The MRB says that there isn't a general Magic Resistance (except for Hermetic, Divine and Infernal sources), but it is silent about specific resistance. If a hedgie can work some form of Corpus magic, I'd be inclined to give them some basic resistance.
All the fluff written about the Order suggests that it has the BEST magic resistance, not the only. Don't Gruagach do shapeshitfint, and therefore have some limited understanding of Corpus?
I have a couple of ideas.
We'd want to check the various books, Ancient Magic, Hedge magic and that Orders book. I don't recall any of them getting any kind of defense that requires even the least amount of Penetration. I'll have the rest of the stuff up shortly.
Peregrine's got ideas, but my own would be that the Ex Miskers of the British Island have a proud history of valor and action in the war against the Spider and later in the Schism. Not sure how true it is, but it challenges my own preconceptions about them as someone who often plays Flambeau types.
Wow...
So, I just read through some posts here on the forum and consulted some books. It appears that MR for hedge wizards was pulled for 5th edition. I was most familiar with 3rd edition, where this certainly wasn't the case. I can say I'm not a big fan of this. Note, I don't have Rival Magic, or Hedge Magic Revised Edition.
I wouldn't object to a Hedge Wizard having very low magic resistance, certainly not something equiavelent to Parma or comparable form bonus, but maybe if their magic is represented by an ability, the ability score. If the ability is an accelerated ability, I'd match the XP level up to what it would be if it were a normal ability, and use that as the MR for that form.
It is a bit of a downer, but one of the most common Hedge traditions involves Summoning (or could). Binding a spirit to yourself gives one its Might for resistance, makes them immune to Warping from the Realm the spirit comes from, and they don't age. I made a Goethic summoner (it's posted somewhere around here) and even the writer of the Infernal book was impressed at how nasty they can get.
I'll add The Tireless Servant from Covenants page 121. That's another 16 BPs. It's likely buried somewhere in covenant storage. Whoever can take possesion of this gets +1 Quality and +1 Safety to their lab.
Casting Tablet: Gentle Touch of the Purified Body CrCo 20 8 BPs*
*I could make it a lab text of Incantation of the Body Made Whole, but I figure one doesn't need to learn a spell they might not cast that often, so a Tablet might be better. Your thoughts?
Rival Magic page 8 (insert) and 9. The insert on page 8 says "No non-Hermetic tradition of wizards has a general resistance to magic." However, the section on Magic Defenses on page 9 says that "some wizards do have limited magical defenses that reduce the effect of magic."
Basically, this defense is similar to the Form bonus you get against non-magical attacks (Terram vs. sword blows, Corpus against punches, Ignem against mundane fire, etc.), in that the Magical Defense Bonus is equal to the Art divided by 5 (round up) or, if the defence is provided by a Supernatural Ability, the Ability Score. In game effects, this seems like the hedgies have a form of MR...granted, it's not much MR, but it's still MR. Probably a 3 or 4 would be fairly powerful - the highest Supernatural Ability that provided a defence I could find in RM was a 7, and all the others in the four characters I saw were a 4 or less. So, I'm going to say that a decent Penetration would be a good idea on this bad boy.
I playtested Rival Magic, and the Order of Odin bastards definitely had some MR.
Yep...it was the Muspelli character, Kotkill Ulfsbrodir, who had the MR 7 (from Shapeshifter, which gives them resistance against Animal and Corpus effects). Which is pretty nasty, considering they don't get the 5x that magi get with Parma.
Seriously?!?! It was only 7?!?!?!?! SO MUCH MORE FRUSTRATING, in retrospect.
The deal was, Leona would go into Chimaeric Heartbeast (size +3) and then magically increase her size by another +2. So I couldn't hit him. I'd swipe, and bounce.
And it was only SEVEN?!?!? cries
Unless I missed something. The bit in the intro I read said they had a resistance equal to their ability score if it was from a Supernatural Ability. I haven't actually closely read the section on Muspelli, so I might have missed something. But a 7 actually not bad against Corpus/Animal magical effects. Dunno if that adds to their Soak, though.
I could live with something like this, it' matches up with what I've always thought was true. Put a ~+5 penetration on the wand, and it gets rid of the anklebiters pretty effectively. Separates the wheat from the chaff.
I'm guessing that these are the 44 points for your Covenant Build Points?
Truth be told, I'm personally not that fond of casting tablets for some reason, and I was kinda glad they deep-sixed them for 5e...then they had to go and bring them back in Covenants, and I was, "D'oh!". I can kinda see their appeal, but to me it almost defeats the purpose of learning magic. I mean, why bother learning (for example) a CrCo 20 spell, when you can use a casting tablet and have a better chance of success? The fluff text says it's more dangerous, but there's nothing in there to back that up, that I can see. If the troupe wants to have them, that's fine, but as it stands now I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of them out there.
That being said, I do like the idea of the Black Wand, looks like it's well-done rules-wise. What I might suggest, in line with what JL said earlier, is to put 5 points into the wand to give it a +10 Penetration, just to be on the safe side.
Tell you what, we'll drop the casting tablet, the final 8 points, and throw that into Penetration on the wand. That will give it an even 16 Penetration.
Sound good?
The Black Wand PeCo 50 (Pen 16)
R: Arcane Connection D: Momentary T: Individual
Instantly kills the intended target. The corpse often has a look of horror engraved on his face. The proud owners of this device often claim it was enchanted by Apromor himself. In reality it is an item enchanted using a much copied lab text from an item that one of his apprentices made. It does suffer some drawbacks. As it was designed to be used on hedge wizards, Penetration was determined to be useless and so only a small amount was added. It was also experimented on during its enchantment, while it lost none of its effectiveness, its only range is with an Arcane Connection, it can't be cast on the target without one.
Base 30 R: +4 1 Use per day (+0), Penetration 8
Build points 28
Okay
I have 50 build points and so I threw them all into lab texts. At some point in covenant history there had been animal and aquam focused mages. Included is the spell to breathe water for going after Ness's vis source and a spell to speak to the loch to learn where Ness is and and where she put her nest this year.
Soothe Pains of the Beast (CrAn 20)
The Wizard’s Mount (CrAn 35)
Doublet of Impetrable Silk (MuAn 15)
Soothe the Ferocious Bear (ReAn 10)
The Gentle Beast (ReAn 25)
Commanding the Harnessed Beast (ReAn 30)
Voice of the Loch (InAq 40) (Voice of the lake with +3 size to speak to Loch Ness)
Lungs of the Fish (MuAq 20)
Push of the Gentle Waves (ReAq 15)
Tower of Whirling Water (ReAq 35)
Cloak of Ducks Feathers (ReAq 5)
What I like, is that the Tireless Servant just goes to reinforce the reputation of the local lord.
"You best behave, Jimmy, or Lord Nevin will eat you, and then sell your bones to the wizards to make a slave out of!"
Are any of the Buildings with multiple labs or are all the buildings with sancta/lab each their own building?
I am thinking of bring a magical device that can warm a structure to give all labs in that building the magical heating virtue (as superior heating) but will only benefit Siobhan or can she move into a building where several people would benefit?
Perhaps somewhere that her lab and sanctum are upper floor and there is infirmary below (since it will keep place warm even in winter).
Each of the buildings, except for the Council Hall*, is a single story. It shouldn't be that hard, however, to have an existing building modified to be two stories.
*The barn-like Revel Hall is large enough to be two stories, but it's not.
How much is the BP for a charged magic item of 1 charge?
This actually came up in Bibracte, for a couple of sets of potions that Fiona had made. It kinda looks like Charged Items falls between the cracks as far as Covenant Points goes, so I'm going to say that they cost zero, as long as it doesn't get abused.