I have a few questions regarding how Gifted characters can learn supernatural abilities in play. @ErikT, @callen, and @Arkhaic were discussing these with me on Discord, but I find it not very well suited to longer discussions, and I think the discussion should be preserved to serve as a reference. The first one is related to the following rule.
Supernatural abilities can only be taught if they have an associated Ability, in game terms. The initial teaching in a supernatural ability must be by Training or Teaching, as described earlier. Once the character knows the Ability, it may be advanced normally.[DE p. 383]
My question is: What is meant by "normally" here? It could mean two things:
After a character has a score of at least 1 in a supernatural ability for which he does not have the corresponding Virtue, he no longer needs to rely on Training or Teaching, but can e.g. read a book on the ability to advance it.
After a character has a score of at least 1 in a supernatural ability for which he does not have the corresponding Virtue, advancement is no longer penalized by other Supernatural abilities.
I’m assuming that if a char has a Virtue that gives him a supernatural Ability, then you can just put XP into this Ability without any penalties. The section I quoted from only covers learning supernatural abilities without the virtue.
The problem I see with interpretation 2 is that it makes the rule from HoH:S p. 106 almost meaningless (If a Supernatural Ability is acquired as part of the apprenticeship of a magus Ex Miscellanea (that is, as his House Virtue), then this Ability should be considered to be his Favored Ability). Having this ability as a favored ability would only help if the char joined a tradition later and acquired more favored abilities.
Both are true. Normal advancement can be done by many different means and does not suffer a penalty. Once you’ve initially learned the Supernatural Ability, you can advance it without penalty, generally by a bunch of different methods. The method described afterward is the exception to what is normal, and that exception is over once you’ve done the initial learning.
Yes, that Virtue gives the Supernatural Ability with a score of 1, and now you can advance it normally.
Abilities being Favored is for initially acquiring them, not for later advancement.
Read the section in white (bottom-center) and consider this together with the box.
this Ability should be considered to be his Favored Ability, and the character does not suffer any penalty to the Source Quality (ArM5, page 166) from his Art scores if learning his Favored Ability after his Hermetic training.
So you don’t have to learn the Supernatural Ability before Opening the Arts to avoid a 15-point penalty.
Yeah, I'm with Callen here. The HoH:S text still contradicts the HMRE text (and other RoP texts) in regards to how the favored abilities work. I consider this to not be a very clear part of the rules.
I wrote all of the sections on Favored Abilities for the various Realms books, as well as the sections in Societates and Hedge Magic Revised Edition. I can confirm that callen’s answer is correct; once you have a score of 1 in a Supernatural Ability (or 0 for Arts), you can advance it with experience gained via any method. It doesn’t matter how you got the initial score in the Ability.
I had intended Favored Abilities to generally work the same for everyone, but I admit there are differences in the text. Different realms have different requirements for learning new Abilities or Arts (for example, you need True Faith to learn divine abilities), and I remember that I made some effort to limit the Favored Abilities of each tradition based on the numerical value of the virtues. For divine traditions, they got 10 points of virtues (3 Majors and a Minor), for infernal they got 12 points of virtues (4 Majors), and faerie wizards only get 6 (1 Major and 3 Minors). I think that all the hedge wizards and societates got 10 points– at least the ones I wrote.
Probably the biggest difference for each realm is how the books say Favored Abilities affect other Supernatural Abilities. I think I spelled it out best in RoP: Infernal. You don’t have to subtract your scores in other Supernatural Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning a Favored Ability, and you don’t have to subtract your scores in Favored Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm.
I don’t think I ever stated in print if you can belong to multiple traditions from different realms (like a faerie wizard who also belongs to a holy societas), but I think that should be discouraged. The idea that Favored Abilities also make it easier (or, well, don’t make it harder!) to learn other Supernatural Abilities of the same realm should reinforce that they do make it harder to learn other Supernatural Abilities from a different realm, and I think belonging to two traditions would undermine that.
Interesting, I think this is very DIFFERENT from the other texts. Most indicate clearly that "You don’t have to subtract your scores in other Supernatural Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning a Favored Ability", but I didn't get that "you don’t have to subtract your scores in Favored Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm" except for the Infernal.
HoH:S explicitly says that "The Source Qualities to learn Favored Abilities are still penalized by scores in other Supernatural Abilities, and scores in Favored Abilities penalize the Source Quality to learn other Supernatural Abilities", which seems to contradict the above.
The Faeries text is most vague, as it talks about "the others" and it isn't clear if this refers to other Favored Abilities or all Supernatural Abilities.
Oh, nice to know. I didn't notice that.
Yeah, I don't remember seeing a note on that, but there is a note saying getting two supernatural abiltiies from two different realms is generally discouraged and all-out forbidden for Infernal & Divine, so I reckon this applies to traditions too.
Off-topic: It looks like the tools on the forums have changed– I couldn’t figure out how to quote your entire post in my reply, so I’ll have to blockquote the text directly, sorry!
Interesting, I think this is very DIFFERENT from the other texts. Most indicate clearly that "You don’t have to subtract your scores in other Supernatural Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning a Favored Ability", but I didn't get that "you don’t have to subtract your scores in Favored Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm" except for the Infernal.
HoH:S explicitly says that "The Source Qualities to learn Favored Abilities are still penalized by scores in other Supernatural Abilities, and scores in Favored Abilities penalize the Source Quality to learn other Supernatural Abilities", which seems to contradict the above.
The Faeries text is most vague, as it talks about "the others" and it isn't clear if this refers to other Favored Abilities or all Supernatural Abilities.
It might be that my text was edited, or it could be that I didn’t write it very well. Sounds like that’s definitely the case for RoP: Faerie.HoH:S directly contradicting RoP: Infernal sounds like it’s more likely an editing thing.
The reason for that clause about Favored Abilities not penalizing learning other Supernatural Abilities was to discourage the mechanical advantage of characters that are built with lots of non-Favored Abilities, either learned or as Virtues, with the intention to learn all the Favored Abilities after character creation in play. Without that clause, it makes a lot of sense to, say, make a member of the Priory of St. Nerius, whose Favored Abilities are Holy Magic, Intervention, Premonitions, and Purity, but take True Faith, Meditation, Transcendence, and Ceremony with their starting Virtues. The player can easily justify knowing someone to teach them the tradition’s abilities, and since they aren’t penalized it doesn’t matter that the character has a bunch of points in other powers. Adding this means you can do it either way, so you might as well design the character as you imagine them and develop as makes sense in the saga.
and you don’t have to subtract your scores in Favored Abilities from your advancement total when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm.
Really? Since the core book you have. Hermetic magi subtract their “Favored Abilities” (their Arts from learning other Magic-realm Supernatural Abilities. I thought Favored Abilities were roughly supposed to work the same in this regard, and most of them don’t get rid of this penalty. I’d always thought the Infernal just had a special boon because it’s tempting.
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Mostly the variations that show up are in those little differences as you mention. Infernal Favored Abilities don’t penalize other Infernal Abilities (boon for Infernal, tempting). Faerie Favored Abilities ignore the cap based on Sympathies (Faerie-only thing).
But there were a couple spots where it got written incorrectly. While the general rule in RoP:F is a little unclear, it works with the others this way if we don’t have something suggesting it works totally differently. However, there is Faerie Doctor:
The scores in non-Favored Supernatural Abilities still penalize the Source Quality when learning Favored Abilities, and vice versa.
The “vice versa” part is good. It’s the first part (majority) of this sentence that goes against what we see elsewhere with Favored Abilities.
That's just fluff, right? In game mechanics, the virtue give you a score of 1 in the corresponding ability. You never need to put xp in to get to a score of 1. Now with the addition by Erik Dahl, that scores in Favored Abilities don't penalize your SQ when you are learning other Supernatural Abilities from the same realm, that's something different. Now it makes sense to have the ability from your House Virtue as a favored ability.
Thanks a lot for getting involved here. Just to make sure: Once you get to a score of 1, yor SQ is no longer penalized by scores other Supernatural Abilities, right? It seems like that's the intention, but it's never spelled out.
That's huge! Like callen, I always thought that this was a special boon by the infernal, to temp you into learning more infernal powers. Do you think all the books should get an errata to clarify this?
The books say that there is no mechanical advantage to joining a second tradition. It's not clear whether that's only for a second tradition from the same realm; I like to think it's just any second tradition, period.
Can you elaborate on that? Apprentices p. 42 says:
Because there are several types of Ex Miscellanea magi, the troupe should decide if an apprentice of a specific tradition learns the House Virtues and Flaws through one-on-one association or through a process similar to a mystery initiation like the Mystery Cult Houses.
In both cases, the apprentice gets the virtue and gains a score of 1 in the corresponding ability. No xp involved.
Sure, but we’re also talking players here, and players like to do things differently. Why not follow the core rules for teaching a Supernatural Ability rather than doing an initiation if it can be done that way? As soon as a player considers this, then we need to know how to handle the penalties.
Really? Since the core book you have. Hermetic magi subtract their “Favored Abilities” (their Arts from learning other Magic-realm Supernatural Abilities. I thought Favored Abilities were roughly supposed to work the same in this regard, and most of them don’t get rid of this penalty. I’d always thought the Infernal just had a special boon because it’s tempting.
It’s how I remember intending it to work, ever since I did the first Methods and Powers in RoP:The Divine, though I’m sorry that it’s not what ended up in print. We’ll all have to decide how we want to handle them for our own sagas, I suppose.
I’ve never thought of Hermetic Arts as working like Favored Abilities, though, because if they were it would mean that magi couldn’t benefit from joining realm-focused traditions.
Thanks a lot for getting involved here. Just to make sure: Once you get to a score of 1, yor SQ is no longer penalized by scores other Supernatural Abilities, right? It seems like that's the intention, but it's never spelled out.
Correct. Once you have a score of 1 in a Supernatural Ability, your advancement is no longer penalized by scores in other Supernatural Abilities or Arts.
Ah, the luck of the Irish! They’re based on the Neriusans, right? I’d suggest they get Premonitions instead of Transcendence, but I can’t fault the authors for not figuring out how I determined Favored Abilities. Or maybe their tradition has somehow become more advanced than other holy societates?
That's huge! Like callen, I always thought that this was a special boon by the infernal, to temp you into learning more infernal powers. Do you think all the books should get an errata to clarify this?
No, because I feel like Fifth Edition is finished, and players now have to (get to) make it their own. I offer my intentions up for discussion, not to say it should be my way.
For most magi, the Hermetic Arts are the Favored Abilities, although as they are all opened in one season this is largely an academic distinction. Magi Ex Miscellanea treat the Hermetic Arts and the Supernatural Ability of their tradition as Favored Abilities.
And then there is TMRE talking about Opening the Gift given Favored Abilities:
Usually, the character has to undergo some sort of ritual — Opening The Gift — before he gains this benefit of the tradition. Favored Abilities have no meaning for unGifted characters, as they cannot learn Supernatural Abilities at all. Characters with favored Abilities must subtract the total of all their Supernatural Abilities, including favored Abilities, from the source quality when learning Supernatural Abilities that are not favored.
Surely the exploit for an apprentice + Supernatural Ability would be that a Gifted character can pick up one “free” Supernatural Ability without needing a Virtue. Have your apprentice taught a Supernatural Ability at a score of 1.
Then, Open the apprentice to the Hermetic Arts. Per Apprentices p35: “Children with a single Supernatural Ability are usually easy to Open to the Arts. An Intellego Vim Lab Total of 10 is automatic unless the parens Opening the Arts has less than 5 in either Intellgo or Vim, and even then it is generally possible. A Lab Total of 30 is harder but not impossible. A child with more than one Supernatural Ability is more difficult…“
and in the previous paragraph: “In those situations, the parens’ Intellego Vim Lab Total must equal or exceed 5 times the apprentice’s score in any non-Hermetic Supernatural Ability. Also,
the Lab Total must be at least 10 if the apprentice’s Supernatural Ability is from a Minor Virtue and 30
if from a Major.”
I don’t see any mention that the potential apprentice must have the appropriate Virtue (although, I suspect that was assumed). Seems particularly easy to have your potential apprentice taught one Supernatural Ability associated with a Minor Virtue at a score of 1; you’d need an InVi lab total of 10+. And once they have a score of 1+ further Study Qualities aren’t penalized by all (15) Arts they’ll be learning.
Now, the Opened apprentice’s Arts start at a score of 0, so maybe they get the SQ penalty from a non-Favored Ability until they reach a score of 1.
I won’t argue with you that this is what the book says, but I don’t think it’s right. At the very least, it creates a rules problem, because it suggests that Ex Misc magi (all magi, in fact) already belong to a tradition with Favored Abilities, which should prevent them from gaining any benefit from joining another.
That’s clearly false, because lots of unGifted characters can learn Supernatural Abilities. I’d argue that HMRE shouldn’t be ruling how Favored Abilities work for non-magic traditions, and it really shouldn’t be using Favored Abilities differently than other traditions.
If it were up to me, I’d say that Opening the Gift of a hedge mage with scores only in Favored Supernatural Abilities of his tradition should be exactly as difficult as Opening the Gift of a character with no scores in Supernatural Abilities. That is, the scores shouldn’t penalize the opening total. I like the outcome where it isn’t impossible to integrate an experienced hedge mage into the Hermetic Arts.
It also seems to me that this ruling limits other magical traditions that magi could investigate and join, because it seems to say that only hedge mages can have traditions and Favored Abilities. Wouldn’t it be cool if a Flambeau magus got really interested in the Apostles of Apollonius and decided to dedicate herself to the tradition, learning Elemental Theurgy and Elementalist Fire? As it is now, the character could only work if she takes those abilities as Virtues, since there’s no way she could ever overcome the penalty of all her Arts to her study total, and that complicates the process because it means she has to initiate them through mystery mechanics instead of learning from a teacher. Seems like a fertile design space to me!
Hmm, no. Only characters with The Gift can learn (new Magical) supernatural abiliities, and that too only by Teaching or Training. UnGifted characters can be initiated into a new supernatural abilitiy, or advance an existing supernatural ability, but cannot learn a (new) one.
Regardless, I do agree with you main point, that it would be nice for magi to be able to join hedge traditions and for hedge traditions to be able to learn Hermetic magic. Especially given the history of the formation of the Order.
Given that a hedge wizard cannot benefit from a second tradition's favored abilities, however, that does create a little inconsistency.
I'd consider it really odd if a player of an Ex Misc apprentice wanted to forego their House Virtue (and just take an unbalanced Major Hermetic Flaw?); their House Virtue is determined by their parens, so it's not like they could just choose another one - and if they wanted to take another Virtue as their House Virtue, then the original one would no longer grant them a favored ability.
Because the official errara are no longer maintained, I'm collecting some open issues here (of course, everyone can participate): Errata - Project: Redcap . I'll just add a little note there.
I meant that lots of unGifted characters can learn non-magical Supernatural Abilities, because The Gift is not a requirement for learning Supernatural Abilities associated with other realms. “Favored Abilities have no meaning for unGifted characters, as they cannot learn Supernatural Abilities at all” is just wrong. “Characters with favored Abilities must subtract the total of all their Supernatural Abilities, including favored Abilities, from the source quality when learning Supernatural Abilities that are not favored” is clear, but similarly wrong, I think. I’d reword it to say “Characters with favored Abilities must subtract the total of all their Supernatural Abilities, excluding Favored Abilities, from the source quality when learning Supernatural Abilities that are not favored.” And it should be made clear that the Hermetic Arts are never considered Favored Abilities.
Unless, of course, someone designs a tradition that does include Hermetic Arts as Favored Abilities. Or maybe Solomonic Arts? I could see designing a pre-Hermetic Merinita tradition, say, that included some special Major Supernatural Ability (maybe something to do with familiars?) as well as Creo, Animal, Corpus, Herbam, and Mentem as Favored Abilities, with the idea that they can learn those Arts without having their Gift opened. They wouldn’t be able to learn the others, but they could teach what they know to others that come after them.
No, it doesn’t. There are canonical rules for multiple Openings, which gives you multiple sets. So there is no prevention at all.
Note that this is in reference to Magical Supernatural Abilities. So, no, they cannot. They can have the Virtue, whether they had it before or they had it initiated or something similar. But they cannot just learn them. That’s been in the rules since the core book.
Well, that is most certainly not at all what the rules say, and say repeatedly and consistently.
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I think you’re misunderstanding some things that were written into the canonical rules in regards to learning Supernatural Abilities.
