Just a quick update. I have been working under a deadline that ends today, so starting tomorrow I'll have more time to devote to things. @Nithyn has had a house full of sick people so he has been likewise quite a bit more occupied than normal. We will both be trying to give more attention/time to things in the near term as soon as possible.
Indeed. We've been something of a plague house this past week, and between that and the end of the quarter, my life has been... hectic. The good news is, it looks like everyone is on the mend (fingers crossed at any rate), so I should be able to keep moving forward. Hoping to get a bit of work done on my character today actually. That and review the spell for @callen
I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the new House Rule thread which I recently put up and pinned, to ensure no one is unpleasantly surprised in the future.
Discussion of said rules is welcome. You might just change my mind.
I'm back from the travel, and with a temporary fix to my computer. Will begin to post again.
On House Rules:
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About Abilities, would it be ok to change specialties when any XP is allocated to the ability instead of when the score goes up?
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Realms: so demons can be detected by hermetic Intellego magic?
EDIT
- IIRC you mentioned on a different saga your distaste for dispelling rituals with spontaneous/formulaic spells (the key preoccupation being with the possibility of dispelling the Aegis). Any reflections of that here?
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I'm a bit hesitant to say that any xp allowance would facilitate a shift in total focus. An example would be putting say 5xp from an adventure or spending one season reading a tract and then allowing a shift in overall specialty. That said I am not sure being restrictive on this really adds a lot of value in gameplay either. Thoughts?
Unless they have a deception power that is powerful enough to overcome said magic. Powerful demons are by nature incredibly deceptive, including to magic. But demons are not blanketly immune to all Intellego magic just by being associated with the Infernal Realm. One can assume that demons are very able to defend against and subvert Intellego magic, and thus trusting results of such magic where the Infernal is involved is suspect at best, but it is "possible" to defeat their efforts and gain actual information. Don't ask me how to be sure.
Yes. This entry from the House Rules thread addresses that point.
I have pondered whether to make that more general so that say suppression or any sort of affecting of a ritual magic effect likewise requires ritual magic.
Oh, I missed that entirely. Thanks.
Regarding Abilities, it was just a though. After some time it's going to be hard to change your focus w/o investing a large amount of time to raise your score... but then, isn't this just like real life? It is also something unlikely to have a huge impact on the saga, so, no trouble.
No comments on the rest, the HRs seem reasonable to me.
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Glad to have you back!
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Technically, the core book never tells us how the specialties ever come about. It just tells us to take them. So there is some leeway without really even requiring a house rule. What I like about going up a level is that you never suddenly get worse at anything. Otherwise you might use an Ability at a higher level,, and then it lowers when you get better at something else.
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Well said @callen
We tried to keep the rules fairly basic and straightforward here. Nothing too earth shattering, so I'm glad to see folks approve.
As always, this is very much a living document as it were, so if folks ever want to pitch something/have concerns, please feel free to jump in!
Edit: One thing, I would tweak the house rule about dispelling rituals to including Re Vim magic (maybe Mu too?) in general too. Feels like a potential loophole to the dispel angle if someone can just suppress the Aegis for a period of time.
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Perhaps suggest some wording for this overall? I have in mind restricting interacting with Ritual Magic, other than Intellego, to Ritual Magic. Otherwise not altering RAW functioning/restrictions.
Concur, so I think we'll leave that rule as stated re: specializations.
Also, some of you may have seen the recent thread I started Re: Potent Magic. I was also considering a House Rule to eliminate the requirement for Potent Spells to receive the bonus from Potent Magic. Thoughts?
I haven't read it, but I'm assuming that this has something to do with eliminating the need to build potent spells at a given level? If so, I'm all for it. Always felt arbitrary to me if I'm being perfectly honest.
I'm away from my books. Does the flat bonus (+3/+6) also requires the spell to be potent? Or only the added bonus due to casting tools?
Anyway, I wouldn’t remove the requirement to invent potent versions of the spell to add S&M bonus.
The flat bonus is just like having a Magical Focus, but you don't get quite as much out of it in general. That's just for that particular character. It doesn't matter if you're making/casting a Potent spell or not.
The only thing Potent Magic lets you do with Potent spells is invent them in the first place. Anyone can use a Potent spell, so long as they have the MT to learn it.
I don't think that was the intent? I think he was simply proposing not having to remake them every single time your MT went up? Unless I'm mistaken @Vortigern
Aside from the flat bonus, yeah.
There are basically two versions of the HR I was contemplating. But the crux of the matter is that I believe that the requirements for Potent Spells overall make the virtue non-competitive as a choice compared to other options at the same grade of virtue/investment. The extra time and thus xp costs involved in making the virtue work are completely seamless/transparent when compared to say a Magical Focus.
- Option 1 - Remove Potent Spells
This would make it so the bonus (S&M) is applicable to any spell in the category of the virtue to which the user has appropriate casting tools. The bonus is still capped by Magic Theory. This thus provides the same possible bonus from the virtue just without the extra burden of Potent Spells being required.
Potent Spells then don't exist and can't be learned by others, and thus the virtue only provides bonuses to someone who has it.
- Option 2 - Potent Spells Are Generic
This would be as @Nithyn indicated, that Potent Spells are one and done. Having a potent version then lets you use casting tools to provide bonuses to the spell as usual but the casting tools aren't set and can evolve over time to get bonuses up to your Magic Theory.
This means Potent Spells exist however it begs the question whether said spells should be usable by others.
One reason I dislike Option 2 is it seems unspecified whether, for instance, Spell Mastery should be transferable to being used with an equivalent Potent Spell. If not then this is another reason why Potent Magic fails in comparison with other options and ends up being so rarely taken and used in play.
For a great deal more discussion on the topic, including people who disagree with me, the thread I mentioned is here:
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The problem I see with this is that Potent Magic would become reasonably stronger than virtues such as Cyclic Magic or Special Circumstances.
And from a game design perspective, I don’t think the game needs another "free" way to give spells a higher casting bonus (you already get the +3/+6, you’d be getting your MT on top of that). Between virtues, talismans, mastery, vis expenditure and others, we have a lot of options already. Potent Magic as is allows the same benefit (adding MT), but requiring some degree of work. It’s not a bad virtue if you don’t want to invent potent spells. It's just better if you take the time to do so.
Not much of a fan of this one either.
If we are looking at changing Potent Magic, I’d rather have it integrated into hermetic magic (becoming a free virtue, essentially) than expanding it’s benefits. Of course, this would have it’s own challenges for implementing.
My A plan would be to do nothing at all to the virtue, but if you decide otherwise I can accept it.
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I confess ... I largely see these virtues as already very sub-par choices mechanically speaking. Sometimes I look at them wishing they weren't, but then move on.
Largely what I see Potent Magic as trying to compete with (to be a valid alternative to) is a Magical Focus. And that is where I see it failing in comparison.
The difference between the two (my perception) is that Magical Focus arguably takes more work to get sizable bonuses (you need both relevant Arts to any given spell higher to get higher Focus bonuses from the doubling effect), but also adds to lab totals and not just to spell casting. Potent Magic adds mostly only to spell casting with smaller bonuses to lab totals.
The thing that really messes with this comparison is the potent spells (for lots of previously discussed reasons), which end up making Potent Magic a noncompetitive choice. Which is why it rarely is selected. Even more so when you factor in other people being able to learn Potent Spells without the virtue at all.
Part of the appeal of Option 1 to me is that it is at once both a cleaner/simpler rule that makes the virtue more comparable to a Magical Focus while also removing the flaws & complications of Potent Spells ... and not allowing the benefits of their use without the virtue.
That said ... this is hardly a game breaking issue.
I am back under a heavy-ish workload just now. I'll be trying to give everything some review and action likely this weekend, but for now I have a limited capacity gentlemen.
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Starting to play catchup today gentlemen. Let me know if I miss anything and/or you have particular interests/concerns.
I'm still here. Just need a little longer. The last three weeks have included 2 significant illnesses, 2 minor surgeries, and mostly 12-hour work days. It's been a lot crazier than normal.
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