As someone has been kind enough to remind me, it's quite evident we have radically different concepts of game balance. Merinita mysteries R/D/T and increases in power level are not radically different in scope with the ones provided by Holy Magic, Chthonic Magic, Celestial Magic, Hermetic Geometry, Neo-Mercurians, or Theurgy.
Not so. In the description of the Wayfarers group, it's mentioned they typically use Spell Timing to cast While Traveling spells. Traveling may well last a whole day, and more. Lack of sleep or speech is mentioned as a typical No (condtion) example, and you may avoid sleep or speaking for well more than a day. The description of the Not (condition) duration mention it may last a month, maximum. You are entitled to have your concerns about your own concepts of power level, but your interpretation seems at odds with the purpose of the RAW.
It is generally rather more easy to avoid doing something (eating, sleeping, speaking, lying down) than doing a specific activity. Hence While (duration) is more easy (= Conc) than Not (duration) (= Sun).
Well, of course. Provided, in most cases, that your tampering passes the MR, causes the Conc roll to fail, or both.
Most non-standard spell parameters can only be used in Ritual magic. let's spare something for poor spont specialists, can't we ? Merinita magic is supposed to be flexible and quick on its feet and somewhat spont-oriented. Ritual and formuliac specialists have truckload of goodies elsewhere, and even half of new Merinita R/D/T can only be used ritual-alone (cfr. Symbol and Perpetuity). And in most cases, While and Not can be stretched for somewhat more than a Sun, but rarely much more. x2-x3 Sun isn't that much, if you realize than the next standard duration is Moon, a x60 improvement for a +1 magnitude.
Traveling, sleeping, speaking are all given in the RAW. You apparently have concerns with the canon power level of Merinita mysteries. Fine. Houserule them. Just don't ask me to play in your saga gracefully.
I suppose the first time a player uses the Grace or Forsaken durations in your saga you are going to have a life-threatening seizure.
5th ed gave standard Hermetic magic a massive nerfing by restricting all Rituals to one Year, maximum. It is only natural that Mysteries provide some tools to sidestep and loophole away such a harsh limitation. Several kinds of from all magical effects supposed to be long-term are really not fit for enchanted devices, and mysteries, among other things, are supposed to be the main way to provide dedicated characters the tools to break some limits of hermetic magic, without breakthrough them away once and for all.
Spoilsport. Some spells only make thematic sense if they are long-lasting (you don't see sorcerers come back every year to renew their curses yearly, and you cannot fit them in enchanted devices), and a Merinita mage pays for those durations in Flaws, Virtues slots, or initiations. Let them take some real good home. The undispellability of Until (condition) is actually a tool provided for SG's use, to ensure players make some effort to puzzle out the breaking condition, instead of taking merry turns casting PeVi effects. You can certainly do away with it, I'd however ensure that Until (Cond) spells are rather harder to dispel than other spells, say +3/+4 magnitudes. I agree that Fire is of quite questionable usefulness. As for Road, it has correspondences in other realms, see Crossroads for Chthonic Magic, or Road copy and paste and improvements in Neo-Mercurian school.
While I generally agree inner mysteries may increase power level, I think for Merinitia the increase is excessive, especially for the Outer Mystery. Consider what a Merinitia receives for an Outer Mystery available at the initial level, a magus straight out of apprenticeship:
Gets to add full Faerie Aura, and treat Faerie Raw Vis safely.
May bind a faerie familiar.
May improve his Faerie Magic Ability score, effectively doubling his Magic Theory score.
May use new spell parameters, including a means to cast permanent non-dispellable spells (Until duration), affect unsensed targets (Bloodline), and do niffty things like affect people for "a year and a day".
Don't you think this is rather extensive for a minor virtue? Breaking the Limits of Magic is a major thing, and should I think be reserved for inner mysteries and Major Mystery Virtues, not to Minor Outer Mystery Virtues shared by an entire House! The Until duration should be moved to the Perpetuity inner mystery; that's what it is.
Now granted, some of the above Mysteries are powerful. These are generally Major and Inner ones, however. And even then they are generally weaker - I wouldn't say Hermetic Geometry or Celestial Magic are as powerful as Faerie Magic, no, not with the Until duration.
While all this is true, the actual examples given in the While (Condition) description (a musical performance, reading a book, sleeping, being drunk) under normal conditions, without any reference to magic Merinitia or otherwise, typically last well short of a day. Combined with the prohibition against tampering with the duration below, I'd say that limits the effective duration to a few days at most (e.g. While (Traveling), and force-marching for several days until you drop from exhaustion).
Again, true, but the difference between Not (Sleeping) and While (Awake) is rather small. I would instead prefer to see the difference as lying mostly in the duration itself - Not lasts for up to a month, While lasts for up to a few days.
Absolutely. I agree with all of that.
I think the Faerie Magic virtue should supply the spell parameters Bargain (spell-design option, really, not parameter), Midnight/Midday (Duration), Bloodline (Target), Year+1 (Duration, Ritual), and Season (Duration, NOT Ritual). These largely focus on boosting spontaneous and flexible magic, with appropriately-faerie flavor. Only Year+1 is Ritual. [Road I shall leave to the Neo-Mercurians, and Fire to some Flambeau lineage.]
Spell Timing, a Minor Inner Mystery, shall remain with While (up to a few days), Not (up to a month), and If (spell-design option). Perpetuity, a Major Inner Mystery, should include Until (up to forever, but NOT ritual although requiring raw vis), Recurring (again non-Ritual but vis-requiring, spell-design option), and perhaps Hidden or whatever (but these are subsumed by Until, really). Thus initiation into the inner (Minor) mystery of Spell Timing allows the magus to do niffty things with durations, setting up curses and blessings with a faerie touch and whatnot. Yet a deeper, Major, inner mystery would be able to allow him to wield the true power of faerie curses - imposing curses that last indefinitely (but he can do so without needing to stand there and curse the fellow for a few hours - a single Formulaic spell should curse someone, not an hours-long ritual!).
My aim isn't to curb the power of Merinitia magi, indeed ultimately these changes allow bigger power as Perpetuity under this suggestion is without need of Ritual casting. Rather, I want to limit permanence to a Major Innver Virtue, as it deserves, and change the flavor of the Faerie Magic virtue to be more about properly-faerie Durations and bargains (Bloodline target sneaks in through the cracks; it's sort-of appropriate, and neat).
No, but I don't like them as player character options at all, either.
All good points, but the loopholes should be interesting and difficult to obtain and use. Until (Condition) makes an excellent loophole - it's interesting to use - but is too easy to gain with an outer mystery; restricting it to a Major inner mystery will add interest in obtaining it too, and keep its application rare so as to disturb the setting less. Forsaken and Grace are just bad, in that they aren't interesting to use - they just add very trivial taboos, things the character was prone to do anyways.
I would, if only they paid enough for them
Finding some way to bolster spell's resistance would be nice. Not sure how to achieve that, can't think of a RAW way to do it.
The Wind of Mundane Silence guideline refers to the "casting total", but the spell and all other PeVi guidelines and spells refer to the spell level. I am not sure, but perhaps it's better to refer to the casting total rather than the spell level; in this case, you'd need to keep the casting total of cast spells on hand, to resolve dispelling attempts, but it would be harder to undo a Curse of Circe cast by Circe than a similar spell cast by a fifteen-year-old apprentice... That would provide a measure of protection against the use of PeVi spells.
Another option is having Ritual spells not subject to simple dispelling, e.g. perhaps a Ritual is required to undo a Ritual. Another fairly common rule I'm not sure about.
A new spell mastery also seems appropriate. I remember seeing one, but can't locate it. Perhaps...
Tenacious Magic: Add 3 x Mastery to the spell's level for the purpose of opposing dispelling attempts. (5x?)
So we have some agreement.
Certainly, and it works marvelously there. Not for fearie-magic, though.
Would you deem it more balanced, if we either moved Until to another inner mystery (even Perpetuity, why not, I've always thought the canon durations of that mystery somewhat unsatisfactory in comparison to Until, esp. since you have to give up Momentary Creo to buy it; when you have Symbol, canon Perpetuity is worthless), or dropped the absolute undispellability of Until ?.
Weell, to be honest, there's another nice perk that you didn't mention. You are immune to warping and extra botch risk from faerie auras, since they are native to their magic.
This may be reasonable. But then the Outer Mysterty should still be given the option of another non-standard duration that makes ritual spells last substantially more than Year, or Year + 1. I have no qualms to move Until to Perpeuity. But than give me something like a toned-down version of the 19-year duration of Hyperborean magic.
The extra oomph of Faerie Magic, in comparison to Celestial or Geometry also comes from the fact that it alignes a whole new Realm fully with Hermatic Magic. You have to compare with Holy or Chthonic. And again, Until pales in comparison to Grace or Forsaken. And no, you can't drop them, since you don't have a whole set of established Holy or Chthonic mysteries.
A whole or a couple days typically, a few days at most, is fine with me. I only have veheement objections if you compress Spell Timing to last less than Sun or x2-x3 Sun.
Again, this is reasonable with me, and is the same kind of guideline that I'm using the Virtue with.
Since Cursed is a parameter, Bargain, too, should be one. Besides, Bargain strikes me as something appropriate to use with spont magic. Pacts and curses are often cast on the spur of a moment.
Ok, this looks like a reasonable rewrite, with the exception of Bargain, above, and Road. Fire is dead weight, mostly. But since Chthonians have Crossroads, I'd leave Roads to faerie. Balance between Realms.
OK. Clever rewrite of faerie Durations. I'd keep Aura, too, it looks most flavorful to me (enchantments that only stand in mystical places) but I suppose this could be subsumed in the rewrite of Until (maybe mentioned as a typical option). It looks like we aren't so much with radically different approaches after all (but I'm still going to keep using Diedne and Chthonic or MMF in combo, too ). My main worry was that you would nerf While and Not too much.
And so is Bargain.
Well, as it concerns Forsaken, I'll concede from personal player expereince that is a neat duration option to have (just like While and Not), but the worry of being noticed by nosy Quaesitors with InVi spells tends to curb its overuse. As for Grace, there's just too temptations around: riches, women, power, the pleasures of killing... Too hard for keeping some spells up IMO for most characters, at least the ones that I would be confortable playing (the only good inquisitor is a BoAFed one).
See my comment above. It's bad to leave too many Forsaken spells around, since any InVi spell can notice the Infernal taint. As for Grace, dunno, I'm quite heavily biased against playing Christian or Islamic zealots in general, so it's hard for me to say how to curb its abuse. I'd say, there's a lot of temptations around, really.
Both of these house rules would be neat. But would you use them on Until spells only, or for all Hermetic magic ? In the last case, you should add some loophole, that it would make much more easy to dispel for the original caster.
Maybe. I'm an hardcore spont fan thorough and thorough, so I don't really care what the pathetic Mercurian specialists can do with their inflexible shopping-list tricks, really. Just leave my spont-boosting Virtues and Mysteries alone and unnerfed
On this, we are still in honest disagreement. Don't see why Crossraods should be more thematic for infernalists, than road for faeries.
Yes. Even more balanced if we both moved it and dropped the undispellability
True, true.
Errg... why? Isn't the virtue powerful enough without such an extended duration? Wouldn't such an extended duration make every Merinitia magus superior to magi of other Houses for casting long-duration spells, e.g. The Bountiful Feast? Is that what the House should be about? I think it's better to have the House's main magical tricks, the Outer Mystery, be more about nifty things like Bargains, Bloodlines, and wacky durations like "For seven and one days", I don't see why long durations are so much Faerie that they need to be put into the main, Outer, mystery.
True.
I just noted that Spell Binding actually also allows permanance, at very low costs in terms of being a widely-available Minor Virtue. I feel another nerf coming
No, I don't see the need to do that. As you say, x2-x3 Sun is actually pretty modest.
This is a matter of terminology. Bargain isn't really a spell parameter - it isn't a Duration, it just pretends to be. The spell has TWO durations when you're using Bargain... what?! A spell's "Duration" parameter should be it's duration parameter, not some amalgam of duration parameters...
Bargain is an effect modifier, just like Limited Efect is, or Recurring is. There is just no need to list it as a Duration. Leave the spell's duration as is, thank you, and have the Bargain be what it really is - a cost to change when the spell takes effect.
That is a nice balance, but I don't see the relevance of Roads to faeries. Certainly not in my upcoming sagas. I can see them in relation to Roman roads, hence it's excellent of the Neo-Mercurians, and the corssroads figures prominently in Infernal myths so it fits there very nicely. But Road? I just can't remember the tales featuring it.
The latter case, me-thinks. I think the loophole already exists - isn't it easier to dispel your own spells, but the guidelines? I seem to remember so.
On this, we are still in honest disagreement. Don't see why Crossraods should be more thematic for infernalists, than road for faeries.
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Because you always meet the devil on crossroads. The only thing faerie I can think of regarding roads is that your wheat turns to gold along the journey, and that's neither here nor there (literally), and probably is a While (Traveling) glamor...
I would ask for retaining a significantly increased difficulty to dispel in comparison with other spells, although. No absolute undispellability, no vanilla dispellability.
Because faerie is among other things, about conditional eternity, and its magic is more about durations tied to wacky coinditions than passage of time. Since the innermost mysteries (Symbolic Magic, Perpetuity) allow conditional permanent magic, it seems fitting to me that a whiff of such permanence is given in the Outer Mystery, too. Nothing terribly overwhelming, however. I'd be in favour of something like Season (+1 Magnitude to Moon, but no Ritual).
Serf's Parma, I don't remember the writeup of that Virtue, so I can't make any judgement about its game balance.
Well, indeed Bargain, Cursed, and Recurring are essentially the same kind fo effect. The main difference is that the first two ought not to be made ritual.
Trods, anyone ? And gameswise, you have a Virtue like Arcadian Travel, which is all about using faerie paths to travel everywhere.
Serf's Parma, again. I'll check my books. But such a loophole ought to be, if doesn't exist already.
Merinita mysteries R/D/T and increases in power level are not radically different in scope with the ones provided by Holy Magic, Chthonic Magic, Celestial Magic, Hermetic Geometry, Neo-Mercurians, or Theurgy.
Breaking the Limits of Magic is a major thing, and should I think be reserved for inner mysteries and Major Mystery Virtues, not to Minor Outer Mystery Virtues shared by an entire House! The Until duration should be moved to the Perpetuity inner mystery; that's what it is.