I purchased a copy of Hedge Magic on my lunch break a few minutes ago then I hopped across the street to the Gyro place and read the first chapter.
Things that jumped out at me:
They've made Hermetic integration a big deal, with rules more or less the same as from Ancient Magic. There are rules for the hedge traditions doing some integration themselves
Hedge traditions get defenses in many ways similar to the Hermetic form bonus but not so uniform, some can get defenses similar to the ability of will over form to break free of spells. There's a great deal of potential variety here.
There are allowances for companion characters, mythic companion characters and grog characters using these rules. There is an explicit rule for having a normal companion (rather than mythic companion) with the gift.
At least in the opening chapter, there is a great deal of support for troupes to create their own Hedge Traditions.
If the authors want to jump in I've got a question for you.
We've now got four separate kinds of "skills":
Abilities (including supernatural abilities)
Accelerated abilities
Arts
Difficult arts
I can see that there is a difference for with regard to form bonus style resistances. Is there another benefit to be gained from having four labels rather than two?
Ability + Characteristic + bonuses vs. Ease Factor
Art + Art + Characteristic + bonuses vs. Spell/Magical Effect Target Level
You can't add two Abilities together to come up with a total without throwing the standard Ease Factor table completely out of whack.
Accelerated Abilities are one way for an Ability to overcome Magic Resistance, because Penetration is the amount by which the Ability succeeds over the Ease Factor.
Difficult Arts are one way to allow Hedge Wizards to use similar spell level numbers as Hermetic magic, but prevent them from being as powerful as the members of the Order of Hermes.
So if if I understand correctly, if RoP:Infernal would have been published after Hedge Magic, the Goetic Arts would have been accelerated abilities instead of arts because they don't add Art + Art and methods and powers would have been dificult arts rather than supernatural abilities because they are added art + art?
Yes, I think so, but I didn't write that part of Hedge Magic and I haven't seen the finished product so I could be wrong. I believe the powers of Ars Goetia are technically Accelerated Abilities by this terminology (even though the formulas do sometimes add a second Ability in there; I guess that's a sort of mechanical bonus for being evil). But since Difficult Arts increase like Abilities, and Accelerated Abilities increase like Arts, I think it would have been very confusing to introduce those terms when there weren't a lot of other examples. I still find it easiest to write Methods and Powers under Abilities on the character sheet, and I create new Arts for Accelerated Abilities in Metacreator.
Ars Goetia are added to Stat + (Appropriate Realm) Lore ability and compared to Might scores.
I've said it before: this is getting really messy... any chance of an official retrofit and categorization of the already-published art/abilities/whatnots?
I'm not sure that we'd see it as as messy if folks weren't trying to catagorize things. Things are still a bit cleaner withthe hedgies/exotics/anctient traditions than they were with fourth ed (vitki/volkehvy/kabalist and so on). I'd hate to see everything using the same set of rules. I'd rather see the rules created to match the myth that we wan tto duplicate as closely as possible. The headace of learning different rules for each tradition is less important than getting the feel of each radition right.
Of course that's talking from a philosophical point of view. I don't doubt that if we were to rework all of the fifth edition books we could do much better with the benefit of experience than we did on the first go-round in terms of consistency, tranparency and ease of use. In fact I'm almost tempted to push for a sixth edition (shuold that day ever come) that is just a cleanup of of fifth edition in everything other than the combat system and not a large scale rework of anything but the combat system
I would just like to mention I have been advocating a "Revised Fifth Edition" for almost a year now. I think that 5th is the best edition so far, and is the most substantially improved edition thus far. I wouldn't want things to change much, just some clean up maybe.
Or, perhaps a better idea is...
(puts on flame retardant suit)
A Fifth Edition Wizard's Grimoire!
It could offer a lot of consolodation and clean up, collect all the spell guidelines, and much much more. In addition to having a large chunk of new spells that can be rotated into general play.
Initiations are by and large for gifted characters. This box gives restrictions to use when using initiations for ungifted characters
I'm assuming that you already know about Ars Goetia and Sahirs, Elementalists have the following "Difficult arts" (arts that advance as abilities) Air, Earth Fire and Water these function like forms. They also have four techniques that might really advance as normal arts (I haven't found any text saying that they door don't but the "forms" make a special note that they advance as difficult arts while the techniques don't). The four techniques are Summoning, Controlling, Divining, and Refining. each of these four has three separate categories Medicinal, Philosophical and Theurgical. Depending upon whether you want to use your elemental power to change creatures, change the non-livning world, or summon up elemental buddies. you need a separate virtue to apply one of your technique scores in a particular manner thus being able to use philosophical refining does not necessarily allow Medicinal refining.
But Elementalism uses tech + form so it is quite mechanically different not to mention thematically different despite possibly accomplishing similar tasks.
The Vitki have 24 separate accelerated abilities Hey don't do sponting, they need "scripts" their magic uses the lowest total (similar to they way that requisites are handled). Their magic can use one two or three runes and any rune can be used as either technique-ish rune or a form-y rune. (casting magic upon yourself only requires a single rune).
Apparently (after a 2 minute skim) they Vitki get some of the same -creation of natural effects benefits as the rune casters from ancient magic.
The vitki guidelines look high but they all include (if my skimming skills are functioning ) range touch and duration Rune, so they might be comparable to hermetic stuff.
Personally I think that the 3rd edition Wizard's Grimoire was one of the best supplements for the 3rd edition.
But since most of what was introduced there (except additional spells) is covered in the core rules, covenants, House Books and some other supplements for the 5th edition I am not sure what the content of a 5th edition Grimoire should be besides new spells...
Dang, just reread what you wrote, you said so yourself, collection/clarification of rules already published + new spells
A quick skim shows information about the war with Pralix but implies that the spider was an ally of the Gruagachan rather than one of them. so yes more information but not any game mechanics advice bout how to depict the character in numbers.
a few paragraphs that detail what the Order of Hermes thinks of Order of Odin, and adds there is no Order of Odin described here but if you squint at things and move some folks around there could be.( Or at least that's how it reads with a great deal of distortion by my preconceived notions)
