Fair enough, I see your point.
Nonetheless, the guideline for PeVi Might reduction printed in ArM5 is indeed the one that reduces the Might Score. This guideline is the one that is unclear --- because the extra guidelines in RoP:Magic do specify whether they target Might Score or Might Pool.
In my saga, the others SGs stated in the way of Kal and Marko because otherwise, i was able, 8 years after gauntlet, to destroy a might 50 creature in 10 rounds. And a might 50 creature is ... a powerful one. So they stated that a 30 years old magus cannot be so powerful he can destroy dragons and others magical faeries.
So, they reduced:
So, now, i use a PeVi 5. sight, conc and 1 migt/round... after, i'll maintain the demanding spell for sun and run. Run. RUUN.
That give me a lot of penetration, but not the "5 rounds killer dragon" thing
That is fair enough for your saga...
On the other hand, I don't know how you were doing it, but whatever your strategy was your first PeVi spell needs to have a penetration of 50. This is not exactly trivial. If you managed to make a character who can reliably generate a penetration total of 50 and can survive 10 rounds of being mauled by a dragon, then what is the problem?
In my opinion, the problem is that you have made a character who is really good at slaying critters, whereas the storyguides seem to want to tell stories where the characters are not good at slaying critters.
To me this is not a problem with the rules, but a problem with your character. Your character does not match the saga that the storyguides want to run. I think that a better solution would have been for you to have made a different character, or for the storyguides to negotiate better with their players, so that the sort of saga that the storyguides want to run is the same as the sort of saga that the players want to play.
Getting a level 10 Might Stripper to penetration 50 requires a reasonably powerful character, but isn't that difficult for a Perdo and Penetration focused magus, especially not when forewarned. Darius, the sample character in the core, could do it very easily indeed, and he's fairly well rounded as these things go.
The problem I tend to see with Might Strippers is that they mean that it is easier by far to kill creatures with Might than mundane creatures, and that it is easier to kill things than to ward against them. The former is, arguably, a setting dependent thing, but since in Mythic Europe people rightly fear things with power, it falls flat. Likewise, myths are always full of things which have to be warded against and locked away because they cannot be destroyed.
This too can be a real problem, but is not necessarily the case. In the last saga I played in, we could all kill just about anything of low to moderate Might because after the first time of trouble, that's what we learned to solve. We were in far more danger of attack by mundanes because only one of us could defend against mundane weapons as a formulaic spell, and only one of us had PoF or AoFR. Encountering undead, faeries and a few Might 35 Hell Hounds, on the other hand, was just an irritation. Creating a character who is not good at slaying critters is difficult, because slaying critters is easy.
I favour making the current guidelines strip Might Pool, disallow a critter to use any powers when Might is 0, even if they don't cost anything (unless perhaps they're specifically inherent abilities such as being able to breathe water), and then make a higher guideline for actually destroying Might score. Without that, Might Stripping spells are too cheap and easy, and don't fit well into the setting as it stands.
IMHO, Might 50 is a weak dragon. A powerful Drake, but weak for a Dragon. And, sorry to say, it is very very easy to generate a Penetration of 50 with a level 5 Might stripper. I can do it out of gauntlet as a specialist or within ten years as a generalist. How? Mastery, Arcane Connection, Penetration ability, Focus, Life Boost, spend vis, and etceteras. Doing it 10 times? Multicast two or three times. Or use a level 10 stripper, Mastery 5, do it all at once.
[/quote]
The storyguide needs to tell the stories that the players want to play, otherwise he might as well just sit there by himself writing fiction no one will ever read. If the rules say "you can make a character that does X", then the SG is a jerk if he mandates "no one can do X". And, in theory, every member of the troupe is a potential storyguide. I take a hands off approach, and in fact encourage higher powered characters. It is the other players that keep everyone else in check and set limits.
Look, the rule is simply flawed. It seems to me that you are just trying to defend the status quo. Clear your mind of preconcieved notions that ArM5 is the OTE. Look at it objectively. It really, really works better the way I suggest. It isn't the RAW, I know. But Ars is still evolving. This is simply one small area that the rules could improve upon as the game continues its growth.
But you're looking at something pretty specialised, and if you want to be that specialised then you're going to get to the stage that you can do these things. But remember, this isn't World of Warcraft. While some players obviously go for these extremes, in my experience it really isn't common. We have one Bonisagus in our current saga who does have an immense casting total and penetration on certain fire magics. But that is certainly the exception. The rest of us, for one reason or another can't get anywhere near.
And in any case, all those factors that you list ( Mastery, Arcane Connection, Penetration, Focus, etc) are all the things that you should be using to blast the dragon. They're not part of the problem! They are the solution to your problem. Without them, you'd have a hard time getting where you want to be.
Saying a rule is broken or weak simply because you've sunk 75xp into Mastery, have stolen an Arcane Connection to the beast, have sunk a further 50xp into Penetration, have a Major Magical Focus on damage, and you've blown a bagload of vis... well, that's absurd.
And that's great. As characters grow in power, the challenges should also grow. So if your character has slain his first 50 Might dragon (yes, bravado aside, 50 Might is perfectly acceptable for a dragon), the storyguide simply has to throw a 60 Might dragon at you next time. Not to catch you out, but to progress the kind of story you so obviously want to play. There's no point sinking all that xp into offensive magic if you don't want to use it, right?
I'm not sure it works better the way you suggest it. I think that because the current ruleset with regards to Might Scores and Pools, Penetration, and Resistence is really based around one measure, and there's one core Hermetic guideline for reducing that single number to zero. Is there room to change it? Certainly seems so. Would I change it just by making the PeVi guideline strip Might Pool? No. I might stand stripping Might Pool and then going to Might Score (thereby reducing Penetration and Resistence), but that's another issue. If it was to be changed, I'd look at how supernatural entities are described and how Hermetic Magic affects them from the ground up, together and not in isolation. And that's not something I see being done in this thread so far.
Specialized for just coming out of gauntlet, yes. But any generalist 10 to 20 years out of gauntlet should be able to handle it also. My character in one game, Roberto, was designed specifically to Penetrate with his PoF at the 20 to 30 range, or up to 50 if he uses all his resources. In another game, Rochelle the mentem maga can scramble brains without any effort at all. In my advanced game (20+ out of gauntlet magi), one player has a character named Ludovicio who has two Arts worth mentioning, Rego and Vim, both at scores over 20. Different people have different experiences. In my own experience, not being specialized in something is the uncommon exception.
I don't see these as problems either. I see them as essentials that everyone should have. Weak characters often neglect these areas.
I am not saying that at all. These are all good things to do and I highly reccomend them. My point is that a Penetration of 50 is not that extreme or unusual at all. And Might 50 is not as formidable as you may imagine. RoP-Magic certainly changed the scale of things, and specifically refers to the Dragon from the core book as being weak and small.
I don't like that approach. The dragon's might should be consistant, no matter who is facing him. Having the next dragon with a might score that is coincidentally 10 points higher seems forced and artificial. Ad what of the next? It is power creep. My style may be different, ut I aim for versimilitude. Sometimes your next dragon is weaker. Sometimes it is of a scale far beyond the players because they went somewhere they shouldn't have gone.
But I am 
I dunno, it seems pretty direct and straight forward to me. I am not understanding what you are getting at. Clairification por favor?
Wait. The dragon's might should be consistent from encounter to encounter, unless there are in-game factors at work. We can agree on that. What I'm talking about is ensuring that the challenges increase in line with the capabilities of your player characters. There's no point in getting it wrong (throwing a mere 50 Might beast against a character who's sunk virtues, 125xp, and a bag of vis into offensive magics) and then getting it even more wrong by not upping the challenge the next time. If you just limit the challenge to an arbitrary level because that's what you started with then you're just doomed to repeat the same one-round slaughter that you're blaming the rules for imposing on you.
Of course it should be varied, that's what different stories are all about, but I get the impression, perhaps unfounded, that you go for "more power" kind of stories. I'm sure there are some where compassion is the single greatest art that wins the day, but I'm guessing it's more likely to be Perdo, Vim, Ignem, or a big bag of vis. And in those stories, where the dragon is simply there to be slain, why serve up something that they've already swatted in a single round with a deft initiative roll and a 125xp of specialisation? That's just boring.
It's a little hard to clarify by way of example because I do think the relationship between Might Score, Pool, etc and Hermetic magic stands to be looked at as a whole. Yes, that includes warding to introduce and close that line.
I would start by having a clear baseline of what 0 Might Score is and what 100 Might Score represents. I'd want to understand what the relationship between Pool and Score is (and remember, I'm not simply asking what it is today, but from a conceptual perspective to inform a future take). I'd want to understand what Hermetic spell base guidelines represent, what the relative complexity of different effects should be (should warding be easier than fatiguing and fatiguing easier than harming), draw a line in the sand with regards to Penetration etc. Also make a more consistent application of Arcane Connections to Penetration. There are a lot of factors in play that should be considered. I think out of that you'd either arrive at the status quo and be able to defend it, or you'd have a much more explicit and expanded set of guidelines that make these kind of discussions redundant.
But I don't think simply saying that the current guideline reduces Might Pool is the way forward. That way you just hamstring a character who has quite legitimately boosted his spells and abilities with the expressed intention of taking down big creatures.
And bear in mind that 75xp sunk into mastering Dragon's Eternal Oblivion counts for nothing if you need to cast Demon's Eternal Oblivion...
I am not blaming the rules for anything. This is actually an issue that rarely comes up anymore (though it used to come up all the time in another game). It has just been that, in my experience, the stories work better if a magical being is able to "heal" might loss. But as for the ever-increasing-challenge idea, that just seems artificial to me. In order to face greater challenges, you actually have to seek them out. If you are experiencing "random" encounters, then realistically the next opponent has just as much a chance of being weaker as they do of being stronger. If I populate an area with beasties, then their scores are set regardless of which order the PC's choose to face them.
Having said that, I do tweek opponents to provide the best flow for the story and make the adventure stimulating and exciting. I try to keep it to an absolute minimum though.
I am rarely so linear 
. In a recent encounter, one magus defeated a Might 44 drake with cold spells. No might strippers, just a low level PeIg effect that drained the drake of Fatigue. Multicasted. Took the monster out in two shots.
But then the elder dragon Sigmundo showed up (in human guise), bargained for the life of his son. He didn't care much at all about the other wild drakes, but this one (Diablo Rojo) has a several decade streak of being undefeated killed many knights and even young foolish magi. The Dragon was proud of this sone. In exchange for their mercy, the magi were rewarded with some vis and were eached promised a favor from the dragon that they can call on in the future. Big time story-hook material here, as it brings the full sized Dragon into the saga as a political player. Diablo Rojo was banished to Africa for 77 years.
Just master them both. That's what Flawless Magic is for 
But anyway, it isn't really hamstringing. Reduce the pool to 0 and the creature is still defeated and helpless. The only major difference is that I allow the might to "heal" if said magic creature manages to escape. And as I pointed out, it is actually easier to swat down big creatures with PeIg spells that drain Fatigue.
And, since you mention it, my real issue is Wards. In this regard I do indeed have a solid HR in place. Wards don't need to Penetrate if the ward spell matched Realm and Form. Thus, generic ReVi "blanket" wards against all creatures from a specific realm must use regular ArM5 Penetration rules. A specific ReAn ward against Magical Animals does not need to subtract level from casting total versus said magical animal. And recall, you cannot use AC's for Penetration in Wards, because the Target of a Ward is the person/area being protected, not the subject being warded against.
Guys, it's a lot easier to get 50 penetration on might-stripping stuff than even those who are claiming it is easy have stated. You don't need to devote much to it at all.
Let's try a Verditius just out of gauntlet with the following: Intelligence 3, Puissant Magic Theory, Craft [Wood Carving] (Verditius enchanting) 2, Magic Theory (Items) 4, Philosophia (Verditius Runes) 2, Leadership (laboratory work) 1, Perdo 5, Vim 6. Let's give him +5 for the aura and lab. (He should be able to get this pretty quickly if he doesn't start with it.) He's with two other friends just out of gauntlet. Let's say they can each give him +7. Those aren't unreasonable, are they? This person also isn't very focused on PeVi, is he?
Lab total for a charged, wooden wand: 3 (Int) + 3 (Craft) + 5 (MT) +2 (Puissant MT) + 3 (Philosophiae) + 4 (shape) + 14 (assistants) + 7 (aura/lab) + 5 (Perdo) + 6 (Vim) = 52. Level 5 effect (DEO at level 5) + 25 (50 Penetration) = 30. That would be 5 charges.
That's just one example. With a little more experience or a little more focus in this area, we have a lot more options, such as lesser magic devices. It really isn't that hard. The above is basically a solution for a small covenant of newly gauntleted magi who have a threat they can't handle because of its magic resistance but absolutely must take down. Note, with some adjustment, they could take down a demon prince at this point.
Chris
You're right. And that's why I'd look at the subject of guidelines and Might as a whole rather than just tweaking round the edges.
So you are saying that three characters who are really intelligent, who all have the Gift, and at least one of whom has trained for 15 years specialised in making magic items, and the others have also trained in magic for 15 years, get together and are capable of making a magic item that is powerful in a specialised way. Isn't this just a "realistic" outcome?
Say, this wasn't a fantasy environment and it was the modern world. Someone tells you that three highly intelligent people, who are naturally talented at mathematics, and have just completed high level degrees in computer science, who had access to some advanced hardware, had just got together and written a computer program that is really fantastic at calculating aerodynamic designs for aircraft. Would you say that was stupid and unlikely and unrealistic?
The Verditius needs 10 charges of DEO Lvl 5 to kill a Might 50 demon.
But anyway: what if the demon happens to be standing in an Infernal Aura of 1? His effective Magic Resistance is now 51. The Verditius' wand is useless.
What if the demon has a power that makes the Verditus drop the wand? What is the Verditus' magic resistance? What if the Verditus doesn't see the demon coming? What if the demon just hits the Verditius and knocks him out? What if there are two demons? What if what the Verditius thought was a demon was really a faerie acting out a story about demons?
I guess my points are a) this character is meant to be good at making magical items, the rules reflect this, and b) while certainly this Verditius character can make an effective item that gives him a fighting chance against a powerful demon, he is hardly bullet-proof.
Not at all. The problem is that the self-same characters, able to create a spell which will utterly destroy a creature with Might, cannot kill a creature without might as easily.
A Wolf has a decent chance of surviving a casting total 20 PoF, with 0 penetration. A Might 10 Wolf of Virtue will die to a casting total 20, second magnitude, Magic's Eternal Oblivion. Under the RAW, warding the Might 10 Wolf of Virtue out of a circle also requires a casting total of 20, but cannot have penetration boosted by an Arcane Connection, thus making it harder to protect yourself than destroy an opponent. That's the fundamental problem.
As for the Might Pool/Score and Magic Resistance, I see a problem as great as you suggest. When a creature's Might Pool is depleted, it's left only with physical defenses and abilities. It's still inherently magical, however, so gets its resistance. Depleting the Might Score both reduces its available powers, their penetration and the creatures magic resistance. Making this second one a higher level effect has the effect, for a start, of making battles to the death less likely, since fleeing becomes more possible for the losing party.
The classic example, as it appeared in my previous saga, was an humanoid Faerie with Might 5. PeCo casting total required to get instant death, 45, with Clenching Grasp of the Clutched Heart. PeVi casting total required, 10. The instant death of an albeit minor character was trivial with spontaneous magic and that, to my mind, indicates not that PeCo is too weak, but that the PeVi guidelines are too powerful. By having instant death and/or eternal weakness, since Might Score doesn't regenerate, as the easiest and only possible guideline, the players are punished. The possible stories are poorer. You cannot deprive your foe of power temporarily. (The guideline to strip Might Pool, rather than Score, given in RoP:I is the same level that of removing Score, and of course not in the Core.). You cannot curse a foe with weakness, preventing him from recovering Might. You cannot lay a slow curse on an opponent, causing his Might to bleed away whilst you escape and leaving him powerless for your return.
Yes, you can always create these spells, none being in any way nonHermetic, but the guidelines would have to be phrased as General +15 or +20 or +25 levels to make them more effective at a given level than just removing Score. If the things I described above are akin to binding a man in shackles and ropes, or beating him with a club, a facile Might Stripper allows you to sever arms and, in the end, cut out his heart. A powerful mage should be able to snuff out a moderate enemy with ease, but an apprentice certainly should not. Against a specific target, a motivated magus, whatever his age, can achieve any arbitrary penetration for any spell he can cast or desire to cast - it just takes money, vis, planning and politics. Wizards Communion makes penetration very easy indeed, especially once you have a decent penetration score and an arcane connection or horoscope. The problem with the guideline as it stands is that in general, having Might of 10 or less actually makes creatures far, far more vulnerable than an equivalent mundane creature and that's just silly.
Why do magi have to be better or as good at dealing with mundane situations as they are at dealing with magic situations?
In the game magi are good at magic. Magic is very good at dealing with magic/supernatural things. If you want to kill a mundane creature you get a grog to do it (or, of course, you can do it with magic --- it is just trickier).
I see that this might be contrary to some players'/storyguides' expectations. I certainly thought these were problems too, once. But I found, once I got my head around two facts: ArM is a game about powerful magi, and magic is good at dealing with magic things, it all made much more sense.
In real life, if someone happens to have a gun, it is ridiculously easy for them to kill (or at least very seriously injure) someone that they have a disagreement with. Why do most arguments in real life not end in a fatal shooting, why do even most fights not end in a fatal shooting?
Exactly.
Telling a story about why a magus is motivated to cast a spell on a specific creature, and how he acquires the money, vis, planning, and politics is a saga. To me this seems a much more interesting, heroic, and mythic saga than a saga based around stories about "running away" or "fighting badgers because dragons are too dangerous".
Because Magical situations should be more difficult and mysterious than mundane ones. I can see your point if the example was a magus who is master of mystic arts yet is a moron when t comes to mundane love. But comparing magic wolf to mundane wolf, the argument collapses. Magic wolf should be much more challenging than its mundane counterpart.
Meh, it is a rare grog that can match me in combat. But then again, I play a combat oriented magus. But anyways, it should be easier to deal with the mundane creature than the magical. They are also supposed to be good at dealing with magic/supernatural things. Using your argument, the magic wolf should be much more capable versus a magus opponent than versus his mundane counterpart.
Hmmm…
I never had any problem wrapping my head around those concepts. I very much understand and appreciate that the game is about powerful magi. As I said earlier, it is usually my players that insist I tone things down (usually when they are complaining that another player has too much power). And yes, magic is good at dealing with magic. Magic is also good at dealing with mundane situations. Magic is just better at dealing with everything.
Your analogy is weak and it collapses when tested. There were ten shooting deaths in the City of Chicago this past weekend, and 30 other severe injuries. A fair amount of stabbing deaths too. But gun deaths are more sensational news because a knife usually kills only whom you intended to kill, guns often hit the wrong person. Let’s see, a teenage boy was shot by soldiers in Honduras this weekend, a hundred-something deaths in China from riots, and let’s not forget Iran (I saw the Neda Soltan video, it was truly heartbreaking). Shooting deaths happen all the time. Some kid was killed in the alley behind my house a few weeks ago. But you are correct in your assumption that most fights don’t end in shooting deaths. However, the reason is because most fights don’t involve guns. Forget what TV and movies tell you, most people in America don’t have a gun. There are more stabbing and bludgeoning murders each year than by gun.
To each their own. Both sound dull to me though. Politics can spice things up, but using politics as the central theme of the game is dull to me. Some players like politics, and I make much effort to accommodate them. But I don’t like when it dominates the game.
Also, one issue most people are missing is that draining a creature of might does not necessarily kill it. They are “destroyed”, but the effects of this “destruction” varies. RoP-Magic, p. 29. A spirit may be banished to the Magic Realm, whereas an Elemental may become inert matter. Some magic characters are simply rendered mundane The magic wolf becomes a mundane wolf, and is still a deadly animal). Others may simply die, but the fate of characters/creatures who have been “destroyed” by loss of might is up to the storyguide to determine. The SG has a lot of leeway in this regard.
No, not really. Let's change "magic" to "science" for a better analogy. 15 years training, which includes language, is probably more like a masters than a PhD. They haven't had extra years in the lab and the like (their theses, post docs, etc.). Now let's say one of our three is ridiculously experienced in the lab but hasn't focused in a specific science too much (maybe undergrad biology and masters in chemistry). Now he teams up with someone with a masters in physics and someone else with a masters in meteorology. Are you suggesting it is realistic to expect this team to be able to
I only used DEO as the familiar example. Remember, this was about general might-stripping. You don't need to destroy all the might, just enough that the magi can do as they please with the low-might version of the bad guy. We did this in a game and it worked fabulously well. Make an item with an expiration to help, and bump up to 10 or 15 might. If you want, set a second to trigger off the first. It's pretty easy to build a device to knock 20 or 30 might off something. Then every time you encounter something that has too much resistance, you fire off a round from this. After one shot you can probably handle it.
I did point out that there were plenty more points available. Personally, I wouldn't stop at 50 penetration. Who cares about charges in the first season?
Did you seriously look at the example? Drop the Puissant MT, the Craft Woodworking, the Philosophiae, and the MT specialty. That only knocks 9 off the total. They can still make it without someone with any focus in items. They could even add more penetration, enough to take on a demon prince. I just used the Verditius to show how much further they could get so easily right after their gauntlets.
No, he's not bullet-proof. I'm just showing how trivial might-stripping is. Now hand around a bunch of these wands to a bunch of others and let them do the dirty work. You can even transfer the power to the bullet-proof guy.
Look, I was only showing how easy it is to make might-stripping stuff. Throwing in all the rest of this argument against what I wrote is really just a pain for me to sort through when it's tangent to what I've shown. I know there are other things that can happen in a game. One of the best adventures I ran involved a faerie of about 10 or 15 Faerie Might going around making trouble in a town working off their belief in a demon. The magi were having so much trouble figuring out what was happening and tracking down the culprit. Once they finally caught up with him they finished him off (dead several times over) with a single pilum of fire (and I think it was multi-cast, but it didn't matter past the first).
I understand that firepower isn't everything. But I have shown that getting any effect you want past high might creatures can be made relatively trivial.
Chris
For a mundane character it is. For a magus who is specialised in PeAn, perhaps the magic wolf is more challenging.
It seems to be no surprise that a character who is good at dealing with magic threats finds it easy to deal with magic threats. ArM5 would be an incredibly stupid game if this wasn't the case.
You are right that one of the reasons that fatal shootings are not that common is that people don't actually carry guns that often.
That is likely true. However, I think you will also will find that most arguments in the real world don't end in murder at all. The reason that there are relatively few fatal shootings is not because most people are killing each other with knives instead. Why is that?
I think that the answer is some combination of:
(Sane) real people have moral qualms about killing on a whim, or indeed about solving problems via violence.
In the real world there are consequences for killing others, either legal or vigilante, which are often (if perhaps unevenly) enforced.
Most real people don't routinuely carry lethal weapons, even though (depending on their jurisdiction) it is relatively easy to acquire some sort of lethal weapon.
I think that many of the problems players/story-guides have with sagas where player characters are good at killing magical critters is that some (or all) of the above are not true of the player characters.
I absolutely agree with that. My character in the saga we are currently playing in is quite good at PeVi. I agree it is easy. However, there are always going to be some flaws with these straegies.
And more importantly, even if the player characters are really good at killing supernatural creatures you can still tell an interesting saga about those characters. It just means that it won't be a saga about characters who are useless at killing supernatural creatures.
I just don't buy this argument that some seem to be making that the game will be better if the player characters are useless (or rather that the game is worse when the player characters are competent). It will just be different. And I know which is more "Mythic".
Oh, I'm right with you there. The story needs to be based on the characters, and the characters need to be based on the saga.
My problem with the Might Score guideline has nothing to do with its existence. It just makes no sense to me in comparison to the others. Look at these two:
PeVi Gen. Reduce the casting total for all magic cast by the target by half the (level of the spell +2 magnitudes)
PeVi Gen. Reduce the Might Pool of the target by the level of the spell +10.
Now compare them to this rewriting of the guideline DEO uses:
PeVi Gen. Reduce the penetration for all magic done by the target by the level +10.
PeVi Gen. Reduce the maximum value of the target's Might Pool (and the pool itself if it is over the new maximum) by the level of the spell +10.
PeVi Gen. Reduce the the magic resistance of the target by the level of the spell +10.
The first guideline is far better than the first earlier one. The second guideline is weaker than the second earlier guideline. The third guideline is as good as the first guideline but in the reverse manner. But these aren't three different guidelines! They're all tied together in a single guideline! Why is this guideline so much more powerful than the others? I would rate it as roughly four times as powerful a guideline as the others. Even reducing its value by destroying the vis doesn't seem balancing. This is why we house-ruled the guideline for DEO to use "half the (level of the spell +2 magnitudes)" instead of "level of the spell +10." That makes it slightly more than twice as powerful as the very first guideline listed above, but it is hampered by vis loss. That seems a lot more balance to us. It doesn't get rid of the problem, but it does mostly fix my problem with the guideline.
Chris
Because the whole point of magic is that it grants power. Power to say, "Actually, your door is in the way. I shall blast it" or "Turn it to dust" or "teleport through it" or "move the lock's innards magically" or "control the mind of the person with the key and make them open it for me." A mundane is nearly totally screwed against a magical creature - a magus can.
Then why are wizards scary at all in your games? If they can't really hurt the peasants but have power over the things preying on the peasants, shouldn't they be welcomed with open arms after the first few centuries or living nearby and making the world a better place, Gift or no?
Mainly because most people are scared of punishment and getting caught. A smaller subset are ruled by morality. Of those who remain, not all have guns with them at all times. Magi are always heavily armed. Magi are also outside the law most of the time, exist in a world where the morality of murder (lawful execution) and the rights of the upper classes are very different from our own, are self-obsessed monomaniacs and are played by gamers. I guarantee that in the real world, if you gave people the ability to make people who offended or irritated them explode messily with no consequences beyond staining, the death rate would skyrocket.
I agree - a fight should be important. And by the RAW, unless the storyguide only throws badgers at you, this is only necessary for the greatest of dragons. There is no middle ground for any magus out of gauntlet. When any magus can effectively instantly kill any and all Might 5 creatures but not an angry ferret then something is off, because power over the mundane world is what magic is.
I'm not arguing that players should be useless. Far from it. I'm arguing that there should be more options, that the options should be in line with their power, and that at the moment, the options are not mythic. Mythic is not, "It's a potent beast so it dies instantly." Mythic is, "We took out the weaker forces without too much difficulty but had to weaken and bind the Wyrm whilst we scraped together the resources to actually destroy it properly." A Might 5 wolf (returning to my old favourite) should not be difficult for magi to destroy. There are dozens of spells between second and fourth magnitude which can be used to damage it. This makes the fact that a first magnitude spell can destroy it all the more glaring. When one option is vastly better in terms of power and is lower level than any other, that to me indicates an issue. Beasts of Virtue are meant to be better then the common herd - as it is, they have a massive weakness which is common knowledge and against which they have no possible recourse. I have once seen a nonPeVi spell cast at a magical creature to kill it - anything else is, until the Might Score is over 35 or 40, slower, more difficult and more dangerous.
The magic wolf should be more challenging. As it stands, the magic wolf is less challenging barring its possessing powers that allow it to escape. The magus' magic resistance makes direct powers by and large fail. If the Might Score is high then the PeAn spells the magus has will work as normal. If the Might Score is low then a spontaneous PeVi will destroy it. And yes, that is more of a challenge. It's a wall with a clearly signposted, unlocked gate. Nine of the Forms start by offering knives and work their way up through pistols and machine guns to, eventually, air-to-surface missiles. Vim starts by giving you a machine gun or net, and then in a supplement gives you a knife which is just as expensive as the machine gun. The net, since it reduces casting totals but not creature powers, only works on humans. In effect, I'm arguing for internal consistency and varied playstyle, rather than requiring conscious self-limitation to avoid the problems presented by facile might-stripping. As an aside, I do wonder what your response will be to my half-written mutterings about ReIm and PeIm to appear here later.