Third ArM5 Errata Thread

Games Discussion Ars Magica
47

Clarify if sustain refers to any spell, or merely to D: Concentration spells.
I'd argue (in fact, have argued on this board) for the second case:

  • The only example we have of that guideline refers sustains only Concentration spells (Maintaining the Demanding Spell)
  • Extending the duration of other spells normally fall under Muto Vim
  • I'm not a native English speaker but to my understanding to sustain implies a sort of action or at least interaction. Only D: Concentration (and arguably D: Performance, maybe a few non-hermetic durations as well) requires any sort of attention. all other durations are pure fire-and-forget.
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49

Leadworkers (HoH:TL p. 143)
"may also make kolossoi [figurines] that contain fixed arcane connections, taken from the bodies of their victims, without spending vis or study time."
To me, that sentence means that a leadworker can make a kolossos, and incorporate into it any already fixed arcane connection, as long as it comes from someone's body (thus not a connection to a place or a spirit's true name).

However this contradicts what we read in AtD, p.30, where we read that Monica Irene of Tremere's Leadworker Virtue "described in HoH:TL ... also allows her to fix arcane connections without spending vis or taking time from other studies. She has hundreds of these [kolossoi]."
This is very different, and significantly more powerful, since it implies that a Leadworker can effectively fix arcane connections in 0 time (maybe even during a tense scene of combat?) and for 0 cost - this is an important activity that other magi spend 1 pawn and, crucially, 1 full season, to perform.

I think one of the two should be clarified and/or corrected, because as they stand they appear contradictory to me. I'd be tempted to say that the AtD text misinterpreted the original HoH:TL text (i.e. to keep the "weaker" version), because otherwise the Virtue appears unbalancing by the "must have" test: my players try to always make sure some PC has it.

50

Path of the Heartbeast (GotF: p.39)
Basically, GotF suggests that the Heartbeast is obtained by all Bjornaer magi via a "Forest Path", a pseudo-initiation process that has many similarities but several crucial differences with the actual Mysteries from e.g. HoH:MC. This is understandable, since GotF predates HoH:MC and TMRE; however, we are technically left with a contradiction between the mechanics in HoH:MC and those in GotF.

Perhaps the passage in GotF should simply be removed? My favourite solution would be that Bjornaer herself gained the Heartbeast this way, and then created the Ritual of the Twelve years to only to share it. This would require a few words changed here and there: not the easiest solution, but still doable.

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51

Reread the Virtue with the AtD sentence specifically in mind. That is how I had always read the Virtue working. It may not be written beautifully, but until now I'd never heard of someone reading it how you do.

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52

I have the strong impression someone already raised this, but I can no longer find it, nor see it addressed. So, I'll raise it again, apologizing for any redundancy.

Are Ritual spells formulaic? I'm pretty sure in some previous edition they explicitly were, but it's not made explicit in ArM5. This is crucial because a large number of mechanics (e.g. the Virtues Life Boost & Method Caster) specifically apply to "formulaic" spells, but they could just as equally apply to Ritual ones. And indeed we have some places where it is implied that Rituals are Formulaic. For example, if things stood otherwise, why would Flexible Formulaic Magic explicitly not apply to Rituals?

53

Even doing that (and it should not be necessary to correctly interpret the first sentence)
the two sentences still appear contradictory to both me and my troupe - and some of us write professionally in English. I can see how one might read quickly the first sentence and mistakenly assume that what's in the second takes place. But the sentence "I shall bake a cake with dried figs, hand-picked from the old fig tree in my backyard" by no means implies that the figs are dried in the baking.

54

But "I shall bake a cake that contains a molten core" uses very similar language, is perfectly appropriate, and does not in the vaguest imply the core is molten beforehand. Ask your English writers if they agree on this. If not, have them ask a chef.

55

It does not imply that the core is melted beforehand, but it does not imply the opposite either.
The sentence simply says that the resulting cake has a molten core, and how the melting took place is inessential. The crux here is that the sentence does not suggest that the baking acts on the core in any unusual way. Experience with baking suggests that the core is probably melted in the process, even though sometimes that's not the case.

Similarly, in the HoH:TL sentence, we learn that the end result is that there are fixed arcane connections in the kolossos. The sentence does not say that the arcane connections are fixed in the process. If we read the kolossos sentence your way, unlike what happens with your baking example, the fixing would be both the central aspect of the sentence and a very unusual fact (given that no other tradition fixes arcane connections in 0 time and for 0 cost, not even close).

"For this occasion, I always bake a fruit pie with a gold coin at its centre" is unlikely to be interpreted as "you know, when I bake fruit pies for this occasion, elemental transmutation occurs at their centre".

56

Adaptive casting will be errata'd as per my most recent proposal. General spells and Similar spells will not be touched.

57

That doesn't clearly answer the question, though mostly because it implicitly does in the opposite direction you've suggested multiple times and very recently.

The question is whether a General spell is the same spell at different power levels or is actually short-hand for a bunch of different spells. The core rules still refer to it as a single spell with different power levels, so it really should have only one Mastery Ability according to the core rules. The very reason we knew this was incorrect was that Adaptive Casting was written to share Mastery Abilities between the various levels, which could only be done if they were not the same spell. But that's also where Adaptive Casting contradicted itself because it specified they were the same spell so it shouldn't be necessary. If only Adaptive Casting is being changed to handle Similar spells, then that erases the contradiction and the core rule survives that all levels of a general spell are a single spell and should have a single Mastery Ability. Then all those book references I provided are correct and don't need errata. But you've said otherwise multiple times, which suggests you'll be changing General spells, though you now say you won't.

58

Probably not worth of errata, but just in case:

TMRE p.28 (referenced in HoH:S p.99) has the Rego <Form> 15 guideline: Summon a spirit of <Form>.
TMRE has an example spell that summons a fire spirit from a fire (that serves as an arcane connection). HoH:S has an example spell that summons a spirit of anger in the presence of an angry person (that serves as an arcane connection).
Neither the guideline nor the example spells are Rituals.

ArM5 p.151 has the Rego Mentem 15 guideline "summon a ghost", and an example spell that summons a ghost from either its corpse or the spot where the person died (either serves as an arcane connection).
The guideline was not a Ritual.
The example spell is a Ritual, and an erratum was added to align the guideline to the spell; the guideline is now a Ritual.

This looks a slight inconsistency to me.
I think none of the guidelines or spells should be Rituals, or all should be.
Maybe it's just ok to leave things as they are; but I wanted to point this out.

My favourite solution: revert back the existing errata, so summoning a ghost is still not a Ritual, but highlight that the spell in ArM5 does more than that: while it can be used to summon an existing ghost that e.g. summons a haunt, it can also be used to raise the ghost of a person who would not otherwise manifest one. Hence the Ritual aspect.

59

If you see this clearly, then you know the same is also true of the Leadworker description, that it does not imply the AC must be fixed ahead of time. Plus you seem to have missed something:

Are you so sure it isn't central to the sentence? Read it again. What is the ingredient? It's explicitly an AC taken from the body of the victim. Those aren't (usually) fixed. (AC's taken from the lab after having been fixed from one taken from the body would certainly be fixed.) So it strongly suggests you take this ingredient that isn't fixed, and by the methods of this Virtue you end up with fixed AC in the kolossos.

That both fits the statement of the Virtue very well and perfectly agrees with the AtD statement. Considering they agree when read this way, wouldn't that tend to indicate this is the intended reading? I'm not saying it couldn't be clearer, just that they're only necessarily contradictory if you accidentally make a logical error and assume this other reading isn't possible.

60

Oh, an important one. It was raised in the past, but I think it was not raised in the errata.
How often can enchanted devices trigger within a round?

We read that, if triggered by an action, someone can "use one effect from one item each round".
This is not 100% clear to me: if someone has a magic sword and a magic shield, can those each be triggered once/round, or can only one of the two be triggered (and only once) every round?

The latter reading seems the most natural, but also the most problematic, interpretation of the sentence. Say the sword activates when striking someone, whille the shield activates upon being struck by someone. If I both strike with my sword, and am struck on my shield (by someone else) during the same round, do both sword and shield activate?

And (how) does this limitation apply to e.g. linked triggers?

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61

I may not have been clear. What I mean is this. A sentence in the form "I make a figurine with fixed arcane connections" clearly states the result. It does not say anything about how the ACs became fixed. And thus implies that there's nothing particularly noteworthy about that fixing.

When you bake a cake with a molten core, the fact that the core melts in the baking is unremarkable. Your sentence does not imply that that the core melts in the baking per se. It implies that you should rely on your normal experience to understand how that molten core came into being, and that there's nothing special happening here.

Now look at the Leadworker example. You seem to admit yourself that, in your interpretation, the fixing would be the central fact. But the sentence is one that does not by its structure make that a central or noteworthy fact. In the absence of other information in that passage, we should assume that nothing special happens to the arcane connections in the making of the kolossos. So, the kolossos is built of arcane connections fixed in a non-remarkable way.

Since arcane connections never otherwise get fixed in 0 time or 0 cost, that does not happen in the making of the kolossos.

Right. So if I did not know fixed arcane connections can't come directly from the body of the victim, it would be ambiguous. Can I only incorporate arcane connections that where taken already fixed, or can I take them, fix them, and then incorporate them in the kolossos? Since the first is not an option, only the second is possible. I must first take an Arcane connection, then fix it. Then I can incorporate it in the kolossos, and only then, because arcane connections do not normally become fixed as I do other stuff with them.

Just like "I bake a cake with dried figs taken from the old fig tree". It's obvious that figs do not dry on trees, and it would be noteworthy that the figs dried in the baking, so the natural interpretation is: someone took the figs from the tree, dried them, and then baked a cake with the (already dried) figs.
If someone had wanted to say that the baking dries the figs, one would have said:
"I bake a cake with the figs taken from the old fig tree; the baking dries them".

Similarly, to provide your interpretation, the text in HoH:TL would have read something along the lines "... may also make kolossoi that contain arcane connections taken from the bodies of their victims. The process fixes the arcane connections and does not require spending vis or study time."

62

A bit of logic helps here.
Being able to create a kolossos (a figurine) that contains an already fixed Arcane Connection - that is not something you need a virtue for. Anyone able to create a figurine in the first place (which does not require any magical skills) can include an existing AC in it. They also don't need to spend any vis or significant time to do so.

So since anyone could do that anyway in the first place, why include it in the Leadworker virtue?

The logical answer is of course that what the virtue allows you to do isn't to include an already fixed AC in the kolossus, but to fix the AC by including it in the AC. Looking at the Penetration bonus table we see that such a kolossus is slightly weaker than an ordinary fixed AC (+3 bonus vs +4 bonus)

Unless I am mistaken, the author of the Leadworker virtue also indicated in a post here on the forum (Leadworker Virtue - #21 by Timothy_Ferguson) that this was the intention - that you can fix an AC by including it in the kolossus.

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63

You raise a good point. Surely, the Virtue must provide some benefit.
Let me stress that the kolossoi are not the only benefit.
But they should be some sort of benefit on their own, or why mention them?

Sure, you can make a figurine in no time. But we read that "a kolossos is a representation, like any other (+2 bonus)". What does it mean "like any other"? Check ArM5, p.84. A representation of the target provides a +2 Sympathetic Connection bonus. But it normally requires a Dex+Craft roll of 9+ and several hours of work to create, if it can be used once; it requires a roll of 12+ and a month of work if it is permanent like a kolossos.. So being able to make such representations in essentially no time, and with no roll, is a non-negligible benefit (that gets added to several others provided by this Minor Virtue).

That said, the link you provided was really useful - thank you! It showed the intention of the author. It also highlighted that both this issue and a bunch of others were unclear (to at least someone else outside my troupe). So I think this is even more evidence that this stuff should be clarified (for example, I had missed that kolossoi make for weaker-than-normal fixed arcane connections: I had assumed the +3 bonus they provided was in addition to the normal bonus for having a fixed arcane connection "inside").

EDIT: this leadworker discussion has produced more posts than I had hoped. I think I have said all I wanted to say, so I'll stop here so as not to pollute the thread further. If you want an answer from me on the issue, send me a message or open another thread.

64

Being able to create a kolossus without any roll needed, and in a short time, that can be quite useful indeed - but not something you need to involve any Arcane Connections to do.

Being able to create a fixed AC in essentially no time and with no need of vis, that may seem powerful but a couple of notes:
It seems like a widespread opinion that having to spend a whole season for the normal procedure of fixing an AC is far too long.
For a Leadworker to fix an AC in a kolossus requires an AC from the body of the target - so not just any AC can be used. That can make it tricky to get such an AC in the first place.

That the Leadworker virtue is a bit unclear as written - that is something I think few will dispute.

65

In RoP:I p.84, we read that a character with the Demonic Blood Virtue "may be unaware of her true heritage, in which case she probably has either the Delusion or Manufactured Ignorance Flaw to explain her remarkable capabilities. The close attention of Hell means that she must offset this Virtue with the Tragic Life Major Flaw."

Both Manufactured Ignorance and Tragic Life are Story Flaws. If one must have the latter, one cannot have the former.

66

Not quite. We have only (ArM5 p.37):

You should not take more than one Story Flaw, Major or Minor, ... (italics mine)

Such a "should" is not imperative, and other rules - like the must you quote - can certainly override it.

67

This is not, and never has been, the core rule. Quite explicitly so in the case of Spell Mastery. The errata for the books have been added.

True, but as we are moving away from requiring particular Flaws for particular concepts, I think I do want to errata this.

Certainly seems to be the case. I will clarify.

Do you have a page reference for this?

Yes.