becoming - merinita mystery

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi,
Considering the becoming Mystery for a powerful mereinita old magus, I read, and read again, the HOH MC book.

I looked for "becoming" and "merinty becoming" but it gave 0 results in the search engin, which seems weird... hence the post.

  1. I have read the HOH MC, and the errata on Atlas website, but I still don't get this sentence in the Transformation of the Mind.

"she cannot invent spells or magical effects that are not at least similar to spells she already knows (see Similar Spells, ArM5 page 101). This limits her spontaneous magic and her laboratory inventions,"

How does the fact that she cannot invent spells or magical effects (which is made possible by additionnal rituals as read on page 96) affect her spontaneous magic casting?

I get that due to the transformation of the body, she cannot exert herself : "Transforming the Body: The maga does not age and never suffers Fatigue. She no longer has Fatigue Levels, and cannot exert herself as others do, either in combat or to cast spontaneous spells", which, clearly, limits her spontaneous magic at those non-fatiguing spells (aka CT/5 and not /2) but how does the Transformation of the mind interfere?

1bis) I'm almost certain that item creation is not impacted... but is that sure? the magus has no gift anymore.

Going that route, is the magus even capable to cast spontaneous magic? (which would hinder it, but again, not because of the transformation of the mind, but well because of the transformation of the spirit!)

Looking the book back, I found that it's okay because it says, under "transformation of the spirit":
"She may still cast spells and perform laboratory activities, but doing so costs her one Might Point for each magnitude of the effect."

  1. After becoming a faerie (= having the 3 rituals done) the magus cannot learn new abilities unless an additional ritual is accomplished.

IMO, that means he can progress in already owned abilities and arts.

My conclusion is thus that you must transforme asap (to avoid too high labtotal requirements, labtotal which is also limited by warpingFaerie magic... upgrading that ability is thus a prerequisite to become a powerful faerie) and THEN boost your abilities and arts.
Thus, better to have 50 abilities with score of 1 and be a specialist in your TeFo combination before transformation. After, you get 6 seasons each year, and you can take time to improve abilities and arts.
Using that principle on my (powerful) NPC worked well.

  1. Spells are easy to learn after becoming a faerie (see "the empowered faerie"). How do this combine with the faerie-raised magic major virtue?
    In my reading: you use XP points to learn the spell in place of a laboratory season (as per the faerie-raised magic normal effect) but then, you still have to do the ritual (which take 1 season) and use it optionaly to reduce might cost (which you should do anyway).

What is thus the point of the "she cannot invent spells or magical effects that are not at least similar to spells she already knows" ? Does that mean that similar spells are invented without the need of the ritual of "empowered faerie"?

  1. you have a might score after transformation. You still have a parma magica. Normally you can't use your parma, not having the gift anymore (correct?).
    What about any spell such as "faerie eternal oblivion" where you have a magical resistance: is the might doubled? RoP:M makes me say yes (since Magical creature can use any mastery magi can). Do you read it that way as well, or not?

  2. Spell masteries can be learned using "Inspired Knowledge" ritual. But for that, you need to sum al scores in abilities of other groups. The only thing that is certain is that spell masteries are not martial abilities, because: "For example, when learning a Martial Ability she would add up her scores in non-Martial Abilities, including spell mastery Abilities, to determine the effect level."
    But are spell masteries general abilities? or are they their own group: "spell abilities"? I'd lean towards the general group, but I'm not sure.

  3. ritual spells. Now that they use might (because they are old spells or because they are faerie spell like powers learned afeter the transformation into faerie), do they still use vis? do they still take time to cast?
    Considering the RoP:F book, I'd say no but the might loss is long-term and requires might score regeneration.
    Do you have another opinion about this?

  4. is there any need anymore for voice and gesture when casting spells?

Thanks for your answers.

PS: On the side of balance, becoming is so much more powerful than any TMRE "immortal magi" option : you can upgrade abilities (something that use talisman space in TMRE options IIRC) and TeFo are free of choice, and you use no vis.

  • for those interested, NPC labtotals for transformation (the NPC is in the background but I needed numbers to give credible information about it in game) :[spoiler]warping 9
    Faerie magic 18 (becoming)
    Labtotal limit 171
    Magic theory/faerie magic 18
    INt 3
    fae familiar 8
    apprentice 10
    aura 8
    lab 11
    Vi 39
    Re 39
    focus self transformation 39
    total 175

first transforming spirit: 200 abilities (0 spell mastery) total but 2d ritual after the major ordeal previous obtaining becoming = 170
Limit is out of picture (but well labtotal is still only 175 so required to do a major ordeal (magical air replacing the gift loss)
second transforming mind: 205 arts (Re, Vi 39, other arts from 5 to 16) => 160 with ordeal
third: transforming body: 205 years old => 170
Total = Faerie with might 82[/spoiler]
and after: [spoiler]Abilities (not counting spell mastery in that table) go from 200 to 353
Arts go from 205 to 284 (Re & Vi still 39 worst arts went up to 20)
Had 80 seasons to invent spells with faerie raised magic/normal way and convert them (average 2 seasons for total level 50)
Had 80 seasons to improve items and talisman[/spoiler]

1 Like
2

There is no reason, why "This limits her spontaneous magic" must refer to the phrase immediately before as its cause. It rather looks like splitting up a longer sentence, and that thus "This limits her spontaneous magic" refers to Transforming the Mind in general.

Are you still talking of Transforming the Mind? Or now of Transforming the Spirit? It is the latter which removes the Gift. Whatever, Transforming the Mind spells out "she cannot invent spells or magical effects that are not at least similar to spells she already knows", and it is magical effects you put into enchanted devices (ArM5 p.98). If you cannot invent these, you cannot put them into devices either.

I would agree, following HoH:MC p.93f. While HoH:MC does not yet have the concept of Pretense from RoP: F, I would advise to use it (especially p.63f Increasing Pretense) for magi who have completed HoH:MC Transforming the Mind, and allow them to start with the Minor General Virtue Pretentious (RoP:F p.64) related to their covenant, the magi of their Tribunal or even the Order of Hermes.

I should say so.

You mean, that your maga has mastered "faerie eternal oblivion" for Magic Resistance (ArM5 p.87)? Best ask your troupe - but literal reading of p.87 supports you in that case.

Shouldn't Mastery Abilities be Arcane Abilities (ArM5 p.63) like Magic Theory or Penetration?

Cheers

3

Thank you One Shot.

So for magical items, if a magus who became a faerie need something not similar to an already owned spell, he must first invent the spell (using after that a ritual to "fix" the spell as a faerie-power) then do his item now that the magical effect is similar.

I clearly never thought about spell mastery as arcane ability. I could totally buy that.

Any other opinion on the matter from other persons?

4

In regards to question 1. I think that creating a spontaneous spell is inventing it and thus not permitted unless a similar spell is known. Or at least that's how it reads to me.

5

So by becoming a Faerie the maga loses the creativity she had as a human. She can no longer think up entirely new things, she can only make small changes to things she already knows? This makes kind of sense to me.
Also, the Merinita have a Virtue available where Spontaneous Magic gets Similar Spell bonus from a relevant Formulaic Spell known.

6

At first, yes, but remember that it is posible for a merinita magus who became faerie to invent new things, or learn new abilities. So the "no creativity rule for faerie" is far from total for them.

1 Like
7

While submitting the contradictory bit about Spell Mastery for the errata I also asked about an ArM5 erratum to place Spell Mastery in Arcane Abilities or if it should be left on its own. That never was added to the errata. There are other ways it doesn't tend to get treated like other Abilities, too. For example, only rarely are specialties listed. (I say "rarely" because there is at least one canon publication with one magus with specialties listed for Spell Mastery.) So I leave Spell Mastery in its own category.

8

Normally you can't do any Hermetic magic without the Gift. But you can still work in the lab, cast spontaneous spells, etc. So I don't see why not. But how often will it be better than Might, especially since that Might is aligned with both Faerie and Magic due to the Faerie Magic Virtue.

This issue isn't a new one. This showed up when ArM5 was first published because magi can use their familiars' Might for magic resistance, and magi can share their Parma Magica. There are a number of times when this matters, even in the core book. So I read "Parma Magica" as "Parma Magica" and "magic resistance" as "magic resistance." But the particulars vary more than just those, as some are not just Parma Magic v. more general magic resistance but also who is doing the protection.

I don't see that any of the normal requirements go away. The faerie has powers that allow it to cast Hermetic magic. But that's still Hermetic magic with time, gestures, voice, vis, etc. I wouldn't hand out all these bonuses. Add some Spell Mastery or take appropriate Virtues if you don't want voice/gestures.

9

Were you logged in? I tried searching and I got overwhelmed with results, but no relevant ones from 2017 or 2018.

As per Erik Tyrell, I read that as "no spontaneous spells that aren't similar to ones you already know"

You can do a CT/5 spontaneous spell of an effect similar to one you already know. Won't come up very often.

That's absolutely right. For an NPC this works well, but for a player in a regular saga having to deliberately have a lot of abilities at level 1 and keep your levels of Finesse, Penetration, Parma Magica etc. low while you research Faerie Magic does cause a lot of restriction.
As for being a specialist in your TeFo combination - this is essential as your lab total depends on Te + Fo + Int + Magic Theory + Faerie Magic + aura. You need a high TeFo to be able to do the transforming the mind, and also for doing transforming the body if you leave it until late in life. Transforming the spirit is different - you need the total score in arts, so your best Te and Fo are already covered, but the total of all your other arts must be no more than Int+MT+FM+aura +ordeal bonus. This means if you want 5 in your other thirteen arts so you could have trained an apprentice, then you'll need a major ordeal and high magic theory/faerie magic.

As you've sacrificed The Gift when you do transformation of the spirit, you can't use Parma.

I've never considered the spell mastery bit before. I would say spell mastery abilities count as their own group - spell masteries.

You're effectively a faerie taking the role of a wizard, so you probably need to use as much voice and gestures as someone expects a wizard like you to use. The easiest way is to rule you use whatever casting method you typically used in mortal life, for consistency's sake. Alternatively your troupe could rule that you now become a stereotyped wizard, and so have to wear a robe covered with stars and a pointy hat and wield a staff to cast, but can say whatever nonsense words you like.

10

Just replying to this for the moment (rest later, maybe after other posts): I tried again, same result: nothing. Did you use the "search on this forum" box above the ars magica forum, and did you use the same key word I used (with typo fixed in Merinita, of course)?

11

What I intended to convey there was that Transformed Merinita can only design spells that are similar to spells they already know. This means they can’t spontaneously cast spells that they don’t already know or that aren’t similar to spells they already know. Sorry it wasn’t clearer!

12

thank you for that clarification Erik. It seems now that question 1 is clearly answered.