A new thought re: requisites

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

I'm intrigued what you mean by these examples, Lucius.

No more travels

I guess I can understand but only if he had arcane connections to every place he wished to travel instantly, otherwise he'd have to first actually sacrifice the seasons to go such places and get the necessary connection (rock, stick, device whatever) then bring it back home, then spend a season fixing it in his lab.

As you can see, unless the magus intended to sacrifice about 5-10 years of saga time (troupe permitting as well) just to wander around to places he "might" want to be able to teleport to at some future point, I think this is easily kept within balance.

Extreme combat power

In what way? LoH is a transport spell for the magus him/herself, not a combat spell and not a spell that would allow for an X-men "Nightcrawler" type popping in and out around an opponent.

Please do enlighten us how your player figured he could use the spell offensively.

More seasons

In a limited number of cases as mitigated by simply limiting the number of places he/she can teleport to (as per my response to your first point), sure. But then, in those instances where it is a valid means of getting there, why not save the time to apply to other tasks?

No need for supplies

Can't see this aspect either really. So your player thinks he can zip across Europe and others are just going to provide for his every need?? LoH doesn't preclude the possibility that you might be left stranded somewhere waiting for people to get back to welcome you in. Being without supplies is simply an open invitation for the prudent SG to teach silly players a valuable lesson in common sense.

Let's also not forget that LoH even if claimed to be used to pop between covenants would still have to take into consideration:

  1. The leaping magus was indeed welcome anytime he/she wished to just turn up (not likely for most covenants).

  2. The fact that whether or not one was generally welcome at another covenant, the nature of Aegis of the Hearth demands that a visiting magus have a token every time they visit otherwise the spell would just fizzle against the target covenant's Aegis and either essentially fail from the moment of casting or leave the magus flat on his/her butt outside the target location (god help the magus if his destination was situated on the top of a steep mountain cliff) lol.

No need for a base

So, your player also thinks that the acquisition of one convenient transport spell equates to no longer needing a home covenant or home lab? To my mind, another open invitation for the discerning SG to teach the player another lesson in common sense...

SG: "Fine Joe, so what do you do this season?"
Joe: ooh I want to create that next cool rego spell Ive been thinking about
SG: Ah, so where precisely do you plan to conduct this research since you no longer have a lab or a lab total lol.

Basically I see no reason why one spell should have unbalanced your saga so long as you play out the consequences of such ridiculous abuses of it.

22

No more travels: he have arcane connectiosn to grogs who travel with the other mages and he pays the redcaps to bring him stones from citys all over europe so arcane connections aren't hard to get.

Extreme combat power: With his fast-casting ability he can evade nearly every attak made against him easily, he can move fast to every good position for him and bad for hos opponent. This might be not so good against mages, but against humans or beasts its awful strong.

More Seasons: In the last two inagme years all the other mages spend 6 of their seasons by simply traveling from germany to spain and after this to egypt. He simply waitet in his lab for the others to arrive, teleported to some grog, made the adventure, teleportet back and made his 6 additional seasons compared to the other pissed mages.

No need for suplies: he can simply teleport to teh covennat bringing small amounts of food, vis, items ect with him... ok this are only small amounts, but enoght in most cases.
And if he wants to teleport to anothr covenant he simply take a piece of something around the aegis... a simple branch from a tree (which is a body part in my opinion) should last for decades.

No base: in some seasons the players covenant will board a flying ship with some older mages to make an expedition to iceland. While the oter mages have to spend 2 seasosn to build a lab on the ship and use this, the lucky teleport mage can simply hop to his own, far better lab.

23

I trhink you are under-powering the rest of the magi, or overpowering the spell. or both. it is a nice spell, but no0t THAT powerful.

I am still puzzled about the combat thingy. Could you expand on how he makes the "nightcrawler humping" around?

As any wicked enough SG can tell you (and there are quite a few around, for sure) abuse tends to be screwed. Grogs that you want to use happen to be in the bottom of a lake when you teleport (does the magus has any way to know where the party is at any given time?) or he might appear at the wrong spot at the wrong moment ("No Mr crusader army with divine might, we are not sorcerors" "KABOOM RegoMage!!" in front of you...), the treee might have burned and you teleport into twilight, .... etc etc.

Also, if he cannot talk with the party, keep the player out of the session while the other players roleplay. Or run a personal 10 minute session with him alone in the covenant while the other playuers travel, asking him when he will be teleporting with the party. That way you can prevent this "let's see if there is combat in 10 seconds time" abuse.

Just some random thoughts :slight_smile:

Xavi

24

After every thing you say already happened (:D) the chars have found many ways to circumvent these. And the time the magus isnt there the player has still his companion/familiar/grogs ect at the scene.

The nightcrawler-thing: I wouldnt allow a use of the teleport power in this way, this would be too dragonball/naruto/anime-style for me. Now with such a spell hmm say a dragon attaks him with his breath or a horde of enemy come to him or a tree is falling on him: he can teleport somewere else he can look at and from this point he can make sight spells or turn him invisible, activate his wards, call for his guards or teleport behind his grogs ect. Thios give him such a stratgic advance in combat situations that nearly no one will ever harm him again if he doesnt attac from behind or with other sneaky attaks.
Combat power isnt just an attak spell... you also need a horse, an armor, a shield an a helmet, not only your sword. :wink:

25

Indeed Xavi.

Lucius, I think you really need to develop a slightly more cynical approach to GMing. What you have explained in each instance is easily solvable with a valuable life lesson to the magus in question.

As for the reference to teleporting to other covenants a couple points:

  1. As stated before, if such a magus thinks he can turn up unannounced he not only risks earning the censure of the covenant who's hospitality he is severely abusing, but also risks giving a bad name to all of his own sodales should they at any point wish to visit that covenant. This makes for a perfectly justifiable application of peer pressure to demand he cease and desist.

  2. The duration of viability for differing types of arcane connections is quite firmly established on page 84 of the core rules.

a wood shard (or tree limb as it were) would last months, not years.

That said, there is also the follow on consideration from #1 that the land around a covenant would, in the eyes of that covenant, be deemed their land. As such, I can imagine a rather nasty response to any magus seen gathering potential arcane connections to the place.

I think you need to simply do as Xavi suggested and consider the nature and intent of the LoH spell itself and simply rule against its use for any other purpose than that for it was designed.

After all, this is Ars Magica, not D&D :stuck_out_tongue:

26

As I said: he isnt used for teleporting to other covenant he doesnt know. :wink:

And I am no funny Gm: he and the other teleport mage often fell into mud/sharp things, sometimes the attaked party cant cocntact him, some people dont like tis and had already certamen him for his AC... but even with these problems the spell can be used to good and removes to much flair from the game, because for me a magus should travel with his covenent, his group and there should be no beam technology make the great distances in the dark ages to some happy place with airplanes and autobahnen.

Edit: I disagree: a small shard isnt a whole branch which should counted as a body part.

27

The core rules state that arcane connections might or might not last from one end of Mystic Europe to the other. So one could restrict the reach of LoH without breaking the rules…
Any SG who is really pissed off could ask for a roll on Finesse. Making it a stress roll would severely reduce the use of LoH to a last resort. Anyway, some teleportation spells like seven league stride do require a stress die on Finesse. Why not LoH as well?

28

He is going to spend a lot of seasons fixing ACs I understand...

He is also going to be botching a lot...

You do remember that you get 2 additional botch die with fastcasting, right? And in foreign auras?

So, he refused to help protect the caravan?

Why didn't the other magi just send the selected grog on a trip to the holy land to get some valuable inks...

This means about 2 teleports each day (one each way), and doesn't he ever botch?

This is actually one of the better uses for this spell...

In most cases I would think the other magi would require that he'd be present to help guard the ship... However, I could also see him being used as a guard for the home covenant... (And if our covenant is anything to go by, that would mean he'd have a lot of disturbances from his labwork).

Finally: The spell never allows you to cross regio bounderies....

29

LoH does NOT allow free teleporting. You NEED an arcanne connection to the place. So you cannot teleport behind your grogs unless you have an AC to your grog's back (and then you would land ON your grog) or "somewhere he can see" since he has no AC to that place. He can teleport back to places where he has AC, but not hop around freely

Xavi

30

No, with LoH he can specifically teleport to any place he has an arcane connection. That is a one time teleport. It does not mean he can "nightcrawler" around that area repeatedly.

If he wants to nip around as you suggest then he would need to invent another spell at sight range for use in one immediate area. I would likely however temper such potentially ridiculous usages by saying that it does not follow normal hermetic understandings of magic and therefore incurs a fatigue level with every casting (even as a formulaic spell). Too much usage at one time and he'll exhaust himself (or worse, starts taking wounds).

31

No he simply get new ones every 10 years. :wink: Ok this costs him some silver, but for the mundane rich covnant this is less than nothing.

As I said: he mastered thsi spell twice and his familiar cord rmeoves 3 botch dices so in almost every circumstance he roll zero botch dice. :frowning:

I dont understand the second thing, but the first one pissed the other magi... oh yeah but because of this everyone planed to get their hand on this spell... and everyone could have learned it easily... :frowning:

Since when is a formulaic spell a stress die when you arent in combat or some other stressful situation? I cant imagine sitting in a great chair to be soooo stressful. :wink:

Oh they required that for him, but because they need him he could circumvent this... but thnaks to the new book he have to build his lab on the ship.
And for guarding the covenant... well some friendly archmage decided to do this after some presents he got from the players.

I also ruled that... but it isnt in the RAW I think.

32

Oh well we ruled that because every other spell let you teleport to a place you can see OR have an arcane connection this spell also should be capable of doing this.
And he have to make finesse rolls every time, I dont forget that nasty rule. fg

In addition we also ruled that this spell used to often (like every formulaic spell used to often) creates long-term fatigue (with this rule our necromancer cant create an army of hundrets of thousands skeletons armed and ready within a few hours only with multi-casting-mastered group size spells).
But every use of this spell? This would be too harsh.

But I think some of you missed the point: this spell is very balanced if you need reqs for clothing and items because in this cases it is only a spell for old mages and the many loopholes cant be used. It is more than a rescue spell that teleports the magus back in saftey, leaving alone his clothes, talisman, vis ect.

33

Lucius, i think you misunderstand the concept of arcane connections. Even if he does "buy" items from a given area he wishes to teleport to, they are not "automatically" usuable as arcane connections unless they are "fixed" as such in the lab with the corresponding sacrifice of a season.

I think the earlier suggestion for making him roll finesse for every teleport might be a way to introduce some potential negative effects. Otherwise just escalate possible dangers at the locations to which he teleports.

Example: "you teleport to the wooded glade right into the middle of a viper pit and are bitten 25 times. You are now incapacitated and will die in 2 rounds without immediately help." Oops, youre all by yourself, oh well!

34

Ähm no?
An arcane connection is usable in the first moment, only if you want to make it permanent you have to spend a season.
And a redcap should be know enough of magic theory to take the best items as an arcane connection.

Yes did did happen oce... after this he learned a propper InIm spell or only teleports in after the Mentem expert contacts him directly or trough a grog. Since then there werent any problems finding a safe landing zone for him.

35

Leap of Hopmecoming does NOT auomatically come with thwe bit that says you can use it at Sight range as well. You introduced an element that might lend to its abuse, as you are proving yourself.

That is perfect for me if your troop aproves of this use, but if tyou think it takes some fun oput of the game, go and remove the spell from the player's grimmore. We have done that (with my Intellego Mentem magus, specifically) and it was no THAT difficult. It made the game much more enjoyable when my magus did not step up, read some minds and unravel the whole twisted plot of the adventure in 10 seconds. It made for a much better saga, som we agreed to remove stuff that was explicitly allowed in the rules.

Your use of Sight range for LOH is not even explictly stated in the rules, and goes against the spirit of the spell. OK if your troupe enjoys it, but it is not kosher. :slight_smile:

Xavi

36

Well with the new, official rules all is fine and besindes this: the main problems with this spell didnt come from the sight range... it was the arcane connection stuff.

37

What new official rules?

38

I love this one :smiling_imp:

Well... There's the aforementioned spell in HoH: Societates... But he'd still requisites if he doesn't want to teleport naked.

39

Depending on whether you:

a). allow your players to read through other books or request that they refrain for the sake of munchkin avoidance and/or

b). decide to use or not to use certain aspects, details, spells, etc. from certain of the expansion texts

Such "but's" could be avoided in favour of such a ruling as I would make to temper the "nightcrawler" abuse of teleportation.

Its all down to a subjective value judgement on the part of the SG, imo.

40

I don't see frequent teleportation as an exploit. The risk of botch is an obvious limitation. Where do you end up if you botch a teleport? That's reason enough not to teleport frivolously.

It's also a really good idea to check ahead with Summoning the Distant Image or similar magic, to avoid the pit-of-vipers problem. Don't have enough Intellego Imaginem? Better hope your Intellego specialist sodalis is trustworthy enough to honestly report what's there.

Additionally, one can only teleport to a place where one has found an arcane connection. With careful selection of the arcane connection item, fixing isn't necessary -- just choose an item that's good for a long time by its nature. A cobblestone that's been in an alley for fifty years, pried out from between the other cobbles, is likely good for another fifty years unless someone bothers to replace the missing stone. Then if it hasn't been fixed, it loses its value as an arcane connection.

What happens if one teleports using a broken arcane connection, like the cobblestone that's been replaced? As long as the magus doesn't botch, I'd say that the teleport takes the magus to the lab cabinet where it's been stored since being collected, or maybe onto the back of the grog who carries the magus's arcane connection collection.

What if the magus can't find a fifty-year-old cobblestone? Maybe the best they can do is an inconspicuous brick from the back wall of a year-old tavern. In that case, it's likely to fade after a year so. If it's a place worth revisiting, that might not be a problem -- revisit it within a year and look for a better arcane connection before leaving.

The storytelling problems of teleportation are a bother just like any reason for a gaming party split. That's not a reason to penalize teleportation through game mechanics any more than one has reason to penalize an Inoffensive to Animals magus for riding ahead of the other magi to some point out of sight.

If the magi in a covenant are cooperative by temperament, a solution to the party split is for the Rego Corpus specialist to develop a souped-up teleportation spell that can transport others, possibly even a group. Subject to a pledge before using it along the lines, "Under penalty of the Code of Hermes, I pledge that I am using this spell only according to your specific request," and then the soldalis could lower Parma Magica for the spell. Particularly distrustful magi might refuse even with such a pledge, but non-cooperation within a gaming party is its own gaming complication, likely more troublesome than party splitting.

As for tactical teleportation, I agree that it's not usable with an arcane connection range spell -- unless the battlefield is the prepared site of an ambush planned by the magi. If you want sight-range tactical teleportation, head for the lab and invent one. Again, I don't see the need to limit such a spell -- the risk of botch is limit enough, and besides that, every combat round spent teleporting is one that can't be used for a ranged attack spell.

Our group has two teleporting magi, one a Rego specialist, the other a Corpus specialist. They both have spells that can affect others, except those with strong magic resistance. But they still have reason to travel by mundane needs -- a big motivation is the Hesperides quest in [i[Ancient Magic[/i], so they can use coordinates instead of physical arcane connections. The rest of the party are on-board that quest too, because Hesperides coordinates are useful arcane connections for spells other than just teleportation.