2.3 The First Council Meeting - OoC

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Phoenix - Rise from the A
21

This limit only applies to item creation, not ritual spellcasting IIRC.

Anyway, even if I'm wrong on this:

  • It ain't difficult to have MT 4, even at creation. Even a starting magus can reach it with 1-2 season of reading.
  • A lvl 40 casting tablet allow you to cast a lvl 40 aegis even with inferior totals, at the cost of increased fatigue. We could acquire one easily.

=> If the aegis don't need to penetrate to keep creatures out, I see absolutely no reason why most young covenants don't have a lvl 40 aegis (or better!!), with older covenants having more powerful ones. It breaks my suspension of disbelief, and, IMO, makes the SG's job harder, as it means that almost nothing can cross even beginning magi Aegis.
BTW, if the aegis was such a blatant exception to the rules that apply to every over spell, don't you think it would have been explicitely mentionned? You'll also note that almost all non-hermetic magic also needs to penetrate? So I don't think that argument is really viable.

What's more mythic?

  • A young magi, fresh from gauntlet, taking a casting tablet while his sodales wait besides, casting a spell mighty enough to keep anything short of a big dragon at bay?
  • A band of young magi all engaging in wizard's communion, to cast an aegis able to keep moderate creatures away?

Not that this is terribly important: in most games, the magi are out of the aegis anyway :laughing:

22

MRB, pg 82, Using Raw Vis:
Limit on Vis Use in Spellcasting: The maga's score in the Art of the vis

Therefore, Viscaria, with Rego 5 and Vim 4, can use up to 9 pawns of vis when casting the Aegis. With AL 1 and Philo 4, her CT is 19, so with nearly any die roll, casting the spell from a tablet will cost her 3 fatigue levels (Covenants, pg 90).

I'm not sure how this came up, or where the relevant rules questions are, but it seems to me the question for us is what a small band of 50-yr-old magi should be able to do with their covenant, to determine the effect of the Aegis 40.

That said, I do prefer the second option for storytelling possibilities.

23

Amos still hasn't chimed in on any of the bazillion issues facing the council, and I'm loathe to resolve any until every active player has said his piece. Especially since we still need to deal with Amos's indiscretion.

I have another work trip which will be limiting my time online until May 14th or so. I'll try to be better about keeping abreast, but even without Jaime and Viscaria's input, there is much left for the other three players to discuss. I suggest you continue to RP between yourself in the Council meeting, and move towards assigning specific issues to specific magi (or companions/grogs, even) to deal with. If there are pressing questions which require my input before then (and I hope there will be), PM me through the forums here.

In case I haven't been clear on this, these work-related delays will be a frequent occurrence for me throughout the summer. My goal is to create enough backstory and setting that the players have time and information enough to keep RPing while I'm dealing with real life.

24

Lot of work myself, so the slow pace suits me fine.
But great ideas overall :smiley:

This is strange. Are you sure this doesn't apply to extra vis, used to boost a spell? If not, I believe this might interest some people on these boards. Anyway...

I'm surprised by your exemple. I didn't have the numbers in my mind, but, although I remembered it was bad, I didn't how bad.

I don't want to push the point or be a jerk, but I find this shocking: Am I the only one here who finds distasteful the idea of a character with just Rego 5 and Vim 4 putting us by herself under an aegis powerful enough to stop might 40 creatures?
I would find a lot better, mythic-wise and story-wise, for us to use Wizard's Communion to cast a lvl 20 aegis with pen 20, with your average faerie lord (Might 30-40) being able to enter if he wants to.

Well, this sounds fine, with Wizard's Communion.

Serf's Parma, so I may be wrong.
If one needs a penetration of 40, this means a CT of 40 + (level/number WC)
Assuming 5 magi engaged in WC (with an average WC level of just 16, and this can be WC 40 for the leader, 10 for the other 4 magi)), we have a casting total of 48. So, for exemple: Sta +2, Artes Liberales 4, Philosophiae 4, Die Roll 05, and Re + Vi 33.
Is this unreasonnable for a covenant's ReVi expert?
Assuming, say, just an Affinity with Rego, nothing else, with Vim as a secondary art, he can have Rego 18 for 114XP, and Vim 15 for 120XP. Slightly high, but not unreasonnable at all IMO.

Personnal tastes, I agree, but I prefer this to that same magus single-handedly casting that same Aegis, especially as, even if he wanted to, he couldnt control a might 25 creature with a ReVi spell.

25

I'm pretty sure it does. The full quote from the "Using Raw Vis" option in the core rulebook says: "It is possible to use raw vis to boost the power of a maga's spells. The vis must match either the Technique or the Form of spell, and a maga may only use a number of pawns of a given type of vis equal to her score in that Art."

Ritual Magic (ibid, p, 81) also caps the amount of vis used in casting a Ritual Spell at the caster's score in the corresponding Art (in this case, Viscaria's 5 Rego and 4 Vim, for a total of 9). I'm assuming that the maximum pawns of vis to cast a Ritual Spell and the maximum to boost the power of a spell are not cumulative (that just sounds like power-gaming to me), but I can almost see where a sg would allow it.

As far as casting Aegis of the Hearth from a Casting Tablet...casting tablets are described as "an inflexible style of spell-casting,"with pretty all the parameters and options set by the tablet's author at the time of writing, including no Penetration unless it's built into the spell." Would the Artes Liberales and Philosophiae scores used in the casting of the spell be the author's, or the caster's? I would be inclined to say that it would be the author's.

Anyhoo...I think it's pretty plain that we're not going to have any choice but to acquire a Aegis of the Hearth casting tablet...the only question seems to be how powerful and with how much penetration.

26

Don't forget the political questions which, as SG, interest me far more than the actual effects of the spell:

  • from whom?
  • what are you willing to pay for it?
27

Which is why Cygna asked for a quick primer on Tribunal Politics 101, as she has no idea what's going on in Iberia. Of course, asking Jamie Lannister might be akin to asking Glenn Beck or Ed Schultz to explain American Current Affairs. :laughing:

28

Ah, this!
I may be wrong, but I've always read "boost the power of a maga's spells" as meaning "using vis to boost a formulaic casting".
As far as I see it, "it is possible to..." means "you may", whereas in ritual, vis ain't a possibility to boost anything, it's a must.
Although you can combine the 2, that is, boost a ritual by using more vis than nescessary.

As of the scores used with a ritual, well, we disagree again :laughing: To me, the ritual space will be created by the caster, and thus use his scores. I can see a point in limiting them by the writer's (like, follow a recipe. If you're awful, it's gonna be bad, but it won't get better than the original), but if you can't write the symbols well and don't even understand what's mandragore, you're toast.

Well, IMO, it might not be difficult to exchange a copy of our lvl 40 aegis with a copy of a lower-level one + freebies. Although a casting tablet would be waaaay better, especially if we use penetration for the ward effect.

The real problem being "from whom".

Given the politics here, and our lack of knowledge about the local scene, we might be better of trading with a covenant outside the tribunal, although that may take longer.

Well... if by logistics and operation side of duty, you mean Gerard taking them to dring and play games while singing, sure! :laughing:

29

...who will be arriving at the covenant in a couple of days, most likely.

30

Which, in PbP terms, means we'll get to it by December.

31

:laughing: exactly!! :laughing:

I kept trying to find a way to introduce him in the story, without realizing he wasn't at the covenant yet...

32

Does Cygna say this stuff out loud? Usually her responses to Adorjan are quiet enough to pass unremarked, but this seems like a pretty length and volumed reply.

33

Yes, she does. She was barely able to control her temper, and she's hoping that, since the Warders are apparently always visible in the Regio, that others might be able tosee Adorjan this time.

34

I assume you mean Amos will research the vis sources?

35

Oops. Fixed.

36

Shall we move on? If so, start Chapter 2.4 threads as appropriate, and magi gets 5 adventure xp for the rp thus far. If you want non-magi characters to get xp, tell me who.

37

I guess Chico can back-post Amos's response to Jaime's question in the first meeting thread while we commence...doing what we do the next couple of days before the next meeting? (Cygna will propose that the next meeting be in three days, Saturday the 16th of March, if no magus has any objections).

I propose that, of my "mortals," that Celestria (and maybe One-Eyed Maria) get experience - Celestria for becoming the new head maid, with rp over several posts, and maybe Maria (also for multi-post rp). Just my tuppence, though.

38

Celestria and One-Eyed Maria can get eeps.

39

Do they also get five per, or how many?

40

Tempted to give them less, just so they can't buy the local language. :laughing:

Yes, they both get 5.