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Companions spending a Year’s End Fellowship phase at home can devote the cold season to train and exercise to expand their talents and reach truly heroic levels. For each Mastery received through the acquisition of a new Wisdom level, a hero can choose this undertaking to gain a second Mastery, at the cost of 10 Experience points.

This does not specify whether the new mastery is the same as the one previously chosen. Basically from the above, if a player has chosen Confidence, then according to the above they can spend 10xp (if they have it) getting a new mastery each winter phase rather than increasing their (level?) in Confidence.
It also seems to contradict the 1 undertaking per fellowship phase - For each Mastery [...] a hero can choose this undertaking.
Finally it is not even clear if the undertaking can only be taken once per mastery acquired by virtue, i.e. if they have one mastery does this mean that they can increase it by 1 level(?) per winter phase or just once, full stop.

I interpreted this as:
A character having used 2 virtues on Masteries can increase each to a second level(?) over 2 winter phases providing they had 10xp to spend in each winter phase and that's it. It just makes the unlimited acquirement seem a little odd.

Hi Mica,

Yes a player can choose a different mastery. If I have increased Wisdom from 1 to 2 and gained Confidence then I can spend a Winter Fellowship Undertaking: Exercise Your Talent, spend 10 experience points and gain any Mastery, not just take Confidence a second time.

When the text says "For every Mastery..." it is simply setting an upper limit on the number of times this can be done. If you had increased Wisdom to 4 taking a Mastery on each increase then you would be able to use Exercise Your Talent 3 times but not over the same Winter Fellowship Phase (although technically a long Fellowship Phase might allow players to perform two undertakings - Revised Rulebook, page 197).

To clarify the last question, each Mastery gained through Wisdom level increase allows you to take this undertaking once in a Winter phase to give you another Mastery.

The reasoning behind all this is very simple, Masteries were considered a little weaker than Cultural Virtues so this gives an extra benefit but in a balanced way.

Hope that helps!

As much as I like this new rule, I dislike that Valour gets even more worse compared to Wisdom.

Borri wrote:As much as I like this new rule, I dislike that Valour gets even more worse compared to Wisdom.

Interesting, not really felt like that in my groups. I've often found characters grabbing Rewards quickly. Plus Rewards can be traded back in for qualities on a magic item ... that's pretty powerful.

In our group everybody is fond of Virtues. It's my dwarf who is pointed out for raising Valour in regard of Encounters and Tolerance. The others shine with their (cultural) virtues in nearly every scene (disappearing hobbits, petty magic using woodelves, twice baked honey cakes etc) and the dwarf waits with his grievous axe and reinforced shield for some orcs to come along once in a while. Since we haven't had many fights yet, Rewards also seem to lack everyday-usefulness.

It does not specifically state that if one mastery is chosen the exercised mastery can be anything, just that they can get 'a second mastery'.

It does not make sense to me that if a character has chosen Corruption Mastery, exercising this mastery as an undertaking allows him to get Dour-Handed... Though it would make sense that if he had Corruption Mastery (Blighted Places), he could expand this to Corruption Mastery (Tainted Treasure).

mica wrote:It does not specifically state that if one mastery is chosen the exercised mastery can be anything, just that they can get 'a second mastery'.

It does not make sense to me that if a character has chosen Corruption Mastery, exercising this mastery as an undertaking allows him to get Dour-Handed... Though it would make sense that if he had Corruption Mastery (Blighted Places), he could expand this to Corruption Mastery (Tainted Treasure).

Well it says you get a second Mastery and the book has already defined the list of Masteries. It doesn't say get a second level in the same Mastery.

Nevertheless however you interpret the language in the book, trust me, that's exactly how it works - I was a playtester on the Adventurer's Companion (I think I got an 'additional rules' credit) and I've explicitly spoken about this with Francesco. It's not a case of the two Masteries having to be related, it's just a bonus in the game because Masteries felt weaker than Cultural Rewards. The Fellowship Phase Undertaking is called "Exercise Your Talent" not exercise your Mastery. It's just a name for the undertaking and doesn't imply you're doing something with the original Mastery.

that's exactly how it works - I was a playtester on the Adventurer's Companion

Cool, that's all I needed to know

You're absolutely welcome Mica! Always happy to help!