[[!toc levels=4]] # Characters ## Virtues and Flaws ###Teaching Virtues When a mage teaches a virtue with a study total that requires that the student gain a flaw, the flaw is chosen by the player and Story Guide, not the teacher.
*"Because your teaching isn't really good enough, some other hermetic flaw creeps in..."* * Teacher chooses virtue as normal * Player chooses an appropriate flaw, working with the Story Guide ### Magister-in-Artibus For the purposes of the Magister-in-Artibus virtue other scholars consider the Schola to be conspicuously wealthy enough that this will rub off on members and they only need to teach for one season; unless they are conspicuously poor (the Poor flaw). This doesn't recuse non-Wealthy companions from needing to earn their keep in whatever manner is approopriate, but the second season a year could, for instance, be a covenant role less easily visible to outsiders. ### The Gift I can't remember which splat it was, but one of them suggests that it might be possible with mundane Animal Training to train horses to accept a normally gifted rider. If this was true then all magi would ride horses. **Houserule:** you *can* train the horse to be OK with a Gifted magi as passenger in a cart or wagon provided they have a driver/handler who is not Gifted, or otherwise **Inoffensive to Animals**. If you want to ride a horse with the normal gift, then you'll either need to use spells (which may warp the horse, just saying) or tame a magical/fae horse. #### The Gift and Teaching Magi with the normal Gift are at -3 for teaching, whether they're the teacher or the student. This is going to be a bit of a pain if they want to interact with the university. This penalty can be removed if they extend their Parma to cover their teacher or students, but that can only be done with consent (and note that the maga is also at -3 to convincing the other party), which is going to require some finesse to avoid revealing the covenant's secrets. If the maga is unobtrusive and in the midst of a large group of people then the -3 is ignored; so if she's going to popular lectures then she'll be OK; although she will probably get a bit of suspicion of being a false student (which is in some senses true anyway); but that's no help if she's looking for instruction in Demotic Egyptian. ### The Gentle Gift The Gentle Gift does not count as a Major Hermetic Virtue for the purposes of the restrictions on Virtues. ## Reputation The current reputation rules are a) widely dispersed over several different books and b) ridiculous in a wide variety of respects. These rules attempt to repair some of the more glaring faults; they represent something of a work in progress as we continue to patch faults as they become apparent. Characters can have as many reputations as they acquire. In order to determine if somebody has heard of a character, sum the absolute value of their reputation experience to create a combined reputation. If a character has heard of another one by the sum of their reputations but not any particular one, they may know some basic biographical detail but beyond that will only be aware of hearing stories about them, which they can no longer recall. If a character with multiple reputations performs a noteworthy act, they gain experience in the most appropriate reputation; if none are appropriate and the action is notable enough, they gain another reputation. Characters cannot gain experience in a negative academic reputation through stagnation beyond the point where it would be greater than the sum of the experience in any positive academic reputation(s) they have. # Expenses ## Points of Inhabitants I'm using this slightly mashed up chart to replace the one on p63 of *Covenants* to represent the two-tier structure of the Covenant. PCs should be free to argue that they ought to be in a different band *in-character*. Note that for companions this only covers ones supported by the covenant, companions of independant means get LCM as appropriate. [[!table file="Rules/points.dsv"]] ## Writing Materials Academics count towards this cost like scribes and magi. # Mechanics ## Rule of Two If, after rolling a sequence of 1s, a 2 is rolled it may be re-rolled. But only once; if you get another 2 that's fate. ## Target Boundary The upper and lower boundaries of a boundary spell exist and are something appropriate - e.g. a triangle might be a pyramid, a circle might be a dome or a sphere. ## Group Learning The ArM4 book *Kaballah* had a sidebar on group learning that was overly powerful. The ArM5 book *Realms of Power: Divine* had one that was overly weak -- you'd never actually want to do it. The Revised Edition of that book no-longer has such a sidebar. These rules attempt to find a middle ground. Comments welcome. A group of people may study the same text and discuss it together. The maximum size of the group is limited to twice the Communication score of the highest member; excepting that it is always permissable for two people to study together. Each member calculates an Advancement Total normally; including bonuses and maluses relating to both studying from texts and learning from others. The totals for each member are summed, the communication of each member is added, and if any member has the Good Teacher virtue then that is added (+5) at most once. This grand total is then divided by (the number of participants + 1) and rounded up to produce the new Advancement Total. In addition each member may take an additional two points of exposure experience in an appropriate skill related to the discussion (likely to be one of Artes Liberales, Philosophiae, Theology, Magic Theory, or an appropriate Language). ### Summae Summae may be discussed only if all of the members are eligible to discuss the summa in question. ### Tractatus Tractatus may only be learned from once, whether through reading or discussion. ### Florigelia Seperately to the individual tractartus, a florigelium may be discussed as if it were a summa with a level equal to the number of included tractatus and a quality equal to sum the qualities of the two best tractatus. ### Hermetic Arts The maximum size of a group for learning Hermetic Arts is two. Hermetic Arts can be group studied from vis, however this requires a quantity of vis for each maga. ## Metamagic The Metamagic Rules in *Ars Magica 5th Edition* make it almost impossible to do any interesting metamagic even if you're the archest of magi, due to the requirements for fast casting, voice range and sundry other problems. We have accordingly rewritten them to make metamagic more feasible. ### Restrictions Metamagic spells must be cast on hermetic magic; otherwise the magus is insufficiently experienced with the magic to edit it. The form and technique of the spell being cast must be known, and the spell must conform to the following set of form restrictions: * Elemental (Auram, Aquam, Ignem, Terram) * Intangible (Imaginem, Mentem, Vim) * Living (Corpus, Animal, Herbam) ### Ranges Touch range suffices to metamagic a spell you are casting yourself, or one created by a device you are holding. Otherwise you need to use voice range; it is not possible to use sight range unless you have previously cast an Intellego Vim spell to enable you to see magic. ### Durations Usually, a metamagic spell is used to affect a spell as it is being cast, and therefore has a momentary duration since that is the time period it takes to cast most spells. However, to affect ceremonially cast spontaneous or ritual magic longer duration spells are needed. Currently, Hermetic metamagicians are unable to affect spells after they have been cast, though this is widely believed to result from a flaw in Bonisagus' theory rather than a limit of magic. ### Targets In terms of strict hermetic theory, almost all metamagic is actually cast with a Part target, since part of a spell is being altered. However, metamagicians normally refer to targets (to a theoretican, these would be size modifiers) relating to the magnitude of spell being affected: * Cantrip: affect spells of 5th level or less * Spont: affect spells of 25th level or less * Formulaic: affect spells of 50th level or less * Ritual: affect spells of 75th level or less * Epic: affect spells of 100th level or less It is possible to use a Room, Structure or Boundary target spell to set up a metamagical field which will alter any spells (of the right Technique and Form and not of too high a level) cast in a region. These spells are one, two or three magnitudes higher than the equivalent standard spell, and must be cast using voice range. ### Guidelines #### Creo Vim * CrVi X: Increase base penetration by X - one magnitude. * CrVi 10: increase range, duration or target by one level (subject to usual restrictions on what can be accomplished without Ritual magic). * CrVi 15: increase range, duration or target by two levels * CrVi 20: increase any two of range, duration or target by one level * CrVi 30: increase any two of range, duration or target by two levels * CrVi 40: increase all of range, duration and target by one level #### Muto Vim * MuVi 3: make a superficial change to a spell (something that would be within the ordinary variation of outcomes from different wizards casting the same spell) * MuVi 5: make a minor change to a spell (something that comes within the orbit of the guideline used; ie turn a target into a cow instead of a horse) * MuVi 10: make a significant change to a spell, retaining range, duration and target. * MuVi 20: make a major change to a spell, retaining only technique, form and magnitude * MuVi 30: make a total change to a spell, retaining only magnitude # Experience ## Adventure Adventure XP can be assimilated in the *same* or *next* season as the adventure ## NPCs NPCs generally get 15 xp a year: * 2 Seasons of Exposure (2 each) * 1 Season of Practice (4) * 1 Season of Teaching/Study/Training (usually 7) If better quality training is available then they might get more than that! # Abilities ## Multiple Casting Mastery Ability Each time you take this ability you can cast an additional copy of the spell. *Not* that one copy allows you to cast Mastery copies of the spell; that's silly. # Notes on changes from ArM4 to ArM5 ## Apprentices Note that the old loophole of having multiple magi work together to open an apprentice's arts has been removed. ## Mastery Abilities A fairly well hidden ArM5 change is that spell mastery has been improved, and one side effect of this is that spell masteries can be learned and taught in all the same ways that any other Ability can. # Books ## Writing The changes to book writing in *Covenants* are (a) inconsistent (b) make books on magic harder to write than books on non-magic topics (c) make the canonically listed books not fit right any more; and the expensive resonant stuff is probably to expensive except for really good books. Also the Lecture Commentry rules from A&A aren't compatable. So I have revised the maximum Qualities: ### Summae Author's Communication + 3 + (up to 3 from skilled artisans) + virtues + (bonus for having a lower level than you could write) ### Tractatus Author's Communication + 3 + (up to 3 from skilled artisans) + virtues ### Commentaries Add one to the quality ### Correspondences First Author's Communication + Second Author's Communication + (up to 3 from skilled artisans) ### Florilegia Add one or two to the quality as described on Covenants p90 ### Glossing Add one to the quality as described on Covenants p91 ### Lecture Commentries Teacher's Communication + (Scribe's Profession ÷ 2) - 3 ### Edited Lecture Commentaries Teacher's Communication + (Scribe's Profession ÷ 2) - 2 + (up to 2 for skilled binder/illuminator) + virtues # Labs ## Outdoor The Safety of an Outdoor Lab is +2