Recalibrating Ars Magica: 02 - Some Virtues

[YR7]

@Jonathan.Link

I don't necessarily understand your definition of consistency, or self-consistency, if you will. I think this only works if you define the end result and then implement house rules consistent with that vision.

:shrugs: I'm not up to defining it. That's out of my league. If we're in the quoting game, I'd say "I recognize it when I see it". When one Minor virtue provides a +12 bonus, when all is said is done, and another provides +3 - that's unbalanced. When Art scores are supposed to be limited by Twilight yet that limit isn't actually implied by the Warping/Twilight rules - that's inconsistent. I'm trying to make the game cohere better with itself; I'm afraid it doesn't seem like others share my vision of the problems, let alone the solution...

@Marko Markoko

I myself would want to recalibrate the other direction, so I cannot say I agree with any of these ideas.

@DIREWOLF75

Uh...? But your starting point is to reduce the effect of Virtues and then adjust from there. If you only wanted consistency, then you would pick an already existing Virtue and adjust from there. ... Your starting point already was a reduced power level.

My starting point is to preserve the power-level maintained in the previous thread. Turns out some virtues need to be toned down to do that, hence I'm toning down. I didn't start out with this goal, or with Virtues, and I don't care if the power goes up or down. I just want better consistency, and my analysis says (25%) Affinity is still so powerful these virtues need to be toned down.

Actually the power level in my recalibration is increased - from top Arts at 40 to top Arts at 60.

For Apt Student: I think you are neglecting to consider how had it is to find a good trainer and that you cannot train in Arts. Because of this limited function, I think it should remain unchanged in relation to other similar virtues.

Wait - it doesn't apply to Arts? That changes things.

@jebrick

IMHO, Apt Student tends to work better for companions and grogs as they tend to be taught more skills than a magus.

Sounds right. I'm not dealing with companions/grogs in this calibration - working on magi alone is more than enough work...

@DIREWOLF75

My point was that it´s rare for [Free Study] to be "better" than [Book Learner] (or even near it´s equal), because the conditions needed to make it valuable are much less common.

While that is certainly the case, I think balancing should be done based on taking slightly-unreasonable assumptions. If Free Study is essentially available, if a saga tends to allow its use, then it would unbalance the numbers. So, I'm adjusting values based on that.

Personally, I'm in favor of "flowing" with the players. If a player has Free Study and wants to use it, in any saga I run he could do so. It won't really be a difficulty - it will be a source for adventures. Which is an entirely different thing.

@DIREWOLF75

With that kind of puny bonus for a Major Virtue, picking Personal Vis Source AND another TWO Minor Virtues is going to be far more valuable unless you play a Saga flowing with Vis.
You can get Stamina or Intelligence raised to +5 for roughly the cost of taking Free Study. If you started out with the one you want at +5 already at +3, then you can get that AND Personal Vis Source.

Free Study, under my system, gives you +2 XP per Season, and can be applied to a LOT of seasons; when all is said and done, this would translate to something like +3 to your major Art score (I think), plus a little more to some others. Raising both Stamina and Intelligence to +5 from +3 will require 4 virtue points, which is already more expensive (and is stretching your point allowance thin), and garners you a grand total of +2 to all lab and casting totals. That is not that far-off from each other, and doesn't scream "unbalanced" to me.

I won't touch Personal Vis Source - I haven't considered it yet, and need to.

The power of books is probably what need to be looked at.

Specifically, the ease of trade i think. Lots of people seem to run games where it´s normal to simply write Tracatus and exchange them without any issues for other Tractatus. As the most blatant example at least.
Too mechanical... And why the assumption that anyone automatically would want to buy those, or exchange them for their own?

I think the point here is unintended consequences, rather than "too mechanical". There is no "wrong, bad fun". If the troupe wants trade to be easy - good for them!

Under my system, the important point for NPCs is to have about 10 XP per Year at most - as explained in the previous thread. I'm calibrating on the assumption that the PCs get the same level of source-access as NPCs, and let the SG worry about the style of arranging that - or the implications of deviating from this setting assumption.

@DIREWOLF

And making BL and FS reduced bonus AND Major Virtues? That´s just not balancing. That´s making them useless to a silly degree.

What are the saga assumptions that make it so? Why are the bonuses they effectively provide lower than the ones I estimate?

@DIREWOLF75

I tend to prefer the other direction as well, simply because then magi doesn´t have to struggle to develop, and can instead spend more time doing "fun stuff"

Again, I'm not wed to any direction - it's just that increasing power too rapidly is what I'm trying to avoid, which led to me weakening stuff more than strengthening it.

@Vespasian

Crunch is fine.
The pursuit of "balance" is a pipe dream - to set the value of each virtue/flaw equal, ignores the wide variety of situations that can crop up in games

Perfect balance is a pipe dream. But what's wrong with making the system more balanced? That's all I'm trying to do - not achieve mythological levels of balance. I acknowledge there are varying circumstances, but one can still draw out the bounds "standard" ones and let those playing non-standard ones toy with the numbers themselves. This is how the core rules' Virtues are balanced anyway, as the text itself says. I'm just saying that balancing could use a little tweaking. By your logic - the core book's balancing itself is folly and we might as well distribute the Minor/Major division randomly...

@Vespasian

The BL i run with has a +4 bonus and it was never considered a "must have" or something like that by players here. Maybe 1/4 of PCs had it. Probably less.

And whether that's wise or not depends - on the saga. The point of the recalibration, however, is to make choosing BL not be mechanically superior in a "standard" saga. Note that even if it is mechanically superior, many players won't take it - I, for one, often go with flavor over mechanics. But I still think the game would be better off if it would actually not be mechanically superior.

I am suggesting that if the magus takes BL as a Minor Virtue providing a +4 bonus, as it appears to be in your game, and if he gets to use that BL on lots of books as implied by a long career with a setting with as many books as are implied in canon - then the benefit he will get from BL will be mechanically significantly better than the benefit he would have gotten from taking an Affinity in his key Art (say). In short - I am suggesting BL is unbalanced. Not that it's a "must have", or that it will always be amazing regardless of saga or circumstances.

@DIREWOLF75

Bad move bunching those three up like that. Your reasoning is technically good for study totals, but spellcasting and lab total bonuses are not at all directly comparable.

Aren't the bonuses to Arts still reflected in them in the same way? Why aren't they comparable in the sense of the impact Virtues should have on them?

I would consider giving the casting and lab bonuses a one step higher bonus. +4 should work if you base XP bonuses at a base 3. Or just remember to keep them feeling a small notch higher.

I don't understand the reasoning behind this suggestion.

Suggestion, simply use Greater Affinity as a Major version of Affinity, giving the normal 1/2 bonus to XP. Also, although i use very different numbers, i have found that making a Major version give roughly twice the bonus of a Minor Virtue is nearly always a good starting point.

That will undermine the balance, as the Major version will then lead to a +12 bonus which will in turn lead to higher historical Art scores and power level, which would in turn lead to higher level summa.... pushing the whole power level up. Significantly. I don't think that's wise, given that the power level is already extremely high.

Who would ever want to pick [Book Learner] if it gives +2 as a MAJOR?

Someone that cares that it provides it to lots of seasons on lots of subjects, and that games in a game where Affinity provides +2.5.

Did you forget that [Free Study] gobbles up Vis? This is not a commonly used affinity even as it is. Making it Major kills it completely. You could make the bonus +6 and i would still just laugh at it if it´s a Major and instead pick 3 Affinities or Puissant, Elemental Magic or Secondary Insight if i just wanted a boost in power.

If the Virtues are balanced right, you wouldn't really have any benefit for choosing that.

Consider allowing a version of this, at +5 but only valid for EITHER casting or lab. It´s a very nice option.

I'll consider it... A bit powerful, but more limited....

[Jonathan.Link]

@YR7

@Jonathan.Link

I don't necessarily understand your definition of consistency, or self-consistency, if you will. I think this only works if you define the end result and then implement house rules consistent with that vision.

:shrugs: I'm not up to defining it. That's out of my league. If we're in the quoting game, I'd say "I recognize it when I see it". When one Minor virtue provides a +12 bonus, when all is said is done, and another provides +3 - that's unbalanced. When Art scores are supposed to be limited by Twilight yet that limit isn't actually implied by the Warping/Twilight rules - that's inconsistent. I'm trying to make the game cohere better with itself; I'm afraid it doesn't seem like others share my vision of the problems, let alone the solution...

I wasn't asking you to define consistency. And if you're not up to defining it, you're making changes that are, by definition inconsistent.

I was asking you to determine an end result, and then put your changes into a frame of reference. Does this change make the end result more likely? If you want all of the virtues and flaws to be even, you really need to equate all of the bonuses and flaws to some factor which is measurable. Is it experience points? No, that's largely saga dependent. Is it vis? No, again, saga dependent.
I thought I had spoken up about this in your last thread, but apparently it was somewhere else. Several things can be done to ratchet down power. Making rituals botch is a good move to limit the overall power, reducing the prevalence of high auras. But these, again, are saga dependent things. Almost all these things can be addressed by a discussion about the play contract at the beginning. Rebalancing the vitures to do this is going to make it harder for people, especially new people, come to understand the game.

You also have not accounted for Flawless Magic at all in your balancing exercise. When you're ratcheting affinities down to 1/4, and leaving Flawless unchanged, that's a huge gaping hole in your revamp. Flawless Magic is way too powerful as is, when you're making the other changes you've listed. Double experience points spent on Mastery...and Mastery level 1 for free... It could certainly withstand the same level of scrutiny you've given to all of the other virtues mentioned.

[Tugdual]

{I'm still somewhat behind, but I've been waiting for this 2nd installment with bated breath.}

While it is ok to wing it and to WAG it, you have to be careful not to use a rubber band to compare Virtues and their values. I believe the only fair measure is time, and time is xp.

I will use standard ArM5 values to expose this concept.

There are multiple Virtues worth 50 xp + some access to restricted Abilities. There's also the stupendous Skilled Parens which is worth 60xp and 30 more. I chose to value 1 Virtue = 60 xp = 2 years. But 60 xp NOW is worth much more than 60 xp in 10 years, therefore: with Skilled Parens, you have {240 + 60 = 300} xp or a 25% bonus over the duration of apprenticeship. For an 18 year old Companion, {13 * 15 * 25% = 49 xp} which put Educated et al in the same range. You may want to adjust these downward, though.

Time is XP
short term: 1 Virtue = 2 years = 60 xp
long term: 1 Virtue = 2 years every 8 years = 25% bonus xp

Puissant MT is the bread and butter of lab rats.

• score 1+2 - bonus of 25 xp
• score 5+2 - bonus of 65 xp
• score 8+2 - bonus of 95 xp or +52%
  About 10 years post Gauntlet, we reach our long term goal of 25% bonus if MT applies half the time, if lab work uses half the seasons.

Repeating your list, using ArM5 values.
Note that 25% bonus is 4 xp from normal source for every +1 xp from the Virtue. If you'd get {5 + 1 = 6} xp, you'd only have a 20% bonus.

Affinity with (X) - 50% bonus, less than half the xp should go there, 1/3 if using a single TeFo. Not an issue.
{Sure, you can get 100% bonus if you limit yourself to 2 xp per season. That'd mean after 10 years of Adventure and Exposure you'd get 80 xp, or 2 years of summae. Not worth considering.}

Apt Student - 5 xp means 12 seasons as student, about what you'd expect for an appentice, hard to use later. Not an issue.
{BTW - you can Teach Arts, one-on-one.}

Book Learner - 3 xp means 20 seasons of reading, too easy to reach. Summae below Quality 12, read every season, bust the 25% bonus. Watch that one.

Elemental Magic - 3 xp means 20 seasons of elemental studies. That part is no better than Book Learner, and only for a generalist. Never an issue.

Free Study - 3 xp means 20 seasons of Vis Study which is long term. Half seasons of Exposure + half seasons of aura 5 + roll 5 goes to 25% bonus. maybe an issue for specialists.

Puissant Art - worth 60 xp at score 18, or 30% long term. Never an issue.

Secondary Insight - 4 xp would means 15 seasons of Technique study. Better than Book Learner and with the ability to choose which Arts gets the bonus, it is easily worth a double Virtue for a generalist. Never an issue.

Study Bonus - 2 xp means 30 seasons of Art studies, which is kinda long term. Study sources below Quality 8, used every season, bust the 25% bonus. Might be an issue.

BTW - I would compare (X) Magical Focus with Potent Magic, which is the +6/+12 for specialized spells, using matching S&M, if you have MT 3/6 (zombie parma). In a sense, those are Special Circumstances.

As you can see, Yair, I agree that Book Learner, Study Bonus and Magical Focus are worth fixing. I also think Affinity is the poster child of long-term value and should be reduced. Your 1/4 seems to yield a 10% long-term bonus which might be right. But some of your other ideas don't fit with the numbers and this is why I'm trying to come up with something more constant than rubber bands.

[jebrick]

Taken in a vacuum, Study Bonus, Book Learner and Free Study could be unbalanced but they are all part of a game.

Book Learner is only as good as how much traciatus are available to the magus. If books are harder to get or costly then it is less useful.[1]

The same for Free Study. If you are in a vis poor region/game then Free Study is less useful and Waster of Vis is amazingly nasty as a flaw.

Study Bonus need higher and higher areas of "power" to gain the bonus. A study bonus with ignem can work with a candle once. Then needs bigger and bigger fires until they would need to be sitting in a volcano to gain the bonus.

Bottom line, it is easier to adjust your game to limit the power of the virtues than to try and balance them in a vacuum.

[1] I use Traciatus because a magus will quickly get past a point where summa are available for the arts they want. THen Free Study would better if the vis is available.

[Henricus]

My view of the standard hermetic major virtues and some others:
Diedne magic: probably very rare, but my take on diedne is very dissimilar to the standard view
Elemental magic: Nice powerlevel for a major virtue
Flawless magic: VERY powerful, do not underestimate this one, still, I don't see how to change it and don't break it
Flex formulaic magic: I struggle to make this really worth it without stretching too much, but that's probably just me. Together with life boost, good stamina and tough you might just be a winner though.
Gentle Gift: Painful to take, it may be better as a supernatural virtue for all gifted, not only hermetic magi. Certainly worth the cost, and not more.
Life linked spont: It does what it states on the tin, good, possibly unbalancing, but I have not yet see that happen
Major magical focus: Good, but not overly so
Mercurian magic: Only worth it if you cripple your spont in other ways as well, which is very wrong. If you allow a mercurian mage to also cast formulaic spells ceremonial (with the bonusses) it may be worth it, but barely.
Mythic blood: Nicer than I originally gave it credit for, actually quite nice, would be overpowered with flex formulaic, but luckily that has been cought.
Secondary insight: Well, you can strew around some points here and there, but it is not focused enough to really do something with it, even a generalist of 10 years hermetic age will have to wait too long to make it work.

Giant blood: Overpowered, +1 to all casting rolls, +1 to soak, 2 wound range, and wear mail with lesser effort

Life boost: Really drive your point home, for a minor virtue. I'd tone this down to +3 if you keep it a minor virtue
Book learner: +2 is enough, maybe even still too powerful
Inventive genius: This is too generally applicable to warrant the high bonus
Unaging: very powerful in the long run, no aging penalties is something many magi but especially others will crave

Potent magic would be more interesting limited by another skill than magic theory

Furthermore, points about artes liberalis, magic theory and stamina have already been made, virtues affecting those have similar wordings

[Richard_Love]

@Henricus

Giant blood: Overpowered, +1 to all casting rolls, +1 to soak, 2 wound range, and wear mail with lesser effort

Giant blood also makes you "immune" to many out-of-the-box Corpus spells; as you are bigger than a standard Individual. Although, having played a Giant Blooded magus character for quite some time, I am unsure if this is a net advantage or disadvantage.

[Richard_Love]

@Henricus

Gentle Gift: Painful to take, it may be better as a supernatural virtue for all gifted, not only hermetic magi. Certainly worth the cost, and not more.

Gentle Gift is available for all Gifted characters. "Hermetic Virtue/Flaws" is a bit of a misnomer.

If you read the RAW, Hermetic Virtue/Flaws are actually defined as being available to all Gifted characters.

[Tellus]

...er...
most hedge traditions have long ist of what hermetic virtues they can/cannot take.
So all Gifted characters is maybe a bit off these days.

[Richard_Love]

@Tellus

...er...
most hedge traditions have long ist of what hermetic virtues they can/cannot take.
So all Gifted characters is maybe a bit off these days.

Of course, some Hermetic Virtues are inappropriate for some hedge traditions, but that is like saying Heartbeast is (generally) only appropriate for Bjornaer, or that Non-Combatant is (generally) not appropriate for the Turb captain.

Hermetic Virtues may be taken by any Gifted characters; but some don't work for particular character concepts.

[ezzelino]

@jebrick

Bottom line, it is easier to adjust your game to limit the power of the virtues than to try and balance them in a vacuum.

So true!

[DIREWOLF75]

Raising both Stamina and Intelligence to +5 from +3 will require 4 virtue points, which is already more expensive

sigh

I very specifically said "OR".

Wait - it doesn't apply to Arts? That changes things.

AFAIK, yes it certainly does. BUT since that is restricted to one on one teaching, the effect is not nearly as beneficial because you wont find a lot of teachers.

Actually the power level in my recalibration is increased - from top Arts at 40 to top Arts at 60.

Yes i know. But that calculation is based on an arbitrary mechanical limitation for out of game character creation. So it could be relevant, or not, since players have no limit on how they spend their time. It´s only an attempt at an approximation of what is probable. Your numbers also assumes that a character actually will spend those XP each year. Of course it can be said to be an average, but lowering the bonuses means if a player spends half the time and instead picks up more learning Virtues to make up for it, it no longer works.

But with RAW, that DOES work.

Free Study, under my system, gives you +2 XP per Season, and can be applied to a LOT of seasons; when all is said and done, this would translate to something like +3 to your major Art score (I think), plus a little more to some others.

And how many Twiligh episodes will happen during that studying? And how much Vis will be used up?
Lets say 100 seasons, with an average Art score of... oh lets chance and say 30(since Arts increase slower the higher, and as such spend time costing more to study for each increase in score), that would require 600 Vis in a single Art. An average of 6 Vis per year for a total bonus of 200XP over a period of 100 years.
It´s a horribly bad deal unless, as i said, your story has hoardes of Vis flowing all over.

A +3 bonus? For a MAJOR? Pick a Puissant Form and Technique and add Affinity to a Form and the total bonus is doubled or tripled. As i said, no matter what, i can find MUCH better ways to spend those Virtue points.

I won't touch Personal Vis Source - I haven't considered it yet, and need to.

It´s already considered somewhat weak as it is.

What are the saga assumptions that make it so? Why are the bonuses they effectively provide lower than the ones I estimate?

As i already wrote earlier, for BL it´s actually quite simple, if you have good access to books, then it´s MUCH easier to pay slightly more for better books, or simply more of them, which is better, spending 2 seasons reading Quality 10 books or 1 season reading Quality 12? And having 3 more points of Virtues elsewhere, which could for example make up for using more time studying books, like say Personal Vis Source, used to add Vis to the covenant in return for not providing any seasons of service to it, giving you those extra seasons? It just gets ridiculously easy to pick something MUCH better. And I wouldn´t pick it even for a theme character, it´s just too much waste of points.

With BL a Major it´s just no longer even a contest, BL loses that by default. With the above, you can actually spend just one season every FIFTH year and get as much XP without BL. It makes BL look utterly pathetic. Think about it, with 3 Virtue points, you can probably come up with a way to get a lot more spare extra seasons than that, and that´s aside form any other bonuses you may get from it.

And, if you have a scarcity of books? Well then, why would anyone want BL then? If they can rarely get ANY use from it, it´s even more useless.

Keep it a Minor Virtue and it will be weak, but maybe SOMEONE will still take it. As a Major it´s just laughably weak.

Again, I'm not wed to any direction - it's just that increasing power too rapidly is what I'm trying to avoid, which led to me weakening stuff more than strengthening it.

Then have magi get out and rumble around the countryside a bit more instead of sitting at home 3/4 of the year.
And really, why is it a problem that power goes up? It´s not like i can´t come up with silly powerful spells while running your mod.

And whether that's wise or not depends - on the saga. The point of the recalibration, however, is to make choosing BL not be mechanically superior in a "standard" saga. Note that even if it is mechanically superior, many players won't take it - I, for one, often go with flavor over mechanics. But I still think the game would be better off if it would actually not be mechanically superior.

And as a Minor Virtue with a +4 bonus, NOONE considered it mechanically superior. Which was kinda the point.
And except our first saga, it´s been left at that since, because in the first game it was considered to slightly lacking, and following games varied a LOT in style and power level, up AND down. Yet the level of bonus was never really commented on after the initial change.

Since your recalibration cut Affinity in half, making BL +2 as a Minor is at least consistent. As a Major it´s just

I am suggesting that if the magus takes BL as a Minor Virtue providing a +4 bonus, as it appears to be in your game, and if he gets to use that BL on lots of books as implied by a long career with a setting with as many books as are implied in canon - then the benefit he will get from BL will be mechanically significantly better than the benefit he would have gotten from taking an Affinity in his key Art (say).

It can happen of course. It can also not happen of course. If someone plays as a booknerd, yes it´s VERY likely to happen. If not, not so likely.
Lets say you have an Affinity in one Art, and you spend 2 Seasons a year reading Quality 10 books constantly, one for the Art with Affinity, one for another. After 100 years, one Art has 1400 XP, the other has 1500 XP(or 1800 if it´s the same character doing both)...
Affinity wins. Just as it should, since it gives a bigger bonus but only for a single Art.

And since at especially lower levels you can often find books with much better Quality, Affinity overall wins even more since it´s bonus is increased if the Quality is.

BL still requires you to get access to suitable books, meaning it has a built in drawback. Affinity does not have any such.

So, lets say we spend 200 seasons running with your rules?
Obviously you get 1200 XP in both Arts if you have BL.

But since it´s worth 3 points, if you place Affinity on both Arts, you instead get 1250XP in both, 100XP win and you STILL have an unused point of Virtue that could for example raise Stamina from 0 to +2, making it equal to about 100XP for each Art, 200 total, or you could use it to get Puissant and make it worth around 153 XP total.
And this is not something optimised in any way, just what i came up with in a few seconds, and BL still looses out even mechanically. Even before you account for the need to get books. Or again, the fact that the Affinity bonus will be higher with better Quality books, which is almost guaranteed to happen up to around level 15 at minimum.
So even very conservatively, BL is down by about 300XP, more likely 400+.

Not that i would bother using Affinity with your changes either.

Aren't the bonuses to Arts still reflected in them in the same way? Why aren't they comparable in the sense of the impact Virtues should have on them?

eh?

Because XP bonuses are built up over time and are also dependant on actually getting XP? Just for starters.
And a +3 straight Art bonus is in no way equal to a +3 to XP bonus. If you study for a hundred years, 3 seasons per year, the XP bonus is worht 900XP, something like a 10-25 higher Art score. If you don´t get the chance to study, it´s worth nothing at all. A straight bonus like Puissant, even if your Art without it is 60 is still just worth 186. But the bonus is ALWAYS THERE, from the start.
Any direct comparison is a fallacy.

I don't understand the reasoning behind this suggestion.

Because people often favour XP bonuses even when they should not.

Someone that cares that it provides it to lots of seasons on lots of subjects, and that games in a game where Affinity provides +2.5.

Affinity in your rules does not provide 2.5, it provides 25%. And i wouldn´t pick BL in such a game anyway. Nor do i think i would pick Affinity. Puissant is WAY better now that you unbalanced the whole thing.
Or maybe combine Cyclic Magic, Special Circumstances and Method Caster? And get ALL bonuses from the start.
Or maybe just pick Flawless Magic. Or Strong Faerie Blood, giving a "free" 15 years extra of 225 to 450XP from START of the characters use, the latter would require you to study 225 SEASONS to make up for taking BL instead...
And Skilled Parens at a cost of 1, now equals 30+ seasons of Studying AND a cost of 3 Virtue points.
Oh, and by the way, Congratulations, you´ve made Secondary Insight FAR more valuable than Book Learner.

If the Virtues are balanced right, you wouldn't really have any benefit for choosing that.

sigh
That, depends on the game... And since each game is usually created at least in part by the players(that´s kinda the inherent idea of the game concept after all), i can always make sure i benefit from whatever Virtues i have chosen.

And that is a big chunk of what i dislike of your "balancing", to make the Virtues useful, players will almost have to game the system. And they probably will. Which will make the game less interesting and flexible in events.

I'll consider it... A bit powerful, but more limited....

That´s the idea.

Edit: And excuse me for all the typos, i haven´t slept at all tonight so i´m a liiiittle bit... Woozy or something...

[Henricus]

@Richard Love

@Henricus

Giant blood: Overpowered, +1 to all casting rolls, +1 to soak, 2 wound range, and wear mail with lesser effort

Giant blood also makes you "immune" to many out-of-the-box Corpus spells; as you are bigger than a standard Individual. Although, having played a Giant Blooded magus character for quite some time, I am unsure if this is a net advantage or disadvantage.

With preternatural growth & shrinking, you decide yourself whether or not you can be affected by them. I'd say that's another plus, completely forgot avbout it.

[Jonathan.Link]

As per RAW, Preternatural Growth and Shrinking does not affect giant folk, because the base unit of Corpus is a person of +1 size. A giant's size is in excess of the base size of a unit of Corpus. Giant magi or magae must therefore create their own spell at R:Personal, leaving magnitude the same or R:Touch, increasinging the Size to +1 to affect themselves (and also other giants).

[Jonathan.Link]

@Richard Love

Giant blood also makes you "immune" to many out-of-the-box Corpus spells; as you are bigger than a standard Individual. Although, having played a Giant Blooded magus character for quite some time, I am unsure if this is a net advantage or disadvantage.

On the whole, if this is a combat character, it is probably a draw, maybe a slight disadvantage, if there is a plan to rely upon healing rituals to recover quickly after combat. All corpus spells used must all be designed to account for the Giant sized component, so it increases magnitude and also increases the vis required. So...tough call. But it is frustrating for Giants week in Corpus to try and squeeze an extra magnitude into spells...

[Tellus]

@Jonathan.Link

On the whole, if this is a combat character, it is probably a draw, maybe a slight disadvantage, if there is a plan to rely upon healing rituals to recover quickly after combat. All corpus spells used must all be designed to account for the Giant sized component, so it increases magnitude and also increases the vis required. So...tough call. But it is frustrating for Giants week in Corpus to try and squeeze an extra magnitude into spells...

Who in their right mind designs healing spells with T: Ind?
Use T: Circle instead - since nothing is created ex nihilo, this works and well at that.

[Jonathan.Link]

The T:Circle in this regard is problematic. I don't object to T:Circle to create a sick bay with improved recovery. I get a bit squeamish when it's (ab)used to heal 20 grogs with 8 pawns of vis. There's nothing RAW against it as far as I can tell. I just haven't had players try to go there...

[Tellus]

@Jonathan.Link

The T:Circle in this regard is problematic. I don't object to T:Circle to create a sick bay with improved recovery. I get a bit squeamish when it's (ab)used to heal 20 grogs with 8 pawns of vis. There's nothing RAW against it as far as I can tell. I just haven't had players try to go there...

It may be because I've usually played in low-Vis sagas but even permitting this instant healing is generally considered too expensive for most purposes.

[Henricus]

@Jonathan.Link

As per RAW, Preternatural Growth and Shrinking does not affect giant folk, because the base unit of Corpus is a person of +1 size. A giant's size is in excess of the base size of a unit of Corpus. Giant magi or magae must therefore create their own spell at R:Personal, leaving magnitude the same or R:Touch, increasinging the Size to +1 to affect themselves (and also other giants).

I'm sorry, let's make one, base 3 +1 size, +2 sun. lvl 10, or lvl 15 for the exact same one, but sized to you and personal, you could make it diameter, but that would create different issues.

[Jonathan.Link]

@Henricus

@Jonathan.Link

As per RAW, Preternatural Growth and Shrinking does not affect giant folk, because the base unit of Corpus is a person of +1 size. A giant's size is in excess of the base size of a unit of Corpus. Giant magi or magae must therefore create their own spell at R:Personal, leaving magnitude the same or R:Touch, increasinging the Size to +1 to affect themselves (and also other giants).

I'm sorry, let's make one, base 3 +1 size, +2 sun. lvl 10, or lvl 15 for the exact same one, but sized to you and personal, you could make it diameter, but that would create different issues.

That's often what Giant folk do...something like that. Spells for themselves are converted to R:Personal.
However, there is an underlying assumption that the spells presented in the book are the spells. Sometimes SGs, me included, don't allow self-designed spells at chargen. It's certainly possible that these spells could exist and are available at chargen, but each one is 5 more levels of spells out of 120 that can't be taken for another spell. And the lab texts may or may not be available...

And for defensive purposes, a spell like Kiss of Death is easily countered, because the target size is invalid. Yes, you can design spells to account for the size. That's kind of my point, they must be designed... And there is a good side and a bad side to that size issue...

[callen]

Honestly, it's a MuCo5 spont for D: Diameter anyway. But regardless, I would argue that Giant Blood is well balanced. Since balance is compared to other options, compare Giant Blood to Large + Improved Characteristics + Tough. Since you'll probably put some points into Str/Sta anyway, Giant Blood comes out only slightly ahead. And this is desirable since you get less flexibility from Giant Blood (3 full points versus flexible 3 points) and since if the minors were slightly better there would never be a reason to take the major (just take the three minors).

In response to an earlier comment, how is it that Elementalist is balanced and Secondary Insight is weak?

All this being said, I think the idea of trying to change this by altering Affinity to be highly flawed for one reason: the most flexible thing is being altered in a fixed way and then less flexible things should follow suit. It's better to go the other direction. Affinity, Linguist, Flawless Magic, Skilled Parens, Educated, etc. are highly flexible because their scales are fairly fine. Things like Puissant and Tough are moderately flexible because their scale is not as fine. Then there are things like Large and Skinchanger which are pretty inflexible. I would start with the fairly inflexible Virtues/Flaws and balance things to them.

Chris