What is the longest that a magus can expect to live before final twlight (on general)??
Also who is the oldest magus to date age wise???
Thrumbar
There is no theretical maximum age in fifth ed. There are ways to stop ageing completely with mystery initiation (path of longevity from GoTF for example) and one only sucumbs to final twilight when one has a twilight eposode. If a character does not get zaped by a creo vim spell, double botch some sort of magic roll, or enter twilight in some other way that character will never experience final twilight.
IIRC the ageing study on Sanctum Hermeticum showed that most magi succumb to twilight or death before age 140. The assumptions that were used in this model would not reflect every vison of mythic Eurpoe so you'd need to evaluate the relevance of the experiment for your own game.
Andrew P. Smith's aging analysis
You might disagree with some of the assumptions he made, but it's a good place to start.
If we assume that your Covenant has a talented Creo Corpus guy (someone capable of making a quality Longevity Potion), it is pretty safe to assume that they have a few other Creo Corpus abilities, or would develop them over time.
Now looking at Creo Corpus, we see it is possible, nay, a matter of course for a powerful Creo Corpus-er, to be able to resolve ANY aging crisis through magic. This isn't even a long-term effect, so no warping would accrue from its use.
So I would go a step farther and say that not only is there no maximum age, but that through a little Creo Corpus, you can live in an ever-deteriorating state forever.
Of course, this is moot, as warping will suck you into Final Twilight long before it's too much of a factor, unless your Magi never uses magic or a Longevity Ritual.
Warping is the thing to worry about. 1 point a year, every year, after 35, plus whatever you get from performing other magic and messing up. Twilight awaits us all.
Nice as the idea is, I don't think it works - there's no way I can see to reliably survive having 5 Decrepitude Points - the book says they cannot be save d by mortal intervention, and there is no guideline for CrCo helping them survive.
Of course, perhaps I'm missing something. For which case, I offer the following refinement: if Creo Corpus can reliably resolve any aging crisis, there is a simple (if completely useless) solution to that problem.
Don't use a longevity ritual.
If all you want to do is live forever, then that will save you from the one certain source of warping, so you won't be assured of Final Twilight... it'll probably happen eventually, but it's not a certain fate. Obviously, this is a pretty pointless solution for a character, but I offer this idea in the interest of seeing how long a magus can last in theory.
Weeell... To make it easy, the Magi could always just use the final Mystery in Alchemy... (At least if they have decided to keep that one around)
The final mystery of alchemy in fourth edition did warp people and it ate vis. We already have the final station on the path of the body (immortality with the difficulty that those who wish to live forever can never achieve the wisdom to necessary to atain the station and it still gives you warping points), the forest path of longevty (you will not age while you are inside of the forrest but still aquire warping), and the Merinita inner mystery of the beomming (you are transformed into a faerie and do not warp or change at all with the problem that learning new things constituteschange and tends to be impractical)
For this, the immortality-minded, practical-minded magus could just not complete the ritual, and shun becoming the mind (possibly even the spirit, too). Immortality just requires becoming the body (at the price of losing Fatigue points, so if you are a spont specialist, it is strongly suggested to initiate something like Diedne Magic or Faerie-raised Magic, too). Becoming the spirit may or may not be delayed: its benefits (immunity to warping) balance the drawbacks (now your magic is a pure faerie power, and you lose the Gift connection to the Magic realm). Becoming the Mind should be delayed as long as possible, IMO just until IC the character is weary of the world and wishes to retire to Arcadia and OOC you wish to retire the character.
Instead of starting a whole new tread i'll just try to ask a question in here(since it's somehow related to the topic)...
In ARM5 corebook, under Aging at page 168 the formula is : Stress die(no botch) + age/10(round up) - living condition modifier - longevity ritual modifier
If i'm reading this right, a stress die(no both) mean the zero is simply a zero anf id your first roll is a 1 you re-roll and double the result. On the top of page 169 it is written that a character under the influence of a longevity ritual roll on the aging table but treat all roll of 10 or more as 9 until he reach 35.
I try to apply this rule (the 1 that allow you to re-roll on the aging table that finally allow you to make an aging crisis at 35; same thing as the 13 entry on the table). But my players argue that rolling a 1 is always a good thing and you can't penalise someone from rolling without botching on a table...
For now i just treat 1 as 1 and 0 as 10 on the table, but i really want to fix this. How do you interpret/defend the rule?
I tend to look at the aging die as the "Bizzaro stress die".
(Inspriation from the Superman comics, where on Bizzaro world, everything is backwards).
With the Bizzaro die, "0" is your friend, and "1" is your enemy.
If you accept this, it doesn't need to be 'fixed'.
-DC
think of it as Time rolling against the players... if Time rolls high, the player loses...
Thanks,
Now picture me explaining the bizarro things to my troupe.
-Bellysarius