Character Development Guidelines

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Stealing the Future
1

In Ars Magica it is trivially easy to create a min-maxed character, I think everyone here has done it in one shape. There is a fine line between creating a specialist and creating a min-maxed monstrosity. I can't tell you exactly where that dividing line is, but when I see it crossed I know. I don't want to have a lot and hard and fast rules and say no to a lot of things, but I do want you to have powerful in character motivations for certain choices and be able to defend those choices if asked by anyone in the troupe.

Players should create individual character threads for all of their characters, at first we're starting with instructors as they will take the most time to make. I'd like to see a snapshot at gauntlet and every 10 years or so post gauntlet. If you have MetaCreator you can send me the files.

This is an opportunity of creating characters that are otherwise sub-optimal. I once created a character with Unstructured Caster and Rigid Magic making formulaic magic impossible. I might even bring him here as my SG player character, or someone like him, just because this is the perfect environment for someone like that.

If you're going to pursue mystery cults, we'll work through those as they come up in your character development threads. Mystery Cults will unlock things, but often at the expense of experience points.

The only solid guideline is that your character needs to have the minimum combination for teaching of Com + Teacher + Virtue>=7. 40 xp per year for advancement and all spells are purchased with experience points (this removes the need of asking me whether a lab text for a spell is available).

Additional character building rules

Buying a LR
(Normal vis cost you would pay) + (1 per mag up to 10) + 2 per mag from 11 to 15) +(3 per mag from 16-20) + 1 season of XP sacrificed.

Characters get 5 build points worth of stuff per year. So for the typical 30 years post gauntlet character, they would start with 150 build points. It sounds like a lot, but it's not, not really when you consider some of the restrictions.

Vis
This is probably the crunchiest part of determining how much vis a character has, especially when used to compute the longevity ritual. [strike]During generation no more than 10% of your available build points at a given time can be in vis, and it is limited to an overall total of 100 pawns of used and possible vis for everyone during character development.[/strike] During generation no more than 10% of your available build points at any time can be spent as vis. Say your magus gauntlets at age 25, and acquires stuff for 10 years, and wants an LR at age 35. Such circumstances give him 50 build points, he can convert 5 build points to vis, for a total of 25 pawns. With 25 pawns of vis at age 35 he can buy a LR of: Ritual 7 + 101 magnitudes +42 magnitudes, or a total of LR 14. It's a pretty good LR. When he musters out, so to speak, and starts the saga he can also only 75 pawns of vis. It's possible that some characters, depending on their age at gauntlet might need two LRs due to not having enough vis at age 35, but that's not unusual in play, either. The first LR is usually the hardest to come by unless one's a specialist, and even then, a specialist will often redo the ritual later on.

Summae
They are generally off the table. I haven't posted this as a house rule, but basically Summae in Arts are primers for new magi in this saga and can't go past level 7. High level and high quality Summae are the debbil. I hate them as an SG and love them as a player. If you have an Art score below 7 at the start of the saga, we can talk about finding a summa, but that would be the exception. They would cost the standard build point cost, and have the standard build point limit. In many cases a tractatus might be a better fit. Summae in Abilities are multi-volume sets, and I need to tweak this a bit, but still it will make my life a lot easier if you don't try and bring the L6Q12 book on Parma Magica and the like.

Tractatus
These are available, but you may not bring more than 6. Of these, if these are in your favored Arts you may have already read some of these, but they will have other uses later on, such as trading them to the other professors. If all 6 are in nothing but your favored/highest Art, you can be sure that you've read some of these.

Items
You can and should build items with the bulk of these build points. These aren't necessarily items that you've made, but items you've acquired or traded throughout your life post gauntlet. I may veto the Wand of Ball of Abysmal Flame with +30 penetration, as I want these to highlight how a magus will use magic to improve the comfort level of his surroundings make his life easier and the like.

2

Some more points...
For instructors I want to see a lot of focus on personal history. Where has he been during his developmental years? What has he done? Has he trained an apprentice (and taken the 15 seasons of hit to the XP points and appropriately aged? Developing a character here is more about writing a strong personal back story than it is putting experience points into Arts, Abilities and spells.

3

What are your rules for be initiated into house secrets during the time after Gauntlet and game start?
I want to add one minor secret for every Gathering of the 12 years and the initiation together with the travel time probably result in 0 exp for this saison.
(Members of House Ilfetu need to learn the Minor House secrets because they are the Mystagogue of House Bjornaer, that's also the reason why I think the char I build need to get Bjornaer Lore+Pre to 9 as fast as possible)
Then there is one initiation where the char have to spend 4 saisons in his hearthbeast without using magic is this year also a 0 exp year?

4

I don't have any, I just look for reasonableness, and something that has some thematic coherence.

How many gatherings are you planning on attending? This will be a function of his age. Depending on the character's age and birthdate his second gathering might come during his apprenticeship, and he probably wouldn't receive anything during that particular gathering. Some useful gathering dates are 1215, 1227, 1239, 1251, 1263 (the last one prior to saga start).
Let me add that characters more than 30 years past gauntlet using the character development rules are really starting to show signs of their age, 30 years is a good middle ground which suggests that he's attended 3, at most, outside of his apprenticeship.

No, you would get experience, I'd just spend it in things that are representative of being in animal form for a year.

5

Right now I plan to go with 5 and the first short (within 1-2 years) after the gauntlet. But so fare I only have 4 Initiations on my need to have list.

6

I have edited the previous post a bit. And then I realized you might be posting while I edited the post. Characters more than 30 years past gauntlet, developed with these rules are going to be rather weak, with respect to the grimoire of spells they have at their disposal. It is the nature of the beast, and it reflects, perhaps, a focus on teaching or (as I used in Bibracte) being held back in your previous life and why you're wanting to come here to teach.

Keep in mind there is a gathering of 12 years in 1275, a few years into the start of the saga and that taking a sabbatical for the season of initiation will be allowed.

7

I'll add this to the top post, and anything else as we progress, through this, so you can always refer to the top post for changes, in addition to scanning the subsequent posts.

I like jebrick's rule from Heviz, it's certainly more developed than my rule at Bibracte was.

Buying a LR: (Normal vis cost you would pay) + (1 per mag up to 10) + 2 per mag from 11 to 15) +(3 per mag from 16-20) + 1 season of XP sacrificed.

For Example, a 20th magnitude ritual at age 35 would cost: 7 +10+10+15=42 pawns of vis, and subtract 1 season from your XP accumulation (the maker wants a season of your time as a lab assistant). You can further increase the magnitude by including your addition to the LR at the expense of another 10 points (acting as a lab assistant to your own ritual) If your Int+MT+Virtues is 5, it adds another +1 without vis costs, and so on for every five levels assistance you can provide.

8

So, buying a LR leads one to the next question of, how do we get the vis to pay for it during character generation?

Characters get 5 build points worth of stuff per year. So for the typical 30 years post gauntlet character, they would start with 150 build points. It sounds like a lot, but it's not, not really when you consider some of the restrictions.

Vis
This is probably the crunchiest part of determining how much vis a character has, especially when used to compute the longevity ritual. During generation no more than 10% of your available build points at a given time can be in vis, and it is limited to an overall total of 100 pawns of used and possible vis for everyone during character development. Say your magus gauntlets at age 25, and acquires stuff for 10 years, and wants an LR at age 35. Such circumstances give him 50 build points, he can convert 5 build points to vis, for a total of 25 pawns. With 25 pawns of vis at age 35 he can buy a LR of: Ritual 7 + 101 magnitudes +42 magnitudes, or a total of LR 14. It's a pretty good LR. When he musters out, so to speak, and starts the saga he can also only 75 pawns of vis. It's possible that some characters, depending on their age at gauntlet might need two LRs due to not having enough vis at age 35, but that's not unusual in play, either. The first LR is usually the hardest to come by unless one's a specialist, and even then, a specialist will often redo the ritual later on.

Summae
They are generally off the table. I haven't posted this as a house rule, but basically Summae in Arts are primers for new magi in this saga and can't go past level 7. High level and high quality Summae are the debbil. I hate them as an SG and love them as a player. If you have an Art score below 7 at the start of the saga, we can talk about finding a summa, but that would be the exception. They would cost the standard build point cost, and have the standard build point limit. In many cases a tractatus might be a better fit. Summae in Abilities are multi-volume sets, and I need to tweak this a bit, but still it will make my life a lot easier if you don't try and bring the L6Q12 book on Parma Magica and the like.

Tractatus
These are available, but you may not bring more than 6. Of these, if these are in your favored Arts you may have already read some of these, but they will have other uses later on, such as trading them to the other professors. If all 6 are in nothing but your favored/highest Art, you can be sure that you've read some of these.

Items
You can and should build items with the bulk of these build points. These aren't necessarily items that you've made, but items you've acquired or traded throughout your life post gauntlet. I may veto the Wand of Ball of Abysmal Flame with +30 penetration, as I want these to highlight how a magus will use magic to improve the comfort level of his surroundings make his life easier and the like.

9

If I am teaching a familiar for a season. How do you want to figure the points the familiar gains? Will it be 10?

10

I think it's reasonable to use the teaching SQ your magus can generate.

I'm still messing with the familiar advancement guidelines. I have a love/hate relationship with the familiar's need vis to learn rules...

11

K. As of year 20 he can generate 18 SQ for a single student Com +2 +teaching 2 + 3 + good teacher 5 + single student 6

I think a familiar is different than a straight magical character from RoP:M That is a magical creature trying to change. The familiar links itself to a human and each gains bonuses. It's nature is changed by the empowerment of the familiar so I would stick with the rules in ArM5.

12

That is true.
Of course the simplest guidelines can be abused, if left unchecked. I have no problem with a character giving up 10 of their XP/season and then teaching their familiar for a few seasons, heck every season they want, eventually they'll run out of stuff to teach. So, when the magus teaches directly to the familiar, sure, no vis is needed. That's a reasonable HR.

My concern is that the character development guidelines prior to saga start well, should they apply to familiars? And if so, then should the might rules apply? My feelings here are yes, which means that Might 10 (and greater) creatures are effectively static when advancing. Again, that's a fairly reasonable HR, too, as it prevents some absurdly high Magic Theory and other ability totals from developing from characters who are not much more than an extension of the magus.

13

The animal will come with powers before the binding and those should be hard/impossible to change outside the lab.

Realizing they give a very limited set of changes in ArM for empowering the familiar. They looks as to be actually developed in the lab as they have Form and Techniques linked to them. I would say that any powers from RoP:M would need that vis. Unless the Magus wished to make a breakthrough and be able to make that empowerment in the lab.

I would say that if the animal is not a stock critter from RoP:M then it needs approval.

14

Allow me to offer the house rules I'm using for my tabletop saga:

15

That's a decent House Rule, I've been trying to work out a way for a creature with might to learn with a might score of 15 and have it mean something, in your example, with a cord score of 2, they'd get 1 xp per season (10-[15-32]). If they have a Silver Cord of 3, then their familiar would get 4 xp (10-[15-33]).
I might leave it in when we begin play. But prior to the start of the saga, my goal is to not have familiars with 500 experience points and Magic Theory scores in excess of the magus's...

So, let's do this for pre-saga advancement. All familiars, regardless of might get 2 xp per season, unless they are taught by the magus, in which case they get the SQ of the magus.

16

How many points in enchanted lights (light without flame) would be required to get the 'free' laboratory virtue of magical lighting (superior lighting)?

17

I don't understand the question. Cost in build points?

18

I suspect that since we're moving to a completely new place, part of our startup duties will be to build out our labs, which means starting from scratch.

But in some sagas I've been in, players have used the notion that you just etch/create circles on your walls and cast a Ring-duration lighting spell on it. Viola, instant Hermetic lightbulb that (hardly ever) goes out! :slight_smile:

19

Yes, In build points. I figure the base effect is base 4 (same as lamp without flame), duration sun(+2 mag), then either once or twice per day (sunset and sometimes sunrise, depending on lab design) for either +0 or +1, so for an always on lamp it would be 15 levels, for a night lamp it would be 10 levels, so 6 or 4 build points per lamp- a minor lab virtue would normally be 10 points, but as an enchanted (free, space wise) with fewer downsides I'm thinking you might want to set a higher price in build points.

20

For items that provide that can be installed in a lab, 4 bps each seems more than reasonable. The virtue itself doesn't have a build point cost. Say you need two to get adequate coverage in a standard to +1 sized lab.