There are a number of Minor General Virtues that add a +03 bonus.
Enduring Constitution , Keen Vision , Long-Winded , Perfect Balance (+06) , Rapid Convalesence , Sharp Ears , Tough
and Keen Sense of Smell (page 37 , Mystery Cults) for example.
As these are a natural bonus they should be able to be given permanently by using a ritual spell.
Same as characteristics can be increased starting at Base 35 in the Creo Guidelines.
Would they follow the same guidelines as characteristics?
There are no +01 or +02 versions and are far more limited in use during play.
Though using Base 35 seems reasonable (to me anyway) , but no increase in level as they are minor virtues.
As you can already give a Recovery roll bonus from +01 to +18 for up to a year
a permanent +03 bonus appears not too game unbalancing , considering vis cost. Rapid Convalescence (page 48 , ArM05) already exists after all.
If a Recovery roll bonus was unnatural it would be in Muto.
So a permanent +18 bonus could be possible.
All comments are welcome and non-Ritual Food and Drink will be provided to all visitors. :mrgreen:
Why bother to have it as a ritual effect, when you can make an item that does gives the same (or better) bonus?
The item would be cheaper (level 9 - costing 1 pawn of vis), and could be taken off to prevent further warping when you are not in danger of being hurt...
Also, granting virtues tend to be muto magic, for the few virtues that can be granted - and subject to the normal limits of muto. (since you used the tough virtue as an example, that is similar to a MuCo spell). Granting a virtue permanently through magic is outside hermetic limits, and would come as part of a mystery. (IIRC Rapid recovery is mentioned as an example of hopite initiation).
If the point is to create a momentary effect, this is alike to granting a virtue. As an alternative, you could enhance the stamina through momentary magic - that is in the rules, but is pretty expensive...
Probably a bit higher guidelines i think, as the bonuses are pretty big.
Warping would be my answer why. Its a powerful effect.
But these virtues are not unnatural. They are natural improvements. Forcing them to be Muto would be extremely odd and totally break the logic of Creo vs Muto that remains.
It's as logical as the attribute boosting Creo spells.
In either case though, I'd treat them as continuing magical effects that cause warping, to preserve some measure of balance and prevent creation of superheroes.
That is not necessary.
There are at least 8 rituals needed - one for each characteristic, All are high-level, and even a specialist needs high Cr, Co, and Me to invent them (3 seasons each being optimistic). They must be mastered before casting (another 8 seasons), because casting a ritual worth 10 pawns of vis repeatedly is simply stupid (one botch die for each pawn).
The vis cost for raising 8 stats from +1 to +5 (which requires a personalized lvl 55 ritual (or lvl 60 touch if performable for others) is 8x4x11=354pawns of Vis of the right kind (or 386p if performed for others).
Finally, unless the ritual is custom-made for the recipient, it is a high-level effect, causing one warping point per performance (or 32 warping points in the example from above).
So increasing all characteristics from +1 to +5 takes a highly specialised powerful magus spending about 8 years in research and spending 3,5 queens of vis.
This makes increasing all stats too expensive - there may be some Intelligence only boosting though.
Yup, definetly not cheap nor easy. No need to make it even worse. Even though i´ve played mostly in relatively high-XP games, its very rare that anyone maxes out more than a single stat or raises 2 or 3 a few points(not seldomly stats that started with negative numbers to get rid of the penalties).
Actually, based on my experience, it tends to differ heavily what stats gets raised. Sta and Com are also very popular, with Qik, Str and Per fairly common for brawler magis. And Pre for politicals. Dex is the only that tends to be really less common.
That would just be mean. And completely unnecessary.
Creo is an direct improvement of what is - that would be healing or improving the characteristics. The bonuses to soak/smell/recovery would not be just a better human, it would be something different. Just because something is available as a virtue doesn't mean it is natural for a human to have it - othervise faerie blood would be in the same category.
Faerie blood is not classed as a General Virtue , it is Supernatural.
I don't quite get the argument about bonuses to soak/smell/recovery
if able to be given by creo magics , making someone different to a human.
Huh? So you´re claiming that regular people with unusually good eyesight, hearing or sense of smell doesnt exist?
Or that, contrary to the complete lack of statements in that direction, any such advantage MUST be unnatural and beyond whats possible for a human?
Sorry but thats complete rubbish.
Just because a persons eyesight or hearing doesnt have a specific stat assigned to give it a numerical representation doesnt mean what the virtues are doing is anything different from "raising the characteristics".
Or are you also claiming that there are no differences between people in how good hearing or eyesight etc they have? Just because its generally not included doesnt mean improving them makes a person non-human.
Or would you claim that "Poor eyesight" makes a person "something different" as well?
Faerie blood isnt human variation, "Sharp ears" / "Poor Hearing" etc is.
It's not that good eyesight or exceptional intelligence is unnatural for humans in general. It's the creation of said traits with Creo magic that's unnatural when applied to a specific person. That extra spark of genius inside the person who's had his Int raised is a very strange and unnatural addition to his psyche.
It's not as if it's impossibly hard by RAW to raise traits. Not too long ago we had a long discussion about raising Com to produce better texts and most people agreed that you could easily earn back the Vis expended. Being superhuman can pay for itself.
My argument wasn't that it was unatural for humans to see well - just that the natural improvement would affect the entire characteristic. My point with the faerie blood was that, just because something is available as a virtue, doesn't mean that it is a natural thing for a human to have. It is rather a variation of the human nature.
Increasing characteristics (adding to percetion giving better sight/hearing, better stamina giving better soak/recovery) is natural, but variations of these are more tricky. This becomes espesially important as these bonuses are harder and harder to get the closer to the limit you get - and there is a limit. beyond +5 is not a natural human characteristic - so if you have +6 to recovery (bonus+stamina), then you have passed the natural limits.
Recovery covers Wounds and Fatigue , two separate rolls.
Wound Recovery has a stress die , and as such , no natural limit.
Stamina can start at 05 (max human limit) without magical increases required.
+03 from Rapid Convalescence would give +08.
Essential Virtue (page 43 , RoP:M) MInor or Major , General
Can add +03 or +06 which "positively affects rolls associated with a particular Characteristic in certain situations."
So it might be possible to get as high as +14 without magical aid.
Except that you´re making flawed assumptions. There´s no reason for a raise in Perception equalling improved vision or hearing. Soak/recovery is affected by stamina but its not the same, better soak doesnt equate better stamina. Better hearing doesnt equate better perception, but its likely to help whenver hearing is part of it.
Why would it? Thats a nonsensical assumption. It obviously does NOT.
So the skill Awareness cant exist then? Or Charm, or Athletics... etc etc, because they all help to pass those natural limits in a very direct way.
At the same time, you´re saying that having excellent eyesight should give a bonus to hearing. Great.
Jabir, thats completely illogical unless you also make raising of characteristic into Muto.
And why is it unnatural? You´re not making any sense.
Then what does a raised Perception score mean if it's not improved sense acuity? If it's just some unspecified mystical "I preceive things better because I had this ritual cast on me" then it's even more unnatural than improved hearing or sight.
I'm talking about Creo to increase intelligence. What's being Creo-ed? Obviously something is being added (by creation) to the target's brain, or mentality, however you want to define intelligence in paradigm. You're not Muto-ing existing intelligence and you're not Rego-ing the neurons to fire more efficiently (it such a thing were possible in paradigm). You're adding something new and alien to the person, almost as if it were a mystical brain implant. I call that extremely unnatural.
For what it is worth ArM5 says that "Perception quantifies the ability to notice things, as well as powers of intuition." So while, you could argue that improving the senses is a way to improve perception, it is not necessarily the only way. For example, to notice that a Lab Text purportedly written by Bonisagus is inconsistent with his other writings is clearly a Perception job, but it is not really related to how well the character can see. It is related to the (possibly intuitive) identification of abstract things like writing styles, etc, so in that case Perception could be construed as being something about pattern recognition. It's not only about what you see, it is also about the meaning you give to what you see (and maybe the speed at which you give the "correct" meaning to things).
In character, and in paradigm, it seems perfectly reasonable for characters to say that "Thomas the monk, is naturally more intelligent than Frederick the peasant". It seems entirely unproblematic for an in-character and in-paradigm CrMe effect to add something to Frederick's mind to make Frederick more intelligent, like Thomas is. The very metaphor that the characters use to talk about intelligence "Thomas is more intelligent than Frederick" indicates that it is plausible for effects to add (or reduce) intelligence.
The fact, that you (a player) does not understand the details of how Creo Mentem works to achieve this, is only indicative of the fact that you do not know Creo Mentem. In character, the characters are perfectly capable of understanding how Creo Mentem works (or at least the magi are).
If you're saying "There's no need to explain the details of the increased intelligence or perception, it's magic!" then I'm with you. When playing a game about wizards that's a much better approach that trying to be overly scientific.
If on there other hand, what's being said is "There's no need to explain the details, but it's not magic, it's something entirely natural" then I think it's worth explaining what this natural process is.
The result "a more intelligent character" is natural, as it is natural in-character for people to be more or less intelligent. In character, the characters may think they have a natural/supernatural explanation as to why some characters are more intelligent than others...the explanation might involve parentage, nationality, piety, humors, education and / or diet. Whether this "natural" explanation is partially or totally correct (or not) doesn't really matter.
The process of making somebody more intelligent using Hermetic magic is supernatural, and is understandable to magi characters, but not to us players (nor to many others in-character).
