Recalibrating Ars Magica: 02 - Some Virtues

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

Yes, of course, you can MuCo your Size, but that is another spell, so another combat round (or another caster) before you get the effect you actually want. Also you don't want to change Size in the middle of combat, which is where being a Giant is a big advantage (because if you change Size you will lose your bigger Wound thresholds, and are vulnerable again to hostile, vanilla, Corpus effects). Besides, no true giant would change himself into a tiny-man-runt!

Equally, you can always invent a Personal range, +1 Size effect (instead of Touch), but then they are not Touch range effects (so you can't cast them on your grogs, or other magi), or you can invent either +1 Size or Group range effects (but that is one or two magnitudes more). And as others have commented, this usually means you often have to invent the spell from scratch yourself, as I said, you are immune to the out-of-the-box effects, you can't just grab the Lab Text from Durenmar. Inventing effects yourself (rather than acquring the Lab Text) means that you need a bigger Lab Total (and often also more seasons of Lab Work), to get the "same" formulaic spell (even before considering that the "giant" effect might be one or two magnitudes higher too).

42

I agree with that. I was more interested in playing the number game to show how to compare Virtues. If those 3 are ok, the rest cannot be issues.

Yep. It takes 15 seasons to go through a L20q11 Art summae, and that assumes you started at score zero. A single TeFo specialist starting 10/10 would get 20 seasons reading both summae.

And since it becomes a story generator, it should be worth more.

The more I play, the more I question squandering Virtues into bonuses that can be matched by 2 years of downtime.

43

My reservations for Giant blood probaly stem largely from my reservations about stamina (general +combat +magic stat). However, I do not think it is just improved characteristics+giant blood+toughness, it is 2x great attibute, with a different maximum (+6 ipv +5) +2x giant blood.

I think I have an outdated idea of elementalist, though the "no requisites" will help somewhat. My misremembering is makes my previous statement moot.
Secondary insight gives 4 xp when studying techniques, and only 2 when studying forms, you can not focus this, and you must choose forms when studying techniques, and techniques when studying forms. I think it is very limiting, and the bonus isn't that good either. Book learner and free study would make a better combination in almost all respects, for one less point. More importantly, this is a major hermetic virtue, for which you are limited to one.

44

I didn't say it was just that. I said it was a little more. However, it could be less or equal. However, for it to be as much as you say, which is its limit, requires 12 points (though I'll grant 9 sine it's basically equivalent) in Str/Sta plus two more minor Virtues at a minimum. Meanwhile, I said Tough because, roughly speaking, Tough and Large are equal in value.

Now do the same examination of Elementalist and you'll see why it's so weak. This is why I've generally heard it rated below Secondary Insight.

Chris

45

Yes, I misremembered elementalist, which voids my previous statements, I thought there was a skill with it that improved magic in the elemental forms, the way it is described makes about equal to secondary insight, maybe just a bit below it. Giant blood will probably not be used for +6 strength, but few will have below +4 Stamina, which is something worth looking at on its own right.

46

I think it's clear that if we - and by this I mean some subset of us - are going to agree on a recalibration, then we first need to establish a Methodology of how to do that.

In the previous thread, I chose Affinity to be at 25% because the RAW 50% Affinity increased plausible Art scores to well beyond what the setting/rules imply. I stand by my idea that if we want to maintain consistency, we need to maintain that power level. Whatever we do with the Virtues, they must not increase the Art scores, especially for the purposes of writing a summa, too much. Otherwise, anything close to the current top Art/summa levels just doesn't make much sense, and that would create a major change to the setting/game, not just a recalibration.

If this is accepted, then I can only see one way of doing that:

  • 25% Affinity.
  • Other XP-boosting Virtues changed to deliver comparable bonuses or less at the high end.
  • The "No multiple XP gain" rule is added.

The affects of XP-boosting Virtues will certainly differ by saga. Yet the virtues need to have some numbers, some balance. I stand by my idea that it is necessary to set certain "Standard Saga" assumptions that will allow one to estimate the effectiveness of the various virtues, so that they could be compared. I think a part of the above disagreement with my values is different implicit saga assumptions. I'll try to explicate and argue for what I think is reasonable:

  • For the purposes of the recalibration, magi are assumed to live until Warping 10 (138 Years at 2 Warping Points per year; add 10 more Years before Longevity Ritual kicks in, for 148 Years post-gauntlet). Certainly, many magi will burn-out younger, but this sets the limit for powerful magi and hence for the highest Art/summa levels as noted above. (It doesn't really matter if this limit was never quite reached - the point is to get a rough scale of what's plausible given the rules.)
  • An infinite supply of quality 10 sources, on average, at the rate of 1 per year, on average. I maintain that if a player wants X, the SG should find a way for the PC to get X. It will take adventures, sure, but the quantity and quality should still be satisfactory. A quality of 10 and quantity of 1 per year makes sense in light of the character generation rules, has nice round numbers, and does not bloat power levels too much above core*.
  • This includes tractatus libraries, raw vis vaults, angels/faerie gods/ghosts of dead magi/whatever Teaching the Arts, or whatever. I assume that whatever the character needs to maintain this "reasonable" rate of advancement would be found.
  • Similarly, I assume that whatever the character needs to activate her Virtues would be found in relative abundance. She may need to "compromise" and learn some from other sources, or in sub-optimal conditions, or so on - but for the most part, activating her Virtues is an excuse to tell good stories about how she managed to do that, not a reason to lower her rate of advancement.

I acknowledge that this is still not sufficient to get going. As several has noted, 25% Affinity is a "rubber band" and it isn't clear how to judge short-term vs. long-term benefits. I'm sure that there are other fine points. I suspect, however, most everyone will disagree with most of the above, so I think this is a good place for me to stop and for you to tell me why my above reasoning is deeply flawed.

  • Actually, it does boost Art score significantly. If we go by RAW, Art scores should max out at 40 (820 XP). Assuming a 50% Affinity, this means 547 XP pre-Affinity. Let 60 XP be invested at gauntlet; this leaves 487 XP for the character to gain over his career. If we allow an average of 10 XP per two years, this is almost a century. So death or final twilight should strike a magus before the age of 125 for this to really make sense. This is 90 years under a longevity ritual, which with 2 warping points per year is 180 WP for Warping Score 8. In short, one way to adhere more closely to the core book is to maintain that upon reaching Warping 8 virtually all characters will soon succumb to Final Twilight, and that a character focused on getting Sources for advancing a single Art will only manage to gain an average of 5 XP per year.

If we assume a 25% Affinity, then Art Score 40 (820 XP) is reached at 656 XP pre-Affinity. With 60 XP at gauntlet, this leaves 596 XP to gain in later life. At 5 XP per year, this requires 120 years. At 2 WP per year, except for the first decade, this implies 220 WP for Warping Score 9.

47

SFB will add another 15 years to that, but around 150 years post-gauntlet is good.

I assume you mean 1 total, not per subject. There are minmax complications though.

Disregarding Covenant, the best summae should be Quality 11 Level 20. A Good Teacher with +5 Communication and Art 40 yields a higher result: Quality 14 Level 20, maybe that combination hasn't happened in history yet. I don't know if you have another reason to think Art 40 is the limit, but that one is good enough.

Using RAW numbers, Art score 40 = 820 xp = 164 year @ 5 xp. Even without Affinity these assumptions don't yield what you'd expect. {Can we lower the capacity?}

Now Vis Study offers Q10 or about with an aura close to 5. And even {int 3 + MT 10 + aura 4 + Cr 20 + Vi 13 = 50} or 5 pawns of Vis per season, enough to study Creo on the next season. {Not without destroying Vis Study.}
EDIT - {with 5-7 pawns, you'd botch every 20-25 season of study, which would kill you maybe 10 years earlier, no real impact}

So there are no hard limit, it's just that magi have a life outside their main Art. Even with no Virtue to help, spending every 2 years:

  • 4 seasons on other subjects,
  • 1 Q10 on your main Art,
  • 3 Exposure on your main Art,
    for a total of 16 xp every 2 years for 150 years, you'd get 1200 xp or score 48.

Trying as I might, I cannot see how fixing Virtues will resolve this problem. You're going to have to start from different assumptions.

48

SFB?

49

Strong Faerie Blood, I guess.

Living conditions and other modifiers can make the first years of a magus quite comfortable, so barring a botch he will not die of he takes his longevity at age 45 or so. So you can do that without fae blood as well.

50

Yes, sorry.

I didn't mention it because SFB still does better with their -3 bonus here: their first Aging roll at 51 get a +3 penalty, while a normal magus will get a +4 at 36 years old.

51

SFB+the Covenant Boon that can provide a -1 bonus that can be picked thrice(Healthy feature?)+Living conditions modifiers, and together you can start out by having a covenant where the magi get a -9 bonus to Aging rolls.
If you go munchkin on those bonuses you can easily get another 6 IIRC.

A character making full use of this can probably squeeze out at least another 50 years of activity, probably more.
And oops, there we once again break those "limits" again...

That only happens if the characters actually adhere to your assumed level of studying.
What if the supply of books is 2 per year at Quality 12? oops system got broken again.
What if the supply of books is 3 per year at Quality 12? oops system got broken again.
What if the supply of books on average is 1 every 2 years at Quality 8 and not enough Vis to study with, while a character has no bonuses to Aging rolls beyond LR? uuhm Maxed out Art becomes at the very most 34. System got broken again.

It isn´t. Your homerules are basically killing off both specialists and generalists as well as those that don´t study enough. Mechanical changes based on assumptions that are essentially only correct within a very narrow range of playing style.

52

I don't think that's relevant. He said he assumes the Troupe will accept those limitations. Heck the ASG could give everyone a pony at gauntlet, that'd be broken too.

The only constructive thing that can be said around that is what happens if 2 magi have similar interests? Do they both get the same one or can they get different ones, thereby doubling the supply.

53

So,

I always find yair's attempts to tone down Ars Magica interesting, but players who really want a low magic setting are probably looking toward something like Pendragon or Harn. I also notice that these attempts make certain niches way too goodcompared to the others, even more so than the standard rules. (for example, the classic "treat all arts as abilities" makes any build centered around magic theory or around life linked spontaneous magic much better by comparison than it was before.)

Rather than considering affinities and magical foci virtues that need to be toned down, I consider these to be the cornerstones of consistency. That is, having an affinity with an art or ability is a cornerstone minor virtue. Having a special ability in some area of magic that is less than a technique plus form combinationthat doubles the lowest art is also a cornerstone minor virtue. I don't consider either of these to be broken. Good, yes.

I consider the ability to aim spells to be broken. This is because it makes magic resistance useless, and Parma useless, which is against the founding fluff of the game. also, the ability to boost casting totals with vis can puncture anything. But this can be fixed: a supernatural being has a base magic resistance equal to the magnitude of its might Roundup. This adds to his soak and to his resistance roll against anything supernatural. He also has the usual magic resistance equal to 10 times his base magic resistance. Parma is only obtainable through initiation, and the only script is offset by a major oath: specifically, the hermetic oath properly administered. Coming up with a new script should be considered a hermetic breakthrough. A wizard who has Parma has a base magic resistance that is equal to his warping score, plus his score in the appropriate form, which works exactly as a supernatural beings based magic resistance. A wizard with Parma has the usual magic resistance equal to 10 times is based magic resistance. I would prefer finesse to go away entirely as an ability, but at the very least any spell or supernatural ability that is modified by finesse can be resisted. Whenever there is a doubt about whether magic resistance applies, it applies if the player ( or the Angel who exists to look out for that character's well-being) wants it to. Vis can no longer be used to boost totals. Charged items have a maximum level equal to half the lab total (If a lab text is used 1 charge is created per magnitude of the full lab total as usual), and adding penetration to any item is on a one-for-one basis.

Good defenses help a lot.

I consider teleportation spells to be broken because they simply don't fit. Summoning a spirit is a little bit different, because such things become immanent through various means including the appropriate spell. also, traversing a regio boundary is also different because this too is not physical movement. Otherwise, any magic that changes an object location must do so by moving it through the intervening space. this is surprisingly helpful.

Finally, there are a whole bunch of spells that break the rules, and I consider these broken not because they are powerful but because they break basic principles. For example, the broomstick spell (I forget the name but it's the one that lets you fly on the broomstick) is utterly broken because everyone uses it as a ReCo spell even though it is actually only able to move a plant object, requiring the user to hang on for dear life as this thing he is trying to hold suddenly lurches up into the air at an accelerated speed, with nothing intrinsic to the spell helping him move or maintain balance( I don't normally care about physics or anything like that, but I do think that a ReHe effect is not a ReCo effect.) Of course, some of these spells are very powerful, as well as breaking expectations and rules, such as some in the Guernicus section...

If you want to knock power down a tad, there is absolutely nothing wrong with simply getting rid of the magic theory ability. All it does is boost lab totals and clutter a character sheet. I don't think the game is distorted by this simplification. and it does reduce power a little bit, although characters are no longer limited by magic theory for how much vis they can spend in the lab in the season.

It is probably also helpful to rule that arcane connections must be meaningful, not a scrap of garment or fallen hair or anything like that. This makes getting one a more worthy story, and defending less sordid than paranoid waste management.

Anyway,

Ken

54

I'd rather say I'm looking for the feel of the early Ars Magica scenarios, such as the Mistridge material. High Magic compared to Pendragon but not compared to what seems common in AM5.

I'm with Yair that foci are simply too powerful. Other than that I agree with most of your comments. In particular:

Absolutely agree with both of these statements. Finesse breaks the system for defense and unnecessarily complicates craft magic, which could be simulated more easily with extra magnitudes for complex crafts.

No arguments there, although I can accept them if they are rituals and therefore not everyday events.

This too.

55

That's what the Ars Magica community got from the persistent demands that Arts should be based on XPs. :-/

56

Just how overpowered do you consider these Rego "throwing" spells that use finesse to aim and can't be defended by MR?
My experience suggests that they just are not all that powerful. These are perfectly valid for a magus who has Weak Magic, Short Ranged Magic, or whatever. If you're concerned about magi being targeted by other Vilano based attacks, I would suggest just treating it like mundane combat, which Vilano and Finesse is emulating: if the magus is defended by grog(s) the magus cannot be directly targeted by Vilano type spells. Problem solved.

Simply enforcing requisites will put most teleport spells out of easy reach for a good long while. Wearing leather, need an Animal requisite. Wearing a linen tunic, need a Herbam requisite. Wearing or carrying any metal, Terram requisite. Wineskin with wine inside, Aquam requisite. Want to take vis with you, Vim requisite. So, yes, someone might be able to teleport somewhere, and get there naked, or take whatever their secondary arts might allow them to carry... Requisites will force hard choices, and/or also make it much more likely that the spell will fail or they arrive fatigued.

I've thought about this for a long time. The more I think about it, I'd like the Arcane connection to have been taken. Whether via stealth or force matters not, but it does require effort. I find it almost setting breaking to think that magi would be so paranoid in their person about leaving scraps of themselves wherever they go.

57

Early AM was calibrated such that it was difficult to gain Arts scores above 20, though easy to have scores in the low teens. This changed as AM2 supplements introduced Twilight and Increased Understanding; by AM3 Arts in the upper 20s would not be too uncommon. Aging rules also changed. Most spells were Aimed, and these were resisted. However, elder magi with a fist full of vis could still do as they pleased.

58

Vilano: It's the aimed, unresisted giant pit under everyone that bothers me. It's having two ReTe spells to throw a rock just to get around the rules that bothers me.

Parma: I think a lot of the Parma problems would go away if instead of complex rules, we had "it works very well, it's magic, and magic is an art." Then just ask the player if he wants it to resist an effect.

Teleportation: Any magus who wants to make teleport shine will be able to, requisites or not. But I admit that's a different conversation.

Here's a recalibration, combining various things I've written:

  1. Finesse is gone. Aiming is gone: a spell pretty much always hits and parma applies. If complexity is needed, assume that a spell has a default craft or art or whatever total of 9, and each extra magnitude adds 3. Flexible Formulaic Magic can increase or decrease complexity total by 3. A mastery level can increase complexity by 3 for a spell.

  2. Make Arts harder to advance but start new magi off with large static bonuses. I originally proposed an exponential scheme, but Difficult Arts works fine too. An apprenticeship provides 10 points of Puissant Art. Each Art starts off at 0. Applying a point to an Art raises the base by 5 then 4 then 3 then 2 then 1 then 1 etc. Minor Virtue Puissant Art: You have one more point. You only can have this virtue once. Major Virtue Puissant Arts: You have 3 more points. You can only have this virtue once. Complementary Flaws. Regular Puissant Art goes away. Magi get 120xp and 240 spell levels during apprenticeship rather than the opposite.

  3. No Magic Theory Ability.

  4. Cautious with Form Minor Virtue -2 botch dice, can reduce to 0. Affinities remain. Book Learner remains. Free Study remains. Foci remain.

  5. Crafting and Art: Use complexity; there is no die roll other than to cast. Ignore the amount of time needed, and the amount of material, since the spell parameters already encompass this.

  6. Magic resistance almost always works in a beneficial way; if in doubt ask the player what he wants. Parma is good, it is flexible, it is magical. Double all MR.

  7. Ignore correspondence in Covenants. Use the standard text rules. Use the lab bonuses and penalties in Covenants for flavor, but ignore the rules. Otherwise, expect an extra +5 to +20 bonus on favored lab totals.

59

Pardon?
Could you elaborate?

Early AM was calibrated such that it was difficult to gain Arts scores above 20, though easy to have scores in the low teens. This changed as AM2 supplements introduced Twilight and Increased Understanding; by AM3 Arts in the upper 20s would not be too uncommon. Aging rules also changed.
[/quote]
I assume you mean Art scores at the end of careers?
because they pretty much hit 40 these days

60

I assume you mean Art scores at the end of careers?
because they pretty much hit 40 these days
[/quote]
No Magic Theory Ability: The only thing this is really used for is to boost lab totals and limit the amount of vis used in the lab. Might as well get rid of it: Lab Total = TeFo + Int + Aura + modifiers. No vis limit.

Oh, I forgot 8: Vis cannot be used to boost casting or lab totals.

In AM2, pre-Twilight, a text that could get you to an Art of 15 required the writer to have a score of 30. To get that score of 30, he would have needed to spend a lot of time studying from vis. Studying from vis was not likely to ever boost a score above 30. A text of level 10 was then a pretty good text! But not all that special. A text of level 16 was astounding.

In AM5, scores of 40 are possible but not typical. That 40 requires ~800xp, or 80-100 seasons, though a fanatic might spend that 20-25 years.

Note that magi also live longer nowadays, at a lower vis cost.