I do understand this. Faeries are not weird humans. (Nor are angels, demons, daimons.... Although rules aside, I see more of a continuum between Human and Faerie, more "How Faerie is he" rather than "Human or Faerie.")
Even so, faeries by their nature are laden down with Flaws. It's really hard to be a faerie without some major restriction or compulsion. considers Rules aside, a faerie is its role. Isn't that largely what you guys intended?
Also even so, a Faerie playing the role of a magus who gets an axe to the head is just as out of the game as a human who does. Pretty hard to remain in role after that. (Sure, the faerie can come back as a ghost after that, but so can the human...) A faerie pretending to be a magus better be pretending so well that one might as well simply rule that it is handicapping itself by pretending to be fatigued. A GM (and a player) not willing to insist upon proper faerie syntax--grammar, well, it's their game.
considers Remaining with the original issue, of a faerie/magus, a GM could easily tell the player that his starting character must have the Becoming virtue and have spent spell points on the appropriate rituals and be subject to very slow advancement, difficulty with spontaneous magic, and so on. Not so powerful now. (Hmm. Do these characters develop Pretenses?)
I have absolutely no stake in what kind of character you play.
It is easy to think that you are interested in playing an infiltrator who cannot be caught because you a) posted a complaint that the rules make it too easy to get caught and b) when, earlier in the thread, you were asked about the kinds of things that might get your character caught, you chose not to answer.
It is easy to think that you are trying to create an powerful character because your focus here is on loosening restrictions rather than accepting problems and consequences.
I am not saying that either conclusion is true; I am saying that both conclusions are highly plausible.
FWIW, I have nothing against power-gaming. There's a reason we're not playing "I'm a medieval peasant wallowing in shit."
You mean, William Marshal, our grog, is not an appropiate character? If you are into mundane politics, a baron or duke might be a good companion character. or a grog if you want him to be more in the sidelines of the plot.
Yes, but are companion characters protagonists directing the policy of the group? That's my point. ON suggested that if you let someone take the Duke of Cumberland as a Mythic Companion, you'd quickly be drawn away from the covenant-as-community and into the hijinks of the duke's life. Similarly, I think if you have PCs who are major demons, angels, or faeries, then at some point you are moving away from a basic humanocentrism which is part of the charm of the game.
I sometimes feel a wry amusement when people who struggle to create human characters with even a shred of what might be construed as human motivation believe they can adeptly represent the alien.
Well, the idea of an infiltrator being trivially easy to detect still makes me wonder why there are infiltrators at all. I like the idea that pretenses that do not involve an action cannot be detected, but that is not really supported in the rules as I read them. The story possibility is they only show up to the inexperienced, because anyone with any expertise could detect them, and I can see how that works, but it is not established story-wise in the book, it just seems to mechanically work that way. Also, despite claims that this game is about covenants, I have always been distinctly under the impression that it is about magi, so infiltrating magi seems like a
I assumed that the questions in that post were rhetorical, aids to positioning the character. Presumably, the character would be very limited in what he can actually accomplish as a 'magus': he might have a personal power and one (even doubled) focus power, providing an extremely narrow range of effects (which even then would look odd and be induplicatable to regular magi) but he would be incapable of more general effects, or of participating in Wizard's Communion or other group spells; he would possess information with little context for how he came by it; he would be assuming a persona that either never existed or is someone else's; he would not be able to enter Aegis areas without getting the proper invitation; he would have to appear to have the habits of a human when they do not come naturally to him--he might, for example, have a lab that doesn't look to work, if anyone bothered checking; if he ever 'made a magic item' he would potentially be giving up a serious liability; he's immortal, but he still has to appear not to be, as dying and coming back would make his role untenable in his current location/persona; his role calls for him to be a magus, but a lot of human interaction might be outside of his role and alien to him--he might, for example, have to deal with being an object of love, when that does not suit his role; he would be susceptible to reputations and stories--if he develops an evil reputation, he will have to be evil, if he is thought incompetent, he will have to be incompetent; he is not, at the end of the day, protected by the code; he is made of vis, the Hermetic commodity, and would do well to hide this; he cannot teach an apprentice real Hermetic magic . . .
I could go on, but I think that there are a ton of things than a faerie infiltrator would have to worry about when impersonating a magus, and most of them support stories, which is the important thing mechanically for a faerie and the important consideration for making a character, too.
Timothy, you'll have to do a lot better than that to offend me; if that was your intent, you are welcome to try again.
That said, the point about helpful feedback stands: there is nothing helpful or constructive about saying: "ignore the rules" and then going on the offensive about a straw-man version of what you think someone else is trying to do with their character. It would have been nice to keep the thread focused on ways to make such a character work without breaking the rules or balance, or at least explaining how some of the obscure bits of the rules work (such as whether passive pretenses can be detected by an expert or not, and why or why not). Some people have engaged with these issues, and I have taken notes for constructing the proposed character; others have swooped in from on high to say that such a thing is impossible, with arguments that have yet to be convincing. . .
I would happily read a thread from the authors of one of the supplements organizing their ideas about how their rules reflect their concept of how the ruled work in game, and perhaps question and debate them there; I happen to think you confuse the appropriate place for such a discussion, and are derailing an otherwise helpful thread.
Again I suppopse I had missed the point on this one. I thought a faerie infiltrator was a story device... not a character class. Options for creating such a character and having it playable for a particular story is a great idea and fabulous option. I see now reason to assume that means they should be a viable option as a sustainable player character.
I don't know if you have played unknown armies, a fantastic game for one off character roles... single story characters where almost everyone in the group has a completely different agenda, ability set and power level.
Ars magica supplements have rules for creating a domestic cat too, complete with virtues and flaws - I never saw anyone complaining that cats should be a viable character option anywhere. No-one here asking how you create a longevity ritual for you cat character because starting aging after 2 seasons of play is unfair.
If you are into mundane politics, a baron or duke might be a good companion character. or a grog if you want him to be more in the sidelines of the plot.