How to resist falling unconscious from losing fatigue

Hello all :slight_smile: I'm trying to find a way to expend all of my fatigue without immediately falling unconscious using life-linked spontaneous magic. This seems to be a big no-no as far as the rules are concerned; every spell that touches on it even tangentially is quick to mention that running out of fatigue means you go unconscious. There's a Bjornaer mystery wherein you can ignore an incapacitating wound for 2 minutes, there are multiple spells to damage fatigue, ignore fatigue (up to unconscious), even transfer fatigue. But there doesn't seem to be an ability to remain conscious after expending that last fatigue. I know that there's a spell to gain fatigue back from the forest (Guardians of the forest) and I'm aware that there's apparently hedge magic which allows for fatigue-restoring potions, so the concepts do exist. Maybe I'll require a minor breakthrough to use ReCo or ReMe to stay awake?

Anyway, just thinking out loud here. Any ideas on how to accomplish this? Anything I've missed?

It's one of the limts of Hermetic Magic, the Limit of Energy, as stated in the corebook, in page 80. But indeed Folk Witches can go around that. Hedge Magic have that thing; it's less powerful than hermetic magic, but can cut through corners hermetic magic can't. You could indeed go over that limit through a breakthrough. In fact that breakthrough is actually described on HMRE, page 51.

Thank you for the response! I'll see how the troupe feels about it. I'm capable of accomplishing some pretty epic feats with a very large size, modified stamina/soak and burning all of my fatigue, but when a gigantic bear goes unconscious during an event it tends to cause problems for the others :smiley:

Another quick question -- I'm not so much interested in restoring fatigue, as is described in HMRE-- I simply want a window of time wherein I postpone the "unconscious" effect. I've successfully entered into the mystery wherein I can perform the epic feat of ignoring an incapacitating wound for 2 minutes-- that's pretty much what I want, except with fatigue -- the chance to act after basically pouring my all into a spell. Perhaps I could do so with a virtue? I'm not clear on rules regarding obtaining new virtues -- would this still be a research project? Could you perhaps point me towards something in the books? Appreciate the help :slight_smile:

A R: Touch or Voice version of ArM5 p.134 Endurance of the Berserkers cast and maintained by a sodalis on you, e. g. an HoH:L p.102 The Tireless Flight, will accomplish this. Just make the sodalis aware before you go all out and need her to maintain you conscious afterwards.

Cheers

Thank you for the response! Unfortunately, endurance of the berserker is very clear that when you spend your last fatigue, you go unconscious. I'm not seeing the same wording in Tireless Flight; in fact it seems to say you can keep expending fatigue levels (as wounds) past the normal limit. I think this might be what I'm looking for? One of my troupe mates isn't convinced; he's saying the two are exactly the same. I think it's pretty clear they're not. Thoughts?

Right. AFAICS this is, because Endurance of the Berserker is R: Per. The Tireless Flight is R: Touch, and you do not cast it on yourself.

Indeed.

... so they do not knock you out, but require some time to be cured before the target magus can cast spells with fatigue again (ArM5 p.179).

Cheers

If instead of using something like Endurance of the Berserker with a concentration duration (where your concentration breaking will end the effects), something with a fixed duration to keep you conscious might work better.
However, as pointed out, once you've used all of your fatigue, each extra fatigue level used will cause damage.

The Tireless Flight says each fatigue level past Unconscious become light wounds, but as that spell refers to travel that's probably referring to what happens if you get exhausted travelling or try to exert yourself in combat - in these cases you lose one level of Fatigue. However, the Life-Linked Spontaneous Magic rules say "The number of levels still needed for the spell is treated as the amount by which a damage total exceeds your soak, and you take the corresponding wound" - so presumably you take a light wound to cast a "divide by 2" spontaneous spell when you're out of fatigue, and THEN make the roll to see if you make the spell level required or if you take damage.

Let me check the maths on this - say there's a massive forest fire, and you decide to spontaneously cast Clouds of Rain and Thunder as the easiest way to put out a wide area. Let's say you know Creo reasonably well (10), but have little Auram (5) and the Stamina +4 of a bear and the forest has a slight aura of +1, so your CrAu casting total is normally 20 here. You are almost out of fatigue but had a colleague cast an Animal version of The Tireless Flight on you. You spend a fatigue to attempt a fatiguing Spontaneous spell, which would render you unconscious except for the spell cast on you. You then need to roll, and the difference between the spell level (25) and your casting total (20 + your roll, divided by 2), is how much damage you take EXCEEDING your soak, so your mighty +9 soak for a bear is ignored - so if you roll 6, your casting total is 13, you take 12 points of damage, which on a size +2 bear is a medium wound.

These wound penalties could rapidly build to leave your character relying on magic to stay moving, immobile if the spell keeping them up ever stops, and needing to spend most of their post-adventure season in bed healing. It's certainly possible, but could get your character dead or needing months of bed rest.

You could force a Grugachan to initiate you into the External Soul....
Then you could cast what ever you want, take a giant beyond incapacitating would and it would just get broken up into a bunch of heavies and some warping...

But then I suppose turning into a giant crystal statue of a bear or what have you isn't much better than passing out...

You could probably use the same base guideline as both of the referenced spells to just make something that lets you stay upright, but just barely. The important part of both spells is that they have a method of dealing with running out of fatigue (falling unconscious and ending the spell or taking light wounds) if you wanted a different running on empty condition just run it by your ST. Your troupe mate is correct that they use the same base effect but the base effect doesn't specify what they running on empty effect needs to be, it is just made clear in the examples that you need one.

I could see many ST's demanding that you follow the text of Life-linked spontaneous (having them trump the spell) since otherwise there is basically no downside to casting level 50 spells spontaneously. Light wounds heal fast enough that you will barely notice (you can still do lab work?)... assuming someone doesn't stab you with a toothpick in the following week.

Mythic Herbalism has the Ease Factor 12 Physical Bonus effect "Ignore one level of Fatigue" (see Pharmacopeians in HoH:S or Learned Magicians in HMRE), but I'm not sure how that is supposed to work exactly.

I'm thinking you could use medicinal elixers in an enchanted container with ReAq linked to InCo so they could be transported to your stomach if you overexert yourself...

Well, for me all those advices would end with "it doesn't work" or "solution is worse than the problem" results (and you'd waste several seasons in discovering that this does not work).

My advice is : discuss the topic with your storyguide, I think it's pointless to search an authoritative advice on such an interpretative matter. As a storyguide, I would reject not only the solutions, but also the method.

Mythic herbalism ? Where do you see that it stops fainting after you used your last fatigue level ? The effect is only to ignore the fatigue malus caused by one level of fatigue, AFAIK.

Acquiring external soul ? You're kidding ? You imply that an hermetic magus could acquire a major supernatural non-hermetic virtue after his gauntlet ? Does he even know that this virtue exists ?

Having said that, there are creatures in the game books that are described as ignoring fatigue. So, perhaps your magus could attempt to transform himself in one of those, just to be immune to fatigue.
Nice. Tempting, perhaps. But in this case I would rule that you could not expend several fatigue levels to cast a spell with a virtue like life-liked spontaneous magic. You would have attained a new essential nature and could not expend fatigue.
So your new state would only protect you against ordinary fatigue loss, i.e. losing one fatigue level at a time.

You explicitly get it via a mystery initiation so it's theoretically possible. And to be honest, ya, I was mostly kidding. But it would be an interesting route for some years of research and adventuring, certainly not something you just do.

The thing in RoP:M that lets a monster ignore fatigue also makes it so you can't spend fatigue. Granted that would probably mean the overage just goes straight to damage (or that you just can't use your Life-Linked Spont. any more).
Almost everything that lets you ignore fatigue permanently makes it so you can't spend it.

You could enchant your familiar bond with the Gift of Vigor and make your familiar assume your fatigue level. That trick could be good once a day or so. You change an unconscious magus for an unconscious familiar. It won't stop you from falling unconscious but it will allow you to burn your fatigue twice a day.

Yeah, I've been discussing it with my troupemate-- I just wanted some ideas as to how to accomplish it. The main disagreement was that he believed I was breaching the limit of energy, but I felt like since I wasn't restoring fatigue (which RAW is very specific about hermetic magic not currently being able to accomplish), it should be possible. It seems like we've agreed that I can make it happen with a ReAn(Me) spell that I'll likely have to invent.
I'm very unconcerned with taking damage; the whole point is to go for broke with one gigantic spell and manage to limp away afterwards. Yes, I'll need a lot of time to convalesce, but the utility is near-limitless. It's not something I plan to do frequently... More of a nuclear option, for when things go really wrong (and with my troupe, they ALWAYS do). With my massive size and corresponding wound range, I can accomplish some pretty epic feats by burning all of my fatigue and taking an incapacitating wound (but ignoring it for 2 minutes), and still manage to get outta dodge.

...then I just gotta worry about the uh, maybe dying that comes after :wink:

@darkwing I either glossed over or misread the part of LLSM talking about damage -- I've absolutely been subtracting my soak from the damage totals. That definitely puts a damper on my power... So, yknow, thanks for that :laughing: