What are your various issues with Ars Magica RAW?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Now that we finally have the Definitive Edition of the game we know and love, I'm curious about what varying issues, concerns and pet-peeves the community has with Ars Magica RAW. I.e. what are you fixing with house rules, lore changes, or would like to fix/change at some point? What would you love seeing in a next iteration of Ars Magica - or an alternate version of Ars Magica?

I'll start with some of my own issues:

  • I would so much prefer no more Instant Teleporting (Leap of Homecoming is OP etc). I feel this ruins the game a bit. Rego is powerful enough. I actually fixed this with in-world events in my own campaign (criamon f-d with the moon sphere). I'd still like Mercere portals as guarded secrets, and always costing vis for activation. Expensive fast travel for the elite only. (I also hate easy and fast flying with a passion, e.g Rego needs some clear speed limits)
  • Ease of a lot of fine manipulation spells which should be way more complex. Also, why is all magic so fast - even really complex spells like creating a complex tower? There could be more variance use here rather than handwaving.
  • Creo Terram amounts for Making just insane amounts of gold
  • Too many of the default spells are either broken vs rules (many from earlier versions), or not good optimized examples the seasoned order should standardize on. Some clarity when they are optimized more than one should get if remaking it would be nice too (quite a few of those too).
  • Experimentation variance too limited (and good magic theory gets op fast)
  • Completely OP Verditius power for items, especially charged items (I tire a bit of our Verditius spending a single season to make insanely powered one-shot items which pushes Penetration into the 60-80s, usable by anyone and getting an output of 20+ every time. Rings of demon prince wiping, Aegis dispelling etc..)
  • On that note: almost everything regarding dispelling.
  • Over-complex covenant and economy system. Something a bit lighter but not freeform would be nice.
  • Melee and Missile Combat - too slow, and group combat has a good base but breaks down fast
  • Warping amounts and from what (at the moment it's not much of a scare even after 100+ sessions). The base is good and I still like the idea as a limiter for age when getting up there, but I think it could use some reformatting.
  • All rules for book writing, and also there should be a range where a book is worthwhile and where it isn't to read. I want to get rid of the loopholes players use by writing tractatus, and using any tractatus to increase their favorite Art - instead of making it a mission to find specific higher level works. Waste of story potential to hunt knowledge that could be fixed.
  • Story effect of the Gift (I prefer to lessen that as represented, but keep the negative modifier)

This is not a bash (I love the game with a passion) - but one can always have an opinion on how the game could be changed (for those so inclined).

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Most of the issues you list donā€™t bother me, but I get where youā€™re coming from. My concerns are:

Rolling a 1 should always be bad and rolling a 10 should always be good. Iā€™m not saying eliminate stress dice, but itā€™s silly that you have the read the die two different ways.

The infinite accumulation of Wounds without dying bugs me. In opposed rolls this solves itself because of the wound penalty, but when youā€™re just rolling Soak wound penalty does not apply so a character just gets Wound after Wound until finally they botch a soak roll. I wish that were different.

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Oh, and we need Target Pair, equivalent to Target Part (+1).

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Target: Pair - Sounds a bit intriguing but perhaps I'm missing something why this would be needed vs group or multicast? I'll agree though, why not at +1? (Something about magic pairs?)

Wounds easy fix?: Per tier could be capped and next one perhaps automatically a tier higher. Death by many paper-cuts :wink:

Rolling 1 for doubles never bother me, beyond annoyance at differing rules for simple and stress (that should be fixed). I like the swinginess for magic, but I think it can be a bit much for Ability checks.

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Invisibility is way too easy. Imaginem in general is way too easy.

Magic Resistance is too low. And penetration too easily raised, especially with raw vis (this undermines the importance of Art scores).

Increasing Characteristics is way too easy.

Might Score draining kinda sucks. It decreases the scene's tension as the combat progresses. I think it should be a Ritual. Maybe even a seasonal activity.

For 6e:

Add the Limit of the Eternal to the limits of magic: some things are eternal, and cannot be destroyed. Like ghosts, demons, and angels. Demons are bound or exorcised, not destroyed. Titans are bound, not destroyed.

There is a general problem with the spell guidelines system, where some spells work great with certain spell parameters but are too powerful, IMO, with others. Eg Intangible Tunnel in core book is great (although I would limit it to Touch, like the spell guideline it is based on), but the non-Cocentration versions of it in the grand spell grimoire are too powerful. It's a big heresy, but I am considering going back to 2e rules for 6e - do one "standard" spell for each base effect, and changing parameters increases the spell level from there.

In contrast to that - maybe have a more unified spell magnitudes system: across all forms, use the same base effect categories e.g cosmetic 0, minor/hindering 5, major/crippling 15, overwhelming/incapacitating 25, total/lethal 35. This is too coarse to be applied strictly, every Form will have nuances (like adding magnitudes to affect metal) and exceptions (like a higher magnitude to raise the dead), but still - having a more uniform baseline would make the different Form's difficulty more uniform and will make adjudicating spontaneous spells easier.

For 6e, I'd like smaller numbers. Fewer rolls and less complexity in combat - including spellcasting ! Consider you might need a fast-casting roll, concentration roll, spellcasting roll, aiming roll, and damage roll to pull off one spell ! Drop the weird xp split between Art and Ability advancement.

And generally a push towards the Mythic, e.g requiring studying a Significanto or tutelage by an appropriate Mighty being to increase Art or Ability beyond 5. Push PCs to interact with the setting more, rather than sit in their library.

Also - maybe, in the philosophy of focusing the game around the magic system: reduce Characteristics to five, one per Technique. And have each one add to the spellcasting of that technique only. Perhaps only with a Virtue, too; if you want to have a bonus to Intellego, that's what Virtues and Flaws are for!

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That would require a lot of changes to the rules. Itā€™s not a ā€œweirdā€ splitā€¦ they scale differently and are used differently. An art of 10-25 is not unusual. It's not unusual for even a young (low level, so to speak) magi to have 10+. On the other hand, 10 is very high for an ability. Arts are compared against spell levels (+ magic resistance). Those numbers are naturally much higher than ease factors, which rarely go beyond 21 on the high end.

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Look at it from the perspective of someone new to the game. It complicates stuff. It should go.

The split is good to keep Arts higher than Abilities and hence diminish the role of Magic Theory in labwork. But this can be accomplished differently. Even just adding (Magic Theory)/2 is better than changing the game's entire experience system!

The split also redcues variabiility in spellcasting. You have only two magnitudes (5-step jumps) of success instead of three (3-step jumps) on the dice. I think that's actually to the detriment of the game; more variability would be better.

The split also helps make spell levels easier to calculate, with x 5 numbers much easier than x 3 numbers. That's the most important point for it IMO.

The higher Art numbers also allow more fine-graining of Art scores, but I don't think this is too significant. You've got fast-enough progress at low-Ability levels, and get stuck at your score at high Art levels anyway.

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Ritual magic is too costly, in terms of vis and especially risk. I find it infuriating that people might object "oh, that's not really important, because Rituals are for NPCs to cast". At a very minimum, I'd allow unmastered Rituals cast in otherwise relaxed situations - e.g. the typical Aegis casting - to be cast with a simple die as in previous editions, or the setting fails to match the mechanics.

In general, mechanics for boosting magic via vis - penetration, certamen, etc. - are at the same time too costly, and yield too little oomph per pawn expended. I'd cut the number of pawns expendable by a factor 10, but I'd triple the effect per pawn.

Warping is too easy. I'd remove warping from magnitude 6+ effects and from single botches. At the same time, I'd remove the clause that an effect instilled in the familiar bond does not warp: it's in no way mythical.

Magic resistance is a bit low, in general; I agree with YR7 on this. I'd say that MR should be be doubled across the table, but any effects that breach half the new MR (i.e. that would have breached the old MR) drain one fatigue level per round (no matter how many in that round), with the victim always having the option of letting them through if unable or unwilling to spend that fatigue.

Dispelling is too easy. At a minimum, it should take a Ritual to dispel a Ritual, like in previous editions.

Enchanted devices are a bit too powerful, particularly with the Covenant rules for Lab Improvement, and with the Verditius Mysteries. A quick fix would be to say that they are not exempt from the 10th-magnitude cap of Formulaic spells.

Fixing an AC should not take a whole season, it should be a 7-day distraction, with the option of spending a whole season to fix as many as many as a magus' vis limit allows (generally, 2 x MT).

Any thing should be an AC to at most one other thing. Targeting at AC range is otherwise problematic.

Minor pet peeve: books should take much longer to write than to read :slight_smile:

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I accept a bunch of balance issues, because magic is meant to achieve extreme results in Ars Majica.

Mentem and Intelligo can ruin nearly any intrigue story line. Trying to add tension in a chase is destroyed by teleportation. It is near impossible to do a budget crunch on a covenant as there are so many ways to make mundane resources. Invisibility is an amazing combat and recon boost.

Considering a magi could create a ritual that would kill everyone in a city, itā€™s tricky to justify nerfing spells. The moon thing is a good story way to put in the nerf you want.

While I appreciate your issues with balance, I think they are fine, with one caveat. I have not had much to do with Verditius, but it seems clear you need a good Verditus to craft an item with ridiculous penetration, so nerfing Verditius seems necessary.

My biggest issue. Iā€™d prefer there to be better rules about wounds and big monsters. Itā€™s been discussed to death elsewhere, but the fact that a heavily wounded monster is more likely to be seriously wounded by a mediocre archer than a pilum, is a problem. Wounds should affect the damage rolls for spells.

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Perfect as it is.

Most of the issues reported can be resolved by applying existing constraints.

W

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Full agreement on these. Iā€™ve been fiddling with ideas for these two, but when I floated them on the Discord a few years ago for feedback, people just didnā€™t like how much power they lost in my streamlining. :stuck_out_tongue:

Also agree. I had a playtest of this with stress dice being 1 for botch and 10 is roll again and add 10 (exploding dice).

I only half agree on thisā€¦ I actually am pretty okay with the ā€˜riskā€™, because I find botching kind of fun sometimes. My problem is more on vis than the ritual - Iā€™ve heard of players state that vis is usually wasted on most ritual spells or vis boosting - Vis is a potential permanent magic item, So spending vis for any sort of spell that doesnā€™t create a permanent, reusable effect feels bad.
Agree on the AC - I house-rule for fixing ACs to be doable alongside a lab projectā€¦ or you can do MT per season as a single activity.

Overall, the game does work with a bit of guidance and discussion from the storyguide and troupe. I do get the sense that any notable changes would be well recieved by some and ill by others, because each person has a different idea of what is ā€˜normal acceptedā€™.

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I think item penetration is too high, period. You should need magi for penetration, not grogs with sticks.

And too complex.

I don't really like the wound system, either. I don't like that the difference between a Light and Medium and Heavy wound is just a few points, which is not very meaninfful; I'd sugest a wound can be Hindering (a -1 penalty), Crippling (a -5 penalty and loss of limb-use), or Incapacitating only.

I don't like how Size interacts with combat. The addition to the hit-points per wound level is fairly small, I think it's often not meaningful. And overall the changes are such that fighting bigger opponents is easier (I run simulations).

I'm contemplating getting rid of tractatus altogether... if you want high Art scores, you better adventure to get them, by finding a teacher or Significanto or something...

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Thanks for your input. Good stuff, and helps me align my own things better. Keep them coming :).

Another big one for me I missed adding:

  • Rings and Circles. Especially duration, it's completely bonkers broken vs rest of the system for duration and vis requirements IMHO. Especially since circles can be made harder, like laid-in metal. And there are few RAW limitations on their use (just make everything round lol).

Note: In my own game we did set Duration: Ring to last Moon by default unless you spend vis to power it (more vis to power longer). Only by casting it as a full ritual (with time and vis requirements) can you make it permanent.

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The way to nerf this if it bothers you is to make breaking a circle easy. Stick over the inlaid metal circle. broken.

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I am planning to run a saga in the future, which will have at least the following house rules:

  • No Vim Form. This removes a lot of loopholes, without much impact on playability. Instead of InVi, supernatural Virtues are needed. No Aegis, wards are the way to protect an area. No generic Might strippers, one needs to use the Form of the target. No metamagic.
  • Magic Resistance dispels supernatural effects if the target is resistant (note that I wrote target, not Target). This avoids the pink dot issues, and many other abuses of MR. There still are some loopholes, but easier to deal with.
  • Formulaic spells need to have precisely defined effects, they can only use a small part of their base guideline. Some spells wonā€™t change (e.g. Blunting the Ironā€™s Bite, because it only works on blades). But as an example Leap of Homecoming only allows to leap to oneā€™s sanctum rather to anything with an Arcane Connection, and of course casting requisites cannot exist because it corresponds to different spells. Mages need to know many more spells than in ArM5 RAW to be able to generate a large variety of non-spontaneous effects.
  • Formulaic spells are easier to invent: you can invent your Lab Total of spells in one season. They are also easier to learn from texts: one week per magnitude, if lower than your Lab Total. This balances the previous points.
  • No books on Arts. No teaching of Arts. Mages need to experiment with Vis or to have exposure or adventure xp. No safe way to progress.
  • Some house rules on combat. Initiative when mixing magical and weapon attacks. No defence botch. Plus a few others to be discussed.
  • Some house rules on warping and twilight.
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So how do you handle apprentices?

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Apprentices experiment with Vis, too.

Note that in this saga, I am planning that there will be enough Vis for most mages to always carry some with them and sometime use it to power spells. And it will be unlikely that no Vis is used in a magical fight.

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Some interesting house rules. If you remove the defense botch - I'd suggest removing the defense roll entirely. It prolongs combat. Just use a +6 instead of a dice, having a static Defense, and make sure to tell the players what number they need to hit before they roll (and to list the PC's Parry/Dodge/Shield Defense for yourself). This can significantly not only shorten, but streamline a lot of turns, making the combat flow better.

One stil has the hassle of working out Damage, then removing Soak, then comparing to Wound Levels....

Oh - Twilight is a bit of a problem, yes.

The idea of spending lots of time, perhaps years, out of the game is kinda bonkers. You don't want to remove characters from the game / plot, and leave the player dangling. Twilight episodes should be brief and intense scenes, not pulling characters out of the game's plot.

Even granted that, having a solo scene is... problematic. I'd suggest instead having a round in solo per round of game-session for other players, for a few rounds. Not necessarily combat rounds, just game rounds, e.g. exploration or social interaction. This way at least the twilighted player isn't hogging the spotlight. And after that, the character returns from Twilight, usually in less than a minute in stressful circumnstances but up to a few days in relaxed ones.

Twilight should be more significant, too. They are quite rare, especially if you are not Twilight Prone, so they can have bigger impact without being unbalancing. Things like gaining / losing lots of XP, or a Minor Virtue/Flaw, perhaps even a Major one. As they are, they are very colorful and leave a nice scar, but mechanically they often leave very little impact.