Combat Cleric?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Is it possible as a Companion to fulfill the position of combat cleric? Different from the Warrior Priest in that I'd like to be using something fluffable as Holy Magic, raining destructive fiery light on evil and healing and all that, but I can't find a copy of RoP:D in any of my local shops and knowing Ars Magica and the nature of the Divine-oriented Virtues in core, everything in that book is probably highly defensive or passive anyway.

Mythic Companion, Gifted Companion, neither, whatever suits you in Companion terms, but not a Magus.

Doesn't necessarily need to actually be magic granted by the forces of the Divine as long as the source appears to be so or is capable of effectively tricking the wielder well enough that he can think it's true Divine power without the Delusion flaw being warranted. Hilariously, this could theoretically even make it Infernally sourced, but the healing and the lack of realization that he's even performing a questionable act means it's highly unlikely for any Infernal power to want to bestow it upon him.

Anything that could work?

2

Well, normally, a Mythic Companion or Gifted Companion takes up one of the player's magus slots, but that's really neither here no there.

The concept is probably doable in either version by combing Purity with Cursing and Intervention. I believe there is at least one canonical Sociatas/Tradition with that M&P combination, but have to plead Noble's Parma at the moment.

As to which option would work better, it depends: The Mythic Companion would get a broader range of divine powers at her disposal while the Gifted Companion would get to combine the benefits of Holy Magic and M&P guidelines with his native magical tradition, resulting in more raw power.

The Infernal presents some fascinating possibilities itself since they can't truly heal. Instead, the character will have to transfer wounds from one target to another with Incantation/Consumption instead. Or the Goetic Arts might work better, but only let the character heal herself.

~ Hope this helps.

3

What you describe is most likely a Mythic Companion filling your magus slot in a campaign: so you play one instead of a magus.

A Nephilim character from RoP:D p.66 can be built to come close to your description. Since you do not have this book, I attach example stats for one:

Zaimph
Divine Might: 4 (Corpus)
Characteristics: Int +2 (Shrewd), Per +1 (Attentive), Pre +1 (Beautiful), Com 0, Str +4 (Hearty), Sta +4 (Tenacious), Dex +1 (Deft), Qik +1 (Quick Reflexes)
Size: +1
Age: 80 (80), Height: 216 cm, Weight: 155 kg, Gender: Female
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: Nephilim, Greater Immunity (Disease), Blood of the Nephilim [Advancement Modifier: 0], Affinity with Single Weapon, Improved Characteristics (×4), Inspirational (Bonus: +3 to targets' Personality Traits), Strong Willed (Will Rolls: +3), Tough (Soak: +3), Great Stamina × 1, Great Strength × 1, Arcane Lore (50/50), Educated (Hebrew) (50/50), Sense Holiness and Unholiness, Strong Angelic Heritage (30/30) [Totals: 30/30], Increasing Size: +1, Compassionate, Greedy, Tzadik Nistar, Dhimmi, Offensive to Demons (Penalty: 3 to social interactions with Demons), Visions
Personality Traits: Brave +2, Compassionate +3, Greedy +3, Just +2, Proud of her Abilities +1
Combat:
Dodge: Init: +1, Attack , Defense +6, Damage
Fist: Init: +1, Attack +6, Defense +6, Damage +4
Kick: Init: +0, Attack +6, Defense +5, Damage +7
Cloak: Init: +1, Attack +7, Defense +8, Damage +3
Dagger: Init: +1, Attack +8, Defense +6, Damage +7
Sword, Long & Shield, Heater: Init: +3, Attack +15, Defense +15, Damage +10
Javelin: Init: +1, Attack +9, Defense +7, Damage +9
Soak: +15
Fatigue levels: OK, 0, 1, 3, 5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: 1 (1-6), 3 (7-12), 5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-24), Dead (25+)
Abilities: Art of Memory 3 (Scripture), Rabbinic Law 1 (Angels), Theology 1 (Bible), Theology, Jewish 1 (Torah), Hebrew 5 (Biblical), Artes Liberales 3 (Grammar), Penetration 5, Dominion Lore 4 (Angels), Infernal Lore 4 (Demons), Magic Lore 4 (Regios), Canaan Lore 1 (Water Holes), Chirurgy 1 (Bind Wounds), Judaic Lore 3 (Communities), Stealth 3 (Natural Areas), Awareness 5 (Alertness), Survival 3 (Desert), Athletics 3 (Jumping), Brawl 5 (Cloak), Climb 3 (Rock), Swim 3 (Rough Water), Lingua Franca 5 (Trade), Arabic 5 (Urban), Aramaic 5 (Galilean), Leadership 5 (Inspiration), Charm 1 (Empathy), Folk Ken 3 (Lies), Single Weapon 9 (Sword, Long), Thrown Weapon 5 (Javelin), Sense Holiness and Unholiness 5 (Demons)
Equipment: Full Mail and Open Helmet (Soak: 15) (Soak: 15; Protection: 8 ); Shield, Heater (Init: 0; Atk: 0; Dfn: +3; Str: 0; Cost: Standard)
Encumbrance: 0 (3)
Powers:
Halo (Divine: 10), Points: 1, Initiative: Qik 1, Form: Ignem, Range: Touch, +1, Duration: Conc, +1, Target: Ind, +0, Level: CrIg10, Design: 10 levels, Base 4, +1 Touch, +1 Conc
The Lord's Terrifying Herald (Divine: 10), Points: 1, Initiative: Qik 1, Form: Auram, Range: Voice, +2, Duration: Mom, +0, Target: Ind, +0, Level: CrAu10, Design: 10 levels, Base 4, +2 Voice
Admonish the Ferocious Animal (Divine: 5), Points: 1, Initiative: Qik+0, Form: Animal, Range: Touch, +1, Duration: Ring, +2, Target: Circle, +0, Level: ReAn5, Design: 5 levels, Base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Ring
Curse the Sinful Foe (Divine: 5), Points: 1, Initiative: Qik+0, Form: Corpus, Range: Voice, +2, Duration: Conc, +1, Target: Ind, +0, Level: ReCo5, Design: 5 levels, Base 2, +2 Voice, +1 Conc
Vis: Vis: 1 Pawn of Corpus (In Body);

Playing one without RoP:D both in player and storyguide hand is quite impossible - so you best try to get it, if necessary as a .pdf : atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG0278.php

Cheers

4

Allow me to rephrase what I was saying, to clear up that bit you needed to point out; regardless of whether the Magi slot is used or not, I just mean using the Companion rules for creation, predominately to avoid Hermetic Magi with Divinely-influenced magic being among the responses, but also so that the idea of which slot is taken will be open for discussion with whichever SG I might use such a character with in the future. (The character's slot as Magus or Companion is sort of "it could go either way as long as the whole troupe works like that" from the times I've seen it mentioned in HMRE and HoH:TL)

5

Just what are "the Companion rules" for you? Defined by ArM5 p. 17?
In that case Mythic Companions are excluded, but Gifted Companions are possible (p. 36), if meant to become magi during campaign.

Or is just everything with 'Companion' in the name OK - including Mythic Companions like Gifted hedgies, Heroic Characters, Magic Humans, Nephilim, Perfecti and Devil Children?

Cheers

6

OK, first off, forget about the Gift. It's associated with the Magic Realm anyway.

RoP: D, p. 47 tells us that characters with True Faith may learn Divine Powers and Methods - essentially True Faith acts as the Divine version of the Gift.
I think that was also mentioned in The Church but for the life of me I couldn't find it right now.

Or you could simply buy them as (major) virtues.
Remember that you need both (1+) Method(s) and (1+) Power(s).
Each of which are a Major Virtue.

Yes, you can create this character using the basic rules defined ArM5, p. 17. no gift, no Mythic companions.
But you will pay most of your virtue points for it, and plausibly will be underwhelmed by your general ability level, as you'll have a lot of XP sinks.

7

Tellus is right, all you need is True Faith and you can learn Holy Methods and Powers. Even better, holy societies have favored Methods and Powers that they teach without the penalty from previous supernatural powers. Permanent healing is pretty hard (Purity/Intervention base 35) and probably not worth the effort. Incantation+Wonders, on the other hand, can create supernatural fires and forces of nature with manageable target levels. Even better, Invocation uses Confidence Points, which True Faith effectively supplies on a daily basis (don't expect to spam these powers, but you can use them a number of times a day equal to your True Faith without resource management concerns).

Most of the top end Holy M/P effects are inaccessible except to people with really high True Faith, groups with the Ceremony Ability, or Hermetic Holy Magi who can adapt Holy M/P effects to formulaic spells. Zapping (Wonders+Invocation) and Cursing (Cursing+Invocation) are within reach for lesser beings, however.

8

More along the lines with the latter, though it should be noted that the rules expressly disallow Mythic Companions having The Gift.

@Tellus: Aren't people able to affiliate with multiple Realms simultaneously? Nothing really preventing a Gifted character from having True Faith, even if The Gift doesn't help much.

@Jon Prins: And, well, knowing Ars Magica, if you've got a sufficiently powerful effect, you can generally get away with only being able to use it once or twice a day. How well that pertains to clerics remains for me to see.

9

Possible if unusual.
My point was that the Gift would be a waste, a -3 to all social stuff for no gain to the concept.
Unless you want to play around with a hedge tradition of some sort, or Holy Magic. Both of which were things you weren't terribly interested in, as I understood?

10

The rules in ArM5 page 36-37 on supernatural virtues point out that most of those virtues can usually be associated with any one of the four realms. So if you don't have Rop:D you can always mine appropriate virtues from other books and say they are Divine in origin.

A warning though, you may not find the system friendly to the concept of combat healer. It will depend on you expectations, but you may end up devoting a lot of resources with very little payoff in play for either the "party role" or "story potential" arenas.

11

A character with the Gift can take Holy Magic to alight herself with the Divine realm as well as that of Magic.

The benefits to such an arrangement are considerable: favourable Realm-Interaction modifiers, the ability to substitute Fatigue for Vis, access to spiffy new Divine RDT parameters, and the option of combining the Hermetic Arts with any known M&P making high-level effects much easier to achieve.

The downsides, however, are daunting. First, you can't use standard Hermetic vocals and gestures so you need to either reinvent your spells (with reduced Study Totals) or go without, suffering a -15 casting penalty. Second, to realize this concept for a newly created character would necessitate expending a lot of virtues. (You might be OK just taking Holy Magic to start and learning any M&P in play, but the virtue really does seem to be at its best when combined with M&P).

As for a Gifted Companion, you'd probably need to design you own custom version of Holy Magic for another magical tradition since Holy Magic is drastically underpowered unless your Gift has been Opened to some tradition or another.

12

@Tellus: Correct, I'm not really interested in Holy Magic Hermetics or Hedgies. I was mostly just checking that I hadn't misread the rules when I asked that.

@maine75man: Eh, none of the Supernatural Virtues I've seen (at least in Core) don't make sense with the concept.

And yeah, I wasn't thinking combat healer. I don't think that works in tabletop gaming in general, as far as I've seen. I was more thinking of healing as something he does in a doctor role, fixing people up during downtime or when a peasant runs over carrying her heavily injured son. That sort of thing. Not in combat.

In-combat, it's more like throwing around holy fire and stuff.

Looks like I do need to get my hands on RoP:D after all. Didn't think it'd have what I'm looking for, but it sounds like it actually does. Maybe I'll try online shipping...

Well, at least I know that what I'm looking for is possible. Thanks a ton, guys!

EDIT: @Gremlin, while I understand mixing Divine and Magic is probably quite powerful, I am hoping to keep it Divine over all.