It's been years since I've played Ars Magica, and picked up the 4th edition on a whim a little while back. While I love the concept and the setting, there were several kinks to the rules in 4ed that left me cold. The recent release of the 5th has really perked my interest.

I've been scouring the net for a good review of 5th, but haven't found one yet, and I was hoping that someone here could give me a rundown on the changes.

1)Rolling. I'm a creature of habit, and like consistency. The shift in the value of d10 by varying situation, though a trivial thing, kind of irked me in 4th -- sometimes a 10 was a bad thing to roll, sometimes a good. Is it more consistent in 5th, or are the variations on "exploding dice" still present?

2)Virtues and Flaws: what I've heard about the changes to these has been one of the things that's drawn my attention the most. I've always felt that Ars Magica had the potential to be an elegant system, mechanics-wise... almost rules light. But Virtues and Flaws seemed clumsy and overly calculating given the relatively simple stat and skill applications.

3) Character generation: Any changes to the way in which stats are determined, or is it still a choice between a 7 point buy or random rolling?

4)I heard the power creep of the magi has been slowed a little. I rather like that.

5)Magi domination: I fully understand that the magi are the central PCs in these tales, but (and this was likely because of the players involved as much as anything) the Grogs and Companions often took on far more flavour and proved to be more interesting characters. Yet the Magi rarely seemed to need them once a certain level was attained.

Are magi tweaked so that they've a reason for staying secret from the world? My perception may be distorted, but my prior experience left me feeling that it was a story device that didn't quite ring true -- simply staying quiet becuase that was "the rule". Having a need to hide, even for the more powerful ones, has a more vibrant feel in my perception.

Are the mechanics more likely to leave the Grogs and Companions as more than window-dressing? I've heard that Grogs are now more efficient as shield-men, and I think that's fantastic. Does this bear out across the board?

Thanks for your time and any responses you may post. I look forward to reading them.

Disclaimer: I was one of the playtesters, so this is the farthest thing from an unbiased review.

>1)Rolling. I'm a creature of habit, and like consistency. The shift in
>the value of d10 by varying situation, though a trivial thing, kind of
>irked me in 4th -- sometimes a 10 was a bad thing to roll, sometimes a
>good. Is it more consistent in 5th, or are the variations on "exploding
>dice" still present?

No, usually high is good but sometimes low is good. The one change is that "quality dice" have been eliminated - use stress dice instead. However, there is now such a thing as a stress die with zero botch dice. So stress dice (without botch) have replaced quality dice. This is a little bit simpler, but the real reason is that quality dice and stress dice had different average values, which most people wouldn't realize unless they had taken a probability course.

>2)Virtues and Flaws: what I've heard about the changes to these has
>been one of the things that's drawn my attention the most. I've
>always felt that Ars Magica had the potential to be an elegant
>system, mechanics-wise... almost rules light. But Virtues and Flaws
>seemed clumsy and overly calculating given the relatively simple stat
>and skill applications.

Virtues and flaws got a pretty thorough revision. Now there are just two "price" categories, major and minor. Many of the Virtues and Flaws have had their mechanics clarified and re-tuned. Certain Flaws are categorized as "Story" Flaws, meaning they tend to get your character dragged into stories. I have some doubts about the priorities of a game where being an adventurer is itself considered a Flaw that deserves compensation - what else are you supposed to do as a player - but I do wholeheartedly believe these Story Flaws are good for the storyguide, the characters, and the Saga.

> 3) Character generation: Any changes to the way in which stats are
>determined, or is it still a choice between a 7 point buy or random
>rolling?

No rolling any more -it's all 7 point buy. You can get points for stats by buying them with Virtues.

>4)I heard the power creep of the magi has been slowed a little. I
>rather like that.

Not only do characters advance more slowly in Arts, they also have a lot more trouble affecting anything that has magic resistance. In 4th Ed., magic resistance was tied to your Art scores so the biggest spell you could cast had the same Penetration as your smallest. In 5th, if you just barely cast a spell, your Penetration is zero. This means even an Archmage has less Penetration with Level 30 spell than with a Level 10 (though as an Archmage, he can still pretty much get through anyone's magic resistance). The net effect is that even when PCs can learn mega-powerful spells, it still takes a while before they can reliably get those spells through an opponent's magic resistance.

>Are magi tweaked so that they've a reason for staying secret from the
>world?

Well, some things are clarified. The social penalties of the Gift are expressed in much stronger terms, and some people see that as a change in the game. It does make it hard for magi to get by in mundane society. (The Gentle Gift is now a Major Virtue, by the way.) There is also a stronger emphasis on the Dominion and how overwhelmingly powerful it is. The new Magic Resistance rules make Faith Points much better at protecting someone. So I would not say magi have been tweaked, but things in general are presented in a way that makes it seem less plausible for magi to simply be able to take over. The bottom line in the magi-vs-mundanes debate is still left open to the Storyguide or troupe.

> Are the mechanics more likely to leave the Grogs and Companions as
>more than window-dressing?

Grogs, no. Companions, yes. Grogs are pushed into a more minor role, and are not allowed to have certain Virtues and Flaws that would make them dominate in stories. Companions are the ones with interesting backgrounds and motivations. Grogs are just bodyguards and servants.

Thanks for the feedback. It's given me some grist to chew on. :)

I'm iffy about the dice use -- I'm a fan of probability curves over linear probability in dice, and (somewhat irrational, I'll admit) consistency of pattern matters to me. But that's not a major thing.

The 7 point buy for character stats irked me, but the idea that virtues can be used to tweak that changes things. I'll have to take a look and see how it works out. My acid test for RPG stats is whether or not a quasi-realistic game is capable of mimicking people I've known or worked with in real life. Three of the guys I used to bounce with went on to become competitors in Strongman competitions. The "big, dumb, and slow" stereotype doesn't apply -- one of the guys, steroid free, was squatting 800+lbs for reps, going through philosophy and theology texts for bedtime reading, and while no track athlete he was faster than average.

Exceptional? Yes. But I like that exceptional characters have the potential to pop up in RPGs periodically... though the old random rolling method seemed a little too random for my tastes.

I like the way the changes to magic and development of magic have been described. That's a big perk in my eyes.

As for Grogs and Companions: a bit of a mixed bag, but it sounds entirely reasonable and rational. I suppose my favouring Grogs is a combination of the "support the underdog" mentality and... well, I just find that Grogs tend to be interesting characters. :) It's like all the tangible, fun character quirks and flaws that rarely find their way to Magi or Companions drift down to the Grogs. Their relatively mundane nature leaves them seeming more colourful to me.

Again, thanks for the info. It's left me with more to think about in picking up the game. Trying to talk my current group into experimenting with new systems is a chore.

*mostly* High roll is best... the Aging table is the main one where you want a low result.

The difference between simple die (1..10) and Stress Die (0 (botch?), 1 (re-roll & double), 2..9) is still there. Stress Die is the most common roll.
Some circumstances can reduce the botch test to "no extra roll", eliminating the possibility of a botch. Peace, calm and lack of stress can reduce a stree roll to a simple roll.

Pentration has sublte consequences, like re-valuing the otherwise undervalued low-level formulaic spells, as you have more "magical potency" left for pentration when you have to put less "effort" into casting the spell.
Also, there are fancy ways to increase Penetration by acquiring an Arcane Connection to your target and learning secret information about them.

Grogs are not supposed to dominate stories, but they are far from being cardboard cut-outs. (That's reserved for the Covenant "specialists" the useful bag of skills with no character sheet.)
grogs are fun, fun to design and fun to play.

Actually i find *Companions* uninteresting - they are too specialised, too full of themselves, while not comparing to the magi...

You folks have left me glad that I decided to pop my head in with this question. It's been very enlightening. I'm quite tempted to pick up 5e after Christmas passes, but before the New Year. What a pain, though! So tempting an offer so near Christmas. The wallet's drained from gift-buying and other sundry expenses.

The problem my old group had in previous efforts was that powering up the magi was just too tempting for most: so the magi became exercises in numeric efficiency, rather than interesting characters in and of themselves. The companions, being viewed as "less than", tended to have more personality since they were treated in a lighter fashion... less desire for efficiency, and more of a sense of fun. The Grogs, on the other hand, soaked up all the left-over ideas, and from them we had a pool of twisted, interesting little characters that really coloured our perception of the game.

I think that if I were to houserule anything -- and bearing in mind that this is entirely supposition drawn from ignorance -- it would be the rolling mechanism. I'm a big fan of probability curves, and letting skill rather than luck dominate a situation: rather than d10 I think I'd prefer to either double target numbers and use 2d10, or simply use the average of 2d10. Though that extra step in math, no matter how simple, would probably leave my current group cold.