Has anyone done the maths on this. I just did the maths for a mage in their 60's in a generous campaign and they need lvl 86(sum of ability scores) for Mind and 127(sum of art scores) for Spirit which are obscene totals, particularly as that gives the resultant faerie a might of 63 which seems rather high going off the examples in the rules for powerful fae.
Is it likely I am making a mess of the math or has anyone come up with house rules to create difficult but saner numbers
I have...and it actually gets worse.
For a default magus with no relevant virtues or flaws, improving your Arts doesn't help with Transforming the Spirit - your target number increases by the same amount as your Lab Total (and you can't spread it over multiple seasons).
There are a few ways to try to deal with this:
It helps a lot if you start planning for Becoming early, though, and avoid getting too many levels in Arts you're not planning to use for the transformation.
The numbers for that mystery are messed up.
Not your numbers, but the ones in the rules.
The lab totals needed are almost trivial to reach for a young, inexperienced maga - except for the special limit on Lab Total used for that mystery- but get extremely high for an old, experienced maga.
Just look at Transforming the Body. For a maga at age 30 with no Decrepitude, the level of the enchantment, and thus needed lab total is (30-35) + ( 5 x 0) = -5. Something seems a bit off there.
Unless you are heavily specialized in one TeFo combination, or have a relevant Focus, the level of enchantment needed for Transforming the Spirit will increase faster than the Lab Total as the maga learns more.
It is a messed up mystery.
Thanks for that. The Maga in question has a relevant Focus , a familiar and accidentally aquired an Apprentice a season ago.
I agree with Eric though the numbers are messed up so I will come up with some guidelines to change them so it is hard but possible
obviously what you need is a faerie sympathy to boost your lab.
Well house Merinita is a mystery cult, so getting assistance is arguably the best path. It's unlikely a young maga could acquire the mystery that early (for cult political reasons if nothing else), and it should take decades of work to pull it off - lab improvements, negotiating favors for assistance, etc. Mature magi can easily add 15-20 points of lab total per mage, so developing Leadership is a good idea.
Trying to squeak under the bar in your youth (so to speak) just leaves you with a crappy Might, difficulty developing new spells and a lack of useful Abilities you now can't learn. Approach this more like the Ascendancy to the Hall of Heroes mystery - you need a dedicated group to push you into immortality (only this requires a lot less vis, risk and research).
House Merinita doesn't have all that much internal politics that can get in the way - it is pretty disorganized and individual members do whatever they want.
Note that as written, there is absolutely nothing stopping someone from just doing the Transformation of Body and then stopping there.
No aging and no problems with fatigue, all for the small price of not being able to spend fatigue on spells - but being able to simulate it with spending of Confidence points. If done when young it doesn't need a lab total to speak of either.
This also lets you avoid using Longevity potions, and thus avoid the warping from that. Win-win.
Transforming the Mind, and Transforming the Spirit can be done later. If at all - they have more disadvantages than advantages in my opinion.
The target number for the lab total can be reduced by a fair amount if you take an Ordeal. This would allow success as long as the target number was Warping x Faerie Magic + 45 or less.
I am with ErikT in wondering why any Magus would actually want to perform any of them other than Transforming the Body. It is the only one which does not have massive drawbacks which outweigh the benefits for most Magi.
As it stands, just performing Transforming the Body is the best form of "immortality" possible since it lacks all of the common side effects other methods have. Sure you still have to eat, sleep, and breath but you never have to worry about longevity checks again and your gaining of warping points can slow to near zero. They could survive for thousands of years.
The Arcadian Mysteries, which include Becoming, were likely discovered, but certainly hectored by Quendalon (HoH:MC p.78 and 92f), who acted as their very active lead mystagogue for well over a century.
So those following him in these Mysteries may show similar enthusiasm about willing disciples, who are not deterred by the rumors, that Becoming (p.93) "actually destroys the maga and summons a faerie to take her place".
There are some variances in Canon for my setting and the PC is not a Merinita , for RP and character background reasons she intends to take her place among the immortals of the Greek gods and heroeshaving lived in Arcadia for either a decade or a thousand years depening on her internal calander or the actual calander, so she is not concerned about the replaced by a faerie rumour and probably has not heard it.
So she will probably not stop at just the Body but may well not do the others until the end of the saga or in the post saga wrap up however I want to make sure it is a credible possibility
She could take extra flaws to reduce the difficulty but one can only have so many major flaws and she will almost certainly aquire at least one from learning the mystery virtue in the first place and if she has to experiment to create it could be many
That's always how I've read it - Becoming is something you do in stages, doing Body while not too old or Mind when you have all the abilities you think you'll need at level 1, and leaving Spirit as the last step.
The problems I had were:
Let's run the numbers (OK letters as this is algebra)
Your lab total is Best Te + Best Fo + Int + (best of magic theory or faerie magic) + aura + assistance from familiar (their Int + Magic Theory) + any lab bonuses from Covenants your troupe allows you.
Your Limit (until you have done Transforming the Spirit) is Warping Score x Faerie magic
Transforming the Body - done age 50 (thanks Strong Faerie Blood!) you need 15 - My best Te + Fo easily exceeded this, the limit required me to develop a low level CrVi spell to give a warping point at personal range so I could up my warping score slightly.
Transforming the Mind - Total Score in Abilities - oh wait, I want to learn a couple more abilities at 1, and maybe start a new language as well before I do this! Learn a couple of things, add the points up and realise that I have 40 points. My Lab Total covers this, but my limit doesn't - time to study faerie magic up (adding slightly to my total) and warp myself more.
Transforming the Spirit - I leave this until last, as this is the drastic one that sacrifices the Gift. So I add my Te + Fo plus all my other arts (5 in the other 4 techniques, 5 in 8 other forms) - this total is huge. My Int + Faerie magic + Aura does not come anywhere near the 60 points of other forms. Also, my limit will not reach this unless I get even more faerie lore and warp myself to level 9. Once I finally have the Faerie Magic, I warp myself ridiculously and then take a Major Flaw to drop the total need by 45.
It is easy to find yourself stuck and unable to progress to do the final step, as Transforming the Body is easy and the others are hard. It is insanely hard if you try to get enough Arts to train an Apprentice properly before you Transform.