As the title says - our group (me + 3 other players + GM) are going to be playing a new Ars Magica saga soon, when September hits and break ends. It's our first time playing, and we're drumming up new characters right now. My concept is an Ex Miscellanea Magus focusing on Necromancy - Rego Corpus for now, but later Mentem for ghosts as well.
However, it seems that none of the other players are specializing on Rego and Vim, but the book states that Aegis of the Hearth is super important - and as I'm specializing in Rego (Rego 12, Corpus 12, Creo 5, Vim(?) 5 at the moment), it kinda fell to me to deal with Vim as well.
While I am open to taking Vim, I'm not exactly sure what else I can do with Rego Vim, or Vim in general. Sure, I can cast Aegis of the Hearth, but all the other spells, like Opening the Intangible Tunnel (we're a new spring covenant and starting a wizard's war is not on our list), or the Watching Ward (it's very nice, I can see it, but it's a ritual, which means it requires Vis, and also requires a hefty investment in spell levels), seem situational. However, I am sure that I'm missing play experience and/or "game logic".
So....please tell me about the cool things you can do with Vim! Anything from "this will save your lives" to "hey, this is a nifty and situational thing, but it's really cool" works!
There is an interesting Ex Miscellanea lineage specializing in exotic magic and non-Hermetic traditions: the Lineage of Pralix (HoH:S p.126ff). They specialize in Vim to research and handle interesting, weird or dangerous magic users and their magic, can find and broker potential apprentices - and may even as a side show cast the Aegis.
Their PeVi can handle demons and faeries as well as magic users of any kind.
Wow, since we only have one source of Vis (4 pawns/year), that sounds like a godsend. Is the CrVI for distilling Vis from Vim guidelines on the ArM5 Expanded Spell Guidelines?
Vim is the form to alter magic and any supernatural creatures.
It is also the form to detect aura, magical item and effects as well as vis.
Vim is also used to detect regio boundaries, travel across said boundaries.
Destroy & ward against demons (NB: demons cannot be detected)
Finally, it allows to control spell as they are cast by changing range, duration or target of spells or cancelling them.
However, since you are discovering Ars Magica, I would not recommend to meddle too much with the last bit (spell manipulation) as it requires a good grasp of the magical system.
If your concern is only the Aegis, don't worry too much about it. It is possible to acquire casting tablet that allows mage to cast a spell without knowing it, nor having good Art scores.
You might have to use Wizard's Communion (with a Duration of Sun) and all the mages can participate to the casting of Aegis, which will allow to have a sufficiently high total to have a robust Aegis.
Well, you've named some of the classic go to options right off the bat; its the Form of Supernatural itself, automatically you are the go-to-guy for protection and combat against the supernatural. Investigating auras, remote activation of devices, prolonging or destroying Arcane Connections without the use of time-consuming lab-work. Communion means you can give any spell you assist with a greater penetrating power.
But the personal favorite? God-summoning. Or to be less pagan/heretical about it; Daimon Summoning (i.e. Hermetic Theurgy). A specialized Theurgist can call upon old gods to perform services for him; creatures able to conjure powerful Hermetic and non-hermetic effects alike. The more of them you know, the wider your arsenal becomes. In a very roundabout way, Rego Vim becomes your way of accessing high level magics of all forms, so long as you know an appropriate Daimon and can summon him. Its vis-costly though. See The Mysteries Revised for rules on Theurgy and what Daimons can do.
Rego Vim is actually one of the most versatile Technique-Form combinations. You can use it to:
Cast the Aegis of the Hearth
Create wards against supernatural creatures of all sorts
Summon and control spirits of various sorts
Some types of meta-magic where you can manipulate or control other spells.
With other Techniques, Vim can be used to:
Modify other spells (Muto Vim)
Hurt or destroy supernatural creatures (Perdo Vim)
Dispel spells or other mystical effects (Perdo Vim)
General fast-cast defense against spells (Perdo Vim)
Find and get information about vis, auras, regios. (Intellego Vim)
Analyze spells and enchanted items (Intellego Vim)
Distill vis from auras (Creo Vim)
Most things are situational, and what you want to do with a modest score in Vim is very different from what you want to do as a specialist.
If the saga is vis poor, vis extraction is important. I have never seen it in play, but then I have either played concepts with little need for vis or the saga has been vis rich, or we have not played long enough to need it.
The application I see virtually every player wanting is Intellego Vim. Find vis, investigate traces of magic, assess auras, and find regione. It comes up in most stories, although few magi actually learn spells to find regione, everybody wants to make spontaneous first and second magnitude spells.
Demon's Eternal Oblivion (PeVi) is also a very popular spell, and you may need high arts to get useful penetration.
If you learn a decent Aegis, you will probably want to learn other wards as well.
Then a score of 5 is always useful; it is only 15xp and besides the low-level utility spells, you need it to train an apprentice. It is not obvious that you need more Vim to make a passable Aegis with a tablet. Increasing the magnitude of the Aegis is unlikely to be anybody's concern the first ten years. Unless, of course, you whip up an enemy against whom one or two more magnitudes is just the right measure.
Wow! ReVi is perhaps the best combination in the game! It's fabulous for specialists and generalists. Beyond what you originally mentioned:
Straight-up ReVi includes wards against supernatural beings.
Straight-up ReVi will also let you activate magic items without needing to use their regular triggers. It may only be useful here and there, but it can be ridiculously useful in the right spots.
Variants of Opening the Intangible Tunnel at varying Ranges will allow you to spontaneously (or not) cast lower-level spells with the benefits of longer Range. That can be a huge boost when casting spontaneously.
Variants of Maintaining the Demanding Spell do the same thing for Duration. Spont a Concentration spell and maintain it for Sun or Moon to get a huge boost.
ReVi is the key to preparing spells in advance. This is my standard suggestion for doing it with ReVi: 1) Maintaining the Demanding Spell at D: Moon. 2) Suppressing the Wizard's Handiwork (2 magnitudes lower than #1). 3) The Patient Spell (2 magnitudes lower than #1). 4) Unraveling the Threads of Vim at Touch (3 magnitudes lower than #1). You might need ways to distinguish spells. Now if you want a spell to be on/off forever, you cast it with Concentration Duration and maintain it. Then you suppress the spell and maintain the suppression. You dispel the suppression when you want it to turn on. Suppress it again to turn it off. If you want a delayed, one-shot spell (e.g. Leap of Homecoming), you cast hold it with The Patient Spell. You maintain The Patient spell so it doesn't end right away. When you want to fire the spell off, you dispel the maintenance. Since The Patient Spell now ends, your one-shot spell fires off.
Vim more broadly is great, too. People have mentioned PeVi and supernatural beings (blasting will destroy the vis, but you can also lower MR to get other spells through). There is also the implied and mentioned counter-magic. PeVi is a life-saver. People mentioned detection. InVi is perhaps the best Intellego stuff since we care a lot about auras, regios, vis, active effects, etc. MuVi can allow for some handy other manipulation of spells that you cannot get out of ReVi. CrVi is probably the only one that isn't really broadly useful, but it's highly useful in extracting vis as mentioned.
With all due respect, @callen 's advice is not for beginners. The number of spells and features of mechanics that you need to master is going to overwhelm most players, and it is not really fun unless all the players at the table can follow the reasoning either.
He is right though, that the metaspells of suppression and maintenance gives a lot of options when the magus matures, and have a repertoire of other spells to apply them too. A starting magus can be a power-house with life-linked spontaneous magic and well-selected formulaic ReVi metaspells, but again, it is not sound advice for the beginner.
Oh, definitely. I was more focused on "please tell me about the cool things you can do with Vim!" rather than trying to keep things straight-forward and basic. Thinking more 'I'll show you lots so you can see, but that doesn't mean you want to use all of it.'
The most useful basic thing for ReVi is creating personal wards against supernatural beings of a specific realm at Touch. Then you can protect yourself as well your companions and grogs extremely well. Since your Rego is also good, throwing in personal wards against people, animals, and projectiles can round it out quite well. Not only are those useful, but everyone will appreciate having you around because you keep them alive.
A lot has already been said that I'll try not to repeat too much
Wards have been mentionned, and this is something you'll want to know as a necromancer - it helps if you can keep your minions in a circle contained, or ward yourself personally. Yes, you could learn this in Mentem, however consider how broad Vim is: Same difficulty to ward against any magical beings than it would be in Mentem to only ward against magic ghosts. Your spell is basically 10 times more flexible.
Need offensive spells? Few things are as flexible as 4 realm variants of Demon's Eternal Oblivion 5. As a downside, you destroy the vis, but paying 20 spell levels to be able to fight off anything with Might is pretty powerful.
Opening the Intangible Tunnel, you mentionned it, but can I point out how useful it can be to deal with mundanes. That annoying bishop or noble - you often can't take them head on because of the socio-political nightmare that will follow. Mind-raping them from a distance, or even perdo corpus works well - and you can do that safely from your sanctum getting your aura modifier instead of the church's dominion aura. And no one but an hermetic could likely track it down on you. If they do, you can gently point out that it's not a crime to interfere with the mundanes unless they retaliate, and they rarely have a reason to do so if they die peacefully in their beds. Mind your own business, quaesitoris. You could even skip adventures altogether, and let your grogs find ACs for you. Never deal with a wound hurting your lab season again.
I'll add to the general thought I see with Callen and Loke. Vis is very meta game/ With an experienced player it can be incredibly powerful.
Even then, it's a bit boring. It doesn't have the flashiness of an Arc of Firery Ribbons or incantation of Lightning. The coolness of turning invisible. The creepy awesomeness of completely controlling a mind or body with rego magic, etc.
On most characters, no. On a character with a Pagan flaw, on the other hand Angering the local saint is a possibility. But yeah, most characters wouldn't consider the need to obliviate more than 3 realms. That being said, he's playing a necromancer. I suspect typical christian sensibilities don't concern him. One of the magics explicitly forbidden by the bible being communing with the dead & all.
One of the biggest benefits of investing in Vim early on is that it gives you tools for any story about a weird magical occurrence. Spontaneous Intellego Vim spells are really useful for identify supernatural problems, and the higher your Vim the fewer seasons you have to dedicate to learning them as formulaic spells.
However, I would also strongly consider starting with more than 4 pawns of vis a year. The Aegis being a ritual, you will likely not have any left over for other magical uses. I would give some thought to if that's the kind of saga your group is interested in.
Starting with four vis a year just gives the group a good inventive to explore the landscape. There's nothing wrong with having an excuse to go out of your lab to find new sources. We've often had games to establish covenants at my table, and exploring is a fun part of it, imho.
An Aegis is important, yes. Very important. But super important? That depends a lot on the type of saga you are playing. If you expect a lot of magi and supernatural creatures to advance against you, an Aegis is essential. If not, only the lowest one (to keep the nuisance out) is needed. Maybe not even that.
In a certain way it's akin to any modern security system. If you live in a dangerous area, or have very valuable stuff you want to safekeep, you will want the strongest security system you can find. If security is not a big concern of you, a simple wall might suffice.
Also, the covenant does not need to have an Aegis from the start. You can pave the way so that someone grows into it with time. I'd suggest simply to have a lab text for a lvl20 Aegis in the library, a copy of Wizard's Vigil (D:Sun version of Wizard's Communion) plus a few summae or tractatus on Artes Liberales and/or Philosophiae (since you add these to the casting total of ritual spells). Then wait to see if someone steps up first or if supernatural trouble strikes the covenant first.
Until then, if needed, you can always pay an NPC magus to cast it for you.
Finally, keep in mind that the Aegis needs to penetrate to be of any use. You will usually want a penetration matching the Aegis lvl. Since the lowest possible Aegis is level 20 (since it's a ritual) this means a penetration of 20, at least. Not a trivial matter for a non-specialized magus right out of the gauntlet.
The Aegis doesn't need to penetrate to be of any use. When effects are sent toward it from outside, they need to penetrate it. Certainly it needs to penetrate for some purposes, but not all. One game I played in we specifically cast it forcelessly so that we would not block a faerie road so that we could stay on good terms with the nearby faeries; but we still had an Aegis to protect against effects.
Angering the local saint is a possibility. But yeah, most characters wouldn't consider the need to obliviate more than 3 realms. That being said, he's playing a necromancer. I suspect typical christian sensibilities don't concern him. One of the magics explicitly forbidden by the bible being communing with the dead & all.