The ars-magica-5 tag has no wiki summary.
5
votes
1answer
66 views
How can I adapt elements of the Gumshoe investigation system to Ars Magica?
Many of my games feature a heavy investigation influence.
Gumshoe, being designed for investigation, provides a way of finding clues and manipulating clues that provides for a far more enjoyable ...
9
votes
2answers
84 views
What are the “roots” of the Arts that a standard covenant library would have?
Covenants states:
For nine of the Arts, there is a basic
text that, over time, has come to be
accepted as the preferred primer for a
magus seeking the competence necessary
to train an ...
4
votes
0answers
94 views
How can I arrange for the long-term containment of magical animals?
One of my players is building a Hermetic Menagerie.
There was some discussion during the game about how to enchant the Menagerie to securely contain the animals stored inside.
The requirements are ...
5
votes
4answers
181 views
How do summa of sound quality achieve a quality of 28-level?
In Ars Magica, Covenants, they claim that most "standard" summa as distributed through the Order of Hermes have a quality of 28-level.
Despite spending 6 hours trying to understand the math (with ...
1
vote
1answer
74 views
How much damage should a lab explosion do?
The rules indicate that on a middling bad experimental botch, that the people in the lab take +level of the item being worked on damage. Not +mag, but +level. In almost all cases, that's fatal.
Is ...
6
votes
1answer
137 views
How can I make a magic, subtle, universal translator?
My players are journeying to many different lands in mythic europe. Their magi, and covenant, speaks Latin and various dialects of Italian. However, the middle of eastern europe has many more ...
9
votes
1answer
229 views
How do I teach my players to (covertly) gather intelligence?
In my Ars Magica game, the focus is on the "problem of the week." Given the capabilities of magi, once the problem is identified, it's generally solved with a spell or two. (Or the magi flat-out run ...
16
votes
3answers
290 views
How can I turn a B*-tree into a puzzle?
My players, being quite terrified of the consequences of injury (less research time), have asked me for a series of magical puzzles for their next adventure. I have decided that, roughly, it will ...
5
votes
1answer
161 views
Is this Candle Magical? (How can I find out without burning a season investigating it?)
Recently, my players traded for a batch of putatively magical items. They were given physical descriptions of the items and were left wondering what they did. While it is certainly possible to ...
2
votes
1answer
111 views
How does suffocation work with enchanted air and a magi's parma magica?
My players are, through inventive hypothetical spells, trying to understand the limits and nature of magic resistance.
Given ArM5's version of parma magica and an awareness of the pink dot loophole, ...
2
votes
2answers
56 views
What is the maximum quality for a summa when designing the covenant?
The Covenants book has an extremely confusing line, filled with parentheses and commas describing the maximum level for a purchased summa.
3 x Level + Quality
(Level limit: 8; Quality limit: 11 +
3 x ...
7
votes
4answers
228 views
Is there a way to quickly generate a library for Ars Magica covenants?
Do there exist any tools or techniques that can quickly populate a library for an Ars Magica covenant? Whenever they visit a covenant, the player seek out the library and I know of no good way to ...
5
votes
1answer
111 views
How experienced is my parens?
I have a number of players using overly-complex character creation. While it is possible to take the 240 xp from detailed and map it to overly-complex during apprenticeship, there are a number of ...
9
votes
1answer
175 views
What major non-hermetic virtue would be appropriate for an ex-Ex Misc who wants to be Flambeau?
One of my PCs is creating a character that has left her (probably mystery cult) in Ex Misc, and tried (and failed) to join House Flambeau as part of her backstory.
I cannot find a major non-hermetic ...
6
votes
2answers
309 views
How can I make my broomstick fly?
One of my players is generating a Herbam-focused Verditus magus.
One of the lab texts that he has is "The winged broomstick." This broomstick, obviously, should be able to fly at some sort of ...
5
votes
1answer
88 views
Are there any rapid-transit spells that can be achieved without rego?
My players have collectively decided to shy away from Rego as a technique this campaign as a stylistic choice*. However, this does inhibit their rapid-transit capabilities quite significantly as ...
8
votes
0answers
137 views
Can a maga instruct a spirit to go cast a spell for her over “there”?
Given the Names of Power Invocation magic from The Mysteries, revised edition (Note well that this in not v4's The Mysteries) can a maga instruct a spirit of one of her spells to, besides altering the ...
12
votes
2answers
156 views
Using MuCo to add two extra arms
I'm playing a wizard in an ArM5 campaign who focuses on Muto Corpus; his magic mostly involves changing bits of his body - changing arms into bear arms for fighting, legs into gazelle-legs for ...
11
votes
4answers
193 views
How much can a purchased teacher teach? (Including teaching?)
ArM 5 core book indicates that a teacher may be purchased by paying points according to her com + teaching + highest ability taught. It explicitly notes that multiple abilities can be taught by a ...
6
votes
1answer
214 views
How can I make a magical photocopier?
One of my players wants a way to reproduce books quickly in an Ars Magica (5th edition) setting.
What spells exist (preferably without using vis) to accomplish this goal?
10
votes
3answers
413 views
I want to build a castle, with magic!
Rather, one of my players, a Terram Magus, wants to be able to construct a castle or equivalent fortification without using creo magic in an Ars Magica 5th edition game.
The rules for crafting with ...
10
votes
3answers
447 views
What theoretical breakthroughs are possible for necromancers?
Ars Magica 5th edition has many possible routes for necromancers and original necromantic research. Beyond the research found in Ancient Magic, are there any mystery cults or theoretical breakthroughs ...
