Diedne Magic Virtue

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

Art of memory:
was worked a lot in 4th edition. At least in playtest edition, i dont remember the edited version xD. I dont know if i can speak about that, there was a mystery related about art of memory with some nice spells and effects.

Flawless magic, is big but you will have only one major virtue and there are at least 3 great: Flawless magic, Flexible Magic and Gentle Gift. There are more than numbers in a game, and gentle gift can be game breaking. Try to start a spring covenant from 0 with 3 lab rats with flawless magic: 1 specializated in ReVi, other in CrIg and the third in PeCo, all with Blatant Gift and other social handicaps. Lets see how they will got time to investigate when they are fighting for survival. Only a well stablished hermetic market (changing vis for gold, tractatus and summae for vis and gold) will save then.

Flexible magic: is a great virtue as presented, and feats well in many concepts. And the same can be achieved with mutatum magic using vis, and yes, there are a form to make the flexible magic effect but with mastery and vis.
With flexible magic you will have at least 1 or 2 more spells in starting, you will make personal versions of all touch spells and still cast on other, or use on you with your parma active all touch spells, this is obvious. Also you can use with arcane conection range all your visual spells, also obvious, but really usefull. And to create many spells you have, at practical effects: +10 to lab total. Do you really think is a nerfed virtue?

Vulgar Alchemy is great. With vulgar alchemy and a verditious friend you can make a Warhamer with +5 to atack, and this is not so hard. The posibility to 'discover' new bonus is all you need for a minor virtue, but this do more. In 4th version this was really really overpowered, abusive.

Magical memory is good in some concepts. Not all virtues are as good as cautious sorcerer or inventive genius. Skilled parens is better than warrior and both are '+1' virtues. Allways you can retrieve the +x virtues concept of 3th and 4th edition if you are a power balance fan.

diedne magic is good for counterspelling, with a consistent minor focus can make a good specialist in counterspelling. With others focus, cautious sorcerer and life boost can be a bizarre hoplite.

42

Hi,

AM.edition++; // I'm not sure we are playing the same game! :slight_smile:/2

Was anyone suggesting that every magus take FM?

FFM is solid, but not great.

GG is good for narrow concepts, but can be worked around. As in most RPGs, few GMs really enforce social penalties in the face of "good roleplay." Magi can supplement that with situational bonuses through spells, etc, to make those critical social rolls. And since they are a covenant, they do have companions.

No, but there's a reason it is not taken often.

In this edition, VA totally sucks. It takes way too much effort to get a minor bonus to stick.

Cautious Sorcerer is solid, not awesome. (And I'm saying this as a guy who hates botch dice.) If it removed the last botch die, it would be awesome.

Inventive Genius is a quaternary virtue: Never take it unless either your character concept requires it (which is nothing to do with goodness) or if you already have Puissant MT and Affinity with MT, both of which are much, much better. (Puissant MT is +2 with a much broader scope.) Cyclic Magic is also better than Inventive Genius, taken as seasonal cycle: Read books during your off-seasons; adventure or do lab work in your good seasons. Of course, nothing prevents you from taking all 4 virtues, which stack nicely. But if you want to be an inventive genius, Inventive Genius ought not be the first place to look. (Unless your concept revolves around getting a Breakthrough, iirc, which is not optimal but certainly fine.)

I don't expect all virtues to be equally good. I do find it useful to notice which ones are particularly broadly useful, or that don't quite work as expected. I also enjoy talking about this sort of thing, which I see as an activity distinct from rp.

Very meh. And definitely bizarre. But, as always, if you enjoy it, you're doing something right.

Welcome to fifth edition! :smiley:

Anyway,

Ken

43

And yet Durenmar is kinda reluctant to hand out the good books. (And the mechanics for covenant design assume that a covenant won't have a full set of Roots, which are expressly cheap enough to buy for a pawn, but that's a separate thing.)

Anyway, back to Diedne Magic, think about utility casters again. I think that a lot of uses of utility magic would be the kind of stuff you'd do ceremonial casting on, so if you combined Diedne Magic with Cautious with AL, you'd be botch-free under normal ceremonial circumstances. Mystic Choreography may speed up ceremonial castings, of course. (Then again, anyone who uses a lot of ceremonial casting is clearly doing a lot of spontaneous magic, if spontaneous magic specialization is seen as suspicious in the Order.)

44

Hi,

One of the great things about ceremonial magic is that it is surprisingly independent of Arts. They help, of course, but even in a saga where Arts books are scarce, mundane books remain a pound a pop. Getting good scores in AL and Phil is not difficult. As usual, DM isn't nearly as good for this as LLSM, which benefits even more from Cautious with AL, since botches for LLSM are so much nastier. AL5 + Phil5 + LLSM + whatever else means that you can have any level 20 spell if you're willing to wait an hour before, and then wait for the magus to recover. Stamina, Arts, Aura, casting aids and possibly other things all add. Faerie Correspondence can also increase this.

Anyway,

Ken

45

With DM and an hour to spare, I'd effectively always my lowest Art twice. And I can still get AL and Philosophiae to the total.
So I'm not really sure I see your point.

46

I assume Durenmar doesn't have the staff to handle their influx of texts, let alone do copying of outflow texts. Also, Durenmar doesn't have to trade books; effectively, all books will eventually make their way into Durenmar - or at least they assume that is what will happen.

For most covenants, though, once the membership has exhausted the current crop of books, unless you get new blood, a book is just a placeholder on a shelf. That could be traded for a new book you can use. I'd assume most book trades are exchanges (rather than books for vis or silver). This has the benefit(?) of not increasing the number of books, keeping them more overall valuable. The other benefit being that it's zero labor or materials; no book needs to be copied, just moved from one location to another.

This way books don't multiply like flies, just slowly circulate through covenants. There's the temptation to copy a book and trade it twice (or more!) of course, but that would diminish the trade value of each copy; a covenant might be VERY unhappy to receive a 'new' copy of a tome.

As to covenant design mechanics, that's a Core Rulebook Issue; the CRB doesn't account for later materials. Roots (L5Q15 Summae) really are very easy to produce (IIRC someone with Com+0 needs a 28 in an Art?) that there should be no shortage of them.

47

Hi,

We've lately been talking about a saga with few good Art books, so that lowest score is going to be pathetic. Let's call it 5. The higher score is 10. We'll give this magus 5 in everything except his favorite 2 Arts, which are 10. That's 305xp in Arts. (15@5 -> 225xp, 2==>10 -> +80xp) But even in that saga, books about mundane topics ought to be cheap and plentiful, available for mere silver. AL@5 and Phil@5 is easily done, for 150 more xp. He's a ceremonial casters, so we'll give him +3 Sta. We'll put him in the standard +3 Aura. We'll give him a die roll of 4.

That's a base casting score of 10+5+5+5+3+3+4 = 35.

A Diedne adds 5 to this and divides by 2, for a total of 20. Not bad. He can try this every few minutes.

But he isn't much better than any non-Diedne, who has 17.5!

The LLSM magus can settle for 17.5. But he can also push for a 32.5. He cannot churn these out as easily as the Diedne, but he has much greater potential.

We can optimize both casters, but in a saga where Art scores are hard to come by, DM has little opportunity even to reach its usual meh performance.

Diedne Magic is always good at churning out ordinary sponts, potentially with a very mild boost. LLSM is good at periodically spewing an important spont 2 or 3 magnitudes beyond ordinary limits, at the cost of extra risk. An LLSM sponter can be very effective with no Art scores, sponting lvl15 spells while the Diedne sponts lvl2 spells.

DM is good for a generalist but not for a specialist, especially in a high-powered saga, because it improves in step with the lowest Art. LLSM is awesome for a specialist, who gains capability in Arts that he can largely ignore; it loses a bit of its luster over time, because the dangers of LLSM increase dramatically with the level of the spell attempted. In a low-powered saga with rare Art texts, the DM will never be able to cast those spells anyway. AM5 generally favors specialization, which further increases the value of LLSM. (Of course, it also increases the value of FM, which is generally considered a better virtue, especially in the hands of an experienced player.)

That's my point.

Anyway,

Ken

48

Coming back to this thread after a couple of months, I think that LLSM is most beneficial if you have a "fifteen-minute workday." In other words, when you cast a life-linked spell, you can expect to not have to cast another spell until you've recovered. It lets you pull off really big ceremonial castings. It's great for someone who wants to be able to really do anything with a ritual.

DM gives you options. It gives you the equivalent of a Focus in fatiguing spontaneous magic. You can toss any number of ceremonies in a day (though for safe castings behind the Aegis, LLSM is probably better, yah). If you're a specialist in one T/F combination, you can get totals rivalling LLSM. However, the DM user can also simply throw a fatigueless spontaneous spell at full strength. In particular, it lets you throw fast-cast defenses without using Fatigue. (Yeah, when you fast-cast, you risk a botch - things happen.) Or if you have a specialization in Perdo Corpus, you have a variety of inventive curses at your fingertips.

Now, to be honest, I get the feeling (backed up by one of the articles in Sub Rosa #13) that the two Virtues work best together, an option most likely limited to true Diedne (who were either a Mystery Cult, or functioned like an Ex Miscellanea tradition, or both - either allows for two Major Hermetic Virtues). DM+LLSM allows for Life-Linked Ceremonial Magic with an effective Focus for the great rites, and easy and relatively strong combat, utility and fast-cast defensive spells without expending fatigue - in short, formulaic spells can either be limited to the real specialties or done away with entirely. Of course, in a saga where the Dark Secret is a big deal, your sodales might get a leeeetle suspicious if you seem too broadly capable, but that's a saga call.

49

The Diedne got friends in the past and today many magi trust the war was not a big deal, so i consider the dark secret flaw is relative. I think a lot of magi will react with more curiosity than violence in case to know a diedne wizard. But the hook is there, someone is curious, someone ask vis or services for silence and someone can choice to kill for loot.200 years later nobody knows about the real diedne powers and magic and the variety of powers showed by magi can disguise a diedne magus in the hermes order.

50

As a storyguide one would be perfectly within the bounds of good taste to say that LLSM is not a virtue that is accessible via the Diedne mysteries. Stacking similar abilities on top of one another is pretty central to optimization, to claim that LLSM should be available to a Diedne cult because both virtues concern spontaneous magic is a bit similar to saying that all mystery cults should be designed for maximum utility. I don't like it. This would make the road to acquiring both longer in that the perspective spontaneous master would need to find two mystery cults, one that taught each virtue (or the one that he or she lacked if they started with one of them), be accepted by both the mystery cults, and travel down two separate paths of initiation.

51

Fortunately, there are evil Diedne everywhere, waiting to convert you to the cause. So start with LLSM, and go find those Diedne! :slight_smile:

More seriously, I do agree with the main point: The Diedne might not be a mystery cult at all, and they might not have access to LLSM. (But of course, they do, at least to the version that is linked to someone else's life! :slight_smile:/2)

Besides, everyone knows that the best Diedne all have LLSM rather than DM. DM is a smokescreen to throw the Order off track. The real Diedne are in House Bjornaer, have added to their Inner Heartbeast all of the animal qualities that grant extra fatigue, and have a Heroic Characteristic (Stamina) for casting spontaneous magic (heroic lineage from Diedne, of course) without that pesky last botch die.

Or maybe the Merinita Diedne...

Anyway,

Ken

52

Nah. I recall a novel called something like "Ignem Base 3"... :slight_smile:

53

Not what I meant; I meant that because Diedne have Diedne Magic as their House Virtue (which most interpretations indicate), they have the option to take LLSM, whether or not it's a House Mystery. If LLSM wasn't part of the Diedne's common bag of tricks, then it would mean that the Diedne in question was even more focused than usual on spontaneous magic (whether because that's how their powers worked out, because their parens had that focus, or because they really got into spontaneous casting while still an apprentice).

That said, I do find that LLSM feels rather druidic - "more druidic" than the actual DM virtue, to be truthful. It's comparable to Bone-Biting, which as we know is a particularly Diedne style of certamen and wounds the user for more power. So while it's not necessary for the Diedne to have it, I personally think it'd be a shame if they didn't. (Of course, in most sagas this is going to be a moot point, since true Diedne with access to both Virtues don't exist anymore, except possibly in deep hiding.)

54

I'm not really sure about that, even though that was the view that Tellus shared too.
If you are a generalist, all your Art scores will be low, including the lower in a Tech + Form combination.
From my point of view DM is at its best if your magus specializes in an area that's a Tech+Form (with a Minor Magical Focus covering most of it), or two Techs and two Forms, and a lot of different effects in that area. For example:

Creo Ignem would be a bad choice, because it doesn't offer such a large array of very different effects (except at the very lowest end of the spectrum, where a CrIg specialist can cast spontaneous magic without fatigue) -- so you can cover it all with a few formulaics (some people I know would say just one :slight_smile: ).
Imaginem would also be a bad choice, because although you can create many effects with it, Imaginem already has flexibility "embedded" in it -- so again you only need relatively few formulaic spells to cover a lot of ground.

On the other hand Creo Mentem, with a minor focus on "creating thoughts, memories and emotions" is a good match for Diedne Magic, particularly if combined with Deft Mentem, and/or Puissant Creo and Mentem, and/or Affinity with Creo and Mentem.
Muto,Rego,Corpus,Animal is actually a very very good set of Arts to combine with Diedne Magic (I actually played such a magus, an ex-miscellanea, in one of my earliest ArM5 sagas, and it was a lot, lot of fun)!

55

But if you are a specialist, you already have a few high scores and you have a battery of formulaic spells within that specialty, because a magus isn't much of a specialist without either spells or magic items in his specialty, to rack up high spell levels and penetration.

Adding Diedne Magic to that is useful, but marginally so, because you already have bread-and-butter abilities in the specialty. DM does add something, of course. A major focus is strictly better, for example, if the specialty is wide enough. (Otherwise, a specialist still does better with minor focus, 2* affinity, 2* puissant, maybe a deft art.... Oh, and Flexible Formulaic Magic, to make the inevitable formulaic magic more general.)

I'm not saying it's terrible! Or that it couldn't be fun. But it doesn't strike me as a shiny virtue for a specialist. It's an ok major virtue with a nasty major flaw tacked on.

Just me,

Ken

56

Perhaps I wasn't too clear about it. There are some areas of Hermetic Magic that are narrow in terms of Arts, but wide in terms of effects and thus of number of formulaic spells needed to "cover" them. And some of these areas are Form-and-Technique balanced, in the sense that they have the same (small!) number of Forms and Techniques. Rego + Muto + Animal + Corpus is one of these. How many formulaic spells would you need to cover most of its potential?

But yes, I do agree it's not the greatest Major Virtue out there, and it's rather bad if you assume that the attached Story Flaw prevents you from taking a second Story Flaw of your choosing.

57

I hadn't thought of it that way. Fair enough. I think there are better ways to get those larger sponts, but not straight out of the core rules.

And worse still when the Tremere come calling. :slight_smile:

58

I was thinking of Vim, combined with Muto/Perdo/Rego, will give you a very flexible set of skills to dispell/boost/twist magic. The magus with Diedne magic select his spells outisde Vim, but uses Vim spontaneous spell to get flexibility he would not get otherwise.
You add the usual suspects (Puissant + Affinity: Vim, possibly a Focus) and it can become quite interesting. His power won't show straight out of apprenticeship since the spell he will spont' need to match the level of the spell he is casting, but after a few years, he should easily be able to spont' level 15-20. And as long as he is affecting his own spell, he does not need to penetrate.
Additionally, the ability to dispel any spell of level 20 straight out of apprenticeship is nothing to sneeze at (if my understanding is correct, he only need to spont a level 10 PeVi to be able to dispell a level 20 spell).

59

Can we please be precise about the view I 'shared'?
I have played a generalist with DM. And been surprised in a positive way about how useful he turned out to be.
I've presented the point of view that this character is perhaps the most useful design I've seen for a generalist. This is because (to me) being a generalist implies you must be able to actually do many different things, which DM helps you do, because you don't have to invent spells for everything you do.

I don't believe I've gone on record as stating that DM is bad for a specialist. In fact, it is one of the few ways I an see a classical Illusionist (from That Other Game) being done in Ars Magica - judging from published Imaginem spells, these have to be designed to be very specific and so spontaneous magic would appear to be the way to go if you want a truly flexible illusionist (I actualy have plans for a spell based illusionist, but I haven't played him yet, so not sure how well he works). This is very much a specialist concept though.

If I have not gone on record stating that DM is not what you want as a combat mage, I will. Your penetration will suck.
Yes, you can still do School of Vilano-stuff (amd probably fairly well, since you can use whatever is nearby, without needing the exact spell for it), but you'll need a fairly high finesse, which is XPs that might well have been better spent on Arts.
Still, it's probably entirely viable.

But please. Stating that something is useful for a generalist is certainly not the same as stating that said something is better for generalists than for specialists or only useful for generalists.

Yes but - as actually stated above:

Agreed. This is why I went for DM when my concept was 'utility mage' - the guy who can do an amazing variety of different stuff - which kinda requires a generalist.

One would think so, but when you read the spells, they all seem to be very strictly defined. The guidelines are extremely open - at times to the point of being vague - but the actual spells are very well defined and very much do one thing. Much less flexible than the guideline suggest.

Except these effects are fairly low level, and with such dedication to Mentem as you suggest, could probably have been sponted anyway.
Or the spells could've been invented en masse, several to a season.

Good on you then! Fun is what this is all about!

60

Ops, ok. That's how I had read your post, probably because it seemed (to me) to agree with ovarwa's. I really hate it when people put into my mouth stuff I have not said, so I'm sorry if I was the one who did that to you.

Ah... my bad again, I had originally typed Muto Imaginem (on which count I am right, the example spells given are really flexible), but somehow "corrected" it. If you look at Creo Imaginem, on the other hand, every single type of illusion seems to require a different spell, so there's a great niche for a DM specialist.

Mmmm. Not really. The guidelines are lowish level, but if you start adjusting for R/D/T and complexity, you easily get into the 20s. And remember that DM has two advantages: it allows you to create spontaneously which you could not otherwise have created spontaneously, and it allows you to create spontaneously without fatigue that which you could have otherwise created, but only if fatiguing yourself. Finally, note that it's not trivial to invent spells "en masse", particularly if you do not have lab texts for all of them.