Is a nice virtue, very nice to have.

But if you compare it to flawless magic and flexible formulaic magic you can see one BUT there.

They are all major virtues, they are all powerful,but diedne magic gives you one MAJOR flaw for free.

That alone should drop it to minor virtue, with note that you cannot have any major hermetic virtues with it.

What if I invented a new virtue that allows casting of spontanious magic at 1/2 level without spending of a fatique level and called it Fairy Magic? a bit weaker than Diedne magic but powerlevel about right?

Or is that major magic focus -spontanious magic cast with fatique the reason for free major flaw?

Perhaps I just found the answer? There you could argue that one can take a major magical focus: spontanious magic with or without fatique.

Good idea.

I think the value of the Diedne Magic Virtue depends on how much you appreciate spontaneous magic. Once I got familiar with the magic rules, I found that the ability to spont even level 5 or 10 spells could solve all kinds of in-game problems. I use spontaneous magic about three times as much as formulaic magic (that is, in-game my character casts about 3 sponts for every formulaic spell). So to me, Diedne Magic is overpowered.

<rant>I also hate the fact that Diedne Magic there, especially in the main book. I have no use for House Diedne in my Saga and I want them to be all dead, dead, deadity dead. Yet here is this Virtue in the main book and already I've had to argue with a player who wanted to take it. The Virtue as written legitimizes taking a character background that may run counter to the storyguide's plans for the Saga and can drag all the other player-magi kicking and screaming into a life-or-death struggle centered around the one obnoxious player who wants his character "more special" than everyone else.</rant>

I cannot agree with your rant.

I have a player character with diedne magic virtue because he is a sidhe and I wanted my faery blooded character to be expert with spontanious magic.

1) he is exmiscellania magus because I thought that logically remains of Diedne fused into exmiscellania.

As far as I can tell, my character's paren is a follower of Diedne tradition, politically pro-diedne, but my character is not. He has inherited the techiques of diedne and their weakness with formulaic magic, but he is not member of diedne, if there was a fight to restore diedne's reputation or diedne's revenge, he would not take part of them as he is member of ex miscellania, and he would not care less about diedne.

To me Diedne is dead, and their leaders found refuge among verbena witches and slowly they forget hermetic magic and blend with the Verbena tradition perhaps increasing their magical knownledge with universal magic theory.

If your player want's diedne magic, forbid it on the basis of power level not on meta game rules.

I want to have a Strong Faerie Magic virtue that only allows casting of spontanious magic without fatique without other benefits or flaws.

Diedne magic's dark secret is high price to pay. (still it is not as powerful as flawless magic if you ask me, but naturally, it's more versatile.)

One of my players has a Tremere with Diedne magic. How can this be you say? Well let's look at it. The Tremere attacked outright the Diedne, ostensibly for their diabolic ways. Before the War though they were mainly accused of being too secretive. The Tremere like to portray themselves as being virtuous and noble, but we know otherwise. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that part of the reason of the attacka dn resulting Schism War was to steal the secrets of Diedne magic.

Basically what I'm having happen, and what the player and I collaborated on, was that there was a small and secret cabal of Tremere wizards who practice the Diedne magic. Naturally such practices would be a huge stain on their honor and integrity, rivaling the revelation of Tytalus's diabolism and Tremere's vampirism. So they still keep the Dark secret aspect. Further, not every Tremere naturally is in on the secret, they'd likely be just as appalled as anyone else about it. Finally, the few that are in on it would sell out their own in a heartbeat to protect themselves and their own secret. So if the character is found out, the first to strike him down would likely be his own House, maybe even pre-emptively, as well as use the secret to keep him in control. He's not likely to have an easy road to getting his own Sigil for example. The Flaw that goes with it, in this case, is likely to be even more dangerous for him. Finally, if Diedne practitioners are still around somewhere, undoubtedly they would love to get their hands on anyone that stole their secrets and still practices them.

My character really took a lot by taking this Virtue, I intend to make many interesting stories regarding it.

//My character really took a lot by taking this Virtue, I intend to make many interesting stories regarding it.//
The problem I have with v&f's like this is that if you play on them, i.e. if the Diedne Tremere was ever found out, the consequenses would be so devestating that the saga would likely end, or need to be compleatly overhauled - several magi marched, likely relocation of the covenant and what have you.
And thus you end up with yet another flaw that never has effect on play, and you've gotten the points for free.

I don't allow my players to take flaws that do not have an impact on play. And I dislike the Diedne virtue quite a lot. It's a bit better than it was in ArM4, now at least it's a major virtue, with a inbuilt flaw. But I still find it unplayable, just not quite as exploitable.

What happens when you combine Diedne Magic Virtue with a minor magical Focus?

Say for instance I have a minor Magical focus with birds of prey and Diedne magic

I want to create a hawk (Cr+An) my stats are Creo : 15 and Animal : 20.

I don't have a formulaic spell researched for this, so I have to do a spontaneous spell, and I choose to spend a fatiguelevel.

Now, what happens? According to Diedne Magic virtue on p.41 "When you expand fatigue on casting a spontaneous spell, the lowest applicable Art is doubled before the whole total is divided by two." but the minor magical focus also says on p.46 "When you use magic within this field the lowest applicable art is treated as double."

My guess would be that Cr is doubled to 30 and then Animal doubled to 40 + dice and then divided by 2.

But I have a feeling that Focus and Diedne magic (which work exactly like a magical focus on spontaneous magic) weren't supposed to be compatible?

Anyone else encountered this and got any thoughts or comments on the matter?

- cihset

//But I have a feeling that Focus and Diedne magic (which work exactly like a magical focus on spontaneous magic) weren't supposed to be compatible?//

I feel so, too. ArM5 allows only one Magical Focus - Minor or Major - per Character. So why should an SG allow to combine the 'Maximum' Magical Focus (spontaneous casting with fatigue) of Diedne Magic with another Magical Focus?
Even if a very generous SG indeed would allow this, she would sure still be free to at least disallow stacking of the Diedne Focus with any other Magical Focus in the same action.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Another option is that the doubling effect happens simultaneously for both , so that the lowest art score , Cr 15 goes to 30 then 60.

Remember the magic itself or the focus is not sentient , they dont know what the lowest score is.

This looks very 'munchy' but considering the penalty for being a known Diedne Magic user , this may not be too devastating to a campaign.

This kind of combination (with 5th Ed revisions) may be why the Diedne were considered dangerous.

If Diedne magic were considered a magical focus , then you could take no other magical focus at all.

Using this idea with Major Magical Focus could be problematic , but you still have to keep a low profile with the OoH.

Might work for Ex Misc. though.

Cihset wrote:

>>>Diedne Magic virtue on p.41 "When you expand fatigue on casting a spontaneous spell, the lowest applicable Art is doubled before the whole total is divided by two." <<<

>>>minor magical focus also says on p.46 "When you use magic within this field the lowest applicable art is treated as double."<<<

This is the way I look at it.

Both give permission for the character to double the lowest applicable art before applying it to the casting formula. If two seperate rules grant you permission to do the same thing, this doesn't automatically mean you have permission to do it twice. I would look if the rules explicitly allowed double-application.

The instructions allow you to 'double the lowest applicable Art', not 'double the component of the casting total that relates to the lowest applicable Art, that may have already been modifed by another virtue'. Or even 'double the lowest applicable Art or double the lowest Art-related component that remains after other virtue modification.

Imo the two virtues may both give permission for Art doubling, but this is only exercised once in any instance.

Regards

- David W

"The instructions allow you to 'double the lowest applicable Art', not 'double the component of the casting total that relates to the lowest applicable Art, that may have already been modifed by another virtue'. Or even 'double the lowest applicable Art or double the lowest Art-related component that remains after other virtue modification.

Imo the two virtues may both give permission for Art doubling, but this is only exercised once in any instance."

I would disagree that you could only exercise it once. As was pointed out before, there had been the talk in earlier editions of Diedne being very dangerous with their spontaneous spells, many of which were dealing with elemental forces. If you're not getting both the doublings in there somewhere, they wouldn't be tossing off the spells of any significant level at all AND penetrating another mage's Parma. As you say, the rules state "double the lowest art" in both cases, but there is no place where it is stated that you can not double twice.

The question in the case of Diedne magic and magical focus is: when you double your lowest art, is the doubled score considered your effective Art score when looking at doubling the second time? In the case given earlier, arguments could be made either way for doubling the 15 to 30 and then 60, or doubling the 15 to 30 and (since the new effective score is higher than the other) doubling the 20 to 40. At this point that's probably up to each group to decide which way they want to handle it, though. IMO there would be two score doublings involved, though, not just one. After all, if you weren't supposed to be able to apply doubling twice, the Diedne Magic virtue would have said explicitly that it could not be taken with minor magical focus.

>>>there is no place where it is stated that you can not double twice.<<<

>>>is the doubled score considered your effective Art score when looking at doubling the second time?<<<

Semantically no. If your lowest applicable Art is Creo and your Creo is 10, then your lowest applicable art score is *always* 10.

A focus allows you to double the 10 and use that value in place of the true Art score in the Casting Total. Diedne Magic allows you to double the 10 and use that value in place of the true Art score in the Casting Total. This is the same instruction to replace one value with another. Even if you applied this instruction a million times and the result is the same; it does not give an accumulative result.

Imo the text is fairly clear -

if x = true then double lowest Art when calculating the casting total
if y = true then double lowest Art when calculating the casting total

In the end I can only state my opinion of what I believe was the likely intention, informed by many rounds of ArM5 playtesting and rule related discussions with the line editor. If David Chart had wanted double-doubling to be allowed I believe he would have made it explicit.

Perhaps an erranta will allow it, perhaps an erranta will exclude it. Who knows.

Regards

- David W

David W. wrote :

"In the end I can only state my opinion of what I believe was the likely intention, informed by many rounds of ArM5 playtesting and rule related discussions with the line editor. If David Chart had wanted double-doubling to be allowed I believe he would have made it explicit."

From my limited experience of the Berk-list i would have to agree
(freely and of my own will even) :-)

This looks like the only situation in ArM5 where there is any possibility of this happening.
Since the playtesters overlooked the need/desire for mundane animal stats , i am not all that confident in more obsure combinations having been addressed.(No insult intended btw , observation only)

Since the magic happens in the mind/spirit of the magus in the game , would seem to be no reason a multi-task option cant take place for the Diedne with a Magical Focus to get (x02 x02) on the lowest score.
If it were allowed in game one could always add extra botch dice if the roll did in fact botch.

If the player came up with this character concept genuinely and wasnt trying to power-game it might be workable.

I can say positively (aged mysogynist that i am) that if a female player came up with this idea i wouldnt hesitate in allowing it.

Graham.

"A focus allows you to double the 10 and use that value in place of the true Art score in the Casting Total. Diedne Magic allows you to double the 10 and use that value in place of the true Art score in the Casting Total. This is the same instruction to replace one value with another. Even if you applied this instruction a million times and the result is the same; it does not give an accumulative result."

Why not? The doubled score becomes your art score for purposes of casting the spell. It's a matter of definition on what you call the doubled score. When you apply the next doubling, you'd look at the (now doubled) score as your Art Score for the spell along with the other Art involved in the spell, then double the lowest of those two. You replace one value with another, then you look at the new levels before you replace one value with another value again. That could easily be accumulative.

We'll see what it says in an errata later, but since it's really only for a very limited area (since you can't take both Diedne Magic and Major Magical Focus) it wouldn't be that abusive. The mage would be taking Minor Magical Focus, and the end effect would be that within a limited area the Diedne could spontaneously cast almost as well as a normal person casting formulaic spells in that area (the Deidne mage still needing to rely on the die roll to determine level of the spell, not like taking formulaic spells with a level above your current Form+Technique+Stamina total). Yes, if that area was defined as creating flames, they'd be powerful pseudo-Flambeau that would inspire some of the legends that have been said in the past to have existed about the Diedne. This would be a narrow area of specialization, though, and IMO doesn't appear to be as game imbalancing as has been implied (especially if the spell has a requisite for the spell which has a lower level than either art). I'd think there'd be no reason to disallow the double doubling. If it is, though, I'm sure we'll see an errata stating that you can't take Minor Magical Focus with Diedne Magic.

I would suggest that if there will be added restrictions on Diedne Magic that the requirement on taking Dark Secret without getting the points for it be eliminated. Other people have suggested ways of having Diedne magic without it having been a dark secret - Oath of Fealty or Mentor...or Diabolic Upbringing... could be used to explain learning the technique. I think my problem with listing Diedne Magic as a Greater Hermetic Virtue is that every other house gets a minor Hermetic Virtue without an associated flaw. It doesn't seem right that the defining trait of House Diedne would be a Major Virtue. Granted, it might originally have been some minor undisclosed virtue, Diedne Magic, and some Major Flaw (either Oath of Fealty or Unstructured Caster (either could be argued, given the history of Diedne). This would mirror the Ex Misc bit of a Minor Hermetic Virtue, a Major non-Hermetic Virtue, and a major Hermetic Flaw. As to what the minor virtue is, it is probably a component of the knowledge that the other Houses causing the Schism war wanted - I would see Diedne as a Mystery Cult, with different abilities available at different levels of initiation. (I'm sure it's too late for Diedne to get at least an Appendix in the forthcoming Mystery Cults book, but one can hope)

I did notice that those doubling virtues do not always overlap, so with diedne magic and focus, you get more cases when you can double, so it's okay power wise.

It's GM's job to balance PLAYERS virtues and flaws against each other. If Diedne magic makes one player greatly more powerful than the others, then GM either balances the virtue by ruling on the gray areas, or makes the flaw even more dangerous.

Like Gandalf, super powerful but afraid to use his power, thus delegating heroism to mortals. I guess he had Diedne Magic. (if saruman had found out, it would have started a wizard's war.)

If you get a chance to read the new book, True Lineages, some more of hermetic history is revealed. It seems the war against House Diedne was a near thing. Even with all the other Houses cooperating, Diedne came close to victory.

This is very hard to reconcile with current rules for penetration totals and spontaneous casting (Diedne magic's forte).

It could be that the intent for the game mechanic is for Diedne magic and a minor focus to allow doubling to occur twice.

Chant with me "I want offical errata!"

edited for stupid on my part.

read followup post further down thread

> If you get a chance to read the new book, True Lineages, some more
> of hermetic history is revealed. It seems the war against House
> Diedne was a near thing. Even with all the other Houses
> cooperating, Diedne came close to victory.

Sorry, where does TL say that all of the other Houses co-operated? I'd swear I'd remember if it did, since I wrote the Tremere section, and it doesn't. I won't go through on a House-by-House basis, but in the main, Diedne and its supporters fought two houses (Tremere and Flambeau) and their supporters. Guernicus come in on the Tremere side, but I'm not sure they actually put boots on the ground, in the modern Australina military idiom.

> This is very hard to reconcile with current rules for penetration
> totals and spontaneous casting (Diedne magic's forte).

House Diedne had mysteries beyond their basic spontaneous casting, and because of its cult-structure had the skill of fighting in co-ordibated groups, IMO.

555.17 in reply to 555.15

//"A focus allows you to double the 10 and use that value in place of the true Art score in the Casting Total. Diedne Magic allows you to double the 10 and use that value in place of the true Art score in the Casting Total. This is the same instruction to replace one value with another. Even if you applied this instruction a million times and the result is the same; it does not give an accumulative result."//

Actually the rule for a focus is that you can add the lower art score twice. page 45 AM5th "When you cast a spell or generate a Lab Total within your focus, add the lowest applicable Art score twice."

Diedne Magic is different. "When you expend fatigue on casting a spontaneous spell, the lowest applicable Art is doubled before the whole total is divided by two."

If G is the lowest applicable art score and H is the higher one, then the casting total for Spont casting with fatigue will look like this:

Non-focus, Non-Diedne (G + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2
Focus, Non-Diedne (G + G + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2
Non-focus, Diedne ((2G) + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2
Focus, Diedne ((2G) + (2G) + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2

The lowest applicable Art is G, it so happens that G will appear in the casting total formula more than once. As written G will get doubled before the total is divided by two. It is a strange way to word the timing I agree.

//Sorry, where does TL say that all of the other Houses co-operated? I'd swear I'd remember if it did, since I wrote the Tremere section, and it doesn't. I won't go through on a House-by-House basis, but in the main, Diedne and its supporters fought two houses (Tremere and Flambeau) and their supporters. Guernicus come in on the Tremere side, but I'm not sure they actually put boots on the ground, in the modern Australina military idiom.//

TL page 41 3rd paragraph beginning with "Magi from many other houses joined the battle, which became the Order against House Diedne. Even with this, the war hung in the balance." And from further reading in that section it can be argued that House Guernicus are the ones that actually put down Diedne with that God-awful Ritual, Curse of Thoth. House Guernicus may not have had a pile of magi fighting on the front lines, but that Ritual had to have put a bunch of people into Twilight.

Don't get me wrong, I love the new take on the Tremere, or atleast the way they have been written now is far different than what I remember my perception was of them in the past. The Tremere section of the book gives us the motivation behind the Schism war. The Guernicus section gave us some insight into the fight itself.

Anyhow, going back to my original point with the new rules for magic resistance and penetration, it is very very difficult for spontaneous casting to get you past a mage's defenses. However characters with a major virtue will tend to be centered around it, so we could reson that spontaneous casting was central to Diedne mages.

While we may find out that each of the Mystery Cults have some powerful abilities held back for those in their inner circles, we don't know what those are yet. We may never know what Diedne Mages hid from the rest of the Order (of course if it ever came out in print, we would eagerly scoop it up to find out. Hint, hint.)

>>>Actually the rule for a focus is that you can add the lower art score twice. page 45 AM5th "When you cast a spell or generate a Lab Total within your focus, add the lowest applicable Art score twice."

Diedne Magic is different. "When you expend fatigue on casting a spontaneous spell, the lowest applicable Art is doubled before the whole total is divided by two."<<<

This is different?...

>>>Non-focus, Non-Diedne (G + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2
Focus, Non-Diedne (G + G + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2
Non-focus, Diedne ((2G) + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2
Focus, Diedne ((2G) + (2G) + H + Stamina + Aura) / 2<<<

You obviously really, really want to play it this way. If your the SG, that's fine; knock yourself out. If you are a player than you might ask the SG to play this way, but please respect his decision if he disagrees.

Regards

- David W

> TL page 41 3rd paragraph beginning with "Magi from many other
> houses joined the battle, which became the Order against House
> Diedne. Even with this, the war hung in the balance."

Ah, see, here's where you are going wrong. Before you said "All of the other Houses" I said "Where did we write that?" and now you reply with individual "magi from many houses". As Houses, only two take the field. As I said, there were other individual supporters on each side, and Guernicus gives a legal imprimatur, but they don't fight "all the other Houses" as you claimed we wrote.

> And from further reading in that section it can be argued that
> House Guernicus are the ones that actually put down Diedne with
> that God-awful Ritual, Curse of Thoth.

Indeed, it -might- have done, yes. That's still not "fighting all of the other Houses." That gets you up to three out of ten. Some of them clearly didn't take the field, and some had members and septs which serruptitiously aided Diedne - read the Bonisagus section again, for example.

> House Guernicus may not have had a pile of magi fighting on the
> front lines, but that Ritual had to have put a bunch of people into
> Twilight.

It may have done, yes.

> Don't get me wrong, I love the new take on the Tremere, or atleast
> the way they have been written now is far different than what I
> remember my perception was of them in the past. The Tremere section
> of the book gives us the motivation behind the Schism war. The
> Guernicus section gave us some insight into the fight itself.

And both, just to be clear, are the way each House sees the business. Niether is view-of-God accurate, IMO.

I'd just like to point out that your claim that Diedne must be serious magical fighters because "they fought all of the other houses", and TL says so, is not correct. TL does not say this.

I sense you are new to the lists. Hi! I don't mean to ride you like this, but actually, the book doesn't say what you claimed it to have said, and some of the words you are quoting are my words, so I just wanted to be clear that, no, Diedne don't get special bonuses because, way back when, they fought more people in your view than in the standard setting.

> Anyhow, going back to my original point with the new rules for
> magic resistance and penetration, it is very very difficult for
> spontaneous casting to get you past a mage's defenses. However
> characters with a major virtue will tend to be centered around it,
> so we could reson that spontaneous casting was central to Diedne
> mages.

I think the Diedne had cool rituals, and probable demonic assistance, which means they had fantastic battlefield intelligence.

> While we may find out that each of the Mystery Cults have some
> powerful abilities held back for those in their inner circles, we
> don't know what those are yet. We may never know what Diedne Mages
> hid from the rest of the Order (of course if it ever came out in
> print, we would eagerly scoop it up to find out. Hint, hint.)

I wouldn't dare! People gave me crap for changing the name of the Primus! I'd never want to say exactly what they were up to...

The problem is when I read the Order vs House Diedne, I think it is, well, the Order vs House Diedne. Not House Tremere and House Flambeau plus hangers on vs House Diedne. I can understand why writers may want to leave some vagueness there so individual SG's have some lattitude either way.

But the Order does not consist of three houses, it consists of all the member Houses. In fact the Bonasagus section names House Jerbiton as joining the Tremere and Flambeau early on. That puts it at 3 houses before the special Grand Tribunal was called. So at least 4 Houses when Guernicus is counted in. But is it the Houses that are the organizations that really matter, or is it the Covenants? How many Magi waged war?

From how you described the soldierly bent of the Tremere, I would think that they would more able to fight in a more organized, and cohesive way than just about any other house could match. And the Tremere lost half their number. For a group that emphasizes preparing for conflict in a chaotic world, they took some pretty heavy losses.

//"I think the Diedne had cool rituals, and probable demonic assistance, which means they had fantastic battlefield intelligence."//

I knew that most of the house was pagan. I didn't realize they had Infernal help. I thought the big complaints were human sacrifice, paganism, and a secretive House.

Ok, sidetrack ending......

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Originally we were talking about the mechanics of Diedne Magic. If a mage who is specialized in Spontaneous magic is going to face a more traditional Hermetic mage, he is going to need something to generate a serious casting total so he can get some penetration. With the whole divide by 2 thing going on, those magi must have something happening to generate big totals before that divide happens or they cannot penetrate Parma.

Formulaic casters do not have to divide their casting total. It should be much easier for them to get through a Diedne Magus's Parma than the other way around.

Even with some truly awazing Rituals that may or may not have been available to the House as a whole, individual Magi should have been at such a disadvantage that their losses would have been tremendous.

> The problem is when I read the Order vs House Diedne, I think it
> is, well, the Order vs House Diedne.

Yes, but when I asked you where you read this, you couldn't quote it. Your quote says "magi of many houses" That's not the Order. It's not a big thing...but I just wanted to stress that, say, the Criamon Battle Legion didn't take part in the Schism. 8)

[snop.]

> But the Order does not consist of three houses, it consists of all
> the member Houses. In fact the Bonasagus section names House
> Jerbiton as joining the Tremere and Flambeau early on.

Really? I find it difficult to believe that the writer for Bonisagus was allowed to commit the author of the still-theoretical Society book chapter in that way.

> That puts it at 3 houses before the special Grand Tribunal was
> called. So at least 4 Houses when Guernicus is counted in. But is
> it the Houses that are the organizations that really matter, or is
> it the Covenants? How many Magi waged war?

Tremre fights as an army under doctrine. Flambeau apparently fought using Mercurial rituals as a single House. Prior to that, there was widespread disorder, so that could have been smaller groups.

> From how you described the soldierly bent of the Tremere, I would
> think that they would more able to fight in a more organized, and
> cohesive way than just about any other house could match. And the
> Tremere lost half their number. For a group that emphasizes
> preparing for conflict in a chaotic world, they took some pretty
> heavy losses.

Yes, that's because Diedne, in the history of the line, had powerful magical allies, summoned beasts, and the capacity to create ritual spells like The Tempest. Also, Tremere is the aggresor - that means they fight on Diedne's prefered defensive ground.

They do suffer massive casualties, yes, but that doesn't require individual Diedne to be, well, tanks.

//"I think the Diedne had cool rituals, and probable demonic assistance, which means they had fantastic battlefield intelligence."//

> I knew that most of the house was pagan. I didn't realize they had
> Infernal help. I thought the big complaints were human sacrifice,
> paganism, and a secretive House.

Well, it all depends on what you think they were sacrificing -to-. 8) IMC, if you kill enough people, you get Infernal interest preetty much regardless of why you are doing it.

//"Well, it all depends on what you think they were sacrificing -to-. 8) IMC, if you kill enough people, you get Infernal interest preetty much regardless of why you are doing it."//

Very true. The bit about magical critters probably would play a big part as well.