Bjornaer get to put powers that affect only them in the heartbeast for 7 vis, a warping point and adding a Major Flaw at some point for the bonus to get that high, but familiars can do it for only vis and at a cheaper rate to boot. And they increase the lab total! You can try to edit the script to drop the vis and warping point completely, but that's ease factor 15 so you're going to need big Bjornaer Lore to do that reliably. And you're probably going to need a previous major ordeal still. Oof!
Bjornaer can have very resilient, pugnacious and mobile Heartbeasts to start with, and in ArM5 initiate lots of further Virtues affecting their Heartbeasts as well. This was always the 'balancing' argument against Heartbeast plus Familiar with good cords and lots of powers in the bond for one magus.
The balancing of Bjornar is, of course, a legacy from 3ed (and before) when we still thought of roleplaying as mainly adventure. In 3ed a combat worthy heartbeast even had a higher virtue cost. For good reasons. Lots of problems can be solved by the heartbeast form.
Of course, lots of problems can be solved by a familiar too, but in a story where each player plays one character, and nobody plays the familiar, the familiar has a tendency to drift off. Or the familiar is reduced to equipment to be exploited in the tactical game and ignored in the roleplaying game. The story advantage of the familiar is really the advantage of another character, but, for most roleplayers, there is a limit to the number of characters they can play sensibly.
Of course, the long-term game always favoured familiars over heartbeasts, but most troupes took a long time to learn to play the long-term game to an extent where it matters. In 3ed, there were also no rules for starting off as an older magus who had already had time to get a familiar, and it took a lot longer to bind it as well; five seasons IIRC.
From what I understand, it's a "Soulmate" idea. Your familiar is an intrinsic part of you, even before you've ever met sort of thing, like many romantics like to think of spouses.
But for the Bjornaer, that 'Beast' is an internal entity, the Heartbeast.
So yeah, It'd cause some conceptual problems (for me at least) if Bjornaer magi could bind familiars.
Game balance is an illusion, the White Hart that can be hunted but never caught. Leave that sort of silliness to That Other Game, and you will be happier and your games richer for it.
That said, the inability to bind a familiar is a major part of why Bjornaer magi er uncommon at my local tables. That, and how experience have shown that they probably work best in groups of their own. They do not seem to play well with others. YSMV, obviously.
That, and the requirements to bind a familiar in the first place were much higher (ie, they existed).
I remember a 3rd ed saga in which no PC ever became able to bind a familiar! Mind you, only one player actually tried.
By comparison, I've seen an apprentice bind a familiar in a 5th edition game. Actually, come to think of it, though it wasn't the same player, that same player did feature in both sagas.
Yes, losing a Familiar is a big drawback. But Heartbeast being moderately useful??? Sure, it's not the most useful for all things, but if it were, everyone should just play Bjornaer and we should erase the rest of the Houses.
Really? If you look carefully, I think you'll see this is wrong. Due to these the Bjornaer can be the best at Certamen, the best at Fatigue-based things (Life-Linked Spontaneous Magic, Life Boost (available via Initiation), Imbued with the Spirit of (Form)), the best at resisting attacks, etc.
For example, years ago someone here challenged everyone to build a magus who could best their Tremere Certamen specialist within the same number of years post-gauntlet. So this was a Tremere expressly built as theoretically the best possible at Certamen. My Bjornaer was so much better it was scary.
The Heartbeast can be useful in some situations, and is no help at all in other situations.
Most of the advantages obtained from the Outer Heartbeast can be obtained fairly easily by any magus with decent scores in MuCo(An) who use spells to change shape.
So, yes, moderately useful.
Of course it isn't the most useful at all things, but since I never claimed or implied that it is or should be the most useful at all things, I do not understand why you brought that up.
To get that good you have to pick the "right" heartbeast, right? A bear heartbeast, for example, does have a certain advantage over a rabbit heartbeast in the fatigue department.
And to get all the necessary initiations for improving the Inner Heartbeast a Bjornaer magus will have to spend a lot of time and vis, get a number of warping points, and most likely pick up a bunch of flaws along the way.
Some other magus spending the same amount of time and resources on their familiar, enchanted items, study, and/or mystery initiations could also get very powerful within their specialization.
While I have no doubt that a Bjornaer optimized for a particular task can get scarily good at it, so can other mages if properly optimized.
For some tasks perhaps a Bjornaer can be optimized most easily, but for some other tasks I am sure a magus from some other house would be the better choice.
Of course. Nobody claimed that Bjornær would be the one killer house. And yes, to do what you want to do, you pick the right heartbeast, just like you would want to pick the right familiar to get maximum benefit. The big difference is that the heartbeast is part of char gen, so you are entitled to picking just the right heartbeast. The familiar is a story reward, possibly from a downtime activity, but still a reward earned in game. If you are allowed to tune that to your needs and desires, SG (or troupe) is giving you a free lunch. Obviously, the Bjornær player can rightly complain if they do not get a similarly free lunch also.
Same goes for the mysteries. A major boon of the Mystery Cult Houses is the access to mysteries. There is a culture and/or policy of helping younger magi to initiations. Other starting magi are by default not cult members, and earning a cult membership should also be a story reward. If players can design their route of mysteries, outside a mystery cult house, they are having another free lunch. Mind you, there aren't that many magi in the OoH, and most of them are probably not cult members. There are probably more cults described in canon than there would or should be in any one incarnation of Mythic Europe.
It seems that all those who find Bjornær unfavourably balanced are stacking up extra free boons for the other houses, without giving the Bjornær anything which they are not explicitly entitled to by RAW.
Because the implication was there. Familiars are not helpful or not very helpful in a number of circumstances (Certamen, Fatigue use, Sensory Magic, writing). That happens to have enormous overlap with where Bjornaer shine. So if we're looking at how big a drawback not having a Familiar is, we're ignoring a good portion of the categories where Bjornaer shine. If we ignore a good portion of where Bjornaer shine, of course they'll be much worse.
Not really, just very early on. Bear just gives you an earlier start than rabbit does.
Not really. Time, yes. Vis and Warping Points are unnecessary. Flaws are only if you decide you really want them for some reason; there's no need at all for them.
Yup. The point is none given the same time and resources can be as a good as a Bjornaer in the areas in which Bjornaer shine. I.e. they have niches where they are the best as a result of Heartbeast and despite the loss of a Familiar.
Yes and no. And that was my point above. If this is the issue, then we're back to asking why the Bjornaer needs to be potentially better at everything? Verditius can be the best at crafting items, Bjornaer can be the best at Certamen and Fatigue use and Sensory Magic and writing, Criamon can be the best at lore and Twilight, etc. Many Houses are just average at everything but lack drawbacks, so you can tailor them broadly, but rarely to be truly the best at something.
What would you say to someone who takes Mercurian Magic because they want a Ritual caster and then complain about how weak being limited to Ceremonial Spontaneous Magic is? You can be the best at something by being worse in other areas.
You raise your Bjornaer Lore, go on adventure, or correspond with someone to serve as a Mystagogue (the one who conducts the Initiation), and then they set you on some Quest, or guide you on what needs to be done to complete it, and at the end of it, they perform a ceremony that grants you the Initiation. Some of them do involve taking on Flaws as part of the script, but not all.
That wasn't what I was asking for clarification on. I was asking for clarification on callen saying that the only thing you have to spend is time, while Vis, Warping Points and Flaws are unnecessary, with Flaws in particular being described with "no need at all for them"
Not for the Refinements of your Inner Heartbeast. No Mystagogue involved for them - self-initiation only.
And the spending of vis and accruement of warping points is pretty much mandatory in the script given, and there doesn't really seem to be a practical option for a whole different script.
You usually have to add some extra elements (like getting Flaws) to get a high enough script bonus.
The base is already substantial enough that you can start adding Qualities pretty easily, especially with the right type of Inner Heartbeast and especially with the past Ordeal bonus from getting into Inner Heartbeast in the first place. Then the extra Presence gets you even more. No need for any beyond that initial Flaw.
As for Warping and Vis, they are part of the same element. You can modify a script to remove an element.
In general yes.
The initiation for Innner Heartbeast Refinements is more than a little bit special though. (You learn it automatically; The same embryonic script can be used for all the Refinements)
Personally I'd rule that you can't remove elements from it, not without having to create a new script from scratch.
Nobody here has ignored that point, on the contrary it has been brought up and discussed.
Besides, your statement that someone going through a different initiation ritual would not be a member of House Bjornaer is not correct.
See the story seed on p.27 in HoH:MC.
Indeed. That point has been made already, by several posters, with none objecting. Then the discussion moved on to other problems.
It is a fact that Bjornær are very unattractive to play in many sagas, because the downtime play of lab achievements is dominating the game, and players of other houses are allowed to min/max familiars to optimise that line of play, which the Bjornær cannot do. That problem remains unsolved. Even though solutions have been proposed, it is not clear that they are feasible in every troupe. When nobody speaks warmly for solving the problem by allowing Bjornær familiars, it is exactly because your concerns are duly noted.
If you read the whole of the story seed, the last part of it is that since all those mundanes so initiated are now part of House Bjornaer, what are the House going to do with them.
So clearly even those initiated by variants of the Ritual of Twelve Years are considered Bjornaer.
(Incidentally, the variation of the Titual of Twelve Years used in the story seed is one where the Ordeal of "unable to bind familiar" has been replaced for something suitable for mundanes.)
You claim that allowing familiars would greatly change the character and nature of House Bjornaer.
Would it really? And how would it change the House?
I can't see any part of their beliefs or traditions that would need to be changed just because they could have familiars.
Considering this is one of very few initiation scripts that explicitly mention varying the script, I find it an enormous stretch to consider that the canonical rules for varying a script would not apply to it. If you don't allow the rules for varying scripts to apply to a script that explicitly says you can vary it, to what scripts should they apply?
Of course, you are welcome to house-rule that away. But that would a house rule that makes Bjornaer weaker in one particular way.
The House doesn't want but grudgingly accepts them, because the Heartbeast is its criterium for membership. Their life in the House will likely be miserable.
Think Cinderella or
