We are widely digressing from my initial question, but if it was not happening, it would not be a real topic .
As a beginner player (years ago, 2nd ed Ars just to say), I made the mistake of selecting flaws which would be the least annoying for my character. I failed to see the story potential behind them. It was also probably be due to (also beginner) GM failing also to see the interest of story flaws and instead using them more like a crude hammer to "enforce" the rules "Virtues must be paid by Flaws and eventually in blood".
I don't blame them. I am just highlighting that it takes some experience and creativity as a GM to use properly these Tools to enhance a saga instead of punishing characters. It went to the point that when I designed my own system, I refrained of designing story or character flaw without a mechanical impact on the game (modifiers for certain skills or under certain circumstances).
It is only since I am heavily using FATE and running several campaigns with this system that I was able to smoothly integrate characters background and flaws into a campaign. Now I feel better equiped to integrate such flaws in a campaign, and the characters I am designing are also using this flaw for better effects.
Ezzelino, you make a good point and my opinion has budged slightly. i glossed over the whole in-game definition and mostly bacground color aspect. here i am complaining that they are better used as background color, and lo & behold it turns out that is how it was intended all along.
It seems I was wrong.
:mrgreen:
Ken: in my AD&D days I started everyone off at around seventh level or so, a tad under where established characters were. So it took more like a half hour. And I built up a complicated social saga, or rather my players did, so it was a bit more complicated than normal I suppose.
Also, a question. What is Pathfinder? I am a CooooF. I see it mentioned often but am not sure what it is.
To get slightly closer to the original post, Mythic Herbalism is actually reasonably useful for a magus with a good Int score. You can spend one day for every 3 points of base potion difficulty making a batch of potions (the target to roll increases by one for each extra dose) that will last a season. In a saga I played in, the Mythic Herbalist Ex Misc would use their "7 days distraction" each season to brew up a batch of +3soak potions and bonus to recovery potions so they had little items to give to grogs. Before we went to the City of Brass, they spent a season creating potions and, after the SG agreed to a house-ruling that "expires after a season" could be taken to mean "expires 91 days after brewing" put down a list of potions brewed in one season together with their expiry dates, and we quaffed them merrily on our epic trek through the desert.
Also from the Ex Misc playbook - Rusticani are great for using a few days distraction.
Having re-read the Rootcutter virtue, it only applies to healing rituals (including those to resolve aging crises). I could have sworn it applied to longevity rituals and rituals to resolve aging crises only, but obviously that must have been a house-ruled variation for that saga. I think it makes sense to allow it to work for longevity rituals, as by reducing the amount of vis used, it means the maximum age you can create a new ritual for (which is normally limited to MT x 10 years) goes up a little. Very elderly magi have the problem that when their ritual goes, it is hell finding someone who can create a new one.
To reply to the previous post - Marko: come on Grandad, put new batteries in your hearing aid! Pathfinder takes D&D 3.5 (you know, the D&D people liked in the late 90s) and makes a huge set of rules making Pathfinder to D&D 3rd ed what a massively houseruled AD&D set is to AD&D rules as written. It has a hugely popular set of published adventures and a successful "living" campaign which is very popular at conventions. Its adventure paths take the old "series of linked dungeons serialised in Dragon magazine" idea into the 21st century - see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Path
Regarding story flaws, it seems to me that this (along with hooks) is something intended to partner with troupe play, to ensure that there is agreement as to the types of stories to be told.
If it failed due to bad luck, sure. That's an option. If it failed because you are too old and it's going to fail every year, then reusing the old one isn't the best option.
But that's something you can forsee and plan for, not something that a crisis precipitates. It also sways me more towards a more cooperative order, just because of the leadership and magic theory books that need to be exchanged.
It's worth noting that Pathfinder APs have "Story Flaws" as well (at least Kingmaker does, haven't read any of the others). A PC is expected to take a background trait that will ensure that their character is invested in the adventure. So I would actually argue that in these more directed games, Story Flaws are more useful - just run them by the SG first, because he's going to want to edit the SF just a little to ensure that his plot has a hook that means something to your character.
Granted, ArM has the equivalent of D&D's gold and magic items, in the form of vis, lab texts, and magic items. But due to the peculiar design of ArM, loot is often less valuable than free time (and most stories don't get you loot directly, unless you're contesting a vis source, killing a dragon or doing mercenary work for an external covenant) and most PCs are not as focused on acquiring income by force of arms as D&D PCs. (This does mean that I was really looking forward to Magic Shoe, because it would have to be an excellent source of ideas for how to balance the magus whose "study" is heavy on the adventure XP, so to speak.) So Story Flaws that bring PC magi into the center of the action are good Story Flaws. (And they're flaws because they cost study time!)
Assuming you can handle the vis. IIRC inventing the ritual is limited by Magic Theory x2, but performing it is limited by spellcasting vis limit (highest applicable Art), so re-performing a ritual is generally a lot easier than inventing it.
There's the vis issue, and whether the Order is cooperative or not, I'm convinced that these transactions aren't priced correctly. Ramidel rightly points out that it's time that is the true currency of magi. None of my magi have enough time to do the stuff I want to do and the stuff they are compelled to do by circumstance, story flaws, or the covenant. Note, this is a character issue, not a player issue. I often create more work for my characters, because that's fun.
Well, of course they aren't. The price is whatever the seller and buyer agree on, particularly because the Hermetic economy is largely barter-driven.
I'll just say that a longevity potion by an archmagus is a seller's market - both because his time is extremely valuable and because his clients (the guys who actually need +20 or better longevity potions) are extremely rich. Galen ex Mercere will want to either get enough vis that he can fund his personal projects and pay scutage for his covenant service and his septannual season as a Redcap for a good long while (which goes back to time as currency - this is understood quite literally by the Order) or he'll want books, lab texts and magic items that he can use or barter. (The latter is somewhat more interesting as a story seed, as many of the involved tasks can be delegated to magi further down the food chain.)
Half an hour for a 7th level character sounds right. Still faster than AM characters by far.
Complex social sagas tend to evolve.
I admit to being a fan of incredible long and character backgrounds; quite a few of my AM characters also involved a lot of writeup on my character's parens, because how can one understand a newly gauntleted magus without having a handle on the guy who had an overwhelming influence on him? (Probably my greatest excess included a bizarre writeup of Duresca, complete with odd covenant customs, because I had a character come from there...)
Nevertheless, I have come to believe that a short, quick portrait in broad brushstrokes works better. It is quicker for a player to create, easier for a GM to assimilate (and as you point out, he has a lot to assimilate), and in no way prevents adding background later, as needed. That last can be especially helpful, allowing the player and GM to fill things in so that the character fits the campaign, and vice versa.
Pathfinder is a D&D3-esque game system, published by Paizo, who decided not to jump on the D&D4 bandwagon but remain focused on D&D3-ish things. They have been very good at supporting their fans with an endless stream of material.
Quite right. As I recall, re-making a longevity ritual (from the text) doesn't take a season, rather a similar amount of time as a ritual spell of the same magnitude (so hours), which is a compelling reason to re-use a formula when it fails.
I remember writing up magus characters in the 15-min breaks between laser lectures. On post-it notes.
Now, admittedly that was 3rd edition, but still. Character creation in Ars Magica isn't that bad, once you've gone through it a few (10's, possibly 100's of) times.
To add - Ancient Magic has Hyperborean hymns, and gives an example of a Hyperborean item that can heal 2 light wounds per day, without vis, forever. By extension, a Hyperborean who is good at Semesilam (have I spelt that right?) can make items of superhealing.
City & Guilds -there's a type of magic healing Major Virtue where the crafter touches their tools to a wound and spends a level of fatigue. The recipient gains a point of warping and the crafter's Pre+healing is compared to the recovery total for the wound - if it works, the wound improves instantly. Visless, but limited by fatigue and warping.
HMRE - Vitkir - You can apply a big healing bonus using Berkanan, apply a rune to seal the wound, then remove said rune and make a recovery roll using your bonus - if you succeed, the wound stays closed. Sadly, for anyone other than the vitkir this requires an appropriate requisite, so you need impressive Mannaz to heal other humans rapidly. I've been trying to make a workable example and will put it on my blog when I finally have the numbers crunched. I have a horrid feeling it will require ludicrous min/maxing.
It's quite noticeable that players always seem be the buyers of this sort of outsourced service, not the sellers.
I always have trouble imagining what sort of faceless magi must be beavering away cooking up longevity potions for others or stamping out enchantments and casting tablets.
This can be incredibly viable as a PC, if only GMs were willing to shower him with vis, favor and treasure from grateful magi seeking another few decades.
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