I've made one focusing on combat for my game and he's more than capable of slaying any other character PC or NPC in my game with a single well thrown spear. Thrown + (augmented) Dex + "Natural" bonus to weapon skill + "natural" bonus to spear = um, Bob, can you defend against an attack roll of, gulp, 46?
The levels of their spells are not high and most of them don't need to penetrate. An encounter between Vitkir and Hermetics is tense negotiation in the face of mutually assured destruction.
Hmm... will have to look at those spells more closely.
Still, my reference was more to the "general" Odin-like kind of effects, not to specialized combat characters, mind you. More like the "curse valley" effect than the "throw Tomahawk Missile" effect 
Runic magic being short lived does not sit well with me: a sword engraved with runes seems like it should retain the magic to me (forever, probably), not lose it as soon as you sheathe the blade. 
To me runes means "lasting effect, carved in stone", not "diameter duration"
I know a few people that will tell you that if your mage has no ward vs wood and metal he deserves to die there 
Wait till Mark F reads this
Cheers,
Xavi
I still haven't gotten that book yet. Financial problems and all that. It is next on my list though 
.
I was referting to the fact that Erik's magi do not seem to have active wards vs wooden weapons while going to a potentially lethal area, but hey
Just finished reading gruagachan. They feel.... right 
The correct mix of flavor and cool powers. I like them being wannabe giants as well, even if I will miss Brude Deathless. Since I rolled a 112 with him (my highest roll ever in Ars) I have a weak spot for that character
Cheers,
Xavi
No more Hidden Soul for the Grugachan?
Maye Brude knows that or some other secret beyong magi and hegies
As for the Wards, I am a non-ward guy. I am refusing to use Wards (other than soak bonus wards) as a protest against Ward Penetration. If they have to penetrate, I have no use for them.
The thing that many magi lack that will get them killed is a Brawl score
Wait until I get my hands on Hedge Magic, I will fix it 
(JK!)
Hidden Souls still right there. But when they reach a certain warping they become trolls. pretty much like the pseudo-gruagachan that were in Land of Fire and Ice. It is their equivalent to FInal Twilight.
Cheers,
Xavi
Xavi: A&A is very useful to have with this Hedge Magic especially for the Learned Magicians and to a lesser extent, Elementalists. In particular, the rules for Inceptions, Reagents and Theriacs should help to improve your thematic vision of what the learned magicians should be.
Rune Magic lasts for as long as the rune script does remains legible. No rules were provided for this, but it seems to reason that a sword being wielded in melee would soon become scratched and smudged with the blood of your foes. I can't remember if I read it in Hedge Magic or Ancient Magic, but it shouldn't matter. Incidentally, what's the source of your trouble creating the valley curse. It seems pretty straight forward to me (provided you've obtained the necessary Arcane Connection).
As far as the Gruagachan are concerned I believe it's stated in one of the boxes that the mainstream gruagachan tradition has been secularized and thus derives it's power from Magic, but that isolated Faerie Gruagachan do exist.
Mark: External Soul still exists, but gruagachan now experience a kind of Final Twilight in which they transform into man-eating trolls and are (presumably) no longer-sentient...
How does that differ from normal gruagachan?
Yes, I plan to get it for sure. My issue here is that the Natural magicians seem … incomplete as described and have some odd stuff in them. I would prefer not to have to cross-reference a character concept like that. Thart devalues the book to me somewhat.
Maybe I am a little obtuse here, but I find a lot of references to the “Duration†of the effect in the spells and guidelines and NO REFERENCE AT ALL to how long does each Duration will be in the rules!! It is stated that scratched runes will last a few minutes (hours?) at most, IIRC, but not how long how long carved runes (in stone, in wood…) or smithen (??is this a word?) runes (in a blade, for example) will last.
Also the blood thingy is not true. It is stated that the effect ends when you release your grip on the blade or remove your helmet . Nothing to do with the runes becoming illegible here. That sounds extremely odd to me.
I will have to check the arcane connection thing.
The gruagachan thing was more a mental thought expressed aloud, no biggie 
The boxed text does say that probably the worship caused the creation of a faerie version of a natural god, which sounds plausible and good. It is simply that I always thought funny how the anthropomorphic gods are faerie in this edition and the powers of their followers (cult of mercury, et al) are strictly magical. Always makes me chuckle: revision has gone to fluff but not rules. IMS we have no distinction between the 2 realms, but that is us. IMS the difference between magical and faerie beings is purely academic. FYI 
Cheers,
Xavi
I don't think that Alchemy is in any way essential for Learned Magicians. True, one of their variants is the Mythic Alchemist, but for the normal mathematici they have plenty they can do without needing to do alchemy. The latter is just another thing that they might do - but the same is true of an unGifted scholar or even a magus. You may not be aware, but the alchemy in A&A is not magical. It is a natural product of scientific experimentation. Since HM is about magic, alchemy is not (and should not be) a major part of their tradition.
Mark
My main concern remains the short duration of the items they can make in any case. The other thing is just an added thing that mildly bothers me. 1 season duration items look un-mythic to me.
Xavi
Oh OK that I can answer. The "so-long-as-you-wield-it" scripts use Method 1 which means that neither the sword nor the vitkir is actually the target of the effect. Therefore the spell expires when the weapon is sheathed and ceases to be part of the de facto target (vitkir+weapon).
This is probably the best way to forge such an enchantment since it doesn't require a target rune, uses fewer runes and ensures that the vitkir's weapons cannot be turned against him, but there's no reason the vitkir couldn't enchant an item semi-permanently using Method 2.
As for the blood thing, I apologize, I thought you were referring to an I, (the runemaster), fight for my companions type effect in which the effect is implied to be brief due to the battering of the shield. I reread the chapter last night hoping to find more concrete answers, but all I could find was that effects last as long as the runes do and the guidelines in the "Vitkar Magic" section (Incidentally, your example "carved in wood or stone was addressed and ascribed a duration of "many years" not very precise but certainly workable)
I'm sorry if I came across as combative. I happened to have HM with me in my backpack and thought I'd try to help.
Not combative at all. Really helpful in fact
So, the vitki + weapon is a "composite magic item" and you "break it" when you lose your grip on the sword? It that how I should read it?
I see.... Seems I have to reread method 1 &2 differences here. As I said I read about the vitkir at 4-5 AM during an insomnia night Thanks for the answers
Hmm... I suppose I have to change my POV when reading this: the guidelines in HM seem to be waaaay loser than in the core rulebook when it comes to durations and other stuff like that. I guess I was searching for a durations guidelines table, that is simply not there at all.
May I ask where exactly is the "many years" explanation for wood & stone? I would like to reread the section.
Cheers
Xavi
Well as I understand it, runes are carved on the sword, but target the Vitkir (as is default for Method 1) when the sword ceases to be part of the Vitkir, the enchantment ends. I guess a composite item seems like a good analogy.
It's in the first paragraph of the section titled "Vitkar Magic".
I really enjoy discussing the different Hedge Traditions because it helps me improve my own understanding of the rules by forcing me to look at them differently. I can't wait to hear your opinion on the remaining traditions!
Thanks. Will look at it again
I just realized why I liked the gruagachan so much: I had created a gruagach not a long time ago for the light of andorra saga. Only that it was a pain in the a** to create because I created it as a hermetic instead of as a gruagach!
Look here for what I mean:
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/the-break-room/102/1
A wannabe giant of frost that specialized in self transformation. Tollson anyone?
Xavi
I have two points. First, the text says that the gruagachan initially encountered and worshipped a Magical entity only concerned with plants, animals, etc. Maybe it taught them the magic. It does not say that the Faerie version taught them the magic. Just because magical entities aren't driven to interact with humans doesn't mean that they cannot. Second, a lot of people in the Order of Hermes worship a Divine entity and still practice magic. In cannon, if you have the Gift, it's because God gave it to you, and it's a Magical virtue, right? What's to say that a Faerie god cannot teach a human how to use powers derived from the Magic realm?
Could you please give an example of what about the Learned Magicians is incomplete and also what is odd in them?
As for the criticism about the need for A&A, I think it is misplaced. There is one Virtue in the Learned Magician chapter that references A&A. If you don't want to use A&A, a mistake in my opinion, don't use that one Virtue. The alternate tradition of Alchemists, near the end of the chapter, provides you the tools to completely alter the Learned Magician chapter to make Magical Alchemists without using the A&A book. Again, I think you will gain a lot from A&A, but it is definitely not necessary. Other than the one Virtue, I can remember no internal references to A&A in the chapter.
I disagree with your assessment. A very senior Gifted practitioner of some of the traditions could give a junior level magus serious problems. A team of Hedgies could give a mid level magus problems. A senior magus should not have serious problems against Hedge Wizards. The OoH is the indisputable Magical power in Mythic Europe.
If you read the historical literature, people in every walk of life practiced magic or had access to it. I think having lots of small magic everywhere is exactly what Mythic Europe should look like.
As stated earlier, I disagree with your assessment. There is only one Virtue that requires access to A&A.
If you combine quickly making charged items with infinite or very long duration charged items, you get a character who can sit around for a year and create a million items that never expire without using vis. You have to have something in the game mechanics to prevent this from happening. Either the time to create the devices has to be long, the costs to creating them has to be high, or they have to have a short shelf-life. I think short-shelf life is the best option. You may disagree, but to keep a player from abusing the system, something has to limit that ability.
The RAW require a character to have Artes LIberales to be literate.
There is nothing in the gruagachan chapter to prevent Brude Deathless from existing. Maybe he's avoided or slowed the warping process? Maybe he's avoid warping and has all the Virtues necessary to limit Warping?
This would have required cutting one of the other spells in that section. I don't like it when authors recreate something in ArM5 or give examples that are merely standard spells with minor tweaks.
It does indeed sound harsh, but I think upon closer reading, you may change your opinion on several of your initial criticisms. To your other point, Flambeau and his followers have been running around Mythic Europe for the last 400 years yelling "Join or Die." The only way there can be a serious Magical challenge to the Order is if the tradition is new, exists outside Mythic Europe, or has remained incredibly well hidden over the centuries. This is why the Order of Odin and Deidne are such good boogeymen. If the Hedgies had been as powerful as you seem to want, people would be complaining about how unrealistic it is that they haven't been incorporated into the Order or destroyed at this point.
Forgive the intrusion, but i have a doubt regarding rune magic.
The perth rune says that it can reduce the number of botch dice. The guide does not say anything on the type of botch, but the example give specifies magic botches.
Does this mean the rune applies to all possible botches or you need to use another rune to specify the kind of botch it applies to(magical, combat botches,...)?.
Also, can this rune be used to reduce the botch dice on rolls with only ONE botch die, like personality traits rolls? Does it also apply its effect to recovery rolls?
Thanks for your time.
Perth is the rune that governs random chance so I believe it can affect botch dice for any activity (Each activity would require a separate script however). Unfortunately, the example script (the runemaster) defies his foe and laughts at his misfortune uses a type of activity (Magic) which also falls under the purview of the Perth rune... Despite this, however, IMHO you can design a rune script using Perth+Target that will affect any category of botch without need for a requisite.