I'm about to start a new saga in a couple of days, and one of the players want to play a magic character (from Realms of power magic). That's fine of course, except that I really don't believe in the advancement rules for magic characters as written. I have tried to fix them before with small adjustments here and there, but the rules just don't work for me. I think it's partly that the author of the book had a slightly different vision of characters from myth than I do, and partly that the rules have quite a few loopholes and not very well balanced. I know that a lot of people on this forum think that's fine, and it probably is for them. I suppose it depends on playing style. For this saga we have decided to go all out munchkin and all players will "do their best". We have also agreed to make all hermetic arts into difficult arts to counterbalance this. I think it will be a lot of fun, assuming that the game system can handle it. In short, I need to make the magic character advancement rules work, and in order to do that I believe I need to rewriite them completely. Your job is to be a munchkin and help me spot any and all weaknesses in the new advancement rules. Ready?
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The rules for creating a magic character (not advancing) are good and will stay as they are.
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The standard magic character will no longer be immortal. He will have a human life-span.
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There will be a free quality that changes the character so that he works like an immortal magi, that is he doesn't change at all and if he would change he will "revert". The quality is intended for ghosts, elementals and immortal magi. This naturally makes the advancement described in 5 6 and 7 impossible. Such a character can only advance through "special rules".
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For characters that didn't get the quality above there will be a minor quality "extend life span" that makes the character get one human life-span extra. If a character bought this virtue twice, for example, he would only roll on the aging table every third year and his age would count as one third of his actual age. Living condition modifiers works as usual.
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Improving a characters Might score and getting extra qualities is done completely different from RAW. Both are purchaced with exp. The cost to improve a characters might score one step is calculated as follows:
(current might score +total qualities -total inferiorities) +1
In other words the characters (might +quality points) grows as an art, costing one more exp everytime it is increased. The cost to get one more quality point is calculated in the same way:
(current might score +total qualities -total inferiorities) +1
Inferiorities simply developes during a season if the player wants them to, they don't give any specific compensation except that future might increases and qualities become cheaper. -
The exp needed to improve might and buy qualities is acquired through exposure, teaching and study from vis. Exposure works as usual, living a life true to the characters nature is enough. A magical fox hunting in a magic forest for a season could for example earn 2 exp through exposure. Teaching also works as usual, and the teacher naturally need to have a higher might score than the student (for teaching might) or already possess the quality (for teaching qualities). Study from vis works as it would for a hermetic magus, and costs
(current might score +total qualities -total inferiorities) /5
vis per season. It costs at least 1 vis. -
Abilites are studied and learned as for other characters, with a single exception. If the total exp that the character has spent on abilites is higher than the characters "exp cap", all study sources for abilites are reduced to 1. This cap starts at the starting experience given by the characters "season", but can be increased by taking the "raise exp cap" minor quality. Each purchace of this quality raises the cap by 300.
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The quality giving 50 free xp can only be bought at character creation. This is in order to avoid extremely fast growth by young magi turned into magic characters. I personally believe this quality is superfluous as the same effect can now be achieved by raising the exp cap and advancing the character before play. It is kept for backward compability.
That's it! Thanks for reading. Going from Might 0 to 20 with no qualities would take (200 /2) = 100 seasons or 25 years of exposure. With an unlimited vis supply and a strength 10 aura going from might 0 to might 30 with 30 points of qualities would take (1800 /15.5) = 116 seasons or 29 years. I believe these are very reasonable numbers. The only real fast-track to power is having a really really good teacher. Or being born with it.
All opinions are welcome, both comarisons to the RAW system and comments on the system itself. One thing I sort of miss personally is a mechanism holding certain specieses of magical characters back. Right now all magical characters have the potential for greatness. I suppose it does make it more fun to play in a way, but I'm not sure it really is the way I envision Mythic Europe. Virtues that affect the development of qualities and Might would probably be a good idea, that way some magic characters could be more gifted than others. But that simply won't be necessary for this saga, so I'm not sure if I will develop that or not.
I am especially happy that familliars are once again able to learn magic theory effectively, even though they do have to get the "raise exp cap" quality occationaly. I'm also happy that hermetic magi turned into magic characters are somewhat balanced in this system.