This is my first post here. I have only discovered Ars Magica for now 2 years and I have the impression that I’ve found THE game, if you know what I mean. I’m very interested and I do a lot of reading. I’ve introduced some of my friend to this game and know I have some players that try to create some spells and notably a Healing Ritual Spell Creo Corpus Lvl 25.
Details are : Base 20 Heal Medium, T: Circle(+0), R: Touch (+1), D: Moment(+0)
This spell heal every medium wounds of every persons in the circle. As he said, every wound is a target inside the circle.
It seams a little overpowered and I’m not sure it should be done like that. I know the golden rule but I don’t really want to frustrate my players but it seams out of the rails.
Do you have any suggestions ?
The issue is that the wounds would then only be healed for a few seconds. The duration, being “mom” would not last past the end of the round, unless Vis was used, and vis is the currency of magi.
Also, that would heal a single medium wound per person.
Also, for these kinds of spells, why would people use Target : Group(+1) while Circle(+0) is better? I’m sure you cannot circle a Pilum of fire, but for perma buff spells like Healing or +1 for Stamina, it seems better to use Circle.
This type of healing is canon. But it is not as “broken” as it seems. Natural wound recovery is a slow and rather punishing process in Ars magica without some form of supernatural help. There are Healing spells that allows to immediately close wounds requiring vis and time (at least one hour) and other spells granting hefty wound recovery bonus, which don’t require vis, but follow the normal, lengthy healing process.
In the several sagas I played or run, Ritual healing, even in circle, was never considered broken, because it always happens after a fight, and fight are deadly in Ars. So if PCs/NPCs survive a fight, healing rituals can prevent characters to die or remains cripple after the fight.
The “brokeness” aspect is also dependent on how abundant vis (of the appropriate type) is abundant in your saga. 5 pawns of vis is about 20-25% of our yearly vis income, so not so insignificant, also considering that 4 pawns are used for the Aegis (another 20% of our income).
Creo and Corpus vis are in higher demand than most other vis because of their use in Longevity rituals.
It would be more annoying if such ritual could be cast like normal spell, thus allowing in-fight regeneration, dragging combat for longer than they should.
One aspect that you might want to house rule is applying Circle target to Stat boosting ritual. It can quickly lead (once the appropriate Arts have been leveled and spells learnt/researched) to whole turbula with +5 Str, +5 Sta or +5 Dex.
So we house-ruled that appropriate target for stat-boosting ritual are either Ind or Group (+2), but not circle.
As mentioned by others, this spell will cost 5 vis, which is not cheap. All momentary duration Creo spells need vis to be permanent. One can cast a Creo healing spell with a duration, and that will not need vis, but it is generally seen as a poor idea. Any duration healing spell heals the wound, just for it to reopen once the duration is ended.
The spell will also heal 1 medium wound, not all wounds. Heal all wounds has a baseline effect of level 35.
You are correct that making a spell circle, instead of individual, is generally better where possible. The where possible is important. Please stay inside this circle while I go around it chanting and waving my arms to burn you all (a circle pilum of fire) is unlikely to work.
I think you may be looking and combat and healing from a perspective that I feel fits in Ars Majica poorly (others may disagree). Ars Majica is not a game you want lots of combat. If you are thinking you can just heal after combat, think again. You want overwhelming superiority, magi owning the battlefield, something to make the combat unfair in your favour. A fair fight ends in characters dying.
One last point about healing. 5 vis for a medium wound, honestly most troupe would expect the heal mage to cast “purification of the festering wound” and let the wound heal naturally. Heavy and incapacitating are the killers; or medium without magical assistance, sometimes.
If I was suggesting a healing circle, I would go for the level 25 base effect Improve all wounds by one severity level. Gets rid of all light wounds; reduces all medium to a light, which yes, is not fully healed, but a light wound is trivial; and this reduced the really scary wounds, which can easily kill after the battle. It is a level 30 spell, so 6 vis not 5, which does mean everyone affected will get a warping point, but if there is a time where that healing circle is considered, no-one will care about the warping.
The question is marked Solved, but I want to make sure we catch any possible mistakes:
Target Group is +2, not +1.
You are correct you cannot build a version of Pilum that is Circle Target, because Pilum is a creation, in addition to Creo - The ‘Target’ is the fire itself.
The wounds themselves are not the target for the healing - the person being healed is, because you’re making them a more perfect version of themselves (by healing).
Yes but you need to make sure the circle is not broken as you cast the spell and needs a concentration or finesse roll, can't remember which, as you draw the circle. That roll gets more difficult as the circle gets bigger…
Also, the circle fanatics, the Columbine, are within house Miscellanea and in your campaign that could carry a social stain to cast circle spells.
I'm not sure what you mean by the target is the fire. In a pillum of fire, the target is a (for example) beast or a person or, I don't know, a tree. Not the fire itself. I don't understand why I cannot put my plum of fire in a circle, except because it will never be used, because you have to turn around before casting.
Yes, that's why I was kinda surprised when my player did that.
Of course while you cast a circle, it needs only a cat to break your circle. Yes, it's in rule Sun/ring p.112, Concentration Roll 6+ while Drawing large circle.
When casting a spell that creates something, for example a cow, a bush, a boulder, or a fire, the Target of that spell is the thing being created, and the Target parameter must therefore always be Individual or Group, even if the intent of the spell is to use the Target to affect a target, for example by creating a fire to burn someone, a boulder or cow to fall on them, or a bush to entangle them. A Pilum of Fire is not a damage spell, it’s a spell that creates a fire that deals +15 damage at a location within Voice range, which then naturally harms anything not particularly resistant to fire that is located inside the bonfire conjured by the spell.
Because “Target” is a term of art in Ars Magica one needs to be careful when using it to describe what is going on with a spell. The Target of a Creo Ignem spell is the fire being created. In other games you would describe what that fire is burning as the target of the spell, but to avoid confusion as to the details of what is going on it’s probably best to call that the “victim” or some other designator that won’t be confused with a term of art in the game.
Right! As they say, the Target (capital T) of the spell is the thing being created: the fire. the +15 damage Bob is taking is just an unfortunate natural side effect of him coexisting with a place that’s on fire.
Just like my friend Sitheros’s spell - There’s Always a Bigger Fish - doesn’t target the Venetian pirates, it summons a whale. The fact they got crushed is an unfortuante coincidence and natural side effect of them existing beneath a conjured whale on the beach.