I agree strongly with point two, since the notion of Confraternity of Himnis the Mad members running around spamming CrHe effects is, well, kinda silly, and because it seems like a reasonable compromise game-play wise.
I still think people are overestimating the power of an enchantment-oriented focus.
A spell learned accures value over time, and costs only time. As arts improve, so does the power of the spell, and it can be mastered to make it stronger still. It can only be taken from a magus under extrordinary circumstances.
A powerful item takes more time to make than a spell to learn. It takes vis. Often, it takes lots of vis. Its power is limited by the fact that inventing a device will limit both the scope of its power and its penetration magnitude. Each effect will become less valuable over time, as one's arts improve by the effect level and penetration stay the same, making the devise less useful to the owner. True, a Verditus might use Reforging to recoup most of the vis, but that takes still more time, investing in secondary arts and, of course, the difficulties of initiation and chances to botch.
An item is likewise more vulnerable than a spell since, as a rule, enchanted items are not considered part of the incidental clothing of a magus (swords etc.) Certainly, as a SG, I'd always consider an enchanted item to be outside of Parma for the purposes of destroying the item or scrying its function. Its also easier to steal or disarm a sword than to knock the magus uncosncious or kill him.
I'd suggest play-testing some of the enchantment foci before discounting them as unreasonable. I'm willing to bet whoever made the chapter certainly thought of all this before codifying the confraternities.
First of all, hello to you all that participates in this forum.
I have been reading sporadically this forum, and always question mysef why does some of the questions here goes without a official answer for so long. Is that a politics agains official clarification of rules?
I have one single and straightforward question to make regarding this subject:
Why Ars Magica designers and Atlas Games editors doesn't tell what they meant regarding focus? Focus on wooden wands, swords, etc does apply for enchanting any effect? Yes or no?
Thanks in advance to all of you who understand that questions like that shoud not go unanswered due to continous and recurring questioning/misunderstanding from players.
Tks,
Johan
BTW if you are asking if I like to play poker, no, my surname is Poker, and yes, it does cause lots of trouble with automatic reserved words purging systems, spam systems an like, lol.
David Chart does frequently chime in to answer questions. But it's not really any of their jobs to browse the forums and keep up on every thread to see when their input may be needed. I've never seen readings of the books so evenly divided before, so it wouldn't surprise me if David does tell us something. However, David's in Japan. Though he isn't in the most affected part, I'm sure browsing these forums has had to fall to a relatively low priority. I do suggest being grateful for any input David might give instead of being expectant of it.
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David Chart does frequently chime in to answer questions. But it's not really any of their jobs to browse the forums and keep up on every thread to see when their input may be needed. I've never seen readings of the books so evenly divided before, so it wouldn't surprise me if David does tell us something. However, David's in Japan. Though he isn't in the most affected part, I'm sure browsing these forums has had to fall to a relatively low priority. I do suggest being grateful for any input David might give instead of being expectant of it.
Chris
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I just dont get it... really. Please, note that I'm not saying ppl are not nice or anything like that. As all ppl that turns to this forum I really love and enjoy their work. But, since this game is, after all, a product, a service like a "rule clarification section" could exist that might even use this forum as source for common doubts to be answered.
I'm pretty sure I would enjoy this game much more if I would not have to look for agreements among ppl I use to play regarding rules that are not clear enough, to the point to demand several pages of debate on this forum of experienced players... What I'm saying is that perhaps there should be someone paid to read this forum and make things clearer. I would buy more AM books if that happens, and I think I would not be the only one.
Anyway, its just a thought I could not keep for myself anymore. I'm the kind of guy who cant avoid asking ppl why they do what they do...
And yes, I will really be grateful for an input in any way the autors think would be the most pleasant to them.
One choice that Ars Magica made long ago is to put the power of final decision-making in the hands of the individual troupes. While a body of rules is important for getting games off the ground, the editors and authors of ArM would rather each troupe have fun playing the way they want than to dictate everything. Hence we can find several examples of rules (or canon descriptions of people/places/libraries/etc.) that were intentionally left vague, as well as nuances of the rules that are unintentionally vague. I think these "official" people are reluctant to try to resolve these issues because for every person who's more satisfied with the answer, there's another person whose interpretation suddenly because "illegal".
Another feature of Ars Magica is that troupe play is intended to be fully collaborative (as opposed to, say, "Dungeon Master versus players"). Ideally each troupe will come to a consensus whenever a rule is vague (hopefully before it comes up in play, but that's not always possible!). Official people definitely don't want to be put in the position of arbitrating intra-troupe arguments - not least because if the arguers aren't persuaded by one another's arguments, they're not going to be persuaded by one author's statement on the forums either.
Still, we all love speculating and debating, so questions to the forums populace at large are always welcome!
I wish I could agree, but thats a hard matter. Last time I went to this forum was 1 year ago and this very topic (magical focus/magical items) was being discussed with no clear result.
For me, clearer rules open space to construct better and deeper stories, since the time of my troupe is very limited (I'm fully confortable with vague descriptions of people/places/libraries/etc, after all this adds to the game, this doesnt happen to rules). We wish we can discuss setting in medieval europe, new spells, character development, without stepping in a rule that has dubious interpretations.
Is the rule vagueness a positive or a negative feature for troupe style? In fact, does that has something to do with troupe style? It does make troupes have to discuss and set things that are not the story. And since some few dubious rules can emerge in the middle of it, it can make great mess in a ongoing story.
I love to debate, but can't some things be settle so ppl can move forward to new (and more interesting) things?
PS. I just saw "Official" Rules Answers in Project Redcap from Andrew Gronosky. I really wish I could change this "no need for official rule clarification" politics... makes me feel unsuported, but ok, as I said before, I'm only someone who can't avoid to ask why...
Yea, there are times when Ars Magica can be really annoying, when you are scrounging looking for an answer to something that should have a really obvious answer.
Its especially frustrating when you're just starting out.
However, as you get into it, if your troupe has a positive attitudes, you learn to decide these questions based less on scrounging and more on "plot," i.e. the spirit of the story and characters. Does it make sense for a Confraternity of Roland Verditius to have a focus in enchanting swords? Uh.... duh! Yeah! He's part of the lineage that produced and now holds Durendel, and which produces... legendary swords.
So let the Roland be a Roland.
Let your troupe be your troupe. Story guide is in-play arbiter. If you've got a rules beef, bring it up later ('tween-game emails etc) and let the SG re-balance any mess up that disadvantages the players. Let the story flow. Rules problems are best left for OOC between sessions.
Fair enough Johan, it can be frustrating.
One tip, just in case you haven't already thought of it, is to check out the official ArM5 errata at http://atlas-games.com/arm5/arm5errata.php. It won't resolve every issue by any means, but it should provide satisfying answers to a few ambiguities.
Wooden wand focus came with an official supplement therefore enchanting items with any effect is official.
Just certain forum members (including me) think it is overpowered as a minor virtue.
Again, I'm wondering how many people who think that focus applying to enchantment is too powerful are basing that off of in-game experience. Its amazing how easily people forget the limitations and disadvantages of relying on enchanted items.
Before you think about shutting down the enchantment-oriented focus in your saga, think about the cost in vis and in time to make magical items and the way in which items become relatively less powerful compared to the magus/maga who made them over time, and therefore need to be remade for the enchantment-focused character to "keep up" with the troupe, whereas spells become only more powerful at no extra cost.
Notice, too, that the king forms of indirect magic combat, Terram and Imaginem, are the two unavailable for Elder Runes, which limits the ability of a Verditius to make super-powered indirect attack items to the degree s/he otherwise might. I doubt that this was unintentional.
Play the rule through in your saga, before you dump it entirely.
Verditius who use this rule generally become hyper-specialists which, as most will know by now, are helpless without more generalised friends.
IIRC, no.
Unless I'm mistaken, the only thing that's official is that they have a focus in wooden wands. Does this work as a normal focus or apply to any effect enchanted within is, AFAIK, not clear, which is why we have these recurring debates.
