Sure. Afterall, NPCs are PCs ... as the storyguide is a player too. Why is that a problem?
Either the NPCs are better than the PCs or they aren't. The game mechanic specifics of how the NPCs are better (or not) than the PCs doesn't really matter that much does it?
"Troupe agreement" doesn't necessarially mean stopping for a vote and a legal argument. The troupe can agree to let, say, the (current) storyguide "fairly" adjudicate the rules as needed.
Well, the RAW does talk about Fast Cast Defenses of sufficient level (against both spells and mundane threats) "neutraliz[ing] the threat". While kind of imples that the threat can be completed avoided.
I'm not sure I understand you, and you may have missed my point.
What I was saying is that, whatever your capacity to actually pull it of, if you're fast enough to "catch" a sword a sword in mid-swing via ReTe so as to stop the swing, you're certainly fast enough to PeCo kill someone in mid-swing too.
???
Err, no. Not at all.
You raised a valid problem* (If a character is focused on something, he may very well fail to notice something else, and thus to react to another event). I offered 2 ways to resolve this, should you be interested. That’s all.
Specifically, this problem is entirely unrelated to how people resolve fast casting. "Is your magus aware of this?" is a question that can arise whatever your opinion on it. So, using this to say that your system is better than marko is wrong, since neither of you are required to ask for awareness rolls if a magus wants to react to something, just like both of you could ask for one.
More to the point: If delayed actions, which work like fast cast, can interrupt, but fast-cast can’t, what the hell?
WomS does no affect spells of momentary duration. So it has no effect
Assuming instead everyone resolves they (rapidly insane) Quickness checks, that they’re in a Room and Wizard B cast a Room sized Unraveling the Fabric of Ignem? Grog A attacks Grog Z
Note that this situation is, again, irrelevant of what you think about killing someone before he’s completed his action. Going through JL’s system of only stopping the action, you could have:
Grog A attacks grog Z
Wizard Y fast cast a CrTe shield between Grog A and Z before it strikes the grog
Wizard B fast cast a PeTe spell on the shield before it’s struck by the sword
Wizard Y fast cast Unravelling the Fabric of Terram on Wizard B
Wizard B fast cast Winds of Mundane Silence
Only because you want it so.
Why would NPCs be inherently better at interrupting than PCs? For what it’s worth, why couldn’t they be worse, with the PCs being more martial that most of the other magi?
Yes, I understood your point, but I think you misunderstand mine. I'm not disagreeing what what you just wrote above; I was making a different but related point. In fencing the counterattack commonly lands before the attack, but commonly the attack still lands. Killing the person lunging at you just before their blade pierces your body does not imply their blade will not pierce your body. It simply means they'll be dead as it does. Ultimately, my point is that just because the rules say you can get in an action before the end of another one does not imply that you can get in that same action before the first action is initiated, which happens to agree very well with reality if you are reacting to an action being initiated. So, in this case, the rules say you can get in some effect before the sword lands, but the rules never say you can get in that effect before the person swings the sword.
Where in between the initiation and the result does the response happen? This is less clear. But it seems to me that the rules seem to match reality and be internally consistent best if the initiation and result are both considered instantaneous events with some finite amount of time between them.
But I'm saying you don't catch it mid swing, you catch it in the moment just before it hits the grog. It's a just in the nick of time action. If you'd sent a Pilum of Fire, in stead of deflecting the sword, the sword would still hit.
If a player wants their character to be hyper aware, and take action to prevent bad actions, that's pretty much going to necessitate awareness rolls. I suppose my framework could support for making an awareness roll to determine whether action can be taken before, but again, that's adding more dice rolling to combat, forcing me to adjudicate results on the fly, and I know myself well enough that I won't remember why I decided last session the difficulty level was 12, and this week it's a 15. I'm just not that good at remembering, and the system isn't concrete enough to be reliable, so that everyone knows where they stand. It is much simpler to say, defensive fast cast spells will mitigate the attack. Offensive ones, won't. There's still an enormous amount of player determination left in that table ruling.
They, delayed actions, don't work like fast cast. Delayed actions are their own separate thing. And to delay, you must have won initiative. And you are presumably waiting for your opponent to do something, watching him, and then stopping him once you've figured out what he's doing. It's quite a bit different than fast casting, where a magus might be preparing a spell, then notice that their shield grog went down like a bag of potatoes. Going specifically and only to the Option: Fast Casting as Interruption optional rule on page 120 of Lords of men, it says that you use the normal fast casting procedure, but use the Action Priority Total to determine the Ease Factor of the fast casting speed roll. My point is that the procedure for fast casting doesn't interrupt, as I read it in RAW, it is a response to an action, and the resolution as outlined in the RAW shows two opposing magi casting a spell and counter spell. If you can interrupt and prevent the incoming spell, there's little need for a counter spell, is there?
Because NPCs are usually better at something, and in RPGs, that has a tendency to be combat. And specifically, in Bibracte, you really don't want to give Valerian more power in combat. Perhaps I was speaking too generally when I said it will generally give the advantage to NPCs, and should have qualified it with, in Bibracte.
Even still, I see little point to give PCs an advantage over NPCs or vice versa. If PCs are better they don't need more rules designed to defeat their opponents more easily. If NPCs are better they don't need more rules designed to defeat their opponents more easily. IMO, fast casting works best as a counter to an action. Some counters are much more effective at mitigating the result of the action being countered. Callen has articulated very well the way I see things, there is an initiation to the action and a result of the action. I'm saying the result can be mitigated, because, the magus only realized what was going to happen when the action was initiated. And the rest of the time between initiation and result is the magus preparing his counter spell. If the counter spell is a Pilum of Fire, it will still affect the opposing grog but the result still happens. If the "counter" spell were a variant of Wizard's Leap designed to affect someone at a distance, then it will prevent the result.
Agreed indeed. Only... the error may be mine, but to me it appears that you're trying to do just that: Interpreting the rules specifically to the (percieved) advantage of the PCs.
Perhaps, but I designed my NPCs with my understanding of fast casting in mind. So they were already limited by the rules as I understood them. And I've been consistent about telling the PCs that they should understand that a change in the rules would affect the entire cosmology of the saga. That NPCs would be capable of doing what they want to do, and will be more capable. And that perhaps, they don't really want to do that. Unintended consequences, and all that. I don't mind that bit. Where I have a problem is that it becomes a bit more difficult for me, as an SG to determine what's a reasonable action. And it happens at a time in a game session where there is already a lot going on. And I know myself well enough that I likely won't be consistent from one encounter to the next. So to be fair, this limit or control is there so that everyone has a clear understanding of what's possible. And, IMO, it's pretty reasonable, and comports to the RAW.
I've been saying I'm basically in your camp on this one. But I think you'll find if we extend things further, nick of time before the result also corresponds to potentially being nick of time after the cause. In essence, the game really seems to treat the cause as instantaneous and the effect as instantaneous with a finite amount of time between them, at least if we're going to avoid seeing into the future or being in two places at once issues (which are small enough that we could ignore them and it will work - they just bother me too much). The finite amount of time is much larger for formulaics than for fast-cast spells, and the specific amount of finite time is not defined and depends upon the number of beings involved in an encounter, but that's necessary because we have initiative and rounds.
This can be avoided. In the system I've been working on (I play with very mathematical players.) each action takes time, and reactions can only be started just after an action commences. We count off time for everything. You can abort in the middle. When your action resolves you choose a new one, figure out when it will resolve, and then wait until then unless you abort in the middle in reaction to something. This fits reality much better, but you have to have everyone willing to deal with that sort of issue. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
I'll agree that there can't be a better system. I just don't want to design it and play test it. And such a system would seem very unlike Ars, to me. Combat seems to take long enough, especially in PbP, the last thing I want to do is add awareness checks at multiple points to determine just where the action was determined, so that the PCs can figure out how to respond to the attack (offensively or defensively) that, to me breaks a lot of the immersion of the game.
I also like that it forces some rather hard choices on a magus. Yes, you're a beaucoup powerful combat magus, but let's face it, grogs have a tendency to die when they're with you, whereas, with your sodales, they tend to live. They don't like going on your missions, and therefore you get the least capable of the group, or something. Now, invest in some defensive spells for your grogs, and you're probably good to go, but until then, they aren't going to trust you very much.
Moved this discussion here as it only has to do with fast casting, doesn't address the issues of might stripping spells or the story issues Doogy and I had discussed surrounding these spells.
Considering the rules in Lords of Men are Optional, and therefore little more than House Rules, the contradiction is moot. Inconsistencies with fast casting are likely to be numerous and varied. To me, it makes no sense that two Flambeau facing off against each other that the loser of initiative could get his PoF off first. The reading of the fast cast rules to me are meant to mitigate the attack or other surprising event. Mitigation, in my mind, should be primarily defensive in nature.
I suppose I am giving the tie to the fast caster in the case of a defensive spell. I have no problem with that, as it fits my vision of how fast casting spells are supposed to work, and even matches the examples provided in the main text.
Again, firing the PoF will happen, but so will the other guy's PoF. Why does your PoF which is fast cast get to the other guy first when you lost initiative? Because you have a higher finesse or got lucky on your Qik+Finesse roll? Not only that, you now have the other guy now deciding he wants to fast cast since he sees his opponent fast casting. When does it end? It is much simpler and involves much less die rolling to favor defensive spells for fast casting.
This would be (at best) an example of an offensive spell used in a defensive manner. It is similar to Mighty Torrent of Water against PoF or BoAF. But, I'm not aware of a guideline that instantly turns a person from a living breathing person to dust. There are guidelines to Kill (level 30) and a guideline to destroy a corpse (level 5) but not one that does both instantly. So, all that can be done is to actually kill the grog as he stabs you. Indeed since the spell is so high level (Level 40 at Voice range) I'm not all that concerned with it being put into play as a defensive measure.
Take any rule, and you can find exploits. I'm trying to minimize exploits that slow down combat, frankly fast casting and rolling to see who really goes first is an example of that. If fast cast is used defensively, you don't have it. It's also, IMO, closest to the RAW, especially as the example is laid out. I have no hard and fast answer against your proposed grog running away, but since it doesn't involve fast casting as a response to an attack, I have no problem of a fast cast offensive spell happening. The grog's momentum probably propels him through the portal to the other side, though.
As to the why can't a magus be interrupted in the middle of his spell casting, that's exactly my point, why can't the magus who started casting first interrupt his own spell casting and respond with a fast cast spell? If you want to attack first, get initiative. Sometimes the dice roll poorly, I get that, and for that reason fast casting exists to save your bacon, not for you to beat your own initiative and deliver your offensive spells first.
That's your opinion. I think fast casting adds to the game, as it gives magi tools to keep them from being killed instantly, it gives them a chance. Turning it around as a tool for offensive purposes is, IMO, wrong.
This is why any future edition probably needs to (not completely, as the existing systems work nicely) rewrite the magic and combat systems enough that they mesh.
Resolution order should possibly be as follows (based on Initiative?) in ascending order from the bottom of the list
Declared actions (making an attack etc)
Full Spells (Spells, once cast, resolve instantly, even with durations, so the cast time is the factor)
Fast Cast Spells (see above, the penalties imply the fast cast is done without the normal prep time in the 6~ seconds)
Delayed actions (You're waiting to see what someone else does. If multiple delayed actions fall under the above 3 categories, resolve them in the same ascendant order, but BEFORE regular declared actions, spells and fast casts. They are being done in response, however, so I would impose a penalty on top of any existing ones, since you need to take the time to analyse the situation and resolve it. I would also allow fast reflexes to give a bonus here.)
Probably, but invariably someone will discover a flaw in the system or wording. Playtesters and writers can only do so much. I mean we're still discussing penetration with respect to Wards and the Aegis how many years after ArM5 was released, because everyone was used to how it was in ArM4...
Lords of Men does make some work at fixing initiative. The battle I've had there is that players still want to beat their initiative with offensive spells. It still requires multiple rolls to combat.
But what of a swing? What of an archer aiming? What of a magus incanting? Lunging and fencing are a very specific exemple, and a little out of period.
I see your point, and I agree there are times where killing someone before might not stop you from taking some damage.
Yet, there are times it should. Spells, too: Even with your lunge, if you disintegrate someone with a high-level PeCo spell, I doubt the sword, devoid of the body's inertia behind it, will be much efficient. With a swing, it might just be "thrown out" and hit someone nearby for some damage.
And that's how far from the grog's head?
So, in short, you're ruling that the sword is blocked one millimeter away from the grog's head, because any farther and it makes less and less sense?
You're right, I looked this morning, I was confusing with the sub-rule about Interrupting actions, on LoM p 119. Fast Casting
Note, first, that LoM p118 notes, in the Delayed Actions paragraph, that a normal delayed action "does not permit the character to actually interrupt another character's action as, for exemple, a fast-cast spell would".
So, even outside the optional rule, you've got a clarification that fast-cast spells can interrupt an action.
Then, p119, the Interrupting Actions optional rule gives Delayed Actions the possibility to interrupt actions too (so, just like Fast-Casting, right?). To quote: "This is similar to the way a successful fast-cast spell resolves before the attack against which the magus is defending".
They later explain that, in that contest, Interrupting with delayed spells differs from Fast Casting only in that... Fast Casting doesn't require the magus to have first delayed his action. Right afterwards, they wrote that "a magus with a delayed action can potentially have 2 attempts to stop an attack: Once by interrupting, and if that fails, once by fast casting".
Thus, when you say "My point is that the procedure for fast casting doesn't interrupt", you disagree with all of this.
The option is whether or not Delayed Actions can interrupt, in which case they compare it to fast-casting, which can: They don't introduce a rule saying "Option: Fast-Casting can interrupt"
I agree that it is simpler, no problem. But IMO, it is a HR, that's all
But read Ars Magica p174: It takes approximately one combat round (that is, 6 seconds) to cast a spell, unless it is fast-cast.
So you can kill someone in the instant it takes him to cut you down with his sword (MAD), but if it's a mage incanting, your fastcasting slows down to a crawl? It doesn't make sense, IMO.
Even assuming that, for example, fast casting takes 3 seconds. If you've got an enemy magus incanting a spell, you can complete yours and kill him before he's cast his spell. Sure, at times, both your spells will go at the same time. But there's no reason you can't go before and interrupt his action, which is just what LoM says fast-casting can do.
You're also focused on offense, which I can understand. But sometimes, an ennemy magus will just want to flee by teleporting, or to put a wall of stone between your grogs and him. With your HR, there's no way to stop him.
PeCo can kill someone on the spot. Even if you don't allow disintegration as cosmetic, since Pe can also disintegrate corpses, you can add a magnitude for an additionnal effect.
Likewise, there's an imaginem spell which does just that to metal, changing it to species... Scattering like Light. A corpus version is reasonable (albeit harder: I'd put the base at 25, final level at 40)
Read the later half of my sentence, please. Only the first half speaks about disallowing fast-casting entirely.
If you disallow the fast-cast mastery, you can still have fast-cast, as spontaneous spells, which cost fatigue.
Magi may try to use this for offensive purposes, but, as this leaves them vulnerable, I doubt much would, and this would quickly let them unable to fast-cast a lifesaving spell. This also means no fast-cast multicasting.
Why does it matter? It's stopped, and the grog can act and evade the blade. And I suppose if I say a millimeter, well that's close enough to slice the grog anyway, when the momentary effect expires?
Why does it matter? It's stopped, and the grog can act and evade the blade.
Note, this applies if, and only if you'reusing the rules from Lords of Men, so you're extending the discussion on fast casting significantly, especially for people who don't have Lords of Men.
To interrupt you have to have delayed your action. If you've delayed your action you either won initiative or you delayed it from a previous round.
Then let's go back to ArM4 or earlier where all magic resolved after combat, in that case. Either the magus acts at his initiative point or he doesn't. Either he fast casts if he makes is Quickness+Finesse roll to mitigate an attack or other surprising event or doesn't. Combat does not need more die rolling, but I like the idea of giving players some capability with regards to fast-casting. It's ultimately up to them whether they live to see another day or go out in a blaze of glory.
Yes, you can choose to kill him as he takes you out, or you can Leap away, or do something else to mitigate the attack. The same applies to the magus incanting a PoF and pointing at your location, if you're not there when the PoF hits, you don't get damaged. If you manage to put up a torrent of water, you don't get damaged, if you stand there and incant your own PoF spell, even if it is mastered for fast casting, it gets to him either at the same time his arrives to you.
If you want to get that detailed and mathematical, then you should ask callen about his system, it seems to be well modeled to handle this.
No, I'm focused on combat, because rolling more dice in combat slows it down. And no, there isn't necessarily a way to stop someone from fleeing, that's kind of the point, but he also has to be prepared for that. Additionally, the wall of stone can easily be destroyed by a spell from the magus with the grogs.
Ugg, no. Adding extra effects to spells, just say no.
Fine, if someone has a magus with Im and Co at levels that they can cast it, I don't have an objection to this.
It will also tire out magi who are defending, which is, IMO, the primary reason one invents defensive spells and masters them for fast casting.
It's a pretty simple rule: use fast cast for defense, if you attempt to use it offensively the results of that are not going to mitigate whatever it is you're trying to respond to.
I think an easy house rule is that you can not strike before someone unless you have the initiative. I think the rules in both RAW and LoM bear this out.
If you have a faster initiative then you can wait or hold your action to see what someone is doing. I would make the trigger specific " I'm holding my action until Ra'am acts" Once he acts you can take your action and then kill him. This is not fast cast because that is in reaction to another action as stated in RAW. So the other action happens. The archer fires his arrow. Another Magus casts a spell. They have initiative. Their actions are going to happen. Any counter you make will not matter even with fast cast. The only time it would matter is if you had a held action and the target of your action is the one you are triggering on.
I am a proponent of a more liberal and "player friendly" interpretation of Fast Casting rules. I also utilize Lord of Men, which are not tantamount to HR's but rather are playtested rules from cannon. Not using them would be the HR. And I also favor a more action friendly style of gaming.
Having said all that...
I might suggest that the rules for initiative and Fast Casting are being viewed incorrectly.
ArM Initiative follows the English style of wargaming, rolling once at the start of the game to determine turn order. Some of us may be familiar with the American wargaming style as used in old D&D, making a new initiative roll at the start of each turn (or round).
AmM initiative plus Fast Cast spells and similar actions mix these ideas together, so it is easy to see it as changing initiative order. But this is a false interpretation. The Initiative roll sets a base sequencing for ease of smooth play, especially when multiple participants are involved. Like a dozen. Not each and every one of them is going to fast cast or make an interrupting action. Just a few. The heroes, the main villain, but not the mooks and the generic ranks. Fast Casting allows characters to act with some ingenuity within an otherwise ridged framework of pre-established turn order.
Whether or not you can do offensive fast casting is not necessarily "player friendly." I'm sure if your NPCs started liberally fast casting all of their offensive spells you'd have players a bit up in arms. Are you being "player friendly" by preventing NPCs doing something that PCs can do? I wouldn't like artificial limits like that.
It can be enough to slow down action. If I see you fast casting a Pilum of Fire in response to my Pilum of Fire, why can't I cast mine faster in response to yours? What's been gained except some unnecessary die rolling to see who is really going first, when initiative is supposed to determine that. If instead, you know the event is going to happen and you do something to avoid being affected by it that doesn't involve doing unto me before I've done unto you, then you've saved needless dice rolls. In PbP this is REALLY important, too, since combat can take literally weeks if there are multiple PCs controlled by different players.
