Teaching: Specialties

Games Discussion Ars Magica
101

Ah, another instance of "not our mistake." Both Ulf's and my memories are correct. The discrepancy is in the books and which parts we happen to remember better. I'd actually rather have been mistaken entirely, but it is what it is.

No, it doesn't seem to. I don't see how having that happens needs to cause the exclusionary practices in the definition you quote. Without such exclusionary practices it would not fit the definition you present. I'm not saying such a character wouldn't have a significant focus; I just see no reason it has to come at the expense of everything else.

But doesn't that pretty much fit one of the two main ideas of the Cult of Heroes? The other would be a CrCo specialist. These rituals are the ones that show up in that cult with Mercurian magi. If you want to make a very canon-styled Cult of Heroes magus, wouldn't you tend towards that anyway if you chose a Mercurian?

In our new saga we had a brand new player who wanted to play an incredibly good healer and so is playing a Mercurian focused in Creo. He also wanted to be good at longevity rituals. The focus he asked for (I forget the wording, but somehow more Corpus-focused and less healing-focused than "Healing" because he only wanted humans but wanted to include longevity rituals.) applies to the physical stat improvement rituals. These rituals are practically handed to him, and he didn't even know they existed when making the character. (See below for how little Lab Total is actually needed to get there.) This player is able to do it without that being his intent.

Yes, therein could lie a problem. That's why I believe the stat-boosting rituals along with other canon descriptions seem to be at odds. I'd commented elsewhere that a duration of "Real" or something like that one or more steps above year to be used in place of Momentary for Creo rituals would help fix a lot of things. That would push these levels up a whole bunch of magnitudes.

But maybe that's why all magi seem to have Int+3 or higher? Of course, where'd the warping go? And why stop at Int+3?

I would, however, do all that just after apprenticeship begins so that only a Bonisagus could take my apprentice instead of anyone who wants to. Hmmm... maybe people stop at Int+3 for fear of the Bonisagi.

I could see a peripheral code ruling about not overly warping apprentices after some magus had given his apprentice a warping score of 2 or 3 and the former apprentice botched and hit a massive twilight episode (botching the control) shortly after his gauntlet, too. Oooh, fun! :smiling_imp:

But there's still Direwolf's and Richard's points about obsession. All we really care about is the few magi obsessed with writing. You only need around 1% of magi to really want to write well and use the rituals, and the effect will be there. That was my point about the steroids. Most people won't use them. But those who are obsessed with something have a tendency to push the limits, even when it comes with consequences (warping in the case of the magi).

Not according to ArM5 p. 112.

Yes, I did have an Affinity w/ Magic Theory. I can't remember if I had Puissant Magic Theory or Inventive Genius. And I'll say that at the time I did it there was no Magic Might penalty to learning; it was prior to RoP:M. The familiar and I read alongside each other, her Magic Theory and me other things. I also had an Affinity with Mentem and Good Teacher.

You could offer a good lab rat magus to tailor the spells to him to prevent warping and let him and his familiar be included for free in the rituals. (This is what my character was doing.) You could even offer a small percentage of the profits. That can be worth a bunch of seasons, and if the magus has enough desire to go through the rituals that can deal with the social stigma. Now you have three assistants, and potentially a fourth with an apprentice. (I'll not use an apprentice below.) That could easily add on the order of 20 points, but let's call it 15 figuring the Int's will roughly cancel leaving you with two MT scores and some lab rat virtue. (Especially when your Good Teacher has been teaching them Magic Theory in group classes alongside your own familiar.) Your leadership could limit you here, but you don't really need a lot. There's another biggie: you can work on your laboratory. You can spend 2 seasons for a +5 using a greater feature/focus. You can get some Co/Me bonuses for free from Persons/Servants. So an investment of 2 seasons could get you to the order of +10 in your lab. You don't even have to be the one adding the feature/focus, so that can happen while you're studying; it could be your apprentice or your familiar or some other assistant. You could certainly add more to your lab, too. A lab total of 68 gets us the level 35 version in 1 season (with routines) for an extra +7. Now we bring in the other magus and his familiar to get to 90, so we only need them for 2 seasons to get the level 60 version. You'll need Leadership 1 with an appropriate specialty. Or does your familiar add to that necessary Leadership score? Still, that would only be a 2.

3 (Int) + 6/7 (MT w/ specialty) + 3/2 (Inventive/Puissant) [or this could be 9 MT w/ specialty from affinity] +5 (Aura) -3 (Familiar Int) +6 (Familiar MT w/ specialty) +10 (lab) = 30. That leaves Cr+Me of 38, so 19 and 19, perhaps adjusted if you have Puissant and/or Affinity. And don't forget Leadership 1. (Note, we can still shave down the Cr+Me with some more seasons put into the lab.) I've used much more reasonable Int and MT values and have still dropped the Cr and Me requirements drastically. This is potentially not very far out of apprenticeship at all; it's very doable in a decade for a Cr or Me expert. (You don't even need to focus in both.)

I forgot to reply about this one. I really like the idea of tractatus having levels. I think it would improve the flavor of things, such as with your Old Llywellyn example. It's also a very simple idea to implement, making it even better.

He did take that into account. There were actually a lot more books in existence, and the situation given was that the book trade (of like tractatus) was done very regularly. The number 20 wasn't 20 in existence but 20 obtainable from nearby with frequent trade existing.

Me, three.

Chris

102

Actually, a score of 0 is completely average for human characteristics. It's just that PCs are a little better than average.

103

I think it goes without saying that we're talking about house rules here when we discuss levelling tractatus quality or restricting access to stat boosting rituals. That doesn't mean we can't compare notes and bounce these ideas off each other. If we were all just going to follow RAW we'd have resonant materials boosting all of our books, which neither you nor I like very much.

I'm quite open that I'd like to have a somewhat lower power level than others here prefer. I'd rather do that by making it harder for mages to advance quickly than by hacking in effects like higher might for creatures or adding more and more restrictions to the use of Hermetic Magic, like the inability to affect dreams we learned of in Mysteries or the requirement to make dificult Finesse rolls that pops up so often.

104

Thanks. It feels more real to me. Aristotle hasn't been studied all these centuries because he was an exceptionally clear and "good" writer. As dwightemarsh pointed out, he didn't even pen his works himself. He's studied because he had interesting things to say.

The idea isn't trivial to implement because it means reworking rules for building libraries as well as some analysis of how common tractatus of each level should be, but it feels doable.

I hope I was reasonably clear that I meant 20 tractatus on each Art, not 20 total. That means 300 in the "floating" set, plus say 100 more on magic theory, penetration, finesse, and the lores. Then add in all of the lab texts. We're talking a fairly extensive collection of magical works.

105

Tractatus are rounded up, ArM5 p 165, last sentence.

106

I suppose a possible consideration during implementation is to raise the number that could be written. I'd just hate to see someone refusing to write for years so they wouldn't use up all their ability on a low-level tractatus. Or maybe you could write more after learning more somehow? I don't know...

I think it was I who was not clear. The 20 tractatus on each Art was out of something like 45 (have to check above but I'm going to bed) existing in each Art, reduced based on availability estimates in an environment where trade for like books is commonplace.

Chris

107

On the issue of using a CrMe specialist to improve clients communication; Considering that the ones wanting to write are usually pretty proud/arrogant people, wouldn't it be a tricky proposition to convince them to actually pay someone else to improve their ability write comprehensibly?

108

I don't see how I got that confused, but obviously I was wrong. This is going on my list for what I want changed for 5th edition revised.

109

You might have confused it with the minimum requirement for writing tractii at all being 5.

110

Just wondering: Why don't you like the rounding up? Is it because of the extra rule for minimum levels to write?

I like the rounding up just because it's consistent with all the other rounding up. So far the only rounding down I've noted is with Lab Totals and Charged Items and with Ablating.

So... What has this done to the Tremere writer? Can he now write a lot more? Or does he still have lots of 5's or the equivalent?

Chris

111

I think you're missing the important difference in effort here. If you offered everyone in the western world the ability, for a small one-time payment, to be as strong as the strongest man, as fast as the fastest man, as smart as the smartest person who ever lived, as charming as the greatest of charmers, etc, etc, no upkeep, while I don't think all of them would go (I'm sure there'd be all sorts of puritan and ethical arguments against it), I'm fairly sure a large number would, and that number would go up as it became more socially acceptable. Would all people boost everything? Probably not... at the least, they'd start with the ones that seemed most useful/desirable to them immediately. And I'd bet that the percentage of parents who'd have these things done to their children would be even larger than the ones who had it done to themselves... wanting their kids to have a better life than they did, and all that.

This is a far cry from what a person in the western would would have to go to get a Str +5 or a Sta + 5 "the hard way". It's more akin to a person in the western world consuming sufficient calories in a day to survive... it's cheap, it's easy, it's good for you, so almost everyone does it.

112

You caught me: I think the Cult of Heroes is, in effect, a power-gamer-y notion to start with.

I actually think the "solution" to this "problem" is easy... the Order finds reasons to smack down people who try this, because they lead to power imbalances. If some magus in one tribunal throws open his doors and starts boosting people on the cheap, that covenant now becomes a threat to the order at large. It's magi will be publishing tractatii that will drive down the value of all other tractatii. They will have grogs that are pretty much the best that grogs can be, and can probably best mundane soldiers with far more experience. Their magi will be able to use that Sta +5, since that will allow them to penetrate better, spont better, etc, etc. That Int +5 will have them creating better spells than their sodales. They are, in effect, making a pretty big power play, and somebody isn't going to look kindly upon it. You can develop the story in a number of different ways, but it'd probably be a "we were trying to make the world a better place, and those in power beat us down to maintain their power rather than sharing in the great new world with us" sort of thing.

In fact, we could even assume that this sort of notion has come up in the Order before, and has been snubbed out. Maybe that's why the Cult of Heroes had to go underground.

More generally, whenever a "you can build a character that does this thing that is vastly more powerful than someone not specialized in that way", my first responding thought is, "what implications does that have on the game world?" Is it a character build that would have happened before? If so, is there a compelling reason it didn't become common?

Meh. The fear of a Bonisagus taking your apprentice in this scenario is small, isn't it? The difference in cost between a smart apprentice that you boost and a dumb apprentice you boost isn't too big; if the Bonisagi are taking yours, they're just saving themselves a few paws of vis, right?

I can also totally get behind this. The current tractatii rules are response for some of the major minmaxing discussions, because they are both necessary at high levels and pretty much all created equal (since they're single value, single use).

113

Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not worried about a Bonisagus. I'm worried about a Tytalus. If you increase their Intelligence and train them really well in Magic Theory before opening their Arts, and especially if this is a habit at a covenant, it seems like a great opportunity for conflict. I could even see a Tytalus magus who's really good at teaching and CrMe making offers to train/improve the Gifted before apprenticeship, but then he sells the apprentices off to some other magi. :smiling_imp:

Chris

114

Although we're all missing the fact that the cult only uses these on mundanes, and worthy ones at it. No ritual boosting of grogs for them.

Still, this is only a background limitation.

115

I don't think it says that. I believe you are roughly stating the converse of what is written. Rewriting what the book states as an if-then statement (without having the books with me), we get:

If you are a peon and do great things for the Cult, then we will use the rituals on you.

This does not imply its converse:

If we use the rituals on you, then you are a peon and do great things for the Cult.

Or, stated differently, the book says the Cult uses the rituals as rewards for their peons. That doesn't mean they don't use the rituals otherwise. You could give a car to someone as a reward. That doesn't mean you can't also sell cars to other persons.

Chris

116

Under the RAW, this is how much XP you have to spend to write the next tractatus in an Art
First: 15
Second: 6
Third:45
Forth: 70
Fifth: 95
Nth: is (N-1)th+25 for N greater than 3

Under what I thought the rules were, you have to have this much XP before you write the next tractatus
First:15
Second: 40
Third: 65
Forth: 90
Fifth: 115
Nth: is (N-1)+25 for N greater than 1

I prefer a nice, consistent change in difficulty rather than that ugly number at the front.

Remember, Burning Oak Tremere (I had better find a better name by tomorrow!) is not actually a writer, he is merely a magus who was built with more than 60 years experience. If he was a good writer, he would have to be 8 years older to write all those books. But year, he can write 2 tractatus on most Arts, 3 on the rest, except for Intellego where he can write 5, he can write three books on Magic Theory, Penetration, Finesse, Second Sight and Parma Magica, and a couple of books on spell mastery. Of course, they are quality 7 books, and he is supposed to be spending this time looking for Diedre anyway.

117

Nope.

Doh, rereading i see that i misread it slightly... And i also notice that i managed to miswrite my own quite severly, i of course meant OVERestimate, not underestimate. The problem of starting to write it according to one phrasing and then go on in another, still you got the correct message from it so at least the intent was visible enough.

Yup, doesnt even need any kind of additional mechanics or anything, just remembering to include Level to tractatus as well. A simple and quick fix.

Im not sure if thats specified anywhere but its quite possible that you´re correct in that of course.

Well, you could adopt a more stretched version of R/D/T... Duration Year is +6 instead of +4 for me. Sight is +4 instead of +3. While T is similar to original(because there wasnt a lot of extra targets to include in between the original ones) but adds further targets at up to +10.
It allows for a lot more options when designing or using different R/D/T, but it also raises the average for a spell with about +10 levels.

Compared to most other suggestions it IS rather trivial i think. Overall it is at least not nearly as hard as remaking half the rules overall.

To get an estimate, you can check the assumptions made in True Lineages, regarding the Colens Arcanorum.
An average of 4 submissions per year from only house Bonisagus alone, and its rather unclear if that includes poorer texts or not and wether its all written or not(my assumption would be that it is certainly not all written).

Lol, yes. And that may be another reason why many dont consider it. They already "know" that their Com score is obviously the best there is. :wink:

118

Is that the part about the Folios? That section implies that there's a lot of knowledge flowing freely through the order, with the only real limit being a waiting list and a possible lack of scribes. I have trouble reconciling this with the other published materials emphasizing high costs for written works and creating copyright status. The existance of a large amount of public domain Bonisagus work must have an impact on the overall "economy" of books.

119

Given that every character ever written up uses the same 7 points, even minor NPC mooks, I certainly get the impression that the intent in the AM cosmology is that everyone except those with the virtue/flaw that add/reduce points starts with 7 points in their characteristics. Certainly, that's the starting point I use when running scenarios with numbers. Note that this doesn't necessarily imply that all people are born that way... it could well be that the "average stat" at birth is 0, not 0.875, and it's just that the death of weaker children early on boosts the number above the birth-average. (This question is one I'm wrestling with now in my simulator logic.)

120

It's on p.18 of the rulebook, the first paragraph of the section on Characteristics.

In the older Ars Magica editions, if I remember correctly, you rolled your characteristic scores (yes, old school!), and zero was the average result. Point-buy was introduced later (4th edition perhaps?), as an optional alternative to rolling. I remember at the time I was surprised about why, if you could choose how to spend the points (an advantage from my point of view), you also got the additional benefit of having a higher characteristic average. I was told (and found the answer very clever) that with randomly rolled characteristics, low characteristic characters would tend to die quickly , :laughing: so that the average "rolled" PC alive at any given time did have higher than average characteristics.

Ahh... edition nostalgia. I really miss Passions!