If you are convinced of this "incontrovertible fact" by first principles you could succintly state them. Say: "it's obvious that every magus needs to put at least half his xp in spell mastery, meaning FM can increase the total xp of a magus by at least 50%!".
Alternatvely -- and that would be far more convincing -- you could summarize the crucial info I mentioned above about one or more magi that you considered extremely fun/effective due to their having FM:
I particularly like Fulminata (which is, in many ways, a similar concept to that of Itzhak's battle mage: Flawless Magic + Mastered spells gives you a score of 6 in your mastering your favourite combat spell). But both her and Tabitha are too young to make it very clear to me whether Flawless Magic is going to be great or not for the concepts. For a one-shot (or for a saga lasting at most a few years after gauntlet) in both cases, especially in that of Tabitha, it's clearly not the most efficient solution.
I think you mean: when you are in stressful situations, right?
That's a good point, though there are other ways to avoid that.
Right. But let me ask ... in, say, 20, 40 and 80 years from now, how many spells do you expect Fulminata and Tabitha to have (for which mastery is useful)? And how many additional levels of mastery do you expect to give them?
This is probably the most convincing case I have seen so far for Flawless Magic -- a Craft magus.
The issue is that there are not so many Virtues you can pump into Finesse (Affinity, Puissant, Cautious, possibly Learn From Mistakes) and you need really high finesse to be a craft magus. But if you take one spell, as versatile as possible, and raise its mastery like crazy -- focusing on precision really -- then your effective Finesse goes up somewhat quicker if you have FM.
One thing that seems neglected in this discussion is that if you do not have Flawless Magic, then there are plenty of spells that the average magus will never master - he don't use them often enough, or in sufficiently critical situations to warrant spending one or more seasons mastering them.
But if you do have FM, then when you get around to casting those spells it can be quite nice to have that level of mastery there. One point higher in casting total isn't much, but sometimes it is the difference between success and failure. One fewer botch dice can be very nice to have, especially if it eliminates the chance of botching enitrely. And then you have the special ability you get from mastering the spell.
So while FM won't save any seasons or XP for those spells - since you wouldn't have mastered them without FM - it is still a good thing to have mastered them.
Additionally, I believe few mages without FM bother mastering more than at most one or two spells early in their careers. There are simply too many other things to spend XP and seasons on.
Overall I agree that Flawless Magic is the best of the Major Hermetic Virtues. Not the best for all mages or in all circumstances by any means, but overall the best.
Ok. So you are saying. FM is not really worth the xp it saves in all those masteries, because, you know, if you had to pay them in full it would not have been worth it. But it's still better than nothing.
Put in other words, you are saying that the value of FM lies between 0 and 5xp for each spell that you don't push beyond mastery 1 (plus, of course, between 0 and half the (cost+5) of spells that you do push to the top). But how many spells is your magus going to have? Not many, so the value of FM can't be that high.
Let's look at ... Philippus Niger, the Defender of Durenmar, 104 years after Gauntlet. I count 33 spells, including one he got from Twilight. And in my opinion, a few are rather redundant. So, the "basic" score of 1 provided by FM would yield a meager 165xp. 165! That's little over 1.5xp /year. It's so little it's barely worth a Minor Virtue.
To prove its use, FM must then really amp up those spells that are worth mastering "deeply": From my experience, however, even with FM it's not worth pushing more than, say, 2 spells to Mastery 6, and another half dozen to mastery 3. That's another 390xp. Better, perhaps, but still, altogether, 555xp over 104 years is worth, perhaps 2-3 minor Virtues at most. His Affinity with Perdo is worth 210xp. Good Reader and Independent Study -- assuming he'd spent 1 season/year reading, and 1 alternatively adventuring and practicing -- are already worth more than 555xp.
That is a false presumption. The mere fact that you get free mastery in every spell makes it more than worth the balance of a Major Hermetic Virtue. And I am just thinking of published Mastery Abilities.
Though I am nominally the ASG of the Andorra saga, I stopped running it and I just play now. The Fixer has kept meticulous track of the development through the years. He recorded some "snapshots" of a few years. Roberto through the ages
In later versions you will see some house rules Mastery abilities, so I will admit they are a weakness in my argument. As are the HRs for advancement used in my saga as reflected in the latter versions. I was feeling inventive and was trying to incentivize players to study more Mastery It was somewhat popular but nothing overbearing. If I were to redo things, I would cut most of that.
I will say that it is more than obvious that a magus should dedicate the vast majority of their time to learning and inventing spells. But I will also admit that this is a subjective idea based on personal aesthetics. And therefore, I will admit that Flawless Magic is not the only and obvious choice. I say it is gives you the most bang for the buck, but you can only start with one Major Hermetic Virtue and it is most rare to obtain another. What you want to do with this character is more important, and there are certainly traits better suited to your vision.
No, that is not quite what I am saying. The main cost for mastering a spell normally is not the XP it costs, but the time it takes.
There are spells one won't master normally because it just isn't worth the time and effort compared to everything else you could use that time and effort for, but if you get mastery for "free" with Flawless Magic it is still very nice to have that mastery when you do cast that spell.
Merely counting xp saved doesn't tell the whole story.
Then there are spells where you very much want spell mastery - and here FM helps a lot. Not only do you get the initial point in mastery automatically, but any extra XP you put into mastery is doubled.
Not to mention all the time you save on studying, which is usually far more important than the xp themselves.
You should know you're evaluating LLSM on about 10-20% of its use and saying it's great. Now include the other 80-90% and imagine how good it is. Lots of people only use that 10-20%, though, so that's all many people see.
For someone who really dislikes all the Infernal thrown into the Iberia book, you do seem to be quite devilish today.
That's true, but only to a point. As I mentioned in my first post, there are Virtues which are very hard to price: those allowing you to do something no one else can. Caanite Necromancy? Dream Magic? Holy Magic? Death Prophecy? Gentle Gift?
Then there are Virtues that essentially save you time (by giving you free experience, or by directly boosting your scores (e.g. Puissant Penetration 5+2 has Puissant worth 6x5+7x5=65xp). Those are much easier to compare. Sure, one might not be always superior -- Affinity beats Puissant in the long run, and the reverse is true in the short run. But you can still compare them in various scenarios.
What I am claiming is that FM gives you xp. Nothing more. How many depends on how many spells you have, and how deeply you master them. Those xp in a FM character are probably not worth their full face value, because in some cases if you had to pay them in full you would not spend them in mastery. But they do act as an upper bound to the value of FM.
Frankly, I still see a (well-built) character with FM with sufficient xp in mastery to convince me that FM is worth it. The only exception that has sort-of convinced me is Samsaptaka's -- a situation where there are not many "productive" ways to spend Virtue points towards a very narrow goal, and FM is a decent choice in that sense (basically, because it allows Matery to add to Finesse -- and you are buying Matery at a 50% discount).
I do think Flawless Magic is a very strong virtue. Every spell has reduced botch dice, and can be brought down to zero. Spells cast with vis, even ritual spells, if relaxed, "there are no botch dice, even in a non-magic aura or when using vis." Others have commented on combat applications and rego crafting, while noting the limited utility for a researcher.
Twilight Mastery can allow you to get Flawless Magic and all the other cool Major Virtues, but you still need to get into a Twilight, and score enough Warping to make the purchase. Soon, you will be trading seasons (and later years) for Virtues.
LLSM coupled with a bunch of grogs with enchanted devices to give fatigue to their masters is frightening, though.
To take it in a slightly different angle, as only one of the examples other people have given have passed musterm what would a character that does make Flawless Magic worth it look like to you?
I am afraid I just do not follow. FM gives you xp. Nothing more! 5xp per spell invented, plus 1xp for every additional xp you put into mastery. That's all.
There are only two considerations to make. The first is how hard those same xp would have been to obtain -- how much time they cost, compared to other things on which you can spend xp. The second is how much you should discount them, because a significant portion of them are not really that useful (Stalwart casting of Lamp without Flame? Hmm).
Cast lots of spells in advance in down time, like one spell per day right before going to bed at home inside your AotH. Maintain them indefinitely with ReVi. For some stuff you can use The Patient Spell maintained indefinitely with ReVi. For some other things you might just do some Ring-duration stuff. If you're clever about it, you'll have an enormous amount of magic at your fingertips and be full-up on Fatigue when you go adventuring.
Doesn't work. The device doesn't have Fatigue to give, and the grogs aren't considered the caster. You need a device that has Fatigue to give you to pull this off, which I think I see how to manage...
As for Flawless Magic, I commonly find Independent Study a better choice. It doesn't give me as much, but it can benefit other things more and it only costs 1 Virtue Point, leaving space for other things. Plus, it encourages adventuring instead of sitting in the lab, which I consider a plus.
Roughly speaking, he should be a character with a lot of mastery xp, and useful mastery xp (5xp for Stalwart casting of Lamp Without Flame are not really that useful). The issue I seem to fail at conveying is that sure, mastering some crucial spells can be very, very useful. But how many spells do you really need? If it's not that many, just master them the old-fashioned way, spending a little extra time compared to someone with FM, and saving much more time by putting those Virtue points into something that cuts your Art studies in half, for example.
I think Roberto of Flambeau sort of passes muster, too. That's because he's a character with low Art scores, and tons of low level, formulaic spells. I would have to think more deeply about the character concept though, and how else I could create something along those lines. Still, I'd say neither case shows that the LM is anything close to "the single best Hermetic Virtue in the game."
Incidentally, note that I never said it's a bad Virtue, or one never worth taking! Just not as exceptional as some people make it.
You've got an adventurer who uses Rego craft magic and wants to be able to dispel well. You master your craft magic, and your main combat spells. You also take 3 or 4 realms of the same broad dispelling (non-Room WoMS) with Adaptive Casting, Fast Casting, Multiple Casting, Unraveling, Penetration, Quick/Precise Casting... Now you're looking at a minimum of 5 spells you want to have mastered well. I might well aim for 10 (maybe higher) on the counter magic and a main attack. Getting to 4x 10s in addition to a few others in the 5-6 ballpark could well be worthwhile.
You're going to focus on Rituals and have Imbued with the Spirit of (Form) so you expect to develop a ton and cast a whole bunch each season. You want to guarantee Mastery 1 in each Ritual. Meanwhile you also want some combat stuff like in #1, though maybe you're not so involved in that.
I think there are more effective ways for this, though I'd have to see more precise numbers to make a more precise statement.
That said, is there some reference in the errata that provides a somewhat definitive answer to how botch dice for Rituals -- particularly in otherwise non-stressful circumstances -- are assigned? I have seen a lot of discussions, and I seem to recall there was also some statement by David Chart, but as my troupe runs this by its own rules, I've sort of forgotten what the official stance is
I'd agree on this one. Basically, the fact that you have to cover 4 realms multiplies the amount of xp to a level where FM starts to pay off handsomely. You still cover them with a single Te-Fo combination, and probably a single Minor Focus, so it's not as if you'd benefit from a lot more Virtues there, or Major ones. Add Craft Magic, which only needs Finesse (which is good for your dispelling stuff too), and yes FM can shine here.
Though ... craft magic and dispelling are a bit of a weird mix Still, not an unreasonable character.
