Non fatiguing spontaneous gestures

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I just read the spontaneous magic article in Sub Rosa 20, Wizard's and their Everyday Magics by Gerald Wylie and now I want to make a magus that is specifically good at non-fatiguing spontaneous Magic

What the article calls " gestures " which are non fatiguing spontaneous effects that are cast almost unconsciously without using voice or gestures.

Would "Magical Gestures" be a minor magical focus or a major magical focus? I would guess minor if it's allowed at all, but I would like some input on that.

Though taking Chthonic Magic, and then having a sailor's vocabulary all the time amuses me highly!

Or is there some other avenue that might be more efficient?

I'm already planning to take Quiet Magic twice and Subtle Magic to get around those penalties

2

If I understand correctly what you're asking I would not allow a Magical Focus in non-fatiguing sponts, aka "Magical Gestures." If it did exist it would most definitely be a major magical focus as it has significant uses in every art since every art has low level spells that might be cast without fatigue.

2 Likes
3

Quiet Magic and Subtle Magic are useful for being able to cast magic unnoticed. They don't help much with non-fatiguing spontaneous magic.

The really useful virtue for non-fatiguing sponts is Diedne Magic. That has its own set of drawbacks though.

4

Magical gestures of the type described in the article are almost unconscious and do not use voice or gestures, so without quite and subtle magic they would be much much harder.

You are of course correct about Diedna Magic, and my work around would be to use Chthonic Magic instead, but that only works if I'm constantly cursing or blaspheming or something.

5

Not having read the article in question, I don't know what it says.
I only know what the official rules say about spontaneous casting. I also know that the penalties for casting without words or gestures are applied to the Casting Score, so they are applied before dividing by 2 or 5 when sponting, thus having a relatively small effect on the Casting Total.

2 Likes
7

Diedne Magic is much better than Chthonic Magic for non-fatiguing sponts. Chthonic Magic 'only' gives you "focus in everything", letting you double your lowest Art. Diedne Magic lets you use non-fatiguing sponts and divide by 2 instead of 5, so in effect multiplying your entire Casting Score by 2.5 compared to default.

A Diedne lineage can get you into trouble with other magi. Having your spells be Infernal is even more likely to get you into trouble with other magi, and is much easier to detect.

2 Likes
8

For non-Fatiguing sponts whenever, your best bets that are fairly available are:
Diende Magic - divide by 2 rather than 5
Spell Improvisation - bonus isn't divided
Charm Magic (Merinita) - bonus isn't divided
Spell Foci (Mechanicals/Rusticani) - bonus isn't divided

They all have issues you have to deal with, whether there is a penalty showing up somehow or you have to develop something.

2 Likes
9

You might want to check out The Mysteries Revised Edition, page 91. Hermetic Numerology is a minor mystery virtue, and -- although it does depend on developing levels in Artes Liberales -- allows the use of 'Rotes'. They are minor magics & NOT spontaneous spells, but they are automatically:

1} non-fatiguing;
2} cast silently with no penalty;
3} cast without gestures with no penalty;
4} cast without any die-roll at all, and so cannot botch;
5} can -- with proper preparation -- get up to a +12 shape & numerology bonus to the casting total.

There is no messy dealing with potentially-infernal powers, no dark Diedne secrets, no 'extensive list of other virtues' -- but, again, they are minor magics. I hope this helps.

5 Likes
10

For what's worth: in my view Diedne Magic on its own is a poor choice for non-fatiguing spontaneous magic. That's because the real advantage of non-fatiguing spontaneous magic is not that it's non-fatiguing, it's that it's botch-free.

Having to spend 2 minutes at a time to recover a short-term fatigue level does limit you to a few hundred castings/day instead of a several thousand. But a few hundred castings/day with a 1% chance of botching every time you cast means gaining a few warping points/day, and ending in Final Twilight before a year's over. Put another way: your average magus is expected to gain 2 Warping Points/year (including 1 Warping point/year for longevity). Using botch-able magic even once per day means, on average, at least 3.65 additional Warping points, a significant increase over the baseline.

And if you want botch-free spontaneous magic Diedne Magic is of no help at all.

2 Likes
11

I love Hermetic Numerology!

As mentioned they are not spontaneous which is a huge drawback especially if you are playing a just after gauntlet mage. Because of the way the casting total works Magnitude 5 is fairly easy even in TeFo combos that the mage is poor at. Magnitude 10 effects aren't bad and 15 is certainly possible in your focus TeFo even for a fairly new but focused magus once you enchant your book.

If you can devote the time to creating them and want to be inventive with T, D, and R you can have on hand a bunch of things that would otherwise be spont spells that you can cast quietly, without gestures, and with less worry about auras because of the lack of botches. But at one TeFo per season it takes some time to get all the little effects that you might otherwise spont.

2 Likes
12

What you really want is for your magic to be
a) botchless, so that you can use it as much as you want and
b) spontaneous, so that you can use it for anything you want.
Ideally, you should also have decent casting totals, but only after a) and b) have been secured.

There are several avenues to that.

One is using "standard" non-fatiguing spontaneous magic, and trying to boost your totals. Charm Magic from HoH:MC (as suggested by callen) is probably your most efficient solution. Spell Foci from HoH:S (again, as suggested by callen) is slightly worse overall, but can be combined with the above, and it effectively "doubles up" any bonus you gain from your Talisman. Quiet Magic x 2 plus Subtle Magic helps; in fact, if I were your SG I'd allow you to take all three for fatigueless spontaneous magic at the cost of a single minor Virtue (see Deft small magics, below). Finally, keep in mind that you can extend the Range and Duration of your R:Touch, D:Conc Spontaneous spells with Rego Vim (N.B. not MuVi) magics, e.g. embedded in your Talisman.

Another approach is to go with fatiguing spontaneous magic, taking away the Fatigue with Diedne Magic, and removing the last botch die. This is notoriously tricky to do. I think the easiest path is to ensure you have access to Heroic Virtues (e.g. from the Story Flaw Legacy, see HoH:TL), then take Mythic Stamina (spellcasting). I think it's perfectly within the RAW, but some troupes frown upon it.

Yet another approach is to have someone/something else cast the spontaneous magics for you. Take the Minor Virtue Hermetic Theurgy (from HoH:MC), and use a (Formulaic) Invoke the Spirit of <Form> to summon a spirit that can then cast any type of Spontaneous Magic within that Form, without you spending fatigue or risking botches. There's plenty of ways to boost those ten Formulaic spells, and to remove the necessary Voice and Gestures - from Mastery to a Minor Focus to additional Theurgic Virtues, which I won't dwell upon. You do have to be careful to include any requisites you might want when you develop the Formulaic spell; and it does take you an extra round to instruct the Spirit (then again: do not think of summoning the spirit when you need it, think of almost unconsciously resummoning it as soon as its carried out a command, and keeping it around at D:Conc, with Conc "kept up" by a Sun or Moon length version of Mainitaining the Demanding spell). But overall, this is one method that allows you to routinely pull off 2nd magnitude spontaneous magic in every Form and Technique without fatigue or botches as a starting character.

Last but not least, just make up your own specialized Virtue(s). Nothing wrong with that, and it's probably the cleanest solution. I'd go for the following, which I think is fairly balanced.

Everyday Magic
Major, Hermetic
You are powerful in the least powerful magics. Double the final Casting Total of non-fatiguing spontaneous magic in non-stressful situations.

Deft Small Magics
Minor, Hermetic
You have developed a great facility with small magics. You are treated as having the appropriate Deft <Form> Virtue with any non-fatiguing Spontaneous Magic you cast.

5 Likes
13

Forgotten in this discussion is the Names of Power virtue from MRE p.76 that, in conjunction with either the consummate talisman virtue or the invocation magic virtue, allows the caster to, with the correct MuVi magic, add their magic theory to their casting roll. With both virtues, they could add their magic theory twice.

I really like these, I might (might) tone down Everyday magic a little, dividing by 2.5 is not too much worse than dividing by 2, they both look like tons of fun in play.

3 Likes
14

Only once, not twice. The total combined bonus you can get from Names of Power is limited to your Magic Theory score.
The bonus is added to Casting score, which means it will be divided by 2 or 5 when casting a spontaneous spell. So overall a fairly minor bonus to sponting, even if it is better than nothing.

15

I was just rereading the section before I posted because I hadn't in years. It had the following statement

A magus can combine talisman name
magic bonuses with theurgic spellcasting
and Invocation Magic.

My brain somehow jumped to the conclusion that this meant that the magic theory cap was separate for each virtue. "That's pretty good" I thought to myself. :grimacing: (this was, almost certainly, not what the authors intended to convey)

3 Likes
16

The errata makes things pretty clear:

Invocation Magic and Names of Power (p. 77): Add the following to the final paragraph: "although the combined bonus is still limited by Magic Theory."

Consummate Talisman and Names of Power (p. 78): Add the following to the final paragraph: "although the combined bonus is still limited by Magic Theory."

4 Likes
17

Another is to be a Verditius Farmer and bind lots of "Master of (form)" and "Crafter of (form)" powers to your gift :laughing:

1 Like