So the question is if Mythic Blood, in the troupe's view, falls within «normally».
And this point is critical. A personality flaw is more flavour than disadvantage, so the real cost of one is a lot less than one point. However, if it means that another personality flaw cannot be taken, the opportunity cost is the full one point.
The consideration is at a higher level than the rules; it is about game play. Thus, the fact that this Personality Flaw is incorporated in a Virtue is completely irrelevant to the question. It may be possible for the character to have three Personality Flaws if they fit together in a way that makes the character interesting rather than annoying, but that depends on the Flaws, not on whether they are part of a Virtue.
I'm in favor of removing the compulsory flaw.
Generally, I do not like flaws built into virtues, except for social status. I would remove compulsory flaw. I would make it suggested and does not count towards personality flaw limits.
To me an extra personality flaw is barely a flaw at all when you already have 4~6 other flaws, so I never though it to be a big deal that it is mandatory when picking the virtue.
I'm in favor of transforming it in a suggestion to pick an aligned personality flaw (or to explicitly say that the personality flaw counts towards your limit and should be balanced by another virtue) if this makes Mythic Blood seem more palatable to others.
You all seem to be forgetting that there are quite a few “Personality flaws” that most definitely do have a mechanical effect (Nocturnal, Noncombatant, Prohibition, Sheltered Upbringing, Weak Willed) or would probably be better as General or Story flaws (Judged Unfairly) because they aren’t about how the character acts but how others act towards them.
Keep the Personality flaw. I doubt its presence by itself has made anyone avoid the Mythic Blood virtue.
Personality flaws have a small enough mechanical effect that I think most who skip over the virtue do so because they don't think the good parts are good enough
True, but the opportunity cost of not taking another personality trait of marginal effect for a full point is, well, worth a full point.
Assuming you would have taken another personality flaw for a full point - which wouldn't always be the case.
You can safely assume that I would ...
And then you could have picked the same personality flaw for a full point instead of a different one.
I agree. I do not see too much cause to change the virtue.
There's certainly not enough consensus here to justify a change. I still think I am going to leave this one alone.
One silly idea: what if instead of granting a Minor Magical Focus, Mythic Blood could grant something not being a mMF but having exactly the same effects and mechanics?
The problem with foci is that wording in the virtues where it says that a Character might have only one Focus regardless of the source. Such a version of Mythic Blood wouldn't indeed be underpowered: it could stack with a Focus (I guess multiplying the lower art by 3, as it happens with these munchkins with a focus and Cthonic Magic), Tremere could have Mythic Blood, and even a small fraction of them, but not all, would be able to get a focus in and finally be good at something.
The question being then the opposite, would that be too overpowered?
I think so, multiplying the lowest art by 3 is really strong.
Regarding the Tremere: since no one in our group was very interested in Certamen, we let our Tremere have a mMF of his choice instead.
In terms of relative power, what if the personality flaw intrinsic to having Mythic blood were instead to become an essential virtue which bears a personality description. So a hypothetical descendant of the incredible hulk would have a +3 str (angry) essential virtue for example.
Or would that be too much?
Yet is something that can already be done in some ways. You can do it for spontaneous magic with Diedne Magic + focus, or in general by getting Chtonic Magic + focus, all for 4-6 virtue points depending of the focus version.
As for the Tremere, no one in our group is interested in anything of them at all, so it is all on me, and I enjoy the idea of them being somehow limited, being as a group of very organised minions relying on cooperation, strategics and machinations to overcome that lack of focus. Yet having some of them with Mythic Blood seems appealing.
Yup.
In my vision, Tremere are weaker, but more than make up by mutual support and specialization, but also by relying on a score of mundane helpers and servants, including minor hedge wizards.
Likewise, being weaker and knowing it, they don't dismiss easily natural magics, especially as it can be done by servants. Being able to drink a Tonic of Gold right after casting a spontaneous spell can be quite a boon.
I agree with both of these, and for NPC them being a swarm of little bullies hiding behind the robes of their elders works just fine. But for the player, we decided to make an exception.
I hope you reconsider. Mythic Blood is far and away the worst major hermetic and essentially unpickable.
Blockquote If the power could be a non-Hermetic effect, that could be valuable, but it can't be.
It says it should be designed as a hermetic effect, it does't say it is limited by hermetic limits nor does it say that it needs to be hermetic in nature. It just says use normal mechanics to design/balance the power.
W