To get the ball rolling...

David Chart's design notes on the combat system were very encouraging. This was always the biggy in terms of what needed addressing. I'm glad the base combat stats haven't changed actually. I was also glad that (from the character sheets we've seen) the body level system is still there (although this seems to have evolved).

But, what has changed? Magic being integrated into the combat round should make things easier to manage. I never got on with the five or six combat phases. I always wanted to run things is initiative order and not care about where the initiative came from or what the character was doing that round.

Anything that helps to run small skirmishes quickly and easily is going to be of huge benefit, not only to the poor player who has to control a couple of grogs and his magus but to the story guide who has a whole host of goblins and sprites to manage. This is something I am looking forward to.

I'm looking forward to David's next article... and the fifth edition of course.

Provided that 5th edition 'Veil of Invisibility' does the same as the ArM4 spell of that name, PeIm magnitudes are raised again by the new rules.

Also we see a change of how spell mastery works. Apparently you can get different and varied results when expending your exp to master spells now.

Both could be solid improvements over ArM4.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Ed

Well, I'm sorry you regard Darius as a cliche, but maybe that's because cliches are constructed with hindsight. To a mediaeval person, Darius resembles a contemporary view of Death (note, for example, the spear, rather than the more modern scythe), but this would not have been regarded as a cliche at the time, but rather as something utterly frightening. Note that I said that Darius cultivates this image...

As for his temperament, well if I had a parens who was indoctrinating me to be a killer (for 15 years, starting in early childhood, remember), and an accident burned my face off, I'd be pretty grouchy too. *grin*

Cheers,

Niall

Gene

Did I mention that we've only seen one so far? One magus... yessiree, just one... Mr Nephew, just one so far.

This Darius must be scaring the others away :P

*In* game, his pater made him. Never underestimate the power of indoctrination.

Out of game, why did I create a character like this? I wanted to provide a counterpoint to the popular stereotype of the Flambeau magus as the fireball-lobbing nutter. The Apromorian (Perdo) tradition has always struck me as representing the more sinister side of House Flambeau, and that led me to create a character who is, indeed, rather darker in tone. Yes, it may well be that his dedication to the cause is verging on the psychotic, but he's not without his vulnerabilities. He recently encountered a magus who nearly destroyed him, which is leading him to seek a way to pass on his legacy. There's plenty of room there for exploration of how a character who thinks he is unbeatable responds when he's beaten. Darius' first response is to try again, with the expectation that he might die in the attempt, but it doesn't have to play out like this. Maybe this will provide a chance for him to "break his programming..."

Niall

Niall

Well, now we have two more. Carolus has a grand total of 236 xp. in Arts and he has been a full magus for nine years. Also, only 120 pts. of spells. Too low for someone of experience unless he spends all of his time stealing and almost none in the lab.

Mari's Hermetic age is not given but she's only 28 years old. She has 200 in arts and 215 in spells so she looks fairly normal if you assume she has just recently been Gauntleted.

Something is not right here, I wonder if they are using the new rules for creating experienced characters or just shooting from the hip?

Gene

she's 5 years past Gauntlet - she got her LP at that time as an arm-twisted, much-begged Gauntlet Gift, for which she still owes him favours.

Why that? Not harder than any other thorough change to the Virtue/Flaw system.

No matter whether I reassign new point values to some of the Virtues and Flaws, or divide them into classes, or list allowed and disallowed combinations, or devise templates, I have always the same two options to update characters from previous editions: grandfather in their existing set of Virtues and Flaws, or rebalance it by adding to or removing from it. Formal compatibility of the definition of 'balance' does neither help nor hinder me much.

Kind regards,

Benrengar

That's quite a different problem than the previously touted //make it very hard to update characters from previous editions//. And even that new problem does not strike me as important or fundamental: after all, David Chart announced a simplification in the classification of Virtues and Flaws.

I reckon that even a rusty oldtimer like me can choose Virtues and Flaws without being overly disturbed by a mental pocket calculator clamoring: "*That* choice requires another two Flaw points in ArM4, but only one more in OTE." Well, we shall know soon.

Kind regards,

Berengar

> Has anyone else looked at the last mage posted for 5th ed? He is named
> Tillitus and is 35 years old. Now what I find strange is that he has
> only 120 levels of spells and 110 pts in his arts. No disadvantages to
> say he started without fewer spells or arts so what gives? Did they
> lower the starting mage to 100/100 or am I just crazy beliving that
> mages start with 150/150 as per page 60 of 4th ed.

He's only just passed his Gauntlet (started apprenticeship late). (No Flaw for that in 5e, though, just the player's choice of age).

Magus starting points are 120 levels of spell, and (240 + age related) XP, with XP used to purchase both Arts and Abilities. (A common split is 50% Arts, 50% Abilities - Tillitus appears to have more Abilities than Arts)

Yes, it is lower than the 4e starting points...

Sounds like they've powered down Ars Magica. Less spells for starting characters, and slower art progression as I understand Arts now use the pyramid scale multiplied by 5. Also less experience as according to information on other forums all experience is Seasonal only now.

This game was not overpowered, why make characters, especially Magi, the focus of the game weaker?

The more I hear about changes they didn't mention in the designer notes, but snuck in under the radar the less I like it. I was planning on buying this edition, but the more I hear about it the less certain I am that I'm going to bother with it. And this from someone who owns every edition up to this point.

I believe the reasons starting magi are powered down slightly is that the character creation rules have been made consistent with the study / advancement rules. In ArM4, it was actually impossible to accumulate 150 Levels of spells and 150 XP in Arts over a 15 year apprenticeship according to the study rules.

Also, I think it was necessary to slow the advancement rate of magi because in ArM 4, PC's could get Art scores into the 40's and 50's after about three decades of play. Characters with that kind of Art score were, in my opinion, overpowered. IIRC, David Chart circulated a survey on the Berk list a couple of years ago and the consensus was that magus advancement needed to be slowed down.

If this bothers you then you can work around it simply by allowing magi more down time between stories. Or consider starting characters who are a few years out of apprenticeship using the new creation rules for experienced characters.

As 5th Edition was in development, David ran the "covenants project," where a number of volunteers actually created covenants of characters and, following the 4th edition rules, progressed them through many, many years of game time.

As has been observed, some odd things resulted.

One thing we wanted in 5th edition was the ability to do things like create a character of a certain age (say, a magus X years out of apprenticeship; or an apprentice Y years before gauntlet), and have a character generation system that would give you a character in the same ballpark as a character who had advanced through play. Accomplishing this took a lot of "under the hood" tinkering, but we think it makes for a much more coherent game...and one where you can have more believability/in-game consistency for, say, 150-year-old NPC archmages and their powers.

While the idea that we "keep trying to make the game more and more historical" may have had some truth in 4th edition, we quite intentionally stepped away from that in 5th edition, and taking that step was a design goal from the outset, a directive that I gave to David and that he agreed with. You'll find the treatment of Mythic Europe in the 5th edition core rulebook quite different in tone, and the chapters on saga and setting in general try to emphasize greater freedom from the historical -- encouraging troupes to find their own comfort level when it comes to historical fact and the like.

In particular, I really liked the section talking about how to use history in the game...not letting history be the master of what can happen, but rather using specific elements of history in order to create the historical atmosphere. The idea is to focus on the positive, rather than the negative -- you make the game feel historical by *including* something of historical fact (say, the veneration of saintly relics, or the problem of false relics; you might take that and make it the nugget for a story), not by *excluding* non-historical elements (say, worrying about anachronisms).

It's a basic truth: People don't notice what's not there. They don't notice that you didn't give Sir Miquesalot a gold pocket-watch or 15th-century armor. They do notice that he claims to have a fragment of the true cross, which he is hoping to sell to the local abbey.

-John

//I really wish the coven project had taken real data and not just people who number crunched with a set of abbreviations. Yes there was a program distrubuted to variably run through 100-200 years so you could send one in for a group of magi.//

I can assure you that we tried to make the magi and apprentices coming out of the covenants project real persons, within the limits of a project with strictly controlled input and procedure.
And we also employed different, and sometimes by the Code of Hermes not quite legal, ways of teaching apprentices, too.
Check both out, our magi are still there to download and see for yourself.

Of course we used software - both bought and our own - for the bookkeeping and number crunching, and did not play adventures: we had a life besides the project, after all, and role-playing the 150 years would have taken us over 50 years with the usual pacing of our campaign. But there was and is no program to just run through and generate believable older ArM4 magi.

Kind regards,

Berengar

I am just glad that power levels were toned down somewhat, the learning curve was absurdly high in the 4th Ed. (at least in the 3rd there was a natural cap for learning).

And if you and your troupe worry about the power of beginning chars, you could easily(?) begin your saga with Magi 10 or 20 years out of apprenticeship, since the 5th Ed. char gen should support it (don't really know, don't have a copy yet).

Jan

Can't begin them with older characters as I just started the Saga under 4th edition rules, and more importantly it would ruin part of the premise of this particular saga if they had been mages for awhile.

Most likely at this point I'm just going to run my current saga as 4th edition and introduce those portions of 5th edition that I like and that won't disrupt the characters, basically a 4.5 Edition.

Actually there is nothing wrong with just keeping the characters at 150 XP / 150 spell levels. The ArM5 levels are lower but not outrageously lower - you can just say the PCs had better-than-average teachers and let them keep their ArM4 starting Arts. From the designer's notes, it seems the character creation rules were built around *typical* XP progression rates under the study rules. Those rates can be changed if you do things like team teaching, or letting the apprentices have some free time in the library.

What might be tougher, is converting the Virtues and Flaws over. But I consider Virtues and Flaws to be a total train wreck in ArM4 (see Hermes Portal #1), so I would suggest you give it a try. Might save you lots of trouble in the long run.

There may be other conversion issues as well. Who knows what was done to the Ability lists. Artes Liberales seems to be more important now, given that all the example magi have it.

//Of course we used software - both bought and our own - for the bookkeeping and number crunching, and did not play adventures: we had a life besides the project, after all, and role-playing the 150 years would have taken us over 50 years with the usual pacing of our campaign. But there was and is no program to just run through and generate believable older ArM4 magi.//

Exactly the problem. by this approach you invalidate the entire project. Garbage in/Garbage out. First rule of statistics is that if you slant the study the results are worthless. I saw the project at the time and at the time I realize it was an excersize in futility. I even wrote to that effect at the time and it is still my opinion. 4th edition had several problems and I thought that 5th would fix it. Instead I feel like things that were just fine have been broken just so it can be called a new edition. The community has been very vocal about what was wrong with 4th.

At this point, from what I have heard, I belive that 5th will maybe be at best used as a suplement to 4th ed and totaly unsuitable as a game for the Ars community. Thanks for asking our advice prior to messing up our beloved game just because you can.

1TinSoldier: //Garbage in/Garbage out.//

You're just a little insolent, are you?

We had then quite a few years of ArM campaign experience (all summed up 3 decades or so) on our backs, and have thought over and documented our input thoroughly and completely. You don't like that input: then make your point, and tell which part and why.

For now you are simply ranting, and will be rated accordingly by readers.

A little worried regards,

Berengar

// At this point, from what I have heard, I belive that 5th will maybe be at best used as a suplement to 4th ed and totaly unsuitable as a game for the Ars community. Thanks for asking our advice prior to messing up our beloved game just because you can. //

Nice flame. Care to apologize to anyone?

What exactly have you heard that you don't like? As soon as my playtest copy of ArM5 arrives I may be in a position to confirm or deny the rumors that have reached you.

Well, I'm not too worked up if a few people prefer to continue play with 4th Edition rules. I'm personally convinced that 5th Edition is the best version of the game yet by any measure I can think of...but I realize that peoples' personal tastes may vary, and I know that with any revision (or any original game) there will be some people who like it, some people who dislike it, and the very thing that one person thinks makes it vastly superior may be the thing that another person thinks makes it fatally flawed. So it goes.

Obviously we won't continue to publish materials for 4th Edition, but there's a lot for the game -- including the rulebook for free download on RPGNow.com. And I have plenty of 4th edition rulebooks that I'm still happy to sell to anyone who needs them! :)

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

I just recieved my copy and have been looking through it. All I can say is that it is a beautiful book. The layout is great and you have included a lot of good material. I like the coven creation and the new spell guidlines. The character comments I made earlier were never meant to be a flame. I appologize for ruffling anyones feathers. My comment about the basis for the coven project though is my opinion. Garbage in/garbage out is not a bias, it is a proper term in statistics and computer programing. It means that if you dont allow anything but the data you want you cant recieve a valid answer. I took issue not with programs keeping records but the generation of long term characters without accepting real world inputs. I have been playing and buying every version of the game since 2nd edition came out and mearly wanted to place my concerns that a few of the good features I liked about the game got nerfed without ever consulting the player community. I have a good group of players who have played with me for over 15 years now in every type of game. I never have seen them so upset as when they first heard about some of the changes that occured. By the way as to the comment that it would take a group 50 years to play out a 150 year coven all I wonder is do you only play once a month? We have played out 100 year covens so far 3 times and have had several shorter campaigns, all this is accomplished in a weekly gaming venue. We usually have 2 different games a week which Ars has almost always been one for the last 5 years. Before that we gamed more like 5 nights a week at a local gaming club for about 10 years. We are all avid gamers and the people who have bought these games and supported the industry.

To Mr Nephew and Mr Chart, you have my utmost respect and admiration for producing a quality product for a wonderful system. I appologize if my statments seemed rude or out of place. I was mearly trying to express my concerns for your newest product in this forum not flame you or your work.

1TinSoldier: //... if you dont allow anything but the data you want you cant recieve a valid answer. I took issue not with programs keeping records but the generation of long term characters without accepting real world inputs.//
Did you ever envision that your 'real world' might not be anybody else's? Just wondering ... especially since you did not yet answer my question, just which of the inputs to our simulation you consider skewed.

1TinSoldier: //By the way as to the comment that it would take a group 50 years to play out a 150 year coven all I wonder is do you only play once a month?//
Yep, that was roughly our schedule. We certainly never had the time or guts to play 5 days a week. So getting through a year of ArM time would take us just under a year of real world time as well, with two or three major adventure hooks per ArM time year. We toned that down to the lower frequency of one simulated major adventure per two years ArM time for the covenants project, to get Magi depending more on study and less on campaign experience.

Kind regards,

Berengar

// [I] mearly wanted to place my concerns that a few of the good features I liked about the game got nerfed without ever consulting the player community. //

First, I appreciate the way you've apologized for your words that ruffled some feathers. That's a gesture worthy of respect.

You will see that ArM5 has a long list of playtesters. The number of playtesters, plus the length of playtesting, counts in my opinion as consulting the player community.

I would encourage everyone who's sketpical about ArM5 to give it a try. Some of the changes, like the way Ability experience now works, seem odd at first but make sense once you get used to them.

Edited 11/25/2004 9:08 am ET by Galerius

Edited 11/25/2004 9:11 am ET by Galerius

My playtest copy has arrived, and I can now spill my guts about the new rules. :-)

Some little changes that I think are really cool:

-Familiars can now help you in the lab (though apprentices are better)
-Divine power is not negatively affected by hostile Auras
-Long swords are Expensive again
-There is a glossary right in the front

// slower art progression as I understand Arts now use the pyramid scale multiplied by 5//

You've heard wrong. Abilities, not Arts, use the pyramid scale multiplied by 5. This is not as big a change as it sounds. In ArM4, the Study Total from books on Abilities was divided by 5, making Abilities 5 times harder to increase than arts. In ArM5, books have the same Study Total regardless of whether they're about Arts or Abilities, and Abilities are still 5 times harder to increase than Arts.

The only way Arts are slowed down is that vis study has been totally nerfed. Which suits me fine; I thought it was quite broken in ArM4.

Njordi: // What I'm really curius about is how shield grogs are made more useful. The consept of groups, that grogs can be more usefull if working togheter is also tantalizing. //

Basically there are rules for group combat, where you take a bunch of grogs and they fight one one die roll. They include rules for a group defending an individual (such as a magus). Basically the individual being defended can only be hurt if the defenders botch or are taken out first. So one shield grog can hold off 10 bandits from hurting the wizard, at least until the grog gets mulched (which will not be very long).

Ed9C: // It looks like the scribe skill has been moved to Profession - scribe, but Brother Uberto and Mansur ibn Fadl al-Baghdadi do not have it...
Yet both are educated enough to be literate. Is this correct? //

Yes. Literacy is covered by Artes Liberales. Profession: Scribe is what you use to make copies of books. Profession can be used untrained, so what all this means is the characters can read but they are not trained scribes. They could still copy books, slowly and poorly.

//Did you ever envision that your 'real world' might not be anybody else's? Just wondering ... especially since you did not yet answer my question, just which of the inputs to our simulation you consider skewed.//

Thats the point that im trying to make. I at least have played covens that long and was commenting (not insulting) that if you submit a coven that is only made up and not actually played that you are skewing the results from an actuall player perspective to a personal dream of what a coven might be after that time. By rejecting actual coven logs for that time period and substituting a programed series of events you invalidate the project. This is akin to a huricane prediction model that doesnt have any real world inputs trying to predict a landfall. It will look good on tv but will only by pure chance actually reflect where the huricane will go. The reason that you give for giving the mages lots of lab time is that you dont have time to play that much out. This demonstrates problem that the mages will of course become more powerfull than would really be achieved. This is probably part of the reason that the xp is now lessened. To keep mages in line with what the desired end is and not what would naturally come about. In every campaign we ever played no magus ever got to the 40-50 range of an art. They never could find/trade for enough books or vis to get near that. Most topped out in the 20-30 range. They occasionally got skills up to level 10-13 in Magic Theory but no one ever raised anything else above 5-6 (one exception was a librarian Bonisagas that put for reasons only he could fathom enough xp in scribe to get it to level 9). The skill rolls became to easy at that level for them to put anymore xp in them. I hope this answers the question you asked. My real world is not the idea of one person, me, but of our gaming group in general and our combined experinces.

1TinSoldier:
//Thats the point that im trying to make. I at least have played covens that long and was commenting (not insulting) that if you submit a coven that is only made up and not actually played that you are skewing the results from an actuall player perspective to a personal dream of what a coven might be after that time. By rejecting actual coven logs for that time period and substituting a programed series of events you invalidate the project.//
You just misunderstand the covenants project. It was not about simulating your covenant, or reaching the same results as you or anybody else did.
It was about clearly documenting what one puts in, and what then comes out. Afterwards we can - of course - discuss from the documentation whether that input matches anybody's campaign or not.
Your campaigns' documentation is only known to your players and you, so nobody but you can control how these campaigns' outcome was achieved. And it is doubtful at least that - even if published - it would be complete enough for anybody else but perhaps you to recheck.

//This is akin to a huricane prediction model that doesnt have any real world inputs trying to predict a landfall.//
Just that nobody tries to predict your campaigns' output from our simulation data.

Now to the comparison of input and results.
//The reason that you give for giving the mages lots of lab time is that you dont have time to play that much out.//
No. You have certainly noticed when I told you that we did not play out *any* adventures for the simulation, did you? The reason for giving the lab time was that we assume that *most* magi live that way. If you wish to discuss that, we can recur to the ArM material and check. Compared to that material, at least later into the simulation we probably erred on the side of still too many adventures.

//In every campaign we ever played no magus ever got to the 40-50 range of an art. They never could find/trade for enough books or vis to get near that.//
You noticed that Post Coch covenant had an idea how to get to books. And you certainly also noticed how many other covenants - Durenmar, Doissetep, Verdi, Coeris, Fudarus et alii - have good libraries.
This does not take away from the experience of your magi, but shows clearly that other magi will learn in another way than yours.

Kind regards,

Berengar

I think you are missing the point. The purpose of the project as I understood it was to gain perspective. The project is not usefull for that because it is like a rigged card game. It will never suprise you with any results, just deals you back what you want it to. That is what is meant by the garbage in/garbage out principal. You can't gain persepective from something that can't disprove your preconcieved notions. It is akin to saying that we can market a drug without anyone testing it on real people because or model works in the lab. The basic concept is that your model may not be acurate. Thats the point i am trying to make.

//You noticed that Post Coch covenant had an idea how to get to books. And you certainly also noticed how many other covenants - Durenmar, Doissetep, Verdi, Coeris, Fudarus et alii - have good libraries.//

Good is one thing, getting a mage to 50 is something else. It takes time to trade/collect such a thing, at least in our games. The books dont just magically appear. Someone has to take time to write them and copy them. Surely it can't be that easy or everyone would have such a library. Secondly how long does a book last? Think about it, can it be truly read over and over for decades without coming to harm? Degradation and maintenance of the library is one aspect that I feel has been sorely overlooked. The covens you have quoted are not the norm. Several are Domus Magna or covens that are NPC's in anyones campaign, not libraries that your typical coven of mages will have access to.

While I, too, am eagerly awaiting my copy of Ars5, I had been reading along with some of the discussions...

Bear in mind that the saga I play in/ocassionally SG in has been running for 15 years realtime (Fall, 1989) , and covered, perhaps, 40 years game time. That being said...

We've had no problem training apprentices to the 150/150 guidelines of previous editions. In fact, we've had trouble keeping them within those guidelines! Granted, each apprentice was taught thier letters by a skilled custos, then handed over to thier respective masters for the remainder of thier training. We're just starting to hand over the reins to the former apprentices, now newly gauntleted magi, while the older generation goes off to do what older magi do - boss the youngsters around. :) The problem that we've always had was with the older magi. There are, simply, too many variables to track, to come up with an easy, simple method of creating them.

The difference between the Nurockrah saga and others, I think, is time in play; It is my understanding that most tabletop and online sagas last, on average, 3 years play time, with a varying amount of time in game. Most, I suspect, play weekly, or twice weekly, and skip seasons or years between sessions, thus allowing a covenant to advance through spring, summer, autumn, and winter in a relatively short time. We've just hit autumn, after a very nasty spring, and frantic summer.

I've read the results of the Covenants project, and disagree with some of the results obtained. It should be noted that most are based on my perceptions of the game, and the setting. In the 150 year simulation, I expected the Magi therein to be powerful. I did not expect to find magi who could sneeze at the Great Wyrm of the Pyrnees and kill it ... accidentally!

But I digress...

My point, and one being made badly at that, is that Ars5th will be treated much like the last one; We'll take the parts we like, ignore the parts we don't, and incorporate them into something that we call our Ars Magica saga.

Steve Pettit
Longtime Ars Magica Player & StoryGuide
Moderator, Gaming Outpost Ars Magica Forum
"Everything in moderation ... including moderation."

StevePettit: //In the 150 year simulation, I expected the Magi therein to be powerful. I did not expect to find magi who could sneeze at the Great Wyrm of the Pyrnees and kill it ... accidentally!
//

We were all quite surprised about the power level achieved, too. The Post Coch characters resulted quite unplayable - for mundanes like me - after some 5-8 decades. (OK, this doesn't exclude that we still strongly sympathize with them ... after spending that much time with them this is natural, I guess.)

I did some preliminary stochastic and combinatorical analysis before we set up the covenant - so I could predict the achievable level of Summae after 150 years quite well. But especially the leverage of a well maintained library escaped me before the experiment.

So what did we learn, powerwise, about ArM4?
Here's just a few of the simpler conclusions that hold for every ArM4 setting, unless nearly all the magi of the Hermetic Order in this specific ArM4 world, player characters or not, are reduced to a state where they cannot study even 13 out of 40 seasons. Needless to say, such a poor Order would be highly non-canonical.

(1) Learning from Vis is very powerful.
We made sure there never arrived books on Muto in PostCoch which could teach one of our Magi, Talpa. Talpa had the virtues Personal Vis Source (Muto) and Free Study, and a solid motivation to boost Muto. He steadily used 7 seasons out of every 40 to study Muto from Vis. The setup and resources of the covenant do not influence the outcome of this, but for the very slowly increasing quality of his Lab, which is coupled to the overall Improvement or Stores score of the covenant.
Result after 150 years: Muto 75 without any affinities calculated in.
This can be repeated in almost every covenant, unless an SG reduces Lab time for magi to below 30% of all seasons.

(2) There must be Summae of level around 50 for every Art.
From (1) we can conclude, that there were in the history of the order for each Art at least two or three magi who studied it from Vis and achieved at the end of their existence a score like 70 or 80. In that time, they will have suffered several twilights. For each controlled twilight they have over 33% chance of achieving 'Increased Understanding' of their favorite Art. Getting that effect once allows such a magus to write a Summa of a level of 2/3 of their Arts score. Looking at the prestige to gain by writing this Summa, very few would refrain.

(3) These big Summae provide that much value to the study of other magi and to the Order in general, that there will be lots of lesser and major magic items to protect each and every important library from just about every possible danger, and that there will be enough scribes to provide spare copies just for exchange, and for those rare cases one book gets actually damaged despite all. The benefit of the books can easily pay for the cost of these provisions.
Likely a large Summa will leave a covenant library only as a copy, to be copied again at the destination library as soon as it arrives.
We tried to give an impression of the likely protections and procedures with many of the magic items of Post Coch.

(4) Getting access to these powerful books is one of the decisive goals in a magus' life. If he does not achieve it, his career in the order will stall soon, and he will be left behind powerwise, but also influencewise. If a covenant is started from scratch and without books, its magi need to be creative to get their Summae. This leaves a huge incentive for the less creative younger magi to associate themselves with existing powerful covenants, and makes the lone magus' life pretty unrewarding.

My ArM5 might now have gotten over the Atlantic, but has not yet reached my desk. Still I have heard that Vis learning got nerfed. I think I see why.

Kind regards,

Berengar

ok now I see where you are coming from. Your premise of what the order has and will give out are vastly different from any saga I have ever played in. 75 in an art is absurd. Dont you guys have bad twilight episodes? Most mages we have had dont study from vis in the later years. the threat of final twilight scared them away. A book at 50, if it exsisted, would be like the holy grail, quested after but never available. Sounds more like you play in a very free to do as you please with what ever you want available system. We practiced a more gritty world where you have to work hard to accomplish anything, where the church is looking for an excuse to knock on your door and the next coven over is just as hungry as you are so they will raid anything you leave unguarded. We have played this way for many years and never gotten as far out of balance as you guys seem to get. Perhaphs the reason most sagas get over powerfull is a certain feeling of a SG that if I raise the powerlevel of the game, maybe the next guy will let my character do the same, till you get unlimited vis to study with and 75's in your arts.

Guess our perspectives just vary. Doesnt mean either of us is wrong in play style, just that you have to keep your end in sight and not let things get out of control of wher you want them to be. for instance if the secret vis source gets overpowering, have another coven find it and lay claim to it. If its secret its not registared and can be claimed. Personally I find a saga with struggles a lot more interesting than not, but thats my opinion.

//Dont you guys have bad twilight episodes?//
Yep, twilight rules were rigidly enforced, and rolled. You can check that, too. Everybody but Miquel - with a very low Vim score - and Wid - the Cunning Folk - had several twilights. Those with a good Enigmatic Wisdom in time weathered them better, the others worse.

//the threat of final twilight scared them away.//
Well, Edan at least was not even scared. But that is really a matter of dedication and personality. Galadinus, Noctivagus and Talpa were prepared in time for their inevitable twilights, and faced them gallantly, though not with the singlemindedness of Edan. Twilight scores after 150 years: Edan 21, Galadinus 16, Noctivagus 16, Talpa 15.

//Sounds more like you play in a very free to do as you please with what ever you want available system.//
No, Sir. And guess what: you can check for yourself! Great, isn't it? That's the benefit of an experiment in a controlled environment.

//We practiced a more gritty world where you have to work hard to accomplish anything, where the church is looking for an excuse to knock on your door and the next coven over is just as hungry as you are so they will raid anything you leave unguarded.//
So did we. We also gave you a sketch of the nature of local and covenant politics, the time allocated to it and a precise description of the covenant defenses for every decade. The rest of your argument - oh, my world is so gritty, see here (shows: nothing) - is completely beyond the subject.

//.. for instance if the secret vis source gets overpowering, have another coven find it and lay claim to it.// Doesn't work here. First: the source cannot be taken away without abducting the magus in question. Second: it would invalidate the rules experiment to fiddle with the rules in the middle of it.

//Doesnt mean either of us is wrong in play style, ...//
Hey, Sir: we were not checking or displaying play style, but rules mechanics. Got that?

I am a little tired of a guy who posts three or four messages of allegations against something he clearly has not even read - so ... Hits Ignore Button.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Well all I can say is that how longruning campaigns transpire is always going to be different. I've been playing in a long running campaign (over 10 years) where we are just about at the end of 1 year's worth of game time. Why, you may ask, several reasons there have been long gaps on occasion between play sessions, although we average once a month, another reason a Wizard War between covenants, and of course lots of adventures, a wizard may not gain power by adventuring, but it is a lot of fun.

As to twilight causing mages to not attain high levels, yes and no, certainly it is quite possible to have to retire a character early after a couple of bad twilight experiences. We have a mage that went from no twilight points to 23 points in the course of one adventure, three twilights, and a lot of bad luck. Conversely, I expect somewhere is a lucky mage who only gains 1 twilight point every time they twilight, and only gets good results.

Final analysis on 5th Edition: None yet, since I probably won't have mine for another week or so. If what I have heard is correct about the change to experience rules, limited to a set number per season even if you went on several adventures in that season (especially important for non-magi), then I will modify that back to 4th editon, have to wait and see what they actually say though.
Other 5th edition rule opinions based on descriptions:
New flaw/ virtue system, will be looked at closely, may house rule back to 4th edition, but may not as I don't really want to have to assign my own point values.
Group combat: Like the concept, would have made our Wizard War go faster as there was a lot of combat between grogs on both sides that took forever
Tightened up guidelines: Seems good to me, and I like that Invisibility is harder again.
Spontaneous Magic using Sta instead of Int: Well if we switched over in the campaign I am playing in rather than running it would screw over some mages, but it does make sense.

// I expect somewhere is a lucky mage who only gains 1 twilight point every time they twilight,//

No, that guy in ArM4 is not lucky. ;-) He just happens to have an Enigmatic Wisdom score of 8 or 9, or perhaps Enigmatic Wisdom (Spec: Twilight) 7, or such.
Look it up under ArM4 p.183, point 2. As one subtracts Enigmatic Wisdom from a simple roll to determine Twilight points, an old magus with the above Enigmatic Wisdom is quite sure to always only take one point - at the price of nearly always succumbing to the Twilight check.
That's stuff you learn doing rules simulations. And stuff that likely becomes obsolete with ArM5.

Kind regards,

Berengar

//I figure since he is so twilight prone anyway he twilighted out before he got too powerful.//

Well, 'Twilight Prone' - the -3 Flaw from WGRE - was a very deadly thing, at least for a longliving magus: 10% extra chance of twilight at every *occasion* for a magical botch was crippling. No guy with that flaw would have lived through our simulation.

ArM4 Enigmatic wisdom did *not* make you roll more often for twilight, though, but just *succumb* more often if you needed to roll.

Nearly always succumbing, taking your one or - very rarely - two Twilight points and probably being able to control the effect compared *very* well to succumbing only about half the time, but then taking an average of 5.5 Twilight points (with an unpleasantly high variance) plus risking to not being able to control that twilight.

If you do the math, or try it out if the math appears too hard, or ask a Criamon, ArM4 Enigmatic Wisdom was a solid boon: effectively with a solid score in it you took only 1/2 to 1/3 of the points you would take otherwise from Twilights, and were rather safe from the bad effects of them, too.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Sigh, I know how the rules work, you just aren't getting my point.

Let's drag this topic back on track. How have the twilight rules changed from 4th to 5th edition and is the upper limit of twilight points still the same?

//Sigh, I know how the rules work, you just aren't getting my point.//

Well, you did imply that a guy with Enigmatic Wisdom was twilight prone, did you?

//How have the twilight rules changed from 4th to 5th edition and is the upper limit of twilight points still the same?//

I cannot oblige you there - yet. I still do not have the book.

Kind regards,

Berengar

//In what sort of situations do you check for twilight? Ca. how often does a situation like this crop up in your sagas? I.e. aprox. how often does twilight checks come up?//

In ArM4 - also in the simulation - we *always* checked for Twilight at magic-related double or worse botches. That is IMO in keeping with ArM4 p. 74: "In general, single botches are embarassing or inconvenient, double botches are dangerous, and triple botches are potentially deadly."
We checked for Twilight at magic related single botches only, if there was strong uncontrolled magic involved, or if it was for some reason predetermined by the SG that a single botch in a specific situation would cause the Twilight check.
Other reasons to check for Twilight came from the rules for original research of WGRE p.85f.
We had over the years very few Twilights in our campaigns, because the Magi we play are always rather young.

//And how is this handeled in 5th. ed?//
For now I can only guess from the tables on the Atlas side, and everybody else's guess is as good as mine.

Kind regards,

Berengar