We're up to bat!

The Shining Dragon, the first of a series of seven novels about the life of one Roland of Flambeau, is now live on Kickstarter. I look forward to sharing this book with you!

I was wondering, what kinds of words or gestures do they usually use?

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So I'm a new player about to start my first campaign of ars mágica. I was thinking on going a merinita PC and using imaginem and mente spells and be something of a troll. I know I can do op stuff like mind control and going invi to infiltrate and all that, but my character is more flimsy. I'm having doubts about the mechanical effect on certain art forms.

For example, Iwas wondering since imaginem spells deal with illusions, can I make him feel phantom pain? I was thinking of something like a kick in the nuts spell. Like a touch illusion where he feels pain but is actually fine? Is that possible or is it more of a corpus thing?

Also can I make someone believe they are sick and have their brains trick them into getting sick? Kinda like that doctor house episode on the plain where ever gets mass histeria and start having real symptoms even though they were fine.

What about something like DND's vicious mockery where you feel insulted and demoralized? How would a thing like demoralizing work here?

Or a spell to cats as an enemy is about to hit an ally and make him see he is a out to be hit so make him flinch and miss the target?

Imaginem and mente spells seem a bit vague on the mechanical effects it can have on people apart from roleplaying and interpretation.

Anyway, I know it's a long text. I appreciate any input I get since this system is quite vast and complex but I always wanted a system that allows me to craft spells like this XD

Edit: I'm using 5th Ed.

Hello everyone, I have been dming a bunch of systems over the years but now I will run a short campaign 6-8 sessions for my players in ars magica. To test the system and get them involved in the world if it works out we might play longer.

I am mostly looking for feedback on if I do anything that is a nonsensical in the ars magica world or b Just very bad practice specifically in this system.

To start with I know that the long term event stuff of ars magica is one of its coolest things however I will touch this after this initial campaign which will play in the span of a few weeks at most. We play in the guardians of the forest setting.i will use two pre written adventures and combine them by slightly changing them. Blood on the snow and A rüdiara awakening.

The antagonist wants to help nobility to expand in to fey forests. The head master of the covenant the players are apprentices of opposes this. Currently it is a stand still between the two. But if all the 3 apprentices become fully accepted magi with voting power this might shift. So the antagonist has to do something his goal is to frame the master of the players covenant as an diabolist (being one himself if unknowingly).

To frame the master he hides a diabolist book in the library of the covenant and pushes a bunch of other things to put the covenant at odds with the church. So that if he brings the official claim against them the qualities have things to go by to convict the innocent master. (The master is not a diabolist but has alot of questionable deals with powerful fey which also has lead to them even finding this many gifted children. And does not want to be found out for that the secrecy of course doesn't help)

The master gets imprisoned but the apprentices escape and have to prove the innocence. Getting the contact of a qasitor to contact that doesn't like the master but is very dutyfull in his job.

He gives the players the job to go to an abandoned covenant where the diabolist book was suspected last to investigate and gives the players a magic macguffin which if placed in a room can record the past events up to a few years back. (This uses rüdiara awakening) Finding the antagonist being the one who has collected the book they need to hurry back to reach the place where the trial should take place to prove the innocence of their master.

This is the jist of it of course there can be other problems the players encounter on their ways to and from places with a rival magi being interested in their death.

Is there anything in here who h is completely against ars magica lore / sounds like a bad idea to throw a bunch of Jung magi at ?

I know there are later editions, but I'm trying to understand which one I'm using by comparing them. In 3rd ed you get annual experience, just like in 2nd ed. But, in 3rd you get 1, 2 or 3 points depending on how intently you study.

Why on earth would anyone say they just goof around, or study lightly? Why not always choose study intently and get 3 pts? Sure, roleplaying reasons, but even the text in the rulebook suggest most would choose it.

Any input on that from experienced Story Guides?

I'm currently about to start my saga, and I was definitively planning to use the Infernal realm as a central pillar of the story.

However, I had a few questions, even after reading the infernal book.

• It says that a demon possessing someone can't automatically force them to act against their nature. However, say a demon possessed someone from birth, before even baptism... would that rule still apply? After all, the demon would have been the one making decisions all the person's life, so there isn't any value to fight against.
• Could multiple demons possess a single person? (definitively looking for ways to go around the way a demon has less power while possessing someone).
• It says that demons take damage from holy relic, and are weak against divine. What if the demon possessed a lord, or a monarch. Would it be able to survive to, say, a pilgrimage to Rome to keep appearance? Or a religious ceremony? I'm a bit confused to which extent a demon can pass for a human in the middle age, especially close to religious affairs.

I dislike how you're meant to achieve a breakthrough in base Ars. It is too predictable and arbitrary: the storyguide just chooses a number of Breakthorugh points and that's it. It lacks the true unpredictability of real-life research. Thus, I have tried my hand at developing something new for it, described below.

Each stabilized discovery grants Breakthrough points as normal. These Breakthrough points count towards your Breakthrough score for this breakthrough, which increases as an Ability. Each time a player stabilizes a discovery, they can also make a Breakthrough roll, which generates a Breakthrough Total.

Breakthrough Total: Breakthrough Score + Stress Die

There are two Ease Factors to Breakthrough rolls. If the Breakthrough Total equals or exceeds the Achievement Ease Factor, you achieve the breakthrough. If it equals or exceeds the Progress Ease Factor, the character doesn't achieve the breakthrough but is still making good progress. If the Discovery Total is less than the Progress Ease Factor, the breakthrough isn’t achieved and the character hits a wall, gaining a -1 penalty to future rolls. These penalties are cumulative until the breakthrough is achieved.

Getting a Botch on a Breakthrough roll results in the breakthrough level increasing. If this increases the Breakthrough level to Hermetic, the Storyguide might decide to write a new Lesser Limit of Magic. The number of Botch dice rolled is equal to the number of stabilized discoveries that contributed to the Breakthrough score. Number of

Botch Dice: Number of Stabilized Discoveries that Contributed to the Breakthrough Score

It makes the process of achieving a breakthrough much more uncertain. Though achieving a minor breakthrough is slightly easier with this method, it is much harder to achieve major and especially Hermetic breakthroughs.

I'd like to hear your opinions on this revised mechanic and it's balance, especially in regards to the ease factors for the breakthrough levels.

A player of mine has decided to play a character who is very good with perdo magic (fresh from apprentice ship). Narratively the idea is that the character is convinced that they are only good at physical destruction. Something something backstory.

The player has a major magical focus in physical destruction.

However the idea is that during play the character learns to trust themselves and use more creative no just outright destructive spells that relly on perdo.

I was hoping to find some good ideas for creative uses of perdo magic ^^ (besides invisibility) since the player is new I wanted to gather some ideas to help them come up with stuff later :)

Here is a preview of a sample for my new ars magica book : guide to Luxovia is an open license supplement (in french) about a small historical town in Burgundy. Let me know if this pleases you !

I can't find an answer to that, but maybe I just missed something or I misunderstood something. So here is what I know.

In case of a Hermetic spell, when words and gestures are recognizable it is automatic, but if they are subtle a Perception + Awareness roll is needed against an Ease Factor of 15 - magnitude.
(Definitive Edition page 217)

In case of Performance Magic when both words and gestures are mundane the Ease Factor will be 18 - magnitude. (so I guess no words/gestures should be higher)
(Definitive Edition page 102)

In case of Obfuscated Casting the Ease Factor will be 15 + Mastery score - magnitude.
(Definitive Edition page 226)

In case of the spell was cast in a foreign language but with hermetic gestures the magus suffer a -10 to the attempt, so it effectively put the Ease Factor to 25 - magnitude wich is way higher than the mundane words/gestures. (so no words/gestures should be even higher than this one)
(The Sundered Eagle page 29)

So my gut says it isn't even possible to determine the form when a spell was cast silently without any gestures, but I can't find any rules about it. But as I said in the beginning, it is very possible I missed something. 🤷‍♂️
So any help is welcomed.

Edit: My question is about determine the form of a spell for fast cast a counter spell, not for later investigation.

I received my the ars magica definite edition in its physical form.

The book is rather beautiful and as heavy as I'd hoped.

My bookcase was slightly bashed at the edges but the book remained unharmed.

I love the gold on the edges of the paper and the storyteller screen is beautiful.

I made an unboxing video (my first and only video so far so manage your expectations) if you're curious https://youtu.be/QWL92_XvCS0?is=87_9hAkvqmBG38ET

Lmk if you have questions about the book or if yours has arrived and you have thoughts to share!

I think it could be easily a faerie, but I also think there's a possibility it could be some kind of humanoid magical creature because of this more druidic association that they have, what do you think?

I was looking for some interesting spells using Creo Corpus

The title is for humor's sake, obviously. But John Nephew added a comment to my Ars Magica novel's Kickstarter on behalf of Atlas Games!

"We at Atlas Games are thrilled to see this project in the works! :) - John Nephew"

(screenshot attached for proof)

That made my day, absolutely. Thanks to John and Atlas for all their work on Ars, because if it wasn't so awesome, I wouldn't want to write books in it!

Hello since I got alot of help on my other post I thought I just ask again for some clarification/help from more experienced ars magica players.

One of my players wants to play a herbam focused mage. And I had some clarifications on spell design.

A level 10 herbam Rego spell exists named: repell the wooden Shaft.

Which deflects the attack of a wooden weapon and makes it miss. For you or an ally.

It has range voice, duration momentary and target individual.

If I now want to create a version of this spell that the Magus can speak in the morning and knows that no wooden weapon will touch them directly as long as the spell lasts how would I go about that ?

My first thought was okay so we need to change the duration for example up to sun.

Then the spell should kinda say attacks with wooden weapons miss you until the next sunrise/set

But is it that simple ? And is magic "smart" enough to identify wooden weapons ? (I guess if yes a chair thrown at you should hit xD)

Also the target. How is it ruled if a spell is castable on another character. When we change the spell to work for a full day could we also cast it on a companion ? And does the target then refer to the person we cast the spell upon who will be protected or the individual weapon which tries to strike us ?

Also would you rule then that two attacks that happen simultaneously the spell can only deflect one (given both are made of wood) ?

Sorry if this is a bit rambly but I am trying to wrap my head around the spell creation and to me those questions are very unclear :D

I'm not a fan of the permanent characteristic increase spells, but I do like the idea of temporary ones, your classic belt of giants strength or a potion of eloquence. So if you had a guideline at your table for a +1 characteristic effect for example, what level would you make it. Also creo or muto? One of the concerns is I wouldn't want it to overshadow guidelines for increasing part of what a characteristic does so for example +1 stamina has to be harder to cast than +1 soak. I was thinking maybe muto level 15 for +1 to a characteristic and +5 levels per extra point, too easy perhaps?

Hello everyone I will be running my first ars magica campaign in a few weeks and I was reading up on combat etc. there is the option to fast cast a spontaneous spell as a last ditch effort defense as a mage. Let it be against another magus or mundane targets.

With the not very helpful note that:

Fast cast defenses against mundane threats work if the level of the spell is high enough to neutralise the threat. Which in my mind highly depends on the spell and what the player attempts to achieve, turning a spear in to an angry snake with something Muto herbam/animal has a different level from obliterating someone's arm.

And for mastered spells you can take the fast cast improvement.

I have 2 questions here:

Can you use a mastered spell with the fast cast improvement as a defensive cast ?

And I didn't quite understand how it works for countering magic after succeeding the identification role.

I would love to get some input on this :)

While I assume having a virtue with a selection as part of the name such as Affinity Creo wouldn't let you teach another version such as Affinity Perdo, but I'm wondering how it works for Magical Focus and Potent Magic which don't have the focus as part of the name. Do you teach the virtues but then they manifest their own version of it, essentially helping them find thier focus? Or do you teach them your specific version of it?

I feel like I'd probably run it the second way either way, I'm just curious if anyone knows how it works raw.

edit: After reviewing what people have said, it seems the interpretation that is most like intended is that you teach the focus you have. The supporting text for this interpretation is very ambiguous and indirect, but there is even less to support another interpretation so that one seems the most probable. Of course given the lack of clarity deciding a different interpretation isn't really going against the rules either, as unless there is something I and all the comments missed, there is no passage which provides conclusive evidence.

Hi

I've been thinking I'd like to have a game where time passes. My first idea was to just have one "adventure" a year, and not have every season be something new happening.

Are there any gotchas with XP or other things experienced Story Guides can advice on regards to that?

Hello everyone, I've started to see this subreddit appear more frequently in my feed recently and have been reading some posts here and there. I was wondering if anyone had any advice about learning about the setting, game itself, and how it plays/magic. Im sure you all have been asked this a lot so sorry again if I'm repeating something commonly stated. The only things I know about this is that it used to be attached to world of darkness decades ago and I played a lot of the thaumcraft mod for minecraft.

Hello new to DMing Ars Magica,

Finally convinced my playgroup to try this detailed system. A player asked, "If we don't have mana or spell slots, why enchant things? Why not just cast spells?" I was not confident in my answer, but I said essentially: for convience, enchantments can have "when" triggers for their effects. As in "when something you hit you, you momentarily turn into an iron statue."

Why and when would a magi decide to enchant an effect rather make a spell?

Thanks for the help

I know, another fan working on an Ars Magica game. I do have the core aspects of the game and gameplay loops up and running. I want to make sure the game has the features and content you'd want and expect, so leave a comment and share your opinions. Thank you 🙏

You know, generally it's used twice a day, concentration or sun duration and activating it with each sunrise and sunset, but wouldn't it just be easier to have a continuous enchantment parameter?