Ars Magica needs a fatiguing mechanic for magi

I see what you are trying to do. Even though I do not agree with your motive, I do desire a reform and have ideas that may result in something similar. Just putting it out there: I have no problem with magi casting endless spells with no botch dice or fatigue. None. Yet the whole Fatigue mechanic needs reform. My idea is that you accumulate Fatige, instead of loosing Fatigue Levels. Much in the way that we now accumulate Injuries instead of loosing Body Levels. It feels more realistic. There are an infinite gradients of tired between refreshed and passed out. One can be near exhaustion and still expend minor bits of energy.
To harmonize this with JLs intent, have it cost taking a -1 level every time a spell is cast. It takes 5 rounds to loose this -1.
Or something like that. need to meditate on it.

I also want to stop the Monte Carlo simulation I've seen discussed in games, and here in the forums. Learn a spell, master it once, and cast it repeatedly until I get a 1. That's not an interesting feature of the game, and it's certainly something that the rules definitely allow. I'd rather close that loophole down, too.

This is exactly what Life Boost does, it doesn't change the effect, it adds to penetration. Well, really, the casting total, which 9 times out of 10 will be the penetration, especially if used during combat.

It's an interesting approach, but, IMO, it should be 5 rounds of inactivity to lose the -1, otherwise you get to a -5, and it never goes below that. The problem with your approach to fatigue, within the game, is that you effectively treat it like wounds, and with regard to wounds, you can have enemies with -30 in penalties that still aren't dead. I've seen it happen several times.

I wonder if there needs to be an inverted pyramid of fatigue, where you have 5 -1 levels, 3 -3 levels and 1 -5 level before you pass out. Gives all characters a lot of fatigue to spend without huge penalties. Eventually you get to a point where you can't expend even a tiny bit of energy, or you pass out.

Or,

Port AM to GURPS.

Anyway,

Ken

Anyway, ars magica magic is IMO and has always been (still imo) a game where first strike conquers all. That's why I see intelligence and stealth as key actions. Send in the illusions/decoys let the magi unveil themselves, their positions know. Then strike on them while they waste strength on the diversion.

Because of the "resisted or not" aspect of the parma magica, and because of low levels with deadly consequences (slumber for 2' while in combat...) which can be put in wands or charged item for max penetration, magical combat is not very interesting. Planning and letting the player react/act beforehand to prevent the first strike from NPC is what, imo, makes it interesting.

How will the player get to the enemy without him noticing? that's what I see using fatigue. And when you have exhausted yourself doing it with spontaneous magic, you realize it would have been for nothing but fighting a threat (like a sentinel or something) meaning danger while some players are not at top.

Fatigue can be dealt easily... if PCs have time to recover. Most of the time, on the field, they can't just rest. They must fly/ride/move forward/work in lab.
Sometimes they can... remember the 10 days of absence in lab, and give them "you were at 3 levels fatigue, but you went to the rest room and did a nap for 3hours. Your day still has 6 hours to go, and after that, it will be another day off your lab/reading activity from the month.

But at some point, they will have formulaic, and for formulaic, yes fatigue is never a bother. But should it? I don't think so. [Well to be perfectly exact, aegis/high divine aura/malus on casting totals are many tools anyone can use to mitigate the power of formulaic spells.]

(And personnaly, when out of stress situation, I never give a stress roll on mastered spells, exactly to prevent the 1 rerolled by pure statistical logic... or, more precisely: any situation where a 1 rerolled would be an advantage is considered as stressful (like "I'm preparing wards against demons while waiting. - That's stressful." The player can give me the "but i'm quiet in my lab" and I will say "no, you are preparing facing demons. That's not eating your breakfast, that's dealing with potential death threat. Thinking about death is stressful.")
That means you would better be ready to deal with it on your normal formulaics.)

I'd read that, but fear playing it.

ExarKun, you essentially prove my point about needing a different mechanic, because your response to the lack of such a mechanic is to institute a couple of house rules.

Hi,

It would actually work pretty well. The way I would do it is retain the setting but ditch the rules, including the magic system.

The easy stuff: Mundane skills and combat work exactly as normal for GURPS. Is it 1220? Use the appropriate tech. Is it Ars Magica in Space? Break out Ultra Tech or whatever. Character creation is exactly normal for GURPS, except that there are 3 character types (magus, companion, grog), each with a different number of points to play with. I would not bother trying to figure out the point value of being a magus and having the Gift: It comes with the character type. That value only matters in trying to balance things, and we don't care about balance within a character type. Even if you want to play Order of Hermes versus Justice League, just create magi using the magi rules and superheroes as usual. If you don't like the balance give one or the other more points. It really doesn't matter if a 500 point magus is much better than a 500 point Dungeon Fantasy cleric.

The harder stuff...

Hermetic Magic: I'd not try porting the AM magic system to GURPS; lots of good reasons for this but that's another conversation. Instead, I'll be GURPSy and take GURPS stuff and then add flavor. In a weird way, traditional GURPS magic has a few points of great similarity to AM5's take on Hermetic Magic. The one that matters most starting off is that every GURPS spell can be considered an AM5 guideline. GURPS wizards need to know a spell to cast a variety of effects using that spell; magi need to have access to a TeFo guideline to cast a variety of effects using that guideline. So an Ignem magus spends xps learning spells from the Fire College, with each xp assigned to successive spells providing new guidelines.

For every 4xp invested in a single spell, I'd give one free Perk applying to that spell, per one of the GURPS powerup supplements. That substitutes nicely for mastery.

Magery works as usual, with the usual 3 level limit. But for every 20xp spent within a given college, er, Art, I'd give one free level of single-college magery; a player must choose one Art for xp belonging to a cross-listed spell.

Spontaneous Magic? Each spell already provides quite a bit of latitude. But I'd also include a variable skill slot (1xp that only applies to Hermetic Magic, costs 3 fatigue per casting, no time needed to change) to represent a magus being able to cast spells he doesn't know. This also allows a magus to add 1xp to a spell he already knows at the cost of 3 fatigue, but I'm fine with that. House Diedne gets a better version that doesn't cost fatigue. Magi can take as many of these as they like, though this is less awesome than it seems because of all the free Perks and single-college Magery levels earned by specialists.

Vis? One point of vis is worth 1 fatigue. A pawn of GURPS-vis is smaller than a pawn of AM-vis. Ritual spells require all 'fatigue' to come from vis.

Magic Items? Needs some new rules. Punting for now.

Each House gets a template or two, with some unique advantages (such as Diedne's better spont, above; Flambeau might be allowed to buy a Talent that affects Ignem and some House skills; etc) and disadvantages available. IIRC, virtues listed in a template aren't limited the same way as other advantages.

Parma? That's Magic Resistance, which also applies to anything with a Divine/Faerie/Infernal/Magic descriptor. Only magi and supernatural things can have it. Levels of Penetration counter MR; excess Penetration changes the Rule of 16 in your favor (ie, net +2 Penetration is Rule of 18.)

Non-magi should be built using powers, or ritual magic, but never (ok, almost never) with anything based on a spell from GURPS Magic, even variants. This works for non-Hermetic wizards, demons and Superman.

Inventing a new spell? Come up with a guideline. Decide on the prerequisites. Decide if it requires a Breakthrough. If it does, need rules for that and the spell cannot be cast or invented until the Breakthrough is achieved. If it does not, the spell can be cast spontaneously by having at least 1xp in all of the prerequisites and at least 1xp in the spell itself: Multiple levels of spontaneous magic can be used for this at 3 fatigue per xp; the spell can be invented using some lab rules, not included at this time.

AM likes seasonal time; GURPS does not. I'd adapt to GURPS time. Lab work becomes more granular, which is fine.

Covenant? No need to pay points for that. But you can if you want. I suspect that by now GURPS has rules for an advantage shared by a group of people, such as Wealth or Ally. Need rules for libraries and Auras and such, but that matters less than one might think.

Some GURPS spells are not suitable for AM (radioactive jet, resurrection, etc). Remove them. Some spells are needed to support AM, dealing with regiones, Auras, etc. Replace or add them.

I could go on, but it's utterly workable. The disadvantages are obvious. The advantages? Better combat system. You can sic kung fu masters on your magi, or aliens, or superheroes, or (of course) the Illuminati fnord. Deep list of stuff not related to magic.

Nothing to fear, unless you hate GURPS! It does have issues.

Anyway,

Ken

That[strike]'s abominable![/strike] ... could actually work. Fairly well even.
Have you kept power stones, or would you toss those over the side?

I actually love Gurps right back from the early days, the flexibility is wonderful but also often cumbersome. A long time ago we played a Shadowrun ported to gurps, it didn't reflect all the flavour but did the job.
I guess I value the quicker resolve and simpler mechanics of Ars as I play for the story more than the crunch, and gurps comes with so much crunchiness. But you make a good case for a suitable port for crunchier tables to play with. Fair point well made.
And it would certainly then have very detailed ways of handling fatigue.

Hi,

I would recommend tossing them. The entire classic GURPS quick and dirty enchantment rules would have to go, I think, because they are utterly wrong for AM.

The worst offender is the need to roll dice for every q&d enchantment increment. This works very poorly in conjunction with the idea of magi enchanting things during downtime! One hour per q&D, 8 per day, 90 days for a season... that's too many rolls where there should be no rolls, so that players can advance their magi a day, a week, a season or a decade between sessions.

Powerstones rely on q&d for balance and even that is a bit weird. It has some classic Steve Jackson cleverness, yet works only for Steve Jackson universes.

Want more fatigue? 3xp per point. Want it in an item or with other limitations? There are rules for that.

And, you can just distill vis. I don't have a specific rule for this atm, but something like the following is a reasonable first place to start:

One time increment distilling vis in the lab yields Aura+Magery+ArtSpecificMagery+bonuses-penalties pawns of vis specific to that Art (school). One pawn of vis can be used as one fatigue in all spellcasting.

How long is the time increment? Either a day or a week. I don't know yet. Haven't played with it.

This seems very powerful, but remember that AM pawns are far more valuable, and that GURPS spells consume far more fatigue. So I also wouldn't bother with heavy penalties for casting with vis. Perhaps you can use pawns up to your casting skill (including stat, magery, etc but not range or Aura) without penalty, with each increment of 20 pawns or fraction thereof imposing a -1 penalty to your casting roll.

Anyway,

Ken

Hi,

AM is pretty crunchy! GURPS is also crunchy. GURPS can be worse, but the crunchiest AM game I've been in was crunchier than the crunchiest GURPS game I've been in.

As for Shadowrun... that just oozes flavor. With real ooze. The system oozes too, and not in as good a way. I've done HeroRun and GurpsRun; neither had quite the flavor of Shadowrun because generic systems aren't really generic but their own thing. But as you say, they did the job.

Perhaps the best argument for GURPS over AM is the support for running adventures without the magi. AM combat is an afterthought, and the skill system is a post-afterthought, with magic being the star. As it should be. But if you like having sessions in which relatively mundane grogs and companions do their thing, GURPS offers support and more support and more support, extensively played and therefore tested.

Another: Combat Reflexes. These 15 points (iirc) are almost required for any warrior. Will your magus spend the 15 points on this rather than spells? Especially with the very generous free levels of Art-specific Magery you get? And free Spell Mastery Perks? School of Vilano, maybe... and that sets you apart from magi who just happen to have a high DX and a few points in weapons. More generally, the deep pool of advantages like this really help.

Another: Trained by a Master, and similar advantages that open up cinematic martial arts. Not just for Kung Fu, but also Criamon who have access to the Path of Strife. (Trained by a Mystagogue!)

Anyway,

Ken

You guys sound like you actually fight. In our current chronicle, there's been two combat rounds in total, in circa 4 years of gameplay (close to half a year of real time playing near-weekly).

In my experience, problems are solved by politics. If you need to actually fight, there's always someone to do it for you. Of course, it's still good to be able to fight, since that usually prevents stuff like people trying to ambush you, challenging you to silly certamen, etc. But the real power is not having to fight.

Well, when you have stories involving the Golden Horde and a dragon war...

Hi,

Well, for that game, I might recommend using a completely different system, a lightweight system. Say, Over the Edge.

Three positive traits; for magi, one of them is your House.

AM is a rather heavyweight system, so a lot of preliminary paperwork has been put into those 2 rounds!

Anyway,

Ken

I would agree on an alternate combat system for fights with no magi. Might make it more fun than the one mistake and death that is the current system.

For JL...Is the problem in combat or out of combat with the casting of mastered spells multiple times. It seems like out of combat( or off camera) but perhaps I am reading it wrong.

nu-fatigue for spellcasting feels like it would drive us to the 'Scribe scroll + Wand of Cure Light Wounds' D&D model. You put your Pilum into an enchanted item (wand), then the wand casts the spell the same way round after round with no worry. On the other hand, if items also incur the "fatigue", then what happens to current in game multi-spell items, magically trapped sanctums, etc etc?

If everything magical can cause nu-F, I think it would be a substantial change but could work. You would sorta be adding Shadowrun's "background count".

Idea along those lines: Every time any magical effect above, say, second magnitude happens, increase the botch dice. So dragon breathing fire, you casting a pilum, or your enemy casting a pilum would all raise the botch for everyone. Goes down one die for every blah (diameter?) without any magic happening. What defines a Hoplite now isn't necessarily knowing Pilum or having X penetration, it is being able to last at least X rounds in a fight where magic is going every which way before your spells start exploding in your face. Vim spells gain a new use of manipulating the background count.

A possible benefit of Verditius would be that their casting tools partially shield them from this effect. So you might see more Verdi non-lab-rats. Talismans and familliars would probably have a similar benefit.

But then I would start wondering about Tremere, with their 'wizard soldier' mindset and their liking of spells multi-cast to buff your grogs or to wipe out masses of enemy grogs. What tricks do they have, and does Certamen figure into it at all?

Jebrick, both are concerns.

Im less than satisfied with the often binary result that happens with magic in practice. I've already said I don't care for the Monte Carlo approach to relaxed casting of mastered spells.

Items aren't something I'm generally concerned about. Items represent a huge investment in vis and time. The wand of fireballs has to split a lab total into uses per day and penetration. They can be countered.

The real risk of this model is that the best Hoplites will be mundanes with True Faith and actual spear and shield. I wouldn't so much mind, but it may not be what people are looking for!

I do not see how you solve the on camera problem without removing multicast. Unless you change multicast to either add fatigue or add botch dice that ignores the mastered spell.

Off camera is as simple as banning it in game. Or allow it if it takes a season of time.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Jonathan, I do agree with some parts of what you say, but not the premises.

You say "fatigue is bad in ars, let's find a solution" (or at least that's what I understood). I merely say: "all which is used in combat is not really good in Ars magica, starting with the first to shoot win" (and fatigue is finally just one part of that problem : I have seen long battle where fighters never tire because fatigue rolls are not well defined. I have seen fighters with 36 weapons but no damn problem due to load. I have seen 1 fighter so good that even 5 enemies couldn't break his armor or even hit him due to the in existence of a "surrounded" mechanism. I have seen NPC magi be owned by one good roll on a sleep spell. I have seen PC magi be normally dead because they can't react to anything they don't perceive and had to provide a chance for them to dodge/try to fast cast...).

I'm not really fond of the "first shooter wins" type of magic in Ars and I acknowledge fully that if a NPC comes to combat, then he was stupid, because magic in Ars is more about "finding the right arcane connection, then fix it in your lab, then invent the charged item with +100 penetration at arcane range, then fire." which is lame for most players who will think "wizards => magic => battle spells => wonderful magical battles in sky".
I try a lot to have NPC-treats be powerful, but when they are, this is not fun for PCs because they cannot win. If I do "less powerful" NPCs, then those NPC are, almost always, by design, flawed to win. I have a really hard time to invent an antagonist which will not give either a full victory on the PC side or a full victory on the NPC side. So I'm using the environment as a mitigating factor, which fatigue is... but I'm confronted with the fact that fatigue is, in itself, badly designed in Ars magica.

Which is why, I agree with you that it needs rewrite as part of the combat process... but not alone. Alone, it will not fix all the issue I have.
in Ars combat situation, I have never seen any smart player - or if you prefer "not beginner and used to the game" - use any spell which would end in a gain of fatigue. Even when they roll 0 and do not botch, they always think ahead to avoid this and so only use formulaic spell with a spare casting total for auras and other bad things. When fatigue happens it is mostly because the situation is lost, and magi are trying to save what they can from a disastrous situation. And mostly, not themselves - they all can teleport away or fly or other means to flee - but the companions, who would be doomed otherwise. That's the only rare occasion when fatigue happens in combat, and at that point, it is irrelevant because they are already wounded or disappointed.

I have no problem with fatigue outside combat, since it all comes back to the main question: is this stressful or not, which is something the SG fully controls by the rule. There is no house rule in there. Obviously in game, I cannot always answer "it is stressful" because players are cunning enough to give other players time to act, then come back to me saying "after those times magus XX did what he did, I spent this time resting". And since I do not note what every magus do at every hour of the in game time.. I let them do. Only just before a fight will I be attentive because preparation should be something important. But again, most fight-spells are formulaic because penetration needs or... because you don't want to be fatigued.
But again, if your new idea encompass all the fatigue mechanic and is better in and out of combat, I'm interested.

So yes please, for the mind exercice, find a new fatigue mechanic and why not find a new combat design - and i'll read it with interest -, but anyway it will not matter since this edition is done, and I really don't plan on buying a next one because our players are now accustomed to this one (and I spent a lot of money completing this edition). So unless it is an official erratum [size=85][and even with that... errata which are only on the websites are lost to all the players in the heat of the action because they didn't write those in their paper books (and I'm not even mentionning the fact that in our IRL troupe, I'm the only one who really reads the errata and almost the only one which gives credit to the forum contributors here[/size] [size=50]which is their loss but I cannot improve their way of thinking[/size][size=85])... Sometimes I do remember an erratum and refer to it during a game session, but since I do not use tablets or such thing, if my memory fail, then no-one will know something is errated][/size], it has few chance to be of use for me in my RL saga where the alpha storyguide has his own idea and is quick to decide what he likes or not, period and is not the type to be discussed with.

In my previous post I merely explained how I acted and tried - but apparently poorly ... sorry but it is not easy to think in English :confused: - to explain why "fatigue in itself" is not a problem for me because my problem lies a level above so fixing a part of that is not going to help all.