The twelve or thirteen botch dice and matching 11 or twelve pawns of vis are the counter.
I think that if you take the amount of time, vis and effort required to raise a stat a few points and put a comparable quantity of resources into crafting a nifty enchanted device, improving your familiar, or initiating a virtue you'd frequently be somewhat more powerful.
I concur, Erik. Of the characters I am playing and have played that are/were capable of getting to these spells easily are/were motivated by vanity, for the most part.
Tytalus weather maga who might push for the +5 stamina ritual(s) at some point when she's pretty much exhausted all other avenues for improving penetration on Incantation of Lightning. She's kind of obsessed with penetration. She's got a talisman, she can get to books on Penetration, she has mastery of the spell and penetration. She might even pursue original research for Aristotlean Magic Theory so she can add Artes Liberales to her casting score. After all that's done, then it will be the rituals.
A Tremere with poor strength x1 was thinking about the ritual that improves his strength, but I'd already talked to the SG that I wanted it to maintain consistency with the Essential Nature prohibition and the result of the ritual spell would be something other than intended.
A Merceris corpus specialist might learn these spells to cast on the Cult of Heroes, but he has to legitimize himself within the eyes of the House before he gets a chance. He is considered illegitimate because his parens falsified his birth records, but in a twist, he really is legitimate as he has a Latent Magical ability that will turn into Mutantem magic at some point, which everyone knows comes from the blood of the Founder.
The one I'm fond of putting an additional check on is the 'circle' variant:
I'm fine with people inventing the circle variant, but casting circles means concentration checks to draw the big circle; irrespective of the spell casting itself. And those concentration checks can absolutely be botched, which results in the spell itself also botching. Super fun when your entire covenant magi population is inside the circle of better communication...
That's why I'm a big fan of the Cautious with Concentration virtue for PC's that are planning on going this route.
It strikes me that the big value of these spells is improving intelligence or communication. Improving communication increases the quality of books you can produce, which basically nothing else can do (yes, there are the options in covenants. But this is on top of that, and those are very limited.) Improving Intelligence gives you the equivalent of at least an increase in Magical Theory (admittedly without the vis limit increase). But by the time a character can cast these spells, he is likely spending several seasons per increase in Magic Theory (and if he raising it as an exposure effect, many seasons).
Increasing Communication really is worth it, and it's also an ability that makes particular sense to raise later rather than earlier.
Also, of course, don't forget Stamina. For a Hermetic magus who wants to actually cast stuff, that's actually the most useful stat around (probably superior to Intelligence, honestly). Though it's probably worth noting that the magus who actually casts the CrCo60 is more of a lab rat than the one who needs the Stamina boost...
And yeah, the Cult of Heroes is for some reason most likely to cast these spells, but that's probably a Mercurian Magic thing. (Note: While it's technically possible to make a Holy Mercurian Magus ex Miscellanea, the proper response to someone trying this is to pick up a sufficiently heavy object - the corebook will do nicely - and beat them over the head with it.)
I did have a character concept for just that, once - however, I quickly realized that it actually wasn't all that great a build. Rather, a Mercurean magi with TRUE FAITH was much more efficient. That requires that you spend 3 points on a major virtue (like you would have to in order to get Holy Magic, anyway), but would allow you to learn the holy powers/methods fairly quickly.
In-game, this would represent a Mercurean magi who had a Road to Damascus moment (or perhaps a summoning gone horribly right), and realized that this whole pagan thing maybe wasn't the best idea in the world. At which point your first story arc is going out and finding a Holy Order of some sort to learn from. And the consequences of leaving the Mercureans, and whatnot. (Probably nothing deadly, of course - but definitely some pretty severe political repercussions - the least of which your mail never being delivered on time.)
Of course, if you're using Mercurian techniques or Mercurian spells, you're not really doing Holy Magic. There are issues for holy magi casting non-Holy Magic spells. I'm sure those would come into play using techniques based on pagan practices.
Per the rules, the Mercurian Magic virtue can be used with Holy Spells, no problem there.
Have you found an explicit statement of that? I ask, because per the rules it says you can get into trouble if you're a Holy Magus using non-Holy Magic stuff in bad ways, and I would say using pagan (explicitly so according to HoH:S) techniques would qualify as bad. Maybe it's just me, but I have trouble seeing someone with True Faith (Christianity) doing pagan rituals and living up to what he/she is supposed to live up to.
In terms closer to our own reality, what if a cardinal were to start leading wiccan rites in the Vatican? What would the opinion of the rest of the Vatican be? And, more importantly, if the Old Testament and New Testament are correct, what would God's opinion of that be?
Now, it isn't explicit that Mercurian magicians are pagan, but it is strongly associated with a pagan background. Certainly if they were a flamen in the Cult of Mercury it would be idolatry to combine Mercurian and Holy Magic. But even the background of Merurian Magic (the virtue) has a strong pagan background, in that they are the descendants of the Roman priest of Mercury. There is nothing mechanical that prevents combining the two, that's right. But if you are limiting Holy Magic on purely mechanical criteria, you're going to find that it quickly makes such a character incredibly powerful.
It's more that there's no rule against it. Also, back up for a second: the theology on pagan-derived magic is much more complicated, in Ars Magica, than you're making it out to be. As the primarily-Roman-derived Order of Hermes has a patron angel and angels who don't mind working with it, magi can have True Faith without being Holy Magi and can even cast spells that are remnants of Mercurian magic (such as Wizard's Communion)...in fact, they can have Mercurian Magic...I'd say that the default assumption is that pagan magic is not sinful, particularly in light of the veneration/worship dichotomy. Whether pagan magical Virtues (Diedne and Mercurian Magic) can be used with Holy Magic is a thornier question; however, the fluff on Holy Magic is a mess.
Like I said, I personally would not allow it in my saga without a Breakthrough to revise Mercurian Magic into a holy format, but I don't think there's a hard rule against it.
Yes, you're right about True Faith. I should have said "Holy Magic (Christianity)" there, especially since that's specifically what I and we are talking about.
A similar issue popped up in a discussion of "what exactly is Quiet or Subtle magic, and can it be used to get around the Holy Magic penalty for words/gestures?" The general response was "Virtues are just mechanics. As such, it depends on how you define those virtues in-game. If you define them as realizing that the pagan words and gestures are unnecessary, then yes. If you define it as successfully replacing the words and gestures with appropriate Holy thoughts, then yes. If you define it as internalizing the pagan words and gestures, then no. It's up to the Troupe and the player."
So that would probably work as a similar response here. If you define a partially-integrated Hermetic virtue as already having as much of the paganism stripped out as possible, then it would work just as well as any other Major virtue. But if you define it as requiring a "pagan mindset" (or whatever), or rituals that specifically counter the ideals of Holy magic, then no - it wouldn't work.
Personally, as the RAW doesn't forbid it, I'd go with the interpretation that allows the player to do what they want.
(The other fun virtue to slip in there is the Animal Sacrifice one, from HoH:TL - that allows you to substitute an animal for vis in a summoning ritual. Which would actually fit OK with mythic Judiasm...sort of. I guess. In angel summoning? I dunno. Animal sacrifice in the Old Testament really seemed to be a way of feeding the priests, as much as anything else.)
EDIT - the reason I came up with that combo is mainly because it creates a situation in which I'd actually want to play a Mercurean as a PC - with all the penalties that it implies. Specifically, the stacking of the 1/2 cost of Vis and "you can use long-term fatigue as vis in a 3-1 ratio" is interesting enough that I'd be willing to put up with all the other stuff. The disadvantage is that the restriction on spont magic collides with the Holy magic restriction on using hermetic spells.
I'd probably add in the "quick ceremony" minor virtue from HoH:S, describe it as part of the character's Mercurean training, and call it good. (Maybe with the Cautious with Concentration virtue, as well.)
EDIT II - for example, I've always interpreted Mercurean magic as being more "structurally reinforced" than traditional Hermetic magic: the words and gestures are pronounced more cleanly, with structured foot and whole-body movements that prevent the spontaneous casting of the Diedne. But as a consequence, those gestures allow vis to more efficiently flow through the magic, and thus make rituals easier and more efficient. And because it's so structured, other magi with similar training can join in more easily.
Also, the discussions of the Bjorner magical style in HoH:MC states that their magic is no more or less compatible with the Divine than any other House.
As such, if the fluff tells us that practicing the partially-integrated hermetic magical style of a bunch of spirit-venerating/worshiping Germanic shapeshifters isn't a specific stumbling block to being a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Zoastrean, I'd say that that Mercurean magic falls into the same category.
I'm not a fan of Holy Magic myself, but if you do use it you should be aware that Renaissance thinkers had no problem at all reconciling Hermeticism with Christianity and that certain medieval Muslim thinkers even identified Hermes with the Prophet Idris/Enoch. Considering all that, legacy Order of Mercury material doesn't seem particularly out of bounds for a religious magus.
I get that you can play it fully mechanically and nothing else, but here's what I see when I read them:
Mercurian Magic: Due to the traditions (yes it says this, plus [magical] lineage) passed down from the Roman priests your ritual magic is more powerful.
Holy Magic: "holy magi cannot use Hermetic words or gestures with their magic, since they are believed to lead the magus into ingrained rites of Hermetic idolatry and invoke the symbolism of sacrilegious rituals and worldly enchantment. A holy magus instead learns to call his magic solely with the worship of God." (RoP:tD p.67)
The combination of these says to me that ArM5 at least pretty strongly implies if not actually implicitly states that the two cannot work together. Note, I'm not saying a character couldn't have both, just that they don't work together. Now RoP:tD does say holy magi sometimes regress and cast Hermetic magic but that this is believed to be sinful and doing it much could well warrant losing the ability to cast Holy Magic. Also, doing so is not Holy Magic, so it's still an either-or thing, not both Holy Magic and Mercurian Magic working simultaneously.
Sure, the Bjornaers' stuff is just as bad vis-a-vis Holy Magic as are all the other houses' magic, no worse nor better. That still doesn't change the whole thing I quoted above from RoP:tD. I accept that True Faith is fine, though justification is surely needed in-character. The issue is with Holy Magic, which is even more restrictive than True Faith.
The main thing with HM is that the fluff makes the statement that Holy Magi reject Hermetic symbology as pagan and sinful, despite evidence that it's actually not (and that Zoroastrians would laugh themselves silly at the very idea). While I wouldn't go so far as to agree that all holy magi, or even their guardian angels, are going to agree with that position, it's pretty clear that pagan symbology is incompatible with the peculiar magic that expressly draws upon the Divine and that is sanctioned for use in Divine auras. YSMV on whether this includes Mercurian Magic as a virtue, since the latter only specifies that "your lineage and magical tradition descend from the priests of the Order of Mercury." A case could be made that if you've adapted that particular tradition to run on the Divine Realm (by taking Holy Magic) and replaced pagan rituals with Christian ones (which the Church did all the time), then it should still affect your divine magic.
Yes. The Holy Magic description is quite clear as to what that restriction represents: a prohibition from using Hermetic Words/gestures (or a -10 penalty and using improvised Holy words and gestures), and a restriction from using Hermetically-derived spells. If you want to create your own spells, you have to use the Holy Magic ability, which allows you to create spells similar to Hermetic abilities, but are aligned with the Divine.
There isn't anything in there that says you can't use Mystery Cult virtues (Bjorner or Mercurean or otherwise) in your creation of new Holy Magic spells. If that were the case, that's certainly a big thing to forget to add - to the point where it really should be in the errata.
(EDIT: half the hermetic virtues in the game could probably be described as "descending from priests of X" or "descending from pagan blessing Y" - but we don't see any such restriction on them.)
Pretty much this - I see the penalties that Holy Magic puts on Hermetic magic as doing exactally this, only on the fly: ie, figuring out which saint's name to use instead of Mercury's, or to face towards Mecca instead of the rising sun, and so forth. It doesn't work as well, but the rules are explicitly there to allow you to do stuff like this.
Sure, but mechanically, it's stacking power on top of power. It means that the character is acquiring power for power's sake, and not necessarily for the Glory of God.
Take a Mercurian who knows several Characteristic boosting rituals, he has a conversion from his decidedly pagan roots (whether this is a spiritual adjustment or a magical adjustment is moot) to a more Holy, Christian, outlook. He then begins recreating all of his spells under the virtue of Holy Magic. Why? Because he can? That's not Holy, and it certainly isn't for the Glory of God. The moment one of those spells is reinvented spontaneously (without being prompted by the story or saga arc) by the Holy magus is the moment he invites the SG to start tempting him with sin and having demons and diabolists trick him into working magic on their behalf.