Let's recalibrate Ars Magica! And this time - virtues. Last time you had lots of comments about Virtues - so let me present how I suggest to calibrate them, and you can all pile up to show how hopelessly wrong I am...
Last time, we recalibrated the power-level. As part of that we reset the Affinity to provide a +1/4 bonus to XP. I am going to use that to set the power-level of Virtues. At character generation (at gauntlet), a specialist might have spent 63 base XP (score 10) on his favored Art, which our reduced Affinity brings to 78 effective XP (score 12) - a +2 effective bonus. At the high power limit, 1463 base XP (score 53) are effectively 1830 XP (score 60) - a +7 effective bonus. The bonus thus varies over the magus’ life, but will be around +3 (i.e. +2 to +4) for much of it, and barely over double that at the high end.
Most XP-boosting virtues provide flat bonuses to study totals. Note that Affinity provided +366 XP over 140 Seasons of study, or 2.6 XP on average (in other words - the average Source Quality was slightly above 10). To be on the same scale, XP-boosting Virtues should thus grant +2 or +3 to the study total.
In light of this, I think we can set the balance by making the following simple guidelines:
A Minor Virtue should effectively grant a +3 bonus to the spell casting, lab, or study totals.
Different virtues will be more or less powerful, but should dance around this guideline. We can see immediately by considering virtues like Method Caster or Cyclic Magic that this bonus is generally only applicable under some limitations, although in practice the magus will almost always have it at his disposal when he can control the circumstances.
Affinity is a Minor Virtue. No Major virtue should provide a much bigger bonus, as that would upset the power balance. There is still room for Major XP-boosting virtues if they broaden the range of applicability of the virtue. Affinity provides +2.6 XP to one Art from any Source. Three minor-virtues, i.e. a Major virtue, should hence provide something like +3 XP to (one of) three Arts from any Source. With that in mind, let us turn to the list of xp-boosting Virtues that apply to Arts:
Affinity with (Art): Sets the standard - a Minor Virtue provides +2.6 XP, in a single Art, from any Source.
Apt Student: This adds too much (+5 XP), so should be reduced to +3 XP. It then provides +3 XP to any Art or Ability, but from a rare Source. The virtue doesn’t affect character generation, and in-game sources of Teaching are so rare that I don’t see this virtue applying often. Even if the covenant has, say, a library of spirits Teaching magic, the benefits would be limited to what’s on this library, which won’t be enough to increase an Art to truly high levels. On the off-chance that multiple such Sources would be applicable, keeping the bonus to +3 means that at least the power-levels won’t be too broken. In conclusion - this should be kept as a Minor Virtue, but with a +3 bonus.
Book Learner: This provides a nice bonus (+3 XP), and can be applied to any Art or Ability and from the most useful Source (books). This seems excessive. I’d lower the bonus to +2 XP, and raise this to be a Major Virtue. This would mean you’ll be slightly better-off picking Affinity if you want to focus on a single Art, which I think is as it should be.
Elemental Magic: This provides +3 XP to four Arts, from any Source. This is almost perfectly balanced as a Major Virtue.
Free Study: This applies a +3 XP bonus to any Art, from a useful Source. I consider raw vis less useful than books, but it probably still plausibly contributes a large part of a magus’ advancement at higher levels. So this is a bit like having an Affinity with every Art, but only applying it for, say, 1/4 of your career. While not quite as useful as Book Learner, I suspect this is still useful enough to warrant it counting as a Major Virtue and to require lowering the bonus to keep Affinity competitive. In conclusion - this should be a Major Virtue, and the bonus reduced to +2.
Secondary Insight: This grants you +4 XP when learning a Technique, and +2 XP when learning a Form. The +2 means you’ll be somewhat behind Affinity-levels, but the +4 XP is dangerous as it is pretty high. Yet, the way the virtue is set-up means getting high scores out of it will be difficult. The virtue is otherwise extremely broad, applying to all Forms and Techniques (separately). I’m not sure, but I think overall its balanced fairly well as a Major Virtue - using it you’ll get something like +3 XP per Season in many Arts, which sounds sane.
Study Bonus: Adding +2 XP to study any Art, from books or raw vis (so almost always). This is similar to Free Study, except that books are added and the bonus is already reduced to +2. So this is clearly a Major Virtue as well, due to its immense flexibility.
This altered list of Hermetic Virtues changed three Minor to Major; we hence could use two more Minor ones to increase variety, but that’s beyond a mere recalibration.
An important rule appears to be needed:
Learning Limit: If more than one Virtue should apply to your study total, you may only actually gain the benefits of one (of your choice).
I think this is needed to avoid characters that take Affinity with Art, Elemental Magic, Secondary Insight, Book Learner, and Study Bonus - in total, getting perhaps +17 XP per reading season. This rule, and the more-or-less balanced study enhancing virtues, would keep Art scores more or less at the expected power level.
A related virtue is Good Teacher. It affects the study total from the teacher’s side. I’d suggest simply balancing it is impossible, but that its effect should not unbalance the above XP calculations. For this reason, I’d recommend lowering the bonus it provides to +2 to book Quality and +3 for direct teaching. This still provides significant impact, meshes better with the scale of the reduced Virtues, and will help to keep study totals and thus Art scores at the expected power level.
We can now turn to the Virtues that affect casting and lab totals. Affinity, our standard, adds around +3, to both the casting and lab totals, of one Art. It is the bonus we must especially be wary of - otherwise, totals could get too high. So let’s look at virtues that directly affect casting and lab totals:
Adept Laboratory Student: A +6 to some lab totals. This is a bit high (a double bonus), but only applicable to one total (lab, not casting) and some of the time - I’d keep it as-is.
Cyclic Magic: A +3 to casting and lab totals, with all Arts. Broader in scope, but with standard bonus; perfectly balanced.
Inventing Genius: At +3 to +6 to many lab totals. Compared with Affinity, we affect any Art but not casting totals; and the bonuses are comparable. I think it’s balanced.
Major/Minor Magical Focus: This virtue can add as much as +60! Even for a starting magus, it can add +12 or so. This is far too much. Yet, dropping the bonus to the standard +3 would not make much of a “focus”. I suggest letting the Minor Magical Focus add +6 - a powerful Minor Virtue, effectively two Minor virtues. The Major version can effectively be four Minor virtues, for a bonus of +12.
Method Caster: Add +3 to casting total, for any Art; it doesn’t affect a lab total, but applies to any Art, so is still balanced I think.
Puissant Art: Add +3, to casting and lab totals, with one Art; perfectly balanced. Note that with our reduced Affinity, Puissance is superior up to 151 base XP (score 16), and is less effective from (base) score 21. So Puissant Art will be useful for that young upstart, but won’t be impressive at old age.
Special Circumstances: Add +3, to casting total, with any Art; again, balanced.
