House Rules, Mechanics Clarifications and Posting Guidelines

House Rules:

  • Archery uses Perception rather than Dexterity; Spontaneous Magic uses Intelligence rather than Stamina.
  • Gentle Gift is compatible with any one other Major Hermetic Virtue. (I agree with the reasoning of WHY they changed it from a one to a three point virtue, I just don't like the result of all Jerbitons being Hermetically weaker than magi of every other house).
  • Mercurian Magic is primarily Mercere only, with very few exceptions; Merceris Mercurians don't take the penalty to spontaneous casting, only those without the Founder's blood. (All Mercere, Redcaps and Gifteds alike, are blood descendants of the Founder.)
  • Merinita of Myanar's lineage receive Nature Lore (minor outer mystery) lieu of Faerie Magic.
  • Tremere do not have a "Minor Magical Focus: Certamen" because certamen is far too narrow to justify a mMF. Instead, they receive "Certamen Focus" which works exactly the way a minor magical focus would, with the exception that it does not preclude all Tremere from having a genuine Magical Focus.
  • Bjornaer CAN bind familiars, they just DON'T. Most of the Order believes Bjornaer to be incapable of this magic.
  • Diedne Magic: different. Talk to me about it via email if you're interested in playing one.
  • Elemental Magic: also different, and like Diedne Magic, no, you don't get to know HOW it's different unless you ARE an Elementalist :slight_smile:
  • Learning Curves: Only exceptionally intelligent characters can raise an art or ability by more than 3 levels in a single season of study. With a +4 Intelligence, you may increase your knowledge of an art or ability by up to 4 levels; with a +5 Intelligence, you may increase your knowledge of an art or ability by up to 5. The reasoning for this is that the level of an art or ability, regardless of the experience points needed to increase it, represents a level of understanding; thus, only exceptionally intelligent characters may receive the full benefit from studying high quality sources at low levels. I have always been bothered by the idea of going from no clue in an art, straight to a skill level of 5 or 6 from a single season of study, and feel this house rule more accurately represents realistic learning curves.
  • Wards: Rather than have to worry about wards penetrating, and to avoid that whole can of worms, I'll say that a ward is effective against any creature with Might up to half the level of the ward. Thus a Lv 40 Ward Against Faeries will keep out faeries with Might 20 or less.
  • Aegides: An Aegis of the Hearth's warding effect will repel all foreign creatures with a Might score of half the level of the Aegis, without need for penetration.
    ** Clarification: Note that, as per RAW, a magus entering a foreign aegis must penetrate the aegis with any and all magical effects upon him, or they will be either dispelled or suppressed (depending on the nature of the effect). Parma Magica is a magical effect, but because it has no casting total, it has no penetration either; therefore Parmae Magica are unilaterally dispelled upon entering a foreign Aegis.
  • Archmagi: In this saga, this title is usually granted, but it is possible to challenge for the status. In order to receive the title, or to challenge for it, a magus must: 1. Have invented an original spell or enchantment of at least seventh magnitude; 2. Have trained an apprentice that has since been Gauntleted and recognized by Tribunal, who then must attest before an archmagus as to the quality of the education they received; and 3. Have performed some great work or deed noted by the Order as a whole (OOC: have acquired the Hermetic Prestige virtue-- note that this doesn't count if you take it as a starting virtue).
  • Familiars: Familiars can be bound with any one Technique and Form that matches the specific creature; additionally, any standard familiar may be bound with a magus' Intellego + Animal + Mentem lab total (as per 4th ed).
  • "Starting" familiars should be designed as Spring/Grog creatures. This encourages magi to seek out potential familiars in gameplay, where much awesomer creatures are available.
  • Stress rolls and rounding: The minimum multiplier for a stress roll is 5. Thus if you roll two 1's and follow up with a 2, the roll is 2x2x5 for a total of 20. This way, the minimum value for a single stress roll is 10, and the minimum value for double stress is 20, etc.

In an effort to make things maybe more interesting (also for there to be less discrepancy between the PCs and the largely 4th edition NPCs), players have the option of rolling Characteristics, a la 4th ed.

Use the online dice roller (Thanks Mark!) at invisiblecastle.com/roller and roll four sets of 2d10. (You only get one shot.) After you get the results, you can choose either the first or the second die to be "high" and the other to be "low." Subtract the "low" die from the "high" die and this will give you a number, either positive or negative. Once you have those four numbers, you can assign one number to pair of Characteristics (Int&Per, Str&Stam, Pre&Com, Dex&Qik). Divvy the numbers among the two characteristics; their values cannot differ by more than 2. Make sure to link the roll, along with your rough draft character sheets, in the Character Discussion thread.

Exempli Gratia:
invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2675684/
2d10 → [9,4] = (13)
2d10 → [2,10] = (12)
2d10 → [1,9] = (10)
2d10 → [9,9] = (18)
(For our purposes we're ignoring the numbers in the parenthesis, we only care about the individual die numbers.)
Given these rolls, Exempli Gratia is going to choose the second die as "high," yielding the following results:
4 - 9 = -5
10 - 2 = +8
9 - 1 = +7
9 - 9 = 0
So the spread is -5, +8, +7, and 0.
E.G. is a knight who fights in heavy armour, so he assigns the -5 to Com/Pre, the +8 to Str/Stam, and the +7 to Dex/Qik, and the 0 to Int/Per. His Characteristics will be as follows:
Int +1, Per -1 (0 can be split as either 0/0, or +1/-1)
Str +3, Stam +5 (+8 could be either +4/+4 or +5/+3)
Pre -2, Com -3 (-5, being odd, can only be split as -2/-3)
Dex +4, Qik +3 (+7, being odd, can only be split as +4/+3)

If you don't get results you like, or if you just don't want to have to worry about it, you can use point buy. Just giving players the option so no one's brain explodes when they look at the library and say "OMG, HOW DOES JUSTINIUS HAVE A +6 COMMUNICATION AND GOOD TEACHER AND ENOUGH VIRTUES LEFT OVER TO BE AWESOME!?!?" :wink:

This option is ONLY for magi and companions; grogs are point buy only.

Posting Guidelines

  • For In-Character threads, all normal text should be in character.
  • Players may choose a certain colour for their magus' speech, should they desire. I only request that it be legible against the board's background, and that you're consistent about what colour you use.
  • Any out-of-character notes, including game mechanics, should go inside double parenthesis. Game mechanics, additionally, should be italicised.
  • For anything requiring dice rolls, players will describe what their characters are attempting within parenthesis, in italics. SG will handle dice, and then post its resolution. Exempli gratia:

Any private correspondences between characters should use PMs. If you have questions for me, you can either PM me, or contact me via instant message (AIM: kumachiisai, YahooIM: asha_greyjoy), or email arya-at-mydistraction-dot-net. Note that I do prefer email over PMs because my iPhone browser chokes on long outgoing messages.

I would prefer to handle combat situations over instant message when possible.

This is a good resource: durenmar.de/articles/naming.html

Updated house rules (original post) to include requirements for archmagi.

Updated house rules to include a secondary option for familiars and binding lab totals.

Updated house rules for stress rolls. Remember the bad guys get to round up, too :slight_smile:

Updated to reflect Tremere's Certamen Focus.