Immortal mage the hard way

I have a Criamon magus with twillight prone and maximized enigma (Pu + Af) and I consider EW to be an excellent virtue in combinaison with the paths of Mystery Cults. I already gained a major virtue and 20xp in arts, and I have only a score of 2 in warping. I can also use second sight and magic sensitivity with my enigme score, and it is a big help (but I also botched once using it).

Of course I agree that EW not affecting the time passed in twillight is a curious design choice and this could kill such a character even before reaching a dangerously high score in warping : "despite your good twillight experience, your character will spend the next 7 years in twillight... bye John, see you in 6 months or roll another character". Of course it also means that the character already have a score of 8+ in warping, and should avoid warping at all cost. Maybe it can prevent abuses from gaining virtues and xp by gaining warping points over and over again.

IMS I am considering to allow items of Quality like a phylactery or a crown working like suggested to help comprehending twillight... not sure about it yet.

I think the whole mechanic of making a character disappear for a randomly-determined time, possibly years, is very bad in-game. For game balance and story continuity reasons, I don't think Twilight episodes should last more than a Season. Spending 10 years in the Twilight Void might sound cool, but having your PC effectively removed from the saga because of one bad dice roll, killing off many of the storylines connected to him, only to return much later after all his plans have gone sour and that he's a decade behind all the other mages - that's just not a fun game experience to have.

So, EW doesn't affect time in Twilight. Well, that does change things back to normal.

The rules in HoH:MC make EW quite useful, especially with a generous SG. One thing I don't really like about EW is that it doesn't match its description, at all - there is nothing mechanically to make EW function like it's supposed to, in interpreting dream and strange omens and so on. This leads me to the following suggestion for a Criamon House Mystery "Path" (not belonging to any particular Path):

Dream Interpretation, using EW as the Ability.
Visions, keyed to Dream Interpretation (i.e. receive visions only in dreams).
Engimatic Divination, allowing all sorts of casual (but not ceremonial) Divination, using EW instead of Diviniation as the Ability governing the attempt.

These Items of Quality rules.... from City & Guild? Look... complicated, and fishy.

Oh, and while your character doesn't get to choose your twilight-induced perk, it makes perfect sense to negotiate such things with the SG rather than it being his arbitrary decision. It depends on the dynamics of your group, but generally roleplaying games work better when it functions as a group, not as a dictatorship.

A few thing YR7. Yes the time lost to EW is a little weird, but it's just a game of Mages. So you have to play your Companion for a while. Meh. It's canon, and that's what we're working with here. Unfolding the implications of the settings and rules because we can't get anyone to play the game long enough to mean anything. So, no house rules, for we have no house.

Items of Quality are an Inner House Mystery for the House of Masters, from Houses of Hermes, Mystery Cults. The rules are actually quite clean. A item qualifies if it is used in someone's job. One pawn of Vis and a Season of work gets you one (and only one. period.) of the Form and Material bonus as a real (that is to say, that while Magic worked on the item, it is not itself a magic item or effect) improvement. Useful, but controlled by the time needed to make it Quality. Verditius only get to sell one item a year, and their Hubris drives them to sell big flashy ones. I think that, in canon, Items of Quality are mainly used in their lab. Aversion to Risk is one of the core flaws Verditius aquire when they learn House Mysteries, so there's very little Original Research or Ancient Magic being explored by the House of Masters. Given that those are the only times you can really "plan" for your Twilight, there's very little reason to think it's come up before. But players are supposed to be the cocky young hotshots, yes?

I thought Enigmatic Wisdom Allowed a straight roll to figure out riddles? I don't think we need any new rules, just a wider reading of "Riddle", if the skill isn't useful in your game.

As to "Dictatorship", I have always found that Life happens while you were making other plans. While there are things that are just insulting ( a Bjornaer getting a minor focus in "Familiar" has every right to smack someone....) I think you should "play it where it lies". While I did not want or plan to get Enigmatic Wisdom, it gave me plenty of stories. You don't see the potential in House Criamon finding out that my magus "Understands them" and starting to court me? While House Verditius, still stinging from the Traitor is watching? I've got Years of Stories off of one unplanned "virtue".....

Oh, I'm just thinking on what works best. I don't really have a "house" right now either - I have one online PbP that moves slowly, and one real-world saga that I'm holding off starting till work clears up... But one can enjoy thinking about the implications of house rules, not just RAW :slight_smile:

I'll look into it. Never did read 'em Verditius rules carefully.

I think the core use is too vague and obscure to be useful without a very generous SG, and that good rules can make it better. Note that HoH:MC also allows one to use EW to determine stigmata; I'd suggest expanding this to determining Warping, more generally, including warping-related initiations or breakthroughs with high rolls.... making this useful to something beyond the House.

Hey, if you're happy with it it's cool. There is no wrongbadfun.

I would also remind you of "Walking the Labyrinth" from HoH:MC. Your skill in Enigmatic Wisdom needs to be pretty high for it to useful (which pretty much restricts it to the House) but that bonus adds to a LOT.

Enigmatic Wisdom of 1 with a specialty in Twilight comprehension is about the best you can hope for out of the Ability.

Otherwise, unless you're picking up Criamon mysteries... bad scene.

...

I'd say that Items of Quality would help, but I'm notoriously pro-Verditius. The trick is trying to come up with a way that a profession (a magus) would use such an item; you're not really actively using a crown to cast magic the way a courtier would use clothes to exercise etiquette and diplomacy.

Well, once you've made it "Quality", you don't have to use it like it should be. The trick for most of them is you have to be using them before you need it, and that can cause problems. Wearing a Crown in public in Europe? Could cause a scene..... The only time I could see you wearing one to help with Twilight is in your lab. The only time I can think that Twilight episodes could happen happen it the Lab would be if you were doing Original Research or Ancient Magic, and anyone doing that is already "thinking outside the box".

Playing the mage char is pretty tough. You get killed pretty easily.

Choose a Breton, with sign of the mage (or atronach) Specialize in conjuration, illusion, destruction, and sneak. And play through the mages guild to become archmage (I actually became immortal about 1/2 - 3/4 through the mages guild). Becoming a vampire helps.

Find some absorb magica, and resist magica items. My char (at level 10) already had 100% resist and 20% absorb (as mage, not atronach). Enchant these items yourself if you don't find them, using azura's star.

Practice summoning monsters. You can get them REALLY cheap if you get up to master level. Summoning a zombie only costs me 9 magica. I can cast zombies forever, as fast as they appear, just summon a new one, and NEVER run out of magicka. My current prefered summon is the wraith, but I might go find a xivali or atronach spell.

Buy an invisiblity spell, or become a vampire (but the vampire is only once a day, the spell I cast over and over. Vampire is usefull anyway for the skill and stat boost tho).

For me, the game now cojnsists of : Become invisible, run past all monsters, except those that I choose to kill because of loot or plot. When I choose to kill, summon a wraith.

edit: link removed by Mr. Tyrrell

That sounds like a computer game

Specifically it sounds like Morrowwind (or perhaps its sequel or predecessors) it seems a harmless if annoyingly oblivious and poorly spelled post, I won't delete it (Xavi's post would loose its context) but I think that I'll remove that link just to be safe