Revision as of 14:17, 13 September 2024

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Background:

From running the Stonehenge game we have identified a few issues, which have been having unintended side-effects in the game, which have made it diverge from the base setting and making it harder to write adventures. My philosophy here is to change as little as possible from the base rules, as often, the reason they cause problems is because we haven’t read how they are supposed to work properly, like monopoly.

Issues from the previous game

Trivialised Travel

• It undervalues redcaps (Why have mail delivery specialists when I can just teleport there and deliver it myself?)
• It makes adventures where those who can't teleport are effectively excluded. "[Your companion or low level Magi] can't teleport, so can't go on this overseas adventure to Persia without 3 seasons of lost exp due to travel."
• It takes us to the edge of the Mediaeval world and Ars Magica only covers the European Medieval Paradigm. It also makes the world an unforgivably small place.

Magi were overshadowing Companions.

• The general design intent of the game is that Companions investigate problems, come back to the Magi, who can then investigate and find solutions. Magical travel makes it possible to avoid the seasonal penalties for travelling to adventures and make it much more sensible to just send your magi, making companions less useful.

It has been easy to boost starting characteristics

• The intelligence and presence boosting rituals were too easily scaled to large groups of people and made an army of Ubermensch, devaluing what .

Power disparity between PC covenants.

• Both politically and materially.

It is hard to include straight up supernatural antagonists.

• The ease and prevalence of might-stripping Perdo Vim spells, makes supernatural threats either trivial or insurmountable.

Inconsistent mystery cults.

• For some people it would take years of OC time, for others it would be nearly trivial depending on the ST and the covenant.

Multi-casting being too powerful

• Especially in relation to might-stripping spells (see above) but also combat spells made almost any antagonist trivial to oppose, this undervalues martial grogs and companions.

Certain resources were too abundant.

• Vis particularly, but also books and silver.

Changes:

Addressing these issues comes in three parts: Troupe/ST approval, clarifications and House-rules.

Troupe/ST approval:

• Ars Magica is a very complex system, with a lot of interlocking rules. All of the Discord channels should have a place where you can submit new spells, items or characters. If everybody uses these then we can spot potential mistakes before they get too far. This is particularly true of non-book spells which use the modifier for requisites that enhance the spells effects.
• Even if they are technically within the rules, we should try to avoid things which break mediaeval Europe or the balance of the game. Such as things which can automatically bypass large amounts of an adventure or grant disproportionate advantages far in excess of their costs or are anachronistic.
• If an ST or somebody from the troupe flags something as a concern, please don’t introduce the new thing until it’s resolved. Even if it’s technically within the rules. If there’s a dispute we can bring in a neutral ST. Don’t be afraid to wait rather than making an on the spot decision.
• Even if we’ve started playing with something, if something breaks the game, the troupe can ask somebody to retire or rework something that is causing a problem. The character had to leave, the spell had an unforeseen flaw or item had limited uses.

Clarifications:

These are common mistakes that we have made or interpretations I would suggest where the existing rules are ambiguous.

Rituals

• Momentary rituals can not be cast with “Circle” as the target (Except book specific listed ones which can be assumed to be the results of experimentation). Circles and other symbols are already a part of ritual design, so if you want to affect more than one person you need to use the group target.

Resources

• Vis and wealth should be tracked by the covenant (I can help automate this) as lack of resources can drive stories. This also gives you an idea of how many people live at a covenant.

Familiars

• Familiars can learn normal skills through any method. However as mentioned in RoP:Magic, they can only gain exp towards Transformation from Practice, Adventure or a Teacher who has the quality they are attempting to gain through transformation. It is not possible to turn exp from other sources like reading or teaching on an unrelated subject into exp for Transformation. (Practicing a Quality that you already possess with the intention of improving upon it has a Study Total of 5.)

Transport

• Flying spells require an Intelligence + Finesse roll to change direction or speed; with an Ease Factor related to his current speed — Ease Factor 3 for walking pace, Ease Factor 9 at moderate speed, Ease Factor 12 at maximum speed. (As per Mercury’s Winged Sandals - Transforming Mythic Europe pg 111). Failure can result in falling damage based on the speed.
• Teleporting spells require a finesse roll (with either; Dexterity TN: 6 for places you can see or Intelligence TN: 9 for places you can’t see) See Seven League Stride - AM5th ed, pg135 and Step Sideways - Through the Aegis pg 79. If you fail your arrival goes slightly awry. For instance, you might fall when you appear, or just be facing the wrong way. A botch means you appear in the wrong place, perhaps even in a wall which will cause injury.
• Whilst ReCo spells can teleport a person with clothes and personal effects (Load that doesn’t encumber and not another being). For anything other than a hair shirt, or human-leather shoes, you need the appropriate requisites if you want to carry anything with you when you teleport otherwise it is left behind. Remember that spells of lv 30 or above, unless they are designed specifically for the user will cause warping, this includes spells from magic items.
• All long distance transport will generally have one of the following speeds to calculate how long people will be travelling and how far from the lab they are. This can obviously be significantly less due to the environment, but rarely more unless you march through the night (for which the lab overtime guidelines might be appropriate):
  • Walking/ “Move a target slowly” 4 miles/hour - 8 hours a day - 32 miles/day
  • Casually riding 16 miles/hour - 8 hours a day - 128 miles/day
  • Flying/”Move a target quickly” 40 miles/hour - 8 hours a day - 320 miles/day
  • Individual spells, items and effects should ideally have a base speed added to them.

Arcane Connections

• Book says: "Arcane connections must be stored carefully or else they become links to different people or places."
• Whilst things like Familiars and Talismans are reliable things to teleport to, other arcane connections are "over-written" by strong magical effects cast upon them. So in general you can only teleport to a fixed Arcane connection unless that connection is exceptionally well cared for and fresh. Meaning you need to spend a whole season fixing it. (you can’t just have a few dozen assorted AC’s in a bag as we currently do) [Phillip spent 10 days a Season maintaining his AC collection, as noted when he got the ability]ook says(pg 59 Against the Dark: The Transylvanian Tribunal): “Leap of Homecoming, and similar Rego Corpus spells, instantly transport the caster to a location to which he has an Arcane Connection to. In general, nothing prevents the caster from crossing a regio boundary in this manner. On the other hand, some regiones cannot be entered or left via Rego Corpus effects. Some magi have theories about why this is so, but there seems to be no reliable way to predict how a regio will interact with Rego Corpus magic.”
• However by default, as it would normally make a more interesting story it is probably best to assume that scrying on something in a regio or transporting to an AC in a regio will generally be possible, but will lead you to just outside the Regio entrance. Individual STs can decide that this is different for individual Regios. (Reasoning: This means that you can’t bypass the layers of the regio and must confront them which is more interesting in most stories. Imagine if Orpheus could have teleported back from his journey to the underworld.). STs can also decide that a specific Regio like the Labyrinth of Crete prevents any teleporting within or through it or causes them to end up in a random area of the regio as appropriate.

Mastery

• Corebook says: "[Mastery] may bring the number of [Botch] dice down to zero. Mastered spells are always cast with a stress die, but IF the Magi is relaxed there are no botch die, even in a non-magic aura or when using Vis." This means that, if a magi is not relaxed or is casting under time pressure (Such as when in combat) they can still botch with 1 dice even if Mastery would normally reduce that to zero.

Other

We do use the 5th edition errata, particularly for Durations, Targets and Sizes and Multicasting and when it becomes available, the new book will be considered the master guide.

House rules:

Character Basics

• Each player can have only one gifted character or mythic level companion.
• If a PC has an apprentice then they can continue to play them until they move away to their own covenant, but they should be made available as PCs to new players if requested. Similarly if you have acquired an additional companion level character, they should be available for new players to adopt as their own if they wish.
• NPCs created by your character (Familiars/Children/Spouses/Apprentices etc…) should generally not be played by that character. They should either be given to another player or used as a troupe NPC.
• If Apprentices can’t be long-term adopted by anybody else, they should probably leave the covenant a few years after gauntlet or otherwise be written out of the story (As nobody wants to hang around with their parens after 15 years of studying under them.)
• Starting characters could be encouraged to have a couple of connection with other PCs. (e.g. were raised in the same covenant together, they worked together in the past etc…)

Starting ages

Starting age for player characters at the beginning of the campaign. After the beginning of the campaign, older characters can be added, but should not be older than existing player characters.

• For a Hermetic Magi: They can be apprenticed at any point between ages 5-12, they have a 15 year apprenticeship and then 0-3 years as a Hermetic magus.
• For Companions, They can start at any age up to age 30.
• For non-Hermetic magi or similar they can begin play 0-3 years after end of the relevant apprenticeship, although this can be adjusted if it doesn't make sense.

Multi-Casting

Casting multiple spells is a complex activity, so in addition to the normal focusing penalty, you need to make a concentration check with a TN: 3+ (number of spells cast x3) and botch dice equal to the number of spells cast. So casting two bolts of Abyssal flame would require a concentration of 12.

Familiars

• A familiar can't buy additional ranks of magic theory above the magus's level+1.

Experience

• XP in seasons - May only gain experience from a single source (adventure, taught, study, exposure etc). Although you can gain multiple sources of adventure exp in a single season up to the maximum of 10.
• Limit is 1 source per season
• Multiple adventures possible (still one source; adventure) - note time penalties
• Multiple of other sources not possible
• Time spent on adventures should subtract from relevant lab totals and learning amounts.
• You can’t gain exposure exp and adventure exp in the same season even if the adventure was less than 10 days.
• Even if you end up playing more than one of your characters in a given adventure, only one of them can gain experience for the adventure.
• Excepting unusual circumstances, people should only play in one of the groups.

Books

Books on Spell Mastery for General Spells (such as Aegis) work for Mastery at any level (ie an Aegis Mastery book can be used on a L20 variant or a L25 variant and so on)

For covenant generation the initial build point cost of books will be changed to:

• Arts Summa - (Level x Quality)/5 (round up)
• Ability Summa - ((Level x 3) x Quality)/5 (round up)
• Tractatus - exp value of Quality (if it were treated as an accelerated ability)/5 (round up)

These changes make low quality books cheaper and excellent quality ones more expensive, but keep the average amount the same.

Personal Vis Sources

Personal Vis Source Virtue is now fixed at 4 pawns of vis/year

Long Distance Travel guidelines

• Travel Speed: This is based on the lowest speed of the group.
  • Walking: 8 + (Stamina + Athletics* )x2 miles per day
  • Riding a pack Mule or pony: 16+ (Riders Stamina + Ride*)x3 = miles per day travelled.
  • Riding an average riding Horse: 16+ (Riders Stamina + Ride*)x4 = miles per day travelled.
  • Riding a high quality endurance horse: 16+ (Riders Stamina + Ride*)x5 = miles per day travelled.

  (* Load and wound penalties apply to this total)

• Travel Speed: Based on the skill of the Pilot/Driver
  • Cart/Carriage/Caravan: 16+ (Int or Per + Profession: Carter**)x3 = miles per day travelled.
  • River boat (Downstream): 16+ (Int or Per + Profession: Sailor**)x3 = miles per day travelled.
  • River boat (Upstream): 0+ (Int or Per + Profession: Sailor**)x3 = miles per day travelled.

  (** No penalties for load, but wounds and unskilled penalties apply.)

STs can modify things as they need, this is just the main guide to keep the vibe of travel consistent and should be ignored for short journey to familiar places within a few days travel.

House rules from the previous game which are no longer being used:

• Might limitations for magical creatures using ritual powers, the book clearly states how Confidence is intended to be the limiting factor here.
• Breakthroughs in the old campaign did not cause warping, this was an error. Breakthrough research does carry the risk of warping as per the HoH:TL book.
• The old Vis finding rules should not be used.

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