About Vis, the amount you will need will very much depend on the characters interest. I am playing a mage who will want to experiment with level 100 or so items. He is working on a breakthrough for architectural magic so he can create regios. I will need likely a queen or more of Vim vis for this. But a character focused on spells would need much less vis.
So the only broad vis requirements I can say are for an Aegis and longevity rituals, so not all that much, a bit of Vim for the aegis and what ever for longevity and after that it all depends on what they want. Of course Vis could let them buy access to a book for example, so it would be useful but even if they are not using it themselves.
Ponderingturtle, I hate to say this but:
1- he sais "IMS". RAW are nothing against houseruling.
2- If he consider that outside the scope of ordinary humanity (+3/-3), it means that the guideline 50 et 55 (+4 and +5) do exist but, because hermetic magic can't change essential nature permanently, they can't have a permanent duration (like Muto, they can only be temporary). And seen their levels, they are always rituals, for temporary effect, which mean they are not used by much wizards.
That part IS NOT against RAW. That would mean that HOHTL, which introduced "gift of heroes" permanent spells, are canon but limited to a mystery/secret cult, which it is!, and for that reason, may go against the limit of essential nature. Therefore, to me, they seem rather a good reading of RAW and the "+4/+5 spells are available by anything" seem against RAW.
Sure. "Better" is just not as black and white as the original poster seemed to suggest.
Maybe, although it depends on your saga. I know I find, both when I am storyguide and player, that how player characters react to events is not always quite what the storyguide expected...
...except that if you already insist they are part of the mysteries, it would make so much more sense to have people initiate the relevant virtues and throw away these spells, yes?
I totally agree with this statement, to me it is a strong feature of Ars Magica : having people growing up with time instead of powering up with adventures.
I have to confess it is sometime quite hard to make players from D&D, L5R or World of Darkness understand this.
Well, I don't make these rituals temporary. If reading HoH: tL, they are, after all, designed to change the recipient into a Hero.
But I prefer to adhere to the spirit and letter of Ars than to the numbers: Despite the guidelines being in the core, to the best of my knowledge, no published magus has used them (Or if one has, well, that still make them far less common than what we can read here and there). I can't recall any mention of magi boosting themselves in that way, and even those who are interested in writing did not use them.
That, and these are supposed to be a jealously guarded mercere secret, so having everyone, or even some people, casting right and left breaks that utterly.
So these are just not cast outside of House Mercere. Why? Because these are not known.
The fact that these are possible with Core Hermetic Magic doesn't mean everyone knows these guidelines, just as we've seen new guidelines that are avaiblable after a few study, such as in RoP: M. Which also explain why the Mercere enforce their secrecy jealously: It's much harder to enforce than if it was a mystery, incomprehensible and innaccessible to all non-initiated.
=> To me, that's exactly that.
What you write, however, is a good idea, and would solve problems for those who see these as widely known and used.
Agreed. Stat boosters definitely fit into a class of effects that can be cool and atmospheric when kept rare and mysterious, but are tiresome and munchkinlike when everyone can reproduce them.
I differ on this. Ars is still a game and rewards for adventures are part of it. I don't favor rapid advancement ala D&D at all, but I do want my adventurous protaganists to have a slight edge over the stay at home NPCs. I'd rather do this with experience points than with Confidence.
The problem is that the Ars Magica System and setting do not match very well. Dragons with 50 magic might are supposed to be really scary not something a starting covenant can spend a couple of seasons preparing for and kill easily. Magi are mechanically much more powerful than they are in the setting descriptions.
Have you considered rewarding your players with magical artefacts? They are easily given in adventures and players usually love them even if not very powerful.
But I think it's our job as ST and players to try to preserve the one over the other, and, if really nescessary, to house rule it.
For one exemple of the first, I've never tried to cast a pink dot, nor seen anyone try. I just assume people don't do it because, while the rules can't model the "reality" of magic perfectly, pink dot doesn't work.
For an example of something we can avoid, like the might problem, this is 2-fold:
On the one hand, if a group of powerful wizards band together and spend a year crafting a one-time item that'll break under its own power, it's perfectly normal they'd destroy it. It would be exactly the same thing if they were faced by a elder magus. In a sense, it's like in Amber: Preparation and cunning trump raw might anytime. Ok, mostly preparation
On the other hand, for a casual encounter, most creatures are too vulnerable to multicasting, which is why I house-rule by having a fraction of the might serve as "soak" versus might-strippers.
We by and large go by the rules, except were they do things like make Vis trivial to generate. We house ruled the might thing as you blow away temporary might or permanent might. By blowing away temporary might you do not lower its MR, and with permanent might you destroy the Vis.
I guess "stuff" (excluding books and vis) is less interesting to us than experience is. When you can make your own magic items with a modest expenditure of time and vis, found objects tend to either be overpowered or just clutter, at least in my experience. I can see the appeal if companions play a central role in the saga, but we're more into the magi.
Another fix is to erase "A single target may also be affected more than once" from multiple casting mastery description. I'd also add 1 extra botch die per copy you use, which would mean that, due to the mastery score of X, you should at least have base dice, and not base - X botch dice.
Yup, that's a good one, especially for PeIg spells: As some GM play it, a multicast low-level PeIg that drains fatigue is way more efficient than a multicast higher-level spell that does +5 or even +10 damage, which is ridiculous: A little cold tires you, a lot more kills you.
Hum... On the fly, a possible solution would be that each copy cast on someone adds a magnitude of effect to the first spell's effect.
So, casting 4 lvl 10 DEO would not drain 40 might, but 25. And casting 4 fatigue-draining PeIg spells on someone would ido +15 dammage instead of draining 4 fatigue levels
IMO, multiple casting is not bad. What is bad is being able to multicast at the same target (without problems). Casting 5 fire balls to 5 enemies is a classical trope of fantasy.
Casting 5 fireballs at the same enemy .
If you want that, there is the possibility to have 1 spell with group target. It exists.
Yes, I like the fix I suggested. I will apply it immediatly in my online saga.
I agree with you in part, Jabir; I think Ars is a game and rewarding players for participating in adventures is part of that; this does not require rewarding the character. The player is rewarded by advancing a plot s/he is interested in, by being central to a story, and things of that nature. The magi character, especially, should not do better, in terms of magical power, going on adventures than staying home. If that were the case, we would expect that all magi would be out adventuring in the world rather than staying home reading books.
Having said that, I think there are a suitably large number of other useful rewards that came come from stories: agent points, lab texts, magic items, familiars, apprentices, vis, money... and, on top of all that, if the magi can finish the adventure in under a week, they even get the benefit of being able to go back to dealing with whatever they wanted to do with the season with no additional pain!
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