Mighty Characters Quick Fix

So... The non-negotiable point to all of this is that power upfront at the expense of progression is not actually balance. If you don't at least mostly agree with that sentiment there is really nothing for you here.

Under the current rules I can make a Mythic Companion type character with magic Might that can crush an entire troupe of recently gauntleted Magi (barring a specifically magic creature hunting magus and maybe even then depending on some things). While in 10 to 20 years any one of those magic can turn that character upside down and spank them. I think this is fair and fun to no one. I propose the following house rules as a replacement for the entire playable magic creatures rules.

[strike]Actually Balanced Magical Creatures

• Mightiness is an Ability.
• There is no Affinity or Puissant Virtue for Mightiness
• Each Point in Mightiness give you 5(?) points of canon Magic Might and Might Pool
• The Magic Might gives you Magic Resistance and Penetration as Canon
• Each point of this magic Might give you one Quality, as canon.
• Your XP gains for all other abilities are reduced by your magic Might Ability rank.
• Only Exposure, Adventure XP may contribute to Magic Might.
• You may also consume Vis per the rules for Transformation in RoP:M
• Transformation XP may contribute directly to your Mightiness or you may spend it as normal.
• You may not take Improved Abilities or the Gift as a Quality.

Something needs to go here about restoring permanent Might loss from spells. For now I'll pitch this:

• You are essentially Mighty and can only be taken to 0 Might, a status that does not kill you but renders you unable to use your powers. Might can be restored by spending XP on Mightiness, restoring it as an accelerated ability until all of your might is restored

Needs some wording.
[/strike]

[strike]I think that covers mostly everything. Probably need some tweaks. As Mythic Companions you would probably have Affinity in Mightiness as part of your Free Mythic Companion Virtue and you would get the normal 2 to 1 trade on flaws.[/strike]

So this officially changes this from a Quick Fix to a whole module you can add to your Saga but I think I like where I ended up. Acclimation is at least generally transferable. I could probably have done another proof read but I wanted to get this posted before I went on vacation. I can't take credit for everything here. Some of the ideas were inspired by posts in this thread the Acclimation section (the first half) was a hack one of my troupe mates devised to allow Acclimation to be more sensible.

Universal Changes
Might is an essential part of a creature and can only be temporarily destroyed by spells.
Add a Guideline to Perdo Vim to give a penalty to Acclimation Rolls equal to the spell’s Base Magnitude of the spell.

General Magic Creatures
Mostly as written. To be used for Magical Companions and Grogs at the 10 and 3 Base Might levels respectively. Grogs built this way will develop much as their mundane contemporaries do and will likely only grow their might if stationed permanently in an Aura dangerous to mundane Grogs or if frequently used as guinea pigs by the covenant magi.

Acclimation is changed to work as described below. Creatures aligned with the Magic Realm is explicitly defined as creatures without Might that do not take receive Warping Points from strong Auras. Narrowing the list to Magi and high warping creatures.

Permanent Might and Current Might need to be tracked separately. Permanent Might is your base might based on your narrative importance and saga power level, plus Improved Might Qualities, plus your permanent Might increases from Might Growth, minus your permanent losses from acclimation, minus permanent Might spent on powers (such as Ritual Powers). Your Current Might is whatever it happens to be. But is typically your Permanent Might minus temporary losses from Acclimation, minus losses from Perdo Vim effects.

Permanent Might = Base+Improved Might Qualities+Qualities and Might gained from Magical Growth-permanent Might losses and Inferiorites from Acclimation-permanently spent Might.

Current Might = Permanent Might-temporary losses of Might

[size=150]New Mythic Companion Virtue[/size]
Prosus Familiaris (Free Virtue)
Familiars are held in high regard by many magi and nearly as tragic as the death of a Magus is the slow decline and eventual death of his familiar after their passing. The Magi of House Tremere, already known for their retention of their fallen members Talismans for the betterment of the house, found this waste of powerful guardian creatures and skilled lab assistants to be unacceptable. An inter-house taskforce was assembled to save such familiars. The Prosus Familiaris is the result of their work.

To create an Prosus Familiaris character create a Magical Animal with Might 15 and 360 XP gained in their previous career one Language at 5 and Latin (or Classical Greek) at 4, they also gain the Three Chains with no Links. The familiar also maintains his Loyalty (partner) Personality Trait, in practicality this means the familiar has an attitude towards the Order and their partner’s House and Covenant that was very similar to their partner’s. This is not supernatural loyalty to the Order of Hermes. The player of an Prosus Familiaris character may choose Virtues and Flaws as Companions do, the list of appropriate Social Status Virtues is Limited to those of a typical Magical Creature. Characters the Magical Monster social status are considered to be on probation with the order for their general gross and inhuman misconduct they are at risk of having their Chain broken and left to die. While those possessing Magical Friend are generally poorly regarded by the Order but have close connections to the holder of their Chains and (usually) that maga’s Covenant.

The Three Chords are unfortunately not maintained in the Ritual used to save familiars from supernatural death. The Chords collapse into magical anchors on the familiar’s magical essence. On these anchors the familiar may build three Chains. The Chains is essentially Chords that maybe passed between two magi with the consent of the familiar and the receiving magus (any Gifted individual that can bind a Familiar will do). The Chain does grant the Magic Resistance inherent to the Familiar Bond and allows the magus to use them as a lab assistant but does not give any other Chord Bonuses. The lab assistant bonus is treated like another magus for Leadership purposes. The bond grants a window into the holding magus’ Gift no the full immersion of a true familiar bond and so is not free. The Chains are very similar to the familiar bond for the familiar in that it prevents Acclimation, allows the familiar to learn abilities as humans do (unpenalized by their Might), and restricts their ability to transform. As with Chords the Chains are visible to Second Sight and the Links may be visually counted.

Rather than standard Magical Growth and Acclimation that magical creatures must tend to the members of the Prosus Familiaris may attempt to forge a Link to one of their Chains each Year. In effect the Might score that is being tended by a traditional magical creature is supplanted by the three Chains.

The Chains function as follows.

The Golden Chain of Magic represents the creatures connection to the fundamental forces of Magic. Links in the Golden Chain increase the creatures Might (Magic Resistance, Penetration, Might Pool), but may be traded off for Magical Power Qualities (or improving those Power with Qualities or Virtues). This is the Chain that is targeted by default if a spell would normally target a Creture’s Might. The Silver and Bronze Chains may be targeted by spells especially designed for that purpose.

The Silver Chain of the Mind represents the power of the creature’s mind and the power of the mental link it once shared with its partner. Each Link in the Silver Chain may increase a Mental Characteristics on a one to one basis, but they may be traded off for Mental Qualities (Improved Abilities, Appropriate Virtues, Magical Meditation, Vis Mastery).

The Bronze Chain of the Body represents the power of the creature’s corporeal body and that or its lost partner. Each Link in the Bronze Chain may increase a Physical Characteristics on a one to one basis, but they may be traded off for Physical Qualities (No Fatigue, Gigantic, Virtues that alter the physical body, any of the modifiers to soak, fatigue, or attacks).

Similar to the Might of a typical creature each Chain has a Permanent and Current Value.

Permanent Chain Rating = 15+Improved Might Qualities+Qualities and other boons gained from Magical Growth-permanently spent Links.

Current Chain Rating = Permanent Chain Rating-temporary loss of Links

In order to forge a Link the familiar must accumulate Acclimation points over the year. As the initial bond protects them from Acclimation the familiar is always considered to have exactly their Current Might in Acclimation Points and any they have accrued through their actions or living in Auras are extra points that may be spent. All extra points must be spent each year and none carry over to the next year. The number of points required to gain a bonus is based on the current Chain Rank for each chain. So a relatively new familiar who has accrued 55 Acclimation points must forge a Link or lose the points he has a Gold 0, Silver 1, Bronze 5 so his Permanent Ratings are 15,16, and 20 he can forge a Link to any chain no matter what but he could gain a +4 bonus to his roll for Gold or Silver (55/16 = 3+) but only a +3 bonus to Bronze (55/20 = 2+). On a 6-10 result the bonus would apply to forging a Link in the same Chain the following year.

Many of the more militant members of the Prosus Familiaris take the Second Sight Virtue so that they may see each others Chain and Links. Those who do typically accord more respect to members with longer Chains.

Acclimation
In order to prevent your Might from decaying a Magical Creature must accrue Acclimation Points each year equal to your Might score.
Each season in an Aura grants Points equal to it's Aura level. (spending half time gives half, and frequent visits gives a quarter.) (Aura Interaction chart applies, it is very hard for a magical creature to remain in a Divine Aura)
Being affected by or Affecting a creature aligned with the magic realm with a power constantly for a season grants Points equal to the power's magnitude. (Using it frequently grants half that, and occasionally grants a quarter of that.)
Each Pawn of Vis consumed contributes 2 Points
Transformation XP now only contributes Acclimation Points these are effectively just ways to abstract the other methods. Practice and Adventure being affecting creatures with your Powers. While Training is often litteral training and meditation on the topic.

Now a 100 Might creature living in an Aura 8 (8 points/season) and using a level 20 blessing on four thralls constantly (each would be 4/season) would still need to make up the last 4 points each year with 2 pawns of Vis, if he couldn't obtain a fifth thrall. He would not generally be rolling Acclimation if he maintained these habits and could readily access Vis.

Acclimation is done in a similar way to Aura Strengthening/Weakening. Current Might is the number that is involved in the Acclimation calculations . On any season that you Accrue few points than your Might during the year you roll on the Acclimation Chart. Any year you accrue points equal to but less than double your Might in Acclimation points you do not need to roll for the year. On any year you accrue more than double your Might in Acclimation points you must roll on the Magical Growth chart. You may gain up to a +9 bonus to the Acclimation/Magical Growth roll.

[tableborder][tr][th]Bonuses to Acclimation (-) and Magical Growth (+)[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Current Might Lower than Permanent Might (The bracketed text replaces the relevant lines in this case.)[/td]
[td]+6[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Acclimation points in excess of your Might Score (Extra points / Might Score, rounded up)[/td]
[td]+1 per Might Score Extra points[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Fewer Acclimation points than your Might Score[/td]
[td]-1/point[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Might Higher than Permanent Might (The bracketed text replaces the relevant lines in this case.)[/td]
[td]-6[/td][/tr][/tableborder]
Bonuses apply once the requirement of a roll is determined. So you do not make an Acclimation roll unless you accrue few Acclimation points than your Might, for example regardless of what your penalty would be.

[tableborder][tr][th]Roll[/th]
[th]Magical Growth[/th]
[th]Acclimation[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Botch[/td]
[td]Take a -1 penalty per Botch to your next Magical Growth (not Acclimation) roll next year[/td]
[td]Gain a Minor Inferiority per botch or a Major for every full 3 botches.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]0-5[/td]
[td]Nothing[/td]
[td]Nothing[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]6-10[/td]
[td]Gain a +3 to your Magical Growth roll (if required) next year.[/td]
[td]Gain a +3 to your Acclimation roll (if required) next year.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]11-15[/td]
[td]Gain Vis equal to half your bonus to this roll.
[Restore 1 Current Might][/td]
[td]Temporarily lose 1 Might
[Lose 1 Current Might][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]16-20[/td]
[td]Gain a permanent +1 Might
[Restore 2 Current Might][/td]
[td]Permanently lose 1 Might
[Lose 1 Current Might][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]21+[/td]
[td]Roll twice on this chart using Simple Dice[/td]
[td]Roll twice on this chart using Simple Dice[/td][/tr][/tableborder]
Any Might gain may be instead spent to acquire a Quality and any Might loss may be substituted for an Inferiority. Exactly one 0 point Transformation may be performed during any Magical Growth or Acclimation roll either to trade off Might for a Major or Minor quality, cancel an inferiority with a quality or might, or lose qualities to gain Might. This is done after the roll is made but before the results resolve.

By RoP:M p.52 Transformation It takes 10 exp to get a new Minor Magic Quality for a Magic character. By RoP:M p.41 Improved Might, improving a Magic character's Might by 1, takes a Minor Magic Quality. This Quality can explicitly be taken repeatedly.
So adding the first 5 Magic Might takes 50 exp, not 5 exp - but the cost per Might point stays fixed and does not increase with already accumulated Might.

For Faerie characters, see RoP:F p.65 Creativity and RoP:F p.46 Increased Faerie Might. Increasing a Faerie's Might requires a capable human changing the Faerie instead of exp of the Faerie, but still works by adding or changing an Increased Faerie Might Virtue.

Does that need any quick fix IYS?

Cheers

I've generally found Faerie to be more of a middle ground between the very restrictive Magic Might and normal folks. I might propose a fix for that at some point but I don't think Faeries are broken enough to be unplayable the way Magic Creatures are. I'd like to stick to one thing at a time.

This is textually correct, it is also fairly meaningless. The 10XP Might gain is a shot in the foot for a magic character. It explicitly doesn't give other qualities, since that would be insane. So you are taking an extra -1XP and requiring another pawn of Vis to transform in order to gain 1 more MR and Pen. Add to the fact that as a Magus Replacement character your Might is already well in excess of most of the books or training that you could get on a topic without expending massive amounts of Vis.

I'll go into some further thoughts and limit analysis, numbers will assume 360 XP which is the Summer Level and matches a 25 year old Magus at gauntlet.

A Mighty character could start with Mighty 11 and 35 Xp to put elsewhere. He would have 55 Might, be unable to learn from most tractatus and many summa, and could no longer gain Adventure or Practice XP without books. He would be nearly unassailable by magic and could potentially cast very powerful spells by rote as powers and probably has one or two minor focus areas where he can use spontaneous casting. Keeping in mind that all his powers need to be in keeping with his theme, I think it is fair to compare this to a particularly overspecialized magus; Say a Flambeau with Affinity and Puissant in all of CrIg and a Focus. Hitting a 50 on his lab total and casting total in his focus at CC. 55*1.5xp in 2 arts +3 each for puissant + again for a focus is 14+14+14+Int/stam 3+3 aura puts him just short (@48) on casting total and a bit over on lab total with his magic theory and specialty.

Converting a magus abilities to Qualities as best I can goes as follows.
This magus can use fatiguing spontaneous magic to cast level 25 spell fairly reliably within his focus. (Focus power 3 points)
This magus is also no slouch outside of his focus so long as Creo or Ignem is involved spontaneously speaking. (~Focus power 3 points)
This magus has 120 points in Formulaic spells these spells take a roll but no fatigue or resources otherwise. (2 Greater and 1 Lesser Powers 7 points, 4-5 Improved Powers to reduce Might cost with either some left for other things or a bit less leaving some cost. 4 points.)
Honestly the magus doesn't have much beyond this. at CC. The Creature has 55-17=38 qualities left over. The magus is never going to have the MR that the creature has and will only meet his penetration with significant sympathetic bonuses to his target or with very low level spell.

Spending everything else on Powers he could have a significant repertoire or spell effects 13 greater powers at most more likely 20 or so powers spread out over Greaters, Lessers, Rituals, Personals, and Mastery.

Disabling the Improved abilities Quality means that the creature cannot do anything without magic. He could make some of that up with absurd stats, the turn around on it is pretty bad. +3 naturally, 2 quality points to take it to +5, 3 quality points every +1 after. He could have +13 in one stat (more in strength if he were restrictively large) or every stat at +5 with 3 at +6 (almost all at 6 if you use the 17 points to have magus-like spellcasting). Which consitering it is his entire bonus is a bit better than a specced out mortal companion at one one set of things or as good as a sort of bad grog at everything, but at least he has 55 MR!

All that is pretty cool. Except it is all a saga long trap choice. As a ST you would tell the player of both of those characters to knock it off and quit hyper specializing. The Magus is far better off in this circumstance. He is level locked not quality locked on the books he can read. He could get all his other arts to 5 in 3 years given basic apprentice books. He can invent new level 25 spells in a single season or learn level 50 spells from books. He could be magically at the creature's power level in 5-10 years.

In short hyper focusing Might gets you to basically the current state of things with some issues exacerbated. But at least the player made a choice to do that rather being forced into a worse advancement situation by a chart.

The other end of the spectrum, the Creature ignores might and focuses skills. He is fundamentally a normal Mythic Companion. -1XP is probably going to pass unnoticed and he has the advantage of MR plus roughly the equivalent of a Redcap's
enchanted items. He would be much weaker than a magus just like Mythic Companions. You would be fairly efficient at using Vis to learn new powers via Transformation.

The middle range, I conveniently already did the math above. By dumping 25 points into Mightiness a creature can get roughly magus like casting (only level 15 spontaneous in a MMF but that is pretty decent from what I have seen). 45XP Puts you a bit over a magus maybe but is still pretty decently within tolerance. You would take a 3-4 XP penalty at this point, you would still be able to read from books or adventure and XP gaining virtues would basically being canceled out by your Might. You would be using Adventure more than Transformation XP to gain new Powers.

I had not done that type of analysis at the extreme end before. I think it turns out ok. If I apply age based restrictions on Mightiness (and obviously put a note banning Mightiness Affinity or Puissant) then the worst abuses should be quelled.

It's an interesting idea, but it needs some tweaking I think. As written, it wouldn't be so hard to start a companion at magus power scale (even though officially a companion) and ramp them up faster than a magus.

I see an argument for staring power scale. This is a similar problem to the RAW state of the game but that is obviously no excuse.

I don't see how they would ramp up faster. Do you have support for this? I think I covered it in my thought experiment pretty well.

I'm thinking the 2 to 1 flaw return is overkill when you are getting access to a skill that allows you to take 5 points in virtues per point. Maybe Companions get a 3 to 1 rate on Mightiness to Magic Might while Mythic Companions get a 5 to 1 as described both would have a normal V&F exchange rate.

I should probably mention another exploit. A character with a Personal Vis source would be decidedly more powerful than one without a source. I'm not sure what to do with that. It seems petty to simply disallow it for a character type. I would probably have carry an implicit story flaw since you are a creature with no rights who has something valuable to magi.

Also It wasn't there. But Gifted would not be allowed as a quality for Mythic Companions.

Why is a Mythic Companion attacking a group of magi?

I don't see where the problem arises? If they're an antagonist, then there's a story there to pursue on either side for the companion or the magi.

If they're on the same side, why are they attacking each other? That's nonsensical.

I'm getting this weird vibe that the conflict in your sagas is very internecine, between members of the Order, as opposed to outside elements...

It feels like you're trying to fix something that isn't broken.

-Ben.

They aren't, putting them on opposite sides of a theoretical conflict was simply the easiest way of demonstrating the power imbalance. As I mentioned in the OP the power differential can (some folks are fine with it I suppose) make the game less fun for players. Creature being so strong up front makes the magi seem impotent and like they are playing the game wrong since they are so blatantly outclassed by someone else who was presumably making a similarly powered character. While halting creature progression make that player feel like they made a fundamental mistake in the choices he made years of game play down the line when the magi are doing grand projects and he is stuck being the same troll he made at the beginning but with 2xp per season put into his single weapon skill.

This is the same reason so many ST's insist on very similar starting ages. I don't get anything for playing a younger mage so it feels bad to be the intentionally weaker character.

Then I'll excuse myself-- it's not an imbalance I have an issue with, and after the first couple of adventures, unless the adventure merits the power, we follow a "one to two magi per adventure" guideline; everyone else plays grogs and companions and they rotate who goes out (based on specialties and compared to what they believe the problem to be) because people want to have the laboratory time versus being in the field and risking death. (I also don't have a problem with more than 4-6xp per adventure, but I know that's not straight rules)

Good luck!

Hi,

Obviously, my starting character will take Affinity with Mightiness to make starting xp and in-game xp more useful. He'll also take Puissant Mightiness for 10 extra Might and 10 extra Qualities. He'll want to max out on starting virtues that grant extra xp, because once play begins he'll never want to do anything other than Adventure and Exposure, and apply those xp to Mightiness. There's a Jack of all Trades type virtue, and he'll want that too, but he can grab that with a Quality. We probably want to give him something lucrative to do during all those Exposure seasons, either that boost his own power or that magi are willing to pay for in vis.

He'll put 150 starting xp into Mightiness 9(11), which give him a starting Might of 55 and 55 Qualities. That's plenty to work with.

Progression? In the worst case, he never gets to adventure. That's 3xp/season toward Mightiness. In 4 years, he will get +5 Might and 5 Qualities. More reasonably, he adventures 1/year, providing 5xp-->8xp for that season. The virtue that increases xp from adventure is not that useful since, iirc, only 5xp can be applied to an Ability per adventure.

He cannot use those Qualities to gain xp, but if he doesn't want Kool Powerz he can use Qualities to:

• Raise characteristics to +5 (cheaply) and beyond (more expensive). This also boosts totals for any Ability involved. Since he is a jack of trades, that's most Abilities.
• Take Puissant Ability for as many abilities as he wants. This probably only makes sense for a few, favorite Abilities.
• Take Virtues that supplement Abilities. Good Teacher, for example, is especially useful if the character has something worth teaching.

Speaking of Kool Powerz, he might want to take the negative quality that makes him need Fatigue, and then often take the positive quality that grants more fatigue levels since, iirc, fatigue is more valuable as Might goes up. So, a Might 75 character with 3x spont power could spend 15 Might Points for a level 75 effect ... or 1 fatigue.

How long does it take him to get there? He'll need to go from 9(11) to 13(15). That's 230xp, or worst case, 19 years. That's a long time, but how many magi 19 years out of Gauntlet can put out high-level effects with that kind of Penetration, while having MR 75? He also gained 20 Qualities along the way. ~100 years past 'Gauntlet'? He's Might 130. No vis required. No adventures. His biggest problem has nothing to do with magi.

A magus will seem to advance faster because he gets more stuff faster. He also needs more stuff to do the very basics: 15 Arts, Parma and Penetration are all rolled into Mightiness. Magic Theory is stuff that the Mighty character doesn't need at all.

This guy accumulates fewer but better things... and Might stacks with itself.

Anyway,

Ken

I did think of that after the fact.

OK, now that I have a computer in front of me let me parse this, since just getting rid of the obvious things might not have solved all the issues.

11 is all your XP round to 12 for neatness you need between 3 and 8 years to get to 13.

Relatively cheap and expensive, yes. 1 quality for 1 and 2, 1 quality each for 3-5, 3 each past that. Jack of all trades would be very good in that circumstance (as it allows you to roll those skills you have no ranks in at all).

Yes, this is a sensible option.

Also sensible.

Relying on fatigue rather than Might points could be a useful counter to buying mastery for every ability. 3 points to use it as Might, 1 per extra level. You will still be gaining penalties for being fatigued but at very high might this might be a reasonable trade compared to the aura you would need to recharge your Might in less than a day. This seems fine it is a fairly reasonable trade off for a character that wants to be using magic all the time.

At 100 years he would be 800 XP up on exposure alone. 20 Mightiness ranks, 100 Might. 17 or 18 Mightiness if he invests none of his starting XP and only gets exposure. I'm not entirely sure what he is getting exposure to in order to get Transformation XP but lets assume magicey things work. Realistically he would probably get about an adventure a year or more so 300 more XP we are operating at the level that that is more or less inconsequential, two or three ranks up or down. He is certainly getting few things, not sure if they are better things. Some of them certainly are, especially at low levels, and his penetration and MR are going to be very high.

If you are not buying Powers with all of those points then I think you will quickly hit a practical cap on the number of bonuses you can get. Eventually you will end up being a magic immune whatevering machine. Going full jack of all trades route you could get 7 in every stat and 42 other virtues at Might 120.

This is good to think about, the x5 multiplier is a hold over from when i was deriving the system from Parma. it seems that should be tuned down. Even x4 puts you at a 100 Might rather than 120 after a century and only 44 with a full initial investment.

The skill hit to everything else and the excessive value of Mightiness forces all of the optimization pressure onto Mightiness. I think I need to allow for some other outlet, perhaps a Greater Quality that exempts a skill from the Might penalty by making it an Essential part of you.

As I mentioned Previously I could use the very heavy handed approach of locking it to the Human Max ability by age chart and then lock the age to the average age of the player magi like faeries do. I would rather get something stable that can guide behavior more organically.

Side Note: Discussion I had with my troupe today made me realize that the system I was relying on to prevent Might 120 creatures from staying active in the world rather than retiring to the Magic Realm or what ever simply does not function. At all.

Acclimation doesn't do anything. I probably have to rewrite that so that it actually matters. As I read it, once I am Might 51 all I have to do is bop a mage or warped human with a power once a week to stop warping? Or I would need to find a magus with enduring magic to make each of my claws glow in the dark for moon duration or some nonsense. I suppose there does become an issue of overcoming penetration but at 120 Might I suppose I can tell you my true name and help you carve a voodoo doll out of my fingernails since that level 1 glow in the dark spell is all you'll be able to hit me with anyway. To say the least I don't think anything should become easier acclimation wise with increased Might.

Ok, I slept on it. I appreciate the tear ups. Vastly more useful than nothing.

As an Ability Mightiness it too strong without an actually balancing downside. It being MR and Pen rolled into one might be too strong at a x5 multiplier. The MR is almost perfectly balanced baring four minutes each day. The Pen is pretty far out of whack compared to the Pen skill, but a lot less than it seems at first, Pen is really only relevant as a multiplier on Penetration and Magi get pen from things other than their actual Pen skill.

Adding the Qualities on top of that was where things got crazy. But that part is the least counter-intuitive part to decouple, so that is nice.

New bullet points

• Each Point in Mightiness give you 5(?) points of canon Magic Might and Might Pool
• The Magic Might gives you Magic Resistance and Penetration as Canon
• Each point of this Magic Might raises the number of magical qualities you may possess by one.
• Only Exposure, Adventure, or Transformation XP may contribute to Mightiness.
• Transformation XP may be used as normal to purchase Qualities and Inferiorities.
• Inferiorities only reduce the up front cost of Qualities, they do not increase your maximum number of Qualities.

Ok so now you need to spend 50 XP every time you increase your Mightiness score. To cap out your qualities. You could spend as few at 25 if you take an inferiority with each one. I like that they don't have a "Drop a minor Magic Inferiority" option. You can take them but you have to wait until you have enough to turn them into a quality before they go away.

I think I also need to further quantify "the troupe should agree that the change does not fundamentally conflict with its true form" I think that maybe saying a player needs to write down a scope equivalent to a Major Magical Focus and all of their abilities need to fall under that theme. It is probably more restrictive than what that clause intended and I am loathe to use the least concrete portion of the game to define something like that, but it is something people are more or less comfortable with. I would then allow a character to integrate other focus areas into their nature using the Essential Trait Virtue.

Really the goal there is giving the ST something concrete to stand on when he tells a player "No you are and Azer, you have no good reason to have a create thunderstorm ritual"

Having fewer reasons to straight rush Might may mean people stay at lower might longer and actually spend seasons learning abilities. Not sure. I think I am going to try doing a rebuild of my actual Might based character from my actual game under these rules and see how things shake out. He has 45 instances of the "Improved Abilities" Quality so I'm not expecting to like what I see. I suppose that is a good thing since I had to make a second companion because he was borkAF.

Hi,

Your proposed rules are not the problem. The base rules from RoPM are the problem. They are simply not very good. Building on a foundation of this kind is not likely to result in anything better.

The best way to create an NPC being with Might in AM is simply to give it the stuff you want it to have, ignoring Qualities entirely.

Anyway,

Ken

Hi,

But if you did want to modify the base rules for a strong PC:

• You start with Might 20 and 360xp.
• You are not subject to the usual xp reduction rules for Might or the affects of Acclimation. But you gain nothing by consuming vis.
• You can acquire whatever Qualities you like. However, you may never have the Gift; this rule is highly recommended in RoPM itself.
• Might increases like an Art, gaining one point per season. This means you will have Might 21 after 21 seasons of play. You do not gain a Quality point for this. However, you may take a -1 Might Quality at this time and balance that with a positive Quality, or save it up for a Major Quality. Changes to your effective Might through positive and negative Qualities or by playing an animal that is not Size 0 do not affect the Might score used for this calculation.

Something like this is a reasonable start.

Anyway,

Ken

Where would you have gotten that idea...

I agree some of the XP reduction needs to be taken off. Not sure I agree all of it does.
Addressing acclimation in it's current form isn't really worthy of a rule. It is trivial to circumvent by a PC.
I like the idea of consuming Vis I'm not sure that it is particularly broken, allowing the XP to be assigned to things other than transformation would work just as well as Magi studying from Vis in order to limit break their Abilities.

These are basically the rules for familiars. I would like the move to being a familiar meaningful to a Mighty character.

What does "what ever qualities you like" mean? Not bounded by Might at all (per your NPC suggestion)? Or you just get the 20 and can pick whatever? I still think +1000XP is broken any way you slice it.

This is absurdly slow. I had looked at making Might increase 1 for 1 as an Art but I would have to adjust a lot of things and the math didn't seem to really help that much over just adjusting the rate of return on an ability.

Decoupling the Might XP from normal XP is a novel idea. It would take all of that optimization pressure off of Might since it is not something you control. I don't see why you would add the part about not gaining a quality. Gaining 1 MR and Pen every 4 to 5 years is simply too trivial to justify having a mechanic. "Yay, I get to might 30 by the time the rest of my covenant dies of old age!"

Certainly some things to think about, Thank you.

Hi,

Well, you might have changed your mind.

Ah. I didn't appreciate that, and kind of thought the opposite, since a familiar is never the equal of a magus.

Not that broken, if you keep the thing from picking up Arts. Not all xp are equal.

Why? In 27.5 years, for free, the character picks up 5 Might. Meanwhile, he benefits from normal xps. How is this weak?

And 1 MP. Or, he gets a Minor Virtue. That's kind of good. So, while magi are getting Warped and picking up Twilight Flaws and suffering from Aging effects, he can get 10vp. All without wasting time on initiations.

Not half bad.

But if you want faster acceleration at the beginning, treat it as an Ability rather than an Art, and start with a base of 0. So Might = 20 + Mightiness.

First point at 5 seasons, 10th point at 275 seasons, 20th point at 1050.

Or treat it as an Art and use years. Might = 20 + Mightiness. First point at 1 year. 10th point at 55 years. 20th point at 210 years.

Basically the change to becoming a familiar would be to stop passively increasing your Might, which you would never want to do.

Granted. Plus anything a skill can do a magus can do without a check and more. I suppose if someone wants to make the Superman then there is no particular reason to stop them from just being the greatest ever at every area of mortal achievement. We don't stop magi from doing it after all.

Because all he gets is 1 rank in Parma and a not so simple calculation amount of penetration. His normal XP was being used to push the bounds on his already nearly maxed skills or diversifying other talents (not all XP are equal as you say).
Meanwhile the Magi have read every book in their Library (every art to 6 over 15 seasons, Specilties to 10 over 3 seasons each, 10/10 books are pretty garbage lets just say they have one of each and he studied all of them. 60 seasons. About 19 years so far.
He bound a familiar Gaining the complete use of a character roughly equal to your starting stats. Spent at least 4 seasons enchanting it. actually 20 years now.
Lets say he studied Parma up to your Might, He practiced and adventured say for 5xp (I allow it to count as having feed back if someone else is practicing mastery by repeat casting at the same time) gets you 14 seasons (3.5 years).
I suppose the rest he could learn and invent spells most of which would at least rival your lesser powers. If you invested heavily you might even still have more on tap powers than the magus does, good on you.
I don't imagine the magus will get up to much of anything in the next 35 years while the creature is grinding against even more insurmountable XP requirements 5 Practice XP at a time or maybe waiting 20 years to suprise him with your newly learned Greater power!

Sorry, I got a bit flippant at the end.

One of my troupe mates was retooling the Acclimation system I was thinking maybe going above and beyond on acclimation resistance would be a decent way of funneling XP towards the increasing Might. Essentially you would be less free with your activity in order to gain Might XP, as a drawback for having it at all, like Magi and the Gift.

I'm not sure how crazy I am about starting off at 20 Might, I would rather you ramp faster and start lower, magi basically start at Might 5 resistance wise.

Having the Might traded off for Qualities might be something that can be worked with. It is a bit more elegant than having dual systems and makes them co-limited.

Hi,

It doesn't have to stop the Might increase.

I suspect you are interested to support the pbp saga I just noticed. Since you already have house rules, another rule that a familiar does not become unbonded if its Might increases later solves this fine, especially since there is no canonical rule to suggest otherwise.

But it's free. (The gain in penetration is pretty simple to calculate: 1 point of Penetration Total per Might. And he gets 1 Might Point to fuel his powers.)

He bound a familiar Gaining the complete use of a character roughly equal to your starting stats. Spent at least 4 seasons enchanting it. actually 20 years now.
Lets say he studied Parma up to your Might, He practiced and adventured say for 5xp (I allow it to count as having feed back if someone else is practicing mastery by repeat casting at the same time) gets you 14 seasons (3.5 years).
I suppose the rest he could learn and invent spells most of which would at least rival your lesser powers. If you invested heavily you might even still have more on tap powers than the magus does, good on you.
I don't imagine the magus will get up to much of anything in the next 35 years while the creature is grinding against even more insurmountable XP requirements 5 Practice XP at a time or maybe waiting 20 years to suprise him with your newly learned Greater power!

Sorry, I got a bit flippant at the end.
[/quote]
No worries. Here's the thing: RoPM doesn't work. It will never give you characters that develop equal to a magus at his own thing. The creature will either be better or worse at some stage of its development. And if you do make them equal, the Mighty might become a familiar out of love but not out of gain. You suggested that you wanted this.

BTW, using the second system I proposed, I would not necessarily invest all my Qualities into xp. Powers go a long way too. Variable Power is especially useful here, and it gets better as you let Might increase.

A 5 Might being is pathetic. The comparison is not apt: Magi also get Form bonuses. They'll have Parma 2 after caring about it for 1 or 2 seasons. They can fast-cast a defense. They have much better penetration. And 5 Qualities is utterly suckful, especially compared to 120 or more spell levels plus spontaneous magic, all of which increases very quickly at the beginning.

IIRC, the core rules also suggest that a Might 20 being is a challenge for a starting magus. I don't think that's quite true; I think the magus usually has the advantage; but it's close enough that it's a good enough start.

Having one system tends to be around twice as elegant as having two! (Unless the second system exists to circumvent some other, inelegant system... and there are other exceptions.)

Anyway,

Ken

Granted.

It's free, it just doesn't make up for not being a magus.

My point was that pen on your abilities is some smaller number of actual Pen skill. The pen skill is a multiplier that is basically always being used if you need any points at all. So the 1 Might is really closer to having a 1 higher casting total. In addition to the MR obviously.

It is flawed. I considered a different approach where I used Redcaps with their Magic items as powers and Might working like Parma. Theoretically those Mythic companions are also equivalent to Magi. They aren't but it would be a more direct equivalency.

I don't much care why they do it just that it could happen on a regular basis. I do think the creature should have a real incentive to participate in the bond. I suppose most familiars are unintelligent so perhaps just do it out of love. Maybe PC creatures are more cognizant of the way their Might increases, similar to faeries.

To use my own words the starting spells and spontaneous casting is roughly equal to 17 qualities. Rounding to 20 would be reasonable as a starting point.

Yes. The ideal is to have everything work out with only one single statement that is flawlessly understood. I should have rolled a Criamon after college instead of Engineer so I could figure out what that perfect statement.

Hi,

The character will either be too good or not good enough, no matter what your rules are. Pick one.

And also 1mp.

I don't think they compare well.

OTOH, I think you have a pretty good idea of what you want. Hope your saga goes well.

Anyway,

Ken

I could only skim the discussion - but there might be a quite straightforward way to modify the idea of a familiar to make it work for your Mighty character.

I posit for your saga, that a Guernicus or Flambeau has achieved in the 10th century or so a Breakthrough, namely a way to bond unGifted beings with Magic Might to the Order of Hermes in toto instead of to a single magus.
Such a being might get the title Sworn Companion or Fighting Companion in the Order, has sworn a specific oath derived from the Oath of Hermes, and undergone a bonding ritual like the one of ArM5 p.104f Enchanting a Familiar. This gives it the ArM5 p.105 learning benefit of a familiar: "can learn Abilities in the same way as humans", its Might notwithstanding.
The being can use the Golden, Silver and Bronze cord benefits on the single Hermetic magus it last studied with, so there is a certain motivation for magi to strengthen the being's bond to the Order over time. And as its bond to the Order gets stronger, the being can also increase its Might by RoP:M p.52 Transformation up to the new bond strength it achieved. The bond protects the being from RoP:M p.52f Acclimation. If convicted of heinous crimes sufficient to expel it from the Order, its bond to the Order can be severed like the familiar bond with HoH:TL p.75 Cutting the Cords and the being marched.

Does that help? And can you sell it on your troupe?

Cheers