Yeah i know, and to a large extent agree with you as well... But, for Com especially its one of those things where the usefulness beats the downside. Int? You can make up for it with improving your lab help... Sta? Pft, get a few pawns of Vis to burn for any spell that really needs it, or get a book or two extra on Penetration... The other characteristics can be augmented or made irrelevant one way or another.
Warping isnt a huge problem really then. Fact is that this is one reason i´ve run with permanent spells using up a good deal more Vis than by RAW. Make the cost be felt(IIRC last time i had Creo permanent at triple the RAW vis cost(and yes, implying other costs for permanent spells based on other Techs)). And totally not allowing anything but Individual versions of the characteristic boosting spells.
Being rare is why it requires a "Boon" instead of just build points...
Getting VIH is not a big problem either. It is it developing into AIDS that sucks. Getting warping voluntarily would be the same.
I can't recall if the rituals are permanent or year since IMS they do not exist, have not existed and will never exist. IIRC they are permanent and IMS in that case they would beat the limit of essential nature since you are not supposed to be that smart or talkative in the first place.
Xavi
They are permanent and cause 0 or 1 warping depending on if it was customised. Taking 5 warping to raise Com from 0 to +5, totally well worth it.
Ah yes like that poorly written game world the Olympics. Where people are always becoming the best in the world at something. Gold Medals are just lame and unrealistic.
Because when a player plans out their character well, over comes many obstacle, and participates in some great stories while still managing to achieve their goals to the benefit of the saga and their troupe it should mean something. SG's should be careful about trivializing these accomplishments by creating NPCs who overshadow an experienced PC's well earned expertise in a specialty.
When you think about the extreme levels of talent, dedication, and experience represented by raw NUMBERS it's unrealistic for me to assume that there are many elder magi in the setting that actually share specialties. The system is to flexible and the talent pool of the order as a whole is to small. When two Arch Magi share the same collection of virtues flaws forms and techniques but one is just a little bit better then the other that seems artificial to me.
And if the only people who could EVER be part of the olympics were player characters ONLY, exactly how ridiculous would that look? Hmm?
Why would it mean less just because there MIGHT be others SOMEWHERE who MAY be able to achieve the same, possibly more easily... Exactly how does that remove anything from the players who actually DID it?
And the point being? Yes its unlikely you would find 2 of similar skill so exactly the same, but why would you find such? Where exactly have i said anything about how you really should go copy a player character and then add a bit to it?
You said its fine to let player characters become badasses of the world, FINE says I, I just wonder why you would want ONLY player characters to belong to that category? And based on that you come up with the assumption that any NPC badass MUST be nearidentical but better than a PC?
That´s so ridiculous i´m having problems replying, epic fail.
Because the saga is about the player characters?
Having said that I don't think that there is intentionally anything open to player characters that isn't also open to non-player characters. Afterall, non-player characters are just player characters, but controlled by the player labelled 'storyguide'. The rules don't really make any distinction between which player is 'controlling' a character.
Of course, just because the 'non-player characters' have the same opportunity to do something it doesn't mean that they necessarily have taken that opportunity. In a particular saga, the player characters can be the first to do something, but they are certainly not likely to be the first to do everything.
It's when PC's casually surpass the greatest Hermetic personages that belief starts to get soft around the edges, for me at least. Apprentices fresh out of gauntlet who can outshine Archmagi... yeah, well...
The reason xp got changed was to prevent "adventuring" concepts for magi characters from dominating over "bookworm" and "labrat" concepts. I think the authors might have gone a bit overboard, and "over-fixed" the problem, but that's not hard to re-balance for your Saga.
Also, Player Characters tend to religiously seek (and SG's tend to grant) the very best books possible in canon, so any game-balance envisioned by the authors there may have left with that same train.
Bottom line is this - if a person can learn X in a season, if the human(ish?) mind is capable of absorbing that X amount in that limited time, then it shouldn't (much) matter whether that X amount of learning comes from dragon slaying or studying the best book in Europe or studying under the best teacher, or what. X = X, more or less, or should come close. If you're doing that, then you're fine - if not, then maybe xp needs tweaking in your saga.
Happy to see you back here, C-Hound!
I agree with maine75man. The crucial aspect of that particular major boon is that the covenant is the sole owner of the book, and they may do with is as they please. In particular, they may trade copies of it under a "do not copy and do not give away" agreement to other covenants -- and if the trade is for other books of similar value under the same conditions, with a few dozen trades a covenant can set up a pretty respectable library.
The description of the the Boon isnt nearly so specific, but its not really important as my suggestion was only an example of how an SG COULD handle it. Since im not really bothered by having a few extra powerful items or whatever around...
That argument makes much less sense if you actually take a moment to really look at what it means...
For one thing, you´re basically moving the game into the "superhero" genre instead of fantasy.
Secondly, how are you going to come up with opposition, or potential "big bads" if their powers are capped by that of the player characters?
3rd, its extremely unrealistic.
4th its an "author fiat" approach.
And again, the game itself actually makes it utterly impossible to clearly say who is surpassing who!
A specialist illusion+simple&effective attack spell magi is generally able to assasinate almost any magi they set their sights on, that doesnt mean such a magi is the most powerful or useful there is or that s/he has surpassed all other.
And while having 60-70 in an Art is a very neat achievement and potentially superb for writing books, it also means the character has seriously neglected other stuff, and while highly unlikely that another magi will surpass this one in the speciality art, MOST other magi of equal age are likely far more useful overall.
So who is the one surpassing who?
So then, what if the players prioritise something "else"? Does that mean that there still cant be any big and powerful NPCs around? If the PCs focus on social Abilities and noone goes above 10 in an Art, where do you set your artificial limit for NPCs?
Sorry but no, i refuse to set such limits. If the players wants to surpass everyone else in any game i was involved in making, they will have to work HARD, because unless there´s specific reasons against it, i will have the environment filled with a MIX of NPCs, from silly weak to horribly powerful and not seldomly people who are both at the same time.
But a superpowerful 300 year old NPC magi isnt exactly likely to run up and take over the spotlight from the PCs...
S/he might be convinced to give support however... Surprisingly, an idea suggested by the core rulebook even...
And that´s exactly what i said previously, it doesnt matter if there is another dozen or a hundred thousand other people who COULD do something if the player character(s) is the one who DID do it.
That´s when it gets really silly yes.
Yeah...
Because a storyguide has to put in a lot less work to create such a character then a player does. Upstaging a long played PC in such a way is just rude.
Admittedly you didn't say anything like that, but in the simplified world of an RPG there are usually only a few ways of achieving high levels in a specific specialty. (Like for instance writing very high level Summa.) So once a PC has been played long enough to achieve those goals any NPC that does as well or better is either going to look very similar or take advantage of an equally implausible set of advantages.
My experience is that many players, particularly ArM players, often have the goal of having their characters become the best at what they do. The storyguide/troupe should be aware of this desire, and make this goal achievable, not continually move the finish line as characters approach it. Nor should they make goals unachievable by creating fiat characters who have set the goals beyond the reach of any player character.
I've always seen Ars straddling those two genre's more then a little.
Well magi aren't always the antagonists of the stories. Also good stories should vary between highlighting characters strengths and weaknesses. Even a senior magi is going to have areas the opposition can surpass them in without taking away from his achievements.
I completely disagree on both of those points, I'll get to that in a second.
See I don't disagree with any of that. First off I always have been mostly speaking of more specific accomplishments (like writing the greatest summa possible fer-instance) rather then general power level. However no matter which your talking about a Realistic setting is going to have far less uber-powerful characters then weak or even average characters. The population as a whole is going to have a pyramid like distribution with numerous weaker examples on the bottom and the top populated but a few powerhouses. Any other distribution of power would seem artificial. First because not all Magi have the talent or drive to achieve such high levels, second because there is an attrition rate amongst those who do. So in a game world there is nothing artificial about imagining only a small number of Magi at the top of this pyramid.
Realistically as the characters grow in power they will move up the pyramid. At each level they will have fewer and fewer peers. In turn the NPC population of inferiors will seem larger and the number of superiors will shrink. When they finally reach the top levels there will be very few people who can match them. If the SGs keeps adding Magi on the top of the pyramid or allow a large number of the PC's peers to keep up with them THEN that seems like far more of an Authors Fiat then allowing the PC's to EVENTUALLY reach the top of the pyramid.
Damn i knew i should have kept the part about that in my reply...
Oh well, once again(even if i never posted it the first time):
Simple fact: Rituals for raising Characteristics are relatively easy or at least not really hard, so anyone wanting to get Com+5 enough, can always get it. Poof, we´re already reaching Q22 without anything implausible at all.
2nd, through another part of RAW, initiating minor virtues isnt very hard(according to me, this is one of THE most abused, and especially most easily abused rules you can find). And, Good Teacher is such a valuable and useful virtue that it is extraordinarily common among player characters anyway(higher quality tractatus can be traded at a much higher price just as one example)... Either way it´s very much not implausible for someone intent on writing the best ever book about X, to get these advantages.
3rd, when looking at books, we are NOT looking at a snapshot of what has the current generation produced, we´re looking at what books has come about through the whole history of the order. Not all that far from half a century by the regular game era.
You´re argument is that, noone before has ever reached the same level, noone afterwards ever will.
SGs normally create NPCs based on flavour, if a player character cant beat them then they´re not worth the fame.
But again, you´re looking at it on a metagamer basis. So what if another mage might have higher Creo than your superduper Creospecialist or a higher CrIg total, the characters doesnt know the exact NUMBERS anyway.
And as i said before, the exact numbers isnt what counts, it´s how you use them.
AM is even more in this direction than many RPGs, its great to have big funky numbers on the character sheet, but if you use them poorly, you still loose. You can have a character with less than half those supergreat numbers and still kick serious booty.
That just sets up the players so that they KNOW that there are never ANY potential enemies, neutrals nor allies that are stronger than they are. A, thats exceptionally boring and B, any halfdecent player is going to exploit that.
By what you have said yourself, thats not allowed because then they´re upstaging the characters and thats being rude.
That is incorrect. It depends completely on how you set the variables of the world you place your game in.
If for example books are overall plentiful and magi tends to have plenty enough time to study, then you will have a big almost gap between apprentices of different level at the low parts of the pyramid while the level one or a few jumps up will have lots and lots of people.
Again though, this is only true as long as the magi also develop spells evenly along with their raw scores in the Arts.
Oh that´s potentially totally realistic yes. That the "top of the pyramid" is made out of PCs only however, that´s when it becomes utterly laughable unless they´re among the oldest magi left living, and excepting that you had the order decimated for some reason, or have managed to stick to a game for hundreds of gameyears, that´s just not probable at all.
That assumes that NOONE else does anything remotely the same as the PCs. Highly unlikely. It also assumes that the PCs are better at getting stronger than everybody else, also highly unlikely. It also assumes that those at the top, or closer to it than the PCs at start, are completely static and never improves! Extremely unlikely.
And who ever said anything about adding magi at the top?
As i said before, when i set up a background, i mix, depending on the size of area, there can be anything from the just opened apprentice up to the 300+ year old guy who is a walking library, or quite possibly a walking planetkiller depending on his preference.
You think i will make that 300y oldie so damned poorly that PCs can overtake him in just decades?
Or that the mage who is 150y at start of a game doesnt improve at all after another 100 years?
Why? Look at real life, you can always find someone who is better than you in something as long as you look at discrete skills. And again the fact that there ARE NPCs with bigger numbers in a game doesnt mean they have done or will do the same things the PCs will, or try. Why is that "upstaging"? If the players are smart, they try to take advantage of any NPCs with big sticks, as long as the SG is smart, that either isnt easy or doesnt become an "I WIN" button.
Probably not.
So how many season not improving other abilities needed to write the book do those spells take up.
Sure but it still takes seasons and study and stories that take away from other activities needed to reach the goal.
You do realize we are talking about a living talent pool of 1200 living members. Even taking into account all magi who ever lived over the history of the order your not talking about huge numbers of people. Also If your being realistic in any skill like Hermetic Magic that's based on study and research modern practitioners are going to be better then their antecedents because they will have learned from them. So for a magi living 400 years ago to have written a book better then the current expert it would actually be a greater achievement.
No my point is that the game exists for the players. That players should be rewarded for the work they put into the game and if they play the game long enough and well enough they should be able to achieve the goals they have for their characters. What happens after the game is over is a moot point because it nothing happens after a game ends.
Wow lets be clear about this. This whole discussion started because you said that at the start of a saga a Major boon should
To wit I responded with
In that case we are talking about exact numbers. Writing books is a simple equation you can't write better because you roleplay well or make better tactical choices. You even seem to suggest that books should be available that are entirely beyond the reach of any PC to write. When you say the limit should be no lower then the RAW maximum that is what it sounds like.
To be continued...
You have a very poor understanding of the superhero genre as it pertains to RPG's if you come to that conclusion.
No if you read what I said I believe I made it clear that it's rude to present an NPC who is better at the PC's chosen speicialty AFTER the player has put TONS of hard work into the characters development. I am talking about ELDER MAGI who have achieved preeminence in a field after long hard play.
The slope of the pyramid will vary depending on how you set such things at the start of your saga yes, but unless the PC's do something game changing the distribution shouldn't change much during the saga. As the PC's increase in power over time they should move into higher tiers of the pyramid, but they should be filling slots emptied by NPC's that have either moved up via advancement or out via attrition.
All I'm saying is If there are about 10 magi filling the top of the pyramid at the start of the game and IF 5 PC's make it to the top then there shouldn't be 15 including them when they get there.
Well games often don't last long enough for players to achieve Elder Magi levels, but I was only ever talking about the potential in the ones that do. However the age of the NPC's in the saga should be limited to mayby slightly less then the maximum of what a PC could to achieve if he plays long enough. By "could" I mean with normal aging rolls and realistic amounts of warping and twilight, no centuries old characters who just happen to ace all there rolls.
.
Actually it assumes that the PC's are exactly the same as the NPC's who went before them. If 100 magi achieve a certain level of power then when the PC's hit that level there will still be only about 100 their including them. At the level that there are only 50 then their will still be only about 50, and so on and so on. Granted in my games these number would swell ever so slightly because hermetic magic is also improving but the principle holds. The basic power distribution will stay the same, attrition will knock NPCs out of power structure the same as it did to achieve the distribution the saga started with. Some of this will happen "on screen" but most of the time it will occur 'off screen".
If the power distribution is significantly different at the end of the saga then at the beginning of the saga characters have been added somewhere. Either by changing the attrition or advancement rate or just saying "Ah ha you never knew about the secret masters who never showed up before and don't have to make aging rolls."
I don't believe either of those things, but if the PC's make it to be 150 years old the former character should be long gone and you better have a damn good reason for the latter character to be around. And the PC's should have the same means available to them to keep going another 150 years.
To quote Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic park "Because it took no discipline to achieve it".
We are not just talking about the achievements of the characters but of the players. To the player the character itself is an accomplishment. Making a character that outshines a PC where that PC shines is trivially easy for a storyguide. In early and mid parts of a saga this is ok, even expected it gives the player a view of what their character will eventually become (Provided the SG hasn't stretched the rules and presented a character the PC can never become). As the character advances in power those who surpass him should be rarer and rarer. At some point the appearance of an NPC that reliably outshines a PC in his specialty becomes so unlikely as to stretch suspension of disbelief. Worse still the SG is taking some of the spotlight off the Player's well earned accomplishment (or destroying it completely in the case of something like writing the best Summa available) without having to put in the same work the player put in.
Well it's not a competition. Players should play half for themselves and half for everyone else at the table. For SG's it's usually more like one quarter for themselves. And the SG is the only one with an I Win button they should just never use it.
Depends on the player. There are plenty of players who consider the achievements of the character to be the interesting accomplishment, with the numbers on the sheet just being a means to an end. Which is why, for them, it doesn't matter if some NPC could theoretically could have created similar spells. After all, the NPC didn't do it, they did. It was their story.
Of course, if you have an asshole for a SG, even having superior numbers won't be enough to protect you from Deus Ex Machina NPCs, but the solution to that is extremely simple.
About that...
- See Xavi's excellent point above. This is all-too often forgotten on this board.
- I think this may be a mileage issue. On the frequency and availability of initiations, both in general and for that specific virtue, but also on the frequency of the Good Teacher virtue. I may be wrong, but I don't recall it being that frequent in published characters, nor on characters on these boards.
- Good point. Note, though, that there's a precedent: I don't recall the names, but in covenants, when speaking about the best books ever written on the arts, they left a number out specifically to potentially allow PCs to write them.
I doubt no one here will say there aren't ever any powerful magi, more powerful in, say, ignem than a PC, especially at earlier stages. If you've got Ignem 4, it is unrealistic to think no one will be better. But, conversely, if you've got Ignem 40, it is unrealistic to assume you won't be one of the top dogs (although this number may vary with the sagas, of course...). I think everyone will agree on that?
The problem comes with writing books, in that there's an actual limit on the max quality you can write, so, either you assume that there are a bunch of "best authors ever" out there that reached that maximum, or you leave the few lasts steps for the PCs to reach. Note also that, even given similar stats, not everyone will be decicated enough.
Is it such a big deal if the best Ignem book ever written was (Best possible quality by all the rules -1, -2, or even -3), so that a incredibly talented, experimented, genial and dedicated PC can write the (Best possible quality by all the rules) Ignem book? Is this so unrealistic?
This, IMO, is more a mileage issue than one of realism or else, especially given the variability of point 1 and 2 above: As far as I understand it, in your campain, because if these, Com + 5 Good teacher magi are relatively common (so awesome books should be too, and their absence would be strange), which isn't the case everywhere.
Not so great a deal, once you recognise that.
Just FYI, we removed summae from our saga. Everything is a tractatus or an authority (authorities being level 8 tractatus that can be read over and over again). Authorities cost 100 points to write and require a score of 8 in a skill or 30 in an art. So they are time consuming, but not much more than that. Removes most of the mathematics of character construction.
All books have +1Q if they are well bound AND illustrated and +1Q if they are resonant.
This thread just convinced me that we did a good thing here.
Cheers,
Xavi
I think you missed part of the main point here, that you´re paying a MAJOR Boon, for a book that isnt really impressive at all. Max combined Q+L is just 35! That means even if you COULD take Q 28(ie maxed out), that would give you the lowest possible level, 7, that can make use of that Q.
If you mean about warping, i cant really agree. IIRC, each stat raising Ritual gives 1 point of warping... Unless you go on a spree and try to max out ALL stats, that´s plenty well worth it really(well with the exception if you´re playing a warping sensitive character of course). It´s one of the reasons i made Permanent rituals cost more Vis.
Oh you´re perfectly right about that, but once someone realise how useful it is, it tends to get much more popular very fast.
Totally. It´s the concept of artificially limiting this, so as to not "upstage" PCs, that makes no sense.
NPCs will mostly be in the background and will very likely not be doing anything similar to the PCs so wether they CAN "upstage" the PCs, well who cares?
Oh but i never did say anything about how all the top spots should be filled already. My point was that if you have to pay a Major Boon to get it, the book REALLY SHOULD be top notch. Not something that i can overtake in a few decades with most characters.
If we use max Com without GT, that means a max write Q of 22...
With a Q of 22, the highest L the Boon book can have is 13. 13+11=24 meaning Art score of 48. High but certainly not unreachable. With an Affinity thats around 800XP. I can easily reach that in less than 3 decades of play unless the SG is grouchy or the game background is low on resources for some reason.
So, even without GT, i can still outdo "the finest summa ever written on one art" in a few decades with a character with very few "must haves".
Adding GT back in, the needed XP drops by around 200.
Also keep in mind that this is using RAW, basic rules for writing and a how someone has already posted about how high they could push Q if they really exploited all rules...
If it was a Minor Boon and ~"one of the better..." then it wouldnt be so exceedingly lame...
"Best ever" should at least have the potential to be maxed out in Q... So change the Major to limits of 28Q/25L and total 40 and things look a lot better. That´s a Major Boon worth the trouble.
Not at all. The problem is that you CANT have something that your PCs CAN write after a few decades of hard dedication. And that by default noone else ever exceeded the limits. That makes it look ridiculous.
Not exactly "common", but you only need ONE to take it to the extreme to "break reality"...
I would rather say something like "rare but not unheard of".
However, i pretty much havent played by RAW since first game. And by HR, permanent rituals cost far more Vis and initiating virtues is more involved, while at the same time, characters can simply spend a lot more time when writing books to get higher Q. So, stat raising rituals isnt used by everyone all the time, and i´m not sure if i´ve seen ANYONE actually even try to max out book Q under my HR. Of course, if someone DID try that...
Mmm, at triple(?IIRC, might be more though) the time, someone with Art 40 could add 19 to Q... :mrgreen: