WARDS
Personal wards (R:pers, D:mom, T: pers) give a soak bonus equal to its magnitude. If the Art is not soakable (ie: Mentem spells) the Ward gives a +1 to the Natural Resistance roll of the target per magnitude
Circle wards do not need to penetrate. A supernatural creature wanting to enter or leave the circle ward needs to beat its level with their might + Penetration.
Parma magica can be stacked in a circle and protects everybody within, but that leaves the magus protection-less if he leaves the circle. He needs to destroy the circle before being able to recast the parma at a Personal range, so that creates a window of opportunity of Diameter duration where he is defenseless
THE GIFT
The Gift causes a -5 to social interaction. The Blatant gift causes a -10 to social interaction.
This prevents low level Imaginem spells (like aura of ennobled presence) to offset completely the bad modifiers imposed by the Gift and reinforces the role played by mundanes that collaborate with magi.
ABILITIES
Magic/Faerie lore become one ability (Legend Lore)
Divine/Infernal lore become one ability (Divine Lore)
Finesse & penetration are a single ability (Finesse)
Carouse becomes part of Athletics (for power drinking) or is disregarded in favour of roleplay scenes
Swim is a specialty of Athletics: if you know how to swim your specialization MUST be swimming. Otherwise it is assumed you don’t know how to swim.
There are only 3 Social abilities, not 6.
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[b]Folk Ken.[/b] To detect the reaction of others to social interaction
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[b]Intrigue [/b](etiquette guile, bargain); interchanges of information in a parry-riposte kind of interaction between 2+ people. Any competitive interchange. Getting some info out of an unwilling (or willing) target, being rude behind a façade of etiquette or negotiating something are examples of Intrigue.
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[b]Charm [/b](etiquette, guile, intrigue). Any kind of polite or seductive interchange between 2 or more people, or between a person and an audience. Any collaborative interchange or unidirectional discourse. Getting n audience to agree with your discourse, seduce someone or be polite in a social situation are examples of Charm.
Code of hermes Lore is inscribed into Order of hermes lore.
The several area lores also take into account local law and parts of civil & canon law: the Area lore score can be used instead of civil & canon law with an appropriate penalty
VIRTUES AND FLAWS
Both Strong writer and strong reader add +1Q to Source quality. In the case of strong reader it also ups the total XP you can obtain from books to 16 XP/season.
ALTERNATIVE COMBAT SYSTEM
A completely alternative combat system will be used. It might be published in a future Sub Rosa or Sanctum Hermeticum if I end up writing it well. It has been tested IMS repeatedly to a high success in our opinion. It streamlines the calculations and makes the weapon choice much LESS important compared to the ability of the fighters. At least in our opinion
SOAK
We use the old 3rd edition soak rules: you never roll to soak but simply add +6 to your soak score. Only damage is rolled, soak is a fixed number
BOOKS
2 types of book: authorities and tractatus
Tractatus
All books that are not authorities are Tractatus as per the rules. A summa is a collection of tractatus or a single high quality tractatus. Only 2+ tractatus bound in a single volume can be made Resonant as per the covenants rules.
The maximum level of tractatus you can read in a season is 15 levels. Any extra levels in the tractatus(es) that you are reading are lost (ie: if you read 2 quality 10 tractatus you get 15XP, with the remaining 5 XP being “lostâ€). The tractatus you read in a season can be on diverse subjects, but all need to be Ability tractatus or Art tractatus; you cannot mix and match them. (ie: you can read a Q9 Herbam tractatus and a Q6 Creo tractatus, but you cannot read a Q10 Philosophiae book and a Q5 Intellego one).
You can write a tractatus per 5 levels of an Art or 2 levels in an ability.
Tractatus quality: 6 + communication. For both arts and abilities.
Good binding, illumination AND illustrations (all together) add +1Q to a tractatus
Resonant materials add +1Q to a tractatus compilation (a summa). At least 2 tractatus on the same Art must be wound together to be elegible for ressonant materials
Authorities
An authority is a level 4 tractatus. You can read it over and over again, though: there is no limit to how much you can learn out of it. The paradigmatic Authority book in Mythic Europe is the Bible. There are no Art authorities.
Writing authorities is not available to player characters.
An authority costs 20 build points per ability it covers