Aging crises

A few questions about aging crises.

  1. Suppose a character rolls a really bad result on the Aging table: Crisis! How much time is there to get help after the character realizes something's wrong? With "help" I mean either appropriate magic, or at least a doctor who can add his Medicine to the patient's stamina roll to survive.

  2. How helpless is the victim of the crisis from when he understands something's wrong? Could a magus who knew the appropriate spell to postpone or resolve the crisis cast it upon himself?

  3. Could you repeatedly cast the appropriate spells (say, with D:Sun, every time you raise your parma) to postpone an aging crisis for seasons or years? I do understand this has its drawbacks compared to resolving the crisis with a ritual (warping, and the risk that something might prevent re-casting and allow the crisis to hit in full); but can it be done?

  4. If you resolve your crisis, you have to spend the rest of the current season bedridden while you heal. But not if you postpone the crisis rather than resolving it, right?

1.) Someone with Decrepitude 5 has 'a few months at most' to live. I think this is a good yardstick for estimating how long someone has from the onset of the crisis until death (still fuzzy, but a crisis shouldn't be 'dead by dawn').
2.) The lesser crises leave you bedridden, anything that's worse should do likewise. Formulaic spells might be possible, but ritual spells are probably impossible.
3.) Yes, absolutely you can postpone a crisis with non-ritual CrCo magic. Intelligent magi would have a charged device on hand to do so if they needed time to reach a CrCo specialist (assuming they didn't just learn the spell).
4.) The canonical Cheating the Reaper spell in the CrCo section requires you to still take the season recovering.

Considering that if you roll well you'll be "bedridden for a week", I'm pretty sure rolling worse cannot be better. Therefore I'd say you should stay in bed until the Crisis is resolved.

Another way would be to match to CrCo Wound/Disease rituals and consider a Minor Illness the same as a Minor Wound, using the limitations on p179.

I think both ways are compatible.

Right, and that's a ritual that resolves the crisis. Permanently puts an end to it, the way Creo rituals do.

Alternatively, you can use a non-ritual spell with the same guideline that postpones the crisis - delaying it until the spell expires. The question is: if you postpone rather than resolve, do you have to spend a season immediately, recovering, in addition to the second season you'll have to spend when you finally face the crisis)?

Uh? I don't follow you. I probably wasn't clear. The question is this.
You have a crisis, a major one. You face it (with a ritual, or just with mundane help) and resolve it. Great! You get to live, though you have payed a price: a wasted season. But! What if you delay the crisis? By the RAW, you can do this with the same guidelines used in rituals that resolve the crisis, used with a non-ritual spell of some Duration. Instead of "problem solved" what you get is "problem delayed" (until the Duration expires). Do you pay the price (the season in bed) now and then, or only then?

I see, you are just not making it a ritual. I was thinking when doing nothing and just delaying.

CrCo guidelines: "upon the spell’s expiration, wounds are as fresh as they were when the spell was cast", we agree that you will have to pay "then".

For the "now", I'm thinking of wounds and Bind Wound. OTOH, the wounded patient is up and running as soon as the ritual is complete, whereas Crisis patient are bedridden after the ritual. I don't see how the non-ritual could be better while active.

Technically, the rule is that a character that survives a crisis has to spend a season in recovery. Strictly speaking, someone who has postponed a crisis (with non-momentary non-ritual magic) has not survived the crisis yet - so postponing magic suppresses the crisis and you should be able to act normally, much like healing wounds with temporary magic lets you act unwounded.

I'm guessing that the Limit of Energy is tied into all this. Probably resolving the crisis properly (via a Stamina roll or ritual magic) uses up bodily reserves (energy) that takes a season to recover. Temporary magic wouldn't drain these reserves because no real healing has taken place.