Flawless Magic and Book learner

[Jonathan.Link]

I know you asked about others' experiences, but I thought I'd add my two bits.

@gribble_the_munchkin

am interested that Jonathan.Link thinks Flawless magic is the most powerful virtue in the game. I really like it but I've been strongly conflicted on whether it is actually worth a major virtue.

All of your spells get a +1 CS bonus automatically, and all get one less botch die than normal, again automatically. For the equivalent of 5 xp you double the benefits I mentioned.

@gribble_the_munchkin

They don't need the casting boost, don't need penetration and usually end up with abilities like still or quiet casting just to make the PC look flash when casting. He certainly won't be increasing his mastery score on them.

Agreed, certain spells it's a bit harder to make the case. I'd be interested to see a sample of these spells though. With rituals, the mastery skill isn't always useful, but removing one or two botch die is, especially as it comes after things like the Golden Cord and Cautious Sorcerer.

@gribble_the_munchkin

I can clearly see the use when mastering attack spells or those that need penetration, its useful with rituals too. But most characters I have played have few of these and a PC might be better served taking the mastered spells virtue (bonus, only a minor virtue rather than flawless' major) for the 50 xp in spell masteries.

50 xp of mastery goes quick. Why not make it 100 with Flawless Magic! But yes, combat gets a lot of attention from mastery abilities. Still, there are other good ways to use mastery abilities other than combat.

I have a character who has Flawless and Subtle Magic, a lot of his spells have quiet casting taken at least once, a couple I think are taken twice, like Prying Eyes. This gives him a lot of advantages of casting spells when others don't know that he's casting spells. I know that one could get the same benefit of still and quiet castingx2 with Deft Form, but of course that only works with one specific form. I had some general feeling when I built him that I was going to turn this character into a generalist, because I normally don't play a generalist. Now, he is an apprentice in a saga where the PCs started as apprentices in Doctorcomic's Alpine Apprentice saga, and given the house rules in that saga he has a lot of spells, 230 some levels of spells (we are near the end of the apprenticeship). I kind of see him as a MacGyver type but with spells for any and every occasion.

Fast casting (defensive) spells also becomes a bit easier, because the fatigue loss isn't a forgone conclusion when a spell is mastered for fast casting as it would be for a spontaneous spell.

In the thread I started about the average quality of a tractatus, and we got into discussing how many there were in existance, I posited that there would be a lot of Spell Mastery texts out there, especially combat related spell, and any useful ritual spell will have them, too. Depending on how many texts you think exist, I think it's reasonable a lot of even low quality level of texts for mastery exist, just because it's so useful and vital for minimizing botch dice.

Edit:
Wanted to add that my experience is that it seems to mesh well, if not magnify, a lot of other Hermetic Virtues when placed on a character. Which clearly it does in the case of your original post.