Virtues & Flaws
- Gentle Gift: This virtue is reclassified as Supernatural instead of Hermetic.
- - Potent Magic: You may, in a single season, invent as many potent spells as your score in Magic Theory (provided you know the spell already). This includes updating existing potent spells, either to add or remove casting items.
- - Tremere House Virtue: Tremere may pick some besides a Magical Focus in Certamen as their free house virtue.
- - Linguist: Now acts as an affinity for all languages (+50% to all study totals instead of +25%), in addition to its other effects.
- - Skilled Parens: May not be taken due to the total revamp of apprenticeship.
- - Mercurian Magic: Replace the following line in the virtue text,”If cast as part of a Wizard’s Communion, all participants need to have this Virtue to gain this benefit” with “If cast as part of a Wizard’s Communion, you must know the spell being cast to gain this benefit.” In addition, the virtue now grants your Ceremonial Casting rolls a bonus equal to the number of prop categories you are using during the ritual. See HoH: Societates, pg 59 for information about ceremonial props.
- - Secondary Insight: Virtue: This virtue is now a Minor Hermetic rather than a Major Hermetic virtue.
- - Magical Focus: Magical Foci must be based on themes of effect. This means for example that a Magical Focus in swords would not then apply to enchanting any effect into a sword as a magical item. Instead the Focus must apply thematically to whatever effect is intended to be produced.
Experience & Advancement
- Apprenticeship: Instead of the usual values, Magi receive 350xp and 180 levels of spells. This is intended to bring apprenticeship much closer to what a mage would actually receive (though it's still less than someone who actually plays out the fifteen years).
- - Adventure Experience: Adventuring does not affect the calculation of results of Seasonal Activities (and any resultant experience gained) beyond how any potential time away may count as a distraction from an activity. This intentionally does mean that people could theoretically double dip on a Seasonal Activity and Adventure Experience during a Season and is intended to remove potential disincentives to Adventuring.
- - Secondary Mage Experience: A Magus will gain 3xp per season that must be used on non-magic related abilities. This experience thus may not be spent on things like Finesse, Magic Theory, Penetration or Parma Magica. It could reasonably however be applied to something like Dominion Lore, Order of Hermes Lore, or Single Weapon. Your choice must be justified in some way with activities undertaken during the season. This is designed to foster the rounding out of the builds of Mages in a non-punitive way.
- - Correspondence Experience: 2xp may be gained by having an in-character correspondence with someone each season. See page 90 of Covenants for more information.
- - Learning Spells:
You can learn multiple spells from lab texts in a single season even if the art combinations used for them vary, but you can only learn a total level of spells equal to your highest applicable lab total, and individual spells are also limited to their respective lab total. (This makes learning from lab texts similar to learning from a teacher, but solely using your own lab total).
- - Tractatus Quality: Tractatus quality is now calculated with a +2 bonus, along with other factors. During covenant creation, the build point cost is now the Quality -2 and the Quality limit is 13 instead of 11.
- - Later Life Experience: The Later Life section of character creation should now read as "20 experience points per year, spread between any Abilities the character can learn, based on the Virtues and Flaws he has. Characters with the Wealthy Major Virtue get 30 experience points per year, those with the Poor Major Flaw get 10."
Abilities
- Changing Specialty: A character can change the Specialty of an Ability if they choose when the Ability is increased from one level to another permanently via experience.
- - Knowledge Abilities: Less a house rule, and more a matter of clarification. Rarely will we as STs call upon you to make a roll. Instead, we will consult your level of skill along with any modifiers, and simply tell you what you know, or don't.
Combat
- Static Defense Totals: Defense totals are not rolled; instead of a Stress Die, add +6 to the total of a defender. This means that (aside from Initiative), only the attacker rolls in combat: his Attack roll is compared to a static Defense and, if needed Soak. This is intended to streamline combat posts and the drafting of narrative in a play-by-post environment.
Confidence
- Confidence Recovery: Any time Confidence Points are awarded the amount recovered is multiplied by the Confidence Score of the character.
- - Bjornaer Heartbeast: The Bjornaer’s intimacy with their magical Heartbeast allows them to consume vis as magical beings to empower themselves. By consuming a pawn of vis, the Bjornaer may invoke the use of a Confidence point without expending one. The number of pawns she might safely consume daily is up to her rank in the Heartbeast ability.
Personality Traits
Reputations
Spellcasting & Magic
- Non-scaling Spell Mastery: Spell Mastery Special Abilities do not scale with the Spell Mastery Ability they are tied to. All Spell Mastery Special Abilities instead provide their respective bonus as a +1, or single iteration, of the bonus. All Spell Mastery Special Abilities however may be selected multiple times and their respective +1 bonuses stack.
- - Ceremonial Casting: Ceremonial Casting is universally available for all casters for Formulaic Magic.
- - Wizard's Communion & Spell Mastery: Participants in a Wizard's Communion may add their Spell Mastery Ability scores in Wizard's Communion to the Casting Total of the spell being cast. The maximum number of participants that can so contribute is the Spell Mastery score in Wizard's Communion of the primary caster actually rolling for the spell effect. There are no Spell Mastery Special Abilities for Wizard's Communion.
- - Circles & Rings: Normal Circles & Rings may not be buried or likewise physically covered. Circles & Rings so treated are physically compromised and are thus effectively broken.
- - Vis Use In Spells: The amount of Vis that can be used to boost (not used in rituals etc) spells depends on one's Finesse score, in addition to Magic Theory. The maximum number of pawns usable equals the Finesse score. More Vis can be used, but it requires a Finesse roll or an automatic Botch occurs. The roll is: Finesse + Int + Stress Die vs. EF 3 + [( # of vis used - Finesse)x5].
- - Vis Use In Spontaneous Spells: Spending vis to boost casting totals while casting spontaneous spells adds the bonus after dividing by half.
- - Investigating Enchantments: Investigating enchantments no longer requires the full attention of a magus to perform during a season and may be done along with another laboratory activity in the same season. If you wish to investigate effects on multiple items, each additional item is tested with a -3 penalty to your Intellego Vim lab total.
- - Ritual Magic & Dispels: Dispelling a Ritual effect requires a Ritual dispel/unraveling effect.
Hermetic Limits
Magic Resistance & Parma Magica
Magic Resistance Interpretation: The following points describe how Magic Resistance (MR) will function and be applied in the saga.
quote:
Magic Resistance is a damn tricky game mechanic, fought with interpretation issues. Each saga has different rules for how it takes affect, be that a true magical force, a neutralization of powers, or a separate ritual which itself can be cancelled.
In short, I don’t have a solution which is perfect either, but like some of these guidelines from Chris, snatched from the Atlas forums.
Tugdual wrote: That is the conundrum, the pink dot defense. Does Parma block or suppress?
Callen wrote: There is an alternative I prefer to both of those two. It blocks magical effects/things, but not non-magical things. I know it sounds just like our typical blocking interpretation, but sometimes it seems to follow suppressing idea. Here are examples of how I like it to work, assuming there is too little penetration:
Magic is continually pushing a mundane arrow to its target. The magical motion ends so the arrow is not moving through the PM.
Magic launches a mundane arrow and lets it fly on its own. The arrow passes right through the PM.
A mundane ballista bolt is Muto’d into an arrow and shot from a bow. The arrow stops at the PM because the entire thing present is magical.
A mundane arrow shot from a bow has a pink dot placed on it by the almost crafty magus. The arrow passes through the PM without a pink dot.
An arrow with no relevant enchantments is shot from a bow. It passes through the PM.
An arrow is enchanted so it cannot break, and that’s the only enchantment, is shot from a bow. It passes through the PM, but it could break on the magus’s armor because the effect is excluded.
An arrow is enchanted so that its tip is supernaturally sharp. It passes through the PM, but the tip that strikes the magus is only naturally sharp because the effect is excluded.
Item 1 and 2 are pretty well understood and accepted by everyone so those are nothing special. The rest are somewhat debatable, but will serve as a starting point. I know that these are inconsistent and is very close to the “intelligent parma” model which was implied in earlier editions; but I don’t mind as much yet.
Chris wrote: An arrow is enchanted so that all nearby metal and wood cannot be broken. It is otherwise not enchanted. It is shot from a bow while a whole bunch of totally mundane arrows are shot from bows at nearby unprotected grogs. The arrow could break on the magus’s armor. But all the arrows that just struck the unprotected grogs nearby could not break. See, the magic is not being suppressed. It’s still there and active. It just can’t affect inside the Parma Magica if it can’t Penetrate. Thus I’m still using a blocking interpretation. I’m just using blocking differently than the traditional method, as I said I was.
- Wards & Aegis: As a point of clarity all Ward effects as well as the Aegis of the Hearth Ritual are required to penetrate like any other effect. This in particular gives firm incentives for groups of Magi pooling their resources and abilities to cast and maintain strong Aegis effects together in Covenants.
Labs & Labwork
Enchanted Items
- Item Penetration: Item Penetration is capped at a maximum of up to 1/2 of the Effect Total of the designed effect.
Vis
Arts & Guidelines
Generic Guidelines:
- Wards Providing Soak Protection: Using the example of Ward Against Heat & Flame (ArM5, pg 143) the ability/guidelines for controlling a given Form can be used to provide protection amounting to increased Soak. For sake of simplicity this guideline is established as uniform across all Forms.
Base 4, Provide +5 Soak against a declared potential damage source covered by the Form. The Soak bonus may be increased by +5 for every additional magnitude added to the effect.
Mentem:
Mind Reading & Time: While Mentem allows for the transfer of information from one mind to another the unaugmented mind generally receiving such information requires time to both formulate questions and to process and internalize the answers. This in effect means casters/users of Mentem effects drawing information directly into the mind/thoughts of a caster/user may only pose as many "questions" per round as 1/2 of either their Concentration or Art of Memory ability. If both Abilities are possessed instead the average (unhalved) of both abilities may be used. Potential modification of this limitation may take place with suitable uses of Complexity in spell design or layered effects to assist in the process.
The relative depth, complexity, and length of a given piece of information is an additional factor that could cause it to be ruled to make it more time consuming to mentally process and comprehend.
Non-Hermetic Magic
- Magical Foci: When applicable a Magical Focus applies a x2 modifier to single Art or Supernatural/Accelerated Ability non-Hermetic styles of magic/powers.
- - Accelerated Abilities: May not select Specializations like other Abilities. Puissant applied to an Accelerated Ability is +3 instead of +2.
Realms
- Realm Parity & Balancing: Interactions of Powers of different Realms in conflict with one another will be adjudicated based on normal interactions of effect levels and penetration. No Realm is considered to "automatically" win or be somehow more proficient at achieving effects of a given type. (For example Demons have no infallible ability to lie and not be detected.) There is also no objective God, Gods, or elsewise divinities associated with any Realm.
Auras
- Aura Interactions:
The interactions (bonuses and penalties) of Powers and Auras of differing Realms, as described in ArM5 Core, pg 183, is adjusted as follows.
| Aura Interactions | Magic Powers | Divine Powers | Faerie Powers | Infernal Powers |
|---|
| Magic Auras | +2xR | -R | +R | -R |
|---|
| Divine Auras | -2xR | +2xR | -2xR | -2xR |
|---|
| Faerie Auras | +R | -R | +2xR | -R |
|---|
| Infernal Auras | -2xR | -2xR | -2xR | +2xR |
|---|
- - Tether Universality: As per Legends of Hermes, pg 17, Inset, discussing Tethers and new guidelines for Vim, the concept of Tethers (though thematically adjusted for each) is adopted as a universal concept applying to the Auras of each Realm.
Regiones
Creatures of Might
- Might Based Magic Resistance: Magic Resistance based on Might Scores is increased to 1.5 x normal.
- - Resistance To Might Destruction: Creatures of Might of any Realm subtract 2*(Might Score/5) from any Might Destruction inflicted to a minimum of zero.
- - Might Destruction: Might Destruction first drains away points from the Might Pool of the affected creature. Once the target is reduced to zero Might Pool it begins to take Permanent Might Destruction Damage. Being reduced to zero Might does not kill a creature/being but may leave in temporarily mundane or in some way banish it depending on the nature of the creature. Might Pool points will return at their normal rate if reduced by Might Destruction. Permanent Might Damage can be healed naturally over time, relative to the environment and resources (aura or vis for example) available to the being within which to rest and/or with which to treat its wounds.
Daimons & Other Aspected Creatures
- Outer Realm Immunity:A being must actually be present in the world to be affected by magic. It is impossible to affect a being in a Realm of Power except by facing it in the Realm itself. Some beings - such as saints, archangels, faerie gods, daimons, demonic princes, and so on - can send aspects to the world while still residing in their Realm of Power. These aspects can be faced in this world, but that generally has no effect on the being itself.
Mysteries may allow one to reach into a Realm of Power to a limited degree. The mystery of Hermetic Theurgy, for example, allows one to invent Ritual spells to contact daimons in the Magic Realm (see The Mysteries Revised Edition).
Initiation & Mysteries
Contacts & Relationships
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:02, Sat 14 May 2022.
