A question

My best guess is DIE-d'nee.
You should stay away from it because al lot of magi much more powerful than you will be trying to kill you. The Virtue of Diedne magic doesn't fully come into its full power until you have a score of at least 10 in every Art. Once you reach that level of skill, you can handle most of your advisaries with a decent chance of survival.

I always pronounced it "Dee-ED-Nay", though I've heard some say "Dee-ED-Nee".

Alright. This is the primay build that I came up with, and I want your opinions about it. (my SG allowed the 3xp/4levels exchange)

Allanon Ex Miscellanea
William was born in a small village just outside of London, not knowing that he is a descendant of the Diedne house. He lived with his two parents, his older sister and the cat. One bright sunny day, at the age of 7, William was playing with his sister and the cat, when the latter exploded. The news spread through the village in a blaze, and soon after the villagers came to the family's house, demanding that William will be expelled from the village. In response, William's parents took him to Serillium Fuoco, the magi covenant near the village, and left him there. William spent the next 15 years in the covenant, as the filius of Elric, an Ex Miscellanea magus residing in the covenant. After trying to teach William formulaic spells, Elric saw William's problem with magic – he couldn't learn magic, and yet he could do magic. After tracing William's family tree several hundred years back, he discovered that he was descended from the Diedne. Seeing that, Elric made William a project, and started teaching him in a way he never taught before – he trained William how to react to different situations, and the theory of magic. He also hired war veterans to teach William how to use weapons in combat and indebted William to Jadis, a Veriditus maga, so she would initiate William to the Veriditus mystery. Now, After passing the Gauntlet, William is ready for a life as a magus.

Age: 22 (22)

Size: 0

Warping: 0 (0)

Decrepitude: 0

Confidence: 1(3)

Personality:

  • Ambitious +3
  • Brave +2
  • Friendly +2

Reputaions: none

Flaws:

  • Unstructured Caster (Free)
  • Poor Formulaic Magic
  • Rigid Magic
  • Fury (Being called a coward)
  • Ambitious (Best magus)
  • Dark Secret (Diedne Magic)

Virtues:

  • The Gift
  • Hermetic Magus
  • Ways of the Town (Free)
  • Puissant Creo (Free)
  • Improved Characteristics x2
  • Great Stamina (Tough)
  • Skilled Parens
  • Life Linked Spontaneous Magic
  • Diedne Magic

Characteristics:
INT +2 PER +1 PRE -1 COM -2 STR +1 STA +4 DEX +2 QIK +2

Abilities:
Artes Liberales 1 [5] (Logic)
Athletics 3 [30] (Acrobatics)
Bows 2 [15] (Longbow)
Brawl 3 [30] (Dodging)
Craft Metal 2 [15] (Swords)
English 5 [75] (Slang)
Finesse 4 [50] (Precision)
Latin 4 [50] (Hermetic Usage)
Magic Theory 3 [30] (Enchanting Items)
Parma Magica 1 [5] (Ignem)
Single Weapon 3 [30] (Long Sword)
Swim 2 [15] (Diving)

Arts:
Cr 10 [55] Im 5 [15]Mu 5 [15] Pr 8 [36]Re 5 [15]
An Au 5 [15] Aq Co 5 [15] He
Ig 6 [24] Im Me 5 [15] Te 5 [15] Vi

Combat:
Dodging: INIT +2, ATK n/a, DFN +6, DMG n/a
Fist: INIT +2, ATK +5, DFN +5, DMG +1
Kick: INIT +1, ATK +5, DFN +4, DMG +4
Long Sword: INIT +4, ATK +10, DFN +7, DMG +7
Long Bow: INIT +0, ATK +9, DFN +5, DMG +10

Equipment:

  • Long Sword
  • Longbow
  • A quiver with 30 arrows
  • High quality clothes

Encumbrance: 1 (2)

Soak: +4

Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, -1, -3, -5

Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15) Inc (16-20) Dead (21+)

Whould he survive?

:mrgreen:
Soo... The "reborn" Allanon starts his career by Ka-BOOOM-ing a cat... :laughing:

Sure has a good chance at it. Start out carefully and see if you can get the chance to raise the arts a little, to allow DM to get more effective. Until then, either avoid "big bads" or use LLSM to exhaustion (or beyond if need be, better to get wounded than dead), hopefully smacking down anything nasty with one strong, boosted attack.
Once you get the Arts you commonly use or need to use up in the 10-20 range he should be able to handle most situations quite well.

Probably some Penetration Ability and some Order of Hermes Lore would be useful.

Penetration, because your Penetration Totals are going to be quite low due to only using Spont. spells.

Order of Hermes Lore (at least 1), because you need to know something about the history and ways of The Order --- for example, you need to know it is not a good idea to tell people about your Diedne lineage.

Also note that Fury and Dark Secret are both Story Flaws, a character should normally have only one Story Flaw. A character can only have one Major Hermetic Virtue, you have two (Diedne Magic and Life Linked Spontaneous Magic). Your Flaws seem to add up to 8 (Dark Secret comes from the Diedne Magic and doesn't count for balancing Virtues) whereas you have 10 points worth of Virtues.

Maybe. In a saga that I ran, in which House Diedne was purged, he probably wouldn't last long: Too many magi have been involved with his training for his Diedne background to remain a secret. But your SG might not care.

Your story mentions initiation into Verditius Mysteries but your character lacks the associated and necessary +1 Virtue. Because of the way House Verditius works, such a character is really better off being in the House.

Note that your virtues and flaws do not seem to match up; you do not get any points for having a Dark Secret(Diedne); that's part of the Diedne Magic "Virtue."

Fortunately, the character works quite nicely if you drop Diedne Magic entirely and make the fellow a Verditius: Maybe he has a touch of Diedne in his lineage but not enough to get the Diedne Magic "virtue" and not enough to be considered a Diedne by House Tremere.

Diedne Magic really isn't very good for a starting magus.

Anyway,

Ken

I really didn't notice the inconsistenties in the character...
I'll remake him and post him again.

We actually play-tested him a few days ago, and he did wonderfully. I don't know if it's because he has more virtues than flaws, but Diedne Magic worked great, so I think I'll leave it like that.

Thanks for your replies, and all of your help!

I know I'm picking up on a very old post, but I'm trying to read all the interesting information in here, and have been meddling with Spont. magic myself, so I'll throw in my opinion on the matter anyway.
First of all, i think 3/4 spell levels converted is too generous. As mentioned in the above, spell levels can be tought at rates for higher than xp in abilities. You make one argument yourself, when mentioning the Skilled Parens virtue, which is (arguably) the best minor virtue in the game for starting characters. It grants 60 xp, as well as 30 spells levels (most other xp-granting virtues only give you 50 xp) - which in this case turns into 82½ xp! Way too much for a minor virtue IMO.
Secondly, i would recommend taking the Diedne Major Hermetic Virtue (also for the fun of it), which i believe fits well with Ex-Miscellanea. This also gives you some more virtues/flaws as you mentioned yourself.

Since this reply is a few years late, the character is probably already created and playtested. Could you give some comments on game-balance, issues, what to look out for ect.?

Actually probably 2 5th or 6th level spells. Remember that total levels is based on the parens lab total, while max level of spell learned is based on the students lab total.

Of course there are so many really useful spells that I would never recommend a mage give up formulaic spells.

I think this'd be a rare optiopn for me, if allowed. I love formulaic spells, and crave mastery...precious mastery... In fact I most often limit my magi's abilities for spontaneous magic. I've found it to be circumventing of a lot of conflicts and obstabcles, taking away the grogs' and comnaions chance to shine. But that's another story.