spontaneously cast ritual magic - diedne house virtue free

Games Discussion Ars Magica
11

Fiouu.

Finally, the last Diedne archmagus is finished. 285 years of gauntlet. 122 spells invented (only 41 were invented before the Schism war), a talisman invested with 23 effects and 177 pawns of Vim used by them (for a total +- 1770 levels of effects) attuned to 26 things, a familiar who is the spirit of the archmagus from who he took and successed the challenge before the Schism War (only 2 years before it ^^), and the best longevity ritual in all the history of the order... 5172 px of abilities, 3349 px in arts, a false hermetic identity and a false gauntlet (without speking about the false opening by a very young magus 100 years post schism war ^^) and an excitating laboratory in one of the ten most magical places in our Mythic Europe ........

I can say, it was a true pleasure to work on his sheet (which is 5 "charac" pages and 5 "background" in the final phase [but the whole doc document is 35 pages, because i have many "intermediate" sheets for reverse engineering ^^). :smiley:

Exar, happy.

Edit: as i said, very dependant magus (because IOS no warping from LR eg ^^ but other things also :wink:)

12

Nice!

13

I would never let spont. ritual casting fly in a game I was running. If you want ritual magic, you don't go and make yourself a Diedne... that just isn't what they were all about. Honestly, human sacrifice or not, I don't think I would let that happen. If I did, it would be a major virtue.

That and I'm rather dubious about making Diedne magic 'two minors' instead of a major virtue. My counterpoint to that would be to ask if you intend to do the same thing in your game with Mercurian Magic? If not, I would question the logic behind this.

14

Hi,

Well...

I don't think that both Mercurian Magic and Diedne Magic need to be the same amount of virtue/flaw.

What if there were a consensus that one of the two is only worth a minor virtue? What would break by then making it so? Nothing that I can see. Heck, I can imagine an edition of AM5where one of the two could even be written up as a net flaw!

That said, IIRC, the OP's purpose was to allow Diedne magi--the ones from House Diedne while it was still around--to be able to have a Major Hermetic Virtue in addition to the one they have to take. The OP didn't want to break the rule of "only one Major Hermetic Virtue." He might have simply handwaved the rule and say that House Diedne gets Diedne Magic as not counting against the limit, in the way that Ex Misc get a major virtue.

Note that I don't consider either Diedne Magic or Mercurian Magic to be solid virtues. As minors, both are gimmes. As majors, feh. Making Diedne Magic two minor virtues is weird but hardly game breaking.

Anyway,

Ken

15

I agree that they're a bit marginal as Major Virtues in terms of power. However, I think that they need to both be Major Virtues for character design reasons.

Major Hermetic Virtue isn't just a measure of game mechanics utility. It is a metric of the (very vague) measure "importance of the concept to the character design". You can't have two Major Hermetic Virtues so if you are a Diedne you cannot also be a Mercurian (or an Elementalist, or have the Gentle Gift, etc). Major Hermetic Virtues (like Houses) are there to force a clear distinction between different characters. If your character is one of these, he is not one of those. They actually play a similar role to "classes" in one of those other games.

Which means that maybe Diedne and Mercurian Magic (and some of the other Major Hermetic Virtues) should do a little bit more, rather than that they should be demoted to minor Virtues. Although, I'm pretty happy with the way that they are. Some Major Virtues are just more powerful than others. That's no big deal.

16

Hi,

This may have been the intent, but I don't think it works well in practice.

For example, suppose my concept is "magus of mythic lineage." Clearly, I ought to take Mythic Blood, right? And then I don't get to also take something good, like Flawless Magic or Major Magic Focus. Except no. Instead, I declare the same concept but implement it using different virtues and flaws. Perhaps I take the Major Magic Focus I really want, in Spirits or Saturn: I'm from a famous Spirit lineage! (Or the blood of Saturn runs in my veins...) Hermetic Prestige too, because of my mythic blood (small caps). Maybe my lineage is so storied, so mythic, that even faeries pretend to partake of my heritage, to the extent that I have Strong Faerie Blood! Ok. So there I have achieved the same "importance of the concept to the character design" and also have a different Major Hermetic Virtue. Note that I could have excluded the Major Magic Focus from the above explanation. Perhaps that's just uniquely me, and has nothing to do with my lineage.

For example, suppose my concept involves being good at picking things up. I'd never take Secondary Insight! I'd find some other way to represent that.

More to the point, for me, is that very few Major Hermetic Virtues anchor a character. Diedne Magic does--but only because it includes a poison pill. Consider a character with Secondary Insight, a minor focus in creating fires, Puissant Creo and Ignem, Affinity with Creo and Ignem, Life Boost and Fast Caster. Is Secondary Insight really playing "a similar role to classes" or is it just a (very inefficient) pimple on the face of the actual character concept? What if I swap Secondary Insight for an excellent Major Hermetic Virtue, like LLSM?

Indeed. A player who doesn't want one of these, need only choose not to take it!

Anyway,

Ken

17

That's not quite what I mean. The process you are describing is more "I have a concept, now I am picking a set of game mechanics to implement it...". Which is absolutely a fine way to design a character. It's what I do often myself.

However, what I am talking about here is almost the reverse process. I mean something more like: "Here is a Major Virtue. Now, that inspires me to develop a character who is like this...".

If you already have a character concept, because you have been inspired by something else, then all game mechanics are almost always disappointing. The game mechanics never quite seem to let you design the character the way you imagined it. What I am talking about is using the game mechanics as a way of generating inspiration.

This just shows that there are lots of other tools that can also be used by the players to ground their character concept.

For my money, Diedne, Mercurian, Elementalist, Gentle Gift, Major Focus, Flawless Magic, and Mythic Blood are excellent at helping to develop a character concept. Even if some are a bit disappointing in terms of game mechanics. Even Secondary Insight can be really good for a character concept; it's just rubbish if you sit down and calculate the cost vs benefit relative to other Virtues and Flaws.

18

The thing is:

  • why a "Diedne magus" before the schism => which has some virtue/flaws inherently, can't keep them.
  • the same remark go for gentle gift: how does it come NO gentle gifted magus can be diedne (and vice versa), life linked...

As a house, Diedne magic caused me much more problems: for gentle gift, for me, as gift could go for companion who has no hermetic magic, thus no access to hermetic virtues, but could have gentle or blatant gift, i stated this is a supernatural virtue rather than hermetic, for the NPCs. The ASG don't want it for PCs but as i don't like to be a social character, no problem for me.

But NPCs from house Diedne will be the main plot for the next 60 years, so, i needed to develop a true "free" virtue, and Diedne magic as double minor was the only thing i agreed on (with myself, which is quite strange ^^).

19

Just stepping in to point out that sacrifices is not necessarily what the Diednes are famous for. Spontaneous magic is, in canon. And then we also get that druids were important as judges and performers of rituals. No human sacrifices necessary. That might be the truth of it, or it might just be Tremere propaganda. I consider both positions to be valid... And true, in my case, but not all the members of my group think likelwise :slight_smile:

I also tend to agree with Richard on the Big and Small virtue discussion :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Xavi

20

As written, Diedne Magic should probably be either a minor Virtue or a minor Flaw depending how nasty the SG is regarding the inherent flaw.

The fact that as written, it would also completely prevent taking ANY other major hermetic Virtue, of which the only ones really unlikely being Mercurian Magic and Flexible Formulaic Magic, to me that makes the "only one major hermetic" a "disregard by default" rule.

21

I've been a bit frustrated at times by some of these limits you are mentioning myself, though I don't think about things in quite so diedne-centric of terms... And I tend to favor Mercurians. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: The point being the same argument can be made in several different approaches. If one makes a Diedne ( or say a Mercurian ), one may feel you -need- that particular selection in order to reflect the lineage/tradition of the character from the get go, as it were. However for that then to restrict selections in other areas that describe things about the character specfically, like gentle gift or flawless magic/LLSM etc, well... sometimes it feels a bit cumbersome development/storywise, though other times you are simply looking across the fence at the shiny twink-bat you would ( really, very much ) like to have.

Telling the difference between the two can be problematic. I think the one major hermetic restriction is more about preventing the latter and prevents the former in collateral damage.

22

Hi,

Sure, from that perspective, it would make sense to require a character to have only one Major Virtue. Except that I disbelieve, because...

  • The 1 Major Virtue rules only applies to Hermetic Virtues, and not to other character-centering virtues such as "I'm a Giant" or "I have Strong Faerie Blood," or "I have True Faith," all of which represent a character archetype at least as well as "I can use my life force to cast spontaneous magic."

  • I don't think people really develop character concepts around a Major Hermetic Virtue. By this, I don't mean that people don't develop characters around them! They do, in the sense that players often go "I want this Cool Power," and then create a character who has it.

I think the rule exists for the following reasons:

  • The designers didn't want people taking LLSM+Diedne, or FFM+FM. (The latter is a bigger win.)

  • The designers wanted people to think twice about taking Gentle Magic.

I do understand what you mean.

Game mechanics do constrain character concepts, but certain rules constrain them even further.

For example, if I want a character who is "tireless," the game mechanics themselves might allow me to take Mythic Blood plus Diedne Magic, to represent magic that rarely fatigues him. I can then add a high Stamina and--I forget the name of the virtue--to make fatigue quite infrequent. So far no problem from the perspective of the game mechanics. But the fluff imposes a problem: Mythic Blood brings fluff about lineage that might not be appropriate. Diedne Magic brings fluff about the Diedne that might not be appropriate. The game mechanics are not the problem, only the fluff.

Or if I want a Hermetic Magic who is also a natural philosopher, I might want to represent him with Charm Magic and Magic Foci, representing his deep philosophical understanding of how the world works and of correspondence. The mechanics of these virtues work superbly for this, even if he also needs to pick up Faerie Magic, yet the game fluff around them, not so much.

Game mechanics ought to inspire appropriate character concepts, and appropriate character concepts ought to fit naturally into a game's mechanics. To the extent that this is true, the game mechanics are well-designed.

Sure. Yet it is also beside the point I'm trying to make: Restricting Hermetic Virtues does not enhance character creation.

Indeed. If the only way to implement a character concept is 'rubbish', then the rules don't really support the existence of this kind of character. That is sometimes appropriate!

I'm also not saying that a Major Virtue cannot be used as the basis for a character concept. What I am saying is that:

  • Contrary to what you wrote earlier, a Major Hermetic Virtue is not intrinsically central to a character in the way a character class is in other systems.

  • More is lost than is gained by restricting characters to a single Major Hermetic Virtue.

  • The OP's game would probably not have been harmed by the specific lifting of the 1MHV rule for Diedne Magic, and is probably not harmed by his making DM 2 minor virtues.

FWIW, in the game I am running online, I have even gone so far as to allow Hermetic Flaws not to count against the limit of 10, and of allowing any character with at least 1 Major Hermetic Flaw to have as many Major Hermetic Virtues as the player wants. No problem at all so far.

Anyway,

Ken

23

I'm only saying can be central, in the way that class is in other systems. Part of the intention of the distinction between Major and Minor Hermetic Virtues is that Major Virtues are the sort of thing that a character concept can be based around.

I'm not saying that this is the main distinction between Major and Minor Hermetic Virtues. Or that you have to pick a Major Hermetic Virtue for this reason.

Certainly, attempting to avoid certain powerful combinations is important too.

When you are talking about designing a single character maybe that is true. But when you are talking about designing a whole covenant, I think there is a gain from the restriction. It helps to make characters distinct and give them particular story/covenant roles. Of course, there are other mechanics that help to do this too (such as Houses and Story Flaws). Major Hermetic Virtues are just one more tool.

Even talking about a single character, I think that the restriction helps. To change genres briefly: a story about a wealthy, influential Batman, who has to cope with and overcome the fact that he does not have the powers of Superman, is much more interesting than a story about a character who combines the advantages of Batman and Superman.

I agree.

24

Hi,

I don't disagree with any of this. It's usually hard to go wrong with "can be."

I'm simply saying that I don't see a real gain from limiting magi to one Major Hermetic Virtue... and I see significant losses.

Sure! Sometimes, the whole is too much greater than the individual parts.

I don't believe that is true here, even for the power combo of FFM+FM.

It may well be that when AM5 was being written, people thought that the Major Hermetic Virtues were a lot better than they really are.

I don't believe that this limit achieves this purpose. Indeed--and this may be a kind of heresy on my part--I think it achieves exactly the opposite: Down this path lies D&D4. "My character concept is that I'm a Tank...."

Ooh, let's do that. First, a character who combines the advantages of Batman and Superman has a lot more points to play with, and may not compare well against a character built on far fewer points. Second, I think a story about Batman versus, say, Lex Luthor, or even Iron Man (do I need to hyphenate that? :slight_smile:/2) is more interesting than a story about Batman versus Superman precisely because the first three have a lot in common.

Bringing this back to Ars Magica, a covenant in which all the magi are of the same lineage but have wildly different personal goals and motivations violates the idea of 'niche protection' yet provides a platform where characters can really shine.

Is niche protection wrong? No. Am I saying that a GM should require characters to share virtues in common? No. Am I saying that a GM who wants lots of different kinds of magus in his saga should not say at the outset, "Only one character gets to have any given major virtue, and no more than three characters can have any given minor virtue?" No.

I'm saying that, as a general practice, I think the restriction on Major Hermetic Virtues does more harm than good.

FWIW, I think the rule about Story and Personality Flaws is a good one. In most sagas, there simply isn't enough time to play even the limit that is permitted.

Anyway,

Ken

25

It seems to me the problem here is not so much the fact that having two major hermetic virtues would overpower a character, rather that certain major hermetic virtues are significantly more powerful and/or useful than others. Two of those particularly good major hermetic virtues together could overpower characters in some campaigns at a Major Virtue cost, but other combinations wouldn't. The baby, in this case, does not need to be thrown out with the bath water.

Some people, who may admit the imbalance exists, chalk it up to a 'who cares, play it anyway or don't pick it' mindset, but I tend to doubt they'd make the same argument if a player decided to use a major hermetic virtue that was overpowered. For example, what if a player wanted to create a character designed to be powerful with solids? A Major Magical Focus in Solid Objects would be entirely appropriate in that character setting, but we wouldn't let that character "play it anyway" because the power itself would be overpowered as a Major Virtue. Why ban one, but not at least change the other? People could say, 'well, you don't have to pick less useful major hermetic virtues,' but that's not exactly a great consolation prize to a player interested in joining a campaign who has a great character concept in their heads, only to see the virtues related to that concept are underwhelming.

The Major/Minor virtue and flaw system in the game is, IMO, an improvement over the more convoluted systems in the past -- it makes the game easier and more fun to play by simplifying the process, so players don't get bogged down. However, that doesn't mean some kinks don't need to be worked out -- and it doesn't mean creating a third tier of virtues and flaws would be a bad idea. It also means story guides, players and troupes should take these issues into consideration when starting new campaigns and creating new characters. Compromises and house rules are never a bad thing and can often lead to some great innovations, and for players who are deeply tied to a particular concept for a character that may deviate slightly from CORE's rules, they shouldn't be afraid to at least ask the troupe or SG if it's okay to bend some rules, even at some kind of an additional 'tax.' Being flexible rarely ever ruins a game, but being completely inflexible will do it often.

26

Having never created an Arcmagus myself before (or even a Magus more than 50 years out of gauntlet), I'm a bit puzzled by these huge numbers. Especially the one stating 177 pawns of Vim invested in the Talisman... Am I reading this wrong? I can't see how your best Arts could add up to 177. With a very specialized Magus, 2x Affinity with Art, and all your Art xp, maybe you could reach Arts scores of 70 and 70, but that it still far away (and bloody mad).
Please enlighten me :slight_smile:

27

Two reasons:

1- When I designed the character, I forgot the limitation about best TeFo in talisman :wink: . So, obviously, it has been overrated and some of its powers should have gone in others items or in the familiar bond.
2- best art - Creo I think - is anyway at 60 and Vim/corpus were at +-40. The fact that the character studied vis almost for a full century in a level 10 aura is certainly linked to those scores ^^.

28

Thought there was something wrong :confused: But I can see how this could happen with 10'000 xp to position and a 1000 Pawns to burn :wink:

29

Did I say that it was a Creo attuned aura? ^^

It was part of my main scenario : five gates in Europe (one in Oslo, one in Scottland, one at Leczyca, one in Bologna and one in La Rochelle) which were build by powerful arch spirits of the magical realm followers, many centuries ago. The archmaga fled the Schism, and she discovered while hiding in Bologna amongst the students, the door of Creation under the city, where she settled the Cult of Taranis, the new house of Diedne.

In fact, all this story started like that:
They received the visit of a dying bjornaer magus who asked them to go with an archmagus in a fortress in Scottland, helping 4 new gauntleted magi captured by some hedge wizards during a quest to find clues about Davnalleous whereabouts.

And during the rescue mission, while going by the backdoor, the PCs had discovered the door of Knowledge. They were happed by the portal and inside, they discovered Daman Allaidh, who has been trapped in a temporal prison for four hundred years. Rather than letting the magi leave, he used them and send them in the future, in Mongolia, where the shamsn of Kubilai have designed a ritual to open temporal prisons. (the scenario was set around this idea)

His future himself - free of his prison by the said ritual, quickly noticed the PCs weren't in their right time. He gave them the key to open his own temporal prison and said to them: "I can say the secret for you to come back to your time", and put a bait: he faked his objectives were : 1- the magi put a strange bag in Durenmar library [a gunpowder pile] and 2- they steal the columbae robe from Prima Ex Misc.

Thinking those two objectives were his only ones, they tried to figure how to double him... they did put the gunpowder in the library, and Dav' (as they nicknamed him :wink:) made it explode, while, meantime, he cast dragons from the east on Durenmar burning and many magi dead in the explosion of the tower.

After that evenement, the PCs thought "it's only the future, it doesn't matter!" and accepted to do the 2. Since it was the future, they could change it.

But Damhan Allaid didn't care, "because it's only future".

They went back to the fortress - named Stangtiskar = the scar of blood - and went to Stonehenge.

Damhan Allaid said to them they had to do a ritual with 50 pawns of vis, following mongolian texts (yes, the PCs did learn mongolian during the years (3 !! ) they were under Kubilai reign. Did I mention they met Marco Polo?). The mongolian texts were not perfectly read by the Pcs (they had too much and not enough time, since each year they were in the future, their magical abilities decreased, something Dav told them it was "because they don't belong here" - which was true) and they followed futureDav advises.

Back to their time (because the ritual 1 was correct), they had to do a second ritual to "anchor" themselves in their time. And that was the trick. Doing the second part of the ritual - they didn't have doubts about it, they have doubted the 1 but since it worked, they felt for the "Damhan was stupid, asking us to change something, but in our future" explanation (yeah, it's easy to underestimage someone ^^).

And by the second ritual, they freeed PresentDav.

And it's with fear they realised, one year later, they weren't anchored... :smiling_imp:

Damhan goal was not to kill the PCs, and he initiated negociations with the Order of Odin, to declare a war against the Order, expansionnist bastards (IHO, it's right! they forced england and scottland magi to die or join!). And during 1 year of play, he tried to corrupt PCs...

I succeeded to convince the Criamon to rejoin my cause, and he started acting as a spy, giving the NPC informations. And that answer the question "why does Dav always know what we are doing" that they asked themselves so much during the sessions :smiley:. Yeah, you had a traitor! Blame Navius!

Eventually, they got access to the Door of Change, in oslo, they discovered the Door of Destruction in Leczyca, and the Tremere ally's redcap Richard went in Bologna, trying to discover the door of creation.

Did I mention that between the PCs, one was of Tremere and his parens had his own agenda (use the doors to go in the past and kill Diedne immediatly after the Founding?) and another was Jerbiton, and due to issues, he owned the Primus Andru a service... and he started to act as a spy on the Tremere. Andru wanted to use this portal to counter Tremere plans... thinking the Tremere were trying another Coup d'Etat and envisaging another Sundering.

So we had, amongst the PCs, two who played most of the sessions spying on themselves and keeping informations for themselves (they failed many discoveries because of that!) and one double spy (the criamon was working for the Jerbiton, but the Tremere thought he was working for him, but,in fact, he was betraying all of them to Damhan ^^).
(For the story, the Jerbiton player's companion was the redcap allied to the Tremere... who spoke about mindfucking?)

Ah and for the good end, the plot for the first adventure was easy: the 4 "young magi" had received clues that Damhan was still alive. Guess who send it? Yes, the PCs who because of the ritual, came back 1 year before of their departure! They had to set up this story to "re anchor" themselves in the timeflow. Had they failed this, they would have ceased to exist after a decade or two. Because their magical power was leaving: -10 to all rolls by year, and +10 to longevity by 5 years.

It was a really interesting story, and I liked every moment of it.

The discovery of each portal was climax, and the (apparent) destruction of the fifth portal in Bologna [as Morgane, the Diedne new archprima had duplicated it and put rumors on the fake portal, of course!] led them to think that they were unusable.

30

:mrgreen: