Not everything would fit into the schedule and page count of the new book. The emphasis in the Fifth Edition playtesting was on getting basic systems, like combat, spell guidelines, and certamen, working. Interesting but narrow-purpose rules like the Divination Virtue - which basically has its own set of rules - were cut to keep the main book on track. Nothing has been said about reviving Divination for a supplement, but it seems obvious that it will happen sooner or later.

Until then, you can re-use the Fourth Edition rules for those Virtues if you want to.

rumour has it that the very non-Hermetic but complex bits will reappear in a Hedge Magic Revised (or whatever - that's a plausible, if unannounced name, given the names announced so far!).
It wasn't just Hex/Divination, but if you look over 4e, you'll see a number of then-supplement V/F have moved into core, and a number of others (which naturally group with various supplements) were dropped.

People liked the old Hedge Magic book, and there were calls for more kinds of Hedge Magic (and complaints about the amount fo story in the book - More Crunchy Bits!)

I have hopes that we'll get a nice fat book this time round...

Another example - it grieved me and my players that Faerie Raised Merinita was not included,... but look at the pipeline, and we seem to be promised 3 "Houses of Hermes" books, one on "Mystery Houses" (which includes Merinita) - so just maybe it'll be in there, with some other goodies...

Any suggestions as to what realm Hex would be under 5th ed? There are three good inclusive possibilities it seems to me:

1. Infernal Realm, implying additional character flaws such as Dark Secret, Diabolic Past, etc.

2. Faeri Realm, which would be seemless, as the rules for Faeri Magic are perfect for curses.

3. Divine Realm(!) such as Christ's cursing of Longinus when he speared him on the cross. Such curses would have to have some moral restriction, being Divine.

I can see no justification for curses being part of the Magic Realm.

Finally, a reading of the Maladiction flaws suggest two kinds of curses, lesser and greater, which would make it difficult to make a consistent mechanic for a single Hex virtue. Any ideas for implimenting the Hex virtue to take into accounts the two types of Maladiction in 5th ed?

Edited 12/30/2004 6:01 pm ET by yzfool

> I can see no justification for curses being part of the Magic Realm.

I'm of the opposite bent. I see no reason why it cannot be part of the magical realm. Curses are seen in all sorts of mythology not related to Christianity (Divine/Infernal) or necessarily Faerie. There's a weird line about what older religions constitute Faeire and which constitute Magic, but there really is nothing excluding magic from giving hexes.

Now, given your comment on a Faerie source of Hexes, I will agree that it doesn't fit in well with HERMETIC magic, but then most of the supernatural virtues/skills (which I think this is) don't either.

> Finally, a reading of the Maladiction flaws suggest two kinds of curses, lesser
> and greater, which would make it difficult to make a consistent mechanic for
> a single Hex virtue. Any ideas for implimenting the Hex virtue to take into
> accounts the two types of Maladiction in 5th ed?

Comparing all of the +2 virtues that were carried over to 5th ed. between the two editions (well, Enchanting Music and Skinchanger), you'll notice that they were all made minor supernatural virtues. This is also true of all of the +2 general virtues that were not made into story flaws.

For now then just port hex over as a minor supernatural virtue. Use the rules as in 4th ed, or at least us them as a base and tweak as you see fit. There's no need to base it on malediction effects. Just as a master who trained an apprentice with a score of less than 5 in the art is only one source of the former apprentice getting the hermetic (art) defeciency, so to would a hex be A source of a malediction. Hex does not, however, need to be able to incur any manner of malediction described under the two flaws. Hex has it's limits, as do other methods of imposing a malediction.

Edited 1/5/2005 2:42 am ET by FujiYakumo

Edited 1/5/2005 1:29 pm ET by FujiYakumo

Edited 1/5/2005 1:29 pm ET by FujiYakumo