Just curious to see which virtues and flaws are favored by the community. So I ask what are your top 5 favorite virtues and flaws?
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Virtues
Flawless Magic or Elemental Magic (the DE version) because they're amazing.
Self-Confident because abilities are hard
Gentle Gift for when you only want to run one character
Skilled Parens for extra spells at start, and a competent person in your backstory
Study Bonus with Book Learner and Free Study because campaigns are long and +5 goes a long way. (Not a single virtue, but basically a major virtue in size. Especially when combined with study requirement, since it balances out)
Flaws
Mentor since your parens is skilled
Favors because story flaws are neat
Cabal Legacy for those sweet sweet mystery virtues
Carefree because no one suspects the cheerful one!
Meddler because you're a wizard and should get out sometimes!
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For me the choice of virtues and flaws really depends on the concept I have.
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Virtues
Life-linked Formulaic Spontaneous Magic, because of the flexibility it gives you (if you have the time)
Minor Magical Focus - flavour and power
Skilled Parens - The best of the corebook xp granting Virtues (with the possible exception of errated Elemental Magic), with extra spell levels to boot.
Ways of the [Land] - Expensive, but if youâre in your environment itâs great. Can reduce botch dice to zero
Flexible Formulaic Magic - a great âquality of lifeâ virtue.
Flaws
Driven - because itâs always good for a character to have a strong goal
Difficult Underlings - usually one of the more entertaining Major Story Flaws
Visions - a good hook for a wide variety of stories
Temperate - similar to my default playstyle anyway, so essentially a free point.
Waster of Vis - if you have to have a Major Hermetic Flaw, this one will fit into a decent proportion of character concepts without crippling them or feeling cheap.
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LLSM is spont. Your fingers didnât follow your brain. XD
Until you train your apprentice, and you waste 2 out of every 4 pawns of vis working together. How many pawns can you handle in a season? ><
See, this is the kind of virtue I hate (no offence). It's great or nothing. Player or GM, I end up in worrying about how often it should apply.
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âŚbrain? (Edited)
Your apprentice isnât guaranteed to have the same flaw, but yes, if they didnât I wouldnât use their help in the lab for things that involved vis unless I really needed it.
Fair.
Depends on what one is looking for.
Power, Flawless magic is a standout, especially in a long saga. It greatly reduces botches, reducing the chance of twilight. The double XP for mastery means one can do some extreme multicasts, push penetration up a lot, etc.
Flexible Formulaic is amazing. Changing a group spell to room, voice to sight, etc is so useful. With Wizards sidestep, you walk through a door, your image goes through the wall and freaks out everyone. Making that spell ring, instead of sun is useful. So many options.
Mythic Blood is great for a theme. Being about to at will do a level 30 effect is useful to define a character.
Magical Focus - minor or major also are great for creating a character theme.
Affinity - Same thing as Focus. I am the terram mage, the rego mage, etc. Creates a theme for the character.
Favourite flaws again depend on what ones wants to achieve. If one is aiming for a flaw that wont hurt too much, Deficient Technique is a good one. There are 15 arts. There will be some of the 15 you donât care for. Waster of Vis is another. Just pay a Verditus to make your stuff.
Restriction and Necessary Condition are good ones thematically.
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I like it as it does set a good niche for the character; the forest guy, the urban guy, the master of the air for a Bjornear with a bird heartbeast. I agree with you that it can be tough to balance in a saga/
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For me the choice of virtues and flaws really depends on the concept I have.
Yeah, this! My âfavoritesâ are whichever ones Iâm playing right now.
That said, I know Silent+Subtle is a popular combo, often with Gentle Gift.
Add in âBjornaerâ for a hugely stealthy combo.
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My favorite companion virtue was Shapeshifter, with puissant ability.
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Note that there have been several threads (e.g. this one) with a similar theme. But to answer the OPâs call for my favourite 5 Virtues and 5 Flaws:
VIRTUES
The Gift. Well, the entire game revolves around this Free Virtue, right?
Animal Ken. Not only a staple of fantasy, but incredibly useful for a resourceful and otherwise minor mundane character: animals are everywhere, have a vast array of talents, and are often quite easy to befriend/bribe. This is even better in the Folk Witch version (HMRE) - remember that any grog can be a Folk Witch by taking a Free Social Virtue.
Merchant Adventurer (C&G, Minor). For a Minor Social Virtue you get a ship, a crew (make sure you design every member of the crew for maximum colour and munchkin-power!), a source of income large enough to support a covenant as well as the entire Labour-Points mini-game centred on it, and lots of story potential. Great in combination with an appropriate Regio Network (RoP:M) or with the Lone Redcap Minor Virtue (HoH:TL).
Mythic Stamina (HoH:TL, Minor). Fantastic for munchkin mages: choose magic as your specialty and you get rid of that pesky last botch die. This immensely empowers fatiguing spontaneous magic, and thus it's great in combination with Virtues such as Life Linked Spontaneous Magic or Diedne Magic that boost it. It's a Heroic Virtue, so you need to enable access to it: the Legacy Story Flaw is a perfect match.
Enchantment + Grant (RoP:F, Major+Minor). This pair of Virtues is worth building an entire Companion around (you'll need a source of Sympathy/Antipathy too). The reason I like it so much is that on the one hand it's immensely versatile mechanically, on the other hand it's strongly constrained thematically by the scope of the character's sympathies/antipathies; for lovers of Nobilis. See e.g. Yvonne for this pair empowered by a Faerie Sympathy in swordfights.
FLAWS
Outlaw leader. For a Minor Flaw your Companion gets access to Martial Abilities, a bunch of followers, a bad Reputation which you can occasionally find good uses for, lots of story potential and a good reason to associate with a Covenant.
Failed Monk/Nun (RoP:D). A staple of fiction (from Robin Hoodâs companion Friar Tuck to Imperius in Ladyhawke), itâs perfect for a character with church ties but a strong motivation to associate with a Covenant. It's also neat if you want a grog with access to Academic Abilities but don't want to spend one of your three precious Virtue points on it.
Corrupted abilities (RoP:I). While its xp-granting aspect is a road to power in any moderately-long-lasting saga, what I really like is the challenge it creates for a player: you must find a way to have your character be actively evil and spiteful in every situation, even when you, as a player, would rather have him not be. The best example in ArM5 of a V/F that shapes a character's behaviour without dictating it. In this sense, it has immense reskin potential, if you replace evil/selfish behaviour with e.g. saintliness or gluttony, possibly adjusting its value.
Pious, Major. While it may seem bland, I like it for two divergent reasons. First, like most Major Personality Flaws, it creates a lens through which the character sees the world, and thus almost a variant game: rather than the Art of Magic, you'll be playing the Art of Good Deeds. This is particularly important for magi, who at character creation can already command immense power, and for whom the big question is often what to do with it. Second, it's a source of raw mystical power for the munchkin player of a Companion in long running sagas, through Contemplative Mysticism (TC).
Restriction. This Major Hermetic Flaw has soooo many flavourful variations - and even more fairly drab ones, but who cares about those? My favourites are:
- in any scene in which you have been called by your name,
- on a target whom you love or hate - or who loves or hates you (yes, I really do love Nobilis),
- while you still have debts unpaid, unless your magic is directed at paying them.
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Do you mean âMerchant Adventurerâ (C&G, p 108)? That does seem like a pretty good deal.
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I once ran an apprentice campaign, two of the players had
âtormenting masterâ is one that really hits diffrent in that style of campaign
I love most of the story flaws, the restriction on one is very wise but also annoying. Animal Companion is one that I enjoy as a player.
Weird Magic - because if its going to go wrong it might as well go interestingly wrong.
The susceptiable too.. particularly infernal and Faire, becuase of there story potential
Oooops, yes, thatâs exactly what I mean (Iâve fixed it in my previous post). At my gaming table we call it Ship Captain because we think itâs much clearer than âMerchant Adventurerâ 
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To be fair that poster is trying to figure out which virtues give the most bang for their buck. I just wanna know which virtues and flaws you think are cool, thematic, fun etc regardless of effectiveness.
Itâs a good deal, but its a good deal because youâve just taken a heap of obvious plotâŚwell, not hooks, but plot points. Utâs like how having a castle is 10% cool and 90% a right pain in the shorts.
This response is quite focused on Magi.
Favorite Virtues:
- Flawless Magic - I like mastery special abilities
- Alluring to (Being) - I usually choose alluring to Magical Beings but not always
- Major or Minor Magical Focus - Great way to define flavor of the magus
- Faerie/Holy/Cthonic Magic - opening up new Realms and RDTs is fantastic for magi
- Second Sight - Far superior to doing the same things with Intellego
Favorite Flaws:
- Twilight Prone - Wizard's Twilight is a fantastic part of the game and Final Twilight is a âwin conditionâ
- Unpredictable Magic - rolling simple dice is lame and no chance of botching with magic is also lame
- Fickle Nature - Feels often overlooked to me
- Deficient Technique or Form - choosing to be quite bad at something defines the character as well
- Magical Fascination - I love a grog who wants to get in the middle of anything magical
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My reasons being that the character had five shapes to start: serpent, wolf, cat, hawk, and bear. Makes for a good general spy, agent, and assassin.
The serpent could slither into most spaces, the wolf was good for pacing travel and certain kinds of combats, the cat was a good stalker, the hawk was for long distance travel and observations, and the bear was a bear.
Vassily, the shifter, once slithered into a villainâs house, into his chambers, turned into a bear in the night, killed the villain, and escaped as a cat. The SG and group were shocked.
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I think Puissant Shapeshifter just makes the Stamina+Shapeshifter roll easier; it does not grant two extra shapes. Still an awesome ability, though; and I can think of all sorts of situational situations where a specific shape would be useful â freshwater fish; shark; bat; owl; hawk; bear; plus all the âpositive interactions with peopleâ shapes like a dog or songbird.