House Interpretations

Core Rules

1. Here is a quick estimate of base botch dice with examples:
   0 (Simple die): Formulaic spells in a safe location with no distractions. Nearly all perceptive or knowledge rolls. (This, for example, prevents things like near-automatic Twilight for someone with Second Sight entering any city with ghosts or similar. It's explicit with Magic Sensitivity.)
   1: Casting a spontaneous spell in a safe location. Anything else with some risk but in a controlled setting.
   2: Casting a spell in a relatively safe location but not under as much control, such as on a raft on a relatively calm river.
   3: Attacking or casting a spell in combat.
   4: Attacking or casting a spell in combat in poor conditions, such as during a downpour.
   
2. Characters may change their Abilities' specialties any time the level of the Ability changes. The character should have received some of the experience for the new level in a way that is relevant to the new specialty, such as instruction from a teacher with the new specialty or adventure experience having used the Ability in a way that would match the specialty.
   
3. Fractional experience should be rounded normally (0.5 and above rounding up, and lower rounding down), in agreement with what is stated with Affinity with (Art).
   
4. Wound Penalties apply to actions themselves. So they apply to Attack Totals, Defense Totals, and spell casting. But they do not apply directly to either damage nor to Soak. They do not apply to magic resistance nor to aging rolls, either. The rolls or totals statement in ArM5 is so the penalty is not applied to things like Living Language when speaking to change a character's level of understanding.
   
5. Teaching and Training can be split between different Abilities in the same way as Practice can be.
   
6. Books are not written on Parma Magica for fear they may be lost.

Spells and Supernatural Abilities

1. Ceremonial Casting and Rituals assume big gestures and a booming voice. There is no additional bonus for using these, and the methods cannot be used without them. Meanwhile props add to Casting Score.
   
2. As the core book shows, there are more available guidelines than listed. There are also more known Shape and Material bonuses than are listed. If something is new, ask.
   
3. Many Mentem spells are limited by language differences, making mind reading less of a cure all.
   
4. To be consistent with a number of items in various books, a fast-cast spell and a normal spell may both be cast in the same round. However, further fast-cast spells in the same round prevent the use of a normal spell in that round.
   
5. Shadows belong to Ignem as they are darkness, at least a partial lack of light.
   
6. MuVi spells on your own spells are usually cast as a MuVi spell on one round followed by the other spell on the next round, as per David Chart's statement.
   
7. Just knowing Wizards' Communion or Wizard's Vigil is insufficient; the level at which it is cast is what is relevant.
   
8. The ReVi spells to sustain a spell keep it active only so long as its duration still applies. Once its duration expires, the spell ends. If you want to change the Duration of a spell, use MuVi before casting it.
   
9. The ReVi spells to sustain a spell cannot be shut off the way an item maintaining concentration can be. Just as Maintaining the Demanding Spell says, the spell is automatically maintained when concentration is stopped, and stopping concentration is the way Concentration spells are ended.
   
10. If multiple realm modifiers apply or a modifier would somehow be applied multiple times (e.g. you're casting a spell with half your body in a magical aura and half in an infernal aura), only the best modifier for you applies and it only applies once.
    
11. While David Chart did say Attack Advantage is not used with attacks using Finesse, it is not specified in the rules. For consistency with the rest of the rules and to reduce the number of dice being rolled, Attack Advantage is used with attacks using Finesse.
    
12. Hermetic Virtues and Flaws like Cautious Sorcerer, Minor Magical Focus, etc. also apply to hedge traditions for which they are appropriate. So, for example, if you do something like pick up Succuro and Magicam along with Short Ranged Magic, Short Ranged Magic will apply to both your Learned Magic and your Hermetic Magic. But they don't apply to other non-Hermetic things. So, for example, Painful Magic will not apply to (Spirit) Summoning.
    
13. The core book does not spell it out, but it shows up both implicitly and explicitly in a number of books that Supernatural Abilities generate Casting Totals, which are generally equal to Characteristic + Supernatural Ability + realm interaction + die roll. This shows how they are penalized by Aegis of the Hearth, how they are used with Craft Magic and Lesser Craft Magic, how Weak Magic Resistance applies, etc.
    
14. The optional rules to use the caster's Finesse score for animated corpses' and trees' Brawl scores is being used.

Shapechanging and Animals

1. The effects of Size (including Virtues/Flaws such as Large) on Characteristics should be removed prior to calculating Characteristics for shape-shifting (HoH:MC). The effects of the new Size and those Virtues/Flaws are included afterward. This way, for example, just as a weak person would become a weak bear, a weak bear would become a weak person when shape-shifting.
   
2. Characteristic changes, such as from Rituals, should be determined prior to including changes from Size, similar Virtues/Flaws, and Qualities. Also, the difference between the baseline and the value prior to Size, similar Virtues/Flaws, and Qualities determines the magnitude.
   
3. With the Venemous Quality (HoH:MC) is not so clear how the potency is determined; the updated version listed with the Muspelli (RM) will be used because that is much clearer.

Talismans and Other Items

1. Your Talisman may be an Item of Quality even if you are not a Verditius since that is not a magical effect and so does not interfere with your bond the way someone else enchanting it would.
   
2. The Talisman bond itself is not a (constant) magical effect, and thus does not Warp the magus.
   
3. The limit to the bonus for Excellent items in C&G applies to Rego Craft Magic and automatic Verditius crafting as well. Automatic Verditius crafting is being interpreted as being able to reach the craft limit (minimum Superior) regardless of any actual Workshop Total.
   
4. D: Sun 2/day need not be truly Constant (as per the most recent ruling on Constant which essentially removes it from existing), but they may be truly Constant (following the earlier ruling, firing off once and lasting forever) if the creator desires. Truly Constant effects should generally be R: Personal or something similarly suitable, though.

Familiars

1. Familiar learning has been clarified. After a familiar is bound it may advance Abilities as a normal human. Magical familiars are not penalized for Might when advancing Abilities, but they still do when they undergo Transformation. Faerie familiars can learn Abilities as a human, or they may advance their Pretenses or change their glamours via normal means. Non-intelligent animal familiars lose Restricted Learning when they gain Intelligence.
   
2. HoH:MC mentions plant familiars without any mention of a special Virtue, and RoP:M similarly mentions magical Homunculus as familiars without mentioning a Virtue. To be consistent with those, "animal" is being interpreted as animal or other beast with Cunning, so magical plants or elementals or similar Magical beings with Cunning strongly associated with an Art are acceptable as familiars. The Art combinations to bind them will be more tightly controlled than with animals. This should also restore some balance to Minor Magical Foci.
   
3. While the books explain Familiars understand the languages their magi speak, it leaves much out. Familiars get the same "defaults" as their magi. They can also read any languages their magi can read.

Magic Resistance, Aegis, and Wards

1. The "pink dot" is not a valid defense. Magic resistance keeps active magic from reaching the target, which can seem like suppression or repulsion, depending on the circumstances. Examples: A boulder turned into a pebble will bounce off harmlessly because it is entirely active magic. A magically flaming sword can still strike the target, but the flames will not reach the target. A sword Talisman with an effect to read the owner's thoughts strikes the target normally because neither the Talisman bond nor the thought-reading normally reach the target anyway.
   
2. Aegis of the Hearth resists magical items within it by reducing their penetration, just as it does for Powers.
   
3. Aegis of the Hearth still tries to stop effects from crossing its boundary, as in its description. An effect must penetrate the Aegis to cross it's boundary. If the effect cannot do so, it is generally dispelled. Effects that require rituals to dispel them (longevity rituals, familiar bonds, permanent magic items, etc.) are not dispelled, but they will tend to flicker in an inconsequential way as they cross the boundary. For instance, a magus and familiar might feel their bonds stretching for a moment in an uncomfortable way, and then the bond would return to normal a moment later. Note that this does mean Parma Magica is dispelled. It can be raised again with ease since it need not penetrate, but spending the two minutes to repeat the ritual helps keep attacks on foreign covenants to a minimum. A token to an Aegis of the Hearth allows a person to bring effects across it without this dispelling happening.
   
4. Aegis of the Hearth must penetrate to repel beings. (This is now explicit in canon.)
   
5. Inventing a version of Aegis of the Hearth with a change to the size of the Boundary is allowed; this is not a change of "parameters" (still Boundary), just a change of power. (This is now explained in the errata.)
   
6. Aegis of the Hearth is not integrated well enough to use MuVi on it other than Wizard's Vigil.

Beings with Might

1. Immortal magi (TMRE) advance as other beings with Magic Might. The use of their talisman to bypass the problems with Magic Might is also available, but it is a bypass as opposed to the only way to advance.
   
2. Magical spirits are described as effectively having No Fatigue without it being stated explicitly. They have all the benefits and drawbacks of No Fatigue automatically.
   
3. If a being's Might Score is not totally destroyed by PeVi or similar, it will recover over time as per TMRE and A&A. (This recovery does not happen for Might Score given up to ritual effects or lost to Ablating, Acclimation, or Bind Magical Creatures.) If they are destroyed this way, Vis cannot be retrieved. If they are slain after losing some Might this way, proportionately less Vis may be retrieved.