Table talk (Bibracte)

Just be prepared for your character to be surprised when she attempts to poach Abigail from Korvin. This won't work out to your character's satisfaction.

Go ahead and post your character sheet in a thread. Korvin may be advanced through 1227, so he has several years of Mons Electi development, development she'll have access to almost right away, so the differences won't be as vast. I'll bring your character in in 1223.

I'm going to ask that you pick something besides Harnessed Magic. It's from Mutantes, and I'm not sure it's appropriate for someone not of House Mercere, I'm going to invite troupe input here, but my inclination is no, so I need a consensus from all the other players to say it's ok. And if she is Tria's disciplia then she will be Trianomae, and must have Puissant Intrigue. Your build is more Bonisagi than Trianomae, and if you need to build her so that she satisfies the demands that Tria would place on her. This is the downside of having Tria as her master, I'm going to be pickier, but even then a Trianomae must have Puissant Intrigue as the House virtue, although you can still pick Puissant MT and Affinity MT, but to me both doesn't make as much sense.

The Loharingian issue has implications for Mons Electi. Do they stay in Normandy? Do they leave for Lotharingian or another Tribunal?

Remember that Korvin has two affinities that boost his Creo and Corpus so it looks like more XPs earned than spent. And the Korvin sheet on OP is up to 1228.1 With your affinity to Corpus you could easily be over 20 by the time you are 55. But your character will have to be a member of Tractatus Digest to move up once you get a skill above 20. Perhaps sponsor some great writing communicators to publish the little know facts about Corpus once a year.

I would allow Harnessed as a mastered spell effect but not a virtue for non-Mercere.

I'd say he shouldn't have that kind of magic, but if anyone else could it would possibly be a Bonisagus. There would need to be a good story/reason behind it, but otherwise no.

I would like to add how would the character get along with other Magi wearing vis. I know Korvin and Alexei have vis on them most of the time. The character would sense that and be agitated. It would also cripple her for making enchantments.

It would appear that there won't be consensus on Harnessed magic as an allowable virtue. If you want to pick up Harnessed mastery, we will probably need to do some sort of story where she convinces a Mercere to teach it to her and there is some agreement that she doesn't share it with anyone else. And of course you do not want to make House Mercere your enemy.

First of all, thanks to everyone for their comments on this character concept! I went ahead and created a character thread for Eskil where discussion about her build can continue. A few points I can answer here:

Fair enough (and thank you for being clear about it). I'm willing to let Eskil fail, all in good fun.

Both good points. I did catch the Affinities, but the 4- or 5-year difference is huge in this context.

Also fair enough. (Although in my slight defense, it is in the core rulebook. But back-story-wise, it's an extraneous complication at best.)

I think I'll also let this idea go. Eskil would have to be taught a Harnessed Magic spell mastery ability separately for each spell, which seems like a huge contortion in her back story. It would have been fun and conceptually apt, but the character can do without it.

Same thing here.
Having the masteries is fine IMO, but I like to try to keep House Virtues that way.

Bringing this over here.

This is not in my edition of the MRB (just checked my PDF of the MRB), nor is it in the errata (just checked this, as well). This may be a grog only thing... My copy of Grogs is at home.

Page 65 of Grogs (first sentence under "Characteristics") says: "Every character has 7 points to spend on buying positive Characteristics, and can take up to 7 negative points to gain an equal number of additional points for positive Characteristics (ArM5, page 30)."

However, the page cited from the main rulebook merely says, "You start with seven points to spend." It says nothing about an upper limit on points gained via negative characteristics.

Possible errata?

Yeah, since I remembered the Grogs bit but not the MRB, I assumed it was my alzheimer at work. So I checked when at home, and just checked both errata to be sure. No mention of it in either.

On a tangeant: Well, we've got GotF, LatL, tMRE, RM, RoP:tM... But how are we gonna abbreviate Grogs? G? :laughing:

I threw it over to the main forums to see if it is, indeed, an errata or what the Grand Tribunal thinks of it.

I would say it is Grog errata, if anything, or at least limit it to Grogs. It certainly isn't built into MetaCreator.
A quick peek at Magi of Hermes suggests that this was followed for building those Magi.
I've regularly broken this (unwritten) rule, though.
Ra'am has Str -4 and Dex -2: for a total of -9
Talia has Str -3, Dex -2, Qik -1 for a total of -10.

OOTH, albeit unwittingly, I can't think or find any of my characters that doesn't follow it :laughing:

Note that your 2 characters above can be easily fitted withing it: Ra'am just has to have Dex -1, and Talia Str -2.

Nonetheless (probably due to my way of thinking), I think it is actually a pretty good rule, and not only for grogs. I mean, I've seen a character with Int +3, Sta +3, Com +3 and Str/Dex/Qik-3, and it was as ugly as ridiculous.

I mean, I tend to think that, especially for magi, there are easily dumped stats, and it is easy for fall into it.
I've tried designing grogs for ME, and, from a purely mechanical perspective, I was stricken that there's almost no reason for every one of them not to have Int and Com -3, and absolutely none to have a positive ones (while, in theory, Int is a great stat for a Turb Captain).
This limits that, in that you can be very weak in some limited respect (say, Ra'am's strength), but you can't be very weak in about half of what you do and awesome at the other half. If you want to be awesome at that other half? There's Improved Characteristics (a seldom used virtue, save for a few warrior-magi)
Sorry for the rant :blush:

It's not something I'm inclined to "fix." If someone wants to play a character to extremes, more power to them.
Why can't people be so bad at something and so good at other things? It's a vulnerability that people may want to play to.
Talia's Characteristics: Int +3, Per +3, Pre +1, Com +1, Str -3, Sta +2, Dex -2, Qik -1
I like that character. Sure, I could dump Sta and Dex and call it done, but I don't want to do that. Maybe it's selfishness or munchkinism. I don't know.

Oh, and a positive Int is useful for a loremaster type of grog. Being able to recall facts on demand is extremely useful. So that Magic Lore 5 and Int +2 gives him a 7, or an average of 12-13, meaning he can, on average remember "hard" facts with some degree of success. I think Intelligence is an under-rated skill in 5th edition. I mean in 4th edition it was the single most necessary skill, but in 5th edition, I think many successful magi could have negative intelligence, as it doesn't have a huge impact on lab totals, and has no impact on casting totals. Its effect on Certamen (and who engages in certamen often?) is muted as it is used in the Weakening Total, but that's derived from Attack advantage which is Presence based, and how many magi have a positive presence?

A stupid Tremere with the force of will to push his magic onto you... Hmmm, interesting concept. Thanks!

I abbreviate it by slightly pausing at the keyboard, reverently, before omitting all the letters. 8)

I've moved this over here from the Eskil thread. Some good clean fun trying to figure out what the rules say!

I'm not sure I agree with the underlined part: I think "no botch" still leaves the possibility for a total of 0.

Here's what I think is going on. Let's write the spell out explicitly first:

Unraveling the Fabric of My Own (Form)
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind
This spell will cancel the effects of any one spell of a specified Form whose level is less than or equal to (spell level + 15 + stress die (no botch)). There are 10 variants that cover each Hermetic Form....
(Base effect, +1 Touch)

I'm assuming we'll agree about this modification of the book's UtFoF. Both are consistent with the mechanic
This spell will cancel the effects of any one spell of a specified Form whose level is less than or equal to (spell's Base level + 20 + stress die (no botch)).
This in turn is consistent with the (errata-ed) PeVi guideline
Dispel effects of a specific type with a level less than or equal to the Base level + 4 magnitudes of the Vim spell + a stress die (no botch)
once the word Base is inserted to clarify matters. (They're consistent, that is, if we equate "4 magnitudes" with "20 levels"; this is debatable for low-level spells, but let's ignore that for now.)

So a level-L UtFoMOF spell will dispel a spell of level (L+15+stress die). This is independent of whether the level-L UtFoMOF is cast formulaically or spontaneously.

To get the numbers to work out more nicely, let's say I have Pe 6, Vi 6, Sta 2, and I get a 6 on my die roll to spont a spell with Fatigue. My Casting Total (if no aura) is (20/2) = 10. So I've successfully cast a level-10 UtFoMOF, which has a Base level of 5. This means I can dispel a spell that's level (20+stress die) - a good chance of reaching my own level-25 spell. (I said level 30 above, but that seems to be a stretch.) Does this agree with how you'd calculate it?

For smaller levels, the magnitude-vs.-level distinction gets confusing for me. Let's say still I have Pe 6, Vi 6, Sta 2, but now I'm sponting without Fatigue. My Casting Total (if no aura) is (14/5) = 3. (Round off, or round down? Let's go with 3.) So I've successfully cast a level-3 UtFoMOF, which has a Base level of 2. Does this mean I can dispel a spell that's level (10+stress die), since level 2 + 4 magnitudes is level 10?

(What I said about Pe 0, Vi 0, Sta 0, non-Fatiguing spont is rubbish. I always forget that you don't get a die roll when non-Fatiguing....)

It looks to me like the spell description for Unraveling the Fabric of (Form) takes into account the added modifiers for Voice Range, which is +2 Magnitudes. That is, instead of (per the guidelines) being Base + 4 Magnitudes (or Base + 20 levels, which is how it works out to be nine times out of ten) for R: Personal, it's Base + 2 Magnitudes for R: Voice (which is +2 Magnitudes). So, L=B+4=B+2+2.

Oh, and house rule is that everything divided rounds to the nearest even number. So, your example would round to 2.

... which will then follow the magi's exemple, and have Str, Qik and Dex as dump stats :wink:

Yes, I noticed the same thing.
It's supposedly relatively common in the order, yet it seldom happens around a table. I hope this isn't because you can't kill your opponent.

IIRC, you're right: Stress die without botch still mean that 0 = 0, it's just that you don't roll botch dices.

...
And I spend an eternity writing the exact same thing on your character thread :unamused: Duh! I could have spared the time :laughing:

Casting at touch range?
Base 2, + 1 touch?
This means you cancel a lvl 2 + 4 magnitudes - 1 magnitude for touch = lvl 05 spell. Plus stress roll, of course.

(For the record: Having the magnitudes for range and all being dropped from the guidelines before determining the final effect is how all these spells work, including DEO)

Ask Marcus if Qik is a dump stat. If you can defeat many of your opponent's spells and cast your own before he can respond, it's not altogether a dump stat.

I think it's boring to play through, by and large.

I'm saying, I'm treating a stress die without a botch roll of 0 as equal to 10. It's not a discussion, it's my interpretation. Of course, if you want it to equal zero, sure find table consensus and overrule me. :smiley: