Elemental Magic

[ezzelino]

A (reformatted) post of mine from 7 years ago that I think is still quite valid:

@ezzelino

We never really liked Elementalist as written.

First, as noted above, it's considerably underpowered. Second, we found the Virtue somewhat vague on what "study" encompassed. Third, we always found the "free requisites" part a bit fiddly. Remember, if one needs a requisite for a spell to have its primary function (e.g. a spell that turns raindrops into diamonds) then a vanilla mage pays no extra magnitudes (but has to use the lower of the two Arts). But if the requisite adds function (e.g. a spell that creates a flaming sword, as opposed to a normal one), then a vanilla mage must add magnitudes. It was never clear to us how Elementalist would apply to the second case.

So, when a few years ago a player in our troupe decided he wanted to make an Elementalist magus, we redesigned the Virtue so that it was more balanced and clearer (at least in the opinion of the troupe). This is it:

---

Elementalist
Hermetic, Major
You have been trained in the ability to manipulate raw elemental forms (Ignem, Auram, Terram and Aquam), and view them as a connected whole rather than four separate Arts. Whenever (including during character creation) you increase or decrease your experience total in any one of the elemental Arts, you automatically increase or decrease the other three by exactly the same amount, at no extra cost. Because of your holistic understanding, this Virtue is incompatible with any Virtue or Flaw that would only apply to some, but not all, the elemental forms. For example, you cannot take an Affinity in any elemental form (since a magus is limited to two Art Affinities), or a Minor Focus in creating metals, but you could take Incompatible Arts four times twice to represent your inability to use a particular technique with any of the elemental forms.

---

I know that a lot of people who'll read it superficially will scream "It's overpowered! It gives you sooo many extra xp compared to <favourite xp granting Virtue>!" A more careful look at it, and many sessions in play, show this is not the case - while it makes a magus very flexible (when dealing with inanimate stuff), it does not make him significantly more "powerful" compared to a magus specializing in a single Form (in fact, the inability to take a Focus or an Affinity is a serious handicap). It is phenomenally good for Tremere certamen specialists, however