A character concept: weak magus

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

If I were you I would concentrate more what kind of guy I want to play instead of what I don't want. Because of the story potential, you know. :wink:

If your magus is so weak how he passed the gauntlet?

What will be the concept of this character?
I suppose you don't want to support the players with his abilities.
But.
Having weak magic he may get some special abilities. He may be:
-warrior
-scholar
-theoretical magus: very high MT but penalties on lab work and good writer
-famous illustrator
-focus in destilling vis
-focus in creating precisious metal or gemstones.
-focus in detect magic
-parma master (affinity+puissant)
-if you want a funny focus you may read the ideas the rulebook gives. affecting living trees or fishes would be really exotic ones. :smiley:
-or simply a verditius magus with big casting tools.

If you want an inferior magus some of them may not be suitable.
Why would the player magi let him to join? OK, you are the alpha SG, anything else?
Creating a weak magus I would give him only a few hermetic virtues if any.

22

Somewhat building on that, something we have used is a basic rule that no labwork can be done without spending Vis, otherwise whats all the lab equipment for, not like most deal with regular alchemy to create spells etc.
So for every 50 levels of effects or spells or whatever, 1 vis is used up, if using Vim vis instead of proper Te/Fo its twice that.
Using less gets a penalty, using more gives a bonus.

23

He is weak, not useless :wink: The concept is that of a fighter. Not necessarily a warrior but a fighter: he refuses to lose no mater what. This is why I will make him a tytalus, and why he will have a driving goal to prove that he is at least as good as every other magus of the OoH. The easy alternative in his stead would be to simply get along and accept the scraps that the more able mages allow him to collect; he would still be way better off than your average noble after all :slight_smile:

A gauntlet does not need to imply sponting 8th magnitude spells without fatigue; there are a number of things that do not even require the use of magic. :slight_smile: As long as you are "competent" with whatever your peers consider appropriate, you can be a hermetic magus; tha6t generally implies competence with hermetic magic, but there are more things than that in being a hermetic magus.

Rules wise a 4th edition natural magician (Raqi version) can end up being quite powerful, but he will always be overclassed by an hermetic of his age. That is what I intended him to be :slight_smile: In practical terms he is like a (weak) ceremonial magic generalist.

This will be a solo game at the start, so no worry about other players. Later they might join, but right now we are getting into (well, returning to) miniatures historical wargaming instead of RPGs, so they are taking a break from ars for a while.

Cheers,

Xavi

24

Another idea is to require specific Shape & Material bonuses to Ceremonial Casting and/or Rituals. While the bonus stays as per the rules, you require appropriate S&M [what a silly acronym...] to produce the effect. This fits with the description of using ceremonial casting in HoHS, and adds more color to the practice of magic.

I also like low Art scores and how they make sundry colorful bonuses - anything from Potent Magic to burning raw vis - desirable.

25

What is the difference?

26

Well, may be your weak magus needs to raise his art scores like an ability. This will garantee low level spell for an entire saga.
Maybe this is a flaw worth 6-9points. I know that in 5th edition there are only minor and major flaws but this is more crippling than any other flaw so may be there is am exeption to this rule.

27

A warrior is oriented to physical combat. A fighter can battle in any arena. You can be political fighter as a concept :slight_smile: Tha tis the concept I was trying to use here, in any case.

Vetrenius' idea is a good one. Will have to look into it.

Cheers,

Xavi

28

Well PC magi are strong because well, players tend to gravitate towards making characters that are powerful in one field or another but this is usually because of taking the "proper virtues". You aren't obligated to take Virtues and Flaws up to the maximum so that's one way of making a "weak character".

Something else to consider is that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Now of course, most apprentices aren't the children of magi but the parens plays a very big role in their development. The weak parens flaw makes sense for a weak magus. Otherwise, the fualt might be on the magi himself and just have him take flaws that reduce his study totals.

29

That is the idea: that he is not as good because his Gift or his ability to use hermetic magic is not as good. More than a faulty training, it is a faulty gift/capability for hermetic praxis.

The more I think about it, the more I like the Art evolution as regular abilities. :slight_smile: If I do that a natural magician can end easily being better than him, though, so that might be a little bit too crippling.

Cheers,

Xavi

30

I do agree that that sounds closer to your original concept. You might want to consider making it either just his Techniques or his Forms which suffer like that however, or he'll be very, very weak indeed. Limiting the Forms would also greatly reduce his magic resistance, which may or may not be desirable.

31

My limited experience with that option leads me to think that the magus will be far weaker than regular magi of comparable age, but still very strong in-setting. In the session I've just run, for example, a newly-created magus of age 37 is wielding a kill-in-one-spell (PeCo, Clench the Heart) and just penetrated through a Might 30 fearie lord, to suffocate him (Grip of the Choking Hand). So he'll be weaker in comparison with other magi, but could still do pretty much anything to mundanes and deal with fairly powreful faeries and other opponents of considerable Might. (Your character isn't as min-maxed so could reach lower, of course, but I think he would still be pretty mighty in-setting, so be warned. The Arts as Abilities roughly half his Arts, which is not at all like halving his Totals.

32

Divide by 2.25 or slightly more to get a closer estimate(2.5 at both art 20/ability 8 and art 10/ability 4 for example).

33

@Yair: did you decrease both techs and forms, or just forms? May I get the numbers you are running there? :slight_smile:

What you describe sounds quite in line with what I intend, but I will have to play around with the idea some more to get the concept up and running. However, your "takes a might 30 fae and beats the crap out of it" worries me somewhat. You went for a PeCo specialization for the looks of the spells you selected to show the potential (so an animal or Terram faerie would laugh at you) but it sounds more powerful than what I intend here. Being able to deal with a pair of the fae prince brutes' is perfectly fine, kicking the ass of the fae prince.... well, not so nice, I guess. Or maybe I need to review my concept a little bit and allow for this more powerful dude.

Maybe the original idea of just going "4th ed natural magician with some formulaics" would be better then. At least the penetration totals shouldn't be as high! In fact he is a total generalist, since he uses the same formula/abilities for all the TeFo combos, but you do not develop as high.

Thanks!

Cheers,

Xavi

34

OK, here come the numbers I am thinking of running.

It is a mix between Natural Magician and hermetic magus approaches.

The basic abilities to consider are

  • Magic theory
  • Alchemy
  • Philosophiae
  • The 5 Art techniques (creo, intellego, muto, perdo, rego)

I am unsure on where to add artes liberales, if at all.

Starting abilities and XP: Like a hermetic magus in XP BUT

  • Can only put XP in Techniques, not forms; in fact forms are not available: they will be 0 throughout the life of the magus.
  • Only 75 spell levels

SPELLS
Access to 5 Techniques, but not forms. The 5 techniques (cr, int, mu, pe, re) are NOT accelerated abilities but normal ones.

3 kinds of spellcraft abilities
• Ceremonial (spellcraft) --> Int+ Phil + Magic Theory + Art + F&E bonuses
15 minutes per magnitude. NO division of total
Can achieve impressive effects, but is SLOW AS HELL. This is the main boost over usual hermetic magic, but also a fairly large problematic effect, sinc eit requires almost ritual approaches to problems.

• Formulaics (Nairanjs): Sta + Phil + Art
Low casting totals in general, which implies low penetration as well

• Sponts --> Sta + Phil + Art
1 round for magnitude.
Always divide by 2
Can cast sponts, but above level 5 the effect takes a while to cast, and the power level will be low, given the fact that abilities are not accelerated.

LABORATORY

Potions (Alch + MT + Art)
Int + Alchemy + MT + alchemical bonus + aura
+5 poisons, +4 antidotes, +3 healing & health, +2 transformations
1 season to brew

Longevity Potions (Alch + MT + Creo)
TOTAL= Int + Alchemy + MT + 3 (alchemical bonus health) + aura +1 per pawn of vis
-1 to aging for 5 levels
-1 to aging for 10 levels if brewing for others

[b]Medicine /b
If access to lab, can add his Alchemy score +3 (bonus for health) to Medicine rolls
Producing the medicines takes several hours.

Transformations (Alch + MT + Muto)
Transform materials into materials of virtue as per Hedge magic (ArM4).
Both plants and stones can be transformed.
1 season
1 pawn of vis necessary. Any art is OK
TOTAL= Int + Alchemy + Magic Theory + alchemical bonus + Muto + aura
If total 15+, successful. For every full 5 levels over 15 (20, 25, 30...) an additional piece produced
I find this to be an extremely cool effect of the 4th edition Natural Magicians :slight_smile:

Enchanted Items (Alch + Phil + MT + Art)
Can only be lesser enchanted items, not major ones (so lab total must be double level effect)
MUST be constant use. The +5 levels for constant use (+6 levels in ArM5) are not counted.
TOTAL= Int + Alchemy + Philosophiae + magic Theory + Form & Effect bonuses + aura +5 per extra pawn
Max vis used in item = Philosophiae + Alchemy
Can use any vis type to boost lab total
Magic Resistance Items: every 5 levels, +5 MR
I am not sure he should be that limited in the items he can create, but not turning this character into a quasi-verditius would be better.

Art & spell Improvement
Improve Arts like a hermetic magus

The final result is a mage that is quite weak against supernatural beings, and that has to deal with a lot of situations using alternatives to flashy sudden magic. his magic takes time to cast and is low level for the fast stuff. The slow casting can be quite powerful, though: he can potentially cast teleport spells but will need 1 or 2 hours to do so. He will also be extremely low in penetration, so cannot trust himself to kill archangel Michael or the Wyrm of the Pyrenees (something some of my PCs in other sagas would have no major problems in achieving). The slow ceremonial casting can get higher penetration totals (higher casting totals)

He can also achieve some good effects in the lab, but nothing better than your average hermetic, and lower when it comes to items (unsure about that.

Without running the exact numbers, it seems like an interesting dude to play :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

35

I don't think it's relevant at this point, as you seem to have abandoned the idea, but I'm applying to to all Arts, both Tech and Form. The character is question was very min-maxed, with a combo based on Life-Boosted Magic and Withstand Magic, and lots of virtues supporting his extreme specialization in Corpus. I doubt most magi under my method will reach such heights of spell-casting and Penetration in comparable time.

Cheers,
Yair

36

Well, the idea is there, just that even more extreme somehow :wink: Only normal progression for the 5 techniques. Forms will be 0 throughout his life.

Thanks for the clarification :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

37

:question:

The latter seems to say you´re using the XP cost for Abilities, while the former suggest you´re using normal Arts XP cost??

38

The later is the correct one: not accelerated. The first statement was there only to say that Forms will never get any XP

Xavi

39

This weekend I got hold of hedge magic. perusing through it to see if one of the concepts fits my bill (probably not completely) or raiding it for ideas if not. :slight_smile: A great book so far for what I have read.

Cheers,

Xavi