I think we're waiting for MTKnife to confirm on the Parma 2 at gauntlet point.
Also, did you ever come to a final decision on the nameless malediction and "grey man" approach?
The final resting place of those 10 points isn't a huge deal one way or the other for me, it's +-1 season of reading in one book or another.
Yes, I'm going to go with INDESCRIBABLE FACE (MINOR GENERAL VIRTUE) in place of Mastered Spells and INSCRIBED SHADOW (Minor Supernatural Flaw) in place of the Malediction.
He is very plain other than his Criamon tattoos that cover his hands and spiral up his arms in a wavy spiked flame pattern. The Tattoos manifest in his shadow (or burn brighter when it is dark). People can't describe him other than that feature, so he is the magus with tattoo'd hands.
This means he probably has a name. In the first iteration of the character the apprentices were all named after knives by their master to hammer in that they are living weapons. His name is Kris. Apparently his master was very well traveled.
She speaks Kipchak (native) and Mongolian (childhood).
The lab totals do not fall two short because the character creation thread says we are to assume an Aura of 5, which I did (apprenticed in Nowgorod).
Actually, Alcimus inspired me to go looking for another white wolf.
I would rather see her develop in game than before game: More fun!
OK - I think Nyktophylax is worth it, but there's no point making Gregorius less special. I can go without it.
I can put the 1 xp back into Finesse (I think one of us made a rounding error? Probably me, not to worry).
150 levels of spells - Skilled Parens gives you the extra 30.
Because Aedificator is mostly ReTe with a little Creo at gauntlet, he's more suited to smashing a battlefield or enemy fort up and would take Creo Terram later. However, if I drop Nyktophylax for Puissant Creo I may be able to cast some decent CrTe as well. A simple method of rapid vallation is CrTe 35, and as Tremere already have a magical focus in certamen those level 35 spells require serious min/maxing to get at gauntlet.
Let me juggle some arts points and spell levels around, I'll see if I can get an architect more to your taste.
Woha hold on, you are ReTe with Finesse Affinity, aren't you doing craft with ReTe and the actual Crafting spells from Covenants? I assumed this is what you were thinking since your character is ideal for it...
You need somthing along the lines of, The Phantom Blacksmith, but with the +2 mags for Metal turned into +2 mags for size. That's only level 20.
CrTe of like 5 is a big enough ritual to make as much flawless raw stone as you could ever want in your lifetime.
EDIT: The biggest ReTe Craft spell you can do is
Base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Group, +1 Flexibility, +1 Stone, +4 Size = 35 for crafting a group of Large stones. Into something approximately Conjuring the mystic tower size.
Base 2, +1 Touch, +0 Individual, +1 Flexibility, +1 Stone, +6 Size = 35 for crafting a giant (probably ritually summoned stone) into like a city...
Base 2, +1 Touch, +1 Part, +1 Flexibility, +2 Metal, +4 Size= 35 For crafting part of a structure, Basically manual non-creo repairs.
Nyktophylax has a nice Tremere flavour, but it gets less useful the more people have it, until you reach the extreme of everybody having it to absolutely no benefit.
I'm going mad. Or possibly blind. I'm sure I doublechecked that he didn't have Skilled Parens before I made that comment, and yet there it is. And he's spent the xp from it, as well.
Agreed the Vallation spell is quite high level (Wall of Protecting Stone is easier). Obviously neither of them are permanent rituals, so neither of them are directly relevant to CrTe fortifying the covenant - but right now, whilst all Tremere want some martial capacity, your magus is coming across to me more as "Terram combat specialist" than "builder". This may be less relevant if you're planning to advance him past gauntlet focussing him more on building things.
For reference, there's a copy of the letter Gregorius sent to the local Exarch requesting the assistance of an architect here: Card & Board Games ARCHIVE & LINKS
Could you post an updated version at gauntlet for ease of reference? I generally prefer new posts to edits of old ones (and they should be roughly equally easy to do if you start by editing then copying the old one), as they're easier to find and mean that we don't end up with a bunch of comments that make no sense in relation to the final version of the post they follow.
[size=150][strike]A Magus[/strike] Kris ex Criamon[/size]
Age: 27 (year 1223)
[size=120]Characteristics:[/size]* Intelligence (INT): +1
- Perception (PER): +0
- Strength (STR): +0
- Stamina (STA): +2
- Presence (PRE): +0
- Communication (COM): +0
- Dexterity (DEX): +0
- Quickness (QIK): +2
[size=120]Arts:[/size] - Techniques: [list][*] Creo: 5
- Intellego: 1
- Muto: 2
- Perdo: 2
- Rego: 5
[/:m]
[] Forms: * Animal: 1 - Aquam: 1
- Aurum: 1
- Corpus: 5
- Herbem: 1
- Ignum: 5
- Imaginum: 1
- Mentum: 1
- Terram: 1
- Vim: 3
[/:m][/list:u][size=120]Abilities:[/size] Artes Liberales: 1 (Arcane Texts) - Athletics: 2 i[/i]
- Awareness: 1 i[/i]
- Bargain: 1 i[/i]
- Charm: 2 (Gathering Information)
- Concentration: 3 i[/i]
- Finesse: 1 i[/i]
- Guile: 2 i[/i]
- Latin: 4 (Arcane Texts)
- Latvian: 5 (Nursery Rymes)
- Legerdemain: 2 i[/i]
- Magic Theory: 2 (25XP) (Similar Spells)
- Parma Magica: 1 i[/i]
- Penetration: 3 i[/i]
- Stealth: 3 i[/i]
- Swim: 2 i[/i]
Virtues: * The Enigma (Minor,Hermetic) - The Gift (Special,Hermetic)
- Flawless Magic (Major,Hermetic)
- Affinity With Penetration (Minor,General)
- Affinity With Rego (Minor,Hermetic)
- Indescribable Face (Minor,General)
- Independant Study (Minor,General)
- Minor Magical Focus (Dispelling) (Minor,Hermetic)
- Fast Caster (Minor,Hermetic)
- Lightning Reflexes (Minor,General)
Flaws: * Magic Addiction (Major,Hermetic)
- Infamous Master (Minor,Hermetic)
- Inscribed Shadow (Minor,Supernatural)
- Fury (Major,Story)
- Humble (Minor,Personality)
-
Lecherous (Major or Minor,Personality)
"
And a blob of unformatted spells
Wither Assailant (Target loses control of one of their arms) 5
Lesser Pilum of Fire (B5 [+10 Damage],V,I,M) 15
Curse of the Unruly Tongue 5
Endurance of the Berserkers (Dia variant) 15
Blink Stride (50 pace personal Teleport) 15
Bind Wounds 10
Purification of the Festering wound 15
Lamp Without Flame 10
Unraveling the Fabric of Corpus 10
Opening the Intangible Tunnel 10
Circular Ward Against Magic 10
Updated with changes to my virtues and flaws.
The CrTe 5 would only get you about 10 cubic paces worth of stone (a base individual of stone is only 1 cubic pace) - it would be Base 3 + 1 Touch + 1 Size. That said, the spell would need to have a minimum level of 20 anyway, due to the minimum level for rituals, which gives you +4 size magnitudes. The covenant also runs a quarry, but only for limestone.
Note that the Finesse requirements for Rego Crafting are quite high, especially for things that would take a long time to build normally. For a Standard Quality Wall, you'd be looking at Base 6 + 3 Rego Crafting + 3/6/9 Month's / Season's Work Year's = 12 / 15 / 18. A Superior Wall would be 18 / 21 / 24. You can bring that down a bit by breaking it down into separate tasks taking less time (which will start requiring Craft: Mason to put them together), and there are various ways to get bonuses, but generally Rego Craft is something you have to really focus on if you want to do it. Creo Crafting has the advantage that you get Standard quality stuff automatically, plus I think you don't get the time addition to the EF (the Rules aren't completely clear on that one - just looking at HoH:S page 60 - 61, page 60 says Cr crafting has the same EF as Rego crafting, whereas the next page says you only have to roll Finesse for Creo crafting if you want a result higher than 9, i.e. standard quality).
Have you picked up an advanced version there? You've got 300 xp just in Arts.
Yes, and my script isn't playing nice with the new flaw, Going to jsut copy the previous post.
Like I mentioned I assumed he was focusing on it. Getting a +12 base is pretty straight forward if that's what you are shooting for.
EDIT: The Precise Mastery Ability also applies to Rego Crafting, presumably. Splitting your total between two abilities makes life much simpler.
The ArM5 Parma thing makes my head hurt. Can I please wish it away?
I can't seem to find the explanation for it--what was the story again?
Scott
So can I keep my character's spells or do you want me to juggle arts and spells a little?
I ended up going with the last line where he is a Path of Strife Criamon. So his training was finished by a Criamon.
ADDED EDIT:
Normally familiars are Mighty and only die when their master dies. A Warped animal presumably dies as normal? Does it benefit from Bronze chord for aging? It shouldn't get additional warping from the bond since it is explicitly designed for it? Does the bond protect it from any other warping (it gains MR from form bonuses but does that matter for that?)?
MORE EDIT: You gain 2 warping per year for post-apprenticeship. Is this in addition to things I'm doing that specifically gain me warping points or do I just not track my warping? The section mentions Longevity Rituals (which I should be tracking pretty precisely) but if I work over time do I track the warping or do I let it be covered by the 1 per year? I can't think of a reason I would be under a constant magical effect or what major spells I would document being on me but would those count? (I suppose there is a level of Magic Theory you could get that would allow you to pay someone to cast a stat bonus ritual on you, is that allowed?)
It won't die whilst the magus is still alive, and only suffers the ill effects of aging when the magus does (pg 105 of the main book).
The Familiar Bond (and enchantments placed in it) doesn't warp either Familiar or magus (pg 168 of the main book). I don't think the Form bonus is directly relevant.
True, and he's got the virtues for it (Affinity* and Puissant Finesse), but his Per is decent (+2) rather than great, and he hasn't assigned much xp to Finesse, so I was guessing Creo Crafting.
Precise Casting has the disadvantage that you have to learn it for every single spell individually, so its utility (or at least efficiency) depends on how much you're going to be using each spell.
Edit: *Speaking of which, I've realised where the 7 xp / 8xp question on the Finesse assignment came from. I forgot about the Affinity with Finesse (I only tend to check for them on high scores), and thought 1 (7) was 7xp in total rather than 7 xp above 1. Apologies on the number of errors on the check - it clearly wasn't my day!
Typically a familiar has Might, so neither of those things typically apply, they are being restated (Warping at least is brought up elsewhere). As far as I can tell the book doesn't talk about a warped animal being an option (hard to call the magic 'inherent' at that point) hence the questions. My biggest concern was future warping. Gaining major flaws (even every decade if we are going based on the CC warping gains) is sort of a pain.
My thought on Form bonuses wasn't entirely coherent in my head. I was thinking maybe the MR would prevent other warping. I was also thinking about having a 0 form bonus as a vulnerability, but this is a game where you round up (one of my constant blind spots, generally) so having 0 in an art shouldn't last very long.
I added another edit about warping curing CC.
Exactly where I was coming from on the virtues. Mastery always has that problem, but crafting spells are very versatile (they gain a mag for it). But it is hard to think of a situation where you need to craft with more than size 4 or size 6 of stone. Mastering just those 3 level 35 spells I posted (or waiting and inventing new ones with Herbam and Animal Requisites/bumping it up to cover metal as well) seems like it would cover most architectural concerns.
P.S. Note to Darkwing, feel free to ignore me, I won't feel bad, I just like the character concept and have a lot of time to think about wizards in my down time.
The book doesn't address specifically warped animals (I'm not sure they were introduced as a specific concept until RoP:M), but it doesn't require an Animal to have Magic Might (although those will be most common), just inherent magic:
"The first step in getting a familiar is finding an animal with inherent magic. With inherent magic, the beast is likely to have a Magic Might score..." (pg 104).
I've seen creatures with magic-aligned supernatural virtues counted before, although I can't now remember where.
If the bond doesn't warp the magus, I don't think there's any reason to think it would warp the familiar. The familiar will be subject to other sources of warping outside the familiar bond, though, in the same way the magus is. I don't think the familiar would gain warping at the same rate as the magus (given it's probably not spell casting or under a longevity ritual).
You just don't track your warping (with the possible exception of if you're planning to do something ridiculously warping inducing). It's the occasional Twilight plus various random little effects like botches and constant effects and high power effects cast by someone else and what-have you.
My feel is that I'd rather only have stat-boosting rituals if you cast them yourself (or possibly if you're a Cult of Heroes Mercere, given it's one of their big things) - readily available stat-boosters fit better into a higher power saga than this one is. That's my personal judgement rather than an explicit Rule or House Rule, though.
Yes - I should probably stop speculating about your motivations when you're perfectly able to know what you meant rather better than I do.
Hmm. I think people have generally been assuming an aura of 3 at gauntlet, but I'm not sure if that's just because they're missing a trick rather than because it's what's required.
MTKnife - you'd said in the "About This Saga and How to Create a Character" thread:
Does that apply to the maximum spell levels at gauntlet, or only to later lab totals?