Well, I don't think anyone was talking balance, so much as talking whether sahirs broke the Limit of Aging. Which I contend they do, but I also understand the rationale behind the argument that they don't (if the march of Decrepitude is seen as the true Limit).
And this is the Ars Magica forum. Theorycraft about arcane technicalities of the game's magic system is at least half of what we do here. You're right that a sahir is ultimately going to suffer death by life, of course. Whether Al-Iksir actually breaks the Limits is the kind of thing that would be more interesting to Seekers, since sahirs generally don't look at their magic in quite so systematic a way. "This ability breaks the Limit of Aging, let's integrate it into Hermetic practice for the Bonisagus equivalent of penis length." "No, it doesn't break the Limit, it just does a dance around it and has some ugly side effects too. Let's go look at their Energy magic instead."
Merinita do too. And I'm not talking about Becoming, but about Guardian of Nature: "As a guardian spirit, the maga does not age". Note that the maga may leave this state at any time, so it can't be argued that she dies and leaves something else in her stead.
While we're looking at uses and abuses of Algiz warding, here's two examples from my blog at magioftom.wordpress.com/2015/11 ... ng-olunar/ that I am considering adding to the Non-hermetic grimoire:
I, (the runemaster), defy Gullveig - Algiz(perth) 10, - wards against hostile magic. Algiz base 10 wards all things appropriate to the secondary rune, and according to HMRE p135 "Often Perth is used to affect the supernatural realms, particularly magic. It can target vis, and can also target other spells and supernatural effects".
I, (the runemaster), defy Surtur - Algiz(Kauno) 10, - wards against fire, heat, and feverish diseases. Algiz base 10 wards all things appropriate to the secondary rune, and looking at Kauno on HMRE p132 it includes all these things.
Now the second one is relatively straightforward. The first one - how would you adjudicate the warding? Does it competely ward against all spells (so you can't use your own beneficial ones) and prevent you picking up vis, or should it not completely ward?
If it shouldn't ward completely, would a more appropriate effect be the Perth guideline "All supernatural effects cast on the target that are less than or equal to half this effect's level are dispelled" so a level 10 would ward against level 5 hermetic spells and supernatural abilities with a score of 1 being used and scale up by a magnitude per extra 10 levels of Perth magic applied?
Well, if you want technicalities, Solomonic Magic doesn't break Hermetic Limits because it's not Hermetic Magic. We know that Hermetic Limits are not the absolute limits of magic in general, though they are pretty close for most cases.
Very nice. The letter you need is 'thorn', right?
Does your blog-thingie take ASCII or HTML?
Lowercase þ is ASCII 231, HTML þ
Uppercase Þ is ASCII 232, HTML Þ
or is it eth?
Lowercase ð is ASCII 208, HTML &et;
Uppercase Ð is ASCII 209, HTML Ð
I think it's "eth" because that's how it appears in Old Norse-English dictionaries. Now you mention it, I'm sure I've seen it in anglo-saxon as a "thorn". Of course, hardly anyone one in modern Scandinavia can pronounce these and your local friendly thunder god is Tor, but English keeps the phoneme.....
Oh Germanic languages, how you twist and turn.
Anyway, the whole question of "how far can you ward with Algiz/X" is interesting. Algiz/Hagalaz could dual-function ward vs arrows AND severe weather conditions - maybe one to add to this character once I address the whole "how many xp should a Vitkir get" question.
Once Anulus Connectens is done, perhaps we should do "vitkir of Hermes", or "Sahir of solomon" and watch how silly the Al-Iksir gets when one person reduces their xp, one person goes into twilight and comes out with benefits, and one person develops mad personality traits.
As I said above, the Limits of Magic are mentioned in HMRE to be binding on all systems except systems where a particular Limit does not hold. They're not universal laws but they are strongly-held ones. Hence the argument being a question of which Limits don't apply to Solomonic Magic.
Of course, if you want to argue that SM isn't a hedge or rival magic and therefore doesn't obey any Limits...well, I suppose that's one interpretation.
That section of HMRE is poorly conceived. They even came up with a new Limit of Magic (Magic Resistance) and then immediately called it not a true limit, all the while forbidding it for everyone but Hermetic magic. Yes, we get already, don't force us through tortured logic to justify game balance decisions...
I think life would be much simpler if opening Hermetic Arts just granted MR. All the weird hoops of "my apprentice is defenseless" and "must hide secret from everyone for another 5 centuries, even though some of these people were Diedne, Diabolists, and otherwise enemies of the Order, and the secret was already given away to all the hedge wizards anyway back in the day" and "every magus in the Order knows exactly when to attack (hint: sunrise and sunset), so Parma is useless for getting magi to trust each other" goes away.
Well if opening hermetic arts gave MR then a lot of Gifted hedge magi would have no incentive to join if they could not be opened. Most Ex Misc magi descended from 'hedge' magi, their subsequent apprentices got opened for hermetic magic and trained in the non-hermetic stuff subsequently.
Parma by itself doesn't prevent magi from attacking one another. The softening of the effect of the Gift is primary to keeping magi from each other's throats.
Also, Parma Magica doesn't stack with the Aegis. Assuming a decent Aegis, you really only have to be assumed to be within it on those special occasions (and that your covenant-mates are the ones out to get you). I consider the two together to do the job more than one alone.
In my understanding of the rules post-HMRE, a Lesser Limit (mechanically) is not a hard-and-fast rule that applies to all magic, nor is it Hermetic-specific anymore, but it is a rule that consistently applies across most forms of magic and is a bitch and a half to break through - and the clunkiness of Parma and Aegis fits right into that, because the Hermetic Arts couldn't break the Limit either, thus necessitating Bonisagus' development of the Parma and later Notatus' integration of the Aegis.
But again, that's my understanding of how Limits work.
And this is a far more clear and consistent explanation than presented in HMRE. The lesser limits are not hard limits, just areas of magic that are difficult and even the ones that have cleared the hurdle haven't done so completely. For example, hermetic magi don't have general magic resistance spell guidelines (just Aegis and Parma), and Sahir can't cast spells to remove apparent aging, just the Al-Askir. Still, Hyperborean magic cleared the Limit of Creation completely (heal and create without vis!) and Grigori Magic cleared the Limit of Vis (presumably, if you learned all of it). So some of the Limits of Magic have been properly 'broken' by ancient traditions (and doesn't Hedge Witch magic break the limit of Energy fairly thoroughly?).
It would be more proper to say that the Al-Askir pokes a hole in the Limit of Aging, rather than breaking it. You might consider hermetic magic to have done the same, given it can undo at least unnatural aging.
For what it's worth, that section of HMRE was simply publishing something that had existed in the style guide since ArM5 started; it hadn't previously been something that players needed to know, but with HMRE, it was. There are lesser limits, including the Limit of Magic Resistance, and a tradition basically gets to break one. (Sahir got one-and-a-half, because they are supposed to be cool.)
Correct. Apparently, the rules (once they moved from "style guide" to published material) could stand to have been made clearer, if they were confusing to you.
And yes. Some traditions fully ignore Limits (Learned Magicians and Arcane Connection, for example), others have partially-broken Limits (Parma, or Gruagachan and Arcane Connection - they have to hear you, not the other way around).
Well, unnatural aging doesn't seem to be covered by the Limit, even if the literal wording just says age.
You're right that a sahir is ultimately going to suffer death by life, of course. Whether Al-Iksir actually breaks the Limits is the kind of thing that would be more interesting to Seekers, since sahirs generally don't look at their magic in quite so systematic a way. "This ability breaks the Limit of Aging, let's integrate it into Hermetic practice for the Bonisagus equivalent of penis length." "No, it doesn't break the Limit, it just does a dance around it and has some ugly side effects too. Let's go look at their Energy magic instead."
