I don't have a good answer to this issue, and my throwing out a rook was a point for discussion, not a "this ruling is my final" type thing. I think halving CTs and LTs when using or working with a rook of vis might be an issue. The one issue that will come up annually is the Aegis, if she participates in the ritual and it gets to 10th magnitude, she's going to be ill all day long. Her ability to Commune, should she desire will also be hampered. And when I say participates, I mean she's involved, but not casting, and is able to enjoy the benefits of the Aegis without a token.
I guess one could argue that there is a Lab total for Preparing for Enchantment: MTx2. This would limit the opening of the device to MT if it is 10 pawns or more to open. Meaning Tranquilla would have to construct a device that only needed 9 pawns to open to skirt under her allergy limit. When opening additional capacity in her talisman, she could only invest 9 pawns at a time, or when her MT is greater than or equal to 22, she could invest more.
Cool concepts need to be balanced for maintainability, and I think this flaw is bordering on the high maintenance side of things.
Korvin carries a rook but it would have no Deleterious effect on Tranquillina because she is not carrying it. Once sensed, should should be afraid of Korvin and not want to be in the same room as him. If that sounds logical, then how does she work in a lab even if there is not a rook of vis present.
I'm just putting on a SG hat when I bring this up. I just think the combination of the flaws make it impossible or nearly so to do work with enchantments. Part of this is because the Fear flaw is vague. I have vertigo with heights so it could be considered a fear/phobia. I can not even imagine trying to work at height. I would be seriously non functional. I try to extrapolate that into a YEAR or even 3 months of work when I think of this. How would a magus work if they did not want to be in their lab when they are working on an enchantment because it made them uncomfortable?
It is why I like Peregrine's Vis Allergy. It is not crippling and give logical downside when having to work with something that bothers you. Like Painful magic that it was based on.
How did I miss Fear (of Vis)? I blame some other things going on in RL. Yeah, it's hard to see how a magus who is afraid of vis is going to carry vis, and then even work with it. How does she overcome that fear? How did she acquire the fear?
Ah. I would have thought like you.
May I suggest keeping the lvl 15 version and trading the lvl 20 for a Sun duration Wizard's Communion (useful for the Aegis)?
Yes.
I thought about this, trying to find a workable solution within the rules, but I have a hard time finding one.
Best solution I have: Treat it as a negative faerie sympathy (from RoP: F). This exists as a minor flaw.
You can also try it as a Baneful Circumstance.
Lots of input here - thank you all. I'll discuss Fear of vis in this post, Deleterious Circumstances in the next.
This is probably an oversimplification on my part, but much of the feedback in the past several posts seems to be interpreting the Fear as a Major Personality Flaw - a defining aspect that is strong enough to induce risky behavior. My intention was more in keeping with the idea of Minor Personality Flaws (emphasis added):
My idea was that Tranquillina would, for example, prefer not to store vis in her lab or sanctum; when she had to work with it in the lab, she would organize her schedule so that all the vis-touching happened in a concentrated interval, with plenty of time for a hot bath afterwards; that she would always ask someone else to carry vis for her before agreeing to do it herself; etc. In other words, jebrick's remark that it would need to be a flaw with "no bad effect from it other than cosmetic effects" is pretty much in line with how I envision Minor Personality Flaws. (Compare, for example, to Carefree, Optimistic, Pessimistic, Temperate....)
That being said, if it seems too unrealistic for a maga to have enough fear of vis to be worth a Flaw, I can relegate that aspect of her personality to roleplaying only. There are several Personality Flaws that I could elevate into a more explicit part of her persona: Humble, Oversensitive to disrespect, or Pessimistic spring to mind as possibilities (or Driven or Obsessed, if I wanted to emphasize her goals more, or even Infamous if I wanted to emphasize her twice-dysfunctional apprenticeship). What do you think?
I'm finding it harder to pin down the discussion so far about the proposed Deleterious Circumstances. For a Flaw with an explicit mechanical disadvantage such as this, obviously the balance of how rare/commom the circumstances are is of crucial importance. Strangely, some of the feedback seems to be that the proposed rook-of-vis circumstances is so rare as to be "easily avoided", while other feedback is that it's too crippling! Just as strangely, I find myself in sympathy with both critiques.
I think that when we usually consider Deleterious Circumstances, we think of a situation that hampers spell-casting (while in a forest, for example) but not typically lab activities. The rook-of-vis proposal does this sort of backwards: situations where this would hamper actual spell-casting are in fact easily avoidable, but there are several lab activities that are essentially ruled out in practice. Still, there are lots more lab activities still in play than covered by the Deleterious Circumstances, so it wouldn't shut off the lab entirely by any means....
Anyway, I like this Flaw's concept for Tranquillina a lot, but it's still hard for me to judge how reasonable it is as a mechanical disadvantage. I can say that I don't see the laboratory disadvantages as being crippling, but would merely give her character some definition (how annoying that she won't join our Wizard's Communion, how strange that she doesn't open space in her talisman efficiently, how surprising that she got another Corpus specialist to make her second-gen Longevity Ritual). But if the lack of spell-casting penalties in practice makes it seem like a bad implementation of a Flaw, I don't want to press the issue.
Possibilities in its place:
I'll have to look at these at home this evening - only have those in hard copy. I also thought of Flawed Parma Magica (Vim) ... but does that even come up, needing Parma against Vim spells?
Speaking of serf's Parma - Jonathan, I think I have Heirs of Merlin, I recently acquired a bunch of 4th ed. books - but I'll have to make sure; I'll come begging to you for info if it turns out that I don't.
This is problematic as the reasons she would need to use vis in excess of 9 pawns are mostly related to the lab, perhaps related to her talisman or other enchantments. Ultimately this is something that can't be RP'ed through and isn't eligible for benefiting from a Confidence Point. So this Flaw bears the hallmarks of a flaw that has no downside and can be avoided by almost normal character behavior. And I doubt any of us here would be satisfied if Tranquilla had to use a Confidence Point to do lab work with 10+ pawns of vis. And then jebrick has a good point, how often is Tranquilla going to carry vis? Stories here haven't ventured into collect vis variety... Vis collection is more or less automatic as this is a story of hermetic adulthood, and what you do with the vis and the choices you make with how resources are spent are much more interesting to me than how do we nurture and procure our scarce resources which is common to spring/winter covenants.
Those you describe again are Personality flaws and RP'ed or should be RP'ed and primarily color PC interactions or possibly NPC interactions. Take Fiona's Secretive for example, she's reticent until you ask her a question. Alexei's Dutybound also makes it easy to compel him in multiple ways to a Miles story. I don't see being able to play up a fear of vis all that easy, and it could be that you are an unknown quantity, I have nothing to base your RP on, so since I see it as being difficult and others see it as being difficult, I think it makes sense to pick another flaw that is easier for us to see but conveys the same sense of vis avoidance, if possible.
These are up to you, but I see these as easier to play than Fear of Vis...
How many lab activities necessitate the use of a rook of vis? You're talking about a situation which requires investing 100+ levels of an effect. Unless we completely nerf her ability to prepare devices for enchantment, this is, again a flaw which can be simply be overcome by the character never carrying more than 9 pawns of vis.
I think that it makes a bad flaw in practice, because it is so easy for the player to avoid it. And quite simply, the only other thing I see as being a penalty is her 2nd generation Longevity ritual. And there's a character at the covenant who can easily take care of that issue. Extending it further is just nerfing her ability to prepare for enchantment, and really that's not entirely reasonable, either.
Having Flawed Parma Vim makes it incredibly easy to knock down your Parma. That's not really a good thing. IT also makes it easy to toss a spell at you that might trigger a twilight episode.
As i pointed out much earlier in the thread, making a LR would not be a problem. she and Korvin could work something out and she would just have to be available for the season. But CASTING the LR once it is made is up to her and not Korvin. If Korvin cranks out a 100 point LR that takes into account her waster of Vis flaw she will have to cast the ritual, by herself, with 3 rooks of vis.
I haven't run the numbers for Tranquilla, yet, but I believe I made an egregious error. I indicated that advancement was per RAW, which was 30 xp per year, and I then compounded that error by discussing strategies for bypassing the penalties of lab advancement. That is entirely incorrect. Post gauntlet advancement is 40 xp per year (10 per season). So, assuming you spent two years on lab work, you should be spending 1200-80=1,120 xp on advancement where you probably spent 840.
Go ahead and fix her up, and I'll plug her into MetaCreator when ready.
Okay, everything is falling into place. Thanks, Jonathan, for taking the time to make those very articulate arguments; I'm convinced to change both Flaws to others. I looked up Fixer's suggestion about negative Faerie Sympathy traits, and that seems to make sense for Tranquillina; and then I re-read Peregrine's Vis Allergy idea and had a new appreciation for it. It would make some of my talisman lab totals fall short, but now that I have extra xp to assign as per Jonathan's last post, I can easily doctor that up.
So the current proposal:
Delete the Fear and Deleterious Circumstances Flaws.
Add a different Personality Flaw: Oversensitive, to being negatively judged.
Add a (nerfed) version of Vis Allergy, to wit: Vis Allergy (Minor Hermetic Flaw): Whenever Tranquillina is in the presence of vis, all of her Casting and Lab Totals take a penalty based on the amount of vis present: -1 for a number of pawns up to her current Vim score, -3 up to 2x her Vim score, and -5 for more than 2x her Vim score.
On the last item, points of discussion could include: what does "in the presence of vis" mean? Touching it? Within a pace, 10 paces? Able to see it? Also, this version penalizes only magical totals; should it penalize all rolls? Should there be extra botch dice?
(Edited to add: I'm borrowing Heirs of Merlin tonight from a friend.)
If everyone is good with the Vis Allergy, I think we're good.
I mentioned Heirs to Merlin to give you some rough background on your selected final parens. Page 125 discusses Nigrasaxa (which would have been founded well after your gauntlet) founded by your parens. You can extrapolate back a few years, but he is a corpus expert Bonisagus.
Everyone seems cool with Vis Allergy, so in it goes. I've updated her character build and it should be good to go for a Metacreator check. I can't decide if I'm right on the xp or +/-5xp off....
Too bad there's so little about Maximianus in Heirs of Merlin, and that Nigrasaxa wasn't founded yet during Eskil's apprenticeship. Very little to go on....
Well, you can establish a bit about him. Where he might have been prior to that point (doesn't have to be Stonehenge, but it is easier nexus with Tria if it was. He could have been at Blackthorn, chafing under Tremere...
Sure thing. Are there any covenants in Stonehenge, in this saga, that aren't in HoM or otherwise canon? And where was Tria while she was there (and when)? - thanks.
Tria was a peregrinator in Rhine for a while, probably by the time she had you she was shadowing the Tenentes in Stonehenge. Maximianus could be from anywhere in my own opinion. There are two covenants in Stonehenge, but neither are appropriate for Maximianus to be from. One is the one where Cygna was apprenticed, River's Edge or something? And the other one is Astalon, where Ra'am was initially apprenticed before ending up in Normandy at Le Maison, after his two years with Tria tramping through Hibernia, Loch Leglean and Stonehenge Tribunals.
Astalon is full of magi, no Bonisagus. Le Maison is led by Prospero Bonisagi. Maximianus could be from anywhere, IMO, it seems that Heirs to Merlin suggests he came from elsewhere, or suddenly developed a political conscience of some sort and started Nigrasaxa. Also, Tria is well traveled, as she has an ability to move between caves inside Regios...
Also, it doesn't have to be Maximianus. I suggested him because he was mentioned in Heirs to Merlin, as someone who Tria would know, and he is a corpus specialist.
It is relatively easy to have a vim score of 10 (say, 3-4 seasons for you), meaning:
1 to totals for 1-10 pawns of vis. This is negligeable for lab work, as well as for boosting spells
3 to totals for 11-20 pawns. Ok, this seems ok for a minor flaw, but how often does it happen?
The -5 penalty, I don't expect to see it (How often does one handle 21+ pawns?)
To put it into perspective, a negative sympathy, which would be the closer to RAW answer to that question I can think of, would, IIRC (serf's parma, although this morning, I've seldom worked and did a lot of Ars) would mean a penatly equal to Warping Score +1, so probably at least 3.
Compare also to Negative Cyclic Magic, which gives -3 half the year, and affect all spellcasting and lab activities.
On a totally unrelated note, I notice you have Perdo 14. Thank god!!! We really need someone skilled in Perdo, especially PeVi. Too bad it ain't higher, but this is already something, and can be put to much practical use. Do you intend to follow up on this? Isen would totally put his fangs on you
Hum, coming back full circle to one of my previous ideas for you, I realise that that "Dispelling" focus would be much, much needed by Mons Electi.
I suppose you're really not interested
You make a good point that the -1 is pretty mild compared to other Flaws. Don't forget, though, that every time Tranquillina casts a spell, she gains the ability to sense vis for quite some distance (Voice range, to first approximation). All of that vis will count against her for the purposes of this penalty. I can see that -5 coming up quite a bit in a big battle.
Still, a straight -3 would be simpler and perhaps reasonable ... or we can ramp up the penalty more quickly relative to her Vim score.
I think if she were welcomed into a new covenant, in a stressful time for them, then she would be extremely open to suggestions for what learning would be appreciated And learning Vim helps her master her Vis Allergy too, at least as it's currently formulated.
Yeah, the dispelling focus doesn't seem to match the character too much. On the other hand, I have no real ideas for a companion character yet ... any ideas how that could be included in a companion character? (might be a stretch)
And learning Vim helps her master her Vis Allergy too, at least as it's currently formulated.