Reylar Valerian's Second Spell

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

So, our boy Reylar has recently been approached by someone who may be his father... but is most likely not.

The King of the Black Forest, the Black Fir, His August and Terrible Majesty gave Reylar his prospective Scytale back to him after it was taken away to be used in the Count Von Katzenenbolgen's menagerie.

In return, Reylar told the the King the location of a strange stone table he came across in the Black Forest near Durenmar.

This will be the catalyst for the destruction of the Order of Hermes in my game.

In any case, Reylar has now started down the path of the Junior Sith Lord, and wants to make a spell that...

Causes pain
Causes a light wound every round
Lasts as long as he concentrates.

My estimation is that the permanent damage of a momentary spell is based on its momentary nature.

Is it fair to have one cause a light wound each round? What should the base be for this?

Opinions and explanations are appreciated!

Vrylakos

2

What approximate Art Scores are you looking at using for the character?
This would help in designing spells.

Perdo Corpus will do the wounding.
A Light Wound every round , by standard Hermetic Spell , does not look to be readily doable.
CrMe can create memories of pain , with an Imaginem requisite using Touch sense ,
the feeling of an invisible weapon could be added.
The spell probably needs an Intensity modifier to the spell magnitude ,
to make the instilled memory , even if detectable as false , more painful.

Creo Animal with an Aquam requisite and group could create maggots that exude acid , on the target.
Pe(Cr)Co(An,Aq) might look clunky as a spell , but would create a wound filled with acid-oozing maggots.

The Incantation/Malediction guidelines on page 109 of RoP:TI could be worth a look.
At higher levels , you can supress a Major Virtue or inflict a Major Flaw.

3

Well... this is inferior to an incapacitating wound and eventually better than a heavy wound, but takes longer than a heavy wound to get the real benefits of. I'd treat the guideline as the same base as causing a heavy wound, and go with that.

Edit: Adding a duration to a momentary Perdo Corpus spell as written just prevents the wound from healing, normally, so you can't just use the 'cause a Light Wound' base. That's why I suggest a different base to get around this limitation.

Further Edit: Grip of the Choking Hand seems to break this rule. However, 1) it refers to fatigue levels, which are not the same as wounds, and 2) as an isolated exception to a rule, I'd probably just rule that it's, say, a result of a 'Major Side Benefit' on the experiment table for whoever invented Grip of the Choking Hand originally.

4

If we started with a Re(Pe)Co spell...

Rending the Fool's Flesh
Re(Pe)Co 40 (15 [move the target in any direction you please]+2[voice]+1[concentration]+1[part]+1 requisite)

This spell inflicts a light wound on the recipient each round that concentration is maintained by the caster. The intended recipient could be altered from round to round, but only one person may be wounded each round. Also, a stamina roll of 6+ is needed to avoid crying out in pain as the recipient's body is torn.

The premise here is that we're doing something similar to an Earth's Carbuncle, but with people. (eeew.) We inflict the wound and then twist it...ouch. Or inflict the wound by twisting, however you like it spelled out in your mind.

To go the Pe(Re)Co way...

Pe(Re)Co 35 (10 [inflict a light wound] +2[voice]+1[concentration]+1[part]+1 requisite)

Gets you to basically the same place...but a magnitude lower...I'm not sold on the perdo-needs-to-be-momentary-thing, but I have to claim serf's parma right now. In my mind, this is creating a constant effect, which is ok for an extended duration perdo spell.

You could add a magnitude for a Mentum effect that guarantees pain...

Wow, this magus is probably really popular with the grogs, isn't he?

"Willam, you and Rodolph are going out with Reylar."

"What? No way! He tortures folk that he don't like!"
"Yeah, and if you do something wrong, guess who he don't like?"

"Go, and don't do anything wrong...or if you do, make sure it's buried in a shallow grave."

yeah...not how I'd inspire loyalty, but...

-Ben.

5

Pain should be easy enough. Perdo Corpus seems to create pain by default - it would seem harder to make a spell that causes painless wounds...

6

If you are going to allow continuous wounding from a single spell ,
i think you have to cap the cumulative effect.

Using the same base as Cause a Heavy Wound ,
the target takes a light wound immediately ,
and then a further light wound every round ,
until you have a cumulative wound penalty of -05 ,
the same penalty as for a Heavy Wound.

page 178

If you are using ReCo to worsen a wound , each round , you need a Finesse roll.
In the Rego Craft inset (page 49 in Covenants)

This is in regard to using Rego Craft to kill an animal , which it cannot do.
ReCo is not telekinesis with fine manipulation.
You can wrench or move wounded limbs in an attempt to cause more damage.

7

We'll need to agree to disagree on this one. There's nothing in the perdo description that leads me to believe one needs to do this. The baselines talk about the severity of the wound inflicted. If I'm inflicting many wounds over time, then I'm "paying" for that effect in magnitude and concentration. In my mind, I've got the spell on a loop, and we're just doing the same thing over and over and over

You're reading too much into it here, too much Scientia in the Ars of my spellcasting peanut butter cup. What is the spell doing? It's causing light wounds and then agitating those wounds to cause further pain. Perdo to wound, Rego to control. Part for controlling a portion of a person, Concentration to maintain the wounding effect over time. Everything my spell does falls well within those boundaries of Rego and Perdo. The only possibly 'grey' area on the spell is causing the effect to reoccur each round. That doesn't seem outrageous to me, many spells follow the same mechanic.

The fact that no number of light wounds will kill the target is why I left the baseline where it was. To be honest, you could quite easily "amp up" the PeCo spells by increasing their "size" aspect by 1...now Wounds that Weep turn each inflicted grog into a writhing mass of light wounds. Kick it up to group, and for the same cost as killing someone at voice range, you've completely (for all intents and purposes) incapacitated a group of foes at the same range.

I'm familiar with those rules, but I don't think they're appropriate for what we're discussing here. I'm not looking for "more" damage, I'm agitating wounds to inflict the desired pain.

This may be a case of YSMV... or at the very least, my saga and Ravenscroft's. :wink:

-Ben.

8

If you can kill somebody with a Base 30 Perdo effect ,
i see no reason why you can't have a spell inflict a succession of Light Wounds ,
using the base level of 30.

A spell that inflicts wounds , as if struck by a scourge , seems perfectly reasonable.
The same spell doing death of a thousand paper-cuts to a Dragon , less so.

9

Base 30 would work, but feels a lot high for me. The scourge theme is a good one, though...I'm not sure where the Dragon comment comes from, what did you mean by it?

-Ben.

10

My reasoning against an easy lowish level spell that does continuous Light Wounds for extended duration ,
is investing it in a device and uber-boosting the penetration for one thing.

The spell could be adjusted for Size to affect a Dragon and likely get through the Magic Resistance of a Might 50 critter.
Once that happens , all you have do do is wait until the cumulative wound penalties pile up.

11

It will have to be adjusted for size. With the base guidelines, you can only affect up to Size +1. So unless you can find a Size +1 Dragon, they'll just laugh at you.

12

That's the nature of the system, though. But consider that the spell with a concentration duration in a device that maintains concentration is the same magnitude as a device that has unlimited uses of the spell. They both do the same thing-- one just has a single use per day that lasts all day, and the other can be turned on and off at will.

Again... the nature of the system... however, that implies that:

A. The dragon remains in range
B. The dragon fails to stop you from targeting it

A light wound on a dragon is like bloodying its nose, in my opinion. No thanks. I won't be showing up with such a device. To crank up enough penetration to do this to a Might 50 Dragon would mean a very high lab total...which doesn't pertain to Reylar, and I think we all know that low level effects, pumped up by high ability archmagi do things that seem to do very powerful things...that, again, is the nature of the system.

All if which, while interesting, has nothing to do with the suggested spell.

13

An effect that does an unlimited number of light wounds is inferior to an effect that does a single incapacitating wound.

The former will eventually do enough damage to effectively incapacitate someone, and if completely untreated will kill the person in a few seasons.

The latter will incapacitate someone immediately and possibly kill them at sunset.

A spell to incapacitate someone at voice range would be Perdo Corpus 30 (base 20, +2 voice, +0 momentary, +0 individual)

A spell to slowly incapacitate someone at voice range, then, should be Perdo Corpus 25 or so. That suggests these guidelines: (base 10, +2 voice, +1 concentration, +0 individual)

That puts it at the same level as a Medium Wound, but seems fair...
For the same spell level, Perdo Corpus 25 (base 10, +2 voice, +0 momentary, +0 individual) you could inflict a medium wound, which is three points of wound penalty, and there's nothing to keep you from just recasting it every round.

... On that last note, a concentration-duration 'inflict a light wound' using the normal base for 'inflict a light wound' spell might be fair, as far as power level at least... the magus that learns the concentration duration version actually has a disadvantage against the magus that learns a momentary version and just casts it each round, a lot of the time.

14

I think the problem lies in that there is no mechanic with in the system to create a reoccuring effect within a spell. One can't state a verb that equates to "I repeatedly injure you," and reconsidering the size modifier, I would have to say that in the platonic sense, increasing it wouldn't increase the number of wounds...

hrm. Which really leaves us back at the guidelines, staring, thinking that this isn't a difficult spell, but that it's not well modeled with the way hermetic magic works...I think this is a definite case of "Check with your storyguide," because I asked three, and all three responded differently.

One considered that concentration duration ought to work properly.
One felt that it should be a higher magnitude wound that began 'light' and gradually increased to its full penalty.
One felt that it should just be a magnitude bump of around 2 to add the 'repeating' aspect.

The two who didn't like the concentration-repeating mechanic felt that this was the sort of thing multicasting was for, and that you should be required to cast it again every round.

I am curious what a designer thinks of the question.

-Ben.

15

Oooh... storyguide's head hurts! PeMe20!

Hm, well, tonight is an all Companion game, so no worries. I'll have to look over the book some more, informed by all of your posts.

Thanks!

Any further dialogue, please continue!

V

16

What about "Grip of the Choking Hand" then? It uses the "Cause the loss of a Fatigue level" baseline, inceased to Conc for one level per round. Sure, fatigue isn't wounds, but I'd consider it precedent nonetheless.

17

In Arm5 Fatigue is almost more damaging since they will give the same penalty as wounds... AND make you unconscious far easier.

18

But they are gone tomorrow.... whereas the wounds require resting, time, stamina and a touch of luck to get by. More so each and every one of them carries the risk of getting worse and potential killing you.

If making such a spell I would as a minimum allow attempts at counterspells each round, fast cast or not, and I might consider a cap more of some kind.

19

Might be worth looking at a variation of The Sorcerer's Fork on page 159.
You take a higher level effect and split it up.
However , what is wanted is for the split effect to take effect in succesive combat rounds , not the same round.
Reduced Penetration is probably not a desired outcome either.
Perdo effects that cause wounds or kill are Momentary duration.
Increase the duration and then reduce it to Momentary for a number of rounds.

Still needs requisites of Muto & Vim to do this , imo.

20

Ok, here's a question:

A mage could theoretically conjure something that would do damage over time:

A coating of acid on a foe.
A cauldron of boiling water around his foes.

How can this be related to the spell at hand?
I'm trying to figure out why one thing breaks game balance, and another does not.

V