Call for ArM5 Errata

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

Where should it be? It should be up front. This game is different from most other games in a few ways that most people do not expect, especially if they have played other role-playing games before, weather tabletop or computer. New paragraph

A section up front, early in the book, advising players about some key differences would probably go a long way. New paragraph new paragraph

In this case, players coming from most games expect to gain experience points from adventures. The more adventures they go on, the more experience points they gain. This is true in dungeons and dragons, it is true in world of Warcraft, it is true almost everywhere. Most games do not even allow you to gain experience points or improve abilities merely by studying or practicing where training.

Anyway,

Can

[David_Chart]

@Ovarwa

Where should it be? It should be up front.

On page 4? In a section headed "Basic Ideas"? (Actually, this particular point is covered on page 6, because it's the last of the four main differences from other RPGs that is covered.)

@Ovarwa

A section up front, early in the book, advising players about some key differences would probably go a long way.

The section on page 4 says:

There are also a number of differences. None of these features are unique to Ars Magica, but they are rare enough that you can have played roleplaying games for years with- out encountering them.

[David_Chart]

@temprobe, I have created a new thread about this, because there is a problem, but it's not an easy erratum.

[loke]

@David_Chart

On page 4? In a section headed "Basic Ideas"? (Actually, this particular point is covered on page 6, because it's the last of the four main differences from other RPGs that is covered.)

I would suggest both on page 4 and at the start of long-term effects. E.g.

Ars Magica focuses on the long-term development of characters aiming for realism, where experience is earned per season rather than per story or per event.

And in the advancement section

XP are awarded per season, and as in real life, all learning requires time for reflection. The characters do not advance as a result of memorable feats on an adventure, but only when they take the rest of the season to reflect upon their experience. Hence the number of XP gained per season is limited.

No, I have not attempted to propose text ready for print. The paragraphs are simply sketches and ideas.

[Samsaptaka]

Regarding where to put a statement about XP gain from multiple sources during a season:

That statement should be where it already is, on p.163 of the core book, in the chapter titled "Long-Term Events", under the heading "Experience and Advancement".

As time progresses, characters get better. In Ars Magica, experience points are awarded every season (three months), based on the character's activities during that season."

Simply add something along the lines of, "A character may gain experience from one source in a given season. If a character engages in multiple experience-gaining activities, they must choose which of those activities to gain experience from."

It's a slight change to the section of the rules that players are most likely to turn to in order to find out what they can do to gain and use experience. This is especially true because the only reference in the index entry for experience is p.163. It's also the big, bold heading that a PDF word search will find when told to look for "experience".

Edited multiple times because grammar is a harsh mistress.

[Cyborg (thepsyborg)]

There needs to be a divide between

• social Virtues/Flaws for members of the Order of Hermes (e.g. Colens Arcanorum, Gild Trained),
• Hermetic Virtues/Flaws for users of Hermetic Magic specifically (e.g. Affinity with Mentem),
• and "Hermetic" Virtues/Flaws for Gifted magic users of any (or no!) tradition (e.g. Gentle/Blatant Gift).

The usual language found in Hedge Magic is something along the lines of "you may take Hermetic Virtues and Flaws, if they are appropriate to your abilities", and that works fine, but it has two weird consequences:

• It's listed in the rules for specific traditions individually, meaning that while it applies to members of (nearly?) every hedge, rival, and non-hermetic tradition, it doesn't apply to e.g. an untrained Gifted person who's managed to learn a couple supernatural abilities in the normal way. And being unable to make your Second Sight/Animal Ken village weirdo Inoffensive to Animals seems very silly.
• Learned Magicians for sure, and I think the virtue-granting traditions in general, can't temporarily grant themselves the Gentle Gift, but can temporarily grant everyone around them Unaffected By The Gift, which just feels counterintuitive and severely against tone.

[Heaven_s_Thunder_Ham (Heaven's Thunder Hammer)]

Am I the only one who feels the Berserk virtue is particularly bad and needs errata'd?

+2 Attack and Soak, partially negated by a -2 Def, and you basically become suicidally aggressive, and will attack your allies.

BERSERK
Minor, General
You are capable of entering a blinding
rage when in combat or frustrating situations.
You automatically gain the Personality Trait
Angry +2 (or more, at your option). Any time
you take a wound or wound an enemy, roll a
stress die and add your Angry score. A roll of
9+ means you go berserk. The storyguide can
also call for a roll when you are strongly frustrated. You may deliberately try to go berserk.
In this case, you only need a 6+ when you take
a wound or wound an enemy, or a 9+ if you
have not been wounded or caused a wound.
While berserk, you get +2 to Attack and Soak
scores, but suffer a –2 penalty to Defense.
While berserk, you cannot retreat, hesitate to
attack, or give quarter. If you are still berserk
when there are no enemies present, you attack
your friends. You may roll once per round to
calm down if you desire, requiring a stress die + Perception — Angry against an Ease Factor of 6. You may learn Martial Abilities at character creation

[loke]

@Heaven_s_Thunder_Ham

Am I the only one who feels the Berserk virtue is particularly bad and needs errata'd?

I can see the case to make it a minor story flaw, but I think it is a great feature if it is not overused.

[Cyborg (thepsyborg)]

No possible degree of "you kill things better" benefit* is a valid trade for "and sometimes you try to kill your friends while being that much better at it". Even the Frenzied Berserker in 3.5e That Which Dare Not Speak Its Name was only used by builds that could not fail their Will save (and charop bullshit). The virtue is flatly terrible, cannot be made not terrible, cannot even be made an acceptable degree of harmful to be a valid Flaw, and should be stricken from the game decades ago immediately.

* Indeed, I would argue no benefit of any type.

[silveroak]

clarification is required for the target and warping for the boundary target- if things not in the boundary at the time of the casting can be affected when they enter, are they effected by warping (not being original targets of the spell) and if so do they take warping every time they enter or only on first entry (aside from long term exposure)

[darkwing]

Lands of the Nile Chapter 4 - the heading in the first column is "The Seeker's Guild (Al-majalibeen)" but the opposite page says the chairman is "The Chairman of the Matalibeen" - I checked online, matalibeen is the plural for those who explore tombs. Maybe the typeface in the heading made the typo hard to spot?

[ezzelino]

Endurance of the Berserkers, ArM5, p.134.

Duration is Concentration or until the caster, who is also the target, runs out of fatigue levels. But there's a legacy paragraph from previous editions stating "Consecutive castings delay the end of the spell — that is, put off the time when accumulated wounds take effect — but a body can only take a number of consecutive castings equal to its Size + 2".
This appears an error, since either the caster loses Concentration, in which case the spell ends before he can recast it. or he can just keep concentrating on it without any need of recasting.
Finally, note that the caster acts as unwounded until the spell wears off. In principle, he could take any number of killing wounds, and have them healed before the spell wears off. How this all works should probably be clarified.

[David_Chart]

@ezzelino

Possible error: Discovery yields 15xps in an Ability, but 3xp in an Art. That's probably an error of the conversion from older experience systems, where 1 "old" ability xp was worth 5 "new" ability xps, and it should be 15xp in Arts too.

In ArM4 it was 3xp across the board, which was accurately converted to ArM5. The fact that you get a bigger bonus for Abilities is explicit now. It's possible to spin a plausible story for why this happens, and I think that's good enough for this table.

[ezzelino]

In fact, I think the conversion error happened in ArM4
In ArM3, where Arts increased in discrete levels, it was either 3xp to an Ability (ok: Talent, Skill, or Knowledge) or a flat +1 to an Art -- the latter being the most common result.

[David_Chart]

@callen

HoH:MC p.95 (Vim): This was written pre-errata to match the old MuVi rules. You can see this with the note about durations matching the old MuVi note about durations. This paragraph should be adjusted to align it with the post-errata MuVi rules, probably using essentially the same new language like it uses essentially the old language.

I am not sure I see the problem here. The note on duration is that the life-time of a faerie made from a spell is the shorter of the transformation spell duration and the MuVi duration. These MuVi spells are not like the MuVi spells in the core rules — they can be cast on existing spells, and normally would be. You can't do that normally, but this is a Mystery power.

Am I missing something?

[callen]

@David_Chart

I am not sure I see the problem here. The note on duration is that the life-time of a faerie made from a spell is the shorter of the transformation spell duration and the MuVi duration. These MuVi spells are not like the MuVi spells in the core rules — they can be cast on existing spells, and normally would be. You can't do that normally, but this is a Mystery power.

Well, if that's the case then that exception needs to be stated. It hasn't been stated, so it shouldn't violate other rules for MuVi. Regardless of what the fix is, there must be some fix here.

[ezzelino]

Sympathy Traits, when aiding or hindering mundane abilities (RoP:F, p.102), in the context of Feminine Sympathy (FaF, p.29). I'll recap the relevant issues here, and then highlight the problems.

1. By RoP:F, if you have an applicable positive Sympathy Trait when rolling for a mundane ability, you can use that Trait instead of the ability's specialty. However, if you do so, you must roll a stress die, and incur 1 Warping point per botch.
2. If you have a negative Sympathy Trait, instead you must subtract it from any roll to which it's applcable. Even when the trait is not applicable, it adds to stress rolls a number of botch dice equal its value -- though it does not by itself turn a simple roll into a stress roll.
3. Finally, a sympathy trait is supposed to cover an area about as wide as a minor focus (wolves, fear, hailstorms etc.). However, if you already have one, and gain another, you can choose to have the second be a "wider" version of the first, on par with a major focus, with the stipulation that the "broad" trait's score can never be higher than the "narrow" trait's.

Feminine Sympathy (FaF) explicitly claims to be a (positive) Sympathy Trait from RoP:F. However, it then describes mechanics that are different from those in RoP:F. In particular:

1. when used to aid a mundane roll, it transforms it into a supernatural ability roll, affected by Auras (in terms of modifiers, botch dice etc.).
2. it affects every interaction with a woman. This is much broader than even a major focus.

A. The big deal with the text in Feminine Sympathy is 1.: do all sympathy traits, when used to aid mundane rolls, really turn them into a Supernatural Ability rolls? If so, the modifiers (and extra botch dice) from even a minor trait, can be far more extreme than what one reads in RoP:F. Either way, one of the two texts should be addressed in the errata.

B. If the answer to A is yes (as Erik Dahl says was his intention in writng FaF), this opens up two more issues. Do negative sympathy traits automatically transform any applicable (mundane) roll nto a supernatural ability use (this is very harsh in a hostile aura, and definitely changes the mechanics in RoP:F)? And

C. If the answer to B is no, can one still choose to have a mundane ability "turn supernatural" via a negative sympathy trait ? This would always be a foolish choice by RoP:F rules, but if we go via the FaF ones a -1 trait in a +7 Faerie Aura is defintely worth it.

D. Feminine sympathy is very, very, very broad for a minor focus, or even a major one (remember that the major focus of "women" in the corebook only applies to Corpus magic). At the very least this should be mentioned in FaF as an exception to the rule.

E. Finally:(RoP:F, p.102) one can slowly "improve" both positive sympathy traits (by making them more positive) and negative sympathy traits (by making them less negative) via experience and "lucky rolls". A negative trait can reach 0. Can it then become positive? This is unclear, and should probably be clarified.

[Tomaso (Michael Abbott)]

I'm going to mildly disagree. If you work for a mage who can reliably fast cast The Call To Slumber on you, then the risk of you killing your friends is very low, because you have an off switch. But even, then, it's not what I'd call a good choice.