But Sahir and Hedgie's Foci talk aside y'all, just seeing what folks think about the Focus for my Tremere. Hopefully I've explained it well enough / given suitable reasons as to why he shouldnt be forced to take the Certamen focus.
Just tryin to get to the point where I can start to crunch numbers is all.
Flambeau have 2 virtues listed in main book and Societas gives 3 other alternatives for house virtue. Jerbiton gives about 6-8 choices for house minor virtue, Bonisagus gives two choices for house virtue, Ex Misc gives tons of varieties on house virtue.
Merinita, Criamon,Bjorner, verditious only give one but that one is necessary for the house initiation as mystery cults.
Admittedly Tytalus and Guernicus only give one and they are true lineages but I could see a variant for Tremere if people agree.
The vitality/life force isn't fully defined. It would be only humans, only animals or only plant life forces and are you talking about raising the dead or dealing with dead or only healing/wounding living?
Nope, the Dead is the area of the Necromancers. I see this as an almost 'Mystery Cult' as it were inside House Tremere's Necromancers. As for it only applying to one thing, why would it? I'm simply taking Healing ( which affects Corpus, Animal and maybe Herbam, as per ArM 5 ) and adding Wounding. Basically Creo / Perdo, in regards to living things. Granted, it hardly covers all of Creo / Perdo in regards to those, as stated before, just the healing of wounds, inflicting wounds, longevity and fatigue of anything that is alive.
House Tremere doesn't vary their ability at certamen. Its mages have a lot more demands on their time to the House and as such they tend to be slightly weaker than mages outside the house their own age. The focus on Certamen allows these magi to compete/defend themselves against rivals more aptly.
I want to express my appreciation again for all of the feedback. Laszlo has been reworked and is presented again below as if he has just completed his apprenticeship. I have not worked specific dates of birth, covenant names, etc. Marko if you have specifics for me to tie in with please let me know.
Magus Laszlo, Assessor of House Tremere
Characteristics: Int +2, Per +2, Str 0, Sta +1, Prs 0, Com 0, Dex 0, Qik 0.
Size: 0
Age: 25 (25)
Decreptitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence Score: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift, Hermetic Magus, Minor Magical Focus (certamen), Gentle Gift, Well Traveled, Method Caster, Covenant Upbringing, Close Family Ties, Difficult Spontaneous Magic, Weak Enchanter, Disjointed Magic.
Personality Traits: Brave +3, Conscientious +3, Methodical +3
Reputation: None
Combat
Dodging: Init +0, Attack n/a, Defense +0, Damage n/a
Soak: +0
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, -1, -3, -5, Unconscious.
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20)
Abilities: Artes Liberales 2 (grammar), Athletics 2 (hiking), Awareness 2 (non-verbal cues), Charm 2 (first impressions), Folk Ken 3 (magi), Guile 2 (lying to authority), Hispania Lore 2 (nobles), Intrigue 4 (alliances), Latin 4 (Hermetic), Living Language: Arabic 1 (classical), Living Language: Hungarian 5, Living Language: Occitan 2 (Catalan), Living Language: Romanian 1, Living Language: Spanish 3 (Castilian), Magic Theory 3 (Intellego), Order of Hermes Lore 1 (politics), Parma Magica 1 (Mentem), Survival 1 (mountains), Transylvania Lore 1 (Carpathians).
Arts: Cr 1, In 8, Mu 2, Pe 1, Re 4, An 2, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 2, He 0, Ig 0, Im 4, Me 4, Te 0, Vi 2.
Twilight Scars: None.
Equipment: Wizard robes.
Encumbrance: 0 (0)
Spells Known:
Prying Eyes InIm 5
The Ear for Distant Voices (InIm 20)
Wizards Sidestep (ReIm 10)
Sight of the Transparent Motive (InMe 10)
Perception of the Conflicting Motives (InMe 15)
Posing the Silent Question (InMe 20)
The Invisible Eye Revealed (InVi 15)
Sense of Magical Power (InVi 2)
Sense the Nature of Vis (InVi 5)
Maintaining the Demanding Spell (ReVi 10)
Notes:
Mester Domonkos and Maga Virag gave birth to their first and only child in the year of our Lord 11??. Both were magi in good standing with a minor Tremere covenant recessed in the Carpathian Mountains. The couple never wed though they retained an intense, if somewhat sporadic, relationship. Left in the care of a mid-wife, Laszlo's latent gift was discovered by his mother.
The boy grew up with a handful of other coven children, but superstition kept them isolated from the surrounding villages. He learned quickly of discipline and respect for elders, to be proud of his covenant-family, and to make himself scarce when the magi were not in the mood for childish antics. He explored the lands surrounding the covenant, hiking and learning the nuances of the mountains.
Quite often the covenant would have visitors, almost always wearing the similar dark robes as the covenant magi wore. Some stayed for several seasons, some for a brief visit. Shortly after his sixth birthday, Laszlo left his home covenant with a Hispanus Magus named Ramiro. Ramiro became his master and took him to a covenant in the Guadarrama mountains, north of Madrid. There he began his studies in the Hermetic arts and travelled with his master through the areas of Southern France, and the kingdoms of Hispania to include Portugal, Leon, Castille, Aragon, and Navarre.
As an assessor, Laszlo's training has been stretched into a broad range of disciplines in social and arcane abilities. His role is to be observant and to listen, and when the time is appropriate, to communicate and act. He prefers indirect action over outright physical confrontation, but he will not shirk when words fail.
Parma Magica specialties have to be a form and not a technique. Mentem and Corpus tend to be the most popular. But everything else looks pretty solid.
RIght, I agree with that specialty note as well. Form. Plus you are least likely to face intellego against you. Mages of the order don't scry directly on each other. Too much chance of pinging parma and getting caught violating the code. I like it, very balanced, very well to the concept with a few other things that are useful. Ad Fons taight me how good invisibility is for dealing with mundanes and hedge wizards.
I can't wait to see how he advances and ages
I completely disagree with you. As stated before, the House has some of the best Necromancers around and you're telling me that they have a focus in Certamen? While I can agree with that their 'free' virtue should be Certamen related somehow, I don't think that every member of the House has a focus in it. To say that they do would be highly unrealistic and would limit the House like nothing else. This is one point I'm willing to argue into the ground...
However after a bit of tweaking and reading I'm actually going to agree with Maro and make this bugger an Apromorian Flambeau.
So Certamen discussion aside ( since there is no point anymore! ) what is the general feeling about the proposed focus? Well there is another virtue that I feel would make perfect sense. I'm sure some of y'all have run into the Biomancer virtue in other ArM games here. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, it's Elemental Magic, just for Animal, Corpus and Herbam. With the focus in Life Force applying across the board to all those forms ( again, read the entry about healing in ArM 5 and since this focus is just healing plus it's opposite... ) to me, it makes perfect sense to know the virtue. Obviously it would need to be House Ruled, so thats why I'm askin!
That'll do it! Hopefully y'all are having a good weekend!
Or it could be that Ceoris has numerous books on the topic of necromancy going as far back as the Founder's joint attack on his mater, and other merits do exist to help like Affinity with art, Puissant art, or the very own Tremere virtue "Leadworker" (HoH: TL p143). I have found precedent that would allow Tremere to have 2 magical foci. On the same page as the Leadworker virtue, there is a mythic blood suggestion that gives a Tremere magi a minor magical focus with storms. One could make a mythic blood character of House Tremere but have it point to Guerna the Fetid (mater to Tremere and Tytalus) or the necromantic tradition that later joined House Tremere when he gathered forces to gain his own House at the First Tribunal.
A minor focus in healing will only apply to one of animal, plant or person. (just smaller than one tech / form mix. Ie either CrAn, CrCo OR CrHe).
A Major focus in healing applies to the Cr spells across several forms (CrAn, CrHe AND CrCo)
You are asking for a focus that is the Major focus in healing and adding Major focus in damaging (CrCo, PeCo, CrAn, PeAn, PeHe AND CrHE) This is double the size of a healing focus and to three things that are somewhat seperate. Making body closer to the ideal (healing), damaging it (harming) and then playing with fatigue as well.
This is absurdly 'Rules Lawyer' material. It is also incorrect, which is amusing for an example of rules lawyering.
It is incorrect to try and restrict someone -only- to the examples as if that is all that is allowed. They are merely examples.
I have no problem with technique based specializations. Or other things people can come up with for that matter. Ludovico has his in 'Spirits', like much else in his build.
The rules explicitly state that you can only have one magical focus.
There is no explicit example in the description of that mythic blood: zmey virtue for an individual having two foci. It merely describes a focus one could gain by having said virtue, and doesn't in fact mention what would happen if you were a Tremere and chose to purchase it. This is faulty logic.
As stated previously I am in favor of flexibility when it comes to House Virtues, to reflect the general nature of the House and the flavor of what is supposed to be their area of expertise, but not being overly rigid with it.
This is all, in a word, incorrect. Maybe you should reread the core book concerning hermetic virtues and magical foci in particular with an eye for detail since you keep saying things that are not RAW as if they were.
Healing ( cross-form ) is a 'textbook' example of a -Minor- magical focus. He is taking that and expanding it up into a major to include direct negative manipulation as well. It seems fine to me.
This is a rather common house rule in my experience, and I would not oppose it.
I just want to be sure this is what biomancer is:
Biomancer (Major Virtue)
You ignore requisites for spells of Corpus, Animal or Herbam that includes one of the other two (Ie, CrCo spell with An requisite would basically ignore the need for the requisite) and when you successfully study one of the three arts (ie study from books or raw vis), you get 1 xp in the other two.
I personally think that is perfectly acceptable.
Pot calling the kettle black? The virtue is in the Tremere section. Therefore it is heavily implied that Tremere characters are eligible to take it. Otherwise it would say it replaces their certamen focus, or limits Tremere magi from taking it. Since it says neither, it is a perfectly valid assumption.
As for Parma Magica, why would you even bother taking specializations in forms if you could take techniques which are fewer in number and thus cover far more situations for the same benefit thus making it better?
In light of this;
I would say this pertains 'exactly' to this sort of situation. In fact I think this is precisely the type of confluence of virtues type of scenario that 'regardless of the source of the focus' refers to. So no, I don't think it is a valid assumption.
Because techniques can be varied just as easily as a form can? If I take my specialization in say Perdo, because I don't want to get destroyed or have my memories erased... does that protect me from being mentally compelled? Or lightning bolted? Of course not. You take a specialization because it makes sense for your character. Techniques aren't an inherently better choice IMO. Ok, you could argue most of the stereotypical 'battle-magic' spells that inflict direct damage are Creo. But that is thinking like a idjit flambeau pew pew monkey. ( Sorry Marko. ) But does that really matter? Again, this doesn't protect you any more from being compelled, or directly destroyed with perdo, or having your memory messed with. The point is that the magic system is broad enough that, IMO, such concerns as techniques/forms for specializations in parma are really a small thing.
Nail on the head Lady. It fits the whole Life Force Focus theme very nicely, so I figure it would make perfect sense for him to pick it up sometime down the road.
So as I've established, I'm going to be playing a Perdo Specialist. There's a spell, 'Treading the Ashen Path' that I'd like to emulate. The only problem is that the spell is basically unbuildable using the current rules ( since we no longer have Aura as an option ). Now I was looking around and Ovarwa had a good way with dealing with this.
All Hermetic spells now have access to a new casting duration option "Repeat." A repeated spell has two durations: an ordinary duration for the underlying effect, and a second duration for how long the underlying spell will be continually triggered. The second duration costs one magnitude more than its usual cost.
An example he used:
Here's a Repel the Wooden Shafts (lvl 15) that actually repels shafts rather than just one shaft:
R: Per, D: Repeat Mom while Sun, T: Ind
Any wooden weapon that is about to strike you fails, with the usual special effects. This spell will not work against particularly large wooden weapons, such as a giant's cudgel.
IT actually is not repeat Momentary, it is constant warding type effect. It is like Ward against heat and flame, ward against animals, ward against demons, Ward against Faeries of the mountain.
It is a constant rego warding effect, not repeat momentary.
There isn't such similiar effect for the other arts.
Well as it stands, the original spell affects just one wooden weapon and it's not a ward at all ( It's Voice range )! Rather, you would have to fast cast it. The intent of the example spell is that it can deflect multiple wooden weapons without the need of any spells being cast (Beyond casting the spell once ).
Now what if I wanted to create a variant of 'Treading the Ashen Path'? Mind you, thats just an example, but as it's currently written, it's completely incorrect. It's a Touch, Momentary, Group spell that affects 5 paces on the side and 10 to the front. But here's the thing, it lasts for 7 miles. It basically self casts itself over and over and over on any plant matter for 7 miles for a + 1 complexity bump.
My point is, that the spell makes no sense using the current guidelines and after some digging I found some rules to better explain it. I am simply trying to figure out how the rules would work for a spell / effect that I really like.
It strikes me that my meaning is unclear, I am proposing that the Repeat Duration be House Ruled in.
Basically the problem is I'm trying to have a spell that behaves along these lines. I cast a spell on me. When X ( X being a condition determined on casting ) happens, the spell does Y ( Y being some effect ). Now the idea is that I could have a spell like this up, for say a day and whenever X happened, Y was cast.
Just trying to figure out the mechanics for this and the House Rules from another game seemed to work nicely. Hopefully this clears up any confusion?
So much stuff!
