Ars Magica House Rules: Difference between revisions
| Line 54: | Line 54: | ||
* A Flambeau magus may take one of the other Virtues listed in the House Flambeau fighting styles instead of the typical Puissant Virtues | * A Flambeau magus may take one of the other Virtues listed in the House Flambeau fighting styles instead of the typical Puissant Virtues | ||
* A Tremere magus may take Skilled Parens instead of Minor Magical Focus (Certamen). Alternatively, the magus may take an additional Minor Magical Focus. This is the only exception to having only one Magical Focus. | * A Tremere magus may take Skilled Parens instead of Minor Magical Focus (Certamen). Alternatively, the magus may take an additional Minor Magical Focus. This is the only exception to having only one Magical Focus. | ||
=== Laboratory Texts === | |||
Starting magi are assumed to have untranslated laboratory texts for all the spells they learned during their Apprenticeship. | |||
== Skills Interpretations == | == Skills Interpretations == | ||
Revision as of 07:10, 29 April 2013
Core Mechanic Rules
Stress and Quality Die Minimums
5th edition reintroduced the notion of a stress die without negative results. This is what older editions called a "quality die."
The purpose of stress and quality die are to make the 1d10 rolls much more noticeable. However, it is possible to roll a '1', then a low number to achieve a pitiful result. As such, the following floors (minimums) are used:
| Number of 1's rolled | Minimum Result |
| 1 | 10 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 20 |
Additional 1's rolled add +5 to the minimum result when the non-1 is finally rolled.
"Take 5"
This is a concept introduced in the d20 system. If an action, spell or other roll takes place in a non-stressful situation (i.e. a simple die roll), a character may "take 5" on the roll. That is, they may assume they rolled a 5 on their die roll to calculate results. The player has the option of rolling, if they so desire. This makes it so that routine applications of skill aren't tested constantly.
Character Generation
Baseline Skills
After chargen is completed and all xp is spent, magus characters must add the following:
- Add (Organization) Order of Hermes Lore 1. This represents a bare minimal amount of knowledge about the Order passed on from your master and your apprenticeship covenant. Ex Miscellanea magi may potentially forgo this. If the magus already has this skill at least at 1, the magus gains 5 xp to spend anywhere else.
- Add (Organization) House (Magus' House) Lore 1. This represents a bare minimal amount of knowledge about a magus' house learned from interactions with his or her master during apprenticeship. If the magus already has this skill at least at 1, the magus gains 5 xp to spend anywhere else.
- Add (Master's Covenant) Area Lore 2. This represents a minimal amount of knowledge that was accumulated at the magus' apprenticeship covenant. If the magus already has a score of 2 or more, the magus gains 15 xp to spend anywhere else. If the magus has a score of 1, then it is raised to 2 and gains 5 xp to spend anywhere else.
If the magus was born in one place but apprenticed elsewhere, then:
- Add Speak (Language local to apprenticeship covenant) at 4. This represents 15 years of being exposed to another area's language.
Companion and grog characters must add:
- Add Area Lore (Origin City/Town/Village) 2. This represents minimal knowledge of the area the character was raised in. covenant. If the character already has a score of 2 or more, the character gains 15 xp to spend anywhere else. If the character has a score of 1, then it is raised to 2 and gains 5 xp to spend anywhere else.
Hermetic House Virtues
- A Flambeau magus may take one of the other Virtues listed in the House Flambeau fighting styles instead of the typical Puissant Virtues
- A Tremere magus may take Skilled Parens instead of Minor Magical Focus (Certamen). Alternatively, the magus may take an additional Minor Magical Focus. This is the only exception to having only one Magical Focus.
Laboratory Texts
Starting magi are assumed to have untranslated laboratory texts for all the spells they learned during their Apprenticeship.
Skills Interpretations
Area Lore
Main Article: Area Lore Rules
Area Lore is a useful ability to have, yet there are questions about how much you know given the size of the area selected. I've included expanded notes on how much a character would know.
Virtue and Flaw Interpretations
Affinity
Rather than have to keep track of all the partial experience points as you gain them, record two totals on your character sheet: Raw Experience (Effective Experience), where Effective Experience is 1.5 times Raw Experience, rounded down. The Effective Experience total is used to calculate the Art or Ability score. e.g. A Flambeau magus with Affinity (Ignem) starts with 15 xp in Ignem. The player writes 15 (22), which means the magus has an Ignem score of 6.
Magical Focus
Per the Character Generation section above, a Tremere magus may take a Minor Magical Focus in addition to their free House Virtue. This is the only exception to having more than one Magical Focus.
Magic
Flavoured Vis
Vis may be "coloured" or "flavoured" in addition to, or in place of, standart Arts. For example, what appears to be a pawn of Mentem vis, may function as 3 pawns of vis for the purpose of summoning spirits. Alternatively, it may be a 3 pawn vis source only for summoning spirits, and not work for Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie. This keeps the mystery in magic.
Flavoured Auras
As with Flavoured Vis, Auras may be aspected to work better, worse, or only for a very specific use. Auras may carry multiple such modifiers. For example: A magical aura in a swamp may rate as Level 2, but add +4 to disease-type spells. A level 1 magical aura near a volcano may add +6 to fire-type spells, but penalize Aquam spells by -6.
Parma Magica Folds
As the characters start the saga, a new "fold" (method to use Parma Magica) is being propagated throughout the Order. It is an improvement on the original parma magica in that it can partially block the magus' Gift from affecting others (primarily mundanes). If using this fold, non-Gently Gifted magus can reduce the social penalty of the Gift every 2 full points of Parma Magica. For such reduction, the magus' Parma Magica is reduced for the purposes for calculating magical resistance. (The magus still adds the his Form score.)
e.g. A Bonisagus magus with the regular Gift (-3 social penalty) has a Parma Magica score of 3. He reduces his Parma Magica by 2 to 1. After the Parma Magica ritual is done, the magus is now -2 to social situations and his base magical resistance is 5 (Parma Magica of 1, times 5).
Spontaneous Spells and Form & Effect Bonuses
In keeping with the Focus & Effect (F&E) charts printed in the ArM5 main book or any subsequent books, a magus may use items to add a sympathy bonus to spontaneously casted spells, to help them achieve more powerful effects. For example, while casting a spontaneous spell to make oneself invisible, using a quartz will add up to +5 to the spell casting roll (before division). These F&E bonuses are capped by the magus' Magic Theory.
Wards
Generally speaking, a ward must penetrate in order to be effective. However, there are two exceptions:
- If the ward matches both the Realm and the Form of the creature, then it does not need to penetrate.
- Example: Ward against Faeries of the Wood would protect against all woodland faeries and would not need to penetrate their Magic Resistance. It would be ineffective against Magical or Infernal woodland creatures, however. Ward against Woodland Threats would protect against all supernatural woodland creatures, but would need to penetrate.
- The Aegis of the Hearth being derived both from the Parma Magica ritual and Mercurian practices is something more than a Ward and does not need to penetrate in order to be effective. This reinforces the notion that Hermetic magic is superior to many other types of magic.
Lab Activities
Talismans
A magus may attune an invested device as his talisman in the same season as its creation (or in the last season of creation, for multiple-season projects) without any additional costs. An existing device may be opened for attunement and 2 casting bonuses in a single season.
Changing Specializations
A player may change the specialization of a given skill when enough experience points have been accumulated to increase the skill. This change also has a roleplaying requirement to justify the change.
Advancement Rules
Language Exposure Rules
Characters can pick up a new type of language exposure experience that stacks regular exposure experience to represent picking up the local language. Characters can pick up a maximum of 1 xp per season in a language spoken by the locals of their area. If there is more than one local language, the character can pick which one to gain the xp in. You cannot learn to speak better than the prevailing average of the area. Unless otherwise indicated, a character may only earn enough experience to gain level 4 in a language.
This language exposure experience is limited by personality traits like xenophobic, proud, prejudice, reclusive, or any other trait that would preclude the character from wanting to pick up another language. For every point in these personality traits, one season of this language exposure experience is lost, starting with the Spring season. It is possible, with enough negative personality traits, to not gain any local language experience.
e.g. A character living in England without any negative personality traits would gain 4 xp in Middle English, at 1 xp per season.
A character with Reclusive +3 would only gain 1 xp in Middle English per year in the Winter season.
Area Exposure Rules
Every year (in the Winter season, but not for the first Winter season), each character earns 2 xp that must be spent Nova Semitae/Melverley Area Lore, until a score of 2 (15 xp) is reached. This rule encourages some verisimilitude in that characters gain the Abilities to represent basic knowledge of their surroundings. The extra XP are free because forcing characters to invest XP in increasing Area Lore diminishes their already limited Ability lists.
Session Experience Points
Every session, each magus or companion that was played receives a number of Adventure experience points. These must be spent on skills, Arts, or spells used during the adventure.
This Adventure experience can be "stacked" with any other source of experience so as not to discourage magi from leaving the lab.
Familiar Advancement Rules
Per Realms of Power: Magic, familiars (and other magical creatures) suffer a penalty equal to their Might score to the Quality of all advancement sources. This is modified in the following way:
- Familiars may be taught by their magus normally, with no penalty. This means a magus may have a very well-trained familiar at the cost of developing his or her own abilities. But this is a fair trade-off.
- For all other advancement totals, the familiar suffers the normal penalty (equal to their Magic Might), but this is lessened by the Silver Cord. Reduce the penalty by (Silver Cord score x 3). This can only eliminate the penalty, not add a bonus.
Gifted Children
Rules adapted from Atlas Games forum thread "You're what?" and a Durenmar essay, "Hermetic Babies" by Shannon Appel.
- Determine Number of Children
- Roll a stress die:
- 1: Possible "botch", roll 1 Botch die to confirm (more may be added if circumstances fit)
- 0: Botch: Birth results in hermaphrodite, child with animal features, or other unusual features
- 1-9: Single birth
- 2-9: Single birth.
- 10+: Possible "crit", resulting in multiple births:
- 2-10: Single birth, see 2-9 above.
- 12-22: Twins
- 24+: Triplets
- Determine Gender of Children
- Roll a simple die for gender:
- If even, female
- If odd, male
- Roll a simple die for gender:
- Determine Gifted status
- At the time of birth roll a stress die.
- a 15+ the child has a Minor Supernatural Virtue.
- On a 18+ the child has a Major Supernatural Virtue (or multiple Minor Supernatural Virtues)
- On a 21+ the child has The Gift
- Modifiers:
- + the Aura modifier for the aura in which gestation occurred.
- +2 for each parent with a Minor Supernatural Virtue
- +4 for each parent with a Major Supernatural Virtue
- +6 for each parent with The Gift
- Note that Supernatural Virtues will be influenced by the Aura at the time of conception.