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It has taken me some time to get my hands on this book, largely because of my residence in the antipodes, Melbourne Australia, which has seen a delay of some three months since the release of Ars Magica Fifth Edition (ArM5) in November.
I finally got a complementary copy in the post from Atlas Games (the publisher) because of my participation in the second of five play-test rounds.
This is a capsule review, since the version of ArM5 that I ran for my group was a much earlier version of the final published text. However, this review is written with both that experience and about four years worth of Ars Magica Fourth Edition (ArM4) under my belt.
The Beef
Ars Magica Fifth Edition is a game set in a fantasy Medieval Europe (called Mythic Europe), a mirror of our own history where all the legends and myths that people in the Middle Ages believed is true. In Ars Magica, demons stalk the streets of London, angels stand guard over shrines in the Byzantine Empire, dragons lair in the Italian Alps, faeries make mischief in villages in the Holy Roman Empire*, and powerful wizards make their homes in fortified towers.
The fantasy is formed in layers over the historical. When playing Ars Magica, you can add as many or as few layers of fantasy as you want.
When playing Ars Magica, your chief characters will be mages, who in turn are members of a fantasy organisation called the Order of Hermes. The Order of Hermes is a magical society of wizards, formed in the Dark Ages to put an end to internecine magical warfare that had raged since the fall of the Roman Empire. Wizards in the Order of Hermes divide themselves between twelve magical lineages, called Houses. Broadly, the Houses fill archetypal roles, such as warrior, academic, bard, mystic, messenger, shape-shifter, and noble, amongst others. However, while membership of a House accords a system benefit (called a House Virtue), there is little restriction on the kinds of character you can play from a particular House.
The key of Ars Magica’s cult-status is its magic system (described in more detail below) which allows for both off-the-cuff magic and ritualised spells. Ars Magica’s magic is based off a verb and noun combination, such as Create, Destroy or Control, and Fire, Water, Mind, or Animals. To give it a medieval feel, the verbs and nouns are in Latin, so Create becomes Creo, Destroy becomes Perdo, Fire becomes Ignem and Mind becomes Mentem. There are five verbs (called Techniques) and ten nouns (called Forms). If you want to cast a fireball, then you use your Create (Creo) and Fire (Ignem) abilities. If you want to control someone’s body, then you add your Control (Rego) and Body (Corpus) abilities. Each combination has a set of guidelines to allow for spontaneous (free-form) magic, and a pre-made spell list.
Ars Magica’s innovation in the late 80s was the idea of each player having multiple characters, which they would be able to play at different times during a campaign (called a Saga in ArM). There are two other kinds of characters you can play, in addition to a mage: Companions and Grogs.
Companions are less powerful than mages, since they have no real magic (although they have access to supernatural powers) but are the equal of mages in terms of story importance. They are the friends and allies of the mages.
Grogs are minor characters, servants, guards and peasants: the redshirts of Ars Magica. They aren’t very powerful at all, but can be fun to play, since they can be a bit less serious than mage or companion characters.
Note that Houses are not classes, and neither are the three different types of character. ArM5 is a class-less game, where characters are defined by their abilities and traits, rather than a set Class. Houses are in-character groupings, and magi, grogs and companions are categorisations of how important or central characters are to the Saga.
Biases
I have played Ars Magica since 2000, starting with the Fourth Edition (ArM4). I consider Ars Magica to be one of the pre-eminent role-playing games, largely due to a number of innovative systems and gaming styles when it first came out in the late 80s. Now, many other games have flexible magic systems, troupe-style gaming, and story(narrative)-emphasis, but despite little change over a decade or more, Ars Magica still stands the text of time.
Physical Appearance and Art
The book is a hard bound, 235 page book. The binding looks good. Interior pages are two colour: black and a rusty-red. This combines at various stages to give a sepia or crimson hue to many of the images, while insets and text-boxes are a light pink; chapter headings and text-titles are a kind of brownish red. The overall aesthetic is a book that manages to look like it has more colours than it actually does, giving it an antique tone and feel.
The text is divided into three columns and is frequently interspersed with text-boxes and artwork, although there is less art in ArM5 than in earlier editions such as Ars Magica Third Edition, but only slightly less art than in ArM4 in my opinion.
There was a lot of discussion on the BerkList (the ultimate Ars Magica email list) and RPG.net Open regarding the artwork. It is a mixture of new art by former Atlas Games artistic director Scott Reeves, and old, recycled artwork from previous editions.
There is not much to say about the art. The Scott Reeves art varies between commendable to down-right awful. The pic on p.5 is not very good, while the pic on p.85 is very good. I can see that Reeves was going for a medieval style, but instead of the Eric Hotz-esque wood cuts, it ends up appearing cartoonish and a bit ridiculous in places.
Most of the recycled art is the best of the Fourth Edition. I have two thoughts on this. Firstly, I’m glad they only chose the best art from ArM4. Secondly, I regret that they didn’t re-use some of the really good art from some of the source books, such as the Wizard’s Grimoire Revised, Kabbalah or Land of Fire and Ice. Also, some of the art is now about five years old, and you can tell. It is unfortunate. There are also a few shitty pieces of art which have crept in, such as the one on p.175, p.219 and p.211.
A nice feature however is the medieval-style portraits of the Hermetic Founders (the mages which founded the Order of Hermes) on the bottom of each page. These are a neat addition and really add to the feel of the book as something medieval or ancient.
Chapter Breakdown
There are sixteen chapters and five appendixes. They are:
Chapter 1: Intro Chapter 2: The Order of Hermes Chapter 3: Characters Chapter 4: Virtues and Flaws Chapter 5: Abilities Chapter 6: Covenants Chapter 7: Hermetic Magic Chapter 8: Laboratory Chapter 9: Spells Chapter 10: Long-term Events Chapter 11: Obstacles Chapter 12: Realms Chapter 13: Bestiary Chapter 14: Mythic Europe Chapter 15: Stories Chapter 16: Sagas Appendix 1: Fourth Edition Conversion Appendix 2: Formulae Review Appendix 3: Spells Index Appendix 4: Index Appendix 5: Character Sheets
Chapter 1: Intro
Starting with a very short piece of fiction (well written and thankfully concise), the Intro gives the basic premises and themes of Ars Magica. The system is quickly explained, being of the Stat + Skill + Mod + 1D10 variety, where you aim to get over a set difficulty. A short glossary concludes the 4 pages of introduction.
Chapter 2: The Order of Hermes
Describing the history of the Order of Hermes, it goes into the various crises of the Order, a brief description of each House, the role of Covenants (the quintessential wizard’s towers) and how the Order of Hermes organises and governs itself (the Code and Tribunals). It then deals with how an Order of wizards interacts with Medieval European society, how magic items affect this relationship and the existence of other wizards who are not members of the Order of Hermes.
Briefly, the Order of Hermes is the largest and most powerful order of wizards in the Middle Ages, due to its invention of a powerful magical shield called Parma Magica, and a flexible and powerful tradition of magic, called Hermetic Magic. After it was founded in 767, the Order grew by forcing other mages to join, or killing those that didn’t. In 1220 (the standard start date in ArM5), only a small handful of non-Hermetic mages exist in Europe, although there are Islamic mages in the Middle East and pagan mages in Eastern and Northern Europe.
This chapter is comprehensive and much better than the almost non-existent information in Ars Magica Fourth Edition (ArM4). It gives the game master (called a story-guide in ArM) enough information to imagine life and society within the Order of Hermes, and enough information for players to use to make up their own characters.
Chapter 3: Characters
An explanation of the three character types starts the Character chapter. Basically, magi and companions are the two kinds of characters that players will play most. Companions are important characters that are not magi, and who are controlled (like mages) by a single player. Grogs are characters than any player may play, and are communally created and owned; they are minor or support characters.
Characters in ArM5 are made by selecting Virtues and Flaws (mages and companions may choose up to ten points of Flaws, which then allows them to purchase an equal number of Virtues), allocation of Characteristics (each character has seven points to spend on Characteristics, such as Strength, Intelligence, Quickness or Presence), determining of Abilities (characters receive a number of experience points determined by their age, so older starting characters are more experienced) and the deciding of Personality Traits (descriptions of you character’s nature and personality). Additional traits are the character’s Size, any Reputations they may have (through Virtues or Flaws) and their Confidence Score (like Willpower). Mages also choose spells.
Characteristics are rated from -3 to +3, with zero being the human average. Gone are the specialisations, which my troupe liked (but which never had a system effect), and gone is the random option for determining Characteristics. Now, you may only spend seven points between the eight Characteristics, on a pyramid scale, so to buy an Intelligence of +2, you would need to spend three of your seven points. By lowering your Characteristics, you gain as many points as you would have had to spend if it were positive (if your Intelligence were -2, then you would gain three points to spend elsewhere). You can only increase your Characteristics above +3 or decrease them below -3 through taking a specific Virtue or Flaw.
A number of character templates are included, and it is advised that new players use and modify these templates. Templates are for grogs, companions and one template for each Hermetic House.
After the templates, there is a more details character creation option, with an example. The sample character (Darius) is not a very imaginative or intriguing character, and I feel that a better attempt could have been made.
Chapter 4: Virtues and Flaws
Virtues and Flaws are the core of a character in Ars Magica, and they have been substantially re-worked in Fifth Edition.
Older editions had Virtues and Flaws (VFs) rated from +1 to +5 or more. Each character was allowed up to a total of ten points of Flaws and an equal number of Virtues. VFs were divided into different categories, such as Hermetic, Supernatural, General, Status and so on. One of the common problems with this system was costing the Virtues and Flaws. There were a lot of errors and questionable decisions in the past as to whether something should be a +1, +2 or +3 Virtue (or a -1, -2 or -3 Flaw).
In ArM5, VFs are now divided into Minor and Major. Minor VFs are rated 1 and Major VFs are rated 3 (either positive for Virtues or negative for Flaws). This solves the costing problem, since now all VFs are either Minor or Major. (The issue that will complicate this in the future is whether certain VFs should be Minor or Major).
There is also the inclusion of a new category of VFs, the Story Flaw, which is Flaw often only in so far as it gives the story guide (gamemaster) a way to force your character to become involved in a story. For example, the Mentor Story Flaw gives your character a mentor who will help the character, but will also require the character to perform tasks or go on quests, etc. Players only take the Story Flaws they are interested in, so stories for your character will tend to be tailored for your character. If you take Enemies, it’s because you want your enemies to be an element in the Ars Magica Saga, not just to score some cheap points. For old players of Ars Magica, this will cause some confusion, since many of the old Virtues have been changed into Flaws, such as Mentor and Visions (a Flaw which gives your character the ability to see glimpses of the future, or important plot clues, etc).
All of the VFs are listed in alphabetical order, rather than in their own sections as in previous editions. This caused me some troubles, but I’ve quickly gotten used to it.
A number of Virtues and Flaws have been excluded from ArM5, while a number from old Fourth Edition supplements and even one from ArM3 have made it in. Excluded Virtues include Alchemy and Herbalism. Upon investigation, it appears that most Flaws have made it into ArM5.
The new edition has also changed how many Virtues and Flaws work. Knacks have been replaced with a Puissant (Ability/Art) and Affinities have been reworked. Most Flaws have also been altered to work differently. There are no longer any variable VFs. Resurrected VFs include Unaging, Diedne Magic, Magical Memory and Mercurian Magic. Missing is Magical Device, which used to allow characters to begin the game with a magic item; the closest replacement is Relic, which doesn’t allow you to have magical powers. Another noticeable Virtue that is MIA is Mythic Characteristic, which was greatly appreciated by my troupe back in the day.
Troupes which are converting their characters should carefully read how their VFs work now. A major change which has caused controversy is that Gentle Gift (Virtue) and Blatant Gift (Flaw) are now Major VFs. In earlier editions, they were +1 and -1 VFs; they are now the equivalent of +/-3 or greater VFs. An easy houserule would be to simply make Gentle and Blatant Gift Minor VFs.
On the whole however, I feel that most of the changes were warranted, and the new VFs are sensible additions.
One of the problems that ArM5 has (and earlier editions have it as well) is not explaining adequately the idea of resources and how they compare between classes. Just how rich is a noble? How rich is a priest? What does a merchant have access to? How much money could a peasant muster if he or she needed to? This is something I feel that White Wolf’s Backgrounds deals with quite well, as well as GURPS.
There is also the issue of only ten Major Hermetic Virtues (nine if you discount Gentle Gift), which will limit the number of combinations available. As new books come out for ArM5 however, this will be solved.
Most of the missing Virtues and Flaws from ArM4 can easily be added into ArM5 with some adaptation.
Chapter 5: Abilities
Abilities, or skills, have also changed slightly in ArM5. Basically skills are rated from 1 to 10, with three or four being average, six being highly skilled and 9 or 10 being near-perfect.
In earlier editions, Abilities were divided between Talents (innate capabilities), Skills (learned and trained capabilities) and Knowledges (studied education and learning). That division is gone, with all Abilities learned the same. The further division (from earlier editions) divided Abilities between a number of categories, such as Academic, Hermetic, Arcane, General, Performance, etc). These divisions have been simplified to General, Academic, Arcane, Martial and Supernatural. All characters have access to General Abilities during character creation, but must take a specific Virtue to learn other Abilities during character creation. Any character may learn any Ability (unless otherwise stated) during play.
A no-brainer which was not corrected or changed from ArM4 to ArM5 was the idea of Specialisation. Each Ability may have a specialisation, which is like an ability focus, an area that you are particularly good at. If you took the Single Weapon Ability, you could specialise in Axes or Longswords. This gives you a +1 to your Ability when used in that area of specialisation. However, there is no system to ever change or gain new specialisations, or even gaining them in play.
A number of Abilities have changed or gone missing in ArM5, such as the Certamen skill (magical dueling) and Legend Lore. Certamen has gone because the way certamen is resolved has changed. Legend Lore and similar Abilities have been bundled into other Abilities (in this case, Magic Lore). A lot of Abilities, such as Story Telling, Jongleur, Siege Weapons and Wagoneering have been rolled into the Profession Ability or just removed altogether. If you are converting from ArM5, then this may cause a few problems, but it really just needs common sense.
Chapter 6: Covenants
As is traditional, this new edition of Ars Magica completely revises how Covenants are made.
This chapter goes into the four different types of Covenants, the home of the Order’s wizards and their followers. Covenants are supposed to be places of mystery and magic, housed in strange locations, or hidden amongst the mundane inhabitants of Europe through powerful magic. While other characters may change or die over the course of a Saga, the covenant will remain the same, and for this reason is considered to be like a character that is made by all of the players.
The four kinds of covenants are based on the four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall for you Yanks) and Winter. Spring covenants are the weakest covenants, inhabited by young mages. Summer and Autumn covenants are powerful covenants, hundreds of years old with powerful wizards and lots of magical resources. Winter covenants are very old covenants which are now declining in power and prestige.
Like with characters, there are template covenants to use, which are easily customisable. A more detailed Covenant creation system is included, which uses a Virtue and Flaw system called Boons and Hooks. This system is a lot less complicated than the ArM4 edition.
There is no system provided for changing your covenant during play, other than the events that occur during your saga. If you want to increase the number of magical grimoires or its population of skilled professionals, then you need to do so as part of the game, rather than just spending “covenant xp” or whatever.
Chapter 7: Hermetic Magic
This chapter, along with the Spells chapter, is the meat of Ars Magica.
Beginning with an explanation of Hermetic magic’s history, it gives a run down of the Gift, the spark of magic which allows wizards to cast spells.
The Gift has been slightly altered from earlier editions. All Gifted people create unease and nervousness in normal, non-magical people. This manifests as a -3 penalty to all social interaction rolls that the wizard may make with a normal person. For this reason, most wizards have servants (the Companions), who are used to the effects of the Gift, to interact with non-magical people, such as nobles, clergy and merchants.
In ArM5, the social effect of the Gift is explained in detail, whereas in earlier editions, it was left quite vague. The effect of the Gift has always supposed be have been considerable: the Gift is the reason that mages have Companions to assist them. In any case, the effect of the Gift is explained with a list of examples of how certain types of people in Mythic Europe would react to a person with the Gift. Furthermore, the language used is more explicit. For this reason, this section has been subject to a series of criticisms on the BerkList. For new players, this will not be a problem, and the criticisms in my view are not serious enough to warrant any change. Basically, things are a bit more defined now in ArM5 when compared to previous editions.
Each of the fifteen Hermetic magical abilities (called Hermetic Arts) are detailed. There are some changes and clarifications here, in particular between Rego (Control) and Muto (Transform). Old players should re-read this section, since some of the changes can be significant (although they are mainly in areas that were confused or unclear in ArM4).
Hermetic magic theory and its limits are also explained, which again, clarifies what magic can and cannot do (it cannot travel to the moon, for example, or make people younger, or determine whether a demon is lying). This section, like the Arts section, is clear and concise.
The spell system fills out most of the rest of this chapter. There are three different styles of magic: spontaneous, formulaic and rituals; all Hermetic wizards (unless they have a Flaw) can use all three types of magic. Spontaneous magic is free-form magic, and is the weakest but most adaptable form of magic. Formulaic magic is the classic spells, where the mage has memorised the words and gestures necessary to cast powerful magic (unlike in DnD, formulaic spells are not forgotten when cast; once you memorise the spell, you know it forever). Ritualistic magic is the most powerful kind of magic, and the most costly, in time and resources. It can take hours, but the effects of rituals can be very powerful indeed, certainly more powerful than formulaic or spontaneous magic.
To cast a spell, you generally add your Characteristic (Stamina) to a Technique (such as Creo/Create) and a Form (such as Ignem/Fire) and then roll a D10. You aim to get over the level of the spell, which can be as low as 5 or as high as 70. A weak spell is level 5 or less, an average spell level is about 15, a powerful spell level is 30, and superdooper spells have levels of 40, 50 or more. There is no real upper limit on how powerful spells can be, but there aren’t many spells with a level above 75 or 80.
There are five changes here from ArM4: Penetration, Magic Resistance, Spell Mastery Twilight and Certamen (magical dueling).
Penetration: Penetration is determined by a wizard’s casting total (so their Stamina + Technique + Form + 1d10) plus their Penetration Ability minus the spell’s level. To affect someone with magic, your Penetration total must exceed their magic resistance. This means that Penetration has decreased dramatically from ArM4. The result of this is that powerful spells are unlikely to have high penetration totals, but low level spells will have high penetration totals.
Magic Resistance: Magic resistance is now very powerful, for the reasons above. Even a small magic resistance is now significant. A detailed explanation of how this works in practice, with a long list of examples is included.
The whole magic resistance change is a thorny one, and was the subject of a bitter flame-war in the BerkList. The basic contention is that according to the altered rules, a mage with even a low magic resistance can magically make the sword of an attacker a different colour and be defended entirely from any attack by that sword.
Since the vast majority of people in Ars Magica have no magic resistance, this is not really a problem, but it does mean that magical battles between mages are likely to devolve into physical attacks, since they will be effectively immune to each other’s spells.
Spell Mastery is a complete revision of earlier systems, based in large part off an article from Hermes Portal. Basically, you can customise your knowledge of spells, and become better at resisting similar spells, at penetrating other’s magic resistance or casting it multiple times.
Twilight has been revised so as to be more coherent. Twilight is a specific kind magical affliction for mages who have been exposed to powerful magic for extensive periods of time. Most mages suffer from this magical exposure at some stage, and apart from death through injury, mages are most likely to see their demise through Twilight rather than old age. Gone are Twilight Points: all negative exposure to magic is now called Warping, which has also been standardised for non-wizards (ie, normal people) as well. Warping is measured on the same scale as an Ability, from 1 to 10, with the same scale of warping points needed to raise the Warping Score as XP is needed to raise an Ability.
Certamen is a system of magical duels, created to allow mages to fight without the possibility of accidental death. Certamen is entirely altered, since the certamen ability is removed, and is now similar to combat (except you don’t add a combat Ability). Furthermore, the Certamen section is now more detailed than earlier editions, with clarifications on the in-game role of certamen, and there is an extensive and detailed example.
A new part of ArM5 is the House Mysteries, an integration of The Mysteries into the core of Ars Magica. Basically, four of the twelve Hermetic Houses have special magical secrets known only to their members. The most basic of these magical secrets are included in ArM5, with, no doubt, expansions and more powerful secrets included in the various House supplements to follow.
Of particular interest is the change in the Bjornaer Heartbeast (the Bjornaer are a House of Germanic shapeshifting wizards, and the heartbeast is the kind of animal that they can change into). In ArM4, the Heartbeast was an Ability called Will Over Form, which allowed Bjornaer mages to resist magic that altered their shape. This Ability is now called Heartbeast and is only used when someone tries to stop them from changing form.
Faerie Magic is also significantly different from that in ArM4 and the Fourth Edition Wizards Grimoire. It is, like Spell Mastery, based off an article from Hermes Portal, and basically allows Faerie mages to have access to slightly different types of magic. This is a big departure from the Wizards Grimoire version of Faerie Magic, which fiddled with your Hermetic Art scores.
Missing is Casting Spells from Texts, where you used to be able to cast a spell from a book, even if you had not memorised it. The Ars Magica Developer has promised that this will be added in a future supplement, and it is not hard to simply add it in if you are converting from ArM4. If this is the first edition of Ars Magica you are playing, then the absence of Casting from Texts won’t be missed.
Chapter 8: Laboratory
I’ll be brief here, since in my many years of Ars Magica, the lab chapter was the one I used the least. Basically, things have been streamlined, so that creating a new spell, crafting a magical amulet, brewing a longevity potion and binding a familiar uses the same basic system. From the BerkList, it appears as if a there have been a number of unwelcome revisions. Rituals cannot be enchanted into a magical item, so most healing spells (which are now mostly all rituals) cannot be made into magical items. This means that healing potions are, strictly speaking, no longer possible (although fast-healing potions are possible).
Annoyingly, there isn’t anything on Hermetic Breakthroughs or Spell Optimisation, which were in the Fourth Edition Wizards Grimoire; I assume they will be in a supplement, but I’d have liked to have seen them as part of the core rules.
There are rules for learning and creating new spells, training apprentices, and for conducting arcane experiments. The rules for interrupting laboratory experiments have been altered, so you can now go on an adventure in the middle of brewing a potion or learning a spell.
Chapter 9: Spells
This is by far the longest chapter, as it is the rules for making and casting magical spells.
Because of the flexibility of the magic system in ArM, there are almost unlimited numbers of spells possible.
The rules for the basic guidelines of spells, their Range (how far away the mage is from his target, Duration (how long the spell lasts) and Target (who or how big an area the spell can affect) are clarified, with some minor alterations. The Permanent Duration is gone, replaced by the Momentary Duration. There is a new Range (Voice), and a new Target (Part). Targeting a very large thing can also make a spell harder, and there are now rules on the Intellego (Perception) Technique granting magical senses to people.
The new spell guidelines are made easier to read, as the base guidelines are put into text-boxes. All of the spells now also include level explanations, to show players how their level was determined. There are some new spells and some spells have been dropped, and many spells have had their level changed and their description altered. Troupes who are converting will need to double check all their character’s spells
Chapter 10: Long-term Events
This chapter deals with Experience and character advancement. There are a number of ways to increase your Abilities or magical Arts: Exposure (the least efficient way, where you learn just by being around the area of the Ability), Adventuring (this is to allow for roleplaying XP and encourage characters to go out and have stories), Practice (the character studies and practices the ability), Training (on the job training like an apprenticeship), Teaching (a professional teacher instructs you on the Ability), Books (you study magical or academic lore from books) and Vis (vis is magical energy which wizards can study to learn arcane insights).
Advancement occurs in seasons (that is, three month blocs), so to gain the benefit of advancement, you must spend an entire season undertaking that kind of advancement. However, most people cannot afford to spend the entire year training, so generally, only two seasons out of any year can be used for advancement (the other two seasons are considered to be Exposure Seasons).
In any case, there are also rules for interrupting your advancement, so you can go on adventures or deal with distractions (like a war or an attacking dragon or whatever).
Also included are rules for writing books (which can then be studied), and for learning supernatural abilities.
The book rules are extremely simple compared with those from ArM4, which were needlessly but thematically complicated. There are now only two kinds of books to learn from, Summae (general topic summaries) and Tractatus (specialised treatment of a subject).
Mages or characters with The Gift can now learn magical abilities, such as Enchanting Music or Animal Ken (speaking to animals), but to do so can damage your Hermetic power.
There are also expanded rules for Reputations, detailed rules for generic Warping and completely revised rules for Aging.
The Aging rules are included because most Sagas are supposed to take place over decades, so as to allow the mage characters to grow old and powerful. This is significantly different from ArM4, so troupes converting should take note. However, the new rules are, in my view, better than other editions.
Chapter 11: Obstacles
This chapter deals with Combat, Wounds, Fatigue, other forms of damage, and travel.
Combat, in great Ars Magica tradition, has been completely revised from earlier editions, the result being a much, much better system than the one in ArM4. It is simple with a number of combat options to make things a bit spicier.
A new innovation is rules for Group combat, where you have small squads of combatants facing off against each other. I haven’t played it, but it reads well; from conversation on the BerkList, the results of Group Combat will differ greatly from individual combat. However, it allows for warriors to be trained to fight in units, and finally allows for the Shield Grog (a soldier who protects the mage from being attacked while the mage casts spells), long-time part of Ars Magica, to actually work.
Additional rules, which are more explicit than those in ArM4 are included for falling damage and for heat, deprivation, starvation, suffocation, poison and disease.
Chapter 12: Realms
This chapter deals with the three other types of supernatural power in Mythic Europe in addition to magic. The Four Realms are: Magic, Faerie, Divine and Infernal. Each is detailed. There are no great surprises here, but it more concise and coherent than other editions.
True Faith, a Virtue which grants the character a personal connection to the Divine, has been changed, now granting magic resistance rather than the possibility of complete immunity.
Regiones, pocket domains are re-explained to make more sense, however, Atlas Games has reused old artwork from ArM3 and ArM4, which, with the new description, now makes no sense.
There is a helpful section on Vis (magical energy stored in a physical object), with some samples. Very good and much welcomed.
Chapter 13: Bestiary
After ArM3 and ArM4 recycling the same old sample monsters, ArM5 has finally come up with some new supernatural critters. In doing so however, ArM5 neglects to include a mundane bestiary. For a game with wizards who can shapeshift into wolves and deer, it is rather remiss not to include stats for wolves or deer (etc). There are also fewer critters in this Bestiary than in other editions.
The new creatures are, however, quite interesting, and there is a helpful Size table, something which has been missing in ArM5.
Conversion of old ArM4 monsters will be made difficult because of the change of the combat system. Soak and Powers in particular will need to be checked. The Ars Magica Developer announced very recently that a free web-supplement bestiary would be released in a week or two (so it may be out by the time this review makes it to the front page of RPG.net) that would include mundane creatures.
Chapter 14: Mythic Europe
One of the main hindrances to new players coming into Ars Magica is the fear of the historical. Ars Magica has a (perhaps deserved) reputation for requiring a degree in Medieval History to play.
Well, the truth is, it doesn’t. It is a game set in a magical version of Medieval Europe. History is optional, and only required if you want it. This chapter deals with how to add history or remove it, from your Saga.
It explains Medieval Europe in simple, plain English and really is akin to the setting chapter of Forgotten Realms, Warhammer or Deadlands. Each piece of historical information has a text-box which states game-uses for the history, such as saints, feudal society, markets or medieval towns.
The Church, the nobility and the peasants are described, and is completely re-written from ArM4 (as far as I can tell). There is also a section on how to use or include anachronisms in the game, so you don’t need to follow history if you don’t want to (and if you do, the information is included for your use).
Chapter 15: Stories
This chapter is a Game Mastering 101, which explains how to run a role playing game that focuses on narrative and stories. It also includes a number of story ideas, which is a Good Thing in my view.
Chapter 16: Sagas
A Saga is what a series of stories becomes. It includes useful advice on how to run the Church interaction with wizards, how organised and authoritarian the Order of Hermes can be, and how fast time should flow in your saga.
There is also a good explanation of Troupe-style play, pooled characters and shared-story guiding. Sample saga styles are included.
Appendix 1: Fourth Edition Conversion
This section summarises many of the changes from ArM4 to ArM5. Unfortunately, its advice for actual conversion is poor indeed. Because characters in ArM5 will tend to be slightly less powerful than characters in ArM4, it basically advises that you fiddle with the character’s age and then convert on an ad-hoc common sense basis.
Because of the many changes, it really requires converters to go through the new rules with their charactersheet in hand to note what’s changed.
I would advise just re-designing your character using ArM5 rules, and making the assumption that this is the way it has always been. As someone who has gone through numerous rules conversions in other systems (and some substantial house rules in my Ars saga), this is the easiest way in my view. This will result in a slightly different character, but will mean that the character is ArM5 compliant. Since in my view, ArM5 is superior to ArM3 and ArM4, it is worth the slight changes in the character for it to be compatible with ArM5.
In the coming months, I’m sure a better conversion guideline will appear on the Internet somewhere.
Appendix 2: Formulae Review
A series of sheets which summarise the main formulas used for magic, labs, spells, combat, aging and warping, and so on. I understand that a few have been corrected, so check the Atlas Games website.
Appendix 3: Spells Index
Two pages of index, presumably including every spell in the Spell chapter. I don’t know how useful it is, since I never used the ArM4 one, but it’s there.
Appendix 4: Index
Again, six pages of index. Not sure how good it is, but I’ll no doubt find out once I start up my Ars Magica saga again.
Appendix 5: Character Sheets
These character sheets are pretty, but include in some areas incorrect formulas and mention of Body Levels. Get better ones here (thanks to Patrick Murphey).
Summary
Ars Magica Fifth Edition is the best edition of Ars Magica I own (I own all but First Edition, my Holy Grail).
It is much more stylish and elegant than ArM4, although the art standard is not quite up to ArM3 (published by White Wolf).
The rule revisions and re-writing of the background and setting are excellent, making things more concise and coherent.
There are a number of niggles, such as missing or altered Virtues and Flaws, missing magic options (casting from texts and healing potions) and controversial rules clarifications (the Parma Magica loophole), but these imperfections, when placed against the goodness that is ArM5, become relatively minor and are easily house-ruleable.
Style: 4 Substance: 5
*Yes, I know that in 1220 CE, there is no Holy Roman Empire, as such. Bah and humbug.
