I started to play Ars magica after leaving Vampire the Masquerade and it is no secret that I love the Tremere Clan/House. I love their methodology and their history (in both games) and how wonderful the AM5 version is.
However, I am making a Tremere in AM5 and just for fun, I want to see if I can convert their VtM disciplines to AM5 spells.
I have trouble with the following and is it possible to do the following discipline powers into spells:
Boil someone's blood under X turns so that they take more and more damage as time progresses.
Steal someone's health to heal yourself, alternatively steal fatigue and give it to self
Temporary boost physical attributes for say Diameter/sun Duration?
Get a mental image of a person, whose blood you have as an arcane connection?
This would be a cosmetic effect to any damaging Perdo Corpus effect.
This would be tricky with Hermetic Magic, but standard faire for a Diabolist with access to Incantation/Consumption.
This could be handled via Creo Corpus, but due to the high levels required would likely necessitate a Ritual. Therefore, enchanting the effects into a Invested Item/Talisman is probably the superior tactic.
This is achievable under Perdo Corpus, but unfortunately no actual guidelines are given for doing so Hermetic Magic. I recommend appropriating the Creo Corpus guideline for raising a characteristic and using that perhaps reducing the magnitude by one or two to represent the relative ease of the feat.
How do I do to make the damage continue for more than a round?
Will the target take 1 light/medium/heavy wound per turn if I add a duration like diameter?
Example: First round they take a Heavy wound (as it was designed with this effect in mind), next round they take a medium wound and 3rd round they take a light wound
or: They take a heavy wound every turn they do not soak it (say that a heavy wound is 11-15) ?
Good answer, I'll add that stealing fatigue to give it to yourself is impossible under Hermetic Theory (hence the need to dive into non-Hermetic methods, but that's probably beyond the scope of your character). Healing yourself is possible but is a Ritual (at least if it's permanent), adding a 'damage' someone effect in the same spell is technically possible, but the result would be high level (with the need for a Range greater than Personal) and not worth it : healing is either a ritual or long duration, damage needs a decent range, the result is a spell that is either a ritual with a long range or a spell with both a long range and a long duration.
For the Duration, remember that Diameter really means 'anything greater than Momentary and shorter than 2 minutes'. It is perfectly legal to design a spell that lasts 3 rounds, and yes the Duration will be Diameter for purposes of calculating the spell level. Likewise, if you use the guideline for inflicting a Heavy Wound, it is legal to inflict less with it.
So your spell would have a PeCo Base 15 (Inflict a Heavy Wound) and a Duration of Diameter, and you can have it do exactly what you want: First round they take a Heavy wound (as it was designed with this effect in mind), next round they take a medium wound and 3rd round they take a light wound. There is no soak in this case.
Alternatively you can go for a direct damage effect, for instance CrIg Base 10 (create a fire doing +15 damage, but there are similar effects for ice, acid, lightning, and whatever else you might dream), and you can have it do damage for any number of rounds up to a Diameter, and have the damage decrease (or increase) each round as long as it stays under +15. In this case the target will soak, so the actual damage inflicted will vary.
I'd not actually given the matter much thought, but the Heat & Corrosion chart on page 181 of the core book suggests +3 damage for boiling water so that's a good starting point. Perhaps have the victim roll Soak (minus Protection, given the circumstances) that value every six seconds penalizing the him or her by the evergrowing wound penalty (normally, Wounds don't detract from Soak, but this is a special case, I think). For guidelines, I'd borrow "Create a fire doing +5 damage in an unnatural shape" from Creo Ignem list for a final total of: Level 20 (Base 5, +2 Voice, +1 Diameter). This is equivalent to Pilum of Fire, another single-hit kill spell so I'd probably allow the effect in my saga...
Although I quite dislike how WW has handled the whole VtM Tremere line, let me share my view.
CrIg(Co) 25 (Base 4 R: +2 Voice, D: +1 Conc, T: +1 Part, +1 Corpus requisite)
Description: While you concentrate target takes 5+ fire damage as boiling her blood.
It will take some time before you kill anybody with this spell.
Healing magic in the Hermetic magic is quite limited, but if you are ready to obtain higher powers (and pay the really little and small price) you can look up RoP: Infernal p 105 for
Debauchery/Consumption section - Level 10 for fatigue exchange
Incantation/Consumption section for health stealing and permanent healing.
Why don't you combine these effects? Pure hermetic magic isn't the most effective method and a little help can go a long way
Debauchery/Consumption is much more easier to accomplish your needs.
From character creation perspective it would be quite essential to pick up Major/Minor(?) magical focus: Blood.
A 'bit' more sinister, but not yet Infernal option, would be to select the Major Supernatural Virtue: Chtonic magic, allowing you to play the well-feared cursing black magician.
Taking both Major Virtues would make your blood curses well feared through the land.
Not to forget, as we are discussing bloody things, selecting the Merinita House allows you to use the Target: Bloodline and other Inner Mysteries can give you more options to combine Range, Duration and Targets for some highly unusual and strange effects. Taking Flexible Formulaic magic or Diedne Magic could grant you quite nice repertoire.
However, it would be highly unlikely to start a Tremere with Major Hermetic Virtue: Diedne Magic.
CreoIg.Causes them to heat up directly. With a co requisite since it is directly on the body. The blood boiling is purely cosmetic.
Blood Boil
CrIg(Co)-15+
Range: Touch Duration: Diam Target: Individual
The target takes +5 damage a round for 20 rounds.
Base 4+1 touch, +1 req, +1 diam
This might not seem deadly, but when you realize that your soak is a total and wounds reduce totals...
You want incantation diablre. You need RoP Infernal.
Tricky. With normal spells its obvious, but since you are already going all out on a ritual its pointless to add a duration when it could be forever. It would be possible in an enchanted item though.
Some sort of scrying spell.
Perdo Corpus. This is like a wound except no where near as bad. Start with a wound with a comparable penalty, figure out how long it lasts, and subtract a magnitude or two. That is your base level AND the base duration. To get a mom you'll need to subtract off more magnitudes as well.
Above, the blood-boiling effect is called only cosmetic, and I would respectfully disagree.
In case of a direct fire damage spell soak roll is Soak total + stress dice and Soak total calculated as Stamina + Armour soak bonus.
By directly applying the fire damage through the target's blood, the Soak total would be only Stamina as no Armour bonus apply.
Also, visible signs of damage or source of the damage are not as obvious in a blood boiling spell as it is for PoF.
Some comments in response to what others have said
I like the idea if a duration Conc. creo ignem spell that does +1 damage round 1 +2 round 2 +3 round 3 etc.
People are telling you that this would be very hard. I think that they're misguided. this would indeed be very hard with creo corpus. However giveing yourself the strength of a bear or the quickness of a hunting cat would only be of moderate difficulty using muto corpus.
serf's parma but why would duration diameter be different than duration sun or duration moon? I think that duration diameter means until the sun or moon cross their own diameter, not any desired time of up to two minutes. What you're decibig sounds to me like duration special which might end up being a bit more difficult than duration diameter.
I don't think that you could do it with that guideline. It would be akin to a duration diameter pit of the gaping earth, additional dirt put in to the pit during the duration would be destroyed but you don't get to make a new pit every round. (to bring up a discussion from a few months back, this is the sort of thing that makes me dislike the "published spell guidelines are exhaustive rather than just examples" take that some have advocated).
Signs are one of those cosmetic things. Anyway you can see the veins pulsing out and expanding. But yes, you should require a corpus requisite if you are affecting the body directly.
Just to note how I have designed the Boiling Blood spell. I went with the following thoughts:
(Q) What does it add if the Mage instead of throws a constantly burning greek fire (cannot be extinguished) creates it in within the body? (+1 magnitude for Corpus requisite)
(A) Definitely add a Corpus requisite and you can fry a armored opponent, without a problem. Great way to avoid issues with high armored opponents.
(Q) What does it give if I only effect the target's blood instead of all parts of his body? (+1 magnitude for changing target from individual to Part)
(A) No visible signs of damage till at the first round. Mage can casts the spell and walk away. (Not to mention with Flexible Formulaic virtue you can cast it to a group target)
What I would like to say here: Yes, if the blood veins pulsing is only for the cosmetic effect no magnitude increase is also totally fine with me. If the goal is to hide the damaging effect for a turn or two (while only Light wounds are caused) I would add a magnitude. I hope this clarifies.
Why can't it be done with a simple Perdo Corpus, let the boiling be just descriptive and a "fluffy" reason why the target lose a health level. I mean the health level have to be lost in a way or another. One example is the "The Wound that Weeps" which opens up wounds on the body. Your spell is just boiling some of the target's blood instead. So I would say a pure PeCo or a PeCo (Ig) spell is more than enough.
After all the meaning of this spell is to drain health levels, not cause fire. If your Tremere wants to have the equivalent of "Cauldron of Blood/Thaumaturgy - path of the blood 5" then no need for a more advanced spell than a PeCo(Ig) and have the (ig) requisite be a free one like the (an) is in "Eyes of the cat"
I doubt that a Tremere could have major/minor magical focus blood, as they already have a minor in Certamen. (Which in my eyes is a little limiting for the entire house as you are only allowed 1 focus on your character). Every other house can choose their focus if they want to be really good at something, but the Tremere are always stuck with Certamen. Or can the Tremere have a second focus?
You can always research and make a standard breakthrough to create a second focus or bloodline range/target...
I fully agree with you, the clearest approach would be PeCo(Ig) and the burning blood and even the Ig requisite could be treated as cosmetic and so no increase in magnitude.
Original request for spell design was it would cause increasing amount of damage overtime. The increasing wound penalties for the non-combat soak would result in increasing damage.
Changing the regular PeCo cause-a-wound spell does not create more of the same wounds even if you change the Duration from momentary to anything else, at least that's my understanding.
And that's why I love ARM5: The beauty of these spells. PeCo 25 - causing a heavy wound at voice range or CrIg(Co) 25 - causing 5+ dmg soaked only with Sta+ for Diameter/Conc duration, every round.
There are numerous ways how a Tremere can obtain different major/minor focus and limiting a good House because of ARM5's Focus limitation ain't a best way to promote them to a new player.
I also dislike the focus limitation, as well as others in this forum, and I use Puissant: Certamen or Puissant: Intrigue.
