reducing might - house rule

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

During our last session a problem came to our notice regarding the reduction of the might pool with spells like DEO.
When someone specializes in destroying creatures this way, it is incredible effective using a level 5 spell multicasted first (lets say with mastery score of 3) and then spells with a bigger magnitude. This way a dragon with might 50 can easily be robbed of all his might within a few rounds as it requires a casting total of 56-Penetration-2xmastery score. So PeVi+Sta+Aura+ die roll =45 is not so hard to get...
This way the dragon will loose 20 points of his might-score in the first round leaving him with a MR of 30.
To avoid making increasingly bigger creatures, which can only be targeted by this character, we came up with a new house rule:
Reducing the might works just like dealing damage. That is the creature looses spelllevel+sress die (no botch) points of the might score if the spell penetrates. On the other hand each creature has a value like soak that is subtracted from every reduction of might. This is usually 5 but can reach values of 30 for dragons.
This way the other characters still have to penetrate to mightscore with their spells while all spells like DEO have to do enough "damage" to overcome the "soak"

What do you think of these rules?

2

While your saga may vary and all that, to me it seems someone with 40 in a Tech+Form combination seems rather like a specialist, and specialists are supposed to be good at what they do... So I don't really see a need to gimp them.

3

Sounds like a workable solution for your situation, but I don't think it's needed.

Also remember that DOE only works on demons, if you have a magical, fairy, or divine you need different spells which would all require the high level of mastery to replicate the senario you describe. High level demons also would be expected to have an underling or three so the PCs would have to pick who they are attacking, or defending against.

4

As I understand it DEO and such spells doesn't lower the MR ?
It only lessen the Might. But MR is equal to the maximum Might Score.

After checking the rules, this is unclear. You certainly got it right for 4th ed. but how about 5th ?
Here is how I would do it:
DEO reduce might points, MR is untouched ( always the same)
If one or many DEO spells of total spell power destroy a might equal to the Maximum Might of the creature, it is destroyed.

This was my first reading of the rules. Now I'm not sure anymore.

5

In official 5th ed, DEO (and the like) attack score, not pool, thus reducing resistance, and maximum pool size.

6

Thats nonfunctional IMO.

The Might should stay. The points pool should drop.
Reason:

You stick a Demojn with a Might of 50 out there for a reason...say an opponent that the group can't touch...
The groups Vim specialist blows 10 pawns of Vim on his DoE...now the Demon has (say) 40 Might. The Magi now needs to use 5 to effect him. From there on out he doesn't need to use any, and the Demon goes away (One way or another).
Sure he had to use 15 pawns to get it done. Maybe in a Vis POOR game, thats okay, but in any other game that won't work...might not in ANY game, because the Vim Specialist will only distill what he needs anyway???...
OTOH:

Might 50 Demon...
He gets Whacked with a DOE for 10...No problem. He loses point but not capability.
He gets whacked again. Ten more points...still no problem.
Bang again...Ten more...still has 20 points (minus what he has used).
Magi from the previous example has now blown 30 pawns of Vis to hurt him thusly. (Hope he has it)
The idea of the Magi using 50 pawns to whack this demon surely sits well with me...

Had a similar problem with a ruling in another game system years (has it been that long?) ago...
Dragon does damage equal to its Hit points when it breaths its breath weapon...
Group sneaks in an attacks sleeping dragon...hits 88 point dragon with 87 points of damage...(over the two attacks)
dragon wakes up..breaths its mighty breath weapon..
does 1 point of damage to everyone...

:blush:

half the group saves for no damage....(expletive deleted)

Instead, dragon breaths, all characters take 88 points. Several save for half...the rest die.
Good dragon.

Demon Pops in, Magi react and cast DOE's to remove it. They do 45 damage to it...
Demon no longer has the ability to Kill them with "Infernal Magi Death" that costs 10 Might points..Demon leaves instead.
Mad demon.

The other way the demon could still do his spell. If he didn't have that spell though, some pip-sqeak fresh out of Gauntlet could smoke him. (MR of 5)...
Poor Lucifer has a bad day. His plans for world domination take a turn when a group of experienced Magi discover him and his plans. Before he can use his Guile to talk his way out, they all hit him with DoE's. Reduced to Five Might, he reacts and kills all the older magi present...(using his pool)
The Apprentice, in an act of despiration, uses his DoE that his master taught him last week, and manly destroys the Prince with his little spell...

Guess thats okay if you want apprentices to have the ability to kill high ranking creatures...

The example that comes to mind (to turn the table a bit) is that every time magi take damage, they would lose Parma...

7

Well, I am no native speaker, but I think the RAW state that DEO (or similar spells for faery, magical and divine beings) reduces the might score. Thus the demon enters oblivion =hell when his mightscore drops to 0. He does not enter hell when using up all his might pool. (That is I think so, serf's parma).

8

It has been stated earlier on this board (I believe by Chart himself, but memory isn't what it once was), that it is score. (btw - score is used for penetration, max pool and MR - so Urien's example wouldn't go quite like that...)

I'm still not quite sure how to impliment this in our saga, simply because I dislike the permanent effect of such a simple spell... I'm considering allowing it to reduce score (and pool) for as long as the spell lasts (usually momentarily, which in this case should mean a single round), and then letting the score (but not the pool) return.

9

The way I understand DEO oblivion to work is as follows:

Demon (Might 40) Ignem

Round 1: A player has initiative over the demon so he casts DEO (level 10) with a casting total of +44. The demon still has a might of 40, but only 30 points left in which to use abilities.

Round 1 (Cont'd): The demon uses it's one of his powers which is a version of Ball of Abysal Flame. This costs him 5 points. Luckily, his penetraion is low and all characters survive. The demon still has a might of 40 for MR, but now only has 25 points left with which to use it's powers.

10

the only problem is demons don't die if they use up all their might points, instead you just have a demon that will have to eat you rather than use it's powers. I think a better idea is to leave might points alone, and use it's might as a level of "damage" it can take.

ie: might 40 demon, hit with DOE 10, still has 40 points to use, still counts as 40 MR but only needs to be hit for 30 more "damage"

This would of course be separate form body damage

11

I agree with ulf and Agnar: it reduces the SCORE, not the points and because of this it also reduces MR.

And I dont have a problem with this: a single demon who is dumb enough to show himself should be dead meat. Demons shoudnt be something that pops up like a beholder or any other D&D creature and uses his nasty killing spells. A powerful demon can destroy the covenant and the players life without seeing them once: for this he has his many mundane and supernatural underlings.

In fact a demon with might 40 who wants to use a power with 4 might points usually doesnt stand a change against the MR of a magus more than 10 years out of gauntlet, if he doesnt use aimed spells or physical dameg or his mundane underlings he cant affect the magi at all. In opposite a combat magus can fast-cast and multicast his primary attack spell mostly with a total of (thanks to is focus) 65 (Te 15, Fo 15+15 , Stamina 2, Gestures 1, Words 1, Talisman 4, Confidence 3, Vis +X, Mastery Ability +3, stress die +5 ect) and much more if he is older even a 120 or more could be done by old mages and some additional penetration from his ability and his mastery. And since most official demons are of size 0 till +2 and hasnt much Soak a single lightning bolt should kill nearly all demons, not to speak of the four lightning bolts our Auram Master (20 years out of gauntlet) who isnt a primary combat magus can throw with a total of 80 (+penetration, +vis, +confidence, +aura, +Wizards Communion).

So I dont worry about a DEO or such that reduces MR and Might, I worry about the weakness of supernatural penetration and the extreme combat power of hermetic mages.

12

I'm generally with the others.. it reduces score, not points.. otherwise it's not really much of a threat at all is it.. nor eternal .. nor oblivion really.. you know, the name of the spell says it all really ^^

Also.. yeah.. if someone has a Pe + Vi of 40, and has spent like.. 6 seasons mastering a single spell.. .. you know.. maybe you should let them be -good- at it. Otherwise they've just wasted a lot of time they could've spent doing -much- better things.

And as others have said.. if a demon pops up in front of such a character and goes "BLAAAAAAH!" .. it deserves to die.. demons are immune to large chunks of hermetic detection, that's the real reason they're deadly to magi, not just because of their might scores or anything

13

IMS DEO and similar spells have always reduced the might pool, not the score.

What happens once a creaturem gets to 0 point sit that it falls uncoscius (if it belongs to magic realm) or it is banished to its realm (if faerie/demon/divine.

Maybe not how it is written, but being able to blast the virgin mary to bits with a BoAF after a pair of successful multicasted DEOs (Divine's Eternal Oblivion) sounds preposterous to me.

Xavi

14

From the official errata:

atlas-games.com/arm5/arm5errata.php

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