"Easy" Character Advancement

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Okay, so “easy” is probably pushing it a bit here, but to complement the magi in the Better Example Magi thread I’ve been working on a way of advancing characters that falls in between “work out how to spend 30 xp per year” and “just wing it”, and would appreciate people’s feedback.

Note that I’m pretty sure it’s possible to break it horribly if you’re actively trying, so I’m more interested in ways it ends up breaking accidentally or is unclear / doesn’t make sense / doesn’t work / can be significantly improved without disproportionately adding to the complexity.

Apologies for the multiple initial posts, but I thought it would be easier to follow that way

Method

  • Decide how many years post gauntlet you’re advancing the character
  • Calculate the “effective years post gauntlet” (EYPG) as their actual years post gauntlet adjusted in line with whichever of the various options below you choose to use. This should be a multiple of 5 years, so round if necessary.
  • Decide on some goals for the character to have been working on. Consider which of the goals they will have met, and any other significant developments likely due to things that have happened in your saga.
  • Decide on a group of Abilities and Arts (“Skills”) which are of primary importance to the character. Example abilities might include the Parma Magica and Penetration for a combat magus, Magic Theory for a lab rat or Faerie Lore for a Merinita.
  • [Optional] Decide on a secondary group of Skills which whilst less key are still of some import. Examples might include Magic Theory for a magus that is not a lab rat, Concentration for a magus that makes significant use of Concentration Duration spells, or a mastery ability for a key spell.
  • All other skills are “Unlisted”.
  • Based on the number of primary and secondary Skills chosen, pick the most appropriate table on [a single example table is given below; in practice you'd need a set of these]. Give the character the stats in the relevant table for their key and secondary Arts and Abilities at their EYPG. For characters with Affinities, uplift the Score by 25% (rounded down). For characters with Puissant Art / Ability, add +3 / +2. Leave other stats unchanged from the “at gauntlet” version.
  • Check that these are at least equal to the character’s stats at their previous age / gauntlet. If not, uplift to the previous level.
  • Consider whether the character could plausibly have met the goals you had set for them. If not, either drop the goal or adjust their stats until they can.
  • [Optional] Consider whether the character has gained any additional spells. For standard spells where Lab Texts are available, the magus’ Lab Total should at least equal the spell level. For spells where a Lab Text is unlikely to have been unavailable, the magus’ Lab Total should be at least a third higher than the spell level if developing the spell was particularly important to the magus, and double the spell level otherwise
  • [Optional] Consider whether any other minor tweaks are needed to the character sheet. This stage can include increasing a few of their Arts or Abilities slightly if you decide you want them a bit higher than their base line but not to the extent of denoting them as a Primary or Secondary Skill. You should not spend a significant amount of xp here but the tables allow for magi to spend 25% on their time on non-xp generating abilities so there is some slack available.
  • [Optional] In general older magi will tend to broaden out their range of interests as they get older and diminishing returns set in on their primary interests. They may also drop an Art or Ability down to being a secondary concern once they reach a level which enables them to achieve a particular task. Where advancing a magus in multiple steps it is therefore possible to change which are the Primary and Secondary Skills. Scores once achieved cannot easily go down, meaning that large switches could result in magi acquiring a significant number of additional xp verses just sticking with their original combination. To some extent this is justifiable, as senior magi are likely to have easier access to high quality advancement sources than younger magi. However, to keep it within reasonable boundaries, use the following constraints:
    • Only a single Skill can be shifted by a single step per five year period. A “step” is considered a movement between Primary and Secondary or between Secondary and Unlisted.
    • A Skill can only have its status downgraded if its current score does not exceed the standard level for its EYPG (after adjustments for affinities and puissant). This means that if a Skill is downgraded from Primary to Secondary, it may be some decades before it can be downgraded again to Unlisted.

Adjustments to Effective Years

  • [Optional] Consider whether the character would have spent a significant proportion of their time doing something other than improving their Skills – for example, crafting magical items for sale. Reduce the character’s effective post gauntlet years by a number of “blocks” of 5 years that is appropriate to the time they have spent distracted. Note that the tables below already allow for magi to spend 25% of their time in ways that do not lead to significant xp gain, so this adjustment only needs to be made if the magus is spending significantly more time than this on other things.
  • [Optional] Consider whether the character has any features which would have meant that they gained xp significantly more or less quickly than usual, e.g. Virtues such as Book Learner or Secondary Insight, or Flaws such as Poor Student. Adjust the character’s effective post gauntlet years by an appropriate number of blocks. The typical impact of a minor xp granting Virtue that has seen reasonable use might be to add an extra 5 year block every 25 years.
    *[Optional] Consider whether the character has taken an apprentice. If so, uplift all of their Arts to a minimum score of 5, but reduce their EYPG by 5 per apprentice. Increase the magus’ Teaching score to a score of 2 per apprentice. Magi typically take their first apprentice around 20-30 years after their own gauntlet, although earlier is possible for a character focussed on it and some characters never take one.
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Example table for a maga with 2 Primary Skills and 4 Secondary Skills

EYPG Primary Art Secondary Art Primary Ability Secondary Ability
0 10 5 4 3
5 13 7 5 4
10 15 8 6 4
15 17 9 7 5
20 19 10 8 5
25 21 11 9 5
30 22 12 10 6
35 24 13 10 6
40 25 14 11 6
45 26 15 11 7
50 28 15 12 7
55 29 16 12 7
60 30 17 13 8
65 31 17 13 8
70 32 18 14 8
75 33 19 14 8
80 34 19 15 9
85 35 20 15 9
90 36 20 16 9
95 37 21 16 9
100 38 21 17 10
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Example

Niall decides that he needs an NPC version of Greatpaw Bjornaer who is 30 years past gauntlet.

  • Actual years post gauntlet is 30.
  • Niall decides that Greatpaw's key goals over the period have been to become leader of their covenant and to develop a suite of spells to support combat in Heartbeast form. They have not yet become leader, but they have learned Voice of the Bjornaer Magus (MuAn 20), Clothe the Naked Form (CrHe 10) and Animal variants of Bind Wounds (CrCo 10), Gift of the Bear’s Fortitude (MuCo 25), Endurance of the Berserkers (ReCo 15) and Gift of the Frog’s Legs (ReCo 15), as well as a variant of Doublet of Impenetrable Silk (MuAn 15) that works on fur rather than clothing. These will be CrAn 15, MuAn 30, ReAn 20, ReAn 20 and MuAn 20. Note that due to Greatpaw’s Size +2 in Lion form, these are one magnitude higher than they would normally need to be.
  • Greatpaw’s primary skills are Rego, and Brawl in their lion form. Niall decides that their secondary skills are Leadership, Animal and Corpus, and that in addition they will have needed to learn some Muto for their spells. Greatpaw therefore has 2 Primary Skills and 4 Secondary Skills.
  • Niall decides that at 30 years old, Greatpaw has taken an apprentice, reducing their EYPG by 5 but giving them Teaching 2 and a minimum score of 5 in each Art. Niall also decides that with Greatpaw’s Generous Major Personality Flaw and Dependants, Greatpaw has lost another 5 year block on their people. Greatpaw has no Virtues or Flaws affecting xp gain, so Niall decides on a final EYPG of 20 years.
  • This implies a base Rego of 19, a Brawl of 8, Mu, Co and An of 10 and Leadership of 5. However, Greatpaw has Affinity with and Puissant Rego, Puissant Leadership and Puissant Brawl (in Heartbeast form). Their final skills are therefore Re 23+3, Brawl 8+2, Mu 10, Co 10, An 10, Leadership 5+2. Niall checks and is happy that these are all at or above their gauntlet levels.
  • Niall reviews their spell list, and decides that inventing a custom MuAn 30 spell when Greatpaw only has a MuAn lab total of around 27 is implausible, so he drops it. However, they are nearly at the point they could learn such a spell from a labtext, especially with their apprentice’s help in the laboratory, so Niall decides that Greatpaw will be interested in finding anyone else who has such a text to trade, or as a lesser option a labtext of Gift of the Bear’s Fortitude (MuCo 25) so he can benefit from the Similar Spell bonus or cast in human form then change to their Heartbeast.
  • Niall considers whether Greatpaw would have learned any other spells, and decides that it would make sense for them to have learnt a Personal range variant of Unravelling the Fabric of Animal – whilst Greatpaw’s natural lion form is not subject to magic resistance, the various enhancements make it potentially be so, so he needs to be able to remove them if something turns out to have more resistance than expected.
  • Rereading their character sheet, Niall decides that Greatpaw should really have increased their Parma above 1 by now. Niall therefore increases it to 3. This is still somewhat low for a magus with an interest in combat 30 years out of gauntlet, so Niall decides that if he does any future advancement he will shift Parma Magica into being another Secondary Ability.
  • Greatpaw’s final Arts, Abilities and Spell list are:

Abilities (human form): Animal Ken 4 (commands), [Area 1] Lore 1 (animals), Artes Liberales 1 (ceremonial magic), Athletics 2 (leaping), Awareness 1 (animals), Brawl 2 (fists), Charm 1 (first impressions), Code of Hermes 1 (mundane interference), Folk Ken 1 (magi), Latin 4 (Hermetic terms), Leadership 5+2 (in battle), Magic Theory 3 (Rego), [Native Language] 5 (speeches), Order of Hermes Lore 1 (Bjornaer), Parma Magica 3 (Animal), Teaching 2 (single student)

Abilities (lion form): Animal Ken 4 (commands), [Area 1] Lore 1 (animals), Artes Liberales 1 (ceremonial magic), Athletics 5 (pouncing), Awareness 2 (smell), Brawl 8+2 (claws), Code of Hermes 1 (mundane interference), Hunt 4 (deer), Latin 4 (Hermetic terms), Leadership 0+2 (in battle), Magic Theory 3 (Rego), [Native Language] 5 (speeches), Order of Hermes Lore 1 (Bjornaer), Parma Magica 3 (Animal), Stealth 4 (stalking), Survival 5 (arid climates)
Arts: Cr 5, In 5, Mu 10, Pe 5, Re 23+3, An 10, Aq 5, Au 5, Co 10, He 5, Ig 5, Im 5, Me 5, Te 5, Vi 5
Combat (lion form):
Dodge: Init +1, Atk n/a, Dfn +8, Dam n/a
Claws: Init +1, Atk +18, Dfn +15, Dam +10
Bite: Init +1, Atk +16, Dfn +12, Dam +9
Spells known:
Bind the Great Beast’s Wounds (CrAn 15) +16
Commanding the Harnessed Beast (ReAn 30) +37
Cloak of the Duck's Feathers (ReAq 5) +32
Voice of the Bjornaer Magus (MuAn 20) +21
The Fur That Turns Blades (MuAn 20) +21
Endurance of the Lion (ReAn 20) +37
Mighty Leap of the Lion (ReAn 20) +37
Spasms of the Uncontrolled Hand (ReCo 5) +37
Endurance of the Berserkers (ReCo 15) +37
Gift of the Frog's Legs (ReCo 15) +37
Clothe the Naked Form (CrHe 10) +11
Phantasm of the Talking Head (CrIm 10) + 11
The Call to Slumber (ReMe 10) +32
Aura of Rightful Authority (ReMe 20) +32
The Unseen Porter (ReTe 10) +32
Unravelling the Fabric of Personal Animal (PeVi 10) +11

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I’d be hard pressed ( if that’s the right term) criticizing anything, since I submitted a similar idea to Timothy for creating quick NPCs :sweat_smile: :innocent:

Since you appear to be more flexible than I, if you wanted to expand on this, the only thing that you’d need to clarify is what scores on get for how many skills ( What I did was limit their number to roughly 8, but it appears you want that number to be able to fluctuate)

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My plan was to have a collection of tables for different combos of primary and secondary skill numbers, plus possibly an explanation of how I generated them if people decided they wanted more options. I was holding off on generating loads of tables until I had feedback on whether the basic concept was sound, as otherwise it would just mean loads of rework (plus given the lack of commentary I’m pretty sure most people have just skimmed over it as “too long” even without them).

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