Always.
Totally!
I'll just add, as someone who also likes both aspects A and B, that they don't necessarily have to fit within a single saga. I still have dreams of someday running a 10th century game with traditional covenants and powerful Magi in a rough and ready world. At the same time I like the idea of a very down to Earth 13th century game without a well organized Order of Hermes and with Magi living at courts, in Church settings, and as scholars at universities. Consistency between the two games would be neither possible nor desirable.
We're carrying a little far afield from the original subject, but I'll just say that I disagree, specifically because I like the idea of these two worlds intersecting. The handwavium is required to justify the fantasy not overriding the grit in such a balance.
(To be clear, the kinds of fantasy elements I like are going into ancient caverns to retrieve Joyeuse for use in a coming battle and defeating the sword's guardians, that kind of thing - less of the 'floating castles on clouds with grogs riding gryphons' kind of thing.)
It's always cool when you can find a sweet spot but sometimes rule limitations and power levels get in the way of combining perfectly good themes. To get back to JeanMichelle's original point, a saga that's more about the Middle Ages than it is about wizardry could be a lot of fun. It would also require magical power and hermetic society to be substantially different than would be the case in a saga about dragonslaying and fighting rune-wielding vikings. The latter game has a lot of appeal to me too.
It's true that the rules and power levels CAN get in the way, but only if a magus (PC or NPC) undertakes the actions that allow them to do so. Troupe consensus can't be codified mechanically, but it can be extremely powerful in terms of creating exactly the kind of setting you want without having to tweak the rules at all.
Of course, that REALLY requires players and storyguide to be on the same page in terms of what they want.
For an extremely simple and quick "fix"/nerf for power levels, just remove the free 10 that RAW gives you.
Ie, spells require that your casting total is equal or above spell level, not 10 below or better(so unless you get 10 ABOVE, you loose fatigue(my own variant on this is that if you´re at the lowest level where you cast a spell, you loose 2 fatigue, up 10 to loose 1 less, up 20 to not loose fatigue, and if spell fails, loose 3, this is with the "free 10" though so 10 above spell level and no fatigue; it does force spellcasters to be a good bit more careful)).
You can also try playing with all casting die rolls halved.
Combine both and you have a simple but effective powerdown. I´ve played with it once, not much but from all i could see it works fairly well and seem to avoid the problems of Arts as Abilities.
It drops the average spellcasting level ability with about 13 levels. Only real downside is that you need a few points more in the arts you want to use, no more "free" up to level 15 spells. More generalist magi becomes much more useful and realistic though, which is a plus by me.
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That is actually a REALLY intriguing rules-tinker that I may steal, Direwolf! (the 'no free 10' bit especially).
I've never liked fixes that treat arts as abilities. It works for limiting spellpower, of course (although a little more than I'd like it to). But it does other things too. 200-year-old wizards can't exist in an environment where Creo Corpus lab totals cap (for a brilliant and dedicated Longevity Potion expert) somewhere around 40-50. Now I understand that for some people, that is not a bug but a feature... but again, I'm picky in terms of the exact feel I want. I like the idea of a magus able to upbraid the teenaged Henry III with a stern reminder that his great-great-great grandfather ALWAYS listened to his counsels.
But this fix I rather like. It reduces the damage (in the literal and the broader sense) that magi are able to do with spells without having the broader impact on lab totals for things like familiars and longevity.
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:mrgreen:
Yeah, thats why i liked it as well when i came up with it.
I cant say i have playtested it thoroughly but i havent found any problems at all with it so far(and thats not exactly the norm for game mods!) so it seems to be a simple and minimal change fix.
Hope it works well for you.
The no free 10 rule I think is too weak to matter too much at high-power-levels, although it would certainly lower starting magi's power. Halving the casting total is actually harsher than Arts-as-Abilities even without this rule. Of of course not affecting lab work is a major change; it means magic items are now far more effective. Not sure if I like that or not.
At any rate, this would provide most of the benefits I'm after (MR and power-level), although making items and inventing high-level spells would allow magi to compensate somewhat.
The effectiveness of longevity specialists, and their availability, is a very much YSMV thing. But for me a "reasonable" elder specialist under Arts-as-Abilities will look something like
20 Creo
18 Corpus
3 Int
6 Aura
10 Magic Theory
18 Focus
3 Familiar's Int
10 Familiar's Magic Theory
3 Magus' Int
6 Magus' Magic Theory
5 Lab Specialization
102 Lab Total
I consider this modest. It isn't at all unreasonable for such a magus to get +5 for his and his familiar's Int from CrMe rituals, to have a higher lab specialization bonus, higher Arts (all those clients paid for tractatus, right?), or to invest raw vis or have other unique bonuses.
A Lab Total of 102 isn't inconsequential. It provides a +21 to aging rolls, providing immunity to aging until age 240; as magi succumb to Final Twilight around age 155, this is actually more than needed for your 200 years-old magus, whose main problem would be Twilight, not Aging Points. I personally prefer to let "normal" Hermetic magi pass to final twilight after a century and a half, as the book implies, so as not to have members who still remember the good old days of Charlemagne around; but to also have "hidden masters" which are even older through non-Hermetic longevity (Living Ghosts, Daimons, Great Beasts, that sort of thing).
As the example shows, a lot more goes into a Lab Total than the basic Arts. This is why cutting them down to half (which is approximately what Arts-as-Abilities does) doesn't cut down the magi's power in half. Elder magi are still quite formidable, and a covenant is still quite capable.
"Too weak" of course is dependent on what your goal is, of course. If your goal is to reduce the starting magus's power and compel them to grow into their might a little more while still allowing elder magi to tear Mythic Europe asunder, then I think that it may be more serviceable. If you want even elder magi to be incapable of the greatest magics without single-minded specialization, then it may not do what you want.
That's a fair and compelling case for the specialist; I hadn't considered just how important all those other bonuses become. That does some to lessen my dislike of the idea. I dunno. Maybe I need to take a second look at it.
Instead of costing Arts as Abilities , why not cap spell level by Magic Theory ,
in the same manner as for Shape & Material Bonus.
Max Spell Level = 5 x Magic Theory Score.
Another possibility ,
Buy spell guidelines at the same cost as Arts.
Normally you get these for free , castability based on Art Scores.
Level 01 guideline in Creo Corpus costs the same as buying an Art to 01 and so on.
You can easily accomplish what you want through scarcity of resources. Limiting the availability of lab notes forces spell invention and the copying of lab notes for trade. Limiting study sources forces magi to write tractatus for their covenent mates and trade. Take on the motto, for the modern university proffessor, 'Publish or Parish'. This does a few things.
Spell research takes up more time, leaving less available for study. Lab notes become more valuable, allowing elder magi to require more service from younger, allowing less time for study. Copying lab notes becomes an important seasonal task. Proffession: scribe becomes more useful long term, but becomes another time/xp sink. If you aren't house Flambeau, finding a copy of Ball of Abysmal Flame will be hard. A book on Pillum of Fire spell mastery may require major service.
High quality books become treasures. Communication tends to be an uncommon stat for most magi in most campaigns (which I've always found to make no sense), if this is the case then most books will be poor quality. When the quality and abondence of books is directly related to what the player characters can produce, it slows down progression and magi power level becomes much less obscene.
The process to create books/vellium is long, highly specialized, and expencive. Make sure to emphasize this. Scribes are expencive and not easily employed short term. There is plenty of work in the world without magi. How are able to convince one to work for scairy recluses in the middle of noman's land on a confusing specialized topic, when they could easily stay where they are copying bibles.
With that typo, it's a very medieval motto. If you don't do well enough, the bishop will assign you to some random country church, far from the university town. :mrgreen:
Halving the DIEROLL i said.
All max spells that can be cast are dropped by two magnitudes, thats a BIG change. And anyone getting Arts up high enough deserve to have them useful.
Arts as abilities is far worse in that regard. You just maximize Magic Theory if you want to be good at items.
Every XP placed in MT is equal to 15XP placed in Arts then, as opposed to the 1:3 ratio you get by RAW.
TWO scores that high? Thats about 200 seasons of study, if you CAN get 200 Quality 10 Tractatus for Cr/Co.
In XP, its roughly equal to having Art as Art scores of 40 and 45. Yeah, it happens, but "modest" it most certainly is NOT.
More like the upper end.
Art scores of 40+45 is slightly LESS XP than Ability scores 18+20. Totals of 38 and 85. 76 vs 85. Two magnitudes down.
However, the really annoying thing about Arts as Abilities, is that you need ridiculous amounts of hard study to get even just ONE little raise in score.
In your above example, why ever would the magi raise CrCo that high before raising MT?
Raising MT by 1 is just 55XP, raising Cr by 1 needs 105XP, which is almost enough to gain 2 higher score in MT.
And MT is much more valuable as it can replace all Arts in labwork even if it cant be used for casting.
Thusly, you make items far more likely to happen.
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That, is actually not bad at all. Easily added and at least i cant think of any real problems.
OUCH!!!
Perhaps it would be better to handle it as researching the guidelines like spells instead? Otherwise it would drastically raise the needed amount of XP.
I agree with the posters above that Arts-as-Abilities has a problem with the relative usefulness of Magic Theory and other things that go into lab totals. One might consider just doubling the XP costs of Arts insteading of using the 5x multiplier of Arts-as-Abilities. Combined with a serious resource limitation, as several of us have suggested, that might keep power levels down enough to allow Magi to be an active part of mundane society.
We're going way off topic, but Direwolf75's idea about adding base levels reminds me of an idea I've had for making magic more colorful. I've considered giving all Magi the ability to use Shape & Material bonuses to boost their casting totals, as per Potent Magic. To compensate for the power boost, I'd raise all base levels by one or two magnitutes. Something like this existed in earlier editions and has remnants in AM5 like the wolf skin required for the Shape of the Woodland Prowler spell. I like the color of those old spells.
I call the Virtue for it "Extrovert magic"... 
When I looked for a way to power-down magi for a (stillborn) saga, I decided that the simplest way to do it was to simply double all effect levels (including for things like longevity potions: so +1 to aging for every 10 or 20 levels etc.). It's a little tricky with Vim guidelines, but otherwise simple and very effective.
Ultimately, however, I'd really like something that caps the ability at later ages without affecting younger magi much. In fact, I'd really like something like that for all abilities, even mundane ones. A 25-year old knight/artist/scribe should be about as capable as a 35 year old one; in fact, not much worse than a 90 year-old one who has been kept in good health by longevity potions and the like.
Perhaps a solution might be to make Art and ability scores "age"? Let's say you keep a tally of the total of all xp of a character (this is just one more number on the sheet, that also helps gauge how "powerful" the character is); every character loses 2% of that every year, distributed more or less evenly but otherwise as the player sees fit.
I hear what you're saying here. For Arts and scholarly abilities, a solution is to put levels on tractatuses. That way learning sources are plentiful at low levels and then increasingly rare. I think this would be a good idea regardless of the overall power level in a setting.