Oh! Sorry Scarecrow, Jonathan has it right-- I was referring to Guillaume of Flambeau, who is 40+ years out of Gauntlet and started the saga with 8's in Magic Theory and Parma Magica, and something like 300-400 levels in spells.
I don't think you can lose virtues, just Qualities-- but yes, Acclimation is an issue. Also the fact that anyone who can penetrate her Parma with a level 5 might stripper can, you know, kill her. And, this is a saga with house-rule Parma-dropping spells. (Where was "troupe approval" on that one?)
And there you go. JL has your back Ryu
As I stated, it is not a big issue for me (so maybe my arguments come off as weak because of that). My main concern is and has always been the whole of the troupe and opinions of other players. JL is on your side, perhaps we should invite him to play with us
Callen's Guillaume? You should have made mention of these issues back when he made that character. 40 is too much, 35 is my hard cap. But that guy is gone and I don't think he is coming back soon.
Carmen is 23yrs and overspecialized. Roberto is definitely not overpowered, but if others disagree, I will gladly scale him down a few years just to have a challenge. But he is only 19 years post gauntlet, and though it was in two different sagas, most of that time was played out straight legit from gauntlet. And honestly, compared to other magi, he is too generalized. He does not exploit his Ignem specialization to anywhere near it's potential, most of his spells are low level affairs spread over all the Arts, and most (maybe 2/3?) of his xp are dedicated to Abilities.
There is no HR Parma Dropping spell. If you are referring to PeVi(G) Lancea Magica, that spell is built from straight RAW. Anyone can design a version of it in any game. And Magi of Hermes has a Rego-Mentem spell that makes people simply drop parma if it penetrates, no secondary roll.
But still, if Roberto possessing that spell bothers you, I will gladly drop it. It wasn't part of the original, just taking advantage of some space to fill. In fact, originally his gauntlet was in 1220 instead of 1215 (battlefield gauntlet in 1212, training finished by mentor). I retconned it when I migrated him to Bibracte. I can retcon it back, his full age will be the same but his Hermetic age will be a few years less. Drop a few fluff spells, scale back on xp in some Abilities, and all good.
Back to Thalassa. I have no issues. JL is on your side. Fixer is uncomfortable, so is Fightmaster, and Xavi has doubts. There has to be room for compromise. I say Monstrous appearance should include blue scaely skin, webbed fingers & toes, fish eyes and a fin on your head. (Form) Monstrosity gets swallowed up and is irrelevant, switch it out for something else. I also suggest you drop Natural Air and just be creepy and deal with it :mrgreen: . Spend three points on a tiny Might Score. That little -3 study penalty will make people feel better. And finally, if you also take Gifted as a Major Quality (having had The Gift transformed along with you), I will say you have bent over backwards to compromise, going the extra mile and a mile more, and back you 100%.
Roberto may not be as specialized as Carmen, but he does have that PoF mastery that will let him annihilate anything that's not immune to fire in a single round, like Carmen did with the salt dragon. This kind of thing bothers me as a SG/GM in any system, because it makes all the other 'combat' characters irrelevant in many situations. I call it the Teen Wolf Effect. He's also three (shortened) cycles into his career, which is the same number as Vocis and more than Vulcanus or Vibria. I get that you're wanting to take a favorite character for a walk and I don't mind playing a younger magus with Roberto around, but it's also hard to view the chapterhouse as a lower power situation with Roberto around.
I guess what I'm getting at is that he's not overpowered as an Andorra magus, but he is overpowered relative to what I thought we were doing with the chapterhouse. But I'm not running the chapterhouse saga, so my read on how it was intended to work may be wrong.
Then I am glad to scale him down
Do note though, that with Flawless Magic, it takes only 35xp to get a Mastery score of 5. I will lower it to 4. Then if I take away the Focus in Creating Fire (which is just gravy anyway), that cuts Penetration down from 21 to only 11. Drop a few spells and a few xp to lower his Hermetic age to 14 and two solid seven year cycles.
+1. My thoughts exactly. I will be playing a magical companion anyway, so I will suck compared to all of your characters anyway However, this does bother me. If it is a lower power level location for the saga, scaling it up with old magi seems counterproductive to me. Roberto or similar would finish all the Berber piracy in a weekend! :mrgreen: My problem is I like the guy, but I am a Flambeau groupie myself, so no wonder here.
The problem with Roberto is general to this saga and the RAW: Spell Mastery is too cheap and too powerful and easy to abuse. Multitcast + penetration + whatever. Yeah, great. That has nothing to do with this specific saga but for ArM5 (and previous) rules. We just removed spell mastery from our saga, and we have been so much happier with the system since that we are not coming back If you want a more powerful spell or ability to affect several targes, just invent a bigger spell or a group version of it. But that is HR et al. Given how Andorra plays out, this would not work here, and I am quite sure it would be an undersirable change (not that I would ever be accepted ).
About Thalassa, my concern comes from the fact that Might creatures tend to be NPC. When you are immune to aging and warping you are efectively eternal. THat turns you into a NPC in the sagas I tend to play in. I would also like her being a magical being and NOT a maga or being a maga that aspires to Trascend and become a true Atlantean (through Mystery CUlt initiation). She is too young for my taste to have already achieved the later through MC initiation. Unless the MC is extremely lenient in its higher Initiation requirements, somehting I find questionable. The concept of Thalassa works perfectly for me, but ROP:M and its derivative power creep systems have already been a problem in my real world saga for me to be perfectly comfy with it here.
When I want to test something (I have done this twice), I tend to do 2 things: play parallel adventures. Have both character sheets (the one you are actually playing and the one you would have liked to play), and think how you would solve a situation with both characters. Evolve them at the same time in downtime et al. In the end you end up woith a good idea of the goods and bads of a character. I did this with a Terram expert with Flawless magic vs an Elementalist, and then we also played this with a wannabe Ignes Festi in our Davnalleus minisaga (hyperborean hymnist mechanics vs Hedge Elementalist + the ROP:M major virtue that allows you to cast spells mechanics). it worked ok, even if it was more difficult to play. Just a suggestion
He's fine... it's our enemies I don't want to have it
If he can be rolled back to a younger version, though, that would make it easier for me to come up with adventures where everyone's characters have equal opportunity to shine.
I don't think that addresses Fixer's issues, but none of those things are particularly important to me. Though I was amused at the idea of having a Gentle Air and being able to MuCo herself to look human, but being stuck on a tiny island where none of those things would ever benefit. The only things central to the concept are the transformed being and being Bound to Magic.
I'm curious to try No Fatigue to see whether the benefits for a magus outweigh the penalty (you're immune to deprivation, which means that you have effectively two extra seasons every year at your disposal, but you can no longer spont at div2), any thoughts on that?
Well, if I'm running the chapterhouse's adventures, she essentially IS an NPC. If you look at her spells... she's the one who will literally hold down the fort while everyone else is running off adventuring. With an Aquam specialized Atlantean, we never have to be worried about getting attacked on our own turf, so all our adventures will be out on the high seas... where she can't go for more than a couple days, at most. Which means she can show up if the party needs a nudge, and then disappear again to allow the PCs to solve their own problems.
Regarding the cult... the way I envisioned the hedge tradition was that they are aggressive about transforming their initiates in apprenticeship, because most tend to die during the process. I had a nice bit of political intrigue planned-- we kill many of our apprentices, but it's legally fine because an apprentice is a magus' property. I'm pictuting about four or five magi, only two of whom are still relatively young, the rest of whom are ancient (but unaging) and frustrated with their inability to grow their tradition. Immortals being impatient, that's amusing!
If so, play a REAL magical human, with a magic might that impedes your learning. As it is, you won't be able to form any opinion about it, since you won't suffer from the big drawback of magical beings, that is, their penalty to learning. You'll just be an hermetic magus, with added superpowers.
Or have your magus have a magical animal companion with might 10-15, and advance it using the RAW on this.
Aside from a few immortal magi, magical beings all are among these 2 lines:
Low might: few powers, low MR, can advance
High might: Many powers, High MR, can't advance.
You? Many powers (hermetic magic), High MR (parma), can advance. How can you judge clearly when you've got the best of both worlds?
As it is, it doesn't, that's the whole point.
The magical human with Might 0 only bolster your hermetic powers without giving you any drawback save... the potential of losing your added powers IF you somehow end up in Wizard's War with an hermetic magus that somehow knows you're a magical being and manages to hit you with a might stripper.
And that's a small risk indeed. Even assuming you somehow end up in such a situation, starting with Parma 0 and Vim 0, you can get to MR 70 against such a spell with just... 75 xps. That's a little more than 2 years of post-gauntlet XP.
20 xp to gain affinity with parma and puissant parma without a flaw
50 xp (become 75 with affinity) to gain parma 5
05XP to take a magic might stripper with the Resistance Mastery.
Any Vim score, doubled, adds to this, so with Vim 05, you get MR 80.
If you're up against someone who can manage a CT of 70 against you, it's quite normal for you to suffer. That's like a PoF with Penetration 50+
Nope, that's straight Ex Misc. He's still at the equivalent of 15 virtue points, 2 of them being the equivalent of major hermetic virtues. And the potential to add more, simply by paying XP (10 for minor, 30 for major, if you don't want a flaw). That's unlimited cheap self-initiations, so long as he keeps his MM at 0.
Given his Might score of 0, he only needs to spend half the time in a magic aura of 5+.
That is, he only needs to spend 2 seasons per year at home.
That's like, really, really hard.
And if he really, really want to spend all his time away?
Buy a magic item that casts a constant enchantment upon him, like, say, a Ward against Heat and Flame, and he's safe. Since it doesn't originate from his might, but rather from his hermetic magic, he can even make a convincing case that he can do this himself.
Likewise, based on what's said in RoP: M about the familiar bond, he can make a convincing case that his familiar bond protects him.
And if he feels really cheeesy? He can just cast powerful effects at people. This is borderline, but a real rules lawyer can quote word for word RoP:M for this.
Please.
You perfectly know that this just won't happen. At worst, marko will supress your qualities, just like he did with Metron. And it's quite easy to protect against this.
When losing your additionnal powers is your only drawback, that's not a drawback.
Agreed. I was even surprised he wasn't more powerful.
These are all good points, but Ryu has some good points too. I am not so much worried about what may happen, more so about what will happen. I do believe we can trust Ryu more than, say, Vort. If things seem to be running away and we make mention of it, I do believe Ryu would reign it in as opposed to pushing the limits further.
So I say we give Ryu the benefit of the doubt and presume Ryu has self control enough not to abuse these advantages to the point of making others scream bloody murder.
And we simply have to put an end to the debate and move on. Arguments just drag us down and create hard feelings.
So I have so ruled: Thalassa is just fine as a Transformed Human. Ryu seems perfectly willing to reel some items in and compromise somewhat along the lines in areas I suggested. I always side with one who offers to meet me in the middle.
For Roberto, I scaled back his Hermetic age to 14 post Gauntlet, as if the Novus Mane original went to Mons Electi then came here (in the Bibracte saga, I had to age him a bit to keep up with the power level, and even at half the average age he was still twice as kick-ass :mrgreen: ). Which works, as I am glad to place Mons Electi as part of the greater continuity of my world, just some fundamental differences between this and that alternate realities (Garus is still alive, Val-Negra is still lost, etcetera). I also dropped the Twilight and Fire Focus and scaled back PoF Mastery to only 4 instead of 5. But I am not willing to alter the Multicasting rules from RAW.
I missed that, despite reaging the whole thread twice (but then, maybe some posts don't display or you discussed this in pm). What areas?
Awesome.
That's Weak Spontaneous Magic. Arachné is already doing fine with it, day in and day out. All she got for it is a "normal" major virtue. The closest one could think of is Wealthy, which gives one extra season to companions.
Tell you what? Do as you please. I just don't want her anywhere near the main saga.
But then, let Marko have Roberto as he did him. He's far more balanced and low-power than thalassa will ever be, and given that he let you have your way despite the opposition of 3 players, the least you could do is let him play his normal, far-from munchkinized character.
Fizer sticking up for me
Fixer, the debate had got scattered through three or so different threads, without Ryu even participating. I had to put a simple end to it. And other people started jumping on Roberto besides Ryu (Ryu was only concerned about age, others wanted me to HR to nerf multicasting and I as like "no way, debate over man".
Ryu agreed to some compromise on Thalassa, so let us wait until we see what Ryu comes up with. Thalassa will be a SG character anyway, for chapterhouse stories Ryu runs. Vulcanus is still at the main covenant and is Ryu's main character, the one for playing. Thalassa, if need be adjusted or shipped or swapped out if things don't work out for us.
No, concerning the nature of Atlanteans and Tritons: Atlanteans are magical beings; reclusive, xenophobic, and self centered. Tritons are faeries; mimicking humanity and fascinated by them, involving themselves in sea tales and the lives of those who work and adventure upon the sea.
Kind of mischaracterizing what I said about multiple casting and conflating it as a commentary or critique on Roberto. Ryu did say Roberto was overpowered. I offered that perhaps he was viewing the multiple casting element as being overpowered, which, by the way, is RAW, just as his proposed character is built by RAW.
That you don't want to nerf multiple casting is one thing, but it is part and parcel of Roberto's power . Being able to fling 5 Pila of Fire is nothing to ignore. This isn't a suggestion or commentary about you overruling yourself, but it is a general commentary that the RAW can almost always lead to overpowered characters and can do it in many, many ways. The important thing is to discuss them, and decide how the troupe wants to handle them.
Again, my suggestion is to make the Aura of Mallorca a 4, and it forces Thalassa to stay home all the time; which kind of makes her perfect for running a Chapterhouse. I suppose I might even extend one other thing, that she can't bind a familiar, as that process does give her an escape. Or if a familiar is bound it has to be a normal animal for it to have any effect on her, since normally a magus binding an animal with might, the familiar gets the benefit, this just reverses the process a bit.
I definitely want a familiar (where's the fun in being a mermaid if you can't go fishing with your bullshark buddy?), but I definitely do NOT think the bond should count as a "magical effect."
The aura on the island can be 5, but the aura in the bay could be 4; Thalassa's sanctum will be underwater. That way the PCs get a standard aura. I aged her a year so she can learn Leap of Homecoming; this way she can pop around when needed.
I do not consider Roberto "munchkinized" as that term doesn't mean what Fixer seems to think it means. He is powerful because he is old-- but that's how this system is built.
I agree, old characters should be powerful. Heck, young magi can be powerful compared to mundanes and low might critters, depending upon how they were built.
I think your compromises are good, the bond not counting as a magical effect for Thalassa and the area where her sanctum is has a lower aura, which keeps her on base, essentially. Just need a good method of signalling her.
The Aegis is a bit of a problem for your proposal. There's no effective boundary with her being underwater slightly off the island. Maybe some sort of harbor, natural or otherwise, that can be used for a boundary for the Aegis, so her sanctum is within the Aegis. Or maybe the aura for the island is 4th magnitude, and there's a grotto with a connection to the sea at the mundane level, and then a regio steps up to the 5th level, which is large enough to house the covenant. Casting the Aegis on the mundane side on the island's natural boundaries might be sufficient.
I was actually glad to scale Roberto back a few years. The core design of Roberto has always ever been to triumph against adversity.
It is his signature spell. That and Sword of the Avenger (which doesn't get as much use as I had hoped). The original-original design had him at a score of 4 in Mastery of each. It has played a kep part of his adventures (in games) more than once, but has never imbalanced anything or made stories impossible (sometimes fire is not practical, and you know first hand that throwing any sort of mystery at him will confuse him). Adding the Focus as a Twilight effect is a bit over the top, I agree. I just so really want it ! But it is just gravy and changes the dynamic so I prefer to do without it. The Gentle Gift, a Major Virtue, is more than generous enough. It isn't a power boost nor does it optimize the character for combat, as you might imagine I would want to do. But I think it really fits the character and direction I want to go (his past of mundane interactions, championing the cause of the common man, and his romance with a faerie princess).
Also, like Thalassa, I understand the distinction between what he can do, and what he actually will do (and what he will not do). For example, he can wipe out the Barbary pirates in a few seasons. He will torch a pirate ship that attacks him, but he will not go about hunting for mundane pirates (it would be a violation of the code, and yes, he does care about such things).
I agree with the Familiar part, in that neither Thalassa nor the Familiar can stave off acclimation if the Familiar has Magic Might. If it is a mundane animal with "Inherit Magic" (such as Warping, a Supernatural Virtue, or something else a mundane animal could posess), then the Familiar will stabilize Thalasa, and she will in turn age as the [/I]Familiar[/I] ages. Some Bond Qualities might have an inverse effect also. But the infinite bond enchantment potential with continual effects causing no warping, this is always and ever a benefit.
As for the Aura, the base will be 3 actually. I suppose we will need to have a discussion on Boons & Hooks and see if the players want a higher Aura score. In this manner, Thalassa is kept in check by the whole of the troupe who must come to a consensus on what the aura shall be. I say we take an Aura of only 2 (Minor Hook) that is aligned with Aquam (Minor Boon).
Looks like there's a cove on the south side of the island. The covenant could be a network of buildings-on-stilts, with Thalassa's sanctum below. The Aegis boundary could be the border around the stilts network?
I'm no expert on the system, but there should be a host of Mentem spells that allow this. I was thinking that Words of the Unbroken Silence might work. ARM5, Page 148. CrMe, Level 10. Speaks 2 words directly to the mind of the target, which they know is supernatural in origin. Maybe enchant a device in the Covenant proper that any of the Magi or Companions can use to call Thalassa when needed?
Wizards generally have to go with low magic means of communication, or magic that doesn't require penetrating the resistance of another magus. Penetration can be an issue whether it actually penetrates or not. If it does penetrate, you're effectively communicating how much power you have to the other magus. If it doesn't penetrate, nothing happens. This spell also requires being able to see the target (Range: Sight) and so wouldn't work when she is in her sanctum, presuming that you can't see her when she's in her sanctum.
).