Pearls of Wisdom: Your One Tip for Character Creation

[Salutor]

Possibly the Rego Vim guideline to suppress a spell? That was all I could come up with when I was wondering about it earlier.

[KevinSchultz]

@Erik Tyrrell

You can not cast MuVi magic on spontaneous magic. Greater talisman does not around this restriction (it lets you open up attunements automatically). Consummate talisman lets your talisman target your spells with muto vim (normally enchanted devices can only target other effects within the same device) but it doesn't allow you to target spontaneous magic. Names of power gets you bonuses on your spont casting rolls (and you could then use consummate talisman to get your talisman to do names of power). That doesn't seem like a practical plan for a magus who is starting out (wait a decade or more until I've initiated the relevant virtues and then become effective).

Consummate Talisman, but yeah. Basically, learn a bunch of low-level spells (1-2 magnitude), and then have a couple of MuVi effects on your talisman that allow you to play around with what they actually do: Add Penetration, change the duration, up the damage, etc. Basically allowing you to have Flexible Formulaic Magic on your memorized spells. Or actually DO have flexible formulaic magic, and stack the two, for some serious futzing with the spells!

Oh, I see - you could make duration concentration spells last longer and open arcane tunnels at any ranges shorter than arcane connection. Then you could get by with all of your sponts at range touch and duration concentration, very often these would then be at much lower level than without the rego vim tools more within your abilities and hey the Rego Vim spells in your device don't have to be art specific.

(still tech 4 + form 4 + talisman attunement 3+ stamina 3)/5 = level 2.8 for your non-fatiguing spont spell. You need to exert yourself, even with fancy rego vim magic

Ah, good point: I usually assume a 6 in TeFo, for 1 season's study of a Root IMS. This particular build was a ReVi lab rat, or it gets Puissant and Affinity (Magic Theory) - starting value of 5+2.

Technique +6
Form +6
Stamina +3
Aura +3
Talisman +7

For 25/5 = 5. Probably not going to be for everything, but it's still a good start. (EDIT - the actual build I was thinking of was even more focused, but that was with the Storyteller allowing "the long math" version of making a character, and thus outside the parameters of this thread.)

EDIT - or with the original math, use a +8 in Re and Vi, and a +4 in all the others - that gets you up to a casting total of 25 in either Rego or Vim magic. Then spend a few seasons reading the Roots in-game, and you'll be set.

I don't understand what this antimagic you're talking about is, do you mean using perdo vim to tear down magic resistance (you had mentioned Rego Vim not Perdo)?

Yep: have an effect built into your talisman that casts touch/instant Shieldbreaker or a generalist antimagic pulse down your intangible tunnel, right before the spell you're actually casting goes through. Even a lvl 5 touch-based Shieldbreaker can drop a lvl...20? Parma (or just general lvl 10 anti-magic effect). However, if you're a ReVi specialist, you can use the ReVi version (suppress Magical Effect) - which isn't as powerful, but if you're a specialist, you'll hav ea lot higher scores in those to make the talisman out of.

EDIT - in re-reading my original post: the character has decent scores in both Re and Vi - so therefore putting a low-level anti-magic (PeVi) technique into the device should be well within his abilities, as it's one element of his specialty.

[Ovarwa]

@Jonathan.Link

Too often I've seen Faerie blood taken just for the experience points. And you're highlighting that as a reason for taking the virtue...ugh.

I am! Virtues should be good, and I'm showing how to make this one shine. A yummy virtue and good for you too.

I'm not a fan of the "take Flawless Magic and Unstructured Caster because it's flavorful" school of thought.

[Ovarwa]

@silveroak

Actual Faeries make great characters, and they don't stay dead, but be prepared to be a supporting (if entertaining) role.

I admit that I don't quite agree. For me, faeries in AM should always be NPCs. They aren't human, they are alien in the same way that Great Cthulhu is alien, that angels and demons are alien. But.... MMVs

[Ovarwa]

@Cuchulainshound

Not faerie, just "Strong Fae Blood" - I would (almost) never recommend a player new to Ars to play an actual Faerie character.

@Jonathan.Link

Too often I've seen Faerie blood taken just for the experience points. And you're highlighting that as a reason for taking the virtue...ugh.

While I agree 100% in principle, there will be a minority of players who just have no idea where to begin a character, not even to have a "starting concept" that they can wrap their head around and build from.

For these, a fae-based character may(?) be a good idea for several reasons. There are many in-genre examples, or semi-examples that a Mage can be built from. More, "fae" can be light or dark, artsy or nightmarish, elf or gnome or goblin, - something for every playstyle.

If nothing else, a "larger" character (i.e. more xp to start) allows the Player to sample a bit of everything without worrying too much about "making a terrible mistake" (which does concern some experienced RP'ers when starting a new system). Want a Mage with a starting score of 5 in Legerdemain, Swimming and Craft: Vintner? You got the points, knock yourself out and don't look back! Next character will be tighter, once they've played the game.

Lastly, if the Player is truly and incurably at a loss, a Fae mage is less painful for the SG than something else that may jump to their desperate mind, and it at least gets the ball rolling. This is a thread for "first timers", after all.

"I may be an ogre on the outside, but I am a gentle and thoughtful scholar on the inside."

"I traded my tail for legs and my immortality for a soul so I could woo the handsome prince, but he spurned me because I also was given the Gift...."

"I have no Faeries in my ancestry, but I walked in Arcadia 40,000 years ago and it just rubbed off on me..."

"I'm not really a Diedne wizard, but was taught by a faerie pretending to be one...."

SFB --> high concept, plus 225xps to back it up.

Great even for experienced players.

[BlackLiger]

@Ovarwa

@silveroak

Actual Faeries make great characters, and they don't stay dead, but be prepared to be a supporting (if entertaining) role.

I admit that I don't quite agree. For me, faeries in AM should always be NPCs. They aren't human, they are alien in the same way that Great Cthulhu is alien, that angels and demons are alien. But.... MMVs

Great Cthulhu is a magic being.

Remember, the 4 realms act as thus:

The infernal is envious of humanity
The divine cares for humanity
The faerie is intrigued by humanity
The magical is dismissive of humanity.

[Ovarwa]

@BlackLiger

@Ovarwa

@silveroak

Actual Faeries make great characters, and they don't stay dead, but be prepared to be a supporting (if entertaining) role.

I admit that I don't quite agree. For me, faeries in AM should always be NPCs. They aren't human, they are alien in the same way that Great Cthulhu is alien, that angels and demons are alien. But.... MMVs

Great Cthulhu is a magic being.

Remember, the 4 realms act as thus:

The infernal is envious of humanity
The divine cares for humanity
The faerie is intrigued by humanity
The magical is dismissive of humanity.

Magical beings are also alien. Faeries interact with humanity, but as for whether they are intrigued... who can tell?

Great Cthulhu appears to be disinterested in humanity, but plays peekaboo often enough that perhaps that isn't true. Maybe he is a faerie standing at the boundary between things that people can and cannot understand, or something like that.

[silveroak]

Cthulu is a rewriting of the Sumerian Tiamat, who preceded to Sumerian deities, who were represented in classical mythology as titans, which have apparently be assigned as magical beings (or divine if you follow that titans=Nephelim), where the modern deities are faerie, so Tiamat/Cthulu would have it's own aura that is exceedingly rare and attempting to comprehend it has... negative consequences.
Of course, the above description also applies to dragons, which are generally magical, so...

[BlackLiger]

@silveroak

Cthulu is a rewriting of the Sumerian Tiamat, who preceded to Sumerian deities, who were represented in classical mythology as titans, which have apparently be assigned as magical beings (or divine if you follow that titans=Nephelim), where the modern deities are faerie, so Tiamat/Cthulu would have it's own aura that is exceedingly rare and attempting to comprehend it has... negative consequences.
Of course, the above description also applies to dragons, which are generally magical, so...

From what I can tell of Ars Magica's cosmology (and if we want to debate this in detail, let's make a new topic for it, but for now it fits the "character creation stuff" area) is that

The divine is how the world should be. In modern parlance, it's the end goal, the utopia, the singularity of existence.
The infernal is the mirror of that. For modern parlance, it's a dystopia, a downward spiral.
The faerie is the stories humans tell themselves to make sense of the world. The fae act these out. It's the realm of imagination, creativity, hope. It's also the realm of fear and terror, simply because not everything we can imagine is nice.
The magical is the gearbox of the universe. For a modern perspective, it's quantum physics, and those with the gift are uniquely allowed to poke at it occasionally and play with the levers.

God, in ars magica's terms, is a being of all 4 realms. (this is supported by Christo-judaeic philosophy to a degree, as God knows both all good and evil.)
He is divine. He is perfection.
He is infernal. He knows all evil.
He is faerie. He is the story of hope, power and love. He is the story of fear, and terror (there's a reason we say "The wrath of god" when wrath is a sin )
He is magical. He is the engineer of the universe. The kosmokrators, the titans of legend, or whatever else you attribute to this realm, possibly including Great Cthulhu, work for him. They maintain the gears. They ARE the gears. And like gears in a machine, they don't give a monkey's bottom what the machine does.

[Erik_Tyrrell]

@KevinSchultz

Ah, good point: I usually assume a 6 in TeFo, for 1 season's study of a Root IMS. This particular build was a ReVi lab rat, or it gets Puissant and Affinity (Magic Theory) - starting value of 5+2).

Technique +6
Form +6
Stamina +3
Aura +3
Talisman +7

For 25/5 = 5. Probably not going to be for everything, but it's still a good start.

Level 6 makes sense, you had just said level 3-4 in the beginning of your previous post. Getting an attunement worth +7 for more than a few things is going to be nearly impossible without introducing more and more powerful shape and material bonuses (since only one can apply to a spell at a time). Or is the talisman doing names of power effects to get that +7?

[KevinSchultz]

@Erik Tyrrell

Level 6 makes sense, you had just said level 3-4 in the beginning of your previous post. Getting an attunement worth +7 for more than a few things is going to be nearly impossible without introducing more and more powerful shape and material bonuses (since only one can apply to a spell at a time). Or is the talisman doing names of power effects to get that +7?

Well, the original math is as follows:

Creo 4
Intelligo 4
Muto 4
Rego: 8
Perdo 4
Vim: 8

For 111 XP. That'll give you the RegoVim scores necessary to get the Tunnel and Maintain effects, as well as the PeVi scores to design a low-level shieldbreaker. Those numbers will give you a base 12 for Vim. Obviously, you're not going to be able to do EVERY spont spell to start - but that'll give you a good base.

And all of those spells that are going to be cast? They're touch-based.

Glove (+4, bonus to affect things by touch)

Mercury (Muto +5)
Bassalt (Perdo +3)
Magnet (Rego +2)
Silver (Intelligo +2)
Birch (Creo +1)

And I was under the impression that only one OF ANY TYPE could apply. So yeah - Glove +Mercury gives up to a +9 on touch-based muto effects. (EDIT - limited by MT, of course - the ability to stack different types of bonuses is implied in the example on Enchanted Items on AM. pg. 97 - although I though it was explicitly spelled out elsewhere.)

A wand gives a +4 bonus to destroy things at a distance, which makes it a good choice. Animal bone also gives a +4 bonus. Unfortunately, Mari's Magic Theory is only 4, so she would get no additional bonus. She decides to stick with wood, which is less conspicuous.

The reason stated for not combining the two Form/Material bonuses isn't that they don't stack - it's because the character's MT is too low to take advantage of the fact that they DO stack.

So you may want to dump those extra 9 XP remaining (base 120?) into Creo/Intelligo/Rego, to shore them up a bit. But hey - it's a consummate talisman, so it should be easy to open the talisman bonuses!

[Tellus]

WAY off topic here I think, yes?

@KevinSchultz

And I was under the impression that only one OF ANY TYPE could apply. So yeah - Glove +Mercury gives up to a +9 on touch-based muto effects. (EDIT - limited by MT, of course - the ability to stack different types of bonuses is implied in the example on Enchanted Items on AM. pg. 97 - although I though it was explicitly spelled out elsewhere.)

OK, let's take this one here and now.
There are 4 ways to apply Shape and Effect bonuses that I can think of off the top of my head. They are not handled identically.

1. Bonus to lab total when you're enchanting something. That's your example on p. 97. Multiple bonuses from Shape and Material can apply, regardless of source, limited by MT.
2. Bonus to Casting totals from Talismans. Full rules on p. 98. "and only the highest bonus applies." this is one (1) bonus. Uncapped by MT.
3. Bonus from Potent Magic. Requires relevant virtue. Bonus to casting total can be combined from several sources, capped by MT.
4. Items of Quality. Requires relevant virtue. One (1) bonus. Capped by Philosophiae. Is not relevant in connection with spells.

@KevinSchultz

And I was under the impression that only one OF ANY TYPE could apply.

Could you please tell me what you mean by type here? The Shape and Material bonuses are not strongly typed. There is no (strong) distinction between shape bonuses and material bnuses, if that's what you meant. Now is such a distinction implied or even suggested by the example on p. 97.

Now, there, I just dragged it even further off topic. Bad me.
If we need to have this discussion, can we spilt it off, please?z