I like this one! The terrifying entity that cannot be destroyed but must be kept bound is a classic trope, and it really doesn't work very well with the current rules.
We had that back in ... the 3rd edition as I recall? Let's just say there was a reason why it vanished.
I like this. In fact I REALLY like this. The idea that souls and that which is that embodied (so angels and demons and titans and certain such) cannot be destroyed but rather banished or chained is brilliant. But even more it perfectly fits in with the mythical elements of Mythic Europe and of the nature of the Divine and such.
So yeah, I think I would include something like this.
Its very much a good campaign rule. One I wish was in the official rules, rather then that which states only one under the shared effects of the Parma are uneffected.
I like the ability to look backward and know what happened. But yes, I could see how if it was easy then it would negatively effect mystery / detective stories. Which wouldn't be good, I like more options in stories not less.
Sure, if that's how you want to use your time. I can throw the whole thing in excel and get the answer in less time that I can write the problem longhand. And people make mistakes with pen and paper as well.
Sure, but it took me about 1 minute and less than 20 square inches of paper. I didn't figure that was a big waste.
Yes, that sounds really cool!
Hi,
I think if only one thing were to be changed it would be to remove Aegis of the Hearth. It is arguably the worst spell in the entire game. I think spells should be a paragraph, or two at most. Aegis is a half-page of special rules and cases.
Instead, I suggest a rework of parma. Much as parma can be extended to protect others, perhaps it can be extended to protect a place. This would reduce complexity since we already know how magic resistance works vs parma.
Rich
Just want to say that I really enjoyed the apprentice book.
I don't have a problem with Aegis of the Hearth, but I see the point. It doies require someone to spend some time on Rego Vim in order for the covenant to have an Aegis. And unless you disregard the rules of Aegis needing Penetration, several magi may need to spend time on Muto Vim for a COmmunion variant. Personally, I like that.
Note that 1st ed Ars Magica has Parma Magica function as a Rego Vim, so it used to be worse!
But I could see the idea of the covenant's magi using Parma Magica in a ceremonial or ritualistic way, in order to weave a static, protective shield. It would need to last longer than personal PM though.
Also, using this idea, you might enforce some degree of lessening the effects of the Gift for the covenfolk, if you go down that avenue. As long as it's just at the covenant, and not total immunity, I'm on board. But I like it that the Gift bothers people, that solves and explains a lot of why other tyraditions aren't as organized or why Hermetic magi don't have more power.
It seems to me that what would satisfy most people is a general clean up of fifth edition as it is. Make the tail end more compatible with the starting point and visa versa. There are lots of little things that could use adjustment, and there are many contrary ideas for tweaks and mods. Ars Magica inspires people to come up with ideas of how to play with and manipulate game mechanics. It is a game that creates game designers! A new edition should take that into account.
A refinement in harmony is needed, but I do not suggest any radical changes (though I do encourage a few boxes of insert text with a couple of radical options). There is comfort in rules and formal options, having both a familiar common language as a base line and an accommodation of diverse preferences.
I do agree that combat and action rules need a major overhaul. Every edition has done it differently. Why should a sixth be different? I have made it work for me in 4th and 5th edition. But it takes more fiat and imaginative interpretation than most games. I understand that this is a game about wizards. But there are least two or three houses of magi that embrace the Art of War. And this is a role-playing game.
There are nuances of ArM5 combat that I enjoy. I like that Wounds & Injuries are more analogue than digital. There is some disconnect in the core Raw about it.
I prefer weapon categories as Abilities over fighting styles as it was in ArM4. I read some of ArM3, with their separate skills for individual weapons divided into attack and defense; total nightmare. But it could be simplified further still. Just one score: Melee. I also have this concept for a tree-like structure for Abilities and Specializations, where you can purchase multiple scores of the latter up to a limit of the former.
But barring that (I did say no radical ideas other than combat), what about a division of just three Combat Abilities? Fighting (all hand-to-hand combat), Aiming (projectiles & thrown weapons), and Defending (any sort of dodge or parry). There is more thought to be put in there, but that is the germ of an idea.
As for magic in combat, I do favor a return some ideas from ArM4. Spells should be resolved at the end of the Round. The only time Initiative should be consulted is if there is more than one active caster. Fast Cast spells are the exception. I also favor a return to Aiming rolls and Natural Resistance (or some sort of natural "saving throw", in order to heighten the drama and to give mundanes & the under-powered a fighting chance).
Another thing I've been thing of changing is the amount of Flaws for each character!
I'd like it if Virtues and Flaws didn't have to balance out to 0. My reasons are that there are to many to keep track of and they lose all meaning. I love Story Flaws, because they further stories, same for Covenant Hooks. In fact much of my oppinion and argumentation can be used for reducing the number of Hooks as well.
Flaws and Hooks are irelevant if not brought into play, and they become a stress factor when not being able to apply them during play.
I'd completely scrap Personality Flaws, but require characters to pick and use Personality Traits. I'd make a helpful list to pick and chose from. In 2nd ed there were different character sheets for each of the types Grogs, Companions, and Magi. They had pre-printed the most important abilities (like Brawl for Grogs, Parma Magica etc for Magi) to help remember. But they also had the Personality Traits Brave, Loyal, and Reliable pre-printed for Grogs.
I like the way RoP:D lists the seven cardinal virtues (or whatever) and has a bunch of sub-traits for each one. IIRC RoPI does the seven regarding the seven sins.
By having players pick from these for their characters, all traits are categorized, and it makes it easier for a SG to gauge whether a given trait applies in a given situation e.g. mental control, infernal influence etc.
Let the different character types balance Virtues & Flaws up to some point above 0. But then just require each character to have a single, minor Flaw which is character defining. And only go for General, Supernatural, or Social.
So grogs pick +3 Virtue points and -1 (non-Story) Flaw .
Companions should pick +10 Virtues, -1 Story Flaw and -1 other Flaw.
Magi should select +10 virtues,-1 Story and -1 Hermetic Flaws. For Virtues they should be limited to 1 Major Hermetic or Supernatural, 2 Minor Hermetic Virtues, and 1 minor Hermetic Flaw (to reflect how their magic or lineage varies.
Hermetic Flaws come into play whenever the relevant circumstances occur when performing magic or labwork.
The other types, mainly General and Supernatural, should be applies in play once per session, may even be in an entire scene, where it created drama, fun and presents a challenge. Rather than be a flat penalty which applies much broader, in which case the character propably avoids these situations.
Covenants should not need to balance Boons with Hooks, like 4th ed covenants didn't need to balance Positive Covenant Points with Negative.
I feel it is more giving to the saga, if the few Hooks you have actually come into play, so just cut down to a few. Select the most interesting ones anbd use them.
that's more of a campaign issue than an edition issue.
That is true, most of what I mentioned can be solved by just defining balance and deciding which Flaws are cut.
For a new edition I'm thinking this together with an overhaul of both the Personality Traits, definitions of Virtues and Flaws, and perhaps cutting Characteristics in favour of Virtues covering the same aspects.
I'm thinking the biggest change should be to combat- it needs damage types and effects of them, and to get rid of teh defense roll in favor of a flat number. Defense rolls work in GURPs, but with the level of abstraction in AM they are just an extra complication.
Some of these points have been made before, and better.
Possible "In Search Of The Unknown" solution: The first adventure is a bunch of pregen grogs, going to a pregen covenant, to deliver the message asking the REAL characters to join a new covenant. They get a basic non-overwhelming intro to the game and the rules. They get to see magic. I would throw in a fire-breathing black cat familiar because I always do, and it's important that players can see "Yeah, this is a game where you too can make one of those if you want." And maybe an intersection with real history- chase assassins through the scaffolding of Notre Dame cathedral, see the Lion of St. Mark arrive in Venice, whatever.
I'd be happier with something like 2d10 or 2d6 than 1d10 - with flat probability curves either skilled experts lose to idiots fairly frequently, or never.
There's a lot of "here's a cool idea" stuff in the supplement books and it shouldn't ALL be true. I read Tennyson's Idylls of the King recently and it gave the impression that England was vast and full of mysteries; Mythic Europe feels small and crowded. Tremere sent dozens of adventuring parties out for years at a time. Mercere has a set of teleportals to every Domus Major. There's no feeling that someone could disappear for ten years, like Odysseus or Sinbad. Also, I like the more general view - Tytalus can take on ANY challenge they feel like. Could be "make a new covenant that people will be impressed by." Could be "find the stupidest person in House Bonisagus and make them sorry they were ever apprenticed."
Possible solution: Every "house book" presents how that house would LIKE people to think things work. It's not anywhere near that cool in reality. There's fewer magi, they contact each other rarely, less gets done. Magi are less mighty and enemies are stronger. Distances are farther.
Minor point- books are simultaneously too cheap to copy and too hard to write high-Quality new ones. You're either "someone who writes good books" or you're not. I heard a number that a handwritten book (Bible maybe?) was "approximately worth" $60,000 and I feel like players should understand that.
Minor point: Ten points of Virtues and ten points of Flaws is a lot and leads to some weird lumpy characters. I've had a few where I got to hammer a bunch of V/F into a single background story ("the curse, y'know") but usually you end up with a lot of mismatched ideas, half of which will never be relevant.
So I was thinking that instead of Experience being gained on a Seasonal basis it is a Monthly basis. That leads to 12 XP activities per year rather than four.
I would also maybe add something like a Schooling XP category which would take the average of teacher levels to allow for one to put experience in multiple categories
The one thing I would do no matter what is make it that Adventure XP goes above and outside any normal experience gain, since adventure is special.
Like it was, back in the 1st edition?
Oh? Interesting. I didn't know that as I came into it at 5e but with knowledge of 3e and 4e. I'll have to look that up.
Was there a good reason for the change?
I'd like to see more of an "as above, so below" theme. I'd like magic to be much harder in the "mundane" world with bigger penalties from the Dominion pushing magi more into the magic realm but with the idea they can effect change on the mundane world through their actions there. Not quite sure how it work though... I just particularly love regios and realms of Magic. I'd really like to see more fully fleshed adventure material too. One of the problems of entering Ars Magica is figuring out what stories to tell. Finally I would really like to see Lab activites more fully described and a bigger part of stories, for instance learning from vis is always experimental, the base experimental rules being expanded and being more intrinsic to the basic stuff magi do thus being a more significant story aspect in their own right... so when the magi are doing labwork it is more likely to affect the other magi's labs, the covenant vis stores etc
Regio's. Odysseus and Sinbad went into regio's. Really big regio's... with mutliple entrances and exits some of which connect to other regio's.
While I like regiones too I do not think reducing the power of magic makes any sense in a game about people who use magic.
That said I do like the idea of say making it so 90 something percent of say magical workings are in regio's rather than in the mundane world. This also allows for the ease of magical sites and castles and such - mundanes don't see them because they aren't just around the corner. This would only work though if magicals could actually create regios consistently and 'easily'.
I LOVE the story seeds and adventure elements of the 5e line. Its one of those features that just make it all the more thrilling to read. So we have this cool town, oh, and here is ideas for what to do with said cool town. (Its also while I would have loved for 5e versions of the tribunal books that only exist in earlier editions. Those books lack story seeds.)
YES. I love the idea of the laboratory project. I think there should be more for them. One of the ideas I had was to make them monthly rather than seasonal, that way we get to have twelve projects per year and not four. Also, I think expanding what can be done with said projects would also be much more fun.