natural magic

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

I don't follow. Here are some examples:

  1. Effect 1 for all of week 1, followed by effect 2 for all of week 2, etc. up to 30 weeks.
  2. Effect 1 for all of 10 weeks, followed by effect 2 for all of 8 weeks, followed by effect 3 for all of 6 weeks, etc. up to 30 weeks.
  3. Effect 1 for all of 25 weeks, followed by effect 2 for all of 1 week, followed by others each for all of 1 week up to 30 weeks.
  4. Effect 1 for all of 2 weeks, followed by 1 week of break, followed by effect 2 for all of 2 weeks, followed by another week of break, etc. for 45 weeks, and then an extra 7 weeks of break at the end.

All three of these cases (assuming we don't have to look at high levels) cause the same warping canonically.

Since it's the total time of effects you can write it this way:
t1 + t2 + t3 + ... + tn = n * (t1 + t2 + t3 + ... + tn)/n = n * the mean time for one effect

Edit: I should add that we also have canonical examples of things like 3 months under an effect alternating with 3 months off providing the same warping as going straight through 6 months with the effect.

42

Canon says that it counts as a constant effect if you are under some effect for half the time. This criterion is satisfied (AFAICS) in all your four examples. In all of them you are under one effect at a time, and under some effect for at least 26 out of 52 weeks.

If you are under 26 effects (or even 52 effects) for just one week, and under no effect the rest of the year, you are not under magical effects for half the time. Not even close. This is a different case, where your true nature has time to rest for 51 weeks. (I think that sounds very healthy, but that may be new age back to nature thinking.) By RAW you are then not warped. The mean number of effects is not part of the RAW criterion.

43

Right. Understand that. That's why I asked if the effects warp differently during different weeks. You said no, which is why I was confused. Now you're saying yes. To see this, look at my first example. Put all spells in week 1, and you're saying there is no warping. So you're saying the warping from an effect is different based on when it is cast.

OK. But can you reconcile that with a three-month stint with significant magic followed by a 9-month stint with none at all providing a Warping Point in canon?

44

I said no because the warping is not from that effect, but from the combination of effects.

I think canon is sufficiently vague to justify house ruling a warping point, but RAW seems pretty clear that there would be none (except from powerful effects).

Now, the reason main reason I would stick with RAW and not embark on an average based rule, is that I fear the book keeping involved. That may well have been the authors' concern too.

45

actually, it does not. It specifies that "Further, if the character is always under the influence of some mystical effect, but the particular mystical effect changes..." (emphasis mine) which directly contradicts your claim that it need not be continuous.

though there is some leeway for interpretation the other way- in that a six month effect may count towards a year but not as a year, and that shorter duration effects simply do not contribute (or that six months of effects contribute additively until you reach a year total, or a number of other variations)

46

So, let's say I have 10 effects up, all for the same 12 months straight. That would be one combination resulting in 1 Warping Point? That's what you're saying RAW says?

No, that's not a house rule. That's canonical, RAW.

But there are canonical examples demonstrating that it need not be continuous. Remember, the very rules you're citing specify that always doesn't mean 100% of the time, just > 50% of the time, so that very section is also claiming always need not be continuous.

47

and there is a huge difference between 1/2 the time and 1/52 of the time. It clearly specifies that <50% does not contribute. Exactly what that means in view of later writing that effects need not be constant is unclear, but stacking for 1 week clearly is not what the RAW has in mind, but is a projection based on a model of how things 'should' work given the rules which, in fact, contradict the rules. Similar to alternative cosmological theories for the big bang theory which get rid of dark matter but cannot account for black holes...

48

In that case each individual effect lasts long enough for a warping point each. it still does not matter when those 12 months happen. The warping is independent on when.

What are you trying to prove?

Referene, please.

49

You're judging them all as a single thing for short periods and then all as separate things for long periods, right? So are you saying the rules are based on per effect, per individual being affected, or it varies between them?

I'm trying to look for consistency with the rules. You'll find what I've said is quite consistent with what is laid out in the core book as well as with the statements in later books with various examples.

I'm thinking of things like Addled and Double Overtime laboratory routines. I think I may have seen something elsewhere, but that I don't remember clearly so maybe not.

50

Yes. RAW is clear that if you have multiple constant effects, the warping is 1pt/effect. Effects which do not individually last long enough to cause warping may combine to cause warping. The RAW rule for this is the one saying that if you are always under some effect but not always under the same effect, then they cause warping.

Well, as you have seen, I am not able to keep up with all the supplementary rules. Your approach certainly deviates from core.

51

No, it's one way of reading core. Yours is another. Mine is consistent with things like the laboratory routines.

52

no, yours deviate from RAW. drawing a conclusion from an unrelated piece of text like laboratory rules and applying them to something like warping does not makeyour conclusion equal to the plain writing you have chosen to disregard. Even if they did relate the fact they are laboratory activities indicates a period of a season, not a week.

53

For what it's worth, whilst it may not be stated explicitly my interpretation has always been in line with what I understand Callen's to be: you get warping over a year equal to the sum total of the time you spend under each effect over the year, rounded to the nearest whole number.

That does leave open the question of why you don't get warping accumulating over years (e.g. if you spend 1/3 of year 1 under an effect, and then 1/3 of year 2, the Rules imply you get 0 warping points rather than 1), but I've tended to assume that's a book-keeping simplification.

54

Where does it say you don't? It states that it has to be 1/2 the time to count, but it doesn't say that you can't accumulate one warping over 2 years for an effect that is in place 1/2 the year, though the tendency to round up suggests that it is 1 warping per year instead. Which is correct however is not explicitly stated.

55

Consider these scenarios through 52 weeks of a year:

Case 1:
You have effect active weeks 1, 2, 7, 8, 13, 14, 19, 20, 25, 26, 31, 32, 37, 38, 43, 44, 49, 50
You have a second effect active weeks 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 20, 21, 26, 27, 32, 33, 38, 39, 44, 45, 50, 51
You have a third effect active weeks 3, 4, 9, 10, 15, 16, 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, 39, 40, 45, 46, 51, 52
You have a fourth effect active weeks 4, 5, 10, 11, 16, 17, 22, 23, 28, 29, 34, 35, 40, 41, 46, 47, 52

Case 2:
You have effect active weeks 1, 2, 7, 8, 13, 14, 19, 20, 25, 26, 31, 32, 37, 38, 43, 44, 49, 50
You have a second effect active weeks 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 20, 21, 26, 27, 32, 33, 38, 39, 44, 45, 50, 51
You have a third effect active weeks 3, 4, 9, 10, 15, 16, 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, 34, 39, 40, 45, 46, 51, 52
You have a fourth effect active weeks 4, 5, 10, 11, 16, 17, 22, 23, 28, 29, 34, 35, 40, 41, 46, 47, 52
You have a fifth effect active weeks 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48
Case 3:
You have one effect active weeks 1-9.
You have a second effect active weeks 10-18.
You have a third effect active weeks 19-27.
You have a fourth effect active throughout all of those and most of the rest of the year.

Consistent with the above interpretations about no Warping for a hundred simultaneous spells continuous for a week, how many Warping Points would be accumulated over the year in each case?

So far the only deviation has been a claim that "always" means truly always despite the text stating otherwise. And then there have been claims such as "It clearly specifies that <50% does not contribute." which contradict the rules, considering the rules pretty clearly show a continuous sequence of 30 week-long effects will cause Warping, even though each one is less than 50% of a year.

The only conclusion I'm drawing is that one interpretation of the core rules is consistent with them and one is not. Therefore one never disagrees with canon. From the core book alone, either is fine.

Regardless of this, the original point was that this Virtue opens up a second line (longevity had already been acknowledged) to power that had not been mentioned. Whether everyone would use it or not is irrelevant. The newly opened route exists regardless of the choice between these two readings. The newly opened route does not require significant investments of time (and could be managed automatically with enchantments on a Talisman).

56

I'm wondering how you have so many effects that last a week. Is this a new duration between sun and moon that exists solely to make your storyteller's life a torment?

Case 1: 1 warping
Case 2: 2 warping
Case 3: 2 warping

57

I'm guessing just recasting sun duration spells twice a day for a week. For easy math purposes.

58

Moon-duration with PeVi, for example.

Can you explain how these are calculated? I think you are using a different method than @loke , but I'm not sure.

59

First I put them all in a spreadsheet and had it count up how many effects were in effect each week. then I had it count how many of the weeks had how many effects. Since there were no weeks in any of the examples which had 3 or more effects at once, I looked at how many weeks had 2 effects. If the number was 26 or higher, the answer is 2 warping. If not I looked at how many weeks had on or two effects going at once- if this number was 26 or higher then the answer was one warping. The method could be extended algorithmically to any number of effects, but the recommendation to use excel becomes exponentially more significant

60

It doesn't say it explicitly, but it does talk only in terms of individual years.