Good morning everybody !
I have a big disagreement with my Game Master.
My mage created a ritual of level 100. It's a Perdo Vim ritual, its objective is to reduce infernal might.
The objective is to bannish in Hell the demon responsible of Rhine Corruption.
It's a adaptation on "Demon Eternal Oblivion". I use the vertu : Hermetic Geometry.
The target of the ritual is a arcanic circle. According with the description, everyone in the circle can be targeted.
I create a circle of 3 000 kilometers of radius and I push it with magic at 2 kilometer of depth.
I do the ritual, everything is ok, all infernal creature lose 75 points of infernal might with a penetration of 106 !
(Possible with Wizard Communion).
The Game Master describe the death or revocation of all Magic, faerie, infernal and divine creatures !
I was very surprised !
Is argument is The lesser Limit of the Infernal
I could not determine by magic (for him) the infernal might consequence also for ALL creatures.
And the guideline of the rules book page 160 :
"reduce target might by the base of the spell +10 as long as the spell penetrate magic resistance."
For him, these type of spells woks for all creatures (infernal, divine, magic and fae).
So, my ritual destroy all creatures with no distinction !!! Including my familiar...
Other concequences : The Magic realms and the Arcadia move away from earth
Virtus source are almost extinct
All the ARTS for ALL gifted are difficults Arts now
the score in Parma Magica is not multiplied by 5 to calculate the Magic resistance.
Longevity ritual are very difficult etc
The consequences are horrible !!!
I think with this, i kill The Order of Hermes and Ars Magica !
I'm NOT AGREE with THIS !!
I argue this : The Perdo vim spell must be aligned with the might.
"Demon Eternal Oblivion" affects only infernal creature
"Dreadful Bane of the fae" affects only faerie creature (Guardians of the Forest page 60)
"Sap the Griffin's Strengh" affects only magic creature (Guardians of the Forest page 60)
For me, a spell against infernal might reduce ONLY and JUST ONLY infernal might.
The limit of infernal concern ONLY Intellego spells !
For my magus, although i could not detect infernal creature with a Intellego VIM,
with the target arcane circle and a spell aligned on infernal might, the ritual affect ONLY infernal might.
My magus is ready to defend himself against the accusation to endanger the Order (war against the Hell) but this NO !
I think it's very Unfair !!!
I want your opinion about this please.
Firstly ... the spells affect one realm only by default design. That is RAW. The limit of the infernal does only affect Intellego effects. If you blast the kind old lady with DEO and she dies, she wasn't a kind old lady after all. Either that or the spell scared her to death. The world may never know. ( Limit of the Infernal... )
Second... a 3,000 km circle? Even with hermetic geometry you have to walk the circle that you cast the circle with. ( I think. Noble's Parma. ) It just lets you retarget the circle of effect to somewhere else. That is a big circle to walk, maintaining concentration, in one go. Big enough that I would say it is, ah, less than feasible.
This also supposes that nothing breaks this 3,000 km circle during the whole time of casting... which again, boggles the mind.
It seems like there is error on both sides here, honestly.
I agree. I thinl your spell is a little extreme, needs a few magnitudes for Size adjustment or something. It should e boundary, not Circle. But on the other hand, I think the SG is overreacting in a classic killer DM fashion. Unless you experimented, the spell should only do what you designed it to do, nothing more or less. The results handed you are way out of proportion to what Hermetic magic can do. If such a spell was possible, why didn't someone use it during the Schism War?
Create the circle, it's a ritual level 70 with a +8 for the size with a rego effect to make it levitate and go under earth.
The GM think with Hermetic geometry, i don't need to walk the circle to affect it, maybe a mystake (Mysteries page 96). The ritual had a range of vision. With the spell The miners's keen eye, i can see the circle under earth, so i can do the ritual of level 100.
I propose this spell to the GM and we talk to this multiple times and my mage had the level 42+3 in VIM. If the GM had change the rules, i think he had to tell me clearly. I'm happy to see you're agree with me.
A DEO affect ONLY infernal might ! Hermetic Magic is not so versatile to affect other might too unless the spell is design for.
Other opinions ?
I still would nix your circle. The circle must be continuous and unbroken. Having portions of it under the earth "breaks" the circle. And the Circle cannot be an imaginary concept. It has to be anactual drawn line curving around until it meets itself. A drawn circle.
But otherwise, yeah. The SG gave you an overpowered result as an overreaction. The idea of your spell, something that creates a tidal wave rush of DEO, is perfectly sound and legitimate. It should affect the Infernal and only the Infernal. However, seeing as the spell is of such a high level, it automatically must be a Ritual (which is why you are better off with Touch/Boundary). Thus, it is stressful to cast and carried a chance of botching severely. An extreme botch (say 7 botches) could have seere unintended consequences
The circle is continuous and unbroken, it's metal. The spell integrate a rego terram and herbam effect to remote stone, metal and roots of tree when i push it under the ground.
Additionaly, before i incantate the ritual level 100 (why the help of 9 mercurian magus and Wizard communion),
On the cercle i incantate a rego terram spell why target : Arcane Circle and duration arcane ring. The stone ant metal move away from the ring.
The circle was perfectly protected and unbroken.
The spell level 100 had a target arcane circle and a range of vision.
The GM makes me do a stress die of concentration (succesfull)
I create the circle sucessfully
A stress die of finesse to move the circle under earth (succesfull)
A stress die for the ritual level 100 : Succesfull
I don't do any disaster.
No sympathy for your circumstance. Really don't like what he did? Find another game.
Would I have done the same? No. Hell no. Better to just kill your character. But in his saga, what I might have done is quite irrelevant.
What would I have done? Depends on the kind of saga I'm running. Here are some likely choices:
Simply say that you cannot research the ritual. Just because the spell guidelines permit something doesn't mean it makes sense in every (or even any) saga.
Like #1, but let your character waste seasons researching and vis casting before declaring "and the ritual apparently does nothing."
Send stuff to attack your character while he is researching or casting the ritual. All sorts of entities have the ability and incentive to do this.
Look at the rules very carefully and exploit anything you might have gotten wrong. I am not willing to do that right now, but I am confident I can find something, because what you describe makes no sense.
Look at the rules very carefully, discover why my bullshit-meter is pinging, and explain to you where you went awry--and I'm quite sure you missed something.
In a very high-powered saga, if I thought your spell actually is valid, I'd allow it, with none of the side effects he describes. Instead, I'd examine the consequences that ought reasonably to flow from so world-changing an event and proceed from there.
The circle you're creating must be the same size as the circle you're tracing. Your magus must trace a circle with a perimeter of roughly 20,000 km without losing concentration. You can't move faster than about 30 m per round. You get 2 rolls each round. Odds of not botching: too small to bother calculating.
If either circle is broken the circle is considered broken. Breaking the magic circle is as easy as breaking a regular traced line. Any demon spotting it could make you automatically botch. It doesn't matter what the original circle is made of.
You have the following botch dice: 1 + 20 (vis, 10 if you are also Mercurian) + 10 (magi involved) = 31 or 21. You've got roughly 4% or 11% chance of not getting warping points. There may well be extra botch dice, too. (Though if a demon broke it for you that's a 0% chance of not botching.) Perhaps more importantly, your odds of not having a double-botch aren't that much better. And you all get the warping! So, you've just provided your fellow magi with a virtual guarantee of failing and very high probabilities of having to fight off a twilight episode. Since these magi seem fairly strong, they probably have reasonably high warping scores. There's a good chance a whole bunch of magi just entered twilight.
Sure, I totally disagree with what your storyguide did. I would have just followed the rules. Most magi wouldn't want to join you in the process. If you manage to get your nine, go ahead and enjoy some twilight.
This is one of those cases where no-one comes out smelling of roses.
The spell is ill-conceived, probably in terms of rules as well as intent. This is the point at which the storyguide should have acted and just said "no". It's easier to say "I don't want a ritual like this in my game" than it is to deal with the consequences of having that ritual.
Another point of intervention is the casting. A level 100 ritual that takes ten magi to cast is going to attract interest and I probably would have had that casting and every subsequent attempt disrupted by "Hell's own Horrible Hordes".
But... assuming you protected against that, the SG is within his rights to say "level 100, it's such a powerful effect that anything can happen", which is essentially what he did.
As a player, your responsibility is to play within the boundaries that your SG sets. He's likely set them for a reason and not just to rain on your parade. It's all a negotiation but the SG needs to have his eye on the wider game beyond what one player/character wants.
So what do we learn from this:
Put it down to experience, put it behind you, and get on with the game
If you have a crazy idea, really work it through with your troupe first. Discuss the implications and the rules behind it. If everyone's happy then go ahead.
Sometimes a SG will play his cards close to his chest and you end up feeling short-changed. But sometimes there's story potential there. So you've inadvertantly created a "destroy all magic" ritual. How do you put things right? Do you research this more in the hope of finding a breakthrough?
I wouldn't let to create a "levitating circle". I'm lazy to see hermetic geometry.
Your GM's decision is ridiculous. If he allowed the ritual, there are a lot of story potential what may happen during the research and after the casting. I suggest him to use his creativity more often.
To create this level 100 my magus do not experiments during its creation.
Why the GM we talk of the ritual multiple times and he nevers say "no".
He argues this : multiple times he suggerate DEO works against magic creatures too.
Non sens for me.
But for you Did we arcanic geometry i need to travel all the circonference ?
The description of the new target arcane ring is not very clear.
For me this is a BIG infraction against the core rules.
And he argue this to :" You know the rules, so i don't had to warn you explicitly." "You don't ask to me explicitly : Did DEO works against other realms ?"
Because i know the rules the GM makes a difference of treatment.
I'm also a GM and i don't make any difference with players.
I perceive this as a treason. For me when a player ask to the GM if this idea had no flaws, 5-6 times (5 hours of spell conception), the GM had to respond honestly to the player. It's the GM, a impartial arbiter.
I always do that in other games.
The worst, doing this, destroy the Order of Hermes, what interest in the game ? When i ask a question to the GM on rules, if could not expect a honest response,
How could i play with him ? I love Ars Magica and i respect my GM too.
But destroy Order of Hermes to punish my magus, it's too far.
If the GM say "no" to my idea, ok, i will find another.
But the infraction to the core rules is the worst :
A DEO works against fae, divine and magic with no distinction.
Does that matter? No. The rules are what the GM (or troupe) say they are.
Does your arguing here achieve anything? No. Even if everyone here agreed with you--and they don't--the conversation that needs to happen ought to involve you and your GM. The most you could hope for is to be able to tell your GM that a bunch of people in a forum agree with you; even if we did, so what? We don't get to override what he did. It's not our game.
Do I think your GM handled it well? No. If he were an Ars Magica character rolling for his GM skill, and I had to guess what he rolled on the dice, I would say that he triple botched.
Do I think you handled it well? No. If you were an Ars Magica character rolling for your playing skill, and I had to guess what you rolled on the dice, I would say that you triple botched.
Do I think your arguments here have any merit? No:
Magic being an art, many SGs often have powerful spells have interesting side effects, and choose not to tell the players until later. This isn't my style, but I've seen it often. Your not experimenting doesn't change this.
Your GM never said "no," and some GMs don't. Some GMs warn a player when his character is about to do something that perhaps he shouldn't--and some prefer to dish out the consequences. Neither approach is wrong, and if your GM didn't say "no," that's just a style.
Although DEO only affects demons, RAW, some GMs do different things in their games. Indeed, in the saga I don't run, DEO also affects anything with a Might score. True, I let people know this up front! But even if you only learned this after the spell was cast, your GM still isn't wrong! After all, a spell as powerful as yours might reveal a hidden relationship among the Realms, similar to the way increasingly powerful particle accelerators help real-world scientists discover hidden properties of our universe.
The description of Arcane Ring wasn't clear to you.
Suggestion: Either accept your GM's ruling and get on with the game, or find another game.
To Ovarwa,
your right when you say i made wrong and this discussion will change nothing. I submit this subject only for me, not to change the mind of the GM. I will talk to him later.
This true the description for arcane circle is not clear for me.
Could you explain this to me in simple words ?
I think that's a little harsh. It's worth canvasing opinion to get it straight in your own mind, and I think the concensus is that we probably wouldn't have let the spell stand for a number of reasons.
The OP should take this up with his SG but I certainly wouldn't let it spoil the game. In RPG, just as with any other team game, there'll be times when disagreements blow up, but they're easily resolved with a bit of give and take.
So keep on with the game, come back and ask if you're not sure about something (hopefully before it happens in the game), but most of all don't fall out with friends over it.
I would point out this seems to be a high level game in play. High level games have High level threats. Are we sure Hell didn't find out what the player was planning on doing and have their response happen at the same time, so the player would take the blame?........
This would be an easy way to make from high level to low level magic, not my way, but still...
As for the question of whether to ask and receive an honest answer from a DM when doing such a big effect, well, as a GM I would just smile, and say that if you do not spot them, I won't lay them out for you.
