Ars - Is it just me?

[GhostShip Blue]

Hermetic mages are best at making magic potions. Then permanent magic items. Then casting formulaic spells. Then learning spells from books. Then spontaneous magic. Then anything else.

This is the single most head clearing thing anyone has ever suggested about Ars to me. I have been laboring under the (false) belief that developing and casting formulaic spells would be the magi's strongest suit. But you're right, the rules are kind of built for the magi to make stuff.

Well, game time is measured in seasons for a reason

True enough. Touche.

In addition to what has already been mentioned, you should realize that a default Magus character has only just finished her apprenticeship. You seem to expect a different power level, which would be fine if your group agreed to start play with older Magi.

Not so much as I don't expect to invest that kind of time and energy (as a player or a character) for such minimal return. The ROI is too low. Kind of mercenary way to couch the argument, but that's, at the core, what my issue is.

TRIM
If your intent is to reduce the exhaustion of your grogs, then maybe a Corpus effect would be easier.

Which returns to my earlier argument that if you take an off the rack spell, you're golden. It is easier to modify Endurance of the Berzerkers to effect the people (who we're lead to believe are not fond of the magic 'vibe') than it is the inanimate metal they're wearing.

GhostShip, you seem to me to be troubled not by confusion about Ars Magica, but a desire not to believe what you sense to be true about it.

Very true. What I sense to be true is it's not as spiffy as my friends think. I'm trying to find a way to make peace with it so the people in the group who love it can play.

If it helps, I do like the game for all its awkwardness. And to be fair, the overwhelming majority of games are designed with far less clarity and forethought than gamers believe has gone into them. This is, my experience, the real problem - people become emotionally invested in their games, and try to defend even their most obvious flaws. I believe that the wisest thing is to accept, and then ignore the problems by closing your eyes to them while you play.

It's not that I don't love some eccentric games - I do. Phoenix Command and Living Steel anyone? To me the system is elegant because it all works together and actually reflects that guns are VERY dangerous things. Living Steel has one of the best stories and some of the best thought out history - there's me and three Finns, two Swedes and a pair of other Americans who feel that way (and they actually don't like Living Steel).

It feels like every time I try to do something in Ars it's a, "Well, not quite." moment. And that comes because I don't "get" it. To be honest, I don't want to get it. There's no pay off for me in some cranky old recluse waiting to go insane in his old age to cast a spell or two that aren't that cool. I want to see the math for the desert of glass shards - because in my experience it doesn't happen. The Bjornaer turns into a bear/wolf/shark and mauls people after the companions shoot a few arrows and soak some damage.

And I feel bad for feeling that way. For years we played Pathfinder or Traveller, which I DO enjoy. We've played Champions which I love and a couple of them dislike. We've played Ars in the past as well, I disliked it then and continue to do so, apparently.

However, between Nagol's advice, avoiding my mage as much as possible and this tidbit:

I believe that the wisest thing is to accept, and then ignore the problems by closing your eyes to them while you play.

I've got a plan.

 

[Kingreaper]

Sponting, if it works, is cool. It almost never works. Not sure of the casting total, but it gets cut by 80% (casting total/5) when sponting. To generate a level 60 effect from 1/5 of your base, you need a LOT of exploding 1's. Not going to see that often.

It gets cut to 1/2 if you're actually making an effort (and spending a single fatigue point)

However, sponting isn't really my issue.

If the idea is to go to the lab and create spells, why doesn't that work. Even the slightest spell requires 4 seasons of idle time, studying books to raise your Arts scores, another three season improving the lab, two more seasons to earn the cash for an assistant, Another couple of seasons to adventure and find Vis, and then you can experiment for another 2 seasons, and you've got a spell that will protect the metal equipment of 5 soldiers from rusting. Until nightfall.

That's a really, really strange way to play ArM5.

1) You're trashing your lab after each spell you make?
If not, then that lab increase is actually a one-time cost, and shouldn't be treated as part of learning each spell.
2) You're forgetting all your arts after each spell you make?
Ditto
3) You have no sources of money or vis other than adventures?
This is just rather odd
4) You seem to think you need Vis to invent spells?
You don't

And last, but most definitely not least:

5) Moon duration, prevent metal rusting at touch range with individual target is a level 5 spell at most (it's the creo terram equivalent of a level 5 creo corpus spell, and corpus generally has higher guidelines). You don't need to do any of the things you listed to manage it; assuming you have a lab and have finished your apprenticeship.
With group target, so you can do the equipment of the whole squad at once, it's a level 10 spell. Still within the reach of any mage who hasn't deliberately ignored creo and terram training throughout their whole apprenticeship.

 

[GhostShip Blue]

5) Moon duration, prevent metal rusting at touch range with individual target is a level 5 spell at most (it's the creo terram equivalent of a level 5 creo corpus spell, and corpus generally has higher guidelines). You don't need to do any of the things you listed to manage it; assuming you have a lab and have finished your apprenticeship.
With group target, so you can do the equipment of the whole squad at once, it's a level 10 spell. Still within the reach of any mage who hasn't deliberately ignored creo and terram training throughout their whole apprenticeship.

That's what I thought. Approached it through Rego Terram. Lab total of 24 with the Aura. The original thought was to lighten the load of the arms and armor by 50%. Figured freshly Gauntleted, take it slow. Range Voice, Taget Individual, Duration Sun. Keep my grogs fresh, but march fast so we can win by position. Keep my grogs from getting hurt - everybody wins? Apparently not. Terram spells to affect Metal have a multiplier of 2.

 

[Kingreaper]

That's what I thought. Approached it through Rego Terram. Lab total of 24 with the Aura. The original thought was to lighten the load of the arms and armor by 50%. Figured freshly Gauntleted, take it slow. Range Voice, Taget Individual, Duration Sun. Keep my grogs fresh, but march fast so we can win by position. Keep my grogs from getting hurt - everybody wins? Apparently not. Terram spells to affect Metal have a multiplier of 2.

No, they don't. They have one extra rank of magnitude (5 levels if they're level 5+ already, or just 1 level if they're below.)

And lightening the armour is much harder than making it not rust, but still not actually hard.

Rego Terram 3, control or move earth in a highly unnatural manner (could argue for a base of 2, but I'm deliberately making it harder on myself). Range Touch: there's no reason I can't go and touch the armour, +1 magnitude (level 4). Target Individual, duration sun (+2 magnitudes), metal(+1 mag)=level 15 effect. You can learn it in 2 seasons with lab total 24. If you do all the lab improvements/studying stuff you talked about, or are willing to experiment, you can get it done in one season.


EDIT: Bugger, I'm wrong here. Metal is two extra magnitudes, not one, in rego terram. That'd make it level 20.
However, that's assuming it's highly unnatural; I recommend arguing that making metal be lifted more easily is only slightly unnatural (making it float on air being highly so) and therefore getting it back to level 15.

 

[GhostShip Blue]

And I would argue, given the game's pathos, that making it lighter is far less of a shift in it's essential nature than making it not rust. And here's one of the core things with Ars, the notion of this 12th Century understanding of the universe. How do you make things cold? Remove heat? Not in the 12th century understanding of physics I don't think. You add wind or air. Just like the winds blow cold. Duh.

Heavy is far more clear cut than rust. At this point in history we're still running on humors and blood letting. Protecting something from oxidation? No. Isolating it from time and water is what's at stake. Time being the tricky part. Metal's essential nature is to rust. Heavy is observable.

Nad by what rationale is metal 2 magnitudes in Rego Terram, but not Creo or Perdo? It's easier to make it than bend it? One could make an argument that it's not Rego at all but Muto, which is, again fine. But the underlying issue remains, why, all of a sudden, is there a change in magnitude for the technique? Has the form changed? No. And that's what the technique affects (check the e/a thing on that - I'm not sure) so why the shift in magnitude?

If metal is so fundamentally different that it reacts the same way across all techniques, why not create another form, say Ferrum?

Hmm... wonder if I can sell the GM on the character retiring to the lab to discover that and just go about my life playing grogs and companions?

 

[Kingreaper]

And I would argue, given the game's pathos, that making it lighter is far less of a shift in it's essential nature than making it not rust.

You're not "making it not rust" by changing it's nature. You're "making it not rust" by preventing it moving away from the platonic ideal of metal.

Hence it being a creo terram effect.

And here's one of the core things with Ars, the notion of this 12th Century understanding of the universe. How do you make things cold? Remove heat? Not in the 12th century understanding of physics I don't think.

You remove fire; not heat. But it's the same principle.

You add wind or air. Just like the winds blow cold. Duh.

Wind, earth and water are all cold, because they lack fire. Fire is the element associated with heat, cold and heat are opposites.

Or are you going to say that only air is cold, not water? Or metal?

Nad by what rationale is metal 2 magnitudes in Rego Terram, but not Creo or Perdo? It's easier to make it than bend it? One could make an argument that it's not Rego at all but Muto, which is, again fine. But the underlying issue remains, why, all of a sudden, is there a change in magnitude for the technique? Has the form changed? No. And that's what the technique affects (check the e/a thing on that - I'm not sure) so why the shift in magnitude?

It's actually +2 in all of them except creo, where it's +4. I just misremembered what it was in rego.

And affecting different versions of the form has different difficulties in more than just terram. It has different difficulties in Auram to affect wind and to affect lightning.
It has different difficulties in Aquam to affect water and to affect unnatural liquids.
It has different difficulties in Animal to affect different types of animal.
It has different difficulties in Imaginem to affect different senses.

Terram is not unique in the slightest in that.

If metal is so fundamentally different that it reacts the same way across all techniques, why not create another form, say Ferrum?

Because metal is associated with the element of earth, it's just a harder form.

Hmm... wonder if I can sell the GM on the character retiring to the lab to discover that and just go about my life playing grogs and companions?

No reason you couldn't, it'd be a massive breakthrough, and would involve the occasional "go and find something relevant" adventure. Depends on your GMs attitude to those things.

 

[GhostShip Blue]

I wasn't clear. There's a rationale inside Ars. Not one that bears any resemblance to anything outside of Ars, but there is a rationale at work, just one that I can't fathom. It bears no kinship to the Alchemical traditions and 11th century understanding of the universe it purports to.

The platonic ideal of gold is value. The platonic ideal of steel is strength. They are both metals and one can be turned into the other. Muto Terram would work, and should work easily for MAGIC. Not the truth of alchemy as we have come to understand it, but for MAGIC applied to an understanding of the universe that allows for alchemy to be as rational as F=mv^2.

But Ars has it's own, to me, cryptic application of those understandings and I confess, I just don't have the interest, time, money or energy to invest in it to unravel the enigma. I love gaming with my friends. Most of the time I like the games we play, just not so much when it's Ars.

I think, with the help of all of you loyal Ars folk (gods love ya'), I've found some ways to enjoy the game rather than suffer through it.

 

[Kingreaper]

The platonic ideal of gold is value. The platonic ideal of steel is strength.

I think you've misunderstood what platonic ideals are.

The platonic ideal of gold is the thing beyond our world that gold is but an imperfect shadow of. It's not "value".

In terms of character's that take the place of a magus well, a lone Redcap with Mythic Blood is a great option.

 

[GhostShip Blue]

In the Greek sense, absolutely. It's all shadows of the ideal form. For the magi of Ars I think that's an academic point.

Last saga out, a Mythic Red cap is exactly where I went and I loved him. Inadvertently got him elected logothete. And one of our dedicated Ars players moved so the saga ended abruptly. Shame. He was the "mage" level character that I enjoyed the most.

I think my plan is to let the Transylvanian general sit in his lab and try to work out ways to quietly buff his army and "make his own luck" while I actually play a body snatching hedge witch. Greatly simplifies my life.

Conceptually I like the idea of a subtle spell caster who sees himself as a general, looking for a way to return Tremere to prominence, but the mechanics are ponderous. I'll companion to the necromancer and be happy and enjoy my friends' company.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I just wanted to say that my impressions are similar to the OP. Coming from Mage: the Ascension to Ars Magica, I wanted real spontaneous magic. I figured rotes would have a slightly higher chance of success--not be basically the only valid option. In flavor Ars Magica gets high marks, but in mechanics allowing you to do what I want to be able to do, I can't use it.