The High Level Limit of Ars Magica Fifth Edition

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Unholy thread necromancy!

So where do we stand now, that we have Covenants on hand? I'd suggest something like this:
40 Technique
+3 Puissant Technique
40 Form
+3 Puissant Form
+43 Focus
+9 Magic Theory
+2 Puissant Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory specialty in spell design
+5 Intelligence
+3 Inventive Genius
+9 Aura
+5 Apprentice's Intelligence
+5 Apprentice's Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory specialty in spell design
+3 Apprentice's Inventive Genius
+5 Familiar's Intelligence
+9 Familiar's Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory specialty in spell design
+1 Superior Equipment (Free lab virtue)
+4 Greater Horde (Major lab virtue, +2 to General Quality and +2 to specialty)
+1 Highly Organized (Free lab virtue)
+3 Greater Feature (Major lab virtue)
+2 Greater Focus (Major lab flaw, -2 to General Quality and +4 to specialty)

198

The magus has Minor Magical Focus, Puissant Technique, Puissant Form, Puissant Magic Theory, and Inventive Genius. His apprentice has Inventive Genius. The magus used a suit of CrMe spells to grant himself, his apprentice, and his familiar Intelligence 5. His lab is at a magical aura of 9, and was built in a place accomodating a Greater Horde and improved a bit.

Of course, cooperation with other magi can increase his lab total. It would also be possible to imagine an even better laboratory.

22

Let's say 2% of all magi live in a strength 9 Aura. Say 3% of all magi have a +5 Int. Then the percentage of magi with both is 0.06%. Multiply this by 1200, the number of magi in the OoH, and you end up with less than one, i.e. it is doubtful that even one such magus exists.

Add in all the other things, and it is easy to see that the probability of such an extreme magus ever existing is infinitesimally small!

FWIW, I've always considered anything above a lab total of 100-120 to be superfluous - that already suffices to invent the greatest workings of magic (level 75) in a reasonable amount of time (2-3 seasons). Beyond that, I reckon that the law of diminishing returns on Art study, plus Twilight, will get you.

23

The Int 5 are gotten through spells, but essentially you are right: this is an attempt to see how high things CAN go, not how high things SHOULD or HAVE gone.

To a large extent, I think you're right. Only very rarely will a project require a lab total exceeding 120.

24

Those extreamly high level spells are reserved for smiting your neighbor...such as spain =p

25

:laughing:

Thirty (or so) years out of Gauntlet, and I can come up with 120+ lab totals..Verditius ones of course.
:unamused:

Why smite Spain? They have good parties... :wink:

I think we should talk about smiting Diedne...the're everywhere you know!
:smiling_imp:

26

[quote="YR7"]
Unholy thread necromancy!

So where do we stand now, that we have Covenants on hand? I'd suggest something like this:
40 Technique
+3 Puissant Technique
40 Form
+3 Puissant Form
+43 Focus
+9 Magic Theory
-----snip-----
198

I would have pegged magic theory at 11 for a sufficiently aged magus. I'd have also given them leadership 4 (labwork) allowing them 5 assistants.

that would put it wel over 200. (For how high things can go not how high they should have gone)

27

MT 11 does make more sense, I agree.

As for Leadership, I just wanted to avoid the entire problem. I agree that its very likely for magi to cooperate on large projects, it is simply to their benefit. Let's consider a cooperation of three magi, requiring a Leadership score of 5 (labwork): the magus' apprentice, the magus' familiar, magus 2, his familiar, magus 3, his familiar. Assuming each is an archmagus, and enjoyed the Int-boosting spells, we are left with:

40 Technique
+3 Puissant Technique
40 Form
+3 Puissant Form
+43 Focus
+11 Magic Theory
+2 Puissant Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory specialty in spell design
+5 Intelligence
+3 Inventive Genius
+9 Aura
+5 Apprentice's Intelligence
+5 Apprentice's Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory specialty in spell design
+3 Apprentice's Inventive Genius
+5 Familiar's Intelligence
+9 Familiar's Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory specialty in spell design
+5 Familiar 2's Intelligence
+9 Familiar 2's Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory (2) specialty in lab assistance
+5 Familiar 3's Intelligence
+9 Familiar 3's Magic Theory
+1 Magic Theory (3) specialty in lab assistance
+5 Magus 2 Intelligence
+11 Magus 2 Magic Theory
+5 Magus 3 Intelligence
+11 Magus 3 Magic Theory
+1 Superior Equipment (Free lab virtue)
+4 Greater Horde (Major lab virtue, +2 to General Quality and +2 to specialty)
+1 Highly Organized (Free lab virtue)
+3 Greater Feature (Major lab virtue)
+2 Greater Focus (Major lab flaw, -2 to General Quality and +4 to specialty)

262

28

You can have Special Circumstances (Working with your Apprentice) and get another +3 instead of Puissant Art which only gives +2.

29

Puissant Art does grant +3. Puissant Ability grants +2

30

ah yes, of course, but why not have both :stuck_out_tongue:

31

Well the example does do that. And there are a lot of virtue points used up: MMF 3, Puissant Form 1, Puissant Technique 1, Puissant Magic Theory 1, Great Intelligence x2. Inventive Genius 1, so 9 virtue points. Granted, some of these are available from ritual spells (great intelligence) or perhaps pursuing a Mystery Cult.

32

If you're going that way, abuse the fact that a mystery cult can teach "Book Learner" or "Apt Student" to someone who has a buttload of affinities. Or even Elementalist. Or both. You can gain elementalist from this with affinities in each of those arts.

33

Book Learner will only get you so far. Eventually you run out of books.

Apt Student is a challenge, because it requires someone else's time, in addition to yours to teach you. Time is the scarcest resource of a magus, so that season of teaching is going to be bought and paid for with at least a season of service in return. Say you're being taught by a competent teacher with a score of 3 and a com of 2, he's providing a SQ of 14 as a single student, the Apt Student adds another 5, to 19. Let's say that the season of service you have to give provides exposure in the same thing, so that's 19 in one season or 21 in two seasons, which makes it no better than a sound tractatus. If the student has to provide two seasons of service in exchange for one of teaching, then it's 23 xp over three seasons, then it averages out to something close to a Q8 tractatus. All this, and you haven't considered the impact on a magus's time that joining a Mystery Cult entails.

34

I have a failed apprentice with MT:6 and a teaching source quality of 23 when teaching large groups... of course that is before applying the penalty for the gift, but still... she teaches a class about once a year for the past few years to help with apprentices and train scribes to transcribe magical texts.

35

My calculations didn't consider how the magus got those Art/Ability scores. I just assumed he had the resources, to check the limits of plausibility.

I don't think reaching a score of 40 is such a problem, however. Assuming a good level 20 summa, you need something like 610 XP from tractatus. That's about 61 tractatus, or at 4 tractatus per writer it's 16 writers. I don't think it's at all unreasonable for even fairly-small cults to get 16 writers to churn out 4 tractatus each over a few centuries. Yes, most of these would be of lower Quality, but some will be higher and we didn't even get to tricks like initiating Book Learner, summoning spirits of past cult initiates, or so on. Bottom line - I think level 40 (before Affinity), which is the core book's guideline, is perfectly doable without raw vis.

And with raw vis, you can of course reach it too, with little Warping on average.

Yair

36

The real issue with tracti is getting them copied. Who would want to copy a tractus that is worth 1 or two pawns of vis when with no skill in scribe you can copy 5 levels of a book which is worth 5 vis? On the other hand it seems to me that tracti are inherently quite valuable due to the fact that they have no level limitation, and my mage if over level 20 would certainly be willing to pay 3-4 vis, since it would cost 4 vis or more at higher levels to experiment for a season, for that tractus.

37

Sure, one Art to that level is easy, over the life of a magus. But there's other stuff going on behind that list of stuff.

Without affinities, assuming an average SQ of 10, which is really reasonable when considering the quality of L20 summae. You need 703 experience points, for a score of 37, and +3 for Puissant. Taken for two Arts to 40 is 35.5 years, without any services to provide to the Mystery Cult, home covenant, tribunal, whatever. Also, no spells and no other Arts.
Then there's the Magic Theory score of 11, or 9 presuming Puissant again, and again presuming an average SQ of 10 is 5.75 years. Then you have to invest the time into acquiring and binding a familiar. You also have to spend seasons improving one's other Arts to 5, let's say that you have to improve 10 Arts, because most of my specialists tend to be around this configuration, 10 Arts with a score of 5 requires 150 xp, or another 15 seasons. Then there's finding an apprentice, opening his Arts and training his MT up to five, which, assuming a SQ for teaching of 15 (I know, it can be higher, but 15 is pretty common and reasonable) will take 5 seasons[1].

[tableborder][tr][td]Form to 40:[/td][td]17.75 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Technique to 40:[/td] [td]17.75 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Magic Theory to 9[/td][td]5.75 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Familiar[/td][td].5 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Other Arts to 5[/td][td]3.75 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Finding an Apprentice, Opening Arts[/td][td].5 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Training Apprentice to Mt 5[/td][td]5 years[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Total[/td][td]51 years[/td][/tr][/tableborder]

At this stage, the only time left over is the 3 seasons each of the first 5 years of his apprentice's relationship. Say 10% of the time above is added on is for covenant and other service during that time. Add another 10% for Mystery Cult initiations and work and probably add yet another 10% for spells, items and other things. If this person has already taught an apprentice, you'll want to add 15 years, too, but these are all soft things that are up to the troupe/SG. As an SG I would never design a character so single minded without giving him 100 years of hermetic life to round out.

So yes, it's not a problem, so long as one has the time. Unfortunately, magi rarely have the time...

[1]This could satisfy the one season of teaching per year for 5 years there are many ways this can be done faster, but there's good reasons for the magus to not teach his apprentice faster.

38

Sure. And that's a very nice breakdown, too.

Time is still required to personalize the laboratory to have all those Virtues I used. And further time to learn Leadership to 5, for the 262 lab total.

I agree - the 200 or 262 lab totals are only available at really old age. At then too, this is possible only for a very fitting character - one with all the right Virtues. Still, I think this calculation sets a good benchmark to what is remotely but still somewhat plausibly possible.

Unique circumstances can push things much higher. And immortal magi are a whole different ball game. But still.