The Golden Cord, via your familiar, "helps you avoid magical errors, letting you rolls fewer botch dice when using magic", according to ArM p 104. Is it reasonable to assume that this also applies to the stress die one uses for Twilight Avoidance, on p 88?
Secondly, how many Botch dice should one really roll for Avoiding Twilight? For Comprehending Twilight, it's quite clearly 1 + 1 per Warping Point. However, that's obviously not the answer for Avoiding Twilight, otherwise that formula would have been placed under Avoiding Twilight, or even earlier.
No, because the Golden Cord lets you reduce the number of botch dice, and Twilight Avoidance is not a botch die when using magic (in fact, in the formula for Twilight Avoidance, it specifically says "stress die (no botch)". However, the Golden Cord does reduce the number of botch dice you roll that could bring on Twilight in the first place, so there is that.
Avoiding Twilight doesn't use botch dice. As above, the formula says stress die (no botch).
No, as the others have said, but given how dynamic the Cords are in canon, I would say it would be an easy Project for a Breakthrough. Ten points maybe? I know people are going to say it should be more, but it's only one cord, and the other examples affect all three cords (Thirty total).
Also, if it's an issue, consider "Items of Quality". A "Quality" crown of Alabaster might give a +2 to "Wisdom" or a +4 to "Mental Acuity", both of which would, in my opinion (YSMV) give a bonus to that roll. Not, perhaps very useful in the field, but quite helpful in the Lab, working on your Breakthrough.....
Hmm. I seem to read the section differently than you, Peregrine. The rules state:
Twilight avoidance: Sta + Conc + Vim Form Bonus + stress die vs Warping Score + Number of Warping Points gained + Enigmatic Wisdom + local aura + stress die (no botch)
To me, it reads: the maga may botch, but the Twilight cannot botch. The statement "If the maga botches, she enters Twilight and cannot comprehend the experience" seems to support my interpretation that the maga can botch her Twilight avoidance roll.
Since it appears that the maga can indeed botch, and since this is a result of her using magic, I'm still left with my original question: will the Golden Cord reduce the number of Botch dice for the maga's part of the total (Sta + Conc + Vim Form Bonus + stress die)?
Since you were casting the spell, the Golden Cord already reduced the number of Botch dice on the spell. So it has been of use already, although on a different step of the process. I don't think it is double-dipping, though.
Now, there's little difference between you botching hard and you being the target of a CrVi Warping spell. So the question can be rephrased as: is resisting Twilight "using magic" when someone else gives you Warping Points?
Slightly unclear, but I agree with Qurium's read, especially in light of the statement of "if the maga botches..." (ArM5, p. 88)
Not sure. I'm inclined to say no, partly because the Familiar Bond is already way awesome, and partly because the Gold Cord uses that fairly specific language about "when using magic" (ArM5, p. 104), for which I'm not really sure Twilight qualifies. Both of these are weak arguments and I recognize this.
In the end I'd call it unclear, meaning you should agree with your troupe.
There's potentially a lot of difference, but I trust we agree the Bond will not help if someone else cause the Warping?
I am kind of leaning that way, but I'd go the whole way and it would never help. I don't like carry-overs: wounds from iocane heal just as well as wounds from swords.
Gold Cord should not help with avoiding Twillight IMHO, I agree with earlier posters.
Also note that TMRE, page 66 lists Spirit Familiar Mystery, the the Cords have additional meaning. Page 67-68 mentions the special propererties of the Gold Cord (called Hermes Cord for users of this mystery) that it adds to Enigmatic Wisdom rolls (even if the magus does not have it).
And 'Twilight Avoidance' is a roll of Stm+Concentration+Vim bonus vs. Warping gained+Aura+Enigmatc Widsom. So,Enigmatic Widsom - and therefore Hermes Cord - makes it easier to enter Twilight. This is perhaps silly, ince you can always choose to not try and avoid it and jump straight in!
But 'Comprehending Twilight' is Int+Enigmatic Widsom vs. Warping Score. Again Enigmatic Widsom - and therefore Hermes Cord - affects this. But in a way that is actually useful.
My point, which I'm rambling towards, is that Gold Cord IMHO was never intended to help you avoid Twilight, by logical conclusion of how Spirit Familiar affects Twilight through the modified Gold Cord (called Hermes Cord)
We've discussed this in our troupe. After some debate, we have decided to allow a wide enough definition of "use of magic" to allow the Golden Cord to apply also for avoiding Twilight when the source of the Twilight is the maga's own magic.
I can see the arguments in both directions, and in the strictest interpretation of the Golden Cord, I can certainly agree that it should not apply. However, since our general feeling is that Familiar Bonds are not that awesome in our Saga, we've less qualms with extending their benefits somewhat.
(We also had a similar discussion on whether the Golden Cord applies to Finesse botches when using it to control/manipulate your own spells -- again, we decided it should, since, in our interpretation, you are effectively "using magic" when you are controlling your active magic using the Finesse arcane ability.)
Shh.
Don't tell my maga who has a base soak of +6, that her bond isn't all that awesome. Or can fling 3 lightning bolts while subtracting 4 botch dice bringing it down to as few as 0 botch dice.
Johnathan, granted, if our magi experienced combat (un)reasonably often, I would agree. However, I can't remember the last time any of our magi needed to make a Soak roll. Our most frequent application of the Cords seems to be reduce Botch dice for magic. For the most part, our magi tend to try to place themselves in rather safe situations when exercising magic, for fear of Botching in general. Except from the occasional foray into Infernal Regiones, of course:)
Well, if these are young magi and low warping scores, they should embrace the double botch with all due gusto and go into Twilight. It's got a better than even chance of being a positive experience.
I was so ticked off that one of my characters botched three different times on spells last week and none of them were double botches (and I was throwing 5+ botch dice).
