[RPG]: Realms of Power: The Divine, reviewed by Joseph Sala (4/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12571.phtml

Joseph Sala's Summary:

The Divine realm sourcebook is another excellent manual for Ars Magica Fifth Edition.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Dan Davenport]

Nice job, Joseph, especially for a first review not written in your native language!

Can you share some details of what powers the Nephilim possess?

Thanks!

[Tyrrell]

Great Review, It really laid out the book.

It's been a while since I've looked at the Divine so I don't remember the specifics of the nephilim very well (IIRC they had magic might, they had large size and good stats, they had to sleep a great deal and they had some access to holy magic). I am in a bit of disagreement with the book in regards to the presented opinion that Nepilim are appropriate only for a high powered game. My present game has magi 20 years out of apprenticeship and (although I admittedly don't remember the specifics of the Nephilim) I don't recall anything in their description that makes me think that Nephilim would have the horsepower to compare to magi in their 40's much less magi who were older. I think that they might blend just fine with freshly gauntleted hermetics. (At least this is my opinion based on my imperfect recollection).

I also want to point out (as you did in your review, but with less emphasis than I would have chosen to use) that the holy magic systems are in fact systems with sets of guidelines for creating effects in many ways like the hermetic magic system from the core book. While there are several example effects presented; holy magic is a great deal more than a list of spells.

[committed hero]

Originally Posted by Dan Davenport

Nice job, Joseph, especially for a first review not written in your native language!

His writing was better than many natives. Excellent review.

[cj.23]

Excellent review, thank you. I have found The Divine very useful in my game as well, and there is a pdf Index I prepared available from the Atlas Games site

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG0278.php

Under downloads on the right hand side. I am planning to prepare indexes for TMRE and the Infernal very soon...

cj x

[Joe Sala]

Thank you for your comments! But I have to keep improving my syntaxis!

Dan, about the Nephilim:

They're Mythic Companions (replacing the player's "magus slot"), and they can have up to 20 points of virtues for only 10 of flaws. The required virtues are:

Blood of the Nephilim: increases size, slows aging and requires the character to eat vast amounts of food (?)
Greater Immunity (Disease)
Great Stamina
Great Strenght
Improved Characteristics
Sense Holiness and Unholiness
Strong Angelic Heritage: divine might (so magic resistance), holy powers (as described in my review) and... Corpus vis in your body.

And the minimum ability scores are Dominion Lore 4, Hebrew 1, Penetration 1 and Sense Holiness and Unholiness 3

Since the Nephilim can live hundreds of ages (they get a +1 to size every century!), they can be incredibliy powerful and unbalance any saga. Maybe they're one of the weakest parts of the book, but fortunately they get less than half of a page!

[~BA]

Thanks for the review.

Nephilim are basically immortal characters - hence why they are so powerful. They can have enormous knowledge, and Holy Powers.

~BA

[Tyrrell]

Originally Posted by ~BA

Thanks for the review.

Nephilim are basically immortal characters - hence why they are so powerful. They can have enormous knowledge, and Holy Powers.

~BA

I've taken the oportunty to reaquaint myself with the nephilim. Starting at age 80 and being more or less immune to age is a big bonus. However nephilim can not have true faith, hermetic virtues or methods and powers.

They could, in theory, spend a large number of their virtue points on taking strong angelic heritage many times, but this would grant them only thirty additional spell levels woth of power each time they took it. A literal reading of the rules does not prevent them from taking the Ars Goetia virtues (or perhaps a magic or farie equivelent) but I think that this is contraty to the spirit.

I've never had them in a game but to me, a minmaxed (80 year old) nephilim looks like the equivelent of magus who is ten years out of apprenticeship. A nephilim that is not tweaked to the breaking point appears to me to be only a bit more powerful than a freshly gauntleted magus.