Easy solution (and what we use) no requisites for Load 0 stuff and talismans.
Cheers,
Xavi
So, my players began to chat about this. My concerns spanned a variety of issues, but largely dealt with how House Mercere might not make sense as it stands in the setting if a wizard - even a young one - can more quickly and efficiently do their job.
So, we started here, informed by some of the ideas in this thread:
and then coughed up this:
We're still discussing. The free Talismans and 0 load items is now up for discussion.
Thanks to all thus far!
Vrylakos
This works fine with the literal spell Leap of Homecoming. It works less well when the characters get around to inventing Circle Target versions. When that happens, you need (I feel) to have some more definitive ideas about what does and does not get teleported. Casting Requisites for all stuff that is not Co seems the easiest, fairest, and least arbitrary, to me.
Our convention is - without being firmly defined - that the teleporting magus transports his clothes/armour and all other small things he has in pouches (IIRS pockets weren't invented until way after ArM's time), in hands or strapped to body (like weapons). Only affects familiars or other small animals if they are very small, like cats.
Some times for purposes of keeping stories going or concernign trivial things, which could also be solved in other ways, the conventions are handwawed and we get away with more stuff. Like when we sailed from outr covenant in Denmark to Sweden and found a ruined covenant. The first realy valuable stuff we found was lab gear, and my Tremere immediately made som teleports home with this stuff in boxes. We were a tad paranodi about the way the covenant had fallen and if there were any threats - like the demons in one of the sancti. We could just as easily had just left the stuff until we were finished and carried it to the boat and sailed home afterwards. But it was invisible lab gear, a thing too fun to miss out on. PS we has a guy with Second SIght who foudn and packed the gear.
Agree with Richard on all posts.
Well, while this works fine for "movement" spells, our possession being effectively dragged along (or you could get grounded by having enough wait bound to you), I see no continuity between this and teleport spells, unless your teleports aren't able to bypass barriers (like, teleporting out of a room) and are effectively lightning-fast movement.
And then, I see no reason for the door not to get dragged. If try to levitate while hanging to it, what happens? Either you do, or you don't. The same should apply to your teleport if you consider it as just another Re movement spell, shouldn't it?
To me, it is also easier to adjudicate, or rather more coherent to my eye:
- A magus with a ReCo spell will teleport, naked, leaving everything behind
- A chained magus with a ReCo spell will teleport, naked, leaving everything behind, including the chain
- A magus with a ReCo (requisites) will teleport with possessions.
- A chained magus with a ReCo (requisites) spell, or one with a lot of possessions (say, a magus and his horse), won't teleport, unless he uses finesse to select what he takes with him. With enough magnitudes for size, he could, of course, teleport, taking everything with him
Ignoring requisites makes things easier to calculate, but, to my eyes, it lessens the coherence of the system, by having some spells require them and others not.
I feel it works straighrforwardly well with a Circle target: Everything Corpus in the circle is moved, and they drag along the things affixed to them.
I do allow teleportation to bypass barriers - that's the magical aspect of it. Possession and carrying are, however, magically very different things from the merely mundane interpretation - were this not the case, Arcane Connections wouldn't exist - and I do freely admit I use a healthy mix of association, connection (a shirt is more tightly tied to your movement than you hat, though I'd let the hat go too) and eyeballing things. As for the door, if the target holds on then either he moves or he doesn't - I've not actually had that come up since my Magi just don't carry much when they move. I suspect I'd require a Strength test against something very high to see if you an hold on and resist the spell.
One of the reasons I dislike the requirement of Requisites for everything is that it means that almost every Rego spell suddently becomes incredibly difficult to cast - an arrow will be Terram, Herbam and Animal for instance, whilst mundanely simply holding the shaft means that the arrow will go nowhere.
On the topic of the chain, I wouldn't allow Leap of Homecoming to exit it since, to my mind, it carries "you and what you carry". I see no reason to disallow a spell which explicitly excludes what you carry or are bound to and that would teleport you out of the chains. Mind you, why you would do that rather than use the far easier spells for just doing something to the chains I don't know.
I generally agree with Fixer on this one, though I certainly see why others would go another way.
When designing my own non-Ars Magica stuff I find the following three things to be the most anti-story: 1) simple and quick healing, 2) teleportation, and 3) mind reading and control. Getting rid of the first makes players fear their characters getting injured, not just killed; that seems to create more interesting play. Also, you don't have to threaten death to make a challenge dangerous. The problem with teleportation is that you bypass so much story between the beginning and the end. Most of the meat of a book lies between the first and last chapter, not just in the first and last chapter. Finally, the last one makes it much harder to create mystery and intrigue. I find Ars Magica handles the first one well in its own ways (vis, penalties while healing over a long time, etc.). Meanwhile, the relative ease of teleportation seems at odds to enough background stuff that it surprises me its available so easily. Oh, well.
How do you determine the cut-off?
Bypass barriers --> yes
A cage too small for a person's whole body --> ?
Pillory/stocks --> ?
Schandmantel --> ?
Bypass chains --> no
Chris
Make it Magus + 0 load or magus +1 load (whatever the 1 load item is in each case) and the benchmark is easy enough without being too abusive. Teleporting 500 times to bring pounds and pounds of material can be done.... if the magus has no regard for being seen as the transport donkey of the travelling band, that is. Next time he can bring us a nice mug of ale as well. Make it 3. Thanks garçon. :mrgreen:
As usual, it is more the consequences than the action per se that is interesting 
Cheers,
Xavi
I, like player and storyteller, am burned of @#@#@#€ travelling stories. (Very, there are play aprtners that they can't think another way to tell an adventure, boring and stressing to me).
If a story is about a treasure and the confrontation about them, then the voyage isn't a prime part of all... Very times is in the end of the voyage where the important drama and the adventure are, simply.
I like Ars because you can jump it with magic or a dramatic tool when you don't needed... Simply. Whenver you like storyteller need tell the voyage adventure you can make reasons for that.
It may not seem to have much impact if it's not done often "on camera", but if you draw the logical implications, it would entirely change the politics of the Order, because everyone could be in everyone else's business all the time. (For one thing, that kind of destroys the "let's run away from the senior maga and start a new covenant in the wildernesss" trope.)
Scott
I don't like the requisites idea for teleportation because it encourages the players to optimize their effects by learning the lower level version without requisites, even though that leads to actions that don't feel right in the setting, like running around stark naked.
If the group feels teleportation is too easy -- and I can see many games where I would feel this way -- it's much cleaner to either up the base level or make arcane range teleportation a ritual.
Out of curiosity, what level do you make that spell out to be? I had to design a similar power for my shapeshifting magical cat, and came up with this:
Base CrAn5, create an animal product: since this allows a single hide, it ought to do for an entire outfit, of leather or perhaps wool, though buttons will probably need to be made of bone, and so would require, in theory, a bit of that material--you could just use cords and straps, though.
Treated and processed products: +2 mag.
Range Touch: +1 mag.
Dur. Sun: +2 mags.
Target Group: +2 mags (I figure you need Group to create an entire outfit, but maybe you can make multiple objects from one hide and treat it as Individual?)
That comes out to level 40, which seems excessive for creating a temporary costume. Am I missing something here?
Scott
Julia in MoH doesn't need Group, that results in CrAn30 and CrHe10.
Hmmm...we have to infer that for the wool spell, but yes, I think 30 is the right number--mind you, it looks like it would require a Finesse roll of 12+, since you're in effect using raw fleece instead of spun wool. In my character's case, I'd prefer to stick to An, because she has one shape-changing Power, acquired before the clothing Power, that wasn't created with a He requisite.
The other hitch is that each of Julia's spells produces only a single garment, which is fine if you've got time, but if you don't, it's more problematic.
Scott
Hm....but Silvery Scales of the Knight, in Societates, creates an entire suit of mail with the target as Individual. That strikes me as wrong, though.
Scott
No inference, p58. And those spells define "standard quality" as much less than what "skilled artists" would craft.
Yes, there's inference in applying the rule for Herbam clothes to Animal (wool) clothes, esp. given the note in the spell on pg. 56 about the difficult of making woolen garments directly. I would infer, based on the spell on pg. 57 for making garments from pre-existing wool, that the spell level would be the same, but the Ease Factor for the Finesse roll (12+ vs. 6+) would be a lot harder.
Scott
We've discussed this issue in our game, although no House rules have come to light yet as no-one has an instant transportation spell yet. However, our solution revolves around scrubbing the concept of 'teleportation' as owing too much to science fiction than fantasy. The Target does not disappear from one locality and reappear in another; they just move so fast that it takes only D:Momentary to reach the destination. The ReCo guidelines consist of moving the body faster and faster as the level increases; this is just an extension. After all, Leap of the Frog's Legs uses the 'instant transportation' guideline, except that it explicitly makes you jump, and you may land awkwardly.
This has the following consequences:
- no casting requisites for things carried. If they would be lifted via levitation, then they are carried with the body
- the spell guides you around obstacles (just like a Pilum of Fire is guided unfailingly), but there must be a possible unobstructed route between point of departure and destination. So a magus cannot cast it in a room with a closed door, unless the open window is large enough for him to fit through. Likewise, he'd better hope his servant hasn't closed the window to his lab whilst he was away. As a consequence, the destination of a Leap of Homecoming is usually just outside a covenant, rather than straight back to the lab. A chained magus can't escape with this spell, since he cannot pass through the chains.
- no harm is inflicted by the immense velocities (Aristotlean Universe).
We are happy with this modification as it stands; but then, no-one is capable of the spell yet, so possible abuses have not been uncovered.
Mark
The other thing I like about this solution is that is closes the door to a rather difficult question. The question being where does the teleporting person actually 'go'. In this case we know where it goes.... it goes between the two points at the shortest mundane distance.
It closes down arguements about travelling through the twilight void and temporary vestiges etc....
A
I don't see why being burned out on traveling stories makes teleportation nicer. When I'm running a game and we don't want to deal with the travel, we just skip over it with a sentence or two and move on. Problem solved even without teleportation. (Right now I do this regularly with space travel stuff. Sometimes I have them deal with events on the ship. Other times I tell them two weeks pass uneventfully and pick up where it gets interesting.) But if everyone's teleporting, adventure during the voyage has always seemed artificially forced to me.
I could see suggesting this to my troupe, though I always tend to hesitate at changing guidelines.
I like this. I think I'll propose it to our troupe here. We've had too many naked magi as it is. But most importantly, not being able to teleport through barriers makes lots of other kinds of spells more useful again as well as forcing the interesting part of the travel requirement on the magus. Thanks!
Chris