The Ars Magica paradigm seems to be: grogs to keep the magus or maga protected. What happens if you turn it on its head; a maga who instead protects her grogs and occupies the opposing magus? Granted, she can't counterspell everything into oblivion, but she can prevent her grogs from getting fried with Balls of Abysmal Flame. Imagine that magus's look of suprise, when he finds he's mastered it for multiple casting and everyone single spell is unraveled before they reach their targets? Next, need to do the same thing with auram, and to a slightly lesser degree aquam and terram.
If something backfires for her, though, it's (the situation, that is) really bad. Consider she has cautious sorcerer and has mastered spells. Botching for her just doesn't happen, unless she's in a powerful aura.
I see her with 5 grogs, one is dedicated as a shield grog, and the others form a fighting group to take on the enemy. Any of the five could be her designated shield grog for the day. And with her spell Extrication of the Vulnerable Grog, she can swap out members of the team (granted the group needs to reform) to keep the group in prime condition. Of course, none of this may work out. It's just something I thought long and hard about. Alexei was a bit of an inspiration for me. I just put my own twist on it. She doesn't have Alexei's Gentle Gift, but she has a history with her grogs, that she's always got their back. And while she's weak and can't swing a sword, she brings what she can to the party.
I could definitely see a bit of alexei's strategy, or at least the School of Ramius in her style. Differences was that Alexei could avoid spells and tough them out but had no real chance of counterspelling anyone, since he'd have to touch the spell to affect it. He'd beef up the grogs and then be their vanguard.
Need to have a high penetration on the buff spells she puts on the grogs otherwise they won't be able to touch an opponent with MR, one of the main drawbacks of buff spells.
Regarding defenses don't forget Corpus and Mentem, eventually she'll need defenses against those too. Not all enemies go for the big flashy balls of fire/lightning/acid/rocks...
So, now I can detail the strategy I have for her against magi. The grogs weapons may or may not be buffed with Blade of the Virulent flame. Presume they are, and that the magus considers of them of little import. A horrible mistake on Ophelia's part. But just as they dispose of the grogs arrayed before them, and move in on the magus and his remaining shield grog, Ophelia snuffs out the flames with her Unraveling the Fabric of Ignem multicast, of course. And then he tries to leap away with his Leap of Homecoming, Seven League Stride, or even Wizard's Leap and Ophelia shuts him down...
Few magi, except combat magi can deal effectively with the grogs. And for those moments, at least she can try debuffing him with some unraveling spells. Granted, her focus isn't in play there, so penetration is going to be a problem, but that's what vis or luck is for...
You mean the effect of giving someone two warping points? It may throw the magus into twilight, true, but it also makes the magus invulnerable to damage during the experience. That's not ideal for hunting someone down and killing them. And Creo Vim still needs penetration to get through the magus's magic resistance.
I guess he means Twilight, yes. And it is an effective strategy to shut down magi as well. You do that, dispatch the mundane that go with him and then have all your people ready for when he returns. If he returns.
The problems with the Creo Vim effects that give Warping points and force a twilight check are many:
Requires penetration. Give the opposing magus a Parma 4, and vim of 10, and you need +30 on your spell. The CrVi 15th level spell pushes it up to needing an effective CS of 45 or some combination of penetration and arcane connections and sympathetic magic.
The Magus who is faced with certain death or a Twilight Episode will chose the Twilight Episode, it is an unreliable method of combat.
a) His body might disappear entirely
b) It might be fixed to the spot, and inconvenient to wait around
c) The episode might take days, months, years or even decades.
It is outside of Ophelia's particular skill set/focus.
Assuming he's undefended, and tough, like a giant, or has the virtue Tough, or both, Ophelia could break the group, and take one of the grogs back who has blood on his sword, and send in her shield grog. She then has access to an AC, so it's not completely outside of the realm of possibility. Is blood on the weapon though a function of doing a wound or getting close to them taking damage?
Oh, I not meant that she should have the spell (there are other better options around) but that it is a suitable combat manoeuvre if you want a quick resolution of the engagement. Simply deny the opposition. I like the general design of the team combat. I have seen so many grogs die that I am far from sure that grogs would be in any supply in ME. This kind of magus seems more sensible and one of those that make grogs WANT to be grogs.
Yup. If you are relying on Grogs as soon as the Magi goes away you can kill every Grog. Also while the maga is away you can nick all her stuff, drop a waiting spell where she is reappearing, open a giant pit beneath her feet and the like. Most magi probably have the Parma to survive it, but you have 1. She's a glass cannon. I think that was the intent, but there it is. I also note probably a bigger weakness in the unraveling of X is non-hermetic attacks. Shoot first is an okay plan, but if they have range, again you have 5 MR.
One of the challenges of designing a magus with 40 xp per year, and buying spells with experience points, rather than comparing it against lab totals and having a lab text, and a tricked out lab to learn said spells is that players will have a tendency to minimize the spells they buy. I didn't want that in this situation, I wanted rough parity between Spells (excluding Mastery), Arts and Abilities. I got there, but it took some work. Spells are 540 xp, Arts are 495 and Abilities are 525 (Mastery is 140 doubled to 280 because of Flawless Magic).
Any magus designed under these conditions will have some weaknesses, to be sure. Almost any magus, Hermetic or Hedgie will have a problem with Touch of the Goose Feather. Now it may not work for the first spell cast, I'm firmly on record that Fast Casting a spell shouldn't be an opportunity to interrupt the casting, but to interrupt the effect, and fast casting it would allow the effect, but create problems for the subsequent round, IMO. And she has decent penetration to pull it off against Hermetic Magi, too.
Hedgies have limited MR, usually related to any applicable forms, at best. And they have penetration issues. It's true a specialist hedgie might be problematic, but so too will any specialist magus who has a preferred Form other than Ignem.
As far as being a glass cannon, she has three spells which deal a pretty good amount of damage indirectly. Strike of the angered branch, Invisible Sling of Vilano and Invisible Gastraphetes of Vilano. So long as she has ammunition available, she can dish out some limited amount of damage. +15 is nothing to shake a stick at, either cough Pilum of Fire cough. It can't be resisted, and her chance to hit is pretty darn high.
How about "the sound of battle" for a sigil ? From sword striking sword in the distance for a low level spell, to the sound of hundreds of men meeting in battle for a high level ritual ?
Who wants to live forever?
Well, not Ophelia. But 500 years would be pretty nice.
In the Autumn of 1259, she seeks out an Iberian longevity specialist of some renown. She comes with 30*2+12-21=51 pawns of vis.
She is 58, and therefore requires 12 pawns for her ritual. Leaving 39 pawns for increasing the magnitude work. For mag 10, it's down to 29 pawns. For mag 15, it's another 10 pawns, down to 19. For 16-20, it's 3 pawns per magnitude, which is 15, leaving 4 pawns unspent.
She has a 20th magnitude LR.
Note, her Vim score was previously at 12, and has been reduced to 11, removing 12 xp from her final total, the 2 xp remaining after spending the season getting the LR is put into Mentem, raising the score to 2. I'm editing her sheet immediately after posting this.
So, I've been running this idea that she's a hoplite back and forth in my head. She's not particularly stellar when it comes to combat, but the more I think about it, with a good corps of grogs at her side, she's not too shabby.
So, I'd like to have her backstory involve going after an associate of Lucius and taking him down. Obviously this would be an Ignem specialist Flambeau. However, such action rankled the leaders of the Theban Tribunal, and she earned a shard, and they orchestrated a majority vote and she was ostracized.
I'd like her to be invited to the Tribunal and have her be a Socii, a dedicated hoplite, and this pretty much gives jebrick carte blanche to send her off to the four corners of the Tribunal/Order to hunt down enemies of the Order (Tremere).
Of course, the rank could be withheld pending a couple of stories testing her mettle with regards to her pledge.
I'll get her grogs worked out soon, since I've only had one taker so far, Halancar, but he has a martial companion, so it might be a better fit if he tags a long as his companion, rather than the grogs. I can run five grogs, I suppose.
Can I get some extra mastery points for Unraveling the Fabric of Terram? Pretty please?
Actually no. She takes the office, but as far as her methods, well, I think she'd try and keep that as quiet as possible. How many magi would she have gone up against with her grogs? How many would have escaped to detail her m.o? She's likely never competed in the Flambeau version of the Dimicatio, as that requires winning the certamen competition, and her best TeFo is, well, surprisingly it's Creo Animal. Still, in a House where Creo Ignem, Creo Corpus, Perdo Ignem and Perdo Corpus are all pretty likely combinations, she's not very stellar in those combinations.
Couple of questions, and maybe a suggestion about fast casting. Fast Caster doesn't say it adds to fast casting totals, I think it should, but it's not stated in RAW. I'm fine either way, as her Finesse is really pretty high.
It's probably reasonable that the chance of botching the fast cast speed roll (not the 2 dice on the spell casting) should increase the more often one tries to fast cast (or maybe a function of the total number of spells cast) in a round.
Exampla Gratia (without Fast Caster affecting fast casting speed totals)
The conditions are such, that there is an exploding volcano near by, and all actions have 2 botch dice.
Opheilia Wins initiative with a total of 13.
Ophelia is facing off against Alpha and Beta, both magi, Alpha has an intiative of 6, Beta has an initiative of 4.
Ophelia casts whatever spell she's going to do, it's not countered by Alpha or Beta and it targets her grogs.
Alpha casts a spell at his initiative point. Ophelia's fast casting total is Die 5 + Qik 4 + Finesse 8 + specialty 1= 18. She can easily get a spell off to counter it and does, unravels his spell.
Beta casts his spell, Ophelia checks to intercept it, but rolls a 0. Ordinarily, she has Cautious with Finesse, and it wouldn't be a problem, but this situation combined with the number of times she has fast cast increase her to 3 botch dice (or 4, if we want to count the normal spell casting as part of the equation, I'll go with 4 for the demonstration), she has cautious with finesse, which removes 2 botch dice. She has to roll and check for botch on two botch dice, but luckily does not botch, rolling a 4 and an 8, her total is still high enough to stop Beta: Quick + Finesse + specialty of 13-6 for second fast cast speed of =7. She successfully unravels Beta's spell. (these spells are probably automatically successful, unless in a hostile aura, and she can withstand 4 botch dice before having to check for a botch).
I can see rolling extra botch dice for the fast cast roll (possibly for the actual spell casting roll too) as you rack up additional castings.
There's also Quick Casting as a Mastery which does add to either Initiative or Fast Casting Finesse rolls, assuming I'm reading that right. I took Fast casting for Circling Winds of Protection, but Quick Casting for Charge of the Angry Winds, but if I get further Mastery in CWoP I'll likely get Quick casting on that also.
I like the general design of the team combat. I have seen so many grogs die that I am far from sure that grogs would be in any supply in ME. This kind of magus seems more sensible and one of those that make grogs WANT to be grogs.