I do not have the book myself (only book in the line I do not have 
) so here comes a question:
Why on earth would a Verditius WANT to avoid accumulating Hubris? It sounds like a Bonisagus wanting to avoid accumulating prestige points...
Xavi
Prestige in Bonisagus and Acclaim in Flambeau are different from Hubris in that they are Reputations, whereas Hubris is a personality trait.
It must be rollplayed the same way as other personality flaws, and can be a real kick in the sack. It makes the character very vain, self-centred and oversensitive. Characters with high Hubris will take serious offense at increasingly minor slights. They are very likely to become embroilled in Vendettas (special feuds between Verditus magi which can end nastily) and, oh yeah, seriously piss off the rest of their covenant with their primadonna antics.
Essentially, a charcter with Hubris must make opposed personality rolls to resist:
1.) Selling an item for profit;
2.) Commencing or engaging in a Vendetta or a Feud (avoiding a Vendetta grants a rep of Dishonourable, so its not tough to dodge);
3.) Showing off, bragging or succumbing to pride in situations where discretion would be advised. They are very easily to manipulate along these lines;
4.) Not giving a rat's a** about others; they are the most important people in the world. Just ask them...
True, there are som perks. Hubris gets added to lab totals for major projects. However, a specialist magus with Elder Runes 20 years past gauntlet might be expected to easily achieve lab totals of 100 and above for said projects, so adding another +4 isn't really worth the trouble.
It would be easier if there were ways to lower hubris (going on appropriate quests, or ordeals, for example) but, alas, no such mechanism exists.
In my case, my Verditius is devout. While some might enjoy exploring the tension between being keeping the humble attitude required by his faith and the hubris growing inside of him, I wouldn't. So no inner mysteries for me.
Maybe I we should consider the following:
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Hubris is a Minor Flaw, not a Major Flaw. Let's try to reconcile this with the statements in ArM5 about Minor and Major Personality Flaws. I would say a Major Personality Flaw should always win out over Hubris. I would say that a Minor Personality Flaw should roughly share a balance of power with Hubris. Hubris probably starts smaller and becomes bigger than the Minor Personality Flaw, but I would put them on roughly the same level.
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Hubris is customizable. It's manifestation varies from one magus to another.
So what might we do with a devout Verditius. Well, is the devotion Major or Minor? If Major, in any contest between the two I would say Devout wins automatically. As for the manifestation, perhaps the magus believes he is able to accomplish such great things because of the strength God gives him. He could be more sensitive to slights about his faith and believe God has proven he is more faithful than many. As a storyguide I would try to find a way for you to keep playing devout and keep playing Verditius.
Chris
And Hubris is quite easy to control, really. Don't sell magic items, avoid the Contest, and it should stay at one for a long, long time. The scary part of Hubris is in the flavor text, not the rules. Talk to your Storyteller about that "extra" chance of damnation before you enter the inner mysteries and you should be fine.
Callen, saxonous, both of your comments are providing ways to explore that tension. I don't want to do that, I want to do other things with my character.
The real question I have is what the hell kind of good is a Verditius without his Inner Mysteries?
Without Elder Runes, your Invested Devises aren't that much better than anyone else's. Without Enchant casting tools, you're no help at all outside the lab. Avoiding them will seriously gimp your character.
Also, there's the question as to why a character would be a Verditius without wanting to enter Inner Mysteries? There's some story issues there.
As for Hubris being a "Minor Flaw".... its a minor flaw that becomes a major flaw if allowed to get out of control. A minor flaw gives a personality trait of +1, a Major of +3 or more. Hubris is a minor that becomes a major flaw once it passes beyond, say +4. At +6, its an incapacitating flaw.
I'm not so sure about all that. Even without the Inner Mysteries I can usually build an equal or better version of nearly any magus using a Verditius because the Outer Mystery is already so good. You still get your Craft and Philosophiae bonuses to save vis and get higher lab totals. You can master spells just like anyone else. Etc.
You don't usually get to choose your master. I don't see the problem here.
Where did you find that thing about Minor Flaws and Major Flaws and their resulting Personality Traits? I don't think I've ever seen that. Could you tell me where to read that? Here are the things I know I have seen, looking particularly at magi since we're considering a Verditius:
So a Major Personality Flaw > Minor Personality Flaw > typical Personality Trait. I do choose Personality Traits to match Personality Flaws. However, noting that a Minor Personality Flaw is supposed to be stronger than a typical Personality Trait, which can be up to 3, I generally assign a Personality Trait of +/-3 to correspond with the Minor Personality Flaw. In the case of a Major Personality Flaw I choose a value in the +/-4 to 6 neighborhood. There is no reason such a strong Flaw should necessarily fall within the "normal range."
As for specific cases, we can check to see how this matches up:
Hubris gives you a starting score of +1 that grows.
It seems to work pretty well so far with my method. It doesn't quite match up with yours. I've done enough digging for now, but there may be more examples. So as a Minor Personality Flaw Hubris should never dominate over a Major Personality Flaw since the Major one "always" plays a role and the minor doesn't. Also, it seems as though Hubris starts below a typical Minor Personality Flaw and can grow to be greater than a typical Minor Personality Flaw.
Besides, isn't it more fun to have a house in which all other personalities haven't been drowned by Hubris? Hubris can still be rampant, but it would be nice to see it not smother all the rest of everyone's personalities.
Chris
What is the purpose of any character? If the point is to have fun, the main thing is to make a character who fits into the group. Which includes not obviously outstriping the rest of the players because your character is munchkined out and theirs are not.
You don't need the Enchant Casting Tools Virtue to use casting tools. That virtue gives additional bonuses, but when my character can still just use ordinary casting tools.
Zaccheaus is the only magus in the covenant who knows Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie and Veil of Invisibility and Opening the Intangible Tunnel and Maintaining the Demanding Spell and a touch range version of Summoning the Distant Image. He is pretty useful. The fact that the other magus who knows Aegis of the Hearth also has the Waster of Vis flaw is also somewhere that my character helps out.
As callen mentioned, my character didn't choose his teacher. Philosophically, he probably would fit better as a Jerbiton, but figures that switching is probably lots of trouble for little gain.
Sorry, to be clear, this is a minor flaw at +1, the equivalent to a major one at +3. While personalities are often only aide memoires, they can be rolled against and, in the case of a flaw, must be. The character examples in ArM5 always start characters with Major Flaws in personality off with a +3 in that trait.
If a character takes the Minor flaw Proud, their Hubris is upped by +1. If Major, its upped by +3.
At +1, its fairly easy to beat a Hubris roll with an opposed Driven or Humble roll. At +4, it can be difficult.
Colloquially, we can say that Hubris is a minor flaw to deal with early in the game. Later on, however, having to defeat a +5 or +6 roll against throwing a hissy fit can be.... awkward.
As a possible deflection of Hubris, do you think that making magical items as part of one's duties to the covenant would count towards Hubris? The rules say that in order to increase Hubris, the character must sell a particular item for gold or vis. But if he were part of a more communally minded Covenant, he could make an item every couple of years for the Covenant in exchange for his membership.... would that be a way of avoiding it, or would that violate the Arcane Limit of No Free Lunch?
Unless Driven, for example, is a Major Personality Flaw, in which case it "always" plays a roll. In that case it can't lose.
Yes, it can get very difficult. Of course, if you really need to, use a Confidence Point. Unless there's some special rule about Confidence Points for Hubris Hubris is still a Minor Personality Flaw and can be overcome with a Confidence Point if needed.
I would not raise Hubris for covenant service. I could make an argument against this, but I see it as a duty and a necessity as opposed to a profitable venture.
Chris
With more time today I looked through every example character I could find in ArM5. The above statement is not true. Those with Major Personality Flaws are sometimes given scores of 3 and sometimes given no score at all. The same is true of Minor Personality Flaws. There are also lots of 3s with no associated Personality Flaws. For example, I found more Proud+3's without an associated Flaw than I found Proud+3's with Proud (major). The same seems to be true in Magi of Hermes. The best that can be said from the example characters is that there is no correlation between Personality Traits and Personality Flaws.
I'll stick with my method for my characters. I prefer consistency.
Chris