Help me on warping - constant effects

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

For this example, the effect is low power and designed by/for target.

The duration is say, a season, or three moons, timeline is four seasons.

When would warping occur?

Scenario 1:
Season 1, one constant effect
Season 2, one constant effect, different to previous one
Season 3,4 no effects

Scenario 2:
Season 1, two constant effects,
Season 2, one constant effect, different to previous two
Season 3,4 no effects

Scenario 3:
Season 1, one effect
Season 2, one effect, different to previous one
Season 3, one effect, different to previous two
Season 4, no effects

2
3

Ah, so for all three scenarios the character would gain exactly one warping per year?

Edit: And thanks for your response.

4

Yes, though the first is right at the cut-off. Ending those effects slightly early so you have just under half a year between them would prevent the warping.

The one thing I really dislike about this is the bookkeeping. How many effects were active for how many halves of days this year?

5

Hi,

Yes, and agreed: Yuck.

Rule Variant (replaces all rules for Warping from spells, powers and similar effects):

Every year, a character gains Warping Points equal to the maximum number of supernatural effects simultaneously active on that character at any time during that year, minus his current Warping Score, but the WP cannot be reduced to zero. Calculate at the same time as Aging. This Warping does not trigger Twilight or similar effects.

Magnitude of the effect doesn't matter. Duration of the effect doesn't matter. Source or Realm of the effect doesn't matter, as long as it isn't natural. There are a few exceptions, such as Heartbeast (all that stuff is natural) and sometimes Miracles (up to God :slight_smile: ).

There are two numbers to track: Maximum Simultaneous Effects and Current Simultaneous Effects.

Let's take an example:

A magus begins the year (high water mark 0), but he has an active Longevity Ritual (1). He also has Shapeshifter, which he uses to become a wolf (2). While a wolf, he is challenged to Certamen by a Bjornaer. Still at 2, because Shapeshifting is only active during transformation, and the back and forth of Certamen involves at most one effect at a time. Later during the year, on an adventure, he layers 3 Intellego spells on himself (4) and also two protective spells (6); he also casts various spells on other people, which do not count, but the dragon's fire that hits him does (7), as do his periodic uses of Second Sight (sure, he has that too) and the healing performed on him by a holy hermit. That's the highest he gets for the year.

At the end of the year, the magus' Warping Score is 4. So he gains 3 Warping Points for the year.

Yeah, the magnitude of the effect is irrelevant. Yeah, there is no notion of "I am the caster, so I'm immune" or "this power was designed for me, so I'm immune." Yeah, a character who has one Momentary spell cast on him during a year warps as much as a character who spends the year under a single enchantment.

Anyway,

Ken

6

That's an interesting variant. I find the decision to reduce the warping by the warping score quiet intriguing.

7

I don't like it because I'll commonly see characters with 10-20 active effects at some point during an adventure. But these are only active for a short while, such as a single combat. Normally that just pushes somewhat closer to one more Warping Point for the year. But with this rule characters who do that would hit high Warping Scores very quickly.

8

Aye, I can appreciate it's place, but it seems like it would dramatically increase Warping gains.

9

Hi,

It probably needs some tweaking, yeah. Though perhaps it is sufficient for Warping Score to be able to completely offset Warping Points.

A magus in his prime is then less likely to sustain 10-20 active effects on himself without warping, but can sustain 4-6 effects even if they are longer term, including his LR. The extra WP gained every now and then is offset by the years in which none are gained at all.

(Just to be clear, spells that a magus casts on someone else, such as a PoF, do not count.)

Of course, cocconing a grog in spells will rapidly inflict flaws using this system. Perhaps too rapidly. (Or perhaps not: A grog who adventures for 10 years, with a high water mark of 10 every year:

0 0
1 1+5
2 2+4
3 2+13
4 3+5
5 3+12
6 3+19
7 4+6
8 4+12
9 4+18
10 4+24
11 5+5

Anyway,

Ken

10

It's definitely a different dynamic. Do you have concerns about magi layering effects? It seems more important to me that they do so early in their career, when their spells are weaker, than it does later. It's also weird completely negating it, as 1 pt a year tends to be the limiter on magi lifespan (as a human at least.)

11

Hi,

Me? My concerns? Iol My concerns differ dramatically from those I infer from the rules. I'm concerned that magi aren't epic enough! I think they don't live long enough! I think botches should be toned way down to encourage players of magi to do more and bigger stuff. I think Warping should pull magi gradually away from the world, changing their behavior not merely because they are afraid to do anything interesting lest they explode.

But...

If I stay relatively close to canonical concerns, I perceive a real concern about people being subject to magical effects, especially big ones. From a traditional rpg perspective, this makes sense. A D&D 3.x character with lots of magic items and active spells becomes a platform for those persistent effects. (They tried toning this down going from 3.0 to 3.5, but D&D characters have many spells to burn). Same for AM run closer to that mode, except that AM spells are resourceless, so a group of magi can cast all the spells on all the grogs, and on themselves too, and have a grand ole time until the Sun goes down.

Now, if you don't have that kind of concern, why not solve the problem by removing the rule entirely? Spells don't cause Warping. That simple. No bookkeeping.

BTW, a magus does not die from having an arbitrarily high Warping Score. He will endure in our world forever and ever until he starts failing aging rolls... or until he suffers Twilight, which will be final.

Tangentially, for a new edition, I would seriously consider removing spell duration entirely, replacing it with the number of spells a magus can have active at once; more experienced magi can have more. No more rolling for concentration,. No more having to time a Diameter against combat rounds. No more need for the kind of game mechanic we've been talking about in this thread. Maybe take a Warping Point if you want to exceed your limit or roll a stress die or something similar.

Anyway,

Ken

12

When you talk about toning down the danger of botches, it reminds me of the feedback loop, on botches, our current game has.

As botches are bad, the players all have ways of minimizing/trivializing botch dice, so botches are rarer.
As they're rarer, the SG is making them rougher,
As they're rougher, the need to avoid them increases.

Part of the problem is the inexactness of expectation for botches. Like 2 botches is Twillight test, easy, but what are the spell effects from one, from two, from three?

13

That's why I make it known up front and don't vary it based upon the Virtues people take, as the loop you described just effectively deprives everyone of some Virtues. This is what I wrote for examples: