Yup yup! Gonna take a look at the drawing board as it were and figure out where I want to go with him, but still.
Also a possibility.
While I don't want to speak for @Vortigern I can say that I personally have zero problem with magical critters as companions/grogs. If I were a betting man, I'd say he doesn't either.
As for magical creature advancement, that's a discussion we should absolutely have! I mean there are rules for advancement and the like if I remember correctly, but I'll need to go brush up on things.
Again, personal opinion. A familiar's power level can and should depend on the mage. If you've got a mage capable of binding a dragon, and they put in the time and effort to do so, then why should we get in their way and say they can't? Rule of cool/say yes... but are almost always my guiding principles after all!
If I remember correctly, familiars get to ignore the standard might penalties for advancement, so yeah, they can and should advance like anyone else. In fact it's one of the major selling points of the bond for a familiar. That and immunity to Acclimation.
I believe I would use the "High Powered" row in RoP:M to set the baseline Might Score at Companions: 15, Grogs: 5.
As stipulated in RoP:M. My only hesitancy is I don't like things that disincentivize adventuring/stories. But ... the nature of Magic Realm things is kind of reinforced by Acclimation etc. So ... as is I don't think I'd change anything.
Magic creatures require so much vis to advance and/or gain meaningful powers, and the costs increase as they do so, I think we rapidly reach a point where wizards decide that vis is better spent elsewhere. Or not ... and then that is a cost/reward decision for people to make regarding what is the best use of the resource and how much they are willing to pay for what. A decision with trade-offs and costs.
Familiars for this game will require stories in acquisition but ... because they are so intrinsic to being tied to the concept of their mage I think I'm comfortable with them being Companion tier and mostly designed by the Magus player with review/input/approval from the troupe. They don't "need" to be played by someone else but they can be and I'd prefer if they were.
Unpenalized Ability advancement. No penalties from Acclimation. (These are the benefits of being a Familiar.) Transformation is still possible but the costs are the same/unaffected.
I'd just say that a Companion tier Familiar is going to be much easier to get. You want a big honking dragon, and are able to bind one? Great. I fully concur that it is possible to go find and bond with one. But that is absolutely in the realm of story material to make it happen. I wouldn't restrict the Might that is possible to be designed/achieved in premise. But I wouldn't take going and achieving that as a foregone conclusion either. More Might equals bigger/more story(ies) to achieve, as a natural reward curve.
Precisely my point, glad to see we're on the same page. And hey, maybe you don't get the dragon to bind with you, but you get it to agree to give you an egg or something. Which creates a whole new set of stories, cause now you've got a very hungry baby dragon that you have to stop from eating the grogs. Or their cows. Or lighting everything on fire. Again. So in short, yes... but!
A house rule I use to stop low-Might Familiars from being the best choice because of how they can quickly improve is saying that Magic beings must always maintain an at-creation Might score to have their Qualities, not counting Improved Might against the number of Qualities. That way, if you want your Might-1 Familiar to gain lots of Qualities, the Familiar will need to increase its might and will never really be as awesome a Familiar as that Might-40 Familiar someone spent a long time finding.
I'm not sure if I completely grasp the application of your proposed rule but the intent seems something I can appreciate and get behind if you can explain it a bit more?
Magus Awesome picks up a 50-Might dragon as a Familiar, spending a bunch of seasons doing so. Magus Bland picks up a 0-Might animal (which had Cunning) as a Familiar relatively quickly and can bind it soon. In the 10 years between the two bindings, let's say Bland's Familiar does not pick up MT so we can compare numbers quickly:
Bland's Familiar does the following: Practice Transformation for 3 seasons to gain Independent Study, with 2 points toward No Fatigue. Practice Transformation for 5 seasons to gain No Fatigue and 2 points toward Improved Characteristics. There are now 18 years available with 6 seasons apiece. Added to the remaining 2, that's 650 points toward Transformation. 40 points gets to Int +3, another 20 to Int +5. 10 points gets Puissant Magic Theory. 10 points gets Affinity to Magic Theory. That still leaves 580 points to apply. Each further point of Int costs 30 points. Or you could buy a ton of other interesting stuff. Basically, you've got 58 more points of Qualities to pick up.
So when Awesome binds his Familiar, Bland's Familiar is smarter, has an additional bonus to MT, will learn MT faster, and has more other Qualities on top of those compared to Awesome's Familiar. So Bland's Familiar will be tons better in the lab and comparable but weaker (due to lower Might) outside of the lab. With the extra seasons and ability to Transform, Bland's Familiar could spend the same seasons on Abilities as Awesome's Familiar, outgaining Awesome's Familiar, and on top of that pick up 1.2 Qualities a years, eventually overtaking Awesome's Familiar's capability pretty much everywhere except in providing Magic Resistance when the PM is down.
So I don't allow Bland's Familiar to pick all those up so easily. If you want another point of Quality, you better improve your Might by 1 first. So Bland's Familiar does that, but is now advancing more slowly due to Might 1. For the next Quality Bland's Familiar needs another point of Might, slowing things down even more. Pretty soon Transformation will stop without vis. Bland's Familiar will never catch up with Awesome's Familiar overall, probably just being a few points ahead in MT due to more seasons from the earlier binding, but being behind in Intelligence to balance that out.
I think the wording of this is what I most want clarified.
Does this mean a maximum number of Qualities equal to current Might Score?
I would also make it clear/explicit that I don't think the Familiar immunity to Acclimation problems/penalties should make it easier to pursue Transformation.
I do think more or less that any/all magical beings should be trying to achieve at least a certain minimal Might Score. No Magic Creature should be happy and content at Might Zero. Even if you have a baby Wurm or whatever that starts at Might 5 when it hatches ... it is going to be growing and wanting to grow. If you are trying to artificially keep it at a low Might it won't be happy, and will be hungry and looking for ways to grow whether you want it to or not.
Creatures of Might may have a maximum number of qualities equal to their current Might Score, adjusted for Inferiorities. Increased Might Qualities do not count towards this limit.
By the book, if I have Might 5 (before modifications due to size or Might-increasing qualities) I have 5 points of qualities, right? And then, each extra point must be balanced by an inferiority? And in theory I could have 50 extra qualities, as long as I balance them with 50 inferiorities?
So what we are agreeing on is that if my Might is 5 I have 5 free qualities, and to gain new qualities through transformation I must first buy 1 extra Might point for each new quality I want to accommodate? So far this is what I'm getting.
But do we also cap qualities paid for in inferiorities? Otherwise, what stops me from making a 0 might creature and piling up qualities (with the necessary inferiorities) on it through transformation?
EDIT: not that I would do that, mind you. No need to worry. I'm just trying to iron things out.
I'd have to dig into those rules again to confirm but my recollection is that you are correct. I don't believe I recall a hard cap to those in RAW. I'll address this further below.
This seems correct to me as well.
I don't believe any Magic Being would be "balanced" metaphysically speaking at a Might Score of Zero or even generally 5. With a score of Zero it is essentially barely Magical, with a 5 it is amongst the weakest of Magic Beings. It also would not be a Might Score that is fitting for basically anything but the weakest of mystical beings, generally the most minor or the developing young of more powerful beings. In general I would stipulate that either the larger and more physically powerful, or mystically powerful, or older and more advanced in general that a Magical Being becomes the less appropriate that a lower Might Score becomes. This seems hard to establish a firm rule for, but it is something I would have my mind on when evaluating creatures and advancement.
I do think some type of upper limit cap on Inferiorities seems apt if only to prevent the absurd from being seen as permissible. Do we have a suggestion for a cap?
The Magic Realm by nature seeks perfection and improvement towards its essential nature. This is not in keeping with artificially (for gamist reasons) keeping a low Might Score.
While creature advancement is nominally under the control of players if necessary it could be stipulated that at certain judged points that the creature would crave the increase of Might Score, driving it to appropriate behavior to fulfill the need. Enough to become problematic until something changed, such as eating your vis supply or grogs to make it happen. If you go and get a dragon hatchling, as it tries to grow and fulfill its nature it is going to be hungry at the very least.
Agree with all on a metaphysical (maybe metamagical? I digress) level.
But the very reason we are talking about imposing a limit to qualities based on might is to stop a metagaming exploit (not that all metagaming is harmful, but I do think the particular one exemplified would be). So we might very well go all the way, right?
I mean, we could all simply agree to not abuse the system, and then no house rule would be necessary. I'm always strongly in favor of dealing with problems only when (if!) they become problems indeed.
I think this is the best solution. We all seem to be of the same mindset and if anyone has any concerns about a character that is being created, we address them then.
