It does raise the question of should we do something about a ridiculous amount of light wounds? I've thought a rule of the 10th light wound is considered a moderate wound is a good option.
In combat against all but crazy large creatures, the chance of 10 light wounds occuring prior to incapacitation, is rare, and it reduces the ability to exploit some spells.
For what it's worth, I'd like to vote against this change. The current rules for wounds are a thing of beauty.
Just to clarify, Tellus, I wasn't suggesting a change to rule for wounds, but to The Tireless Flight spell only.
Then I apologize for having misread your post.
Strategically quoting a small snippet to leave out exactly what those variations are does not make your case at all. Those variations are spelled out quite explicitly. I recently saw someone elsewhere do exactly this same misleading partial quote to make the same false case.
@callen: No matter what you wish to argue, the change I propose for The Tireless Flight together with my quote from HoH:TL p.101 makes sure even to very sloppy readers, that there is no other version of this spell without Mutantum Magic.
I understand that. What I said above is still true: this would require changing the Mutantum Magic virtue as well. Read what I first replied to say. I didn't say it wouldn't work. I pointed out that there would need to be this extra change since you're now adding something new to Mutantum Magic.
A simpler solution, in my mind at least, which does not change the rules to suggest an equivalency in accumulated wounds of different categories, is to addendum the text such that every time a light wound is gained from exceeding the unconscious level it requires an immediate roll, , for the possible worsening of all other wounds previously acquire during this casting of the spell, specifying that recasting without first suffering the result of unconsciousness is considered to be the same spell.
I would note two things here.
First, The Tireless Flight still does make sense in my view. I do not think it assumes that Unconsciousness is suppressed. There are cases in which you can lose multiple fatigue levels at once. So the spell would make you feel no fatigue, but if you pushed yourself beyond the limit (by being already Weary and taking three fatigue levels) you'd get hurt. It might need a little editing for clarity, but it would still be useful.
Second, I think that since The Tireless Flight and Endurance of the Berserkers use the same guideline, they should have the same mechanics (other than as for RDT and Mutantum stuff). So it's actually a good thing if The Tireless Flight gets reworked a bit.
I'd just note that a magically conjured grog can whack a dragon with a mundane sword without needing to penetrate. And the problem is that this also allows the greenest (or most wizened) non-magical grog to do the same, as long as one is willing to a) lose that grog or b) spend 6 pawns of vis to heal him at the end of the spell.
And I would not call a level 20-25 spell "fairly high level*... though that's obviously just me.
Finally, sure, Hermetic Magic should allow you to do absurdly powerful stuff. But if you allow "invincible berserker grogs" then almost all other combat magic concepts become vastly inferior, which impoverishes the game.
There are two problems with that. First, the idea that fatigue-magic (actually fatigue-restoring, rather than fatigue-preventing, but hey) is admissible in Certamen is part of one of the hooks in HMRE (about Folk Witches brewing fatigue-restoring potions). So either that has to be rewritten, or some complex line must be drawn about what's admissible and what's not.
Second, if certamen requires scrying on the contestants to make sure there's no magic going on, it becomes much less usable (and besides, again, where do you draw the line?). I'd much rather have a system where everything on yourself is in principle ok (though it can be negotiated away) so there's no need to scry, or have a third party scry, your opponent.
To be honest, the impact on certamen of fatigue management spells doesn't bother me too much - because I think these sort of things only generate tribunal stories and possible peripheral code developments. Having imperfect laws that don't deal with every situation until you cross the bridge and someone decides to make that an issue is a good thing, story-wise, and actually fairly normal. The idea that you can ignore fatigue indefinitely or accumulate an endless number of light wounds, to be cured in a single ritual, that's different, as that seems a weakness of the mechanics rather than a story hook.
Actually, it does not quite say that. It says:
The spell is tethered so that the target can control the effect, allowing her to stop concentrating when she has reached her destination and has time to recover
This does not mean that you can't recover fatigue / heal while under the effect of the spell. It says the recipient can choose when to allow the spell to lapse - rather than being hit by that at an inconvenient time. If you assume the effect does prevent healing/recovering fatigue while active, that should be spelled clearly in the corebook where the guideline is introduced.
I didn't say you cannot recover Fatigue. I said there are "other issues." You're incorrectly reading what I said. Consider trying to eat enough not to run into trouble when you're never hungry. Considering roughly that is a major health issue in sports in the real world, I don't see that it wouldn't be an issue. Consider trying to get a full night's sleep to recover long-term Fatigue when you're never tired.
Oh I see what you meant now. I agree I had misread it then. I do think it was easy to misread.
They do have problems when the wounded party does not generate defense totals. A heavily, heavily wounded character can be more easily kiled by a child's kick than by an Incantation of Lightning. But other than that, they are quite clever, so much that I often wondered why they were not ported over to Fatigue.
That's not really true. I've run the numbers on the boards before. People have claimed things like this often, but it's a misperception.
People have also claimed similar about environmental damage, and I've run the numbers for this, too, and the current damage system is fairly realistic.
Nope. The force driving the sword is magically generated, and thus blocked. He could shoot arrows at it, though.
You could do a wolf at that level, but not a grog. It's not actually clear that the grog is Hermetically possible. And, note, the fatigue/wounds thing is not that important. Create a wolf is base 15, so a Group at Diameter is level 30. Maybe 35 if we charge for the Rego requisite to get them to do what you like. And now a magus can send at least ten wolves against the foe every round, indefinitely. (More, because wolves are smaller than ponies.) It doesn't matter if one gets squashed, because there are ten more where that came from. Have eagles attack someone, and the level drops to 30 — and they can fly. Same level for crocodiles.
This is why I am not worried about the edge cases. There are so many ways to skin cats in Ars Magica (some of which ensure that the cat will survive, and even enjoy, the experience) that trying to block individual ones is a fool's errand.
On the interpretation of the guideline, I think it is important that we have game rules called Fatigue penalties and wound penalties. The most natural reading of the guideline is that it allows you to ignore those. Unconscious and Incapacitated are explicitly different (page 178-9). This makes sense: the guideline is clearly too low to enable someone to ignore falling into molten lava.
I guess The Tireless Flight would let you keep going for several days without sleep; people do not fall unconscious immediately.
While I am still a little wary about making a change that could affect sagas, it would be reasonable to make it explicit that this does not protect you from unconsciousness or incapacitation.
Now, what level should it be for a guideline that does?
HoH:S disagrees with you. An animated skeleton wielding a normal sword explicitly bypasses MR.
In ArM5 it would happen after about 56 hours awake, and that's without the fatigue of travel. Include the travel and it's much less than that 56 hours. That's not really several days and far short of the long trip it's supposedly able to manage.
We know from HoH:TL p.97:
Thorough grounding in this magical philosophy and their natural affinity with change allows Mutantes to invent spells that have unusual power over magic, altering it in specific ways. Mutantes can use these powers when casting formulaic spells designed to take advantage of them or investing magic items with appropriate effects. They can also write or teach the resulting spells in a way other Mutantes can understand and learn. These changes include:
There is no claim, that the chapter Mutantes (p.96f) describes completely the magic of the Mutantes.
So adding a little detail to their magic in p.102 The Tireless Flight would not require an update/erratum in p.96f Mutantes, or anywhere else but in The Tireless Flight proper. There are indeed many far more important details about Hermetic magic itself in the spell descriptions of ArM5 p.117ff.