TMRE Immortal Magi and XP question

Games Discussion Ars Magica
#1

Hi guys,
I am looking at the immortality options for my Verditius magus. It looks like he will be going down the route of Hermetic Alchemy and the Greater Elixer.

At first I was concerned about the amount of XP he could store in his talisman, but after reading the errata that is no-longer an issue.

Storing XP, however, is an issue.

The magus makes an enchantment into his talisman, and each 10 points allows him to learn 1XP. However, can he use a lab-text to make it easier?

Season 1: He reads a tractatus and gains 10XP.
Season 2: He has a lab-total of 100 which enables him to put a lvl 50 enchantment into his talisman - he remembers 5XP of the previous season.
Season 3: He reads another 10XP tractatus
Season 4: He now uses the lab-text from season 2 to put two lvl 50 enchantments into his talisman, saving all of the 10XP he gained.

Can he use his own lab-texts, or is each season of work different from the others? I can see arguments both ways.

If a magus cannot use his own lab-texts, can he re-read a tractatus to gain the benefit he lost? In season 3 can he re-read the text from season 1 to gain the lost XP?

I would argue he could, as he has forgotten half of it. He is in effect reading it over 2 seasons to get the full benefit from it. He is not reading it twice

Can magi with Magical Might suffer from acclimitization if they live in a weak or non-existant aura?

Can magi with high might generate their own magical auras - like some beings do?

What do you guys think?

#2

There's not really much RAW precedent either way, but I'd personally allow reading the tractatus over however many seasons it takes for you to get one dose of its Quality in experience. I would not allow using a lab text, because the way I read it, you're storing the information itself as a magical memory, even though the best mechanical representation of that happens to look like an independent spell that holds information. It's a different enchantment for every bit of information, and it's tied uniquely to your Talisman, so really I wouldn't even give such a Lab Text any value for other immortal magi reading the same book.

Acclimation? Hm... I dunno, probably. I'd be much more worried about Might stripping, personally.

As for generating one's own aura... Oh, gosh. Maaaybe. Exclusively as a Ritual Power, though.

#3

Acclimation and Auras
After re-reading ROP:M it looks like the magus would not suffer from acclimation as they are under a permanent magical effect - their talisman and the greater elixer effect.

Magi should be able to act as a preternatural tether of Might/10 - thus generating an aura.

Losing the talisman
Hmmm, an immortal magus loses the benefit of knowledge contained in the talisman when it can't touch it. I am guessing that if the talisman is destroyed the magus returns to being a mortal being as their is no-longer anything making him magical.

Constant effects
As an immortal magus is immune to warping - can they have lots of high-level constant effects working on them? Examples:
ReIg wards against heat and flame
MuCo giving flesh a high soak roll
InIg, InAu, InIm to see the world differently

Learning spells
Would a verditius magus still need casting tokens, or could the talisman fulfill that function? This is especially important for new spells - as they are all stored in the talisman.

Does anyone have an example of binding a high level spell over multiple seasons? The text is a little hard to understand in places, even after reading it twice.

#4

Actually, no. Permanent magical effects won't prevent Acclimation if they're the being's own. You explicitly need to affect a mortal who is affiliated with the Magic Realm OR be affected by one of a still-mortal person's effects. Being affected by your own, even if you made it while mortal, doesn't cut it.

Not one that's innately able to support its own existence, really, but yes.

Wait, what? That doesn't even make sense. If the Talisman is destroyed, he just loses all the knowledge he's invested in it. He doesn't cease to be a being of Magic. What methods are you using that rely so heavily on the Talisman, anyway?

Absolutely. I'd call that the second greatest benefit of becoming immortal, right after not dying. I mean, regular magi can do that too, but it usually leads to Twilight a few years sooner than desired.

YSMV, but I'd say so, assuming you want to actually cast it. You can still enchant the Talisman and use effects from it normally, of course, as many Verditii do, but if you want to full-on cast the spell through The Wizard's Grimoire, tools will be needed.

What's so confusing about it? Okay, let's say you have a Lab Text for Incantation of Lightning and you want to learn it permanently, but your Creo Auram Lab Total is only 45 (including the Similar Spell bonus from IoL) so you can't invest the spell in a single season. You spend the first season learning Incantation of Lightning from the Lab Text. Next season, you spend a season enchanting your Talisman with the Incantation of Lightning spell, but since you only exceed IoL by 10 levels, you can only invest ten levels of effects into the Talisman; the enchantment remains incomplete, and you forget Incantation of Lightning entirely as a season has passed since you learned it. Now we start season 3. You spend this season learning Incantation of Lightning from the Lab Text all over again. In season 4, you once again return to enchanting the Talisman effect, which currently only has ten levels done, and fill it up to twenty levels of enchantment by the end of the season, once again forgetting the spell at the end of the season. Rinse and repeat until you have the entire Incantation of Lightning spell enchanted. You can then spend however many seasons you need enchanting The Wizard's Grimoire in the normal enchantment process (luckily you don't need to learn this over and over again XD) and once that's done, you have Incantation of Lightning. Make sense?

#5

This can also be accomplished with the Familiar bond. Immortality is over-rated.

#6

Psst... I think you mean Familiar bond?

#7

Yeah, I corrected it. I even typed familiar bond out once when I was first drafting it, and in an effort to not be verbose deleted my post and started over...

#8

So... Immortal magi are misliked for their off-putting appearance, bad at learning, less efficient than magi with well-used Familiars, and are terribly overrated? When did "immortal" and "Bjornaer" become synonyms?

#9

Probably not, but note that each effect already in the device with a common Technique or Form adds +1 to Lab Total (AM5 pg. 99). It adds up fast, making the enchantments easy in a way that I'm not sure is intended.

I would say no for Alchemists and Living Ghosts, since this really seems to defeat the purpose of those mysteries. Daimons might be effected but I've never actually seen this mystery in use.

#10

If you want to be technical, the requirement is that the magic effects "do not originate from a creature with Might". Enchantments created before the transformation certainly count for this, arguably even including the Elixer effects.

The main reason to ignore acclimation is that it messes up perfectly good mystery rules that antedate RoP:M.

#11

Say what?
How are Bjornaer bad at learning?

When I say being immortal is over-rated, my point is that the benefits received are typically not even close to the cost. Magi in Ars Magica are all but immortal with longevity rituals. In a saga where immortality is achievable as a mystery path (lots of vis needed, IIRC), there should also be a bevy of longevity ritual specialists out there whose services can be acquired to build a nice LR. Pursuing immortality in Ars is a path to an interesting story and less a path to ultimate power. How many sagas will run after one of the protagonists has become immortal? Is that much longer than one would be able to go with a really good LR?

#12

Was more of a joke poking fun at the stereotype of them being uncivilized and thus, as the medieval logic goes, inherently less capable of becoming more intelligent/cultured. I suppose it was a bit opaque.

As for the rest of your post... I thought most magi died of Final Twilight, not age? I wasn't really questioning the fact that magi can go a really, really long while without dying of old age, but immortality still keeps your character from getting taken out of the game for long or even permanent portions of time, so it does provide some extra playability in that sense.

#13

I'm interested to know how many of us have had a saga where a protagonist died (of old age) or went out in Final Twilight?

I mean if avoiding Final Twilight (or any Twilight) is your goal, a strong Golden Cord and spell mastery is your friend. For the Bjornaer, it's a bit tougher, I'll grant you.

#14

I have.

#15

Yeah, I can understand it being seen that way too.

Not sure about this, don't know if stripping the might will work....

This is covered in ROP:M and is a by-product of a powerful being living in a place for a few years.

#16

I imagine that most sagas try to wrap themselves up before players start losing magi simply out of respect for the player. Companions and grogs are always more replace-able than really old magi.

My magus did once go into Final Twilight (from the spell of the saga's final adversary) with five sessions left in the game, but I got to play companions/grogs and my character made a final stand alongside his depressed, dying, "must fulfill my friend's last wish" Familiar in the last session by forming a shell to trap the other guy in the Twilight Void, so I wouldn't call it a bad ending. (My SG runs sagas with a very high-fantasy feel if you didn't notice.)

#17

I don't see why Might-stripping wouldn't work. He has Might, and he's not human any more, so why shouldn't it?

Ah, yeah, I forgot about the Magic creature tether thing. For some reason I only remembered the version that worked if they died or were buried there.

#18

Ouch, OK - will need to re-examine it.

I can't see anything anywhere about immortal magi having access to the Magic Realm. Living in an aura full-time will help stop acclimation - if only a little...

If using the Greater Elixer route a constant effect enchantment is placed in the talisman to make the magus immortal, then another constant effect enchantment to grant might. If they are lost then I can't see what would keep the magus magical....

Thanks for that, it explains it perfectly for me.

#19

I'm afraid you've misread this, my good friend. You make the Greater Elixir as its very own enchanted device, which can't then be destroyed because you, y'know, drank it. You don't invest the elixir in your Talisman.

#20

Daimons absolutely won't be affected by acclimation, because they're, y'know, living in the Magic Realm and sending out Aspects. They also don't have to bother with enchanting their knowledge into a talisman...they just need to make sure that they have a (preferably Mercurian) cult that'll feed them sweet, sweet vis.