Better example magi!

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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On a separate topic, what do people reckon the best way to do a traditional research focussed Bonisagus is under the constraints of the topic? That is, core book only, and in particular no original research or integration rules. I side-stepped it a bit with my previous Bonisagus by having them try to do something that was more about finding new applications of existing theories than expanding the boundaries of Hermetic theory, but it does mean they’re not a fully traditional Bonisagus.

Options I can see:

  • Build a character trying to expand the boundaries of Hermetic theory and just gloss over the issue of how they’re going to do that in play
  • Build a character that’s interested in going out and investigating Hedge traditions / ancient magic, and gloos over the issue of quite how that will work
  • Do a character that’s just inventing interesting new spells via experimentation and trying to get interesting side effects.
  • The approach taken previously of trying to do things that are technically already possible under Hermetic theory, just aren’t actually being done currently.
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What about a magus specializing in field research on regios?

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I understand wanting to focus on the core book, but with the Defenitive Edition coming, I think it’s fine making these sample characters using the rules from the DE book, which gives players more options right off the bat, which also means, giving you a wider range of Virtues/Flaws to use.

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I would say this, with a focus on InVi to analyse non hermetic items in the lab afterwards

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Whilst I can definitely see where you’re coming from, there’s a few reasons I want to stick with core only:

  • It’s the original premise of the thread
  • Whilst Definitive Edition (will soon) exist, it’s pricey and the book will be heavy to carry places. I therefore expect it won’t be uncommon for people to only have the core 5e Rules
  • In some ways it’s actually easier (and definitely quicker) to create the characters with a more limited selection of options. This one isn’t an unalloyed good, as there are definitely some options I would like that are out.

I might at some point do a collection of magi 20-30 years out of gauntlet using the full collection of books, but I would definitely expect it to be a lot smaller.

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Astrid ex Flambeau

Characteristics: Int +2, Per +1, Pre -1, Com -1, Str +1, Sta +2, Dex +2, Qik +1
Size: 0
Age: 25
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence Score: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Puissant Perdo*; Affinity with Perdo, Affinity with Vim, Affinity with Single Weapon; Flawless Magic; Improved Characteristics; Warrior; Church Upbringing; Deficient Form Aquam;Deficient Form Ignem; Rigid Magic; Temperate (minor)
*House Virtue
Personality Traits: Temperate +3, Standoffish +2, Devout +1
Reputations: None
Combat:
Grapple: Init +1, Atk +5, Dfn +4, Dam n/a
Mace: Init +2, Atk +12, Dfn +8, Dam +9
Soak: +2(unarmoured)/+4 (reinforced leather)
Fatigue Penalties: OK, 0, -1, -3, -5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20)
Abilities: Area Lore: Flanders 1 (religious institutions), Artes Liberales 1 (astrology), Athletics 2 (running), Awareness 2 (searching), Brawl 2 (grapple), Concentration 2 (spells), Etiquette 2 (clerics), Infernal Lore 3 (demons), Latin 4 (Hermetic usage), Magic Theory 3 (Perdo), Low German 5 (Flemish), Parma Magica 1 (Infernal), Penetration 2 (Perdo), Single Weapon 6 (Mace)
Arts: Cr 0, In 0, Mu 0, Pe 12+3, Re 0, An 0, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 7, He 0, Ig 0, Im 0, Me 0, Te 0, Vi 10
Twilight scars: None
Equipment: Wizardly robes, a mace, partial leather amour
Encumbrance: 0 (0)
Spells known:
Bind Wounds (CrCo 10) +10 (mastery 1, still casting)
Dust to Dust (PeCo 10) +25 (mastery 1, multiple casting)
The Wound the Weeps a lot (PeCo 20) +25 (mastery 1, multiple casting) (as the wound that weeps, but inflicts a medium wound)
Ongoing Spasm of the uncontrolled Hand (ReCo 5) +10 (mastery 1, still casting) (as the Spasm of the uncontrolled hand; but D:Diam)
Rise of the Feathery Body (ReCo 10) +10 (mastery 1, Imperturbable)
Curse of the distant Rotted Wood (PeHe 10) +18 (mastery 1, multiple casting) (as the Curse of the Rotted Wood but R:Voice)
Veil of Invisibility (PeIm 20) +18 (mastery 1, penetration)
Lay to Rest the Haunting Spirit (PeMe 10) +18 (mastery 1, penetration)
Demon’s Eternal Oblivion (PeVi 15) +28 (mastery 1, penetration)
Unravelling the Fabric of Terram (PeVi 10) +28 (mastery 1, penetration)

Character Notes
Astrid was abandoned as a babe in front of a nunnery in Flanders; and na,ed after the day’s Saint. She suffered a difficult childhood there; picked on by the other orphans. In time she was noticed by a Flambeau mage of the Line of Apromor. While he did not tell her as much, he trained her to follow in his footsteps as a Venator and a hoplite.

She is is able to defeat her foes in melee, using her Curse of the rotted wood to break the bows, shields and hafted weapons of her opponents or Ongoing Spasm of the uncontrolled Hand to disarm foes who lack magical resistance. She should be able to banish demons and ghosts that she faces with relative ease.

She keeps somewhat to her religious upbringing; in particular in abstaining from over indulging.

Regarding spells, the idea behind the invisibility spell is as a combat boost: she can turn herself invisible to get more or less bonuses to her combat scores, and the penetration specialty for the Veil of Invisibility is thought for a case of her causing a first wound with her mace, thereby getting an arcane connection to the foe at which point she can turn herself and her weapon invisible for maximal combat bonuses.

Customisation Notes
The character has taken only 7 points of Flaws and Virtues, to leave some space for adjustements. Favours and Contacts amongst the Church, Venators or Donatores would be suitable to bind her to organisations. Her Temperance could be made major; to purchase puissant Single Weapon and Large, or her Parens’ poor reputation as a Venator could be represented with Infamous Master to purchase one of them.

She was made solely with Definitive edition rules, to expand her choice of masteries. Flawless Magic was chosen to reduce the number of botch dice that she’d suffer from in Infernal auras. Learning some ward against demons and boosting her Rego would be high on her priority list.

Further note/Spoilers

An 86 year old Astrid will replace Alroy ex Flambeau in Conventio Florum, in my saga, being both the Mater of Lukas von Beck and currently in the final part of training her apprentice Kristoph. I decided top stat her out fully as a challenge.

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Very nice, to have a Flambeau with Deficient Form Ignem.

A minor nitpick: The rebuttal spell mastery ability can only be applied to Muto and Rego Vim spells.

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Oh, I misread that. I will edit.

And yeah, Deficient Ignem was too funny not to…

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If you're interested in optimising her, some of the Mastery Abilities could be changed. E.g. Silent Casting is great on Veil of Invisibility, and Multiple Casting trumps Penetration for DEO and similar spells as the first mastery.

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So my thoughts for those two spells were as follow:

  • The Veil of Invisibility isn't really for sneaking as she has no stealth, but as a combat buff, so getting good penetration on it is more important for her, so that she can go for the invisible weapon to secure the maximum combat bonus (the pen multiplier if she was able to cause her wound with her mace should be sufficient in most cases).
  • I was on the fence betweenthe two for DEO, but for the same reason that I picked flawless Magic for her, to limit the chances of a magical botch in an infernal aura, fewer castings with better PEN are the target. (I worked on aging her and her anti faerie version has the multiple casting mastery, since faerie auras are not so bad).
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Talking about Warden of Forests, I designed this Mystery Cult, the Filii of Ion.

Mystery Cult - Filii of Ion.pdf (113.2 KB)

There is a bit of history and origins, various initiation scripts and proposal of virtues to be initiated. I leveraged existing virtues to make sure that I was not introducing some (more) unbalancing elements.

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that is a very nice cult!

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Okay, if you are doing Veil of Invisibility in combat, then Penetration is more useful, that’s fair. (I agree, it can be a good buff - if only so many beings couldn’t see through it.)

For DEO, I still think multiple casting is better. If you need to cast it multiple times, the botch risk is the same if you are casting it twice a round, or once a round. Unless you have some trick to get a penetration multiplier on demons that I’ve missed, the +1 penetration isn’t going to save you many castings. My view of DEO is that you want to take down the opposition as quickly as you can. (I do agree that Penetration is a good second mastery, not least because then it’s a +2 basic, not +1.) If your DEO is failing to penetrate most of the time, you have bigger problems.

Any particular reason for having Unravelling the Fabric of Terram, rather than anything else?

But this is quibbling for the interest of it. This thread is just full of good stuff.

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So the casting total is +28 with an extra 4 points of pen for a level 15 spell (add loud voice and exaggerated gestures that means a PEN of 19 before the die roll), the idea was that she could reliably banish a IM 15 demon with a single casting. Multiple casting means rolling the stress die twice so doubling the chance of a botch in any particular round. But long-term, she would learn further masteries, to drop the botch dice and learn multicast.

What unravel Terram? At first I wanted to pick the rarer “Infernal” but I thought that would make her too much of a one trick pony. Terram has buffs for weapons and armour, so for a combat mage this would be a way to take on a Schhol of Ramius type. The doublet if impenetrable Silk is another classic buff, but getting the Animal version seems too specialised and not monumentally flexible. I have started working on aging her and I expand to other forms (including fast cast Ig).

Edut: you are right about the multiple casting. I had mostly thought about IM 10-15 demons which for fresh ish from gauntlet mages are “standard”, or at least it is my assumption as storyguide to not overwhelm the newer mages. IM 20 is a “boss” that requires another visit with more prep to beat. If one is to battle IM 20 demons, going for DEO 10 and multi cast os probably more efficient and reliable, which would free 5 levels of spells to either bump the Unravelling or buy a ward against (low level) demons.

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I think what Michael meant to say was that if you need to take on a bigger demon and you need to cast DEO twice, then the botch probability stays the same regardless of whether the two castings happen in the same round or in two different rounds. If you take the multicast SMA, then the demon has fewer rounds to attack you, which is better than the +1 penetration you get if you take the pen SMA instead.

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Yes, that's right, Einauge. I'm also considering the scenario where you have two or more 10-15 Might demons. You want to knock as many of them down as you can as fast as you can.

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That makes sense, but it might be worth adding the explanation as commentary on the character.

I think you’re right to avoid “infernal” for a sample character, as it gets into questions about how broad a category you can cover with the higher-effect guidelines. Personally I think “infernal” is much broader than “one Hermetic Form”, but I’m not sure what would count as the same - all infernal fear effects? All Mentem-like effects? All powers of a particular kind of demon? It's good forum fodder, especially if you're advancing the character, but not great for new players, imho.

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I can vouch for the urban Ex Miscellanea and gently Gifted lion Bjornaer’s effectiveness in an urban setting.

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Interesting, and I can definitely see compatability with the Wardens of the Forest.

Reading through it, I did have a few questions / comments:

  • I’m not sure the description of the Columbae is all that consistent with their portrayal in 5e. Unless I’m missing something they’re not pagan (Wales has been fully converted to Christianity for several hundred years by this point, and I can’t see anything specific about paganism on a quick readthrough of their HoS:S blurb), and they’ve historically been one of the Ex-Misc traditions most actively interested in integrating into the Order:

They hoped to quickly overcome the negative image associated with being hedge wizards and sorcerers of Britain by sharing their magical knowledge with other magi, a goal that they largely achieved in the years that followed. […]

The Columbae have very few traditions unique to their line, instead having adopted the few trappings associated with the House as a whole, many of which originally came from them.

  • If you do want more paganism, it may be worth bringing in the Diedne? Whilst their exact beliefs are unclear, nature tends to be in theme for them
  • Should the reference to “Plagued by Supernatural Entity” in the Scutum initation flaw actually be Supernatural Nuisance instead? That seems to fit better with the description of the supernatural creatures affecting him being “pests”, plus Supernaturual Nuisance appears again later with the mention that they’ve now attracted a more power entity.
  • Wards is a canonical minor magical focus (pg 14 of HoH:MC), so you might want to adjust Major Potent Magic (wards) and Major Magical Focus: Protection Circles down to minor as well (although Potent Magic does give a bigger bonus for the Major version, so leaving it as Major does have some benefit). Alternatively make it clearer if Protection Circles are meant to go beyond wards (would they apply to a spell that helped a plant growing inside it stay free from disease)?
  • I like the feature of the Watcher in the Night initiation where the Mystagogue has to spend time researching the initiate to understand him and come up with an appropriate area
  • I like the flavour of The Burden of Responsibility, but I don’t think the flexibility of the Virtue works - generally changing the Virtue means you need a wholly new script. It could be a series of very similar scripts, of course, but those are hard work to produce so I’d probably keep it to a small group
  • Sense Holiness and Unholiness is granted by the Divine Realm rather than the Magic or Faerie realms (see pg 67 of the core book), so I don’t think it works as a magical initiation virtue.
  • I was going to say “Why Living Ghost rather than Guardian of Nature as the capstone Virtue”, but rereading the latter it does require a lot of investment in Nature Lore. Plus possibly the place guarded isn’t always a natural place?
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First,thanks for your detail review:
Regarding the pagan aspect of the Columbae, it is presented as one of the largest native tradition. It can be interpreted as having old roots, prior to Christian conversion. I choose this interpretation, as it suited my narrative.

If you do want more paganism, it may be worth bringing in the Diedne?

Diedne is one of those tools that each Saga can use as they want, being really evil guys, or misunderstood magi, or scapegoat/victims. I prefer to stay away from them, and let every one decide what to do and how to integrate them.

Should the reference to “Plagued by Supernatural Entity” in the Scutum initation flaw actually be Supernatural Nuisance instead?

like the flavour of The Burden of Responsibility, but I don’t think the flexibility of the Virtue works - generally changing the Virtue means you need a wholly new script.

I found the script presented in TMRE very restrictive, so I wanted to give some flexibility when designing the script. But I was unclear: a specific script allows to initiate a specific virtue, with a specific Ordeal (if any) - the variant of flaws are for the ST to pick up the script he wants. But yes, a mystagogue very likely knows only one script per virtue - however the ST can pick up the one most suited for the character and his story within a range of Ordeals with a similar flavour.

Plagued by Supernatural Entity being listed in the last secrets of the Cult is obviously a mistake that I overlooked.

Sense Holiness and Unholiness is granted by the Divine learn, but it is not mentioned that it cannot be initiated. Although I reckon that it should only be available to Christian member of the Filii. I will edit it accordingly.

Plus possibly the place guarded isn’t always a natural place?

Absolutely. I wanted to leave the opportunity to protect a small village, also Forest/Nature Lore is in itself a variant of Mystery Cult: it allows to access various powers that are all strongly linked to untouched nature. The Filii of Ion are originally protector of human settlement/temple in remote location against the wild. Technically, they could clash against a Merinita following the path of Nature Mysteries who wants to return a location to his primitive origin, including erasing a village or a temple.

I will do some editing, including the minor potent wards, as I noticed the reference in ToP.