Another bunch of rules variants

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

:slight_smile:

Level 50 Cap

So on the current limit of 50 for spells a part of me likes keeping it for Spontaneous. As in to get to the heights of magic one needs to study the spell rather than make it on the fly.

But! If I'm super knowledgeable about Creo and Terram then why shouldn't i be able to create a level 60 spell.

So I'm not mentally sure on that.

Parma Magica

I will say I think it should be made something special like a trait gained as part of the Hermetic Opening of the Arts and so eben first year apprentices can have it. I dislike intensely the idea that apprentices are naturally angry at each other as they don't have PM.

This does mean that only those who have undergone the Hermetic Opening can have PM and so the idea of people going around telling others drop to zero.

I could see a secondary variant version for those who come to the Order from other group.

But yeah rules wise I like two things. 1) keeping it an ability and 2) ones Form and Technique ratings naturally create a automatic lebel of protection.

Magic Theory

Hermetic Magic is an intellectual art and I like the idea of there being an ability that shows that. The fact it is added to most woks of magic makes sense to me. It's not a time sink but rather an indiaio of actual capability. In fact i think it should be added to casting totals.

In my head in some ways it's a power stat.

Spell Mastery

Yep. The idea that a particular sdpell is so well known that the caster has pages and pages of theory on it is brilliant.

I do think that by mastering a spell one should be able to manipate it's parameters slightly as well.

Finesse and Complexity

I'm big on Creo Terram magics to build structures and thus on the Complexity magnitude while hating with a passion that makes me yell at any rego spells that have a finesse roll and so getting rid of it is fine with me.

Casting

You say Form but I think Technique should also matter, maybe Magic Theory as well.

On the rest I need to think on it. No because it's bad but because my mind is going wha? Lol

Affinities

I like that. Beginning boosts and automatic growth. Sounds good to me.

Plus it lets then use the other Advancement stuff for options. Which is something I like.

22

Hi,

That's a good sign. :slight_smile:/2

Canonically, sponting at level 50 requires a 100 casting total. That's... difficult, even for very, very old Diedne. It isn't likely to come up for your character. So why waste space on a rule for this? Better to let the 2 ancient Diedne magi in the entire world spont their level 60 spells. It's a rule that doesn't matter, and when it finally comes into play, it just gets in the way of characters who ought to be epic.

In this, non-canonical context, you still need a casting total of 100: A level 100 spontaneous spell has the capabilities of a level 50 spell. And it's still very difficult to attain.

Not a rule worth having, I think.

Also, here, the distinctions between spontaneous and non-spontaneous casting have been mostly collapsed. Spont level is doubled. Formulaics have masteries. There are some virtues and flaws that apply to one but not the other. And that's it. Adding rule complexities that represent a new distinction needs some hard justification.

I kind of like the idea that people distrust magi. It 'explains' why wizards are solitary, why mobs want to burn the witches, etc. Getting an Order together does require a way around this, and PM serves this purpose elegantly.

That said, I do kind of agree that the implications are limiting, although these can be dealt with, along the lines of Doctorcomics' HBO saga Season 1.

Or other Hermetic Initiation, such as submitting to the Oath.

A second Initiation Script.

Technique does nothing in the canonical rules. (Or these.)

Which is exactly why I don't like it. Better to go straight to a system with levels than have a power stat into which xp must be placed. Power stats are generic and obligatory, so a waste of space. OTOH, a system organized around levels makes this work, and is where the idea was drawn from.

Slightly, but not nearly to the extent of FFM.

These rules retain MT, but since I think the Ability should go, I'm hardly likely to add it! It also affects the math in ways I did not like, at least for now.

The biggest problem about including MT in all casting totals is that it turns all magi into generalists. Boosting MT is cheap, especially with an Affinity and with Puissant MT. I think everyone being a generalist is very bad in a game where everyone plays a wizard! Specialist wizardry differentiates characters, provides niche protection, promotes cooperation and interdependence among PCs. It's a different matter when being a generalist is itself a specialization that requires lots of resources. (One of the Diedne variants I've posted does indeed include MT in spontaneous casting totals, but that comes with some real costs, including a Major Virtue and the honor of being a Diedne...)

As for Technique mattering: 1) Techniques are already better than Forms, since there are only 5, so improving Forms is legit to me. 2) These rules let you figure things out with no addition! Just look at your Form. Simpler. 3) And the math does what I want. I suppose that adding the Technique might work in a version in which all Arts were Difficult (5 * level xp). I do like the idea, but I'm not sure I want to rebalance for that.

Finally, do note that Technique continues to add to Casting Total, as usual. It just doesn't count for Automatic Casting (whose name I might change) eligibility.

That's my intention. Right now, I feel dirty if I take an Affinity but don't get at least 50xp out of it immediately, preferably more. And rightfully so! In many sagas, Good Parens and Gild Trained are far better virtues. Baccalaureate (Latin 5, AL2) is also often better. So a fixed 50xp benefit now that imposes no restrictions on how your other xp are spent, plus an investment in the future that also doesn't force your activity... it still isn't always a win over GP and GT, but it still deserves consideration, especially since it can easily be used by AM novices. And... no division, or house rules about rounding up and rounding down.

Anyway,

Ken

23

Hi,

Variant rules for Affinities, broken out from the rest:

Do you hate division? Do you play with people who are concerned about the horrible, terrible game-breaking exploits that arise from Affinity xp being rounded up?

These rules might be for you. They can drop into canon, substituting for Affinities and for other virtues, which I (re-)implement based on this variant.

Affinity with Art or Ability: Minor Virtue (Hermetic, Supernatural or General)

During character creation, add 50xp to an Art or Ability to which you are permitted to devote xp. You may also add other xp from character creation, with no limit. After character creation, gain 1xp per season in the chosen Art or Ability. This increase occurs independent of any activity you do that season, and in addition to any other xp gained from all other sources. However, you do not gain this xp during a season in which you are totally incapacitated or time is meaningless, such as being in a coma or Twilight, turned into a statue, or immediately aging 1000 years as you emerge from Arcadia. You can take this Virtue more than once, but no more than twice for the same Art or Ability.

Secondary Insight: Major Virtue (Hermetic)

During character creation, gain 15xp in each Hermetic Art. Every year, at the beginning of the winter season, gain 1xp in each Hermetic Art. This increase occurs independent of any activity you do that year, and in addition to any other xp gained from all other sources. However, you do not gain this xp during a year in which you are totally incapacitated or time is meaningless, such as being in a coma or Twilight, turned into a statue, or immediately aging 1000 years as you emerge from Arcadia.

Mastered Spells: Minor Virtue (Hermetic)

During character creation, you gain 50xp that you can devote as you wish to Mastering any Formulaic spells you know. After character creation, gain 1xp per season with which you can do the same. This increase occurs independent of any activity you do that season, and in addition to any other xp gained from all other sources. However, you do not gain this xp during a season in which you are totally incapacitated or time is meaningless, such as being in a coma or Twilight, turned into a statue, or immediately aging 1000 years as you emerge from Arcadia.

Flawless Magic: Major Virtue (Hermetic)

Both during and after character creation, when you learn a Formulaic spell, you gain 5xp in its Mastery Ability. During character creation, you gain 50xp that you can devote as you wish to Mastering any Formulaic spells you know. After character creation, gain 3xp per season with which you can do the same. This increase occurs independent of any activity you do that season, and in addition to any other xp gained from all other sources. However, you do not gain these xp during a season in which you are totally incapacitated or time is meaningless, such as being in a coma or Twilight, turned into a statue, or immediately aging 1000 years as you emerge from Arcadia.

Polyglot: Minor Virtue (General)

During character creation, you gain 50xp that you can devote as you wish to any language you might reasonably have had a chance to speak. After character creation, gain 1xp per season with which you can either do the same, or place in a reserve. When you encounter a new language, you may immediately allocate up to 15xp from the reserve toward that language. This increase occurs independent of any activity you do that season, and in addition to any other xp gained from all other sources. However, you do not gain this xp during a season in which you are totally incapacitated or time is meaningless, such as being in a coma or Twilight, turned into a statue, or immediately aging 1000 years as you emerge from Arcadia. You may take this virtue more than once.

Design Notes:

This kind of Affinity takes less work to optimize than its canonical counterpart, is more forgiving in the hands of a newcomer to the game and provides more consistent benefits. But an optimizer can usually get more out of the canonical virtues. Nevertheless, I think this kind of Affinity is about as good overall, in a long-running game.

Virtues that grant xps tend to grant 50xp as a baseline and provide some other benefit. Here, that benefit is 1xp/season no matter what, which is similar to how a player might try to spend 1xp/season to get another xp from his canonical Affinity. The flat 50xp granted during character creation is based on the assumption that a veteran player will try to get at least 50xp from an Affinity by spending 100xp or more on the associate Art or Ability. Simpler and more empowering just to grant the xp, and allow players to spend other xp as they choose. On the one hand, you no longer get to read a great book and get 50% extra xp. On the other hand, you get a benefit from your Affinity no matter what you do or study sources you have available. Less powerful but more flexible. Removing the spending cap is another small benefit that favors player choice: A player who chooses an Affinity wants to be very good at something without having to show proof of age.

The shortcomings of canonical Secondary Insight have been discussed elsewhere. This version is better than 3 Affinities in most ways, as it should be since it's not just a Major Virtue, which only magi and companions are normally supposed to have, but also a Hermetic Major Virtue, of which a character can only have one: So it better be good. The benefits are slightly offset by the lack of flexibility: AM rewards specialization, so 150xp plus 12xp/year in a favorite Art (3 * Affinity) is not that much worse than Secondary Insight. This version is worth considering, and is trivially easy to use.

Mastered Spells is never worth taking, canonically: Good Parens can do exactly the same thing, with 10xp to spare plus 30 spell levels. This version is pretty much just an Affinity with Mastery Abilities.

Many players consider the canonical version of Flawless Magic to be the best Major Hermetic Virtue in the game. But it is hard to use since so much of its benefit occurs after play begins. Using that also requires effort. This version preserves the canonical 5xp per Formulaic Spell learned, but loses the doubling of Mastery xp. Instead, it provides 3xp/season, and also 50xp during character creation, so a player can really get started on spell mastery. The starting 50xp is less than the expected 150xp (3 * Affinity), but a starting character is likely to begin play with between 6 and 15 Formulaic Spells, which makes up for some of that; he will get Mastery 1 in every spell during play without having to spend an extra season to do so, which is a deep but subtle benefit beyond just the xp gain; he has a lot of flexibility in how these xps are spent, including dumping all 3xp/season into a single, signature spell. As intended, most players will get more out of this version, but hardcore optimizers are likely to get less. As with Secondary Insight, I think this is rather better than three minor Affinities, as it should be.

Polyglot is sort of new, can replace some existing virtues that promote language acquisition, and serves to demonstrate how Affinity-like virtues can be created, or used instead of some existing virtues. This is more flexible than a standard Affinity, but language abilities aren't all that great. In any case, the virtue provides the usual xp: 50+1/season. We can reasonably create similar virtues for Crafts, Professions and Area Lores.

Finally, the boilerplate about spending xp is replicated in each virtue, making it easy to select some or one of these and not all.

Anyway,

Ken

24

Totally read your post completely and I have to say I like them, a lot.

I always take Flawless Magic so this variant, besides my immediate knee-jerk reaction, does what it's supposed to in a simply organized way.

On languages. I recently had a thought as I was making a character for fun - maybe we could have it be an Acclerated Ability for the PC classes.

But yeah I will comment more when I can but I like these changes.

Quick thing.

So I take Affinity with Creo and get 50xp in Creo which means by score s now 9, with 5xp more to get to 10.

Um. I like power but doesn't that seem over doing it?

Or am I missing something.

But yeah I really like pretty much everything you have going here.

25

First I'd say I do love the ideas behind this, I certainly appreciate the push towards simplicity. I also agree that the with the Affinity as it is, the Secondary Insight is a natural follow up. I am less sure about the math behind Affinity itself. While the other xp virtues grant 50 xp and a small benefit, usually that small benefit is the ability to put that xp in particular place. If the average saga is 15 years long, that makes affinity turn into 65 xp. If you're playing longer, this gets even bigger and bigger. Compared to a normal affinity, this seems somewhat similar on the time scale, I admit, but the normal affinities are limited by having to find sources that teach you. Cracking open vis gets expensive, Summa are harder to find, and you spend more resources on tractati. It's a nice way to handle affinity, I do like it, I just view it as 50-150 xp for a virtue, instead of 50xp plus a bonus.
Similar, I like Polyglot, because I have a special place in my heart for making people learn more living languages.

26

Hi,

One of us is missing something. Here's how I see it:

Suppose I'm in a normal AM game, creating a character. I could choose Gild Trained and get 90xp up front. Or if that's not allowed, Good Parens for 60xp plus spells. But I can also choose an Affinity with Creo.

At that point, I will feel very silly if I fall far short of 60xp benefit, especially since I could have taken a virtue that let me spend the xps as I please. But I'm planning to specialize, so I'll dump 102 or 103 xp into Creo, and get 51 or 52 xp from my Affinity. That's still not as good as GP, but maybe I'm expecting the game will last a while, or I know that I will get some post-Gauntlet complex seasons. Right away, the canonical version provides more xps than mine, but I have to be willing to really commit to Creo. Of course, I could optimize even more! Spending 121xp gives me 61xp from the Affinity, and Creo 19.

So granting 50xp instead makes the virtue worse for people who know how to really use it. Less powerful rather than more.

Of course, I might take both the Affinity and GP (and Puissant Creo and....) in a canonical game.

Anyway,

Ken

27

Hi,

Canonically, I don't need a teacher or book every season to benefit from an Affinity I can:

  • Spend one exposure xp and get one affinity xp.
  • Spend N adventure xp and get N/2 affiity xp, rounded up.
  • Get one xp from correspondence and get one affinity xp.

And, of course, if I do find a great book, I get a bonanza of xps from my Affinity.

So my concern about the math behind this version of Affinity is that it might be too weak.

I have mixed feelings about this. It does have certain kind of realistic feel. But it also really clutters up a character sheet, the more realistic you get. Most magi should speak more than one language, but most everyone else really only speaks one. Still, there's a place for a character who can quickly learn languages and immediately dump 15xp to get Mandarin 2 because it's really not that hard a language, except for the writing (ugh). I think languages are both too expensive and too cheap in AM... but that's a very different kind of topic, for a real revision rather than tweaking.

Anyway,

Ken

28

You're not wrong. I suppose I was mentally comparing it to spending a season reading a different book, not thinking about exposure or adventure. Re: correspondence, I never really considered correspondence to be a separate source of xp. Since you already need to be studying a particular subject to gain it, I've considered it as raising the source quality of that particular study by 1 for the season.

29

Hi,

I don't really like the correspondence rule. It's too fiddly, and increases the benefits of an Exposure Season by 50%, with no opportunity cost.

A lot of Covenants is like that: There's a lot of awesome fluff, but also rather dubious game mechanics.

Anyway,

Ken

30

I really REALLY like your variants on Affinity, Secondary Insight, and Flawless Magic. I enjoy playing generalist Magi, and so would take that Virtue anyway...but this one makes the concept so much more viable. Question - is it your intention to make a new magus with that Virtue capable of training an Apprentice immediately? Or just sort of a non-concern for balance, in your opinion? Also, it grants 150XP +15/year. Is this in line with other Major Virtues, do you think?

Thanks in advance!

31

Hi,

Thanks. Much of this is not right yet, but the ones you like are, or at least very close.

A magus with SI can train an apprentice immediately, but won't do a great job of it. Having a single strong TeFo is critical for shoving lots of spells at an apprentice or teaching Arts! If such a character does want to train an apprentice, a GM should be rather pleased because the player is about to generate stories about finding and training an apprentice, right out the gate, without the GM having to coax and pull and railroad. Bonus! As Boromir might say, it's a gift!

Also, RAW, a magus can have only one Major Hermetic Virtue, so it better be worthwhile. In some sagas, maybe a second. These virtues have intense competition (LLSM, old FM, Major Focus, or just not bothering and taking good Minor Virtues). This version of SI is completely worthy, yet I find it worth noting that it doesn't provide a radical new ability or a deep power boost. Nothing about it compares with starting play with a favored focus of 50+ or LLSM+CautiousMagic+Bjornaer(Bear, Horse or other beastie with extra Fatigue)+Silent+Subtle or FM(old)+GildTrained+GoodParens...

Penultimately, xp are not created equal. 225xp (not 150) spread across 15 Arts changes the game far less than dumped into a single TeFo. 1xp per Art per year will advance a magus from Arts@5 to Arts@10 in 40 years! This kind of 'unbridled power' should not keep an SG awake at night.

Finally, this virtue does help with generalist magi, but is not so good as to change the usual AM equation: Specialization rules. It might not even be the best way to create a generalist, but rather to round out a specialist.

considers Some good use cases:

Tremere: Magi should have no weaknesses, should have an area of expertise and be able to train lots of apprentices. Take this virtue, use your other starting virtues and xp to carve an area of expertise, and be a worthy member of your House from the moment you swear the Oath.

Bonisagus or Verditius: You plan to spend most of your time in the lab, and virtues like this help you make up for spending less time reading books and all that lousy Exposure xp.

Jerbiton: You can retire early to a life of elegance and sufficiency, and your Arts won't suffer as badly!

School of Vilano, or similar: Not all magi need huge Art or Penetration scores to get by. Some prefer Finesse or mundane Abilities. SI covers you as you concentrate on those Abilities.

Post-apocalypse or similar: Where you're going, there are no books. Or maybe you just don't want to read! Take the virtue that boosts Practice+Adventure xp too?

Alas, RAW, this does not combine with some of the other great generalist virtues, such as LLSM and FM, or good ones (FFM) or even mediocre ones (Diedne).

Most welcome.

Anyway,

Ken

32

Thank you for your responses! I find them cogent and compelling, and will be trying out these variants in my own games :slight_smile:

33

Hi,

Thanks! Please let me know how it goes.

I suspect the for the variants: Base Affinity is a little underpowered, FM is perhaps slightly worse than the original but still extremely excellent, SI is now an excellent value but not an essential part of a power combo, and Polyglot is better than the canonical 50xp in languages virtue but still just ok.

Anyway,

Ken

34

So I built a Tremere magus with Secondary Insight and Affinity, keeping in mind what you said. Looking at his scores and the way I built him, the main effect is simply like you mentioned - he won't have to waste time reading the Roots in order to train an apprentice later, and he has four Arts that are higher than the rest (fitting the Tremere Certamen philosophy of the Tines). It did allow him to use more of his Apprenticeship XP on Abilities, but I don't see that as a bad thing - a magus gifted at understanding magic in general would be able to spend more time on those.

35

Hi,

He can also start with a wide range of spells, a few in his speciality and a few across the board. Allocating 20xp to Master 4 spells is a nice choice too, especially for a Tremere.

Anyway,

Ken

36

All of this is giving me an idea...

Not at all resembling these ideas per se. but inspired by them nevertheless.

37

Hi,

I shall be sure to retain a team of legal advisors to keep a watchful eye!

:smiley:

Anyway,

Ken