Better example magi!

[ezzelino]

The corebook has 12 "example" starting magi, one per House, with some notes about how they may be customized. I am not particularly fond of them: to me they seem both less capable out-of-the-box, and less interesting in terms of long-term growth, than the average starting magus designed at my gaming table. Part of the problem seems to be that it's hard to build a very good starting magus solely with the example spells in the book, but there are other issues too. Again, let me stress this may be completely subjective, but if you do agree with me, here's a challenge.

Design one or more starting magi (one per post, to make linking easier) to replace the 12 ones in the corebook, with the following constraints.

1. Each character must rely exclusively on the corebook. He may know spells that are not among the example spells in the corebook, as long as they follow the corebook guidelines; the fewer the better, however, and spells that are only minor modifications of existing ones (say, a change in R/D/T, or a version of Cloak of Black Feathers transforming the caster into a salmon rather than a raven) are better than completely new ones.

2. Each character must epitomize his House without being a caricature. So, a follower of Bonisagus must be a great scholar, a follower of Flambeau a great warrior, etc. I'd like to see at least two magi from each House, epitomizing different aspects of it (for example, I'd like to see both a follower of Triamona and one of Bonisagus proper; both a Perdo and an Ignem Flambeau; etc.)

3. Each character must be compatible with later books. For example, we know from HoH:MC that Bjornaer magi despise shapeshifting (other than via the Heartbeast). Thus, no starting Bjornaer should have shapeshifting spells, even though nothing in the corebook per se forbids it.

4. Each character must both be very playable out-of-the-box, and have good growth potential in a long-running saga.

Feel free to omit stats that are inessential (e.g. mundane equipment) or easily derived from others (e.g. combat totals). While notes on how to customize the character are a welcome addition, they are not necessary. For everything else, follow the examples in the corebook.

This thread seems to have generated much more commentary than actual magi. However, there are some hidden gems down there, including callen's ones (that use a slightly broader book base). I'll try to keep links here to every single-post character that follows the challenge specifications above.

An eagle-heartbeast Bjornaer
A Tytalus spirit master
A Merinita weather witch

[Wingsday]

@ezzelino

Part of the problem seems to be that it's hard to build a very good starting magus solely with the example spells in the book,

I've thought about this wrt making some of my own pregens for introducing new players, and something I thought of is leaving some spell levels open and having each player design 1 spell as a part of the session 0 stuff, just to familiarize them with how it works a little more intimately

[callen]

I'm not fond of those magi, either, and for the same reasons. I've already started my own version of this. I've been posting them over on the Scriptorium discord as I go. I've not stuck exclusively to the core book, as I want to demonstrate how to set yourself up for some other options. For example, I've mostly finished Flambeau from the School of the Founder, the School of Apromor, and the School of Ramius and am working on one from the Schools of Sebastian. To allow for this, I'm going to be restricting myself to ArM5D and the three house books.

I wish you well on this endeavor. The more we have, the better.

[Madmarcus]

I don't like the sample magi either but I'm conflicted about this project. In every game that allows significant freedom in building your character I have encountered the idea that the example characters are effectively the minimum baseline by which other characters are judged.

If the examples are relatively unoptimized and lean towards being generalists it isn't a big deal. Players will tend to generate more optimized characters or at least more focused ones. In their desired areas they are better than the baseline but they haven't had to resort to the highest amounts of min-maxing or one trick pony shenanigans. The more optimized or focused the example characters are the less room the players have to create someone that stands out.

Additionally, but perhaps not as important to many people, is that optimizing the example characters risks normalizing the already common idea that a mage should only be concerned with a small subset of the abilities.

[Wingsday]

I think the main problem with this is that even more than many other games, it's simply easier for a new player to play a fairly specialized character. If your only tool is crig every problem starts to look like a pile ot twigs, and I don't really think that's a bad thing, there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with magically created fires, and I'd rather have new players thinking about that than trying to decide if it's easier to bridge this river with crhe or crte or reaq or rehe etc

[Fishy (Lee)]

@Madmarcus

If the examples are relatively unoptimized and lean towards being generalists it isn't a big deal.

I'd like starting magi to be somewhat one trick ponies, with a little bit of energy outside their 2 prime arts, to show that is the most common build. It's also a bit more defining. A starting generalist, when asked what do they do, the answer is "well everything, but poorly." The specialist, learning a few low level spells outside of their core TeFo for a bit of versatility is the way to go.

The generalist after 10 seasons in game time, will see the specialists have all read the books with Quality 15 or even quality 21, and have caught up. The generalist is getting less XP, as the quality 21 book is only level 6, so the 10 XP they'd spent at character creation to get to 4 is wasted, etc. That can lead to a poor experience for a new player.

[Fishy (Lee)]

@ezzelino

He may know spells that are not among the example spells in the corebook, as long as they follow the corebook guidelines; the fewer the better, however, and spells that are only minor modifications of existing ones

{I've edited this twice, as an error was pointed out in the post below, and an error in my first rewrite. Thanks for the corrections Wingsday and Ezechial4671}

I'd like to see an example character with a focus on using their signature major virtue. For example, the guy with flexible formulaic magic learns Rain of Fire. It's Pilum of Fire with Group target. He's also spent 15 XP mastering it to level 2 for multi and fast cast.

In the description it explains, for an extreme threat, Flexitus can adjust Rain of Fire to sight range. With multicast, he can targets 3 groups at sight right. Effectively negating hundreds of soldiers approaching a covenant before they can be close enough to be a real threat.

I've played a bunch of games where the example characters are unplayable. Champions, the example characters had such poor defence they die in any fight. Battletech, I could build a mech with 20% less weight, and still have a more effective mech. Example characters should be worth playing.

[Wingsday]

I think the main problem with this specific example is that it's impossible, you can't get from individual to group with ffm

[Ezechiel3571]

@Fishy

Flexitus adjusts Rain of Fire to target part,

Unfortunately not. As said @Wingsday , it does not work: "The target [for Creo spell] is thus always Individual or Group.", p113 corerulebook.
"Part" is a fraction of Ind, and you can only create whole thing, so you cannot create a fraction of a Ind. fire.

[Fishy (Lee)]

@Ezechiel3571

Unfortunately not. As said @Wingsday , it does not work: "The target [for Creo spell] is thus always Individual or Group.", p113 corerulebook.

Wrong twice. I'll have to edit again.

My first though was using FFM to change individual to group. I forgot it was a two step rise, not one, thus my shift to part in the original rewrite. I should have given the rule book a good read, before the rewrite.

[callen]

@Fishy

In the description it explains, for an extreme threat, Flexitus can adjust Rain of Fire to sight range. With multicast, he can targets 3 groups at sight right. Effectively negating hundreds of soldiers approaching a covenant before they can be close enough to be a real threat.

Yes. That's the approach I've taken. With each build I have a long paragraph explaining how to use them effectively and routes you might want to take as you advance. I then have about a full page of customization options: general, personality, skill/talent, and Story Flaws. Some have said I'm giving too much flexibility, but my thought has been to provide a solid core so any two beginners might start with the same sample mage and end up with fairly distinct individuals in the end. Of course, it takes a long time to design each of them this way, making them very effective without min-maxing and while leaving several points of Virtues and Flaws open while also explaining a lot of possibilities.

[Madmarcus]

@Wingsday

If your only tool is crig every problem starts to look like a pile ot twigs, and I don't really think that's a bad thing, there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with magically created fires, and I'd rather have new players thinking about that than trying to decide if it's easier to bridge this river with crhe or crte or reaq or rehe etc

That's a clear and concise statement of exactly my fear. My experience is that no one need examples to convince them to lean into specialists. Instead they need examples to show them viable characters that are not quite as specialized.

[Madmarcus]

@Fishy

Champions, the example characters had such poor defence they die in any fight. Battletech, I could build a mech with 20% less weight, and still have a more effective mech. Example characters should be worth playing.

I've always thought of it differently. The example characters are world building. They define the world around the PCs. So they are competent to get a player into a one off game maybe or to illustrate what a minimal level of ability the Order expects but mostly good enough to illustrate the mechanics. Outside of that they are purely NPC level and should be a solid step below a decent starting PC.

For what it's worth I've had great fun with a Champions game that set defense limits pretty close to the example characters. We made generalist characters with lots of utility skills and abilities plus had gentleman's agreements that we wouldn't go overboard on some other areas of the system. If one player had leaned into min-maxing seriously it might have fallen apart but it was fun.

@Fishy

The generalist after 10 seasons in game time, will see the specialists have all read the books with Quality 15 or even quality 21, and have caught up. The generalist is getting less XP, as the quality 21 book is only level 6, so the 10 XP they'd spent at character creation to get to 4 is wasted, etc. That can lead to a poor experience for a new player.

I almost didn't post my initial minor complaint because I knew this would come up. It is my least favorite mechanical things about ArM5 but I am forced to agree. Mechanically the way to go is hyper specialize at creation and read yourself into as much of a generalist as you want to be.

[blood_kite]

I almost didn't post my initial minor complaint because I knew this would come up. It is my least favorite mechanical things about ArM5 but I am forced to agree. Mechanically the way to go is hyper specialize at creation and read yourself into as much of a generalist as you want to be.

This is why I like the idea of Fixed Arts from Sub Rosa 15. It both simplifies the starting Art scores of Gauntleted Magi, and doesn't penalize them in terms of books available in the covenant once the saga starts.

[ezzelino]

@callen

I've already started my own version of this. I've been posting them over on the Scriptorium discord as I go

Is there a specific reason why you could/would not repost them here?

I understand they might be using a wider range of options (I'd really like people with only the corebook to be able to use them - after all, being playable with the corebook alone is one of the great advantages of Ats Magica), but it seems to me it would still be a great contribution.

[Fishy (Lee)]

@Madmarcus

Instead they need examples to show them viable characters that are not quite as specialized.

My fear is the viability isn't there.

One doesn't need to do the affinity and puissant in each of a technique and form, combined with a focus to get to a casting total of 45 before dice, but having a starting casting total of no higher than 15, is not much fun.

[callen]

@ezzelino

Is there a specific reason why you could/would not repost them here?

They aren't core book only, as requested. But since it sounds like you're OK with that, here are the several that are nearly complete. One of the main things to do between rough and final drafts is to write up the non-standard spells fully.

.

Criamon: Path of Seeming

Age: 25

Int +3, Per +1, Str 0, Sta 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Dex 0, Qik 0

Virtues & Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; ; Affinity with Enigmatic Wisdom, The Enigma, Font of Knowledge, (Land) Regio Network, Puissant Enigmatic Wisdom, Skilled Parens; [Major Personality Flaw]; Predictive Stigmata, [Minor Personality Flaw]

Area Lore: [small region where apprenticed] 1 (Navigation), Area Lore: [small region where born/raised] 1 (Navigation), Area Lore: [another small region] 1 (Navigation), Artes Liberales 1 (Ceremonial Casting), Athletics 1 (Hiking), Awareness 1 (Nature), Charm 1 (Magi), Concentration 1 (Spells), Divine Lore 1 (Regios), Enigmatic Wisdom 7+2 (Labyrinth Meditation), Etiquette 1 (Hermetic), Faerie Lore 1 (Regios), Folk Ken 1 (Magi), Font of Knowledge 4 (Area Lore), Infernal Lore 1 (Regios), Intrigue 1 (Hermetic), Language: Latin 4 (Hermetic), Language: [native language] 5 ([native dialect]), Language: [something neighboring the native language] 1 ([a nearby dialect]), Magic Lore 1 (Regios), Magic Theory 3 (Spells), Mystery Cult Lore: House Criamon 1 (Path of Seeming), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 1 ([Tribunal where apprenticed]), Parma Magica 1 (Infernal), Penetration 1 (Intellego), Profession: Scribe 1 (Latin), Stealth 1 (Natural Areas), Survival 1 (Regios), Swim 1 (Underwater)

In 10, Im 5, Me 5

Tongue of the Fishes but in general (InAn 20)
Whispering Winds (InAu 15)
Intuition of the Forest (InHe 10)
Eyes of the Eagle (InIm 25)
Thoughts Within Babble (InMe 25)
Eyes of the Treacherous Terrain (InTe 15)
Piercing the Faerie Veil (InVi 20)
Piercing the Magical Veil (InVi 20)

Play Notes: This mage is focused on using Enigmatic Wisdom to explore different places and look into their history, their present magic, and maybe even their future. Labyrinth Meditation (HoH:MC p.60), which takes only a Diameter to complete and doesn’t require a labyrinth, plays a big part in this, as does Intelligence +3. Those dramatically boost all rolls against various lores. If you don’t have the right lore, you can pick up another couple lores each day very temporarily with Font of Knowledge and still have that boost. Given a little bit of time and these great lores, (Land) Regio Network can allow you to move yourself along with the rest of the troupe across Mythic Europe with ease, using Piercing the Magical Veil to assist you. As you delve into the Path of Seeming, the great Enigmatic Wisdom score will substitute for both Magic Sensitivity and Second Sight without penalties from misaligned Auras since Enigmatic Wisdom is not a Supernatural Ability. Delving a little further you’ll be able to see into objects’ pasts. As for the future, that comes from Predictive Stigmata and analyzing them with Enigmatic Wisdom. With so much coming from Enigmatic Wisdom, casting spells is actually a secondary thing for this mage. The spells selected provide a wide variety of useful information for exploration. But this mage is very vulnerable in combat. Be sure to travel with shield grogs.

Customization Ideas: Select a Major Personality Flaw and a Minor Personality Flaw to suit your vision for the character. There is room for 5 more points each of Virtues and Flaws.

General:

• Ability specializations can be changed freely. But you probably don’t want to change the Magic Theory specialization, as this mage has little experience in Arts.
• You need to choose a type for your regio network. You should probably choose something land-based like caves, as you don’t have a lot of magic for mobility to handle swimming or flight so well. Swimming or flight would also likely be problematic for everyone with you.
• Do not take Disfigured for your stigmata, nor Vow nor Pious to represent following an apt path. Starting with any of these will cause problems with initiations on the Path of Seeming. Twilight Prone can be similarly problematic, but only at the very end of the Path of Seeming.
• Most likely you will not have room to take another Story Flaw since you already have Predictive Stigmata.
• So many points (90 before multiplying by 1.5) are put into Enigmatic Wisdom that picking up Arcane Lore can account for 50 of those, allowing 50 points to be placed anywhere, not just into Arcane Abilities
• Puissant Font of Knowledge, and to a lesser extent Affinity with Font of Knowledge, is a good portion of getting an extra use each day out of Font of Knowledge. With how integral Font of Knowledge is to this build, this could be very helpful.
• Consider removing some spells to get Touch versions of spells like Shriek of Impending Shafts to give your shield grogs better defenses so you’re all more likely to survive.

Personality/Style:

• Depending on what you are interested in investigating, Magical Fascination or Obsession could represent a deep desire.
• While you don’t want to use Vow or Pious, as mentioned above, Compassionate, Dutybound, Humble, Noncombatant, or Soft-Hearted can still represent different parts of your personality putting you on a path of apt action. Similarly, Optimistic or Overconfident could represent other aspects of faith in your path of apt action.
• Depending on your reason for exploration, Driven or Higher Purpose could provide the internal motivation toward it.

Skill/Talent:

• You could decide you want to communicate with people a lot when exploring. Raise Presence and Communication by dropping other 0s. Take the Gentle Gift. Be warned that Disfigured will cause some problems immediately as you start initiations on the Path of Seeming.
• You might go the other direction, amplifying the disquieting nature of the Gift brought to the fore by your stigmata. Take the Blatant Gift. Perhaps lower both Presence and Communication to raise other things.
• If you want to be able to explore Divine and Infernal things better, strongly consider Sense Holiness and Unholiness. That is something your Intellego and Enigmatic Wisdom will never be able to handle well. If you do this, note the difficulties with the Ability. You might include Affinity or Puissant or build up Penetration and change it specialization. Raise Perception by lowering some 0s.

Story Flaws:

• If you drop Predictive Stigmata, Plagued by Supernatural Entity, Supernatural Nuisance, Faerie Friend, or Magical (Being) Companion could provide an external driving force, pushing you toward the exploration you do.
• If you drop Predictive Stigmata, Indiscrete could come from not being deceptive on your path of apt action.

.

Flambeau: School of the Founder

Age: 25

Int +2, Per 0, Str 0, Sta +2, Pre 0, Com 0, Dex 0, Qik +1

Virtues & Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Major Magical Focus: Fire; Deft Ignem, Puissant Ignem, Skilled Parens; [Major Personality Flaw]; Deficient Aquam, [Minor Personality Flaw]

Area Lore: [Chosen Tribunal] 1 (Navigation), Artes Liberales 1 (Ceremonial Casting), Athletics 1 (Running), Awareness 2 (Alertness), Brawl 2 (Dodging), Charm 1 (Magi), Concentration 2 (Spells), Etiquette 2 (Hermetic), Finesse 1 (Fast Casting), Folk Ken 1 (Magi), Guile 1 (), Intrigue 2 (Hermetic), Language: Latin 4 (Hermetic), Language: [native language] 5 ([native dialect]), Magic Theory 3 (Spells), Organization Lore: Cult of Mercury 1 (Members), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 1 (House Flambeau), Parma Magica 1 (Vim), Penetration 1 (Ignem), Profession: Scribe 1 (Latin), Stealth 1 (Natural Areas)

Cr 8, In 1, Mu 9, Re 1, An 1, Co 9, Ig 8+3

Bind Wound @ Personal (CrCo 5)

Flesh to Flame (MuCo(Ig) 35), Mastery 1: Fast Casting - Base 30, +1 Diameter
Pilum of Fire (CrIg 20), Mastery 3: Adaptive Casting, Multiple Casting, Penetration
Ball of Abysmal Flame (CrIg 35), (using Mastery from PoF)
Vision of Heat’s Light (InIg 20)
Body of Darkfire (Mu(Pe)Ig 10) - Base 4, +2 Sun
Fire Flies (ReIg 5) - Base 3, +2 Sun
Leap of Flame (ReIg 20) - Base 20 teleport to AC

Play Notes: You can throw 4 copies of Ball of Abysmal Flame each round for a lot of damage, or you can switch to 4 copies of Pilum of Fire if you need the penetration. While this mage can sling fire quite well, even generally better than the one-trick pony in the core book, the spell Flesh to Flame is really integral to the character. At the moment casting requisites will be problematic to transform along with your clothes and other items on you, though you could solve much of that with Virtues mentioned above. Turning into fire makes the mage very hard to hurt. Deft Ignem means the mage can cast Ignem spells without voice or gestures in that form without trouble. So now you can fling fire from a safer position. More importantly, you can fly and teleport as a fire, which provides a lot of versatility. Body of Darkfire allows you to be a lightless flame if you need to be more stealthy. It should be noted that these spells will not end when Flesh to Flame ends, though Body of Darkfire won’t be of any particular use in human form; but this does mean that you can fly in human form. Finally, Vision of Heat’s Light gives some ability to see in darkness if you’re being stealthy or to see certain invisible enemies.

Customization Ideas: Select a Major Personality Flaw and a Minor Personality Flaw to suit your vision for the character. There is room for 5 more points each of Virtues and Flaws, which could include a Story Flaw.

General:

• Ability specializations can be changed freely. If you end up lowering Intelligence to +1, make sure you don’t change the Magic Theory specialization.
• If you want to start younger, at 23 years old, lower any three of Awareness, Brawl, Concentration, Etiquette, or Intrigue from 2 to 1.
• A lot of people like Greater Immunity to Heat and Flame. That certainly fits thematically, but it might be too stereotypical for you. Flesh to Flame already lets you touch fires without being hurt, so you don’t need Greater Immunity to Heat and Flame to use Touch-range spells on fires without getting hurt, though it wouldn’t require you to turn to flame.
• Similarly, you might find Deficient Aquam too stereotypical. Deficient Aquam could easily be changed to another Minor Hermetic Flaw.
• Affinity or Puissant in Creo, Muto, or Ignem would help increase your most important Arts quickly. If you want to focus more on blasting with fire, focus on Creo or Ignem. If you want to focus on manipulating fire, focus on Muto or Ignem.
• Spell Mastery is important, but you want to focus it on just a few spells to get a lot out of it. You could freely swap all of the Mastery from Pilum of Fire to Ball of Abysmal Flame without changing how anything currently works. Whichever you choose, build more spells that are similar to that one so that you can work better with Adaptive Casting. Taking Mastered Spells would also give you more points of Spell Mastery to work with, or possibly just freeing up some of the 35 points already in Spell Mastery to be reallocated.
• If you get any extra experience, such as reallocating points due to Affinity or Puissant or Mastered Spells in the previous points, strongly consider placing them in Muto, Animal, Herbam, and Terram so that casting requisites don’t inhibit Flesh to Flame when you want to transform along with your equipment.
• Later on consider using MuIg or ReIg to develop spells to make fires harder to put out, make them so they won’t burn certain things, etc. You can use these on yourself with Flesh to Flame, as demonstrated with Body of Darkfire, Fire Flies, and Leap of Flame.
• Later on also consider a spell to put out fires so you can stop accidental fires you have caused.
• As the original Adaptive Casting had actually been free and automatic for everyone, not even taking up a Mastery option, you might talk to your troupe about making the errata’d version generally available if you don’t want to be in the Cult of Mercury.

Personality/Style:

• If you want to build upon the fiery idea of Ignem, consider Personality Flaws such as Wrathful, Fickle Nature, or Obsessed. Consider something like a Lesser Malediction where your touch slightly burns things, not enough to damage but enough to cause a smell and leave marks behind. Or perhaps Environmental Sensitivity because your body really doesn’t like the cold.
• Perhaps you want to become known as the greatest master of fire ever. Personality Flaws like Ambitious or Driven would be appropriate. Consider Affinity with Ignem to improve your Ignem more easily.
• Or maybe you want to be more a warrior for good who happens to use Ignem; Personality Flaws like Driven, Higher Purpose, or Vow could work well. Consider Flaws like Infamous to represent a reputation for painful violence despite your good intentions.

Skill/Talent:

• If you want to improve your speed in combat, both for initiative with your fire and for fast casting Flesh to Flame, you could raise Quickness to +3. Either lower both Intelligence and Stamina to +1 while dropping any one of the 0s to -1, or lower just one of Intelligence or Stamina to +1 while dropping any of the 0s to -2.
• If you want to be the go-to wizard for Ignem and be able to earn vis by writing books, get Good Teacher and raise Communication to +3. Either lower both Intelligence and Stamina to +1 while dropping any two others by a point, or lower just one of Intelligence or Stamina to +1 while dropping any of the 0s to -2 and any of the others by a point.
• If you want to focus on blasting your way through things, you might lower Intelligence to +1 and any one of the 0s to -1 to raise Stamina to +3. While Life Boost can be one of the most powerful Virtues for blasting through things, it’s actually not quite as handy here as you might think with all of the Multiple Casting that will happen combined with the doubling from Spell Mastery’s Penetration and your Major Magical Focus. For example, raising Stamina by 1 and 45 points in Spell Mastery to get to 5 gives you 5 more points of penetration in every one of six attacks in a round. Or raising Stamina by 1 and putting 19 experience in Creo to get to 10 gives you 5 more points of penetration in every one of four attacks as well as increasing Lab Totals. They cannot match a single shot from Life Boost, but they’ll provide a lot more penetration and other utility in general.

Story Flaws:

• Enemies could be a group you have fought in the past, where many of them remain.
• Hermetic Patron could be a Flambeau archmage renowned for fire who sees your talent with fire and wants you to be their successor.
• Indiscreet could parallel being associated with fire. Just as fire is so obvious, giving away its position with light, smoke, heat, etc., you too give away your position socially and in other ways.
• Being so associated with fire, you could have a salamander as a Magical (Being) Companion.

.

Flambeau: School of Apromor

Age: 25

Int +2, Per 0, Str 0, Sta +1, Pre +1, Com +1, Dex 0, Qik +1

Virtues & Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Flawless Magic; Affinity with Perdo, Minor Magical Focus: Dispelling, Puissant Perdo; [Major Personality Flaw]; [Minor Personality Flaw]

Artes Liberales 1 (Ceremonial Casting), Athletics 1 (Running), Awareness 1 (Alertness), Brawl 2 (Dodging), Charm 2 (First Impressions), Concentration 2 (Spells), Etiquette 1 (Hermetic), Folk Ken 2 (Magi), Guile 2 (Feigning Innocence), Intrigue 1 (Hermetic), Language: Latin 4 (Hermetic), Language: [native language] 5 ([native dialect]), Magic Theory 3 (Spells), Organization Lore: Cult of Mercury 1 (Personalities), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 1 (House Flambeau), Parma Magica 1 (Vim), Penetration 1 (Perdo), Profession: Scribe 1 (Latin), Stealth 1 (Indoors), Swim 1 (Not Drowning)

Pe 14+3, Aq 5, Me 5, Vi 5

Curse of the Desert (PeAq 25), Mastery 1: Multiple Casting
Winter’s Icy Touch (PeIg 10), Mastery 3: Multiple Casting, Penetration, Resistance
Hiding the Ill-Bred Bard (PeIm 15), Mastery 1: Quiet Casting
I Was Never Here (PeMe 5), Mastery 1: Quiet Casting
Calm the Beating of the Heart (PeMe 10), Mastery 1: Quiet Casting
Soften the Gift’s Touch (PeMe 25), Mastery 2: Quiet Casting x2
Demon’s Eternal Oblivion (PeVi 10), Mastery 3: Adaptive Casting, Multiple Casting, Penetration
Dreadful Bane of the Fae (PeVi 10), (using Mastery from DEO), Mastery 1: Lab Mastery
Sap the Griffon’s Strength (PeVi 10), (using Mastery from DEO), Mastery 1: Resistance

Play Notes: While this mage cannot travel really easily, there is a lot of flexibility otherwise. Opponents can be knocked unconscious or killed. It is worth noting Winter’s Icy Touch will work on beings up to Size +3, and Curse of the Desert will work on beings up to Size +4 (potentially more if they have little fluid in them, but this is a good, conservative Size). Might stripping is also available against all but the Divine, and the penetration is enough that two Might-20 beings or somewhere around a single Might-35 being could be completely stripped of Might in one round. Invisibility is available. There are also several PeMe spells that can be particularly useful. Soften the Gift’s Touch will let you bypass problems with the Gift on an individual basis (see Trust Me, HoH:TL p.73) so that this mage can function socially, and the other PeMe spells could be cast with some penalty to make them more subtle, too. It’s also worth being aware that this mage can spontaneously cast a PeVi 5 spell without Fatigue, which is enough to consistently dispel a level-15 spell at Voice Range, or have a 50-50 chance of taking down a level-20 spell at Voice Range.

Customization Ideas: Select a Major Personality Flaw and a Minor Personality Flaw to suit your vision for the character. At least one more Minor Flaw must be chosen, probably a Hermetic one. Beyond that there is room for 5 more points each of Virtues and Flaws, which could include a Story Flaw.

General:

• Ability specializations can be changed freely. If you end up lowering Intelligence to +1, make sure you don’t change the Magic Theory specialization.
• If you want to start younger, at 23 years old, lower any three of Brawl, Charm, Concentration, Folk Ken, or Guile from 2 to 1.
• Don’t take the Blatant Gift if you want Soften the Gift’s Touch to work, as the spell isn’t strong enough for that and any stronger will quickly start to warp people you may not want to warp.
• Spell Mastery is very valuable. You can take Mastered Spells. You can raise Winter’s Icy Touch to Mastery 4 for 10 points (doubled) to be able to knock most opponents unconscious in a single round. You can raise Soften the Gift’s Touch to Mastery 4 for 18 points (doubled) to get Still Casting and either Multiple Casting or Stalwart Casting. You can raise Curse of the Desert to Mastery 2 for 5 points (doubled) to get Penetration. You could do all of those, use the remaining 17 points to cover points already spent above, and divert 17 points into other Arts or Abilities.
• Independent Study is very useful with Spell Mastery after character creation, as Spell Mastery is almost always improved with Practice or Adventure; so it pairs particularly well with Flawless Magic.
• If you want more spells, take Skilled Parens. The extra experience can be used as noted with Spell Mastery above, or could be used anywhere else. A very useful thing might be to spend 21 or more points to raise Rego to at least 6 and use 15 levels of spells to pick up Wizard’s Leap (ReCo 15) while choosing Fast Casting as the Mastery option; this would give you much more mobility and a good defense in combat. Alternatively, 6 points in Vim to reach 6 and 15 points in Intellego to reach 5 would allow you to start with Piercing the Faerie Veil (InVi 20) or Piercing the Magical Veil (InVi 20) for some investigative magic. You could even do both if you drop I Was Never Here.
• Consider dropping I Was Never Here to move the 5 levels to Winter’s Icy Touch to have a Sight version of it instead, which can be more subtle while giving you a lot more range.
• As the original Adaptive Casting had actually been free and automatic for everyone, not even taking up a Mastery option, you might talk to your troupe about making the errata’d version generally available if you don’t want to be in the Cult of Mercury.

Personality/Style:

• If you want to build upon the death idea of Perdo, consider Personality Flaws such as Wrathful or Hatred. Consider Deficient Creo as a Major Hermetic Flaw or something like a Lesser Malediction with plants withering around you.
• Maybe you want to build upon similar ideas but more dissociating and breaking; consider Personality Flaws such as Rebellious or Secretive. Consider Chaotic Magic or Weird Magic to represent your magic itself being rebellious when you haven’t mastered it.
• If you want to build upon the idea of the mastering of the intricacies of magic showcased by the Magical Focus and Flawless magic, Personality Flaws like Ambitious and Magical Fascination would fit. Consider Weak Spontaneous Magic or Ceremonial Spontaneous Magic to represent only working with more controlled magic.
• Or maybe you want to be more a warrior for good who happens to use Perdo; Personality Flaws like Driven, Higher Purpose, or Vow could work well. Consider Flaws like Unbearable to Demons to represent how you come across to your enemies.

Skill/Talent:

• If you want to really excel at fast-cast defenses, Dimicatio, and the like, lower Intelligence to +1 to raise Quickness to +2. Then lower either Strength or Dexterity to -2 to raise Quickness from +2 to +3. If your troupe accepts that Fast Caster applies to fast casting, pick that up. Later develop PeVi counterspells and choose Fast Casting as a Mastery option.
• If you want to be more social, lower Intelligence to +1 to raise Communication to +2. Lower Strength, Dexterity, and Quickness each by 1 point to raise Presence to +2 and Perception to +1. Perhaps choose Piercing Gaze, Venus’s Blessing, or something similar.
• If you want to be the go-to wizard for Perdo and be able to earn vis by writing books, lower Intelligence to +1 to raise Communication to +2. Then lower either Strength or Dexterity to -2 to raise Communication from +2 to +3. Pick up Good Teacher.

Story Flaws:

• Enemies could be a group you have fought in the past, where many of them remain.
• Supernatural Nuisance could be due to general enmity from those you hunt.
• Curse of Venus or Envied Beauty could represent a darker, more cursed side, of being social while having the Gift.
• Hermetic Patron could be a Guernicas who wants you to become a Hoplite and is helping you along that path.

[callen]

Oops. Hit the limit for one post. Here are more:

Flambeau: School of Ramius

Age: 25

Int +2, Per 0, Str +1, Sta +1, Pre 0, Com 0, Dex +1, Qik +1

Virtues & Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; The Gentle Gift; Affinity with Leadership, Minor Magical Focus: Wards, Puissant Leadership, Warrior; Short-Ranged Magic, [Major Personality Flaw]; [Minor Personality Flaw]

Artes Liberales 1 (Ceremonial Casting), Athletics 1 (Running), Awareness 1 (Alertness), Brawl 2 (Dodging), Charm 1 (Soldiers), Concentration 1 (Spells), Etiquette 1 (Hermetic), Folk Ken 1 (Soldiers), Guile 1 (Deceptive Truths), Language: Latin 4 (Hermetic), Language: [native language] 5 ([native dialect]), Leadership 6+2 (Combat), Magic Theory 3 (Spells), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 1 (House Flambeau), Parma Magica 1 (Sharing Protection), Penetration 1 (Rego), Ride 2 (Combat), Single Weapon 4 (Heater Shield), Stealth 1 (Natural Areas)

In 8, Mu 5, Re 7, An 3, He 4, Te 4, Vi 5

Doublet of Impenetrable Silk (MuAn 15)
Ward Against Mundane Beasts (ReAn 5) - Base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Sun
Shriek of Impending Shafts @ Touch (InHe 20)
Aegis of Unbreakable Wood (MuHe 15)
Shriek of Impending Shafts @ Touch v. metal (InTe 20)
Wrappings of Metaphysical Iron (ReVi 15)
Wrappings of Metaphysical Iron v. Infernal (ReVi 15)
Wrappings of Metaphysical Iron v. Magic (ReVi 15)

Play Notes: This mage is designed to be leading a Trained Group; that’s why Leadership is so important. The rest of the combat scores just need to be close to the vanguard’s scores. If spells are cast on the entire Trained Group ahead of time to provide substantial defenses, then the bonus for the Trained Group can be put into the attack for something powerful without needing to penetrate. The mage will do even better with a Trained Group that is mounted. Also, MuAn or similar could later be used on mounts to make them much more versatile, like having winged horses. Meanwhile the Gentle Gift allows the mage to be a better leader in general and could allow the mage to pose as a knight or similar with more ease.

Customization Ideas: Select a Major Personality Flaw and a Minor Personality Flaw to suit your vision for the character. There is room for 4 more points of Virtues, the last 3 of which would need to be balanced by Flaws, which could include a Story Flaw.

General:

• Ability specializations can be changed freely. If you end up lowering Intelligence to +1, make sure you don’t change the Magic Theory specialization.
• Every spell on this mage’s list is a protective spell of some sort. If you want more variety, find one or two to drop to pick up some other interesting spells. Note that you could develop two of those ReVi wards in about a season each, depending on the aura, using the similar-spell bonus from the one you keep; so they could be replaced and picked back up relatively easily.
• Puissant Parma Magica would help a lot for sharing that magical protection across an entire Trained Group. A Trained Group can have six members, of which this mage would be one, meaning you want to share it with five others. Parma Magica of 4 (plus 1 for specialty) could take a while to reach. But if you start with Parma Magica 1+2 (plus 1 for specialty), you’re only 10 experience away. And later on, for the same experience investment you’ll provide that much more protection.
• Affinity with Rego and Puissant Rego work very well together with the Minor Magical Focus. You will be able to pick up more wards of all sorts more easily and penetrate better with the ones that need penetration.
• If you want more spells, take Skilled Parens. Put a few points into Vim to improve penetration on your ReVi wards. Useful spells might include social ones like Aura of Ennobled Presence (MuIm 10) or utility spells like Piercing the Faerie Veil (InVi 20) or Piercing the Magical Veil (InVi 20).

Personality/Style:

• Perhaps you want to be a magical crusader with your Trained Group as your retinue. You have the subtlety to pull it off. Consider Personality Flaws like Driven, Dutybound, Higher Purpose, Pious, or Vow.
• If you follow the Code of Garus, whether you’ve publicly sworn to it or not, Personality Flaws like Dutybound, Higher Purpose, and Vow could be appropriate.
• With your talent at wards making you very hard to hurt, maybe it’s gone to your head. This may have resulted in Personality Flaws like Overconfident, Proud, or Reckless.
• With your Gentle Gift and being used to providing so much to your Trained Group, you may feel like your place in life is to help the mundanes in related ways. Personality Flaws like Compassionate, Higher Purpose, Meddler, and Vow can represent different versions of this.

Skill/Talent:

• If you want to be more social, lower Intelligence to +1 to raise both Communication and Presence to +1. You don’t really want to lower anything else because you want many other Characteristics positive for combat. Perhaps choose Piercing Gaze, Venus’s Blessing, or something similar.
• If you actually want to be the vanguard as well as the leader, then you want your combat stats a little higher. Lower Intelligence to +1 to raise a combat-related Characteristic of your choice to +2. Consider taking Affinity or Puissant with Single Weapon. Large is surprisingly valuable here because it doesn’t increase any combat stat higher so it won’t take you too far for a Trained Group, but as the vanguard it will mean you take lesser Wounds than otherwise, keeping the group fighting more effectively.
• If you want to have a wide variety of contacts, you can use your great Leadership to establish a network. Look at Agencies (HoH:S p.140-144) for how this applies. Consider the Virtue Social Contacts.

Story Flaws:

• If you’ve publicly sworn to the Code of Garus, Miles (HoH:S p.31-32) would be very appropriate.
• Enemies could be a group you have fought in the past, where many of them remain.
• Difficult Underlings could apply to your Trained Group of grogs, drawing you into a lot of things with them.
• This is a type of mage who might be able to manage an Oath of Fealty. Having the Gentle Gift and fighting with a Trained Group in not-so-obviously-magical ways could allow them to avoid breaking the Code outside the having taken the Oath of Fealty itself.

.

Jerbiton: Meddler

Age: 25

Int +1, Per +1, Str 0, Sta +1, Pre +1, Com +2, Dex 0, Qik 0

Virtues & Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; The Gentle Gift; Affinity with Mentem, Cautious Sorcerer, Deft Mentem, Linguist; [Major Personality Flaw]; [Minor Personality Flaw]

Artes Liberales 1 (Ceremonial Casting), Awareness 1 (Social Cues), Carouse 1 (Staying Sober), Charm 2 (Sincerity), Etiquette 1 (Nobility), Folk Ken 2 (Spotting Lies), Guile 2 (Identity Change), Intrigue 2 (Agencies), Language: Latin 4 (Hermetic), Language: [native language] 5(19) ([native dialect]), Language: [choose another] 4 ([choose a dialect]), Magic Theory 3 (Spells), Organization Lore: The Cult of Mercury 1 (Members), Organization Lore: Order of Hermes 1 (House Jerbiton), Parma Magica 1 (Corpus), Profession: Scribe 1 (Latin), Stealth 1 (Indoors)

In 7, Re 6, Au 3, Me 14

Whispering Winds (InAu 15), Mastery 2: Quiet Casting x2
Sight of the Transparent Motive (InMe 10), (using Mastery from Posing the Silent Question)
Posing the Silent Question (InMe 20), Mastery 1: Adaptive Casting
Calm the Motion of the Heart (PeMe 15)
All Vows Forgotten (PeMe 20)
The Call to Slumber @ Sight (ReMe 15)
Aura of Inconsequence (ReMe 25)

Play Notes: With the Gentle Gift and a focus on Mentem, this mage is a master manipulator, focused on working among mundanes to whatever end is desired. All of the Mentem spells may be cast without penalty without either words or gestures, so this mage can be very subtle around people. It is likely many of these spells will be cast in a Divine aura; Cautious Sorcerer helps reduce the chance of botching significantly, making doing so more reliable. The InMe spells let the mage figure out a person fairly well, while the PeMe spells provide subtle ways for the mage to be more effective with social skills. Whispering Winds will allow eavesdropping, while Aura of Inconsequence will allow an invisibility-like effect that can be more handy among people. A sleep spell is this mage’s only combat spell, which can quite be effective; but the mage lacks good defenses. Get a shield grog for defense. There are also no good spells yet for transportation. With a little more investment in Rego, you could pick up magical defenses and transportation later.

Customization Ideas: Select a Major Personality Flaw and a Minor Personality Flaw to suit your vision for the character. You must select at least 2 more points of Flaws, which could include a Story Flaw. There is room for 4 more points of Virtues, which would need to be balanced by Flaws.

General:

• Ability specializations can be changed freely.
• In addition to filling in your native language, fill in other languages that will work well where you are involved with people.
• If you want to be better socially, the physical Characteristics could be lowered to raise the mental Characteristics.
• If you don’t want a large variety of languages, trade out the free Virtue Linguist for any of a number of useful social Virtues, such as Social Contacts, Puissant Guile, or Puissant Intrigue.
• To fill out the Flaws you have a lot of areas in which you could sacrifice some magical strength. Consider several of the Major Hermetic Flaws for this, such as Necessary Condition, Restriction, Study Requirement, Weak Magic Resistance, or Weak Spontaneous Magic.
• This mage’s list of spells lacks defense and mobility. If you want more variety, find one or two to drop to pick up some other interesting spells. You could swap the Rego and Intellego scores and be able to pick up Wizard’s Leap (ReCo 15) in exchange for another level-15 spell, for instance.
• If you want to be able to deal with languages even better at the expense of some social ability, you could drop Sight of the Transparent Motive and one of the level-15 spells to pick up Thoughts Within Babble (InMe 25).
• If you want more spells, you could take Skilled Parens. Then you could pick up some spells like those mentioned previously.
• Despite having Cautious Sorcerer, a level of Spell Mastery in a spell is really useful. The reason is that you will probably most often cast these spells in a Divine 3 Aura. That puts your casting at 4 botch dice. Neither Cautious Sorcerer nor a Familiar’s Gold Cord can get rid of that last point. But a single level of Spell Mastery along with Cautious Sorcerer will handle it. Adaptive Casting is useful in getting those Spell Mastery Abilities to apply more broadly. And later, when you get a Familiar, the Gold Cord will enable you to cast inside churches or cathedrals without fear of botching.
• This build is so focused on Mentem, Puissant Mentem would end up being quite valuable. It would keep you more narrowly focused, but that’s generally a good thing.
• Likewise, a Minor Magical Focus in something mental could work well. Keep in mind that the examples in the core book are extremely narrow. The Major Magical Focus suggestions for Mentem are nearly narrow enough to qualify as Minor Magical Foci. So if you’re going to choose a Minor Magical Focus, make your own and don’t pigeon-hole yourself quite so much as those do. Things along the lines of “reading minds,” applying to InMe to read both emotions and memories, cover a great deal of InMe and yet are still less than it and so qualify.
• As the original Adaptive Casting had actually been free and automatic for everyone, not even taking up a Mastery option, you might talk to your troupe about making the errata’d version generally available if you don’t want to be in the Cult of Mercury.

Personality/Style:

• Perhaps you just want to be a meddler as a pure personality thing, just liking getting into everyone’s business. Consider the Personality Flaws Meddler and Busybody.
• You might have a particular purpose driving you to meddle, perhaps on behalf of the covenant or the tribunal. The Personality Flaws like Driven, Higher Purpose, or Dutybound might be more appropriate.
• You might want to achieve great ends or have great desires and just know that your strengths are social so you work toward those strengths. Then you might look at Personality Flaws like Ambitious, Envious, or Overconfident.
• Maybe you’re just really social and like being around people. It just happens you can be especially effective there and are happy plying your trade. Personality Flaws like Carefree, Compassionate, or Optimistic might work well.

Skill/Talent:

• If you want to be good at complementary illusions, that can be done fairly easily. Most Imaginem spells don’t need to be very high level. Even Personal-range, Moon-duration versions of spells like Aura of Beguiling Appearance, Aura of Childlike Innocence, and Aura of Ennobled Presence would only be level 10; and setting them to Moon means they can last through an evening and into the night without needing to be recast.
• If you want to take on multiple disguises, you could consider either Persona, using MuCo spells, or using MuIm spells. Persona would give the deepest alternate identities, while the spells more easily allow for impersonating others. Put more points into Guile, maybe including a Virtue like Puissant Guile. Developing Fast Casting with Posing the Silent Question can also help you provide the expected answer quickly when being tested.
• If you want to have a large network, raise Presence and either Intrigue or Leadership to allow for more Agencies (HoH:S p.140-144), possibly including a Virtue like Puissant Intrigue or Puissant Leadership. Also consider the Virtue Social Contacts.

Story Flaws:

• If you are still connected to your family in some way, Black Sheep, Feud, Close Family Ties, or Heir could represent issues you face due to those connections.
• Enemies, Favors, or Blackmail could be the result of past intrigues with lingering consequences.
• While being social, you could also have social problems such as Curse of Venus or Envied Beauty.

[ezzelino]

That's great! It almost perfectly matches what I wanted. Modifying the characters, or at least many of them, so that they rely exclusively on the corebook without "breaking" the design seems relatively straightforward.

[callen]

Hopefully everyone can see I've avoided min-maxing. You can look at things like the Characteristics, where I avoided bottoming less useful things out. I haven't used all the Virtues available. I have also avoided more complex things like ReVi tricks. Yet in each case I believe these magi are generally more playable than the ones in the core book while also providing more room for customization.