On the (im)balance of Hermetic Flaws

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

A large fraction of Hermetic Flaws such as Slow Caster, Incompatible Arts or Waster of Vis limit a magus' ability to learn or perform Hermetic Magic; for brevity I'll call these Power Flaws. Note that Hermetic Flaws such as Blatant Gift, Infamous Master, or Difficult Longevity Potion are not Power Flaws.

It seems to me that - particularly in the case of "legacy" Flaws from previous editions - several Power Flaws are significantly unbalanced. This post is an attempt to look at all such Flaws in a common framework to get a rough sense of their relative balance (nothing more precise is really possible, given that saga-specific elements have balance impact too). Comments are highly welcome, in part because this has turned into a much more massive undertaking than I had anticipated, and it's almost certain I got something wrong - including contradicting myself!

Roughly speaking, any Power Flaw has two broad characteristics: Breadth (how often it applies) and Depth (how limiting it is when it does apply). Ideally, Flaws with the same Breadth and Depth should be equally priced, and for the same price increasing one parameter should decrease the other.

I'll very roughly class Breadth as:
Universal: most or all of the Magus' magic. E.g. Waster of Vis, Cyclic Magic.
Wide: a significant minority of the magus' magic. E.g. all Spontaneous Magic, or all Formulaic Magic, or all Ritual Magic (this is probably not-quite-that-Wide) or all Enchanted Devices (this is probably WideR).
Narrow: a very restricted set of circumstances. E.g. Restriction, Necessary Condition, or Incompatible Arts. No Familiar would also qualify. Difficult Spontaneous magic, or a Flaw affecting the creation of Lesser Enchanted Devices are probably a bit broader than this; Certamen or Talismans probably a bit narrower.

I'll very roughly class Depth as:
Crippling: enough to cripple a magus in that type of magic endeavours: e.g. no Familiar.
Mild: enough to occasionally reduce the effectiveness of the magic, but not enough to discourage its use. E.g. Poor Formulaic magic (a -5 penalty).
Note that there's a sharp discontinuity between Mild and Crippling: this reflects the fact that, if the penalty for practicing a particular type of magic is very serious, a magus will probably shy away from it altogether, almost as it that type of magic where completely off limits. For example, Unstructured caster effectively makes Formulaic spells off limits. And while a Weak Enchanter may enchant his talisman, he's unlikely to enchant anything else; so in this sense, Weak Enchanter is about on par with a (in my opinion better) Flaw that stated "You can't create enchanted devices other than your Talisman".

Obviously most Power Flaws do not fit neatly at one level - most are somewhere between two levels; furthermore, people may have slight disagreements about the actual Breadth and Depth. But I still think this rough framework is useful to identify glaring imbalances. Very, very roughly speaking, it seems to me that:

  • Mild Flaws should be Minor if Wide, Major if Universal (Mild, Narrow Flaws are too weak to count as Flaws in isolation, though they may be used to adjust the value another Virtue or Flaw).

  • Crippling Flaws should be Minor Flaws if Narrow, Major Flaws if Wide. A Universal Crippling Flaw should be worth two Major Flaws or more.

Going through the corebook, this is what I get, based on 1. my own long experience, though there are some Flaws I confess never having seen in play 2. direct comparison between "close" Flaws, e.g. Deficient Form vs. Deficient Technique and 3. the framework above. In a nutshell:
a) Chaotic Magic, Deficient Technique, Flawed Parma Magica, Limited Magic Resistance, Loose Magic, Magic Addiction, Study Requirement, Twilight Prone, Weak Magic Resistance, Weak Spontaneous Magic are too weak (as are Necessary Condition, Restriction, and Unimaginative Learner unless the SG actively works to make them come into play very often);
b) Difficult Spontaneous Magic, Rigid Magic, Unpredictable Magic, Unstructured Caster, Weak Enchanter are too harsh;
c) Everything else appears more or less balanced, though some Flaws are a tad milder and some a tad harsher than others - and Incompatible Arts and Weird Magic are not entirely clear and should be clarified.

Careless Sorcerer. Breadth: between Wide and Universal. Depth: Mild. Balanced, perhaps a little weak as a Minor FLaw.

Chaotic Magic. Breadth: Narrow or a bit broader. Depth: from Mild to Crippling depending on how evil the SG is. Unbalanced, this is too weak as a Major Flaw and should be Minor. Note that it's strictly weaker than Weak Spontaneous Magic (itself a weak Major Flaw) because if you simply refrain from casting Fatiguing Spontaneous magic then Chaotic Magic never comes into play.

Clumsy Magic. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: Mild. Note that the big deal here is not the trouble with aiming rolls, it's the -3 with any roll involving Finesse. Balanced, maybe a little harsh for a Minor Flaw.

Creative Block. Breadth: Wide. Depth: Minor. Balanced, perhaps a little weak as a Minor Flaw.

Cyclic Magic (Negative). Breadth: Universal. Depth: very Mild. A bit harsh as Minor Flaw, even if someone "games" it (e.g. making it seasonal, and trying to concentrate delicate magic use in the seasons it's not in play).

Deficient Form. Breadth: between Narrow and Wide. Depth: certainly not Mild, but not quite Crippling (you still have access to useful low-level effects in the Art). Surprisingly Balanced as a Minor Flaw in my experiece. Compare with Deficient Technique and Incompatible Arts.

Deficient Technique. Breadth: Wide. Depth: certainly not Mild, but not quite Crippling. Unbalanced, too weak as a Major Flaw, if Deficient Form is balanced (on the basis that losing a Technique is about twice as harsh as losing a Form). A better solution would have been to have a single, Minor, Deficient Art Flaw, to be taken once to affect a Form and twice to affect a Technique.

Deleterious Circumstances. Breadth: Narrow, unless the SG goes out of his way to artificially broaden it. Depth: certainly not Mild, but not quite Crippling (you still have access to useful low-level effects). Balanced, possibly even a little weak as a Minor Flaw, though an evil SG can make it worth a Major Flaw.

Difficult Spontaneous Magic. Breadth: a bit broader than Narrow, though not quite Wide - basically it's half of all Spontaneous Magic. Depth: Crippling. Harsh as a Minor Flaw, possibly worth two Minor Flaws. Note that Weak Spontaneous Magic, that cripples "the other half" of Spontaneous magic, is a (weak) Major Flaw.

Disjointed Magic. Breadth: Wide? Depth: Mild. A little weak even for a Minor Flaw.

Disorientating Magic. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: exceedingly Mild. A little weak even for a Minor Flaw; it's strictly weaker than Slow Caster. I'd probably increase the penalty to two rounds.

Flawed Parma Magica. Breadth: (Very) Narrow. Depth: not Mild, but certainly not Crippling. Unbalanced, definitely weak as a Minor Flaw, unless the SG goes out of his way to confront you with powerful mystical opponents focusing on the single Form your Parma is deficient in. I'd either broaden it to 2-3 Forms, or increase depth to "0 MR, full stop" (effectively combining it with Limited Magic Resistance).

Incompatible Arts. Breadth: Narrow. Depth: Crippling. Balanced as a Minor Flaw, perhaps a little weak. Compare with Deficient Form, that seriously hampers, but does not remove, access to a Form (rather than to 40% of it). In fact, I'd consider it balanced even if one or both the Forms were Corpus/Vim. However, it should be clarified: do requisites count? I.e. can a magus cast a MuCo(An) spell if Muto is Incompatible with Animal and Herbam (but not Corpus)? If requisites count for incompatibility, Incompatible Arts becomes harsher, but I think still relatively balanced.

Limited Magic Resistance. Breadth: (Very) Narrow. Depth: certainly not Crippling. Unbalanced: definitely weak as a Minor Flaw, even slightly weaker than Flawed Parma Magica.

Loose Magic. Breadth: (Very) Narrow (spells that you may want to master). Depth: certainly not Crippling, since it at most doubles the time a magus needs to master spells, which for most magi is not that much anyway. Unbalanced: definitely weak as a Minor Flaw, I'd probably up it to "You can't master spells".

Magic Addiction. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: Mild-ish, the reason being that with proper preparation this Flaw can be controlled without too serious consequences. Unbalanced: I'd consider it a challenging Minor Flaw.

Necessary Condition. Breadth: Narrow. Depth: Crippling. Unbalanced: this should be a Minor Flaw unless the SG goes out of his way to create implausibly common difficulties to the character.

Painful Magic. Breadth: Universal. Depth: maybe not quite Crippling, but definitely harsher than Mild. Unless you heavily roleplay "if magic is pain, my magus tries to avoid casting magic as much as possible", this is the big brother of Disorienting Magic.
I think it's a bit harsh even as a Major Flaw - I'd reduce the penalty and duration of the pain, or stipulate that you gain it only when you exert yourself enough to lose a Fatigue Level - but there are far worse offenders.

Poor Formulaic Magic. Breadth: on the broad side of Wide. Depth: on the strong side of Mild. Balanced for a Minor Flaw.

Restriction. Breadth: Narrow. Depth: Crippling. Breadth: Narrow. Depth: Crippling. Unbalanced: this should be a Minor Flaw unless the SG goes out of his way to create implausibly common difficulties to the character (see Necessary Condition for exactly the same issue: the two Flaws are balanced with each other).

Rigid Magic. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: Crippling at Wide breadth, Mild at Universal breadth. I'd call this a bit too harsh for a Major Flaw: I'd probably split it into a Major Flaw disallowing Rituals (Wide and Crippling), and a Minor Flaw disallowing "vis boosting" of spells (Universal and Mild).

Short-Lived Magic. Breadth: Universal. Depth: Mild. Balanced for a Minor Flaw.

Short-Ranged Magic. Breadth: on the broad side of Wide. Depth: on the weak side of Crippling.
Balanced as a Major Flaw.

Slow Caster. Breadth: between Wide and Universal. Depth: Mild. I find it on the weak side of a Minor Flaw (see Disorientating Magic, which is weaker still).

Study Requirement. Breadth: Universal. Depth: Hmmm, probably Mild, except at the highest Art levels ... when it's still Mild for an archmage. I find this a weak Major Flaw, though it's probably too strong for a Minor Flaw. I'd probably have a Minor Flaw that provides a -3 penalty to the Study total in the absence of the required material, and if taken twice makes study impossible (as per current Study Requirement).

Twilight Prone. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: on the harsh side of Mild. I find this Unbalanced, too weak as a Major Flaw, and would consider it a harsh, but not unreasonable Minor Flaw. The key is that, like Magic Addiction, a magus can take precautions to minimize its impact.

Unimaginative Learner. Breadth: Narrowish, except in some sagas where it's Wide. Depth: on the harsh side of Mild. I find this Unbalanced, too weak even as a Minor Flaw, unless in a book-poor, vis-rich saga.

Unpredictable Magic. Breadth: Universal. Depth: not quite Crippling, but definitely harsher than Mild. I find this Unbalanced, too harsh as a Minor Flaw. While it may be a bit weak as a Major Flaw, I'd say it's certainly worth two Minors; it's definitely harsher than Weird Magic no matter how you interpret it.

Unstructured Caster. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: Crippling. Unbalanced, far too harsh even as a Major Flaw. I'd say it's worth at least two Major Flaws: one making Rituals impossible, the other making Formulaic magic impossible. Note that if you pile together Unstructured Caster, Rigid Caster, and Poor Formulaic Magic, you are probably getting a fair return for your 7 Flaw points, because they overlap so much... but I think a better design would be to make them less harsh and more independent.

Warped Magic. Breadth: Universal. Depth: Mild. Probably balanced as a Minor Flaw (from the examples given), strongly dependent on the SG.

Waster of Vis. Breadth: Universal. Depth: harsher than Mild, not quite Crippling. Probably balanced as a Major Flaw.

Weak Enchanter. Breadth: Wide. Depth: almost-though-not-quite Crippling. Unbalanced, too harsh as a Minor Flaw. There's relatively little difference in effect between not being able to enchant devices at all, and being able to enchant them at half-lab-total: you are almost always better off asking someone else to do it for you. I'd probably change it into a Major Flaw, that forbids the enchantment of any item other than a magus' own talisman.

Weak Magic Resistance. Breadth: Narrow. Depth: between mild and crippling. Unbalanced, too weak for a Major Flaw. I think it would be a fine Minor Flaw.

Weak Parens. Breadth: Universal. Depth: not-so-Mild in short-running saga, exceedingly Mild in a long-running one. Overall balanced as a Minor Flaw (though Ovarwa has repeatedly made a very good point: all Virtues and Flaws should affect a PC both at character creation, and over time afterwards).

Weak Spontaneous Magic. Breadth: Wide. Depth: almost-but-not-quite-crippling. I find this too weak for a Major Flaw; it's on par with Difficult Spontaneous Magic - which cripples "the other half" of spontaneous magic (and is too weak for a Minor). I think each is worth about two Minors, so taken in combination they are balanced, but individually they are not.

Weird Magic. Breadth: Wide to Universal. Depth: Mild? This probably needs clarifying: if the results of a botch on the extra die are never really dangerous, this is probably too mild even for a Minor Flaw. However, if the botch always means failure at the main task (even when failing is dangerous, e.g. on a fast-cast defense), and/or if it grants the "usual" Warping point, it's probably harsh for a Minor Flaw.

4 Likes
2

I agree with nearly everything.

The effect of some flaws also very dependent on the saga and the threats, as you've mentioned.

If the magi constantly encounter serious threats, an inability to spont cast defence is risky, making slow caster a big flaw. Same with disorientating magic. An inability to throw multiple spells in succession is a problem when reacting to threats.

I agree controllable major flaws need a decent think.

Magic addiction - a magi just spend 5 XP to master a highish level formulaic they can cast with no fatigue loss, it's never a problem. The follow up spell should always involve a stress roll, so there's a risk of botches and warping points
.
Chaotic Magic - as you said, never spont with a die roll. Divide 5 sponts should gave a chance of going chaotic. Roll a d10, on 0 chaotic. Otherwise it's "Weak spontaneous magic" with benefits....

Twilight prone - Anyone with flawless magic and Cautious sorcerer, this is pretty much a "free" major flaw. Something like any spell the magi casts without botch dice roll a separate twilight dice. If 0 is rolled twice in a row, twilight is triggered would be better.

Some flaws depend on the capacity to sub-contract or delegate.

Rigid magic - unless it is a ridiculously high vis game, I don't think spell boosting is done much. The magi doesn't do rituals, no problem. Often the rituals, such as aegis, etc, are given to the rituals guy. If the magi gets wizards communion, they can still help out. I think it's not that harsh.

Weak enchanter - Someone not thinking of enchanting chooses this. However, if the saga goes for a while, it is harshly locking off a character option with a minor flaw. I think -5 would be better, or as you said, can't enchant at all and it's major.

3 Likes
3

At first I had that nagging feeling that OP's project was futile; then @Fishy explained where that feeling came from. Sagas and play styles are simply to diverse to rank flaws on a one-dimensional scale. For virtually every flaw one can come up with a case (saga and character concept) where it hardly matters. The real challenge is to use them to make a concept worth playing, neither too crippling nor too insignificant.

OK. I do have some bad experience with painful magic, when urban Jerbiton with little interest in combat found himself as sole magus in combat in the wilderness. I don't think that says so much about painful magic as a flaw. It just says that there are some magi who should not adventure without more battle worthy company. So what?

I guess this is why 5ed introduced minor and major, abandoning arbitrary point scores. There would always be a saga where a given score would be unbalanced, so better keep it simple and coarse-grained. There is no such thing (any more) as a two-minor flaw.

4 Likes
4

Painful magic is another good example of "depends on the story guide". The player may be thinking I cast a spell, I wait 2 minutes, all good. In extreme situation I can cast a bunch of spells in a row, and recover over a few days. It's a tolerable flaw.

The SG may say "remember your character is feeling pain to such a degree that it takes about 2 minutes to get over it. Imagine something like stubbing your toe hard, or something else painful, and willfully repeatedly doing that. You just wouldn't. Your character only cast spells when it's important."

This also ties in to something I wrote in my first post, but then chose to delete as it was already a tad overlong. Certain flaws are so damning when triggered such as deleterious circumstances, necessary condition and restriction (or painful magic in a combat situation), that it's sort of the player stating "I dare you to create a situation to mess up my character".

1 Like
5

I don't think I really understand the OP. Consider these:

Deficient Technique . Breadth: Wide. Depth: certainly not Mild, but not quite Crippling. Unbalanced, too weak as a Major Flaw.

Short-Ranged Magic . Breadth: on the broad side of Wide. Depth: on the weak side of Crippling.
Balanced as a Major Flaw.

Weak Spontaneous Magic . Breadth: Wide. Depth: almost-but-not-quite-crippling. I find this too weak for a Major Flaw

These are being rated nearly the same in breadth and depth, though not quite the same. One is balanced as a Major Flaw and ones too weak. But there are only 2 levels to use: Minor Flaw v. Major Flaw. There is no way every Flaw is going to match every other one at the same Minor/Major level perfectly. I don't understand what is being done if these aren't considered nearly perfectly matched with each other as Major Flaws, especially as it looks like there are only 3 Major Flaws that have been labeled as balanced.

I feel like we're forgetting that there used to not be just Minor/Major, but values from something like ±1 to ±6 for Virtues and Flaws. But a big goal of ArM5 was to cut back on all those various values to just have the simpler Minor/Major.

Now, as far as looking into details of things in a handy way to figure out what one might find acceptable, I think the analysis is great. I disagree on some (e.g. I find Twilight Prone to be really harsh.), but pointing out the breadth and depth is handy.

1 Like
6

The issue here is that most magi can most of the times avoid wading into fast-paced, dangerous situations (that's what grogs are for!); and even those who regularly do have many options to "get around" the speed limit: enchanted devices, ReVi containers for pre-cast defenses, outside help such as summoned spirits or fellow magi. That's why I think Slow Caster is ok for a Minor, perhaps a bit on the weak side. It's mild because you can easily get around it. I think that Disorientating Magic is strictly weaker than Slow Caster, because it does not really affect your "first reaction" spell, only the subsequent ones.

I agree, -5 (in line with Poor Formulaic Magic) would be a balanced option to keep it Minor.

Right, but with such nihilistic approach one might say there's no point assigning Flaws a Minor or Major label - or even a Flaw point total to a character. The issue is that, for most sagas and characters, one can get a rough sense of where a Flaw (or a Virtue) stands in relation to others.

Ok. The OP was motivated by the fact that some Flaws looked to me significantly harsher, or milder, than other with the same price. Unstructured Caster (you lose essentially all access to Formulaic and Ritual magic) looked to me far harsher than Weak Magic Resistance (if you are wet, anyone casting a high level effect on you gets a significant bonus to Penetration). They are not even close, even at the coarse granularity offered by ArM5.

So I thought: on what basis can I say that some Flaws are too harsh, and others too weak, compared to others?

First, I can definitely base that on my experience, as can other people; that's useful though a lot of subjectivity comes into it. Second, I can compare "close" Flaws. For example, I think Chaotic Magic is too weak as a Major Flaw because it's strictly weaker than Weak Spontaneous Magic, which seems itself a weak Major Flaw because it's on par with the Minor Flaw Difficult Spontaneous Magic (each "takes away" half of all Spontaneous Magic). Finally, having a simple, rough (3x2) semi-objective framework for how large a range of activities a Flaw hampers, and how badly it hampers them, adds an additional anchoring point for the analysis.

The judgements you brought up were mostly based on "close Flaw comparison". Deficient Form seemed a good, balanced Minor Flaw in relation to most other Flaws and in terms of Breadth and Depth. Then Deficient Technique must be weak for a Major Flaw, and should be priced as two Minors, because in general losing access to a Technique is probably, roughly twice as bad as losing access to a Form (yes, this is subjective, but I hope you can see the idea behind the argument). Weak Spontaneous Magic being too weak for a Major follows a similar argument of comparing it with Difficult Spontaneous Magic, and comparing the loss of all Spontaneous Magic with the loss of e.g. Rituals, Enchantments etc. Does that make sense?

7

Thanks. I get the reasoning better now. As I mentioned, I do think looking into details like this can be advantageous.

.

I'll disagree with you on Weak Spontaneous Magic v. Difficult Spontaneous Magic. While you can argue half v. half, if you can cast Fatiguing sponts, you can cast anything you would be able to cast without Fatigue. And if you have some ReVi for preparation, you can prepare way more things with Fatiguing sponts fairly safely. It's very hard to manage (there are a couple ways) bumping the level of the sponts without Fatigue to manage much fo what you might want.

As for actual numbers, regardless of value, if we just look at the (scores+roll)/2 v. (scores)/5, you get about three times as many levels of spells available if you can spend Fatigue. So you lose 2/3 of your sponts with Weak, while you are slowed down on 1/3 without losing any with Difficult. To a certain extent that might be judged as Weak is about 4x Difficult. And if we recognize the value of the higher-level spell, I could see considering that x4 to be even worse, and x3 is about where a Major should land v. a Minor.

8

Fair enough! As I said, I fully expect people to disagree here and there; reasoned disagreement is, in fact, something I find very useful as it allows me to see things that would otherwise escape me (and if it fails to convince me, hey, I've not really lost anything).

Yes. But barring some very specific characters/situations, each fatiguing spont carries (at least) a 1% risk of a botch.

There's a surprising amount of stuff you can do with first magnitude spells cast daily, that would accrue a mage 3-4 warping points a year if cast with fatiguing spontaneous magic. I know that many troupes handwave stuff that happens off-screen and don't roll for it (e.g. the yearly casting of the Aegis); I feel that is a houserule though.

1 Like
9

Yes, but if there are a few level 3-5 spells you want to cast with that sort of regularity, it's pretty trivial to pick them up as Formulaic spells, whether at game start or alongside something bigger you're doing. You probably won't have that many different ones like that that you want. And if you're not worried about the Warping Points, you don't have to.

10

The other one I feel is noticeably off is Twilight Prone. The problem is two-fold. The potential penalty for Twilight Prone is huge: you're out of the adventure, maybe longer. Your character you're playing in the current adventure, probably as a central figure, can just be gone like that. And this cuts into your life expectancy as well, as Final Twilight will close in much faster. So how do you get around this? You essentially treat yourself as having Weak Spontaneous Magic because that last botch die is really hard to avoid. And on top of that you have to put in effort to generally reduce botch dice.

Now, if you already have Flawless Magic and Weak Spontaneous Magic, then you can nearly take Twilight Prone for free. But that doesn't mean it isn't at the level of Major. It's just that the two Major Flaws overlap enough that together they don't add up to be as bad as double one of them alone, and Flawless Magic fills in the gaps. But Twilight Prone shouldn't be set below Major just because certain narrow combinations work so well with it.

But if narrow combinations are going to define things, then a lot has to change, as I can point out some narrow combos that change a bunch of these.

1 Like
11

I guess this is a lot saga-dependent; so I won't try to convince you, just state my experience.

In the sagas I've played in magi tend to use non-fatiguing spontaneous magic a lot, for tasks that were not foreseeable at character creation, or even a game-year earlier (so there wasn't the opportunity to learn a Formulaic spell without spending a season that would not otherwise have been spent).

As for Warping points ... for some reason my troupe seems to be irrationally scared of them. It may be a carryover from previous editions, where a magus could acquire relatively few Twilight points before going poof. It may be that a warping point is something that makes a character more vulnerable and never goes away. I don't know. But every time they cast a spell with a botch die involved, there's a very real feeling at the table that a price is being paid - while non-fatiguing spontaneous magic is free.

I feel that's a problem with entering Twilight rather than with Twilight Prone ... though admittedly it's only a problem for magi who enter Twilight with a warping score of 5, maybe 6+. At Warping score 4 or less, your magus is out for a day or less. It can slow down the adventure, but not seriously disrupt it. Even a Moon-long (Warping Score 5) Twilight is not terrible.

Also, keep in mind that Twilight from a single botch is not too hard to avoid. Yes, you may want to take a few extra lessons in Concentration from the local hermit, and yes, Vim is a good Form for you, and yes, you want to make sure you have Confidence ready for the spending, but I'd say my players tend to avoid it ... 90% of the time? I don't know, it's very saga dependent. A magus 60 years out of his gauntlet, with a Warping score of 6, Concentration 5 (avoid Twilight), Sta+3, Vim 12, who gained a single Warping point in a +3 Aura would roll: 12+Confidence (if needed)+stress roll vs. a target of 10+stress roll. With a single Confidence point, the probability of failing is indeed about 10%.

So.
Occasionally, your magus will have to cast magic that has a chance of botching (admittedly I probably see this happen less often than in other troupes, because my fellow players hate even single-die magic botches so much).
When he does, he will occasionally botch.
When he does botch, we will occasionally fail his Twilight avoidance roll.
Then (occasionally, occasionally, occasionally) he'll be out of the current adventure if his Warping score is 5-6+; It will be a real hassle if his Warping score is 7+, so yes, I'd recommend a Pilgrimage to celebrate his 100th birthday.

What can I say... it still feels a Minor Flaw to me, albeit admittedly a harsh one. Unpredictable Magic and Difficult Spontaneous Magic both feel worse. Unless you are playing a saga with an old mage close to Twilight, ok :slight_smile:

I agree, it shouldn't be its "combination" power that significantly changes the assesment of Flaw's worth. I mean, even I agree that Twilight Prone (or Weak Spontaneous Magic!) is worth more than a Major Flaw's trouble on a magus who also has Unstructured Caster, Careless Sorcerer, Unpredictable Magic, and Weak Enchanter.

In that sense, I think that Flaws (and Virtues) should be designed as "modularly" as possible, and more than they currently are (avoiding overlap, negative synergy etc.) so that in any combination the total point value is a decent approximation of the value of the entire package.

1 Like
12

That's a bold statement. How many sagas have you sampled to make statements about most of them? Or characters?

Some of your suggestions of splitting flaws into two are interesting, but for the better part I have a different conception of «most» sagas, where the canon classification is fairer than in yours.

13

But Callen's point remains; the flaw is straightforward to work around, and at some point your character will be doing some lab work and have that six points or whatever left over. That reduces my perception of the breadth of the problem. I do have to admit that the magi in my saga make very little use of non-fatiguing spontaneous magic, so my assessment of what's "normal" for a saga is very different to yours.

1 Like
14

That may well be. I'll let you know my experience across several sagas. My extensive use of Fatiguing spontaneous magic has been eye-opening to a lot fo players. They've been shocked at what I can accomplish. It's been to the point that the Fatiguing spontaneous magic far outweighs the value of nearly all the Formulaic spells. And I can also manage many repeated low-level spells with Fatigue without worrying about lots of botches, too; there are far more limited scenarios when I end up finding use for that low-level spell I'll have to spont on the fly repeatedly.

I'm not so sure it's as saga-dependent as magus-dependent. This where I was talking about it somewhat including Weak Spontaneous Magic. In my experience, I'll have a handful of single botches casting spontaneous spells in the first year of a character's existence, and that's with nearly any character. I'm usually looking at those handful of single botches in a Magic Aura of about +5. Meanwhile, typical averages may be something like Sta +1, Concentration 2 (spells), Vim 6-10. So that's 5+roll v. 6+roll (or 7+roll if Warping Score hits 1). With only a few Confidence available, with a handful of botches in the first year that is probably 2 Twilight experiences in the first year. That means the character would be looking at about 16 Warping Points and a Warping Score of 2 rather than 5 Warping Points and a Warping Score of 1. Suddenly the character is going to have to spend a lot of time studying Concentration or Vim to avoid falling behind and this getting even worse. And the character is headed toward those higher Warping Scores that are really bothersome at about triple the rate.

I'm not scared of Warping Points. I tend to pick them up faster than most players because I'm the one who has demonstrated the value of Fatiguing spontaneous magic. But that just exacerbates the problem. Anyone who takes full advantage of what they have at hand will pick up Warping Points faster, making Twilight harder to control and making it last longer. I really love Cautious Sorcerer and the Gold Cord as those are much better ways to avoid Twilight than a good Concentration or Vim score.

1 Like
15

The catch is at some point. From my experience, this is often 1+ years in the future. Remember that you can "add for free" low-magnitude spell research in a particular TeFo combination only to a season when you are already performing spell research in that particular TeFo combination.

16

I think that accounts for much of the difference in our perception then. While there's a lot of variability, I'd say that the average PC in our sagas incurs less than a magic botch/year. Year of in-game time, just to be clear!

17

You don't need to play in a single saga to reason that Chaotic Magic is strictly weaker than Weak Formulaic magic, for example. Perhaps more importantly, as I said, the assumption that one can get a rough sense of where things will stand in most sagas is implicit in the design of Ars Magica - otherwise there would be no point is assigning even rough values to Flaws, or allotting characters a certain Flaw point budget.

But let's get more constructive.

Can you be more explicit?

18

I've seen the same point made very often!

While I do agree, the crux is that those very few times when it's done are life-or-death situations - whether to enable a life-saving spontaneous spell, or to penetrate the MR of a boss-level opponent with the fight-ending spell. Also, the very fact that you could let loose two rooks of vis, even if you never do, makes a difference - like being armed with a gun even if you never end up firing it.

Not being able to boost spell-casting with vis is a little like riding a bike without a helmet: sure, the helmet rarely if ever actually ends up absorbing impacts to your head (because you don't bang your head that often), but I don't think you can base its usefulness solely on how often it does.

2 Likes
19

I think Callen's examples are good enough, but take weak enchanter as one more example. In the sagas I have seen, enchantment is a rare event. The two most important reasons are short-lived sagas and shortage of vis. For a magus specialising in formulaic magic, losing the power to enchant items is not a big deal.

Obviously, I would not take weak enchanter together with painful magic; enchantments is my main strategy to make painful magic bearable. Equally unthinkable would be a weak enchanter Verditius. Such concepts should have different flaws.

In short, I would argue that weak enchanter is simply narrow breadth. It is a marginal activity for most magi I see.

1 Like
20

That is more true if you play a simulation game than if you play a narrative game.

IMW flaws and virtues are there to make interesting tropes for the story. Flaws that rarely come up are minor story elements. Life or death situations are good story elements, of course, but they should be designed to make a good story element with the characters present. If death makes a good story, everybody should be happy. Otherwise there should be other ways to escape, besides the vis boosting.

1 Like