I'm assuming a PVS of 5/year, so you get 8/year, and unused works to about two/year in gifts. You could have a max of about 64 vis of varying types, since you'll have to give 8/year, which is what you'll receive.
I can live with this.
I thought we limit us to the Vis we can buy via BP or direct extract in our Lab (after all I think the Redcap trade all Vis 1:1 in other Vis in Thebes). The only thing I thought left unhandled is how we handle Personal Vis Source pre game.
What is now this new thing with gifted or lend vis?
I am also still confused about how vis accumulation will work. More specifically, I'm not entirely certain what I can expect to have to work with.
Let's just say you can make 8 vis/year with your Philosophic Alchemy. You get 3 more in Gifts during the pregame. You thus have 11/year to do whatever you'd like. In year one, you don't spend vis, and give 3 away ( Sqrt(11) = 3). Year two you accumulate 11 more and now have 19. You must give away 4, leaving you with 15. In year three, you get 11 more, going to 26, and now you spend 5 on a project. You have 21, and give away 4, You begin year four with 17 vis. While you do get a lot of vis, your character also has Generous as a Major Flaw, so you may want to adjust this downwards somewhat.
This is complicated by the fact that as you develop, you'll periodically be able to brew more vis, and change the computation. 8 vis/year is a newly-Gauntleted magus, it will be 12 very quickly, and 16 if you are brewing your favored Forms.
If this is too much work, then think of a number that represents vis available for you during the pregame - any not spent in projects is retained by you.
At last I wont be able to use it because I still not get it where the 3 vis comes from and why I would have to give away vis I generated in a lab or maybe even vis I have bought via BP. (Beside that a formula using SQR for something that have to be done each year can only come from someone with a focus on mathematic)
Edit: I think this whole gifting thing belongs to
and shouldn't emulated during pre game.
That clarifies things. Thanks.
Adauli posted that he thought the vis trade in Thebes was typically 1:1. I know that according to p. 85 of HoH:TL, typically it goes like this:
1p (v.t.) = 1 p (v.f.)
2p (v.f.) = 1 p (v.f.)
2p (v.t.) = 1 p (v.t.)
4p (v.f.) = 1 p (v.t.)
TSE mentions that "Redcaps are also common, as elsewhere in the Order, but they also gift generously whenever they trade vis on behalf of a magus, so that the effective rate of return on a vis trade is more than the usual 50%."
So it's something more favorable than what's shown in HoH:TL, but just how much more favorable? We ought to decide for purposes of pre-game. For example, if I need 10 pawns of Co vis and all I have is a pile of Vi vis, how many pawns of Vi do I have to spend to get 10 Co? 1:1 form-to-form or tech-to-tech is awfully generous and gives zero profit margin to the Redcap. May I propose:
2p (v.t.) = 3 p (v.f.)
3p (v.f.) = 2 p (v.f.)
3p (v.t.) = 2 p (v.t.)
3p (v.f.) = 1 p (v.t.)
That halves the profit margin for the Redcaps, which seems a reasonable compromise.
(I know that silveroak has noted that vis trades are each unique and that it always depends on the redcap or whoever you're dealing with as to what your rate of exchange is. But we need to set up some kind of rate of exchange, if only for the pre-game period.)
Although I don't think I need to do vis extraction via Lab because the Vis from BP should be enough for me, but this might be important for the other.
Your suggested trade list sound reasonable for me, so it have my ok.
I can live with that. Note that if you use Build Points for vis in the pre-game, it's exactly what you need.
Do we already someone who can invoke the city saint?
The modifiers and the full rule are at RoP:D 87
I suspect this will be burdened on my character despite that he isn't good in communication but True Faith and no penalty in Divine Aura make him probably the best one of our magus for this job.
We don't properly need to be able to invoke the saint. That's asking the saint to perform a miracle on our behalf. Presumably there's an easier way to just communicate with him.
You'll probably be the only one with half a chance of success.
you should play GURPS sometime. it regularly utilizes the square cube law , which means taking a value to the power 2/3, or the cube root of the square. Square roots are really pretty simple...
Ah yes, GURPS. Not as bad as some old-school games like Aftermath, but pretty darn complicated.
But really, once you get the square root set in the spreadsheet, it's not so bad.
What spell masteries are we assuming are generally available? I only ask because I'm going to have some rituals mastered and there are precious few of the basic masteries that are at all useful for rituals. So far as I know, the full list of masteries is:
- Acute Sense (p71 HoH:TL)
- Adaptive Casting (p99 HoH:TL)
- Apotropaic Mastery (p.122 RoP:TI)
- Boosted Casting (p99 HoH:TL)
- Ceremonial Casting (p99 HoH:TL)
- Disguised Casting (p99 HoH:TL )
- Fast Casting 87 (p83 ARM5)
- Harnessed Casting (p99-100 HoH:TL )
- Imperturbable Casting (p33 HOH:S)
- Lab Mastery (p100 HoH:TL)
- Learn From Mistakes(p 100 HoH:TL)
- Magic Resistance (p87 ARM5)
- Multiple Casting (p.87 ARM5)
- Obfuscated Casting (p34 HOH:S)
- Penetration (p87 ARM5)
- Precise Casting (p34 HOH:S)
- Quick Casting (p34 HOH:S)
- Quiet Casting (87 ARM5)
- Rebuttal (129 HOH:S)
- Stalwart Casting (p100 HoH:TL)
- Still Casting (87 ARM5)
- Tethered Casting (p100 HoH:TL)
- Unraveling (p123 HoH:S)
Do we want any of the non-standard masteries to be available to the general public?
Also on the subject of rituals, where do we stand on the question of botch dice for mastered rituals? The rules are not entirely clear, which prompted a very long, and occasionally heated, debate about the subject in 2012, found here: [url]https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/spell-mastery-and-ritual-spells/6698/1].
The argument seems to boil down to one side saying that the rules clearly state that mastered spells use a stress die, but can't botch, and the other side saying that a careful read of the rules on rituals implies that mastery merely reduces the number of botch dice by one.
My read on the situation is that the rules are ambiguous, requiring a troupe decision on the matter. In the end, it depends on how prevalent the saga wants to have magic be. Having a single mastery level removing the risk of botching makes ritual spells a lot more appealing and safe to cast. The end result will be more ritual spells being cast. Requiring multiple levels of mastery to avoid botches makes ritual spells a lot more dangerous to cast and expensive to cast safely, with the end result that fewer rituals will ultimately get cast. It seems to me we should decide how common we want rituals to be and settle the rules ambiguity in favor of that factor.
What do the rest of you think?
I was always under the impression that it simply reduced botch dice when cast under stress.
as for non-standard mastery, I am under the impression that if mystery cults shared these techniques easily, they would soon not be particular to the mystery cult, since those they had shown the technique to could teach others easily...
The only ones that I think should be unavailable to most magi are the Mutantes abilities: Boosted Casting, Harnessed Casting, and Tethered Casting. Otherwise the Flawless Magic guys don't have anything for their rituals. Adaptive Casting strikes me as something that has simply gotten out to the general public, or re-invented.
Part of the debate is whether casting rituals is de facto a stressful situation or not. The rules say that a stress die is used for rituals, but some are quick to point out that it doesn't say it's "stressful" to cast. citing other examples where a stress die is used without actual stress. They also assert that in most cases, magi will make certain that they have a calm situation to cast in. Others say that ritual casting is inherently stressful and therefore it should always have botch dice, even when mastered.
I'm agnostic about this issue. I've designed my magus thus far assuming that it only reduced botch dice by one per mastery level. But I uncovered the thread above in a related search and it showed me that there was not general agreement on the subject. So, I figured I'd raise it to make certain we were all on the same page about rituals and botch dice.
As I like the idea of rituals, and we are playing in a vis-heavy saga, I interpret it as:
Botch dice only come up in stress situations. Most times, ritual casting is not stressed. If a relaxed ritual is being cast by a magus with spell mastery, the character can roll a stress die, and possibly get a higher result, but still has no threat of botching.
Rituals cast under stressful situations - the weather is horrible on the day of the Aegis, or there is the threat of attack - are rolled as stress situations. So a character doing a level 30 Aegis, under stress might have a 1 mastery, a level 1 gold cord, and Cautious Sorcerer would only roll 2 botch die if a 0 came up on the casting roll.
I suppose that casting our Aegis would be stressed, since we must walk the perimeter of the Aegis boundary to work, in public view, for at least an hour. I think this is fair, given that we chose a Major Hook, Urban.
Although ArM 81 clearly say:
I vote that in calm circumstances for mastered ritual spells there is still the stress die but with no botch die roll like it is for formulaic magic.
For the diferent Mastery the one in ArM5 are for sure open to all
Acute sense say "Only those who have received Quaesitorial training can take this ability." so its a no for general use
Although I would like to have Adaptive Casting and Lab Mastery the mastery mentioned in HoH:TL 99 - 100 as Cult of Mercury are restricted to people having the major virtue Mercurian Magic in my opinion
The mastery listet as Mutantes in HoH:TL 99 - 100 need the Mutantum virtue in my opinion.
The Spell Mastery listed in HoH:S 33-34 are clearly mentioned that everyone can use them
I'm not sure about Unraveling and Rebuttal both HoH:S 129 although the description say nothing about it they might need Comprehend Magic.
Despite we said we allow nothing from RoP:Ti pre game I would make a exception for the Apotropaic Mastery (p.122 RoP:TI)