Hmmm... am I missing something?
91 points yields a score of 13 in an Art.
To get 19 you need 190.
Yes. Reread prev posts for content.
CUchain, you should be quiet, because ezzelino is right: it's not precise calculation.
SO you have to be precise for the "non rules power knowledge" players here;
he takes puissant in the two arts (+3-) and affinity.
So 91 => 136 => 16 + 3, in the two arts.
But Cushain is bad at explaining people; he's good at stating things "out of nowhere" ^^ 
Now now, no need to get all nasty.
These virtues were already defined in the posts immediately preceeding that particular calculation. By that I mean immediately preceeding: it is quoted in the post directly before his post on numbers.
The point he was replying to specifcally was my request for him to explain how to achieve those numbers 'out of the box' Why did he need to write it all out if that was the question?
Those numbers didnt come out of thin air - they are a direct respones the the post before it.
Good beans...
Ah, I see. Thanks! I had only skimmed over the previous posts (which are somewhat tangential to the thread's title) and when I saw the formula, it just screamed WRONG to me. Peace!
A second focus would cancel the concept the Tremeres are the descendants of the weakest founder so they must rely on politics and organization.
Hmm an interesting point raised there. It could be read as a deliberate weakness in the lineage alhtough I suspect in terms of 'truly powerful' stuff the absence of mercurial or potent magic in the line would reflect that fact better.
Nowhere you looked, apparently. 8)
(and that was quoted, so it was there to miss twice!)
ezz - Sorry if I was curt - I thought it fairly straightforward in context. And Exar is not all wrong - I don't see a need to repeat when the relevant info is barely 12 hrs old and repeated 4 and 6 posts previous. 
You asked if you missed something, and the answer was "yes..." 
I don't think having a required Focus in Certamen is really all that weakening at all. In the past two years, I have seen around fifty different characters pass by my eyes. I think only 5 or so had any sort of focus (and this includes the Tremere pc's Certamen focus too). So, even though it looks like pure gravy, people hardly ever take a Focus it seems. If everyone took focus, or if even at least a quarter of players took one, then I would say the Tremere seem to be gimped by their requirement. But it seems that there are a lot of really good Virtues that most people prefer over a focus that also generate powerful characters. I see Strong Faerie Blood more than any other single specific virtue (drives me nuts too).
The thing that sucks about the required Certamen Focus for Tremere is that it limits your design options, and unfairly so. Sure, I may probably not take any focus, but what if I wanted to? Not having the option makes me want to have it. And especially when it comes to Tremere, I want to take a Necromancy Focus. Major Potent Magic, while cool, is not quite the same. And the sweet spot is when you have both (one from CharGen, the other gained later from a Mystery or Twilight).
I think Certamen was cooler as an Ability. I do prefer the current certamen-duling formula, but Certamen as an Ability had a different flavor. It was an xp sink, and if you wanted to be good at it you needed to spend time on it. It was also a limit on the amount of vis you could use, allowing a magus who was more skilled in Certamen to have an advantage against an opponent with higher art scores.
How would I retrofit into ArM5? I wouldn't. But if I did, I would still keep it as the vis limit in a duel. I would let you use it as a bonus to either attack or defense as you choose from round to round. Keep the other scores as they are, based on Parma, Penetration, Finesse, and so on. Then as for Certamen Schools, you have Familiarity with a number of schools up to a limit of your Certamen score (presuming you have had training or exposure to these schools). and you may Master one school upon reaching a score of 3.
But that is if I were to do that, which I wouldn't. Maybe in the game I don't play that Ken K doesn't run, I might try it there and see if he likes it. But in the game I do run and in the other game I do play, I wouldn't bother. It just complicates things.
That really is a good point, and got me thinking. I currently play a Tremere, and the way i read the section in 'HoH:TL, Tremere' about roles and resposibilities as well as the kind of support you can request solves this. A Tremere magus will serve his House in one season each year, thus (potentially) falling somewhat behind his soldales from different houses. But he can request aid from his house: specialists, money or vis (loans as a young magus, but gifts later on), acces to teachers and books and lab texts etc. And most of this is cheap for the house - loaning out vis, money, books or lab texts is 'free' since it comes back. And the young Tremere can spend his 3 free seasons per year at an advantage over his covenant mates, who might suffer from a library with some lacking in certain areas, or poor vis supply. The gifts of resources and servisec of specialists or other Tremere magi certainly cost something, as does loans which risk never being paid back (lost in transit, accidents, death of a magus etc.). But this is small potatoes, considering you have a network of organized magi working for the house.
So I don't think the 'Tremere was the weakest, and they still are' need be enforced by anything else. And IMHO Tremere may taka a second Focus (perhaps with some wmall limitation, like only minor?) and Focus in Certamen to be somewhat restricted to Tremere. It need not be exclusive, but certainly very rare among others. And the Tremere might keep an eye on those individuals. A bit like how the Quaesitors have some Mastery Abilities (Acute Sense?) that they keep close.
All the mages IMS take focus. Nobody treally cares about the cheese potential of it. It is just that thematic mages beat hands down a generic spellcaster that has no personality or an area of excellence hands down. Twice. Minor focus is too cool to pass
Cheers,
Xavi
Whether or not the character has a focus has nothing to do with how "thematic" or "generic" or how much "personality" a character has, or even whether a character has "an area of excellence".
A "Flambeau with a focus in fire", or a "Bjornaer with a focus in trees" is hardly an innovative character. It's the non-focus bits that make the character interesting.
YM does V then 
We find that magi with mmf add a lot of quirks to the diverse magics seens around and show the fact that hermetic magic is far from perfect. We like that, but others do not. One of our magi has a focus in salt water, another in feathers, another in ash wood. Fire is dull due to abuse, but other focuses are quite nice in our opinion. It is one of the multiple quirks that make a character unique as you correctly said Or the companions and grogs would not be unique after all!! :d
Cheers,
Xavi
Ah yes, companions and grogs.
If there was one wish I could have for companions in particular, but mages too in general, it would be 'the book of major non-hermetic flaws'. A great disapointment is that these are too few in number, especially when combined with the 'only one personality flaw'. Far too many black sheep for example. The whole virtues and flaws system needs moire bulk, especially flaws. Too many magi with tormenting masters and almost non with weak parens...
It puts the order in a strange place in its history. In the recent past magi were cruel to their apprentices and in the near future (on account of how we purchase virtues & flaws) this is a flaw we are unlikely to pass on to our successors if we plan to play them in our troupe!
Lots of stuff has been added, in supplements but much of it is for magi, or cult groups. I don't see a cult as being special if those virtues and flaws are known much outside of it so they tend to stay there IMS. I for one, would gladly pay for a 'characters' book which combined all the generic stuff form otehr supplements, the basic stuff and a stack of new virtues and flaws along with new character templates. A lot of it might be reprinting existing material I know, but providing a goodly chunk is new that would be do me. Heck having it 'under one roof' would be a boon anyway. Especially for the casual players who ask - al lthe time 'If I was to buy one supplement, which would it be'. Fingers crossed for Lords of Men here, hoping there will be some new generic flaws in that...
[quote="Marko Markoko"]
I think Certamen was cooler as an Ability.
[/quote]
Yeppers.
Doesn't unbalance a saga too much to allow it to be so again, but it can be an experience point sink - altho' the same can be said for Spell Mastery, Penetration etc.
It would give non-Tremere a way to excel in the "minor leagues" of Certamen, and the dedicated Certaman practitioner to occasionally rival a non-dedicated Tremere. Iirc, in HoH:Societatus, under Hs Flambeau, there's more than one passage that suggests that they enjoy practicing Certamen at gatherings and such - hard to practice something that isn't improved. 
And if a Tremere wants to stand out within their House (and go largely unchallenged in the Order), they can then pile Puissant and Affinity and such on top of their innate Focus. Or risk that others do...
Yes, certainly you can make a good interesting magus character who has a focus. No argument there.
However, it is equally possible to make up a dull character with a focus, or an interesting character without a focus.
Totally agrree. I have seen many a fine set of virtues & flaws on a character sheet that are never played out in the hands of a dull SG or/or player.
I do feel though. A Focus is the single best way of defining a characte concept. The Red wizard, the birdman of Caithness, the master of storms etc. I am not saying you cannot come up with thoes concepts any other way. I just tend to feel that with a new character or an NPC they help you to build the other things around it form a conceptual point of view. Doing it the other way round tends to feel more like a picking list of top choices and a backstory thrown on top like a dash of salt on a fried egg.
Exactly.
Especially if one considers Spontaneous Magic to be part of the color of those colorful characters.
The diff between being able to squeeze out one more magnitude for a Spont Spell, vs not, is a signal characteristic of such a character.
A good player can create an interesting character with no virtues or flaws whatsoever. But that's not what we're talking about here, I believe. A minor Focus would be one more pigment in the artist's palette, and a strong one.
Indeed. Part of the problem is that going by RAW descriptions, flaws tend to be VERY damaging, especially compared to how advantageous many virtues is.
My solution to that was to add the next level, "Greater" F/V(worth 5 pts) which for flaws moves Major to Greater by their RAW description. This lets you end up with minor flaws that are still there and potentially annoying, major being occasional trouble and greater being either always annoying or all too often BIG trouble. It means Major flaws are no longer so badly crippling as some of the VERY rarely used ones are by RAW. It also allows room for Virtues that are really to powerful to be called "just" Major.
There was a mistake made IMO in defining flaws simply as -1 or -3 rather than the mixture we had before. It does make managing them easier in terms of limitin the number in categories, but it fo many greater flaws there is huge variance in how much of a penalty they actually reflect.
Far too many characters with the same set of flaws because they are the 'least' crippling. This is pushed to the ultimate extreme by limiting the numbers of flaws a person can have in a particular field. Most major hermetic flaws are crippling compared to 'black sheep', or tormenting master. Sure they are problems but its not like an RPG is a place without foes & enemies. To a large extent these kind of flaws just let you pick the name and class of your main rivals! I would choose that ever day over almost anything in the hermetic flaw list if I was looking to create a strong character rather than one based on a concept.
But that is what i guess we have to return to. Every system is rubbish if you exploit it.
It works perfectly fine if you try to squeeze a concept into the framework and accept the numbers it spits back at you. I try as much as possible to do that, but I never have a concept that includes that many virtues or flaws and inevitably end up scouring the lists for 'something vaguely related' and thats when the gamer in me is reding the stat lines as much as the descriptions. A greater variety of virtues and flaws would probably be a great boon. The original concept seems very generalist, perhaps breaking some of those virtues & flaws into very similar and even duplicated bonusses would be a good idea. Yes it will lead to more focussed and marginally more powerful starting character, but it might also lead to less 'picking list' apporaches to choosing. Synergy - such as Landed Noble and Knight are a good example. More like this would be good.