time).
If we think it's important to hit Charms 2 by Christmas, go with the 10 hours per week for that, and do Artificing next semester. If we're not in that much of a rush, do 5 hours per week for each of them, and we should hit Charms 2 and Artificing 1 by the end of the first year.
Then look at research time. Research time says to use all the time it would take to reach a given level, then divide by 10. As written, that means that if we were researching a level 4 spell, we'd have to figure out how many total hours were spent getting to level 4 in that particular subject (and some spells have multiple subject prerequisites) before we could figure out how much time the spell itself takes to research.
And then we have to look up spells. ... It seems like most of the interesting low-level spells are automatic once you reach that tier of magic. There's also the practice time for our existing spells and any new spells. It doesn't look like we have to practice our existing spells, so I'm not going to worry about that.
Spells:
Bluebell Flame Charm
Charms 2 [9]
Charm
Creates a blue flame which burns without fuel or oxygen. Lasts as long as the caster wishes.
Bubble Charm (Bubblitus*)
Charms 2 [9]
Charm
Creates a stream of floating bubbles which are hard to pop.
Disarming Spell (Expelliarmus)
Charms 2, DADA 1(Automatic) [9]
Charm
Causes the target to lose grip of whatever they are holding as it goes flying behind them. On a result of
15 on the casting result the caster may choose to have the object land in one of their own open hands.
Feather-Light Charm (Pluma Levis*)
Charms 2 (Automatic) [9]
Charm
Makes an object weigh almost nothing. This effect lasts for as long as the caster focuses their efforts on
maintaining the spell.
Flashing Paint Charm (Iridis Mica*)
Charms 2, Artificing 1 [9]
Charm (Enchanting)
Causes the target object to flash in a multitude of colors.
General Counter-Spell (Finite or Finite Incantatem)
Charms 2 (Automatic) [9]
Charm
Causes the target spell effect to end if it was cast by the caster. If the spell was cast by another caster,
then the caster must roll to use this spell. The casting result of this spell must exceed the casting result
of the other spell by 4.
Shielding Charm (Protego)
Charm 2 (Automatic) [9]
Charm (Ward)
Creates a shield in front of the caster as long as the spell is maintained which stops incoming spells. In
order to stop a spell the Shielding Charm must have a casting result that exceeds the casting result of
any incoming spells, otherwise the shield shatters and the incoming spell continues unimpeded. Wards
cannot be cast without rolling.
Softening Charm (Spongify)
Charms 2, Artificing 1 [9]
Charm (Enchanting)
Causes the target surface to become soft and springy, rather like a trampoline.
The useful ones are automatic, so would just need to reach level 2 and do some practice. Unless the +1 on our wand means we can use these level 2 automatics automatically, with just a bit of practice. In that case, put in time for practice instead. Level 2 charms should take 28 hours of research each (for the non-automatic ones), and 6 hours of practice.
Given that there doesn't appear to be any point in working on spells right now (barring confirmation that we need to practice them), I'd go with 20 hours each in Charms and Artificing, with help from Dad with the books. Stay away from anything Dark Arts related.
If we then apply 6 hours per week to each of them during the first semester (minimum free 'extra' study time of 12 hours per week, so split that between them), that's 110 hours each applied to them by the end of the first semester, only 40 hours from tiering up.
@PutterMurr - This is the type of planning you're asking us to do. And I'm not sure all of it is correct.
The useful ones are automatic, so would just need to reach level 2 and do some practice. Unless the +1 on our wand means we can use these level 2 automatics automatically, with just a bit of practice. In that case, put in time for practice instead. Level 2 charms should take 28 hours of research each (for the non-automatic ones), and 6 hours of practice.
The +1 bonus to Charms and Artificing is actually a bonus when rolling to cast. And actually, you don't have to practice a spell once you've researched it. The book says that the practice time is assumed to be included in research time, so that frees up a few hours.
It all looks correct to me. Again, if people don't enjoy the planning aspect, I can change it so that you vote on what you're most interested in raising and I hash out the schedule.
The spreadsheet basically models a week/turn, but also keeps track of allocations from previous weeks. One important thing, I've ignored creating a schedule and instead just settled for allocating hours. I figured we get 36 hours a week, if we want to spend 5 of those hours on Charms, it shouldn't really matter what day or time we do it.
The spreadsheet differentiates between "normal hours" and "stressed hours". I haven't done anything with spells/potions yet.
Here is how I envision it will work:
At the start of each turn, PutterMurr would populate the "Assigned Homework" column (F10:F28) with the hours of homework assigned for each subject.
We would then populate the green cells with the number of hours we wanted to allocate per subject. We can allocate hours to both homework** and "extra study". The spreadsheet will also sum up all allocated hours (both normal and stressed across both homework and extra study) in the "Total Hours" section (H4:I4). The text in these cells even turns a pretty red if you've under/over allocated.
**I've left us the option to not fully allocate hours to assigned homework. I figured we could potentially skip homework for classes we don't care about or for subjects that we are ahead in (Charms). It is unclear what the ramifications of not doing homework are. The spreadsheet will provide a warning if you've under/over allocated hours on homework.
At the end of the turn, PutterMurr would update the "Current Level" column (C10:C28) if any skills leveled up. He would also update the "Hours For Next Level, Current Spent" column (P10: P28) with the hours we just spent.
Ultimately, I think a vote plan would look something like this (all of the icky rules, scheduling, math, etc are hidden behind the spreadsheet):
[] Finish all homework (20 hours)
[] Study Charms for 10 hours
[] Study Transfiguration for 6 hours
etc
That's what the bulk of it is. Think of the mechanics as the windowdressing that happens around the story. They're important because they control the pace you learn new skills at and help gauge where you are academically, not to mention they provide a clear goal when we're between plot points and give you an idea of Astrid's average day, but this isn't going to turn into a quest to min-max an eleven-year-old's magical abilities.
It all looks correct to me. Again, if people don't enjoy the planning aspect, I can change it so that you vote on what you're most interested in raising and I hash out the schedule.
Well, consider that we'll need 10 to 15 weeks of that planning to get +1 in a few stats (assuming I didn't overestimate progress rates on classes). And consider that this has to all go through the usual player debates of "what we should do". And consider whether that's a useful demand on the players' time in order to continue participating in the quest. If the plan is, "Do homework, and a bit of extra study in X and Y", why do we need to track progress by the hour?
Generally when quests get to the point where you want a spreadsheet in order to figure out whether what you want to do is even valid, much less a complete plan, it becomes something like a week of 2 or 3 people running numbers for everyone else before an actual vote is settled on so that an update can happen. And that rather drains enthusiasm.
If I can ensure an average of 24 free hours per week of study time (ie: max 40 minus the average of 16 from 8 classes), I can aim for a +1 in charms every 6 to 8 weeks. There are about 35 weeks of school over the course of the year. We can hit Charms 5 with 30 weeks of 24 hours per week development, then can spend the leftover plus summer researching spells. By the middle of 2nd year, she can have reached Charms 7, graduation level, in that school of magic.
That gives her access to Apparate, banishing, AOE shielding, chameleon blending, detect humans (50 m radius), sound muffling, a type of identification, etc.
Obliviate is a level 8 charm, and easily reachable by 3rd year.
With 1 level of Dark Arts, can add Confundus, Deflection, and level 2 provides the Wand-clearing charm (clears detectability of wand from spells cast), etc.
Still, if we allocate 18 hours per week to Charms and 6 hours to Dark Arts, that puts us at level 7 in Charms and level 2 in Dark Arts (as long as we spend at least 3 galleons on it) by the end of second year. By reaching the appropriate skill tiers, only practice hours are needed to learn the spells, rather than research hours. (eg: the difference between 6 hours and 28 hours, from an earlier example)
Basically, if we want to focus on one of our specialties early, we can reach an impressive competence level in it in a relatively short time period. I added the Dark Arts option in there because it's used on a number of spells, but we could also skip that and go for Artificery as the sub-option, which would be easier (though only somewhat; the training difference between that and Dark Arts is only difference in obscurity: 80 vs 30).
~~
If I were to consolidate all that, it would come down to: 50/50 split on Charms/Artificery for the current week, and then 75/25 Charms/Artificery split for the larger chunk of our free time the rest of the school year (or maybe Charms/Dark Arts, depending), with allowance for normal homework, and that the total personal study time does not exceed half of our threshold time (ie: 20 hours per week). That would put us at 6/2 at the end of the second year, and leave time for building up a spell repertoire.
That seems a reasonable mid-term goal, where even if she doesn't achieve it, should still put her in a pretty strong position in Charms, and doesn't need any finagling with specific study schedules.
It does mean having just one specialty, and one secondary skill, but does mean you have a strong enough foundation that you can branch out into other stuff later on without worrying about it too much.
~~
Overall, this just runs the numbers of what can be done within the next couple of years, and puts a "close enough" stamp on it. I'd vote for this plan and then not worry about it again unless something drastically situation-altering came into play. And even then I'd probably try to focus on ways to make our skills appropriate for the situation, rather than consider branching out into new studies such as potions or whatever. Given the length of time it takes to advance in a field, there's no such thing as a "quick change".
Voting for individual time schedules each week, however, would encourage people to try to boost one area or another because it's important "right now", even though such changes would almost certainly have no realistic effect, but would hinder longer-term growth.
[X] You're not really that angry. Yeah, something could have gone wrong, but it was just Nox. She only did what she had to, and you're a bit impressed that she managed a Charm at her age, even if it's an easy one. [X] Let the QM create this week's schedule.
